Chapter Text
When the world ends, it is with whimpers and laughter.
The thing who was once a man is laughing, screaming his joy to the god he had prayed to, to the only one to answer his pleas for broken restitution, but all the same, the victory is hollow. There is no telling what happens next. Only that his suffering is over, and soon he will be in pieces and places.
"Oh Homeostasis! Where is your power now?"
Neither Homeostasis nor its conduit speak for it, and its miko is deaf to the world even now. All she would hear is the sobbing of a child, crying for its mother to stop anyway, and Yagami Hikari had thrown away that kindness and put it in a box for her brother to reopen.
"Where are you now, you false god?"
Dying, whispers the world left behind to fall apart and rot. Dying dying dying.
And even if the little goddess is fine with dying, she is not fine with the universe fading away from her failures.
The creator of the new world opens its mouth and screams again, screams its pain and its hunger to the heavens. It flaps its wings and everything seems to halt. Even the wind, the rebelling light, draws to a halt. In the silence, the sobs are loud and clear.
"You poor thing," whispers the young god. "You don't have to do this, you know."
The creator cries out its disbelief, its rage, its accusations.
The young god wipes her eyes. "I know," she agrees. "I know. But wouldn't you do the same for them?"
From below, on the ruined buildings, the copycat once a man stops laughing. His expression curdles. "No," he screams. "No, that's… you're not supposed to be here! No one is supposed to know you! You are supposed to die! Be forgotten, witch! Be abandoned!"
"Rest assured," whispers Homeostasis, voice hoarse from cries and desperate clamoring on walls again. "I most likely will be. But this is not Yggdrasil's victory, nor yours Akiyama Ryo. This victory belongs to the children, if they so let it be. Not even you and I are free of this. This is a new world."
The once a man looks at the young goddess and the blue eyes burn and burn and burn. "You would never let me have a happy ending."
"Yggdrasil wouldn't," she counters, watching the remaining living grow closer together. "Happy endings are something you have to create yourself." Courage with Miracles and Kindness under an arm each, like they weigh little more than air. Faith and Honesty are pulled by shaking arms. Light is left apart, but she supposes that's normal. Until they tug her in, pale hands and torn up faces. Envy curdles, curls, but the young goddess lets it pass. As she must. They deserve this last moment as-
There. Yes, they grab her, they hold her. They hold Salvation to each other because salvation is what is needed, what is freely offered, if only they ask.
"Look at me," thunders the once a man. "Look at me."
She does without fear. "Here I am," she says. "Your last chance at revenge." She spreads her arms. "Come on. Kill me with your own hands. Like you tried with Salvation." His face turns mulish and she smiles at him. "Oh you can't. That makes this easier."
She doesn't turn away from him, for that would be stupid even now, and he might as well see the end and the beginning. She's not enough of a monster for him to be otherwise, even if at times she must be. "Come, Ordinemon," she calls, smiling at nothing and no one. "Create the new world. The time has come."
Oh but she wishes. She makes one last wish that a miracle will come. A miracle will happen here and this time, the gods will know better.
She doesn't hold breaths she can't take, of course, but she's going to believe in miracles anyway. Even if Himekawa Maki hadn't.
The savior cries out and opens her wings. And feathers fall like rain melding with murk and whimpering and snuffing out the light.
But the light is only dead for a moment, as before her eyes, small sparks, barely enough to make a fire, ignite all in the murky wetness of death and decay.
Homeostasis smiles and lets herself fall. Yggdrasil screams at her in voices she knew once, voices she loved once. But eventually, Yggdrasil too will be consumed. For that is the way the circle turns.
The world for the chosen ones ends rather quickly. They aren't shouting at each other, not forcing their partners to evolve. To be frank, they don't give up and they don't want to. But they have each other and for a single moment, that's all they want, all they need.
And that moment is enough. The murk grabs them and threatens to tug them apart, to rip and rend and disassemble them like it's August of 1999 once more.
But once again, this isn't the case. Once again, the Chosen remember.
One Crest for everyone, and everyone's Crest for one. They are all Chosen, and in the imminent moment of death and dying, that is enough for them. That is enough for them to gather their strength.
It doesn't stop the end, it doesn't stop the rewinding, it doesn't stop anything but it grounds them in each other's clasped hands, in the knowledge that they're not letting go again, they're not leaving again. No matter where or what they're taken to.
And yet nothing is happening. The murk is all encompassing, the air is roaring and yet… the world is ending without them.
Taichi holds Hikari tighter, feels her move. Feels her lift her hand, one of the only free ones available, up and up. And it occurs to him, for a moment, that she had always had something, something buried deep that held all of them in her hands.
"No," he hears against his chest. Her voice, not broken, not soulless on the floor. "No." She repeats the word. "You can't have them. If this is our bad ending, let it be with us. Help us." She turns her head and despite himself, he closes his eyes in expectation of all of her accusations, all of her anger. Taichi knows it's cowardly, but it's his sister, who has always seen through him to her own chagrin. It's more difficult than most anybody else.
"Me?" And it's Meiko again, always Meiko, who took the lion's share of their burden. "I can't. I-"
"We can," Hikari says, and she is still resolute, though so tired, as if seeing him alone carries her on. "We're always weak on our own. We're always useless on our own, but… if there's something we all want, we'll get." And now she looks at him, accusing, unforgiving, but understanding. "We all can't go off and try to solve things by ourselves. We'll help you."
Taichi makes a smile form on his face, thinks of Daigo bloodied and shredded, thinks of friends left in pods to die. "Yeah. We'll help you, Meiko."
"You didn't before."
And perhaps that stings more than she means but it has all of Mimi's honesty, more of her than they want, especially since she nods anyway, only adding fuel to the fire and enjoying every second. "You're right. But we're still here, so we still can."
"Rely on us," Jou says and he makes it sound so simple.
"We're with you," Yamato agrees, and he looks at the younger kids, the ones who look like death warmed over. "All of you."
Daisuke makes a face, and it twists a little with doubt and anger and a lot of ugly uncomfortable things. But he doesn't seem to disagree. "All of us," he rasps back because they all know the chips are down and the roulette's about to roll.
"If two of us could do this," Taichi says and he understands now, he agrees now, he feels what Hikari is really trying to say without saying it. "What can all of us do?" And he grins at Meiko, feeling more than he had in weeks. "What can we all do?"
Meiko looks at them all, one by one, through her glasses. "But she needs to die. She's in so much pain."
"... Maybe," Takeru agrees. He clenches his fists and unclenches them. "Maybe she does, but… it shouldn't be forever. We can't let it be for good. You're partners. You need each other. You need her."
Taichi watches Meiko's eyes water with tears. If he could, he'd let go and help her wipe them off. After all, that's something that to them really is obvious. It's not enough that their partners need them, now they need their partners. They've had them too long, they've experienced so much of each other. The world, maybe the world wasn't ready for that. But they just might be and if it is too late for this world, it may not be too late for the one they make.
"You can still help her Meiko," he says and he finds that he means it. Growing up does mean sacrifices, does mean accepting pain and loss and sorrow as a part of life. But that doesn't have to be all there is. There can't be. And they haven't lost yet. "She can still come home."
Sensei would want them to save her and just killing her isn't saving her. It's only making her bear their burdens.
He watches her swallow and, with Mimi propping her up with her knees, lets go. She pulls out her digivice from the pocket of her skirt and brings it up to her mouth.
The screen crackles to life and Meiko's voice cracks before she can start. Then Sora squeezes her shoulder and she starts.
"Mei-chan," she says. "Mei-chan. I love you. I love you. I know you don't love yourself. I don't love myself either. We're partners for a reason. We've always been. We've.. I don't. I don't want to let you go. Every time I do, you just end up-"
Taichi turns away the best he can and looks down to see Agumon, no longer a Koromon, staring up at him.
"Taichi," he says, plaintive. "I missed you."
Taichi wants to laugh. His partner seems so simple, and maybe he is (Taichi knows himself well enough to know he can be too) but he's not dumb. He gets it. Agumon tends to get it before he does.
Hikari, still beside him, lets go of him and puts her digivice in her palm. "Hey, Tailmon," she says and Taichi watches her smile. "There was someone you knew once. He was named Wizarmon. While you wandered the digital world under a master's orders, you stopped and gave him water to drink. To you, it wasn't much. It probably didn't mean anything. But to him, it was a kindness he'd thought people had left behind. And he was desperate to return it, to heal the heart you'd told him was broken. And… he failed. He couldn't save you the way he wanted to. But he's kept trying. For years and years, to repay that debt of saving his life. I wish you could remember it. He showed me to you again, remember. He brought us together again… and I think, if you wish really hard, you all can come back to us now."
"It's enough," Taichi hears, in Meiko's cracking voice. "Th-Thanks, thanks much Mei-chan but it's okay. You can stop. You can let go… please, please let go-"
"Hey Tailmon," Hikari says after a few moments of quiet, of listening to Meiko beg and beg with her hoarse voice over the roar of the sky. "I think you're wrong. All of the light isn't in Meicoomon. I think we must have some of it. That's why we're here. That's why she's still here, despite everything."
Meiko grows quiet, but not in despair, not in tears. Her fingers grip tight on Taichi's once more. "No," she says, slowly, as if she's thinking about it for the first time. "No, it's not. Maybe this is a hopeless world, where growing old means giving up. But… I think we should still live in it anyway. We should still save it anyway. It's still our world. This is where we were born. This is where we met. I won't let you take away the place that has all our memories. I…" She raises her head and lifts the blackened Digivice up, following Hikari's still outstretched hand. "We won't let you run away from this!"
In another story, perhaps, a hero would appear, cloaked in white, wreathed in holy grace, and mercy would come.
Instead, a soft light wraps around them all, in fuschia, then the solid pink of Hikari's crest. And it spreads like water puddles filling up with rain. Hikari doesn't glow, not really, but something eases out of her shoulders and she smiles up at someone they can't see.
"I forgive you," she says. "Maybe no one else will, maybe no one else can, but I will. You were trying to do what we all thought would help. Maybe you'll learn next time, with us."
She pauses, eyes growing wide. "What do you mean? No, you can't mean that, you can't."
They pause. Meiko lowers her hand. "Hikari-chan?" croaks Miyako.
Her face is paling. "You can't. Nothing will be fixed if this happens. Nothing!"
"What's going on?"
All they can think of is Homeostasis and her rainbow eyes. But wouldn't something happening to them be good? Wouldn't justice against them be right?
"No!" Hikari repeats. "We said no sacrifices! That includes yo- of course that would be!"
She turns to them, eyes wide and desperate and furious, opening the world itself to explain-
But it's too late, for everything is awash in white.