Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Wicked Chains ❯ Dream-scape ( Chapter 9 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

By: Sugah

Ken walked into his room soaked to the bone. Carelessly, he shrugged off his outer jacket and slipped the bag onto the desk. His gaze remained as blank as it had been when he had met up with Takeru.

He was as empty inside as the day Osamu died, only this felt much much worse. Daisuke wasn't dead; far from it. But he might as well be dead. ~I'll never see him again. He doesn't…~

Ken shivered suddenly, the soaked clothing chilling his skin, and flung back his dripping hair from his face. Everything seemed cold to him. The air, the very clothing…his own body felt chilled.

~I've lost it…Osamu cracked it, when he died, and I tried to patch it.~

~But Daisuke stole my heart, and I didn't even know…~

Without realizing it, Ken had fallen to his knees, his arms wrapped around his middle, the terrible residual pain shooting through his back and left jagged red streaks across the backs of his eyelids. A sob tore out of him as he grieved for the brother, the friendship and the love.

Ken curled up on the floor, wetness spreading slowly through the thin carpet, and felt the first cracks through his mind spreading, shattering. He couldn't seem to control the pain, like before. He couldn't hold it in, and the sobs quickly turned into a prolonged gasps for air, punctuated by low keening.

The indigo-eyed genius felt his world slipping, and his overburdened mind slipped away before it, heedless of the soft light now glowing from the computer screen-

-and the activated digiport.

A soft whisper reached his ears, and Ken woke to hear a fragment of some conversation, a woman's voice, before he opened his eyes.

"-and this creation will work…" the female was saying.

A breeze, and the scent of clean wet grass filled his senses. His face was warm with sunshine. ~Is it morning?~ Ken thought as his slowly forced his heavy lids open.

Endless shimmering rainbow sky met his indigo blue.

Surprised, and swallowing back a convulsive shout of the automatic "Where?" Ken turned his head to see a woman with long white hair, thick glasses and dressed in red kneeling nearby. Her gloved hands were folding patiently in her lap, and a small smile was playing about her purple lips.

Something about her seemed eerily familiar, and Ken eyed her with instinctive wariness while he sat up. "I'm in the digital world," he accused.

The woman nodded.

"Why?"

A shrug this time, and whoever the woman was speaking to wasn't around, or wasn't in sight. A shiver scrambled down his spine and Ken pushed fine hair out of his eyes, noting with some surprise that his outfit was still the customary gray uniform. With a small scornful look at the woman, Ken pushed to his feet.

"If you're going to talk, then do so, and don't waste my time," he snapped, the familiar pose and arrogance showing like old gilded paint, despite the lack of the usual Kaizer attire.

The woman grinned, showing sharp white teeth, and looked down into her lap where something round, very similar to the color of her dress, was cradled in her hands. She seemed nod faintly before looking back up at him with unseen eyes.

"I am Aruchenimon, and I am merely waiting," the woman said. "I came to offer you a gift."

"I don't think I need anything of yours," Ken said slowly, the uneasy feeling returning with the suspicion that someone was staring at him, somewhere.

"Not even to get your Daisuke back? Not even to get back at the boy who desires what is yours, the blond named Takeru?" the Digimon smiled sympathetically. "I know what happened, you see."

"I-"

"This gift will give you the power you need."

Ken pulled his face into a smooth indifferent mask. "Explain." Something was out of sorts; there was something wrong about the small shifting orb of dark red. The woman almost seemed to be…holding it back… And that couldn't be right, could it? ~Even if she could be of any help…you don't need it!~ a voice inside told him.

~She lies, even about Daisuke.~

"Of course," the woman was saying. She raised her palms carefully. "This is a substance I created out of those lovely black spires of yours. It has the power of them, and can control even the wildest and fiercest of Digimon...My master instructed me to give it to you."

"What for?" Ken cocked his head, eyed her shrewdly, and again brushed at the trickles of hair in front of his face.

"He desires you to succeed in the ruling of the Digital world. He believes that this will…help you greatly." She cocked her head in similar pose, almost slyly, and the small orb rolled over in her hands.

"I…" A strong urge to back away, to get far away, rose up suddenly, and Ken frowned, his gaze narrow with caution. "I don't plan on ruling anything," he muttered, and unconsciously took a step back.

"But you could be stronger, better…faster, smarter…you could be more like Osamu, with the Chaivirmon," the woman spoke in low sibilant tones, and the orb rolled over again, almost eagerly.

"Like Osamu?" a flash of faint surprise whispered through his mind, and the first touch of longing. ~Like Osamu…and I could get Daisuke back…~ he remembered.

~Maybe…Maybe it will work,~ he thought hesitantly, a hand up and stroking his cheek absently.

The orb was spinning rapidly now, and Aruchenimon looked at it with a slow smile, a smirk really, and took away her hands. "Take him, then," she whispered with a funny little clicking laugh.

The ball exploded.

Terror exploded as well, and Ken cried out first in surprise as thick strands whipped out, wrapping around his arms and neck, and then in pain as the orb began to coil around his body with molten hot pain. His nerves where on fire, and Ken began to scream, his hands tugging futilely at the thin stretching material, tearing his nails into bloody crescents as it burrowed partially under his skin.

A particular strand wound up around his shoulder, circling his neck like a lover, and, after a micro-thin shaft burrowed deep into his spinal column, ghosted around his forehead in a gross parody of a crown. A caressing tendril grazed his cheek, then fastened onto the skin with a hot lancet of pain.

Forced to his knees, Ken dug frantically at his chest where the Chaivirmon had come to rest, directly over his heart. His lungs seemed to stop functioning properly, and he was dizzy with pain, and the lack of oxygen. He had long since stopped screaming, his voice frozen in a strange realm of pain where no sound was possible, and managed to pant a short hysterical breath before something completely mental slammed full-force into his psyche.

The first overwhelming thoughts began to batter at him, images and memories all haunting him as the Chaivirmon, a viral Digimon much like a parasite, finally coiled itself around Ken as much as possible.

~No! Get out of my head!~

The feeling intensified, feeding off Ken's fear and pain. It slammed into his brain, digging through his memories and picking away at the personality of Ken himself, pressing himself deep. ~No!~ he screamed at it. ~I will not be taken!~

But the Digimon merely wove himself into Ken's psyche, imprinting the alien thought patterns into Ken. In the shorter sense, Ken was being reprogrammed.

After a tense moment, his slime frame rigidly torqued in the crouched position, his body fell bonelessly to the ground, and the air around him shimmered with shifting data bits.

Aruchenimon watched, still in her kneeling position, and smiled as Ken was overtaken. After a long moment, while the data reformatting in front of her was finalizing, she shifted a hand to brush the hanks of hair flowing down her shoulders.

A hand twitched slowly while the blank eyes blinked once, twice.

"How are you feeling, Chaivirmon?"

Hands, the left wrapped in whorls of the red shell, pushed against the springy grass and levered the torso upwards. Aruchenimon, the small smile still on her lips, merely waited patiently as the form stood somewhat unsteadily, and looked down, the movements itself mechanical and puppetish.

The body of Ken was now clothed in the attire of the Kaizer, with a few small exceptions. Whirls and rope-like curves were curled around the body, the neck and arms. The gel-form of Chaivirmon formed the newly ridged shoulder pads, a strange distinctive texture that could protect better than most armor. It was wrapped tightly around the body, and in some places was actually inserted in the nervous system, mainly the spinal cord and brainstem of the former Kaizer.

Chaivirmon stood in his place, minus the shades and the spiky hair.

Blank eyes, a dull grayish blue now that the virus was in control, peered at the digital woman with open cruelty. After a second, the clear and unfocused gaze narrowed, and a palm rose, energy crackling suddenly with a dark foul color.

Chaivirmon smiled, twisted and cunning.

"Excellent," the digital woman purred.

"Let him sleep," Hikari whispered. Her gaze softened as it rested on the slumped form of Daisuke, and she gave his shoulder a sad sort of pat. "Takeru, he's been through a lot."

The blond sat down with a sigh, the expression on his face lost. "I know, Kari, but he's not getting over this. He's…he's still-"

"I know," Hikari merely replied, a faint flicker in her eyes as she watched Takeru. ~Something doesn't feel right,~ she thought. ~Why do I get the feeling that Takeru knows something…~

A hint of sadness whispered through her, then, touched by a strong sense of pain and anguish, terror. Swaying slightly, she grazed fingers to her head, confused, and tried to block the emotions out. ~What was that?~

As she turned around, she noticed that Daisuke had shifted restlessly in his seat, and a hand was gripping the fabric of his clothing over his heart.

"Daisuke?" Takeru whispered.

Her face suddenly pale, Hikari was swept almost under the wave of loss, the mixed fear and pain and aching, and gasped as Daisuke flinched. He whispered something under his breath, a plea and Hikari reached out to touch him against her better judgment-

-Suddenly she was in a different landscape all together a strange lightless and empty plain. For a moment she nearly screamed.

~I'm in his dream!~ she thought, a moment later, feeling her heart beating swiftly under her hands. ~But it's so dark!~

Almost by instinct, she looked down to see a single drop of blood, close to a second, and took a step back. The blood made a faint trail, and as she followed it with her eyes, she saw a crouching figure, familiar in the gloom, and opened her mouth to cry out-

But the figure was rocking, back and forth on crouched legs, silent but for the harsh breathing.

She blinked, and suddenly she was crouched behind an invisible wall where Daisuke was leaning, his head covered in his hands, and rocking in agitation. "Daisuke!" she called, her voice high with fear, and began pounding on the glass.

~What kind of dream is this?~

Although he didn't seem to hear her cries, Daisuke raised his head and freezing into stillness. Hikari looked past his shoulder, the same sick dread curling into her stomach, and swallowed reflexively.

A figure stood on the edge of the pale illumination.

"Hello, Ken…" the redhead's voice was oddly echoing, devoid of any emotion as the figure stepped forward. "Good to see you again," he mocked tiredly.

~Is this what he dreams, night after night?~ Hikari covered her mouth, gasping, as the legs came into view. Blood was spattered in drips and splashed on the odd gray uniform. ~I don't want to see this anymore!~ she wailed inside. And deeper down, an idyllic voice remarked, ~He knew the Kaizer's name…his name is Ken…~

But she had to watch. She had to know.

The figure stepped forward, finally, coming fully into the small circle of dark lighting, and Hikari stifled a small scream.

It was Ken, it was the Ken Ichijouji, and he was ripped and blood and dead, and Daisuke was standing up to greet him. ~Omigod…omigod…what's wrong with him?!~

Again the small idyllic voice giggled. ~Ken the Kaizer! Ken the Kaizer!~

"Dai…" Her voice was a keening whisper as Ken smiled with bloodless lips, and reached for the redhead with cold hands. Something about the way Daisuke stood was wrong, broken, resigned. Her hands dug painfully into her cheeks as the uniform was unbuttoned, revealing white flesh and a gashed torso. ~I'm insane…I have to be…~

//Daisuke.// The voice, unmistakably the Kaizer's, echoed slightly inside her skull. //You have my heart.///

Silence reigned, except for the anguished expression on the face of Daisuke that seemed to tell an untold story.

"I'm sorry, Ken," Daisuke whispered brokenly. "I'm sorry!"

//Make…it all okay…//

She watched, still terrified to a frozen shell of a girl, still captivated by the horrific grotesque beauty of the scene. ~He..he loves him…~ In a way, her statement was general, yet she had managed to encompass everything of both boys with the single thought.

Ken's hands reached up to grasp the air just above the empty gash in his chest, his face working suddenly, and fell with an odd squelch to his knees in the blood that had pooled at his feet. The blood-clotted hair, now nearly black, shifted to hide his face as Ken leaned forward, doing a remarkable impression of near-collapse.

"…Ken?…What's happening…" Daisuke stretched out a hand to the bowed head only a few feet away, fighting against something and yet oddly and suddenly frightened by the different turn of events. Hikari could see his shoulders shaking, his skin a pallor to pale to be normal.

~Something's wrong,~ she realized, and found that she couldn't look away.

"…Daisuke…Daisuke!" The body of Ken twitched, as if being struck, and the smeared dirty hands wrapped around his head. "Daisuke, help me!"

Ken screamed, piercingly in the oddly empty place, and Hikari fought back a moan of terror, her gaze shifting between Daisuke, who sat frozen, and Ken, who seemed to be living through some sort of macabre death.

"…Ken?" Daisuke dragged a hand across his mouth. In the gloom Hikari saw a glint from a dropping tear, as Daisuke clenched his fists, hunched over from an invisible pain, and gritted his teeth. "…oh god…" He hiccupped in a bitten-off sob.

Something ruffled the side of her hair, a faint sickly odor reaching her as something…no, nothing swept around the three in an ever-widening loop. Hikari gasped, touched by a chill thread of something alien, and watched as the empty space circled around Ken, cutting him off from a shaking Daisuke.

"Ken…" she whispered. Her hands began to beat against the wall. "Ken, look out!"

The blood-smeared face jerked upwards, and for a moment she got a glimpse of a pale, if not scared, Ken, his eyes clear and his body whole. He seemed surprised, as he stared at her, as the nothing-being began to creep up his ankles.

//It's…Hikari, isn't it?//

She gasped, her hands covering her mouth. "What?"

//Hikari! You have to help him! Don't let him-//

Then whatever it was that had been consuming the boy rippled, and jerked the Ken from his feet. He gave a startled cry, his hands reaching for Daisuke as the thing lifted him off the dusky ground.

"Ken?!"

Hikari watched, heedless of the tears streaking her face or the pain in her hands, watched as the nothing-being worked in quick ripples around Ken, twisting him away from Daisuke as the redhead began to scramble to his feet.

"Daisuke!" Ken choked for a moment, only one arm free and using it with all his strength to reach Daisuke. "I-aaaiigh!"

The boy vanished, and Daisuke fell to his knees, his arms wrapped around his middle and cried out after the vanished Kaizer-

-Hikari gasped as the room came suddenly into view, replacing the dull and lifeless dreamscape, and swayed with vertigo. Takeru was shaking her, calling out her name with a frantic tone.

Ignoring his questions, as he noticed she was responding, she looked to where Daisuke had been sitting, seeing him seated in the same position as the last moments of the dream.

"Hikari! What the hell!"

Slowly, she forced her gaze onto the blond. "Did…did I say something odd?"

"No, you just zoned out! What the hell, Kari!? What did you do?"

She brushed her fingers over her hair, unconsciously smoothing it back into place, and searched for an answer. "I don't know," she replied truthfully. "I need to think, Takeru…give me a moment."

~He dreams of Ken's death…he dreams of Ken…~ She nibbled a finger, not noticing when Takeru's frightened and worried gaze shifted from her to Daisuke. "Something's wrong with this one…It's like…"

"Like what?" Takeru muttered.

"Like something's taken Ken away from Daisuke," she replied absently. She didn't notice the small anger lighting Takeru's eyes, or the way they suddenly narrowed.

"So?"

The small Child of Light raised her head, dropped her hand and made a small face of disbelief. "Takeru…does he ever cry out in his sleep?" Her gaze slid to the shorter Chosen, and noticed with some relief that he had fallen asleep, or had never woken, still in that strange protective position.

"I don't think so," the blond lowered his gaze.

"Takeru…he dreams of Ken. He dreams of Ken dying. Dead. It's like they have a bond…"

The brunette paused, her slender fingers working against each other in agitation, and watched the blond carefully. "I know how you feel about Daisuke," she said gently. Takeru stiffened, and she watched his hands twitch slightly in response.

"But Daisuke loves Ken, Takeru…I think they're soulmates."

~~a/n~~ There you have it, minna….*grin* Now…if only I can work up a way to get Chaivirmon after Takeru…*smirk* What…you thought I wasn't going to get him back? Mwhahahah….

Okay, now for a few pointers. Chaivirmon is pronounced like "Kaivirmon" only I spelt it that way for a reason Er… um…I know that Kari's semi-empathic, so that's why she got sucked into Dai's dream. And I left you hanging again! I should stop that, shouldn't I? Heheh… Well….Maybe. :)