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Chapter Text

K’s defeat and unmasking shifted something inside Keisuke. But if Keisuke were to be asked about what exactly what was made him change, it was neither of those things.

It took what was left of Hudie some days after his transformation, because, to be fair, there wasn’t a big change in him at least physically. His poorly expressive eyes were the same, the mischievous and anxiety-ridden sparkle was still there. His face was paler, his demeanor was tired, but Erika and the newly saved Chitose were the same as him, so they didn’t notice anything at all.

What came first was the determination. The kinda one that led him to take more jobs per day that made him straighten up his usual slouch.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ Sometimes Erika wanted to ask him, who runned from Akihabara to Asakusa and then back to the hospital to see if she had eaten some of her food. ‘Do you think I don’t see that the bags under your eyes have grown and that I need to buy you a panda plushie so you could understand how much you match?’

But she didn’t, like she didn’t tell him many things.

Chitose also saw this new side to their newest handyman, but, likewise, he thought that the mood could sunken if he suddenly said something, and that didn’t need to happen.

Unusually, the one who talked, in his roundabout way, was Arata.

“Do what you want to, now”, he said.

And Keisuke understood.

The biggest change made Wormmon fall on his back and do three backflips in her surprise.

“AAAAAHHH!!“

Her squeal was not unheard, and Erika, who was still busy handling the Eater Bits, stopped all in a matter of seconds to aid her small Digimon partner.

“What happens, Wormmon? Did something happen outside!?”

“J-just look at Keisuke’s Digimon! There, near the door!”

And Erika understood the surprise on her Digimon’s face, but could not sense the fear – until later, of course, their shared link couldn’t lie. But it was a surprise, she had never seen Digimon so scary and big guarding the Hospital’s first floor so menacingly.

“Whose Digimon are those—they are so imposing!”

“Erika, don’t you see?? They are Keisuke’s—“

“They are mine” The man himself said, opening the door with a smile. He looked happy and light, a face both the room inhabitants haven’t seen in him for quite a while.

“DEMON GODS, SERIOUSLY!? Keisuke, do you have any idea what they are!?” Cried Wormmon, who was in the verge of crying. This time, her fear seemed valid, though. She jumped on Keisuke’s face to make her trembling obvious to the boy, and he, in exchange, only took her on his arms and let her softly on Erika’s bed.

“Don’t worry, I know”

“Keisuke, you must know, they are dangerous!”

“No worries, I know what I am doing”

“Keisuke…” Erika said “This is the first time I see Wormmon acting in this way. I don’t really know who they are but, I…”

She stopped, bit her lip once or twice and then completed the sentence, voice heavy with an emotion she still couldn’t name.

“… I trust you.”

He beamed, and her serious face lightened a bit, too.

“Thanks, Erika”

Later he commented to them how did he got his new friends. It had taken him a mission in the Nakano Underground and some poop friends to find an excellent place to train. He had promised to himself that he was going to do whatever he must for getting back Hudie together, no matter what he had to do. And his friends reacted to the feeling strongly, too. They were friends, and their feelings were one.

Suddenly his small friends had become Lillithmon, Lucemon FM and Belphemon RM and it had taken him less than three days to evolve to them.

The knowledge of what every one of his Digimon meant scared the sick girl, scared her to the most internal parts of herself. But, in comparison to Ryuji and Arata, who seemed consumed by the creatures they were keeping at their side, Keisuke seemed fresher, lighter, filled with a unshakeable resolution that maybe, only maybe would make him release his true feelings at the end, when the end of all would come. But that would be for everyone, and right now all he needed was the strength of mind that having his friends near, both digital and analog, would bring to him.

And they knew the time was soon, so they had to use all what was possible.

Still, Wormmon, worried over the sheer maliciousness the Demon Trio had, couldn’t help to have a conversation with them while the simple boy was busy interviewing a client. She just wanted to know their reasons for helping the guy, that she was the Vanguard that was going to defend her people if they did something out of line.

Their answers lead them to the third change, the one unseen.

“You don’t understand, little rookie, what led us here” Lillithmon said at her words, calm as only one on her level could be. “He needs us, and we are indebted to him for life.”

“Whoever is against that damned Yggdrasil is a friend of ours” Chirped Belphemon, looking at the purple glitched sky, a loathsome glint on his eyes. “No matter what form. And especially if its master’s”

To him, all he just needed was a place to act, a hand to obey and something to destroy. He was indebted to his human, and he would accept any of his orders if they were related to defeat or destroy, whatever it was. Belphemon had a simple mind and it was very tied to his nature, yet he still could remember the times where he was just a small Gotsumon, fed with love and trained with care.

“Our master has what he needs to make us act, and we are the ones who can make him do what he want to. It’s as simple as that, really.” Lillithmon replied, painting her lips into a darker shade of purple.

She was the most protective of them all, more like a mother hen than a lover. But it also had to do with the fact that she, as what happened with Belphemon, could also remember the days where she had been on a cage as a small Tentomon, and how his feelings made her grow. Malice was on their side and they knew it, but they were fighting against something Worse, and their worlds would need all the help they could. Even theirs.

Lucemon didn’t have words for the small Digimon, as they all expected.  He had bet his pride on their human, and there was no space for anything else. He was proud to be at his side, no matter what form he took. And he would do whatever to win, he knew Keisuke wouldn’t ask him less.

In the end, Wormmon understood Arata’s words, about the cycle a human and its Digimon Partners emotions and actions could have. Keisuke gave them the positive feedback they needed to stay on their line, and they gave him the strength based on their sheer power based on the Seven Sins to act against everything that was a hurdle on his road. But she still could not understand. How did that happen?

“But how he can control you without falling into despair? I know about you guys, I know the stories about you…” She said, trembling at their sight. “Does he have the rest of you?”

“Hmm? You mean the rest of the Lords? You will see. But, listen up. Heroes you will always recognize at plain sight, they got powers and marvelous dazzling things in the very start. But dark horses? They will appear to you when you less expect them, and that’s the fun part.” Lillithmon said, her smile glazed with an evil glint. And there were no more words.

They just had to continue their path, and they would do their own when all came to an end. But for now, the changes were there, and they would have to believe in each other.

It had to be done.

K’s defeat and unmasking shifted something inside Keisuke. But if Keisuke were to be asked about what exactly what was made him change, it was neither of those things.

The cause of Keisuke’s change were Yu’s eyes.

K’s eyes, Yu’s eyes, that pretty ambarine colour they had, they were full of rage, full of self-pity and hate.

He wanted to love. He wanted to hate, he wanted to be hated.

His eyes were full of mermaid’s tears.

And to that sight Keisuke asked to himself, ‘what have I done all this time that all went to shit like this? I can’t defend my team, I can’t even defend the one who always chose me over the rest’

‘I must atone, no matter what happens’

‘No matter what.’

And, in his own way, he did.

Chapter Text

At first he thought it was just a dream. Maybe it was just his imagination making things after exhausting days at work. But you can have once too many times the same dream to start thinking otherwise.

Ryuji Mishima was plagued by dreams of a girl with a face he couldn’t recognize, and it had been happening for enough time to start to begin thinking he was going crazy.

He couldn’t even start to think how all started, since there was a feel of a certain pained familiarity with the person who invited him to the same vast and spectrally blue and white expanse of blurred nothingness inside the dream itself. He did know that the dreams were almost always in the same place, and that the girl was trying to say something to him. But if he was to be believed (and he wouldn’t believe himself, really), he was unable to tell whatever she wanted, let how the girl even was.

Was she wearing blue or white? Was she a girl or just a butterfly? Her body changed infinitely in nanoseconds, and her face was just an indistinguishable cluster of glitches, them being more alike to an old VCR movie than brought off the internet. Ryuji didn’t know, couldn’t know.

Yet her glitched words, her familiar demeanor, her stretched hand.

ḅ̷̪̪͊̌͂̀͋̌̎̐̇-̵̘̭̮̭̥͕͓̖̦̽͐̀-̴̨̧̖̙̥͎̯͕͐̂͛̅͋͛̉͜͠-̷͍̰̲̻͇̦͍͔̬̳̍͂̈̂b̸̲̳̪̳͔̳̺͍̻͓̄͒̈r̶͍̞͊͠

It never failed to make him wake up with tears in his eyes.

“Again that dream, Ryuji?”

Chitose always seemed to ask him that question over and over again, hoping for something inside the dream to have changed. But he knew that nothing would have, Ryuji made sure to always follow the same pattern even when in his dreams, and so his dream self would never, ever, take the stranger’s hand.

Ryuji just nodded at him, curtly and just once. It was enough to confirm Chitose’s doubts.

“Then why did that dream got you so distracted at work, eh?” His friend asked him while sipping at his usual machine-made French vanilla coffee.  “You should be used already to it, don’t you?”

Those words just made Ryuji sigh harder, to then pinch the skin between the eyes with his fingers.

“I believe I’m going crazy, Chitose.”

“Something the matter, then?”

“I can’t stop seeing her everywhere now…” The light brown haired man said, slurping slowly his sugary sweet coffee that he never liked yet he couldn’t stop taking that way.

First it was in his dreams. Or were those just hers and he was into her mind?

A white and blue expanse, a gigantic circular shaped edification in the background looming and getting bigger with every second. He floated in the air, watching it grow. Once it grew enough, the girl-who-was-not-a-girl always emerged from it, like if the whole edification was just her cocoon. She flew, didn’t float, but he was unable to see how. And she always, always came to him.

Ⴆ͇̯͉͉̗͂̌̕͞ɾ͍̯̘̘̱͔͕̿̾̿̌̉͞σ̡̙̭͔̺̽̓͊̕ƚ̰̟̹̭̉̀͋͒͐͘͜͢ԋ̛̜͙̻͓̞̋͛̎̌̇̚͜ͅҽ̨̛̮͎̲̞̣̦͂̅̇̋̕͞ɾ̢̰̬̝͊̏̎̕̚͟

The sky filled up with voices he couldn’t recognize. Blurred as the owner of the realm, they made the air vibrate with a grudging feel. Was it one? Was them more than just one voice altogether?

He didn’t know.

The creature came to him extending her arms at him like he was someone she knew. She was a barrier in between the strange voices and himself, yet he couldn’t see anything in her but trepidation and ruin.

It saddened him to think on the someone who seemed to love him that much like that, and so he never, ever followed her, lest take her strange and glitched hand.

But she, oblivious (or just confrontational) did follow him everywhere else, and that’s where things became weird.

Second was at work. He didn’t need to fall asleep to see pieces of his EDEN code glitching. Small mistakes that seemed to be fixed in a blink of his eyes, bits and pieces being added and then instantly removed without him nor no one else knowing about it.

And Ryuji knew it was her, it was always that flash and blue and white behind his eyes that made him. And again, it didn’t happen just once.

The blue flashes just increased in time, and even if his work got better in terms of fastness and reliability, he only got bitter and bitter over it.

Not even the sugary sweet coffee could wash his unease away.

What made him worry was when the dream sprite followed him at home. To be fair, his parents never noticed anything but he could see the electric blue flashes of light following them in their house.

Ryuji wished he was just tired and maybe a bit… desperate? Moodier? Crazy? He had no idea of what to do, or how to act around them and the strange being haunting his house.

He wasn’t even going to tell his parents about the strange things that had been happening in his life, it was enough with all the strange occurrences around Tokyo and the Awakening of the sleeping coma sickness. It was like a pandemic where everyone could fall, and it all dispelled in one single, random day.

Maybe it was just him, and as always, he would deal with it alone.

Adding his dreams into the charade, the man couldn’t help but feel a bit paranoid. But there was no one to confide his feels but Chitose.

And Chitose, while he kind of understood, he also did not.

“You need to see someone who can help you with those dreams, if they keep you that bothered, Ryuji. It’s not normal” – Chitose said one day, seeing his friend despair over the flashes that wouldn’t leave him alone.

“I don’t believe I can be cured, Chitose. I don’t even believe this is something I can talk about, I don’t even have any idea of what they can be.”

The blonde looked at his surroundings, attentive at any possible change he was unable to notice. They were again at their reunion point, the Hudie coffee table number Three. Trying to find whatever was stalking ¿ his friend and some-kind of lover, he stopped when he found anything of the sort.

He knew the feel of being watched, yet he was unable to feel what Ryuji felt.

“You said it was here also?”

“Yeah” Ryuji said, his voice trembling a bit. “In the janitor’s closet.”

“There? There’s nothing there that’s yours, isn’t it”

The taller man shuddered a bit, to then deny with his head. “There’s nothing there.”

“Hmm.”

“You know? I saw Keisuke looking at there too. Maybe he knows something?”

“… He has his own demons to battle. If he wants to tell us he will do it, but we can’t force him out to talk, Chitose.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Then Keisuke fell, and all of them fell with him.

The night after the hospital visit had been nerve-wrecking, because it revealed Ryuji that he wasn’t the only one who knew about the butterfly, the blue flash on their minds who seemed to stay there when they didn’t expect it. Yet Keisuke had been not only troubled by it, but it meant something important to him.

Something special.

He was mourning for the loss of the blue light, mourning her, whoever she was. And he knew that he knew about her, even if he didn’t really know anything at all.

He went to his house after Chitose, worried about the state of the youngest member of the Hudie gang but more worried about the tears that didn’t want to go out of Ryuji’s eyes, sent him to sleep so he would be better in the morning.

In his bed, he could see the flashes. The blue and white flashes that filled his head.

But this time he would be brave enough to confront his destiny, he thought to himself.

‘If Keisuke could, maybe I can confront what she is to me. Maybe we…

Maybe we can… help each other.’

‘Maybe I can accept her hand’

In his dreams, he dreamt the same. The same White Eden, the same circle Edification, the same scene with the blurry girl flying to him and offering him solace of those harsh and strange buzzing noises in the background.

But this time, before she could even talk, he talked first.

“You aren’t going to hurt me?”

Ȉ̸͚ ̸̞̇ɯ̵̭σ̵̳̎ῡ̴̫ʅ̸̪̾ԃ̸̘̍ ̴̲̈́ɳ̴̥̍ҽ̷̙͋ʋ̵͙̓ҽ̴͇̂ɾ̸̘̈́ ̶̝̅Ⴆ̷̠͒ҽ̶̱ ̶͇̑ἀ̵̧Ⴆ̸̰̅ʅ̶̳̆ҽ̸͓̂ ̴̳͑ƚ̷̟͑σ̶̰̚ ̴̦̉ԋ̸̨̉α̷̹͘ɾ̸͚̌ɱ̶͙̋ ̷͇͆ყ̸̻̆σ̷̯͝ῦ̷͓,̷̝̑ ̵̘̒ɱ̶̮̕ყ̶̰̕ ̶̝́ԃ̷͈̕ҽ̷͚α̷͕̈́ɾ̴̻̽ ̶͚Ⴆ̸͚̏ɾ̵̩͋σ̸͉̔ƚ̷̫̎ԋ̷̤̌ҽ̵̰̽ɾ̷̱̑.̸̘̂

And that was all he needed to take her hand and fly wherever she wanted to show him out.

He woke up the next morning with images that he couldn’t understand dancing in his mind. Flashes of the life of a girl he didn’t know were there, filling his brain with information that could only make him cry and scream and bawl until his eyes were red and until his parents went to his room to try to calm him up.

He was incoherent, really. He had never (?) cried that much.

But he had never felt better in his life after that.

Even when he forgot the images, the warmth on his heart was still there

“Brother…”