[novel] digimon adventure: chapter 6

小説 デジモンアドベンチャー〈2〉
8人目の選ばれし子ども

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Chapter 6; Tokyo

① August 1st, 1999

The buses boarded with children arrived at Odaiba. Summer camp was cancelled because of the unexpected snowstorm, so rather than stick to the original plan of sleeping over for the night, they had decided to head back for home.
“The doomsday prophecy turned out to be false, but I didn’t expect a huge snowfall like that,” Ichiro Fujiyama, the homeroom teacher of Odaiba elementary’s class 5-2 whispered to himself.
“In any case, I’m glad you children are all right.”
The children had already picked up their bags and were standing in line. Among the large number of students that fit two camp buses, Fujiyama did not notice that certain children had more luggage leaving than they had coming to camp.
“Sensei, what’s this doomsday prophecy you’re talking about?”
“It’s a prophecy made by Nostradamus. He said that on July 1999, something terrible would happen. I learned about it when I was a kid. Ah, wait, never mind, it’s not important. We’re almost home, so go straight to your families without making any detours, understood? Your parents will be worried about you. Dismissed.”
“Bye!”
“See you tomorrow!”
The children scattered noisily back to their homes.

After Jou had walked for some distance, Gomamon popped his face out of Jou’s bag.
“Jou, is it okay now?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah, but let’s wait for Taichi and the others here.”
Because some of their Digimon, like Agumon, were too big to fit inside a backpack, they had to sneak on top of the roof of the buses and hang on tightly to make it back home with them.
The moment the buses parked, they should have jumped off and managed to hide themselves.
“Oh, here they come now!”
Jou called out to them. The children and their Digimon had taken a wide detour before coming here, so as not to be spotted by Mr. Fujiyama and the others.
“Thank goodness! I kept worrying that you guys had fallen off the bus.”
Taichi brought Agumon along. Next to them, Patamon was riding on top of Takeru’s head.
“I was okay though,” Patamon said with a grin.
“Shh, you’re not allowed to talk yet, Patamon.” Takeru covered Patamon’s mouth with his hand. “You still need to pretend to be a doll.”
“But it’s so heavy carrying them. I hope you grow to walk on your own soon,” Mimi sighed. She was carrying Palmon’s baby form, Tanemon, in her arms.
“I’m pretty comfortable,” Tanemon replied. “But it was hard work holding on to the roof of the bus for the whole ride.”
Gabumon and Palmon, who had fought as their Perfect levels WereGarurumon and Lilimon at Vamdemon’s Castle, were returned back to their baby forms Tanemon and Tsunomon. Mimi and Yamato had to carry them around.
“Anyway,” Sora said, looking around to make sure the area was deserted, “Let’s all go home for today. We’re all tired, and we can’t let our families worry about us.”
“There doesn’t appear to be any news of Vamdemon and his army causing havoc either,” Koushiro added. He had connected his laptop to the internet during the bus ride and had checked the news.
“We’ll put off deciding what to do and how to search for the eighth child tomorrow,” said Sora.

Tokyo in August was warm, even around the time the sun set. The humidity clung to their bodies. It was completely different from the cold they had felt up in the mountains of the campgrounds.
But none of the children minded. The condominiums that rose before them were, without any doubt, the houses they lived in.
“We’re home,” Jou said.
In the real world, they had physically only been in these houses just this morning, but mentally, more than half a year had passed. This was a feeling that hadn’t really hit them when they had returned back to camp, but it hit them now.

When they had woken up, there was snow everywhere. Jou didn’t remember right away that there had been a snowstorm just before they had entered the Digital World, and thought for an instant that time had passed and winter had come. As proof that their adventures in the Digital World had not been a dream, their Digimon were with them.
When they left the shrine on the higher side of the mountain and climbed back down to the campgrounds, they reunited with Fujiyama and their friends. It didn’t take them very long to realize that it was still August 1st. Only three hours had passed. Both surprise and joy overcame them at once that they almost forgotten to hide the Digimon from their friends.

“Here’s my house,” Mimi said.
Her voice was already half sobbing. As they approached the condos, their footsteps grew quicker.
“See you tomorrow,” Taichi said at the pedestrian crossing. Taichi and Yamato lived in the condos that were located by going across the street and turning right from here.
“We’ll talk tomorrow!” he shouted, running when the light turned green. The others also ran for their homes.
The only ones left standing there were Yamato, holding Tsunomon in his arms, and Takeru, with Patamon on his head.
“Brother.”
Hearing his brother call for him, Yamato returned back to himself and began to walk.
Even if he went back home now, his father wouldn’t be there at this time.

By the sound of the front door opening, Hikari knew that Taichi had returned home. She heard their mother’s voice calling out from the living room.
“Taichi? Are you back? That sure was something, wasn’t it? I got a call from the school that camp got cancelled.”
As Taichi listened to her voice, he quietly shoved Agumon into his room. Looking at Hikari who was inside with an expression that said ‘Look after him,’ he turned nonchalantly to face their mother who had come walking out of the living room.
“I’m home.”
That was as far as he got when his smile crumpled. He hadn’t seen his mother in over half a year.
Taichi ran to his mother and began to wail, clinging to her.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Hikari pretended not to hear their mother’s confused voice or the sobs of her older brother.
Agumon looked at her and grinned. Hikari smiled back.
“It’s you, Koromon. You’re a lot smaller this time.”
Agumon didn’t know what she meant by ‘this time,’ so he cocked his head in puzzlement.
“I’m called Agumon now. Is your cold doing better?”
“Yeah.” As she answered, she put a finger to her lips and said quietly, “Shh.”

“I’m okay. I’m not hurt anywhere.”
As Koushiro smiled up at her, his mother felt not only relief but also that something was off. She felt that this Koushiro wasn’t the Koushiro that she knew.
I shouldn’t be thinking like that.
There was a short pause before she could bring up a smile.
“Thank goodness nothing happened. Would you like something cold to drink?”
“Yes, but for later. I’ll go put this away.”
Koushiro took off the laptop bookbag he was carrying and entered his room. As she watched his back, his mother felt that, yes, something had definitely changed. She heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.
The Izumi family’s residence was on the first floor of this condo, and although small, it came with a private garden. Koushiro quietly opened his window and spoke to the garden in a low voice.
“Over here, Tentomon.”
Tentomon poked his head out from behind the potted plants and flew inside.
“Wow, it’s hot weather here. I just can’t stand this heat.”
“Shhhh. Please, keep quiet. I’ll bring you something to drink.”
He caught sight of Piyomon flying above them.

Sora’s house was empty.
“But I was looking forward to meeting Sora’s mother,” Piyomon said, pouting a little after she flew in through the window.
“I forgot. She said that she’d be back home late because she has a class today. We didn’t even need you to come through the window, Piyomon.”
“Class?”
“For flower-arranging. They put flowers together all pretty-like. She teaches that.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
Besides, what would her mother say if she was suddenly face-to-face with a Digimon?
“But I promise I’ll introduce you to her some day.”
There was something Sora wanted to say to her mother before any of that, anyway. She didn’t know how to put it into the right words, but for a start, she wanted to tell her, “Thank you.”

“The food you make is so delicious, Mommy!” Mimi said happily, as she ate the kimchi fried rice topped with strawberries and whipped cream.
“Oh, is that so? Try this too, it’s cold udon salad with ham pieces and chocolate syrup.”
Mimi’s mother Satoe smiled as she held out a dish.
In the eyes of society, her family menu was — spoken in polite terms, unusual. For starters, it often contained combinations of food that one would normally never see.
While Mimi had been unable to endure many things in the Digital World, the reason she had the least complaints in the group when it came to food there was because this was how she normally ate.
In fact, most of the combinations of these dishes were made to Mimi’s tastes.
“Okay, thank y—”
Mimi’s fork stopped on its way to her mouth.
“What’s wrong? Are you full?”
“No, I want to eat lots and lots! But can I take this to my room?”
“Okay, if that’s what you want to do, Mimi-chan.”
Satoe’s carefree personality did not find her daughter’s actions in the least bit suspicious.
If she saw Mimi, who returned to her room with a heaping plate of food, feeding a creature that looked like a plant bulb with eyes and a mouth, she probably would not have been very surprised either.

“This is so tasty! Mimi, your mommy is a cooking genius!”
“Right?”
Because Mimi’s room was overflowing with dolls, the plant bulb chewing on a piece of ham — Tanemon, did not look so out of place.
“I wish you could stay here with me forever, Tanemon.”
“I can’t do that. There’s something we must do.”
“You’re right. I know that.”
After all of that effort to make it back home, would she have to go back to that world again? Would she have to fight again?
Mimi grew slightly depressed.

“Ahhh, warm baths are the best thing ever.”
“I would have preferred it a bit more lukewarm.”
While they had been traveling those months in the Digital World, Jou’s secret worry had been his school studies. Since he was the only sixth grader of the group, and no one else was considering taking an entrance exam to a private middle school, he couldn’t discuss it with anyone else. It was a big problem for him. No, forget studying in fact, he had given up convinced that the day of his exam had already passed.
But what was in fact several months in the Digital World had only been a few hours in the real world.
“I can still make it in time. Thank goodness.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just give it up completely?”
“I can’t do that, it’s very important to me. My dad is a doctor, and my brothers are working hard to become doctors too.”
He had to study his hardest, get into good schools, get good grades like his two brothers, and become the doctor that their father wanted him to be.
“My brothers are amazing. Not only do they have good grades, but Shin-niisan was always chosen as president of the student council, and Shuu-niisan is also good at athletics. He even made it to the nationals on the track team once. But…”
He looked at his Digivice, but it did not have the ability to show the others’ location like Taichi’s did.
“This is more important right now. We have to find the eighth child somehow.”
“Fhwaaaaaah,” Gomamon yawned.
“Are you getting sleepy?”
“Mm, just a little.”
Even as he spoke, Jou realized that he was also pretty tired. Until now, as he lay on his bed, he had never thought of how comfortable his sheets felt.
“It’s been a really long day,” he whispered, as he immediately fell into a deep sleep.

② Night

Yamato and Takeru were inside the Yurikamome heading for Shinbashi.
“Dad wasn’t back home yet after all.”
“Yeah, he’s never back at this time.”
“So he works this late on a Sunday night. It must be tough.”
Yamato’s father worked at a TV station and was often home late. The two boys had dinner for themselves. As Yamato was accustomed to cooking, he used leftovers in the fridge to make pasta.
“That was good spaghetti,” Takeru said.
Patamon gave a secret nod. Both he and Tsunomon were riding on their laps, pretending to be stuffed animals.

After the divorce, their mother and Takeru moved to Sangenjaya. Since Takeru was supposed to have slept the night at summer camp, their mother was most likely working late that day. However, Yamato thought, it was probably for the best that Takeru go home too. Being in the Digital World meant that Takeru hadn’t seen their mother in over half a year. He didn’t speak of it, but he must be wanting to see her soon.
Regardless, he shouldn’t be made to go home on his own. That was why Yamato was accompanying him to Sangenjaya.

Someone was watching the Yurikamome.
Although it was still hot even after the sun had set, he wore a long cape that covered his body and fluttered in the wind. It was Tailmon’s subordinate, Wizarmon.
Wizarmon knew that two of the Chosen Children were on the Yurikamome. But instead of showing any interest in pursuing them, he disappeared into the night’s darkness.

○

“Cell phone communications are down in all areas throughout Tokyo, followed by blocked reception of TV and radio waves. There is a high suspicion that someone is using illegal radio waves to jam electrical communication systems. The first of such phenomena to be found occurred earlier this afternoon, in the Nerima district near Hikarigaoka—”

“So? Did you find something?”
Yamato Ishida’s father, Hiroaki, spoke into his phone as he watched the news running through the TV monitors. He was talking to his assistant director Chioka.
“Nothing yet, sir. The scope is just too big. I thought it was only Nerima at first, but it’s extended north to Saitama, south to Shinagawa, east to Ginza, and west to Ogikubo.”
“I hear it’s reached Kichijouji now.^[19] There’s no telling when it’ll hit Odaiba. Just grab whatever info you can, and don’t come back here until you’ve found something.”
He hung up without waiting to hear an answer. Grabbing his cigarettes and a lighter, he headed for the smoking area. When this new office building for the TV station was built in Odaiba, the one thing that troubled him most was that he was no longer allowed to smoke at his desk.
“Illegal radio jamming terrorism, huh? Jeez, what the hell would someone do that for in this heat?” Hiroaki whispered, as he blew out a breath of smoke.
The electromagnetic interference (EMI) that had begun in Nerima had grown in range as time passed. Or would it be more accurate to say that it had scattered? It was as if vehicles carrying a device that messed up radio waves had spread out in different directions from Nerima towards other parts of the city all at once. The problem was that no one could find those so-called vehicles.
“Not like they’d be the kind of devices that humans can carry around though.”
There had even been reports of traffic lights being on the fritz. Uncovering where those vehicles were or who the culprit was, before the police or other TV stations caught them, was his top challenge at the moment. Unfortunately, time passed without him grabbing any form of a clue.

He had no way of knowing that creatures called Digimon were the cause of that EMI… or even that his own sons were involved.

○

The erratically blinking signal at the intersection of Ginza’s fourth crossroads was restored at once.
From above a building, a small white cat was looking down to watch the long line of cars resume their slow flow. It was Tailmon. Since none of the humans walking below looked up, no one noticed her there.
Although it was nighttime, the neon lights of Ginza lit up the sky, lighting up against a black balloon sailing through. The balloon had flapping wings, but no one noticed that either.
It was PicoDevimon. He alighted next to Tailmon.
“Have you found the Chosen Child?”
“How about you?”
“My role is to report to Lord Vamdemon. Finding the child is secondary to that,” PicoDevimon sneered.
Both of them were carrying Crests. The Crest of the eighth Chosen Child was hidden from them in a place that nobody knew about. Vamdemon’s knowledge of the dark arts enabled him to make duplicates of the real Crest.
Although their replicate Crests did not completely possess the same functions as the original, at the very least, the Crest ought to glow when it came nearer to the child that was meant to bear it.
Vamdemon’s subordinate Digimon used these replicate Crests to search throughout Tokyo. Unlike Agumon and the others in their Child forms, the effects that Adult level Digimon had on electronic devices in the real world were enormous. It was their very existences that was causing the EMI.
Some searched from the skies, while others searched the sewers. Still others with enough of a human shape, like Wizarmon, or who were small enough, like Tailmon, searched as they walked around. Wherever they went, traffic signals would blink like crazy and cell phones went out of service.
What they had miscalculated was how big Tokyo was and how many people were in it. There was no telling how long it would take them to find a single child in this crowd.
“Where is Lord Vamdemon?”
“He has gone out to supper.”

Vamdemon’s other miscalculation was the strength of the sun in midsummer Tokyo.
Although he was a Digimon, Vamdemon shared the same traits as the vampires of legend and so was sensitive to light. Unlike his castle in the Digital World, there were no swirling, black clouds that shielded him from the sun here.
But the night belonged to him. And his “supper” was also exactly as the legend said.

“Well, do your best and find that kid by morning. I’ll be waiting for a good report.”
After PicoDevimon flew off, Tailmon slowly turned around.
“What’s the matter? Why were you hiding?”
Wizarmon stepped out from within the darkness.
“There is something that I must tell you, for your ears only.”

○

Koushiro noticed when Yamato and Takeru left Odaiba.
“How long are you going to keep up this earnest research of yours, Koushiro-han?”
Koushiro had his laptop opened and had been working away at something on it for some time now.
“Gennai-san installed a bunch of software in here, but there are so many of them with functions that I don’t understand. There must be something that will be useful in finding the eighth child tomorrow, so I must check them all by today.” There hadn’t been enough time to check everything during the bus ride.
Thinking that his Digivice might have something other than its data link to his laptop when connected, he unhooked his Digivice and took it in his hand. That was when he saw two dots moving across its screen.
He opened his window to look outside at his surroundings. There were two Chosen Children riding the Yurikamome.
“Yamato-san must be taking Takeru-kun home.”
As Koushiro said this while looking at his Digivice, he noticed one other thing.

○

A thick mist several meters wide abruptly rose up in one, isolated part of Tokyo’s night. Within that mist, some said, they heard the creaking of heavy wheels. Some even said that they saw the shadow of a carriage, but no horses pulling it.
After that mist passed through, an unconscious woman was found. Although she had the shriveled skin of an old lady, the clothes she wore were that of someone in her 20s. Two small dots of injured skin were lined up on her neck.
“It’s like she was bitten by a vampire,” the paramedic helping her whispered so low that nobody could hear. It didn’t occur to him that what he’d said himself was the truth.
As the mist slowly traveled south, the number of victims grew.

③ Shibuya–type Digimon

Yamato and Takeru found themselves in Shibuya.
Right when they had changed subway lines to head for Sangenjaya, Takeru and Patamon got into an argument over something trivial and Patamon had flown outside in a huff.
“It was my fault for yelling at him all of a sudden like that,” Takeru said sadly.
“Don’t be so down.”
That was all Yamato could say.
If they really got down to it, the whole reason their fight had happened was because Takeru had said he could go the rest of his way home after changing subways and Yamato had disagreed.
Both of them found it hard to part from each other, and Patamon seemed to sense that because he asked, “Is it really that hard to leave each other?”
That had touched a nerve for Takeru.
“You have no right to say that!”
The train they were in had just arrived at Shibuya at that point, so when the doors opened, Patamon had flown out. When they scrambled to chase him, he had left the underground, so Yamato, Takeru, and Tsunomon ended up struggling through the crowds of Shibuya’s Dogenzaka on a Sunday night.
People in Shibuya paid no attention to other people. Not even Patamon flying appeared to have caught their interest.
“If this were any other place, people would be screaming and we’d know where he went right away. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing,” Yamato said, circling their surroundings as he carried Tsunomon in his arms.
They ran into such a group that would have caused screaming in a normal town while they were walking down Spain Hill.
“Kyahahahahaha!”
A weird duo the size of children was laughing as they ran up Spain Hill towards them.
“Those are Digimon!” Tsunomon cried out, and jumped out of Yamato’s hands. With a flash of light, he instantly evolved into Gabumon.
“You two work for Vamdemon, don’t you!”
The two Digimon stopped.
“There’s a Shibuya babe even scarier than Vamdemon chasing after us!” the Digimon who, for all the world, had the head of a lit-up Halloween pumpkin, said. What made him slightly different from a regular pumpkin was the large ax buried in the top of his head.
“Help us!” the bulky Digimon who, for all the world, looked like rocks randomly glued together into human shape, said.
Yamato, Takeru, and Gabumon looked at them agape, while a girl’s shrill cry of “Where the hell did you go?!” came from below the hill. The two Digimon hid at the side of the road.
“Where did that pumpkinhead go?!”
A girl came running towards them, waving her bag as blood dripped down her nose. Upon closer inspection, the girl had a large nose-piercing which was where the blood was coming out of. The pumpkin Digimon must have pulled at it.
“They went that way,” Yamato said reluctantly, pointing to the top of the hill. The girl ran where he pointed, giving an incomprehensible but murderous scream. The two Digimon appeared before him after she had gone.
“Thanks a bunch! I’m Pumpmon,” the pumpkin Digimon said.
“I’m Gotsumon,” the rock Digimon said.
“We’re Shibuya-type Digimon!”
The two sang this in unison, then giggled and ran off as Yamato, Takeru, and Gabumon stared at them in blank bemusement. Whatever lights the two passed by flickered in their wake.
Although they didn’t know what was going on, the boys chased after them.

○

Koushiro quietly sneaked out through his window onto the streets and stood in front of Taichi’s condominium. Standing next to him, wearing a raincoat that fit snugly over his entire body, was Tentomon.
“This response…”
Koushiro showed Tentomon his Digivice screen. There were several dots blinking on it.
“One, two, three… They overlap when they’re close to each other, but there are six here. This dot in the middle is you, Koushiro-han, right?”
“The three over here are Jou-san, Sora-san, and Mimi-kun. And these two here…”
“Aren’t they Taichi-han and Yamato-han?”
“No, Yamato-san and Takeru-kun left Odaiba a few moments ago. These two dots were here even after they left. Yamato-san hasn’t come back since then, and besides, Yamato-san lives over there.”
He pointed at a separate building from Taichi’s condominium. It was in a different direction from the light they saw now on the screen.
“Eh? Then, what? That means that light is…”
“The eighth Digivice. In other words, the eighth Child. What’s more…”
Koushiro looked up at the condo.
“The child lives in the same place as Taichi-san.”

○

“We love to have fun!” Pumpmon said as he licked a pumpkin-flavored ice cream cone. He had stolen it from an ice cream store.
“This tastes so cold and delicious!”
Gotsumon was eating sweet potato ice cream. This had also been stolen.
“Guys, stealing is bad,” Yamato told them, panting heavily.
When the store owner had chased after the two thieves, Yamato, Takeru, and Gabumon also had to run away since they had been spotted together with them.
Even before then, Pumpmon and Gotsumon had been doing whatever struck their fancy as they raced through Shibuya. They would jump on top of traffic lights and shake them, causing the lights to blink and stall traffic. They had gone into the display window of a store and taken clothes off mannequins to wear for themselves, disturbed couples on their dates, left open manhole covers, had drawn graffiti on billboards, etc…
“Enough, you guys,” Yamato said, annoyed. At this point, he didn’t know what they were chasing these guys for anyway.
In their frantic rush of confusion, they had come to rest somewhere southwest of Shibuya, at a vacant lot where hardly any people passed through. This empty land appeared to have once been a residential area before it was deconstructed.
Several empty plots of land like this surfaced after Japan’s bubble economy had burst. Only walls of sheet iron separated it from the building next door. Construction materials were carelessly piled up within the vacant lot, providing a place for them to sit down and rest.
In any case, Yamato got the feeling that these strange Digimon weren’t their enemy.
“Yamato. I want ice cream too.”
Because he was wearing a pelt, Gabumon got hot very easily. His words made Yamato falter, also because he could tell from Takeru’s expression that Takeru felt the same as Gabumon.
“Later,” he was about to say, when a chill wind made Yamato turn around.
The streetlights were dimmed, and he could see something white coming from the other side of the road. A clump of thick mist was proceeding slowly towards them, getting closer.
“It’s Lord Vamdemon.”
“You guys should go hide.”
There was no time to decide whether the two Digimon could be trusted or not. The boys and Gabumon ran further into the vacant lot, flitting behind some sewer pipes that were stacked up high.
The road that the vacant lot faced out of was fully covered with mist now. Within it, the sound of heavy, rattling wheels came closer and stopped. There was the sound of a door opening, then the sounds of someone descending.
“Pumpmon, Gotsumon.”
It was Vamdemon’s voice. “Have you found the Chosen Child?”
“No, not yet…”
“Then what are you doing here?”
There was no need for them to reply. He knew everything. They could tell so by the sound of his voice.
“Vamdemon…… Sir.”
Pumpmon and Gotsumon knew what was coming for them next.
“You know what happens to traitors.”
Even as he spoke, Vamdemon approached, revealing himself from within the fog. The mask he wore over his eyes seemed to glow a brighter red, which was not completely because of the neon lights that fell upon him.
“Night Raid!”
As he slowly extended out his cape, a large flock of bats burst out.
“Trick or Treat!” Pumpmon shouted. A giant pumpkin the size of a small truck appeared above Vamdemon’s head.
Despite his appearance, Pumpmon was a Perfect level and his offense ability was not at all weak. The pumpkin which he summoned through strange technique had both the mass and the toughness to crush most of his enemies flat in a single blow.
But Vamdemon’s bats moved faster.
Flying back in the opposite direction, they dove into the pumpkin with their mouths wide, stopping it in its descent. The pumpkin was soon covered in bats, becoming a black mass that gradually grew smaller. The bats were eating up the entire pumpkin with their boundless appetite.
Pumpmon was aghast that his attack could be stopped so easily. Gotsumon gathered up the greatest amount of his power to unleash a rock from his forehead.
“Angry Rock!”
The rock flew, aimed directly at Vamdemon’s forehead. It had a speed that could not be avoided. Seeing it, Vamdemon’s eyes sparkled just a second and the rock crumbled to dust.
The bats finished eating the pumpkin above his head and flew down upon Pumpmon and Gotsumon. The two of them disappeared behind a black mass of writhing bats.
“Don’t look.”
Yamato, who had been watching the entire thing, covered Takeru’s head with his arms. He never dreamed that Vamdemon would lay a hand on his subordinates like this so easily. They wouldn’t make it in time to save Pumpmon and Gotsumon.
There were screams, but they didn’t last for very long.
The sound of bat wings gradually faded into quiet.
The only things that fell with a dull thud to the ground were the ax on Pumpmon’s head, and a rock that had made up a part of Gotsumon’s body. These two broke down into particles and vanished.
“I know you’re there, Chosen Children.”
Vamdemon’s voice got nearer.
Yamato pushed Takeru away as he spoke.
“They were good guys.”
Tears were falling from his eyes as he looked up.
“You didn’t have to kill them!”
Taking in Yamato’s feelings, the gauge of his Digivice shot up to its highest point.
“Gabumon, evolve! Garurumon!”
The bright light of evolution made Vamdemon shut his eyes.
A giant wolf — Garurumon, leaped out from within the light, bodyslamming Vamdemon. The sudden enormous weight on him pushed Vamdemon out of the vacant lot and into the road of the opposite building, but Vamdemon knocked back Garurumon with one swipe of his arm. As Garurumon rolled back through the air, he unleashed blue-white flames from his mouth.
“Fox Fire!”
But Vamdemon was already in the air as well. He stood there floating, despite all laws of gravity. Garurumon’s flames stretched out after him, which Vamdemon also deflected with one shake of his cape.
“It was only for a little while, but those guys were our friends.”
Yamato grabbed his Crest. Garurumon kicked against a building wall to fly high in the air towards Vamdemon.
“Garurumon!” Yamato screamed.
The Crest in his hand unleashed blue energy.
Garurumon’s entire body became wrapped in light. His shape changed in mid-air.
“Garurumon, super-evolve! WereGarurumon!”
The giant wolf turned into a werewolf wearing jeans, and he made a wide kick into the air before the light surrounding him had time to fade.
“Moonsault Kick!”
That kick was still too far away to reach its target. However, a shockwave born out of it in the shape of a crescent moon flew towards Vamdemon.
Vamdemon’s eyes widened and the corners of his lips twisted upwards slightly. He appeared to think that things had just grown interesting. With a fist, he knocked the attack aside.
The shockwaves flew about where they stood, making silent explosions.
The street lights smashed to pieces and the glass windows of buildings scattered everywhere.

○

Koushiro and Tentomon rode the condo elevator up to stand in front of the door with the nameplate “Yagami” on it.
They looked at the Digivice’s response. No mistake, there were two dots blinking inside here.
“Taichi-san said once that he had a little sister, didn’t he…? Is she…?”
Hesitant to ring the intercom switch at this time of night, Koushiro decided to return to his room and call up Taichi instead.

○

The plaza in front of Shibuya station, where the Hachiko statue lay, was a famous spot for people to meet up since a very long time ago. Patamon must have heard that information somewhere because he was there, looking down from the trees above.
Even he had no idea why he had flown out of the subway in such anger back then. He did not realize that it was because his emotions were synced with Takeru’s emotions. Now he was regretful, feeling that he should have apologized right away.
But how was he to find Takeru and the others now? He wasn’t sure if waiting here would help to find them again, but he could think of no other options.
He heard the sound of people murmuring. Far away, there was the sound of an explosion. When he turned to look in its direction, the neon lights within the city were being smashed up one after the other. Vamdemon and WereGarurumon’s fierce fight was on the move.

“Bloody Stream!”
Eerie red electricity flew out from Vamdemon’s palm. It snaked towards WereGarurumon like a whip.
After leaping through the air to land on the wall of “Tokyu Hands,”^[20] WereGarurumon dug his nails in and made a vertical cartwheel to avoid it. The electric whip smacked into the wall where he had once stood.
Doing three more cartwheels before leaping into the air once more, WereGarurumon made a fierce crossover slash with both arms.
“Kaiser Nail!”
His bright red nails cut through the air, creating a wave of hollow air that flew towards Vamdemon.
Vamdemon, floating in the air beneath him, raised up both arms to block it. However, the force of the impact pushed him backwards into and through the wall of a building behind him.
The next instant, a swarm of bats flew out of that hole towards WereGarurumon.
WereGarurumon used his arms and legs to shake off the bats. He could not dodge the red electric whip that came towards him from within the storm of bats.
He took on a direct hit. As he flew into the neon sign of a Parco^[21], Vamdemon dealt him another blow of the whip. WereGarurumon rolled ungracefully on the roof, his numb body unable to move again right away.
Vamdemon descended towards him with a triumphant smirk. Twin red electric whips slowly fell down towards him from both hands.
“WereGarurumon!”
Yamato and Takeru, looking up at them from below, were helpless. Takeru screamed within his own heart.
“Someone, help! Patamon!”

His scream reached Patamon, who was flying through the park. The gauge of Takeru’s Digivice shot up.
“Patamon, evolve! Angemon!”
The people in the park, who had been taken aback by the neon explosions, were even further shocked when they witnessed a glittering angel soar over their heads.

Vandemon could feel the light, the power of holy good, approaching him from behind.
He turned around brandishing his whip.
Angemon moved faster than he had expected, and it took all that Vamdemon had to dodge the blow of the golden rod that came towards him.

“Angemon!” Takeru cried out. His voice was happy, but with a touch of fear. He had only seen Angemon once before, and that time…
The angel with six wings floated in the air above the Parco where Vamdemon had stood. The vampire with his black cape had fallen away from him to put some distance between them, also still suspended in the air.
Angemon, without letting his guard down, stood poised before Vamdemon as he spoke to WereGarurumon behind him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’ll manage.”
WereGarurumon was able to move again. He stood up, power returning to him once more.
If the one with holy powers has arrived, then it would not be a smart move to stay here long. Vamdemon remembered that he still had yet to finish his supper.
This opening did not escape either Angemon or WereGarurumon’s attention.
“Kaiser Nail!”
“Heaven’s Knuckle!”
They unleashed both a wave of hollow air and golden light.
“Night Raid!”
Vamdemon unleashed his bats and, at the same time, shot out his red whip of lightning.
“Bloody Stream!”

The powers of light and darkness collided into each other in Shibuya’s skies. As the impact changed color, it expanded large enough to cover the entire city. The glaringly lit city suffered a blackout for the next 15 minutes.

Vamdemon had fled while they were distracted.
Angemon returned back to Patamon. As he sagged across the floor from loss of energy, Takeru gently picked him up.
“Patamon.”
“Takeru…… I’m okay.”
Takeru hugged Patamon carefully. He didn’t die this time, he thought. Thank goodness, he thought.
Instead of returning to his baby form Tsunomon, WereGarurumon had returned to Gabumon.

④ Encounter

“What’s wrong, Koushiro? Why are you calling me so late?”
“You must listen to me very carefully, Taichi-san. You have your Digivice on you, correct? Look into the screen and tell me how many dots you see.”

Koushiro’s next words were the biggest shock of his life.
“That can’t be… Hikari is the eighth Chosen Child?!”
As Taichi walked back to his room, still unable to believe what he’d heard, he saw an even greater surprise.

“Taichi!” Agumon cried out to him, sounding as if he didn’t know what to do.
The glass door to the balcony stood open, and Hikari was standing outside. There were others there with her. A white cat standing on its hind legs, and someone hiding behind a cape and a hat.
“Tailmon!”
Taichi ran to Hikari on the balcony.
Hikari smiled at him and said, “Oh, brother. This is Tailmon, my Digimon.”
“What?”
He didn’t know what else to say.
He could see Hikari gripping a Digivice in her hand. Of course, his own Digivice was on him right now.
“She’s my partner. Just like you and Koromon.”
The eighth Chosen Child would naturally have their own Digimon partner. But to think that Digimon would be their enemy Tailmon…
However, Taichi wasn’t the only one who was troubled.
Tailmon gazed at Hikari without saying anything. With his staff and the Book in hand, Wizarmon said quietly to her, “Please remember, Tailmon. That day you met me, and what happened before it.”
Whatever effects his words contained, they began to bring back bit by bit Tailmon’s forgotten memories.

“Yes, I was always waiting.
All on my own.
I woke up in an unfamiliar place
And waited
And waited
And kept waiting.

It was a very long wait.
It was such a long time on my own.
During that time, I even forgot that I was waiting.
I learned to survive on my own and evolved little by little.

If I didn’t evolve, I would die,
Even though I knew that, in truth, I was supposed to evolve with someone else by my side.

I searched for the person I was waiting for.
But
I couldn’t find her.

At what point did I start working for him?
When did Vamdemon take me in?
By then, I had already given up waiting.

But the truth was,
The truth was, I was always waiting.
Even before I was born, I was waiting.

For my partner.

For Hikari.”

“Hikari.”
At Taichi’s voice, Tailmon came back to herself.
“When you say that this— that Tailmon is your Digimon, is it…?”
“I can tell. Right, Tailmon?”
Tailmon understood the meaning of this girl’s gentle gaze into her eyes.
“Hikari…”
From that word alone, Wizarmon understood.
“Your memories have come back, Tailmon. Your eyes look the same as that time you saved me.”
“Yes. Hikari is my… dearest partner. The one I had been waiting for all this time was Hikari.”
Tailmon knew that the Crest she held in her hand was glowing faintly.
“Then Hikari really is the eighth child…”
Taichi looked at his own Digivice and the one that Hikari was holding. “Hikari, when did you get that?”
“Oh, this? I found it when you came back home that one time, but then it disappeared. I found it again on the balcony a few moments ago.”

After he and MetalGreymon had been sucked into Etemon’s black hole, it may not have been a coincidence that instead of the campgrounds and Hikarigaoka, they had come to Odaiba instead. This thought would occur to Taichi much, much later, after he recalled these events.

“It’s dangerous for her to have that Digivice,” Wizarmon said to Taichi. “Vamdemon has ordered us all to find that Digivice, from responses to these.”
He held up the replicate Crest for them to see.
“Is that Hikari’s Crest?”
“No, it’s a copy. Vamdemon holds the original.”
Tailmon’s eyes grew sharp. “We must take it back. We must take back Hikari’s Crest from Vamdemon.”
“But she must not carry that Digivice,” Wizarmon said to Taichi. “Until we bring the real Crest to you, I ask that you protect both Hikari and this Digivice.”
“It’s too risky. We’re going with you, too. Right, Agumon?”
“Of course, Taichi.”

“Taichi, are you still awake? You have a phone call from Ishida-kun.”
It was his mother’s voice.
“Oh, I’ll be right there.”
When he turned back around to Tailmon and Wizarmon, they were no longer there.
“Crap…”

Tailmon and Wizarmon slipped quietly through the night’s darkness.
Unluckily for them, PicoDevimon caught sight of the two leaving Odaiba. He had been following Yamato at Shibuya under Vamdemon’s orders, and had just arrived from Sangenjaya with Yamato back to Odaiba.

⑤ Two Crests

Vamdemon’s coffin lay in the underground of Hikarigaoka. It was protected by a magic barrier that made normal humans unconsciously avoid moving closer to that area. Even looking in that direction, all that could be seen was dim darkness.
Tailmon and Wizarmon opened the coffin. Within its depths lay a box with a number of different magical seals on it. Vamdemon should have been the only one able to open them, but with Wizarmon’s knowledge of the secret arts, unlocking them all was only a question of time.
When he’d managed to undo the final seal, he opened the box to take out the real Crest. There were two of them inside, the ones that Sora had missed when she’d retrieved the Crests from the storehouse. Silently, they tucked both of them away.
But by the time they arrived back in Odaiba, it was almost dawn.

“You’re late. The morning is almost upon us.”
At the entrance to Odaiba, PicoDevimon and Vamdemon were waiting for them.
“Those eyes. Eyes that never lose hope, no matter the circumstances. Eyes that believe in tomorrow. They are what I hate the most,” Vamdemon said, his lips curled into a smile.
“I know the truth. To think that you are the eighth child’s Digimon partner. Ironic, isn’t it. I intended to kill the eighth Chosen Child before they ever got the chance to meet their Digimon partner…”
His eyes narrowed.
“And yet, it was I who brought their partner to this world. But, in this way, you have saved me the trouble.”
“Give this to Hikari.”
Just as Tailmon secretly gave Wizarmon the Crest, Vamdemon attacked.
“Tailmon!”
There was no way she could have won. After Tailmon received a direct hit from the red electric whip, she stopped moving.
Wizarmon raised his staff into the air and chanted a spell. Dark clouds appeared above his head at once.
“Thunder Cloud!”
Lightning fell down towards Vamdemon. It would have been a direct hit.
But for Vamdemon, who had fully stored up his magic after a night of “feasting,” it had no effect whatsoever.
“Night Raid!”
Wizarmon was swept up by the wave of bats and dropped into the ocean.
“Ah! The Crest!” PicoDevimon cried out fretfully.
“No matter. With her, I can find the child.”
Vamdemon picked up the unconscious Tailmon.
The light of the dawn peeked over the horizon.
“No need to rush. Let us wait for tomorrow evening. Gather up all of the others here by then,” Vamdemon ordered PicoDevimon, and boarded his carriage.
The carriage without a horse clattered into the mist and disappeared. The mist floated away.

Wizarmon sank into the ocean.
In his tight fist, he held the two Crests.

To be continued…

Read the author’s afterword.

FOOTNOTES
[19] To give you an idea of how large a scope this is, check out this image map.
[20] Tokyu Hands (link to Wikipedia)
[21] Parco (link to Wikipedia)