Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Songhai Diaries ❯ The great hatred ( Chapter 3 )

Warnings and disclaimer: As much as I'd like to have enough for that, the Diaries universe is Lord Archive's. All rights to Digimon belongs to Toei, Saban and a bunch of other companies. This chapter is rated G

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Chapter 3: The great hatred
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Clay powder. Wheezy breath. Bricks. Heat. Hot bricks. Brick moulding. Pains in the small of the back. Kick. Scream.

"Get up!"

"Leave me alone!" the boy yelled back.

"Naba! There's someone who wants to talk to you," a voice squeaked

There was a weird weight on his chest.

"Mmh?"

Naba found out he was in fact no longer sleeping and dreaming. He did not open his eyes when Mamadou's voice raised.

"Naba! You know you can't sleep there!"

The security guard shook a stick in his general direction. Naba shuffled to make himself more comfortable

"You've never cared before," the boy moaned in protest.

"You've never strung a hammock across the building before," the man observed.

"What are you babbling abouuuuuuuu!!"

As he spoke, Naba turned around and yelled when he found himself falling down. His sandy eyes shot open, allowing him to realize his precarious situation. He was hanging ten feet in the air, his hand grasped around a makeshift hammock made of solid, irregular white strings. Said hammock did hang from two opposite walls inside the large Bamako Public Market. A green head peered overt he edge of the structure.

"Watch out Naba! You're going to hurt yourself," Wormmon said.

Naba glared up at him.

"Now you tell me!"

The heat from the rising sun rapidly dissipated the night's fog on the river. A stray light beam slipped past the guarding curtains in a small room. It went on to land on a green figure curled in a makeshift bed built from cushions. It stopped on its face and the figure groaned and shuffled so the ray was aimed at its back. In the small camp-like bed also placed in the room, another figure turned over and over, as if in distress. The girl moaned and sniffled in her sleep, tears occasionally rolling down her chin to be sucked down by her pillow.

As the sun rose, the light ray moved until it crawled across her face like a lazy flatfish. Her eyelids fluttered for a half-second and settled on "open" as an acceptable setting, despite the sun shining straight into her eyes. The harsh light forced her to sit and stretch her arms up. Ife rubbed her eyes, but that only wiped up some more tears. Realizing that no annoying eyelids were in the way anymore, the lachrymal glands washed out her face with tears. The girl raised a stoic hand and wiped more of them. She than took a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. Palmon jerked up at the noise.

"Wha-? uh..." she mumbled.

Ife smiled at her partner, tears still streaking her cheeks.

"Ife! What happened?" the concerned digimon asked.

Ife maintained her smile and continued to dab her eyes, a faint smile lingering on her face.

"Just a weird dream. A very sad dream."

Palmon stretched and rubbed her abnormally large eyes in turn.

"What kind of dream?" the digimon asked as she did so.

Ife hesitated.

"It's hard to describe... I felt... rejected," the girl tried to explain.

Palmon snorted contemptuously.

"Yeah, what a prat!" she almost spat.

Ife started to nod absent-mindedly, then shook her head.

"No! He's got nothing to do with it!!" she protested.

The computer still hummed softly in Enitan's room. The boy was soundly asleep, a thick blanket wrapped around him. Another large lump of sheets was sprawled on the other half of the king-size bed. It rolled to the side and noisily fell to the ground. Enitan sat up abruptly, his doze thrown astray by the sudden sound. His looks darted all over the room, memories of them summoned again. A loud snore came from the side of the bed and Enitan palmed his forehead. The night had been spent turning over trying to find a comfortable position, leaving the boy cranky.

He launched a pillow at the noisy pile of sheets, getting only a short snort for a reaction. Enitan rolled his eyes and curled back under the covers, only to realize that he had just thrown his pillow off the bed. Grumbling, he crammed part of the thick blanket into a makeshift replacement and tried to sleep again.

Naba was still a bit dozy when he walked out of the unaesthetic white building, so he did not notice the footsteps behind him at first. Living on the streets in Bamako normally taught you to worry about small things like that. Wormmon kept up with his partner easily. As he trod up the back alleys, what had started as a small trickle of worry in the back of his mind progressively raised to blaring alarms of the "get away it's all gonna explode!" sort.

When a hand grasped his right shoulder, he was ready, or at least he thought so. He took a step back to shove his elbow in the stalker's solar plexus. This plan usually ended up with the opponent keeling over in pain. What the plan did not take into account was the presence of the digimon at his side. Naba stepped on Wormmon, resulting in a loud, painful squeal and the boy tumbling over to the side and hitting his head on a wall. Another kid, a bit older than him, stood above Naba and grinned. He crouched to grab at the digimon rolled up in pain on the ground and Naba took advantage of his position to kick him in the jaw, sending the other on his bottom.

"Laji," Naba said.

He recognized his uncle's second-in-command. The Senufo boy was barely a year older than him, and yet he scared the heck out of all the other young workers out of sheer cruelty.

"Naba," the other boy answered as they both got up.

"Seems my uncle hasn't forgotten me. What a surprise," Naba sneered.

He bent over without stopping to look at the other and scooped up the caterpillar digimon. His hands immediately moved to massage the area he had crushed. He glared at Laji and moved aside to make sure he could not get rammed into the wall.

"He's got a message for you: you're still supposed to work for him," Laji stated matter-of-factly.

"And yet he had his most precious resource deliver that message personally? They must be rejoicing back at the brickyard."

Laji shrugged.

"I'm sure they can do without my... talents."

Somehow a fire poker had landed into his hand without Naba even noticing it.

"Now, for the... brunt of the message," he continued, his lips curling into a sadistic smile.

The boy raised the heavy metallic stick with a speed that belied his thin frame and swiped at Naba's chest. The younger boy blocked the attack with both hands, dropping the digimon back to the ground. The moment Wormmon landed in the dust, Laji caught him with a powerful kick and sent him rolling to the other end of the alley, eyes swirling. Both boy grabbed at the poker, trying to wrestle it away from each other.

"I'm going to beat you so bad we'll use your bones for clay!" Laji growled.

His eyes glanced beyond his opponent to the swirly-eyed digimon.

"And then I'm thinking... vivisection."

Adrenaline shot down Naba's spine at this remark. He turned around and used the leverage of the poker to try and throw the other boy over his shoulder. Unfortunately, Laji proved heavier than he first expected and he collapsed with the other boy on top of him. Laji immediately started to choke him with the metallic tool.

"Leave him alone!" Wormmon's voice came. "Sticky N..."

"NO!" Naba interrupted him. "This... is... my... FIGHT!"

As he spoke that last choked word, the boy snapped his head back violently. With a satisfying crack, his skull slammed into a nose. Yelling and blinded by pain, Laji rolled off him, clutching at the hurt and bleeding appendage. Naba hurled the poker into the air and it disappeared from sight, landing somewhere on a roof with a clanking sound. Before Laji could react, Naba grabbed the boy by his shoulders and threw him in the open-air sewer amidst unidentifiable vegetable debris. Laji sputtered and looked up at him only to have a knee collide with the side of his head. He collapsed like a stringless puppet.

"I've got to... deal with him..." Naba muttered under his breath.

He panted and massaged his bruises as Wormmon undulated up to him.

Windows were open at several strategic locations in the house. The configuration allowed for the best ventilation without bringing in too much dust. Ife had been washing clothes for the last hour and was now busy distributing them into the appropriate rooms. A particularly strong gust blew through the house and scattered several pieces of clothing along the hallway. She sighed and knelt to collect them. Another gust blew, making the multiple silver rings at her wrists jingle.

"The desert..."

The words sounded a whisper in the swooshing wind. Ife jumped in surprise and dropped the whole pile of clothing.

"Palmon! You startled me!" she exclaimed.

"What?" came Palmon's voice from the kitchen, at the other end of the hall.

Ife stared and shook her head.

"I'm hearing things..." she muttered and went back to folding the clothes correctly.

"Rejected... refused..." her ears insisted.

Ife whirled around and looked at her surroundings. The whole thing was freaking her out.

"Leave me alone!" she yelled, looking everywhere.

Her voice quivered slightly. Palmon ran out of the kitchen, arms raised to attack any enemy. Ife looked at her and giggled. The digimon's foam-covered hand were hardly menacing.

"What's going on?" Palmon asked.

"I don't know!"

Ife sat down in the middle of the clothing pile.

"I hear whispering... But there's nobody here. I don't understand..."

Another, even stronger gust blew down the corridor, pushing a few stray clothes toward her. When it reached her, a whirlwind formed. The vortex drew the clothes in a rotating movement around her. The girl curled in a foetal position as the voice rose again.

"You can help... Need not... Suffer... Accept... And hear... You can help!" she heard all around.

It kept calling out to her. The whispering rose in volume with the sound of the wind until Palmon's Poison Ivy wrapped around her and pulled her to safety. The vortex immediately receded and dropped the clothes to the floor in a vaguely circular heap.

Palmon had been caught completely off-guard when the vortex formed. Her partner's yell, resounding over the wind's howls, had caused a visceral reaction. Now the girl trembled in her arms. Her pupils dilated and her eyes darted everywhere like panicked bunnies.

"Ife! Are you okay? Talk to me! Ife!" the digimon shook her partner lightly.

"I hear them!" the girl blurted out, "I hear them!"

Her body went rigid, then limp as a rag doll. Her eyes closed shut and she yelled out until she could not anymore.

Today was a school day for Naba, and he was not missing it that time around. He rounded the corner into the yard Fatima used as her school ground, wary of anybody already there. It was empty, save for the dust carried by the wind, the blackboard and the leafless tree. Each day the blossom grew and with the incoming rain season the buds would eventually open and reveal their delicate flowers. Naba thought that he probably would not be there on that day and he sighed. Wormmon crawled in after the boy and examined the blackboard.

"Is that this 'school' thing you talked about?"

Naba goggled at his partner.

"No, that's called a blackboard," he explained. "School is... ah... learning stuff so you can work in... the world, I guess."

Wormmon looked back at his partner, not having understood a word.

"Humans are weird," the insect commented for himself.

A low-key singing came from the other side of the wall, approaching rapidly. Soon enough the sound of sand cracking under sandals was added to it. Naba looked around in panic.

"Hide, quick! I'm not sure how she'd react!"

"Where?" the digimon observed.

There were hardly any hiding spots in the yard. Naba looked around desperately until a raven came down to perch in the tree and cawed loudly. The boy looked up. Without a word of explanation he grabbed his surprised partner and held him up as high up as possible against the trunk. The raspy bark grated painfully against the digimon's skin. Fatima's voice came closer and closer to the entrance.

Gee, thanks for the help, Wormmon though.

Somehow he managed to scuttle up to a branch and hide before the woman walked in. All of this under the constant scrutiny of the raven.

Naba turned around and faked leaning aganst the tree just as Fatima walked in. She carried a long ruler in her left hand and a box of chalk in her right one. She froze for a second upon seeing him there.

"Naba? You are early today," she said.

Her tone was neutral, but a long experience told the boy she was both surprised and angry.

"Yes, I wanted to make sure I wouldn't miss anything," Naba answered, rubbing the back of his head.

"You weren't there for the last lesson," she stated.

Her voice grated in Naba's ears as she said that.

"Yeah, well... You see..." the boy stammered.

She shot him a cold glare.

"I do not need to know what you did. I am but a teacher, I do not expect you to be anything more than street boys when you are all out there. Whatever trouble you get yourself into is none of my concern."

Up in the tree, Wormmon winced.

It has been said that ravens are very intelligent birds. There has been a whole lot of enthusiasm as to the fact they can use tools. That still does not make them any more intelligent. Raven are in fact tremendously curious and magnificently stubborn. The law of large numbers proves it: enough tries should eventually get you what you desire, and ravens will try absolutely anything. A raven will happily stab its own eye out if it believes that will get him what he wants.

This particular raven wanted Wormmon. Preferably for dinner. The digimon tried the best he could to protect himself against the constant pecking without catching the attention of everyone. A futile goal, as the entire class was happily glancing at him and only lending Fatima half a vaguely attentive ear whenever possible, much to Naba's dismay. The boy tried his best to ignore the giggling and nudging and concentrate on the lesson. Yet the woman blissfully went on with her teaching. She seemed completely unaware of the utter lack of attention displayed by her ragged and tattered class.

Wormmon shoved the inquisitive bird off the branch, but it just flapped its wings and landed again a mere foot away. The persistent piece of fowl hopped up to the digimon and pecked him right between the eyes. This unexpected turn of event elicited numerous giggles from the students. Had he benefited from teeth, Wormon would have needed them to bite his tongue or lip to avoid yelping. He tried to glare between the tears of pain and began to build an attack, hoping to encase the bird in a cocoon and be done with it. Fatima interrupted her speech abruptly, switching to an even more deadpan tone than she had been using so far. As she spoke, she slowly waved her ruler in circles and in the general direction of the students.

"Class, will you please pay a little attention?"

While her tone remained threateningly steady, her arm swiftly raised as she spoke the last word, brandishing the ruler straight up in the air. The wooden stick collided with the branch Wormmon and the bird were perched on, producing a loud, sharp snap of wood on wood. The children, Naba included, all jumped. The raven cawed loudly in protest and flew off. The branch wobbled dangerously under Wormmon's very bad grip and the small digimon was thrown off. He reacted automatically, throwing a thread of silk up to the branch. The rapid reaction stopped his fall a mere inch and a half short of the teacher's face.

"Eh... Shorry?" Wormmon said sheepishly, still hanging to the thread by his mouth.

Fatima had gotten used to a lot of things teaching a class of ragged street urchins. She was used to the scars and the knife wounds. She had gotten quite used to show-off birds. She was rather used to the snakes. She was slowly getting used to the bugs. What she was not used to included talking caterpillars the size of a small dog falling from the sky and stopping to dangle in front of her face. Fatima snapped.

She let out a piercing scream. Her reaction appeared to somehow break the magic of the moment. Her panic spread to the kids and they began to pour out of the yard running. Caught as he was in the trample, Naba never reached his teacher in time to stop her. The women clasped her hands around the ruler, brought both arms over her shoulder and hit the digimon in his midsection with surprising force and accuracy.

The blow smacked the digimon away, but as the laws of physics have it, not hard enough to snap Wormmon's Sticky Thread. The pendulum movement rapidly brought the insect's path toward the woman. Seeing the creatures coming straight back at her, Fatima did the obvious and readied the ruler for a second hit.

"No!" a voice called.

The ruler swung at the incoming insect, but it never connected with its intended target. When Fatima's eyes focussed back on the world, she saw Naba standing in front of her, both arms held above his head in front of the insect. A large reddish mark ran across them. His eyes were closed in a wince.

"He's my... friend," the boy said, slowly opening his eyes.

Fatima panted slightly, still unnerved by the whole ordeal. Trying to calm herself, she meticulously tucked back under her scarf the hair that had escaped. She turned her attention on her student and put up a smile.

"Naba, as much as I appreciate your efforts to follow the class and learn the lessons, I do not... " she paused a moment. "I cannot allow myself to care about what happens when you are not in my class. I do not know where you met this thing, and I frankly do not want to know. I will, however, have to ask you not to bring it during class. I already have enough trouble normally."

Naba took his moaning partner in his hands and nodded without looking back at her.

"We'll have to return to the Digital World sooner or later."

The statement came out of the blue and took Enitan by surprise, especially since he had been spending the day outside trying to forget the entire thing had ever happened. Ife had not spoken a single word of her own since he had come back. The boy stared at her, uncertain of the proper answer. Ife continued to clear the table without taking any notice of him.

"What makes you say that?" he finally said.

"Well, if we don't, then events will force us to anyway. It's our destiny, remember?" Ife explained.

Palmon and Gabumon's eyes went back and forth between the two children as they spoke.

"I won't take destiny today, thank you very much," Enitan retorted.

"Nahamu. Then you might as well take proactive action, isn't it?" Ife calmly pointed out.

Enitan just snorted.

"We have to wait for Naba anyway, so you will have time to ponder on it," the girl commented as she walked out of the room with a pile of plates.

Enitan growled under his breath. As far as he was concerned, Naba would not be in a state to go in the Digital World (or anywhere else, for that matter) after he was done with him.

Ife was ordering him around and showing signs of personality troubles. He wanted nothing more than beating Naba an inch short of hell and his wound still threatened to reopen at the slightest maintained effort. What a great team of saviours they were! Enitan sat in the living room hoping to catch some late afternoon cartoons. A few minutes later, Gabumon walked in and slumped on the other end of the couch.

"I'm sorry about that toilet thing," the digimon apologized.

Enitan shook his head.

"Don't worry about it."

A plumber would take care of it soon enough. The image of the digimon hanging for dear life to the flush chain just before the tank tipped over flashed into the boy's mind. He giggled. Then the giggles turned into all-out laughs. Enitan laughed so hard he had to clutch his ribs. Gabumon scowled at his partner. Enitan eventually calmed, wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of his eye and looked back at the pouting digimon.

"Sorry Gabumon. It's just this whole thing and everything that happened in so little time and you, you're here apologizing for breaking the toilet tank."

The boy snickered again.

"I should have realized you couldn't reach the thing in the first place."

"Now you're being a git," Gabumon said.

"My, yes, I am," the boy extended his hand formally. "Hello. My name is Enitan and I can be a complete git," he said with the most serious of faces.

The digimon took the child's hand and shook it.

"Hi. My name is Gabumon and I can be a complete klutz."

They continued to shake hand with goofy grins on their faces until they both cracked up and burst into laughter.

The sound carried out to the kitchen and Ife shook her head lightly. Better they laugh while it was still an option. Palmon glanced at her partner from scrubbing a pan.

Why won't you tell me, Ife? Why won't you tell anybody? What are you afraid of? Oh, Ife! Why can't I help you?

"How is your locating task going? I thought potential purifiers had energy signatures easier to spot than Mount Rasfoi."

The voice that asked the question did not sound like a single one. It was a strange choir of overly smooth voices dripping with contempt. The voice that responded was barely anything more than a fearful whisper.

"Yes, they do. The signature remained of an amazing force for a few hours before vanishing completely. We suspect that it might have been used already. Clockmon is out pinpointing the exact location where the signature was last detected."

"Speak of the devil," a fly of annoyance dropped in the ointment of the voice. "When will he make his delivery? Your reckless little things are growing hungry."

"Tomorrow, elder. He also asked to be allowed to keep a higher commission this time."

"He must be joking," the voices chorused, "he's been late doing every last one of his deliveries for weeks. I'll discuss it with him when he comes back. Maybe then he'll understand my point..."

Even though it was impossible to see, it was obvious a threatening smirk was drawn across whoever's mouth was speaking. The voice and its owner retired to the outside, leaving in the air a slowly dissipating impression of impending madness.

Night eventually came to sweep the world into darkness. And the next day the sun arose to find a calm city of Bamako slowly stirring to life on this weekend morning. What eventually awoke Palmon was neither the loud delivery trucks nor the occasional call from a neighbour to a passing friend en route for an early errand. Rather, it was the wheezing sound of her partner's breath bouncing off the walls like the panting of a badly repaired steam engine.

She opened her eyes. Only a notch at first and wide as plates when she realized what the sound was. She jumped off the pile of cushions and landed next to her partner. Ife's face was contorted with repressed pain. Palmon grasped her shaking, sweat-covered hand and the girl's finger tightened around her green hand.

"Ife, wake up!" Palmon implored

She did not get any apparent reaction. The plant digimon resorted to shaking the girl, lightly at first, then with more insistence. The girl still showed no apparent reaction to her best tries until she sprung up and her shoulder hit Palmon in the side of the jaw. The girl began to shiver uncontrollably, yet her breath calmed down to long, drawn out pants.

"It was horrible. So much pain... So much fear..." she whispered in Peul to no one in particular. "No, not fear. Fright. Terror. Horror."

Palmon hugged her partner, trying her best to soothe her down and hide her own panic.

"Calm down. Calm down. It was just a dream. No harm. No pain. Just a dream..."

"It wasn't," Ife said abruptly. "It was real. Or will be."

"How can you say that?" Palmon protested. "What happened?"

"I... don't remember," the girl confessed. "It was all foggy and dark, but I could feel things. It was just like yesterday. I heard a voice again. It told me to make up for the... the..." she struggled to remember. "The 'great hatred'. Does that ring any bell?"

Palmon eyed her partner in disbelief. Well, she's talking to you now. That's what you wanted, right? she reflected and wanted to slap herself for having such thoughts.

"It's... Kinda familiar, somehow, but for the love of Huanlongmon, I can't put my finger on it."

Ife shook her head in frustration. She assumed a more resolute look, despite her still trembling members.

"I feel like I'm missing something important, but I don't know what or why..." she whispered.

In an uncharacteristic move, Enitan spoke to her as she served dinner.

"Hey, Nahamu, what's the problem?" he asked.

Ife nearly dropped the large bowl of millet cake. She averted his gaze and placed the bowl in the center of the table. Gabumon and Palmon immediately dug in without noticing the awkward moment between their partners.

"Nothing," Ife answered in a neutral tone, "What makes you say that?"

"You think I haven't seen the mess you made with the flour? And you've cooked much better rice. Something's eating you."

Ife had to admit he was right on both counts. She still could not make any sense out of the cryptic words, no matter how much she racked her brain. She had been distracted the whole morning and it showed in her cooking. She turned around to walk out of the room. But two voices called out to her.

"Not alone."

"Stay."

She froze in place, unable to do anything but brace herself in expectation of something. Anything. Whatever catastrophe was bound to happen. She had heard that voice the day before, and that very morning. Yet all that came was Enitan's amused question.

"Hey, what's got into you? You'd swear I just insulted your father," he joked.

Tensed in expectation of something she could not describe, Ife was not paying him any attention. Palmon looked up and went pale.

"Not alone. You can help, but not alone," the voice whispered again.

She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes met with three stares. Gabumon had finally stopped eating and looked at her confusedly. She nodded.

"That's true," Ife said softly.

Enitan blinked.

"What? But I didn't... Did I really?"

The girl giggled and turned back toward him with an appeasing gesture.

"I wasn't talking to you," she explained.

Enitan kept blinking like a rabbit in the headlights.

"But then what...? Why did....? Who...?" he stammered without a semblance of coherence.

Ife giggled again, joined this time by Palmon and Gabumon.

"Don't get all worked up. I'll tell you about it later. For now I have to get the bissap."

She gave the boy a mysterious smile and walked out of the room. Enitan wondered when the girl had acquired such a taste for showing off. As Ife made her way to the kitchen, a flash of green behind the front door caught her attention mere seconds before the bell rang. She grinned to herself and called out before diving inside the kitchen.

"Enitan! Someone's at the door for you!"

Enitan poked his head out of the dining room. His eye twitched, a side effect from blinking abuse. Ife was nowhere in sight. The doorbell rang again and he resigned himself to go and open the door, grumbling nonsense at the world all along. The boy composed himself and plastered on a syrupy smile certain to give diabetes to whoever was visiting before opening the door. Or would, had there been anybody. Enitan's eye twitched visibly when he resisted blinking. He turned his head left and right, but still no one was to be seen. Resolute to find the prankster he took a few step forward. Unfortunately, his foot cauht on a pile of CDs and he fell over accompanied with a loud crunching noise as several case exploded into plastic pieces.

Groaning in pain, the brown-eyed boy sat up and looked over the partly ruined pile only to recognize the numerous items that had disappeared from his room two days before. Anger swelled in his chest.

"Naba!" he roared. "I know you're somewhere around here, you mangy farting monkey!"

"Cho!" a voice exclaimed somewhere above his head. "Told you it wasn't a good idea."

Enitan processed the information and eventually concluded that Naba and Wormmon were sitting on the porch's roof. He stepped back a couple feet, careful not to walk over anything again and glared up at the older boy. Wormmon gave him back a sheepish look.

"Sorry. My idea."

Enitan sighed deeply in annoyance. He bent over and started to collect the broken cases.

"What do you want, exactly? A place to stay? Food?" he said in a sardonic tone without looking back at Naba.

The boy and his digimon dropped down next to him in a small dust cloud. Enitan noticed the boy had new clothing.

"No thanks. I have all I need right now. I was just going to give these back to you and get going on my own stuff," Naba answered innocently.

Enitan shook his head. Most of his collection could be salvaged, but a few were pretty much useless now. He frowned in annoyance, but relented to his good manners.

"Want to stay for lunch? Knowing Ife, she's cooked up enough tô to feed an army."

Naba's eyes gave a mischievous twinkle. Wormmon, on the other hand, looked genuinely tempted. The boy stepped in the overgrown house.

"Why, Enitan, I didn't know you cared!"

The addressee rolled his eyes and glared back before putting the CDs on a table.

"Shut up already! I'm just trying to be polite!"

"Oh Naba, how are you doing?" Ife dropped in the conversation.

"I could be doing better. Your boyfriend's not exactly the most enthusiastic host."

It was like watching a weather system. Ife's face palled while Enitan's flushed like measles. The boy was just short of having fumes coming out his ears.

"You know, it'd be much easier for everyone if you didn't leave big buttons around for people to push," Naba snickered, but stopped when the door slammed shut violently behind him.

"I am not her boyfriend," Enitan said, his face twitching from repressed anger.

"Please..." Ife interrupted them. "I need to tell you two something."

"Speak up, then!" Enitan retorted irritably.

Man... Naba though. What a hair-trigger!

While Wormmon was rather intrigued by whatever the girl had to say, his mind was not exactly on it. His stomach only wanted to direct his attention toward the delicious smell of food. From the sound of it, he could tell his friends were probably ankle deep in the stuff. A horned head poked out of the room. Gabumon gave the three children a passing glance before he noticed the green caterpillar.

"Hey, Wormmon!" he called over. "Get over here! The food's great!"

Wormmon quickly scuttled down the corridor, an expression of glee on his face.

No sooner had the digimon started on the food that all three kids entered the room, both boys deep in thoughts. Enitan muttered the words cycling through Arabic, Bambara and French. Upon hearing him, Palmon looked up at him in alarm. Enitan looked back at her.

"Can you repeat what you just said?" she requested.

Her voice was quivering.

"What? La grande haine?" Enitan repeated the French phrase.

"No, before that!" she exclaimed.

Enitan's eyebrows crossed, but the digimon insisted as if her life depended on it.

"'Koma ba'?" he repeated the words in bambara.

Wormmon and Gabumon looked up at this. The fur-wearing child digimon choked loudly on his mouthful of cake. Enitan went to his partner and began slapping him on the back.

"What? Did I say a taboo word or what?" he asked, puzzled.

"Komaba's the name of our village!" Palmon explained.

Everyone stood silent at this revelation, with the exception of the coughing and hacking Gabumon. With a migthy cough, the ball of saliva and paste was ejected from his throat and fell into the rice bowl. He continued to wheeze for several seconds, catching his breath in long, hoarse strokes.

"That's...not good, is it?" Naba asked.

"We have to go back to the Digital World!" Palmon blurted.

"But... Dinner?" Gabumon and Enitan weakly protested.

Palmon gave her friend a glare that probably told much more than what the humans could guess. Gabumon blushed deeply.

"Oh... Errr... Right, right away!" he sputtered.

Authors' notes: For all practical purposes, this chapter and the next one form a single unit.

As usual, explicative notes are available on my personal website, see my profile for the url.

I'd like to thank JJriddler, Drakys, Archive and everybody else who lent a helping hand.