Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was stardust in his veins.

There was stardust in everyone’s veins. Iron. iron created from the deaths of stars in distant galaxies or worlds far away.

There was ice and longing-song in his blood. Ice was not what typically ran in human veins, and longing-song was not a thing that was found in humans at all except in their words, so therefore he must not be human. Or perhaps he was, and was simply more than the average human was. He would never be sure, really. 

His hair was copper-iron-brown-black, dirt-growth-creating-life all backed up into one single color that never stayed the same in one second. Sometimes it looked brown. Sometimes it looked red. Sometimes it looked black, and sometimes it looked like some other indescribable color that had no name.

His eyes never bothered to look like anything. Brown was an illusion. Brown was a color he chose, looking at his parents, looking at his father’s dark-dark-dark eyes that held no color only void, looking at his mother’s light-honey-amber-golden-sheen that reminded him of melted gold mixed with sunlight and ashes. Brown was a nice middlepoint between the two, he thought. It was easy enough to persuade his top set of eyes to hold the color. His bottom set of eyes, the ones kept closed by eyelids with little eyelashes in such a delicate shade of regret-mourning-hiding, refused to hold to one color, and were like holographic glass  - silver and red and green and gold and black and purple and cerulean and violet and anger and happiness and gas and plasma and life-life-life.

His teeth were not white. They were not gray. They were not yellow. To anyone who looked, his teeth were the just-not-quite-white that all human teeth looked like when one took proper care to their dental routine. To anyone who Saw , his teeth were a dark dark dark dark green, like vines, like ivy, like the leaves of a tree in darkness. His teeth were green and his tongue was a bright turquoise and his hair was brown and his irises were poison-purple with golden pupils set against them and he looked a creature with the bright colors meaning poisonous , meaning touch-and-you-die , meaning you must be careful .

Kudo Taiki was not really a human, but he was good enough at pretending to be one.

He did normal human things. He grew. He went to school. He studied. He made friends.

He’d had a dream, once.

The boy with the blonde hair and sickness no one had noticed had had a dream. His name was Sano Tatsuya. Tatsuya collapsed, because he was sick sick sick and his legs wouldn’t work and he wanted to run - had dreamed of running - and had pushed himself to keep up with Taiki and stay on his level and had pushed and pushed and then he fell and didn’t get back up and Taiki watched the shards of dreams shatter -

Taiki had had a dream once. He did not have a dream anymore. Dreams were for humans. Humans were fragile and breakable. Taiki was not a human, and so he did not have to care as much for his own safety or wellbeing. Better to help others so that they could fulfill their dreams. Yes, that was the safest thing to do. His teeth were the wrong color to smile in any sort of joy, even if you only noticed the color when you Saw , so Taiki would rather stay in the background and help out others instead.

Hinomoto Akari wormed her way into his life. Taiki gave his everything into helping others. Akari gave her everything into keeping Taiki alive. He had to admit that it was. . . satisfying, perhaps? No. that was not the right word. Relieving? Reassuring? Concerning? Correct? Confusing? He did not know the word to fit his emotions. He did not care, particularly. Akari’s insistence upon Taiki’s continued survival was, ah - ah , welcoming, was that the word? Perhaps. Akari made sure Taiki was alive, and that was that. It was - nice, even if she did think that she was helping a human. His needs weren’t too different, after all, even if Taiki still had to take care of the finickier things himself.

The air hummed in its sounds and colors that it always did, and Taiki was tempted to open his lower set of eyes to see what they looked like through the ever-changing irises. For only a few seconds, of course, because even he knew that humans hated and feared what they did not understand and surely there wouldn’t be enough of the kind-hearted people to protect him should they see what kind of not-human eldritch-mockery veil-creature he was. 

While the urge was strong, he resisted opening his second set of lower eyelids. One of the boys he had defeated in a kendo match for a different school - Tsurugi Zenjirou, and Taiki could not forget the names connected to faces even if he wanted to try - had found Taiki, and was clearly upset about Taiki having defeated him. A shame. It probably would not have been taken as so much of an insult if Taiki had been a proper member of the kendo club, but then again, Tsurugi had never had any reason to know or see why Taiki poured so much of himself into helping others, how Taiki managed to perfect a thing in just a few minutes if he absolutely needed to, and had not a single clue of the stardust and ash and void and longing-singing that lived within Taiki’s flesh and blood and bones.

Regardless. Taiki wasn’t really listening. It was easy to filter out noise. He’d gotten good at seeming interested enough that he could be forgiven for zoning out a bit and having forgotten the start of conversations quickly, and he was kind enough that no one would ever think ill of him.

Tsurugi finished his rant. Akari gave Taiki a Look - it was not Seeing , but Looking was almost close enough, and Taiki knew that she saw more of him than most anyone else did, even if she was kind enough and loyal enough to keep it a secret. Especially then.

“Ah, my apologies, Tsurugi-san.” Taiki said, lifting a hand to place on the back of his neck, a well-known habit of his that made him seem apologetic. “I have a bad habit of getting distracted by my thoughts, and unfortunately I have a bad enough memory that I tend to forget the beginnings of conversations. Please forgive me,” and to add further manipulations in he bowed, neatly, at exactly the right angle he would need to be polite and for exactly the right amount of time.

Akari was looking at him now, but it was not a Look, so Taiki ignored it. Her dream was for Taiki to be healthy, and he had fulfilled that (even if it did annoy him so, to make himself rest the same way humans did, the way he could feel in his bones that he didn’t need to). She would not have any concern.

There was pain-wail-song, nearby. It sounded distant. It sounded muffled, like something at the bottom of the ocean, like something in the past. Taiki did not know how something could sound like it was from the past. He did not care.

Perhaps someone human would have been more cautious of the song, but Taiki could hear a dream, and he had made it his life’s purpose to listen to and fulfill the dreams of anyone he came across.

He ran, towards that glowing patch of air, to reach and scoop it up, Tsurugi and Akari both forgotten. The world shifted, rumbling and warping and vanishing all around him. Akari and Tsurugi, too, were ensnared by this, and for a few moments Taiki let himself just be - in the space between two doors, with his skin that was not quite skin and eyes that were too many colors and not enough, four eyes instead of two and cerulean tongue and green teeth and hair that was brown-dark-vine and thrumming with a song of infinity lingering under his tongue, Taiki let the self that was him simply exist, unhidden, with a sense of almost slumbering, almost relief at some invisible border taken away.

The he fell through a door - and into the digital world the two humans and Taiki went. And changed forever would the war between Bagramon’s forces and Homeostasis’ Royal Knights be.

Chapter Text

Humans were an odd sight in the digital world, Taiki decided. They did not fit. Not in the way that a circle didn’t fit amongst a bunch of triangles, but in the way that a horse did not fit in amongst several sheep. 

The digital world was not a place humans were made to be, and yet the humans lived there regardless. They simply refused to die. Humanity truly had an admirable survival instinct, did it not?

Taiki could tell that they were not particularly. . . stable , in the digital world. They complained of walking the long distances they were unused to, they grew fatigued more easily, and they ate more but did not get as filled as a meal back in their home world would have made them. They could live, yes, but the digital world was not their optimal home.

Then again, Taiki reasoned, ducking beneath the blade of one of the various digimon who’s names he didn’t know yet, the world wasn’t particularly an optimal home for the digimon living there, either. 

War did not make for a good place to live in. War made for desperate people, people who would do horrible things to stay alive. Kill. Torture. Rip apart. Death and death and death and death.

Shoutmon wanted to be the King of the digital world, and wanted Taiki to serve as a general in battle to aid him. Very well then. If that was what Shoutmon’s dream was, then Taiki would fulfill it. That was his purpose as a being that was not human - he fulfilled the dreams of others.

Shoutmon wanted to be the king of the digital world, and wanted Taiki to serve as a general. A right hand man. The one to direct and lead him, lead the dragon to become king. And Taiki - Taiki didn’t know what he should do. Akari and Tsurugi (that was his name, was Tsurugi - Tsurugi Zenjirou, right?) wanted to go home, wanted to go back to that familiar comfort, the place they knew and loved. Wanted to fall into their parents’ embrace and pretend it was all a dream. Taiki wanted to help them, wanted to bring them home, but - what would happen to Shoutmon, if he left? Would Shoutmon’s dream shatter, like the legs of someone who only wanted to be better? Like the dreams of that boy who had run and fallen and broken.

Taiki clenched his hand into a fist, tight, fingernail crescent claws digging into the palms of his hand. He couldn’t think about Tatsuya now. He couldn’t - Tatsuya (Sano, he should call him Sano, Taiki wasn’t allowed to call him Tatsuya anymore, he’d lost that privilege the day Tatsu- Sano ’s legs had collapsed under him), he was fine , it wasn’t like he was dead , still breathing and living and aware. It was just that - he was alive, yes, but he’d had his dreams ruined, broken, shattered by Taiki’s selfishness , because Taiki had latched onto Sano’s dream and ran past where Sano had been able to go, driven the boy to shattered shards of dreams just trying to keep up -

Taiki - Taiki couldn’t do that again. Taiki wouldn’t do that again. He refused .

Very well, then. If Shoutmon wanted to be king, wanted to rule over the lands as a King , wanted to be great and hold that power - then Taiki? Taiki would make him the best King that the world had ever seen.

Taiki did not have a sword, or a knife, or any kind of blade or gun. He had the Xros Loader, though. It was a weapon enough on its own. 

War, Taiki found, was almost boring. There was quite a lot of sitting around and licking your wounds, really. Taiki found that he did not like waiting. Not at all.

Akari gives him a Look. Taiki pretends that he does not see it. She is still human, still made of innocent things. Taiki has never been human, and has been made of broken dreams and withered legs and a boy’s tears of regret for far longer than he can remember being anything else (time never works the way it should, when it comes to pain and remembering).

“We’ll rest here for a few days, and then we’ll need to move onto the next Zone to get the Code Crown.” He decides, firmly, and all of the digimon in his army nod and agree, because he is the General, and he is good at his military leadership, for all that as a human he would have been a child. But Shoutmon is to be a king, and so Taiki will be a general, and while digimon are made of data, and humans are made of flesh, Taiki is made of stardust and dream fragments and a bottomless selflessness and desire to please others.

He does not see the way that Akari Sees the ethereal essence trapped beneath almost human skin. He does not see the way Tsurugi becomes Zenjirou and realizes just what kind of creature he has connected himself to. He does not see the way the digimon know that this one is not-quite-human, different in a godlike way. 

(Miles away, sleeping in a pocket dimension, a small dragon’s ears perk up, and golden eyes slide open at mention of humans in the digital world once again, fighting a war. Those same gold eyes narrow, as they fill with stars and void and the soul of something that isn’t quite human either - before they blink, and the dragon yawns, and slips through a crack of the pocket dimension to land in a stray Zone, where a boy who is made of dream shards will pass through with his army.)

Chapter Text

Akari is not an idiot.

She is human, yes. But she is not an idiot.

Taiki thinks she doesn’t See . She does, but Akari is smart enough not to say anything. He doesn't trust her enough to tell her (or, more likely, it has simply never occurred to him to say anything, trapped by his mind in those odd thoughts as he is) and Akari is not one to push. Taiki trusts her enough to be lax in his vigilance the way he never is with anyone else, not even his own birth-mother and the birth-father who only appears once a year at most. So Akari takes the trust she gets, and swallows down the endless, endless want for him to realize how much he is worth in the world. 

Certainly more than just dream fragments and killing himself to make everyone else happy , she thinks a bit viciously to herself. There’s no reason to be gentle in her mind - Akari’s kindness is made of practice, not the way Taiki’s seems to be innately given to him, and besides, Taiki would just cock his head to the side and say something like “Akari-chan, why lie in your head? No one else knows what you think. It’s rude to lie, especially to yourself.” She’d know. He’d said that when someone asked him if he thought mind readers existed.

Still, Akari is not an idiot. Tsurugi - Zenjirou - pretends not to see, desperate to cling onto the human world because it is all he has ever known, and he is complacent and does not want to have to learn of anything else in favor of his previous uncertainty of what his life held in store for him. Akari Sees - both Taiki’s human-and-god-born-of-void nature, and the way he acts in the war. Namely, he thrives . It is like he was made for this - he commands the digimon in his forces with a sort of ruthless efficiency, and if any die, he spares a quick moment of remembrance, before moving on, as if it had never happened. There is no time for mourning in war, after all, and for all that Akari tries to keep up, she always falls behind Taiki. And just like since they were kids, she doesn’t hold it against him. They may as well be different species with all the differences between them - Akari isn’t an idiot, there’s no use trying to make herself match the pace of someone who’s got a different stamina and set of strengths than what she had.

Akari takes to writing down what she remembers Taiki looking like, in case she ever goes blind from those smiles he shares, the soft ones, where he lets go of his tenseness and intentions of hiding completely and there is no veil to separate one who Sees from one who doesn’t. The brown-black-copper of his hair is a shade that makes Akari think of molten copper mixing in with pieces of volcanic glass. His eyes are a kaleidoscope, and borrows her brother-in-more-than-blood’s description of “holographic glass”. The upper set look brown, usually, but even when they’re hidden they still have multitudes of colors in them, like an opal. His bottom set of eyes, the ones that rest just above his cheekbones and below his upper set, with eyelashes as fine and thin as the circuitry in computers, have no need to hide when they’re usually hidden, and the silver and gold and red and pink and teal and lavender and sunset and viridian and vermilion and chartreuse all mix together in a beautiful display. Like holographic glass. Taiki’s skin is a gold that shimmers silver in the darkness and turns almost bronze when the light hits it right, until it’s a human skin tone again.

Taiki’s smile is like a million stars caught in a net made of nothing but a want to do and do for others. The truer ones he shares with Akari (and only Akari, because on some level Taiki must trust her enough for that, and she is only grateful, because she has long since learned that Taiki’s trust is a fragile thing that must be carefully taken care of, lest it shatter like his own trust in himself had done when Sano Tatsuya collapsed and did not get up) and they are brilliant in a different way, soft like little nebulae and Akari thinks that she may go blind, looking at those smiles, the ones that the veil never hides because they are not a god-human-creature giving them but simply Taiki.

So Akari writes down what he looks like, what the world looks like, what she takes notice of. She writes it down in the corners of her skin, the ink of a ballpoint pen filling the space of skin between her thigh and her knee, the kanji covering her inner elbow and forearm all the way up to her shoulder in a messy scrawl, hiragana and katakana and kanji all blending into a bit of a mess down her sides wherever she can reach it. She writes with a pen that has not held ink in years, and the ink it holds now is something made of her own hands. Somehow. Akari is human, but even with that limitation she has a willpower, and the digital world gifts her for this, gifts her the ability to write things on her skin that only she can see, that she can trace over with her fingers and even with her eyes closed she will be able to know what the invisible writing under her fingers says.

The war is hard, on many digimon. Compared to that, that dreariness and fear and wondering when Bagramon or his forces will show up, and what they can do against that - compared to that, Taiki’s endless enthusiasm and ruthless pragmatism to get Shoutmon’s dream accomplished as soon as possible so that he may move onto the next dream, is the one thing that lets the Xros Heart army cling to continuing forward, lets them have something to properly believe in. It is so radically different from everything that had been that there is no choice but to believe in Taiki. So digimon join his ranks, and the Xros Heart army grows. 

Akari is the one to notice the little dragon, creeping on the edges of their camp in the quiet hours between midnight and morning. His fur is blue, cerulean like some of the XV-mon they have run into (few, but the three had joined the army, and Taiki was very pleased at the extra help). There is a little V shape on his brow, and his eyes are gold-gray like melted sunlight mixed in with liquid chrome metal with dots of silver infinity dropped in for extra measure. 

Well. Perhaps that’s a very romantic view, and not the best description, but Akari has long since gotten used to Taiki’s strange yet simple inhuman beauty, and does not know how to describe things without using beautiful words, because Taiki has so often said that “everything deserves to be beautiful” that it has snuck into Akari’s head.

“Hello.” She greets the dragon - a V-mon, she thinks, though she isn’t sure. The Zones are scattered, and many digimon of a rarer species are holed up somewhere, placed there by the rumored Royal Knights who supposedly exist.

“Did you know that the Royal Knights are looking for you?” He says, instead of a greeting like Akari had expected. “Hello as well.”

“We’ve only heard rumors about the Royal Knights’ existence.” Akari says, carefully, suddenly wary at this dragon (who has stars and something else in his eyes, and Akari does not know what it is.) “Many conflicting rumors.”

He tilts his head. “That would make sense, if the two sets of Royal Knights were confused.” he doesn’t even have the manners to act like Akari wouldn’t be taken aback by the news, and continues as if her reeling didn’t even happen. “There’s Yggdrasil’s Royal Knights, the ones who mostly defected and tried their best to save the X-Antibody digimon. Aside from Omegamon-me and Dukemon-me. Those ones just followed Yggdrasil, and even if they turned at the last minute it wasn’t enough to make up for anything.”

Then he paused and blinked at her. “Do you want to know more?”

Akari took a further second to remind herself that this was about as strange as what Taiki usually got up to, and if she could handle that then she could handle this, before nodding again. So she was told a(n admittedly abridged version) history of the digital world that she and Taiki and Zenjirou were all in. About how originally, there had been peace, before a Demon had wanted power and a HolyAngemon had summoned a human for help. About a dragon whose name wasn’t known to very many anymore, who’d fought beside his human partner against three other humans, betrayed by one they thought was their ally, of digimon fed to a creature named Arkadimon who was only a baby that grew up too fast and had learned of nothing else but the killing and the death. Of the humans returning home. Of Yggdrasil coming into existence, because humans from outside had left a seed of data by accident, a God and Host Computer deciding it should see how the digital world played out.

Akari was told about the god that decided that it had too many digimon living in the world, and who unleashed a plague like nothing before, taking only its preferred ones and leaving the rest to rot. Of those who survived gaining the X-Antibody, moving to the New Digital World with its three Terminals, supposed to be killed by Yggdrasil’s Royal Knights. Of how all but three of the Knights came to the decision that even a god should not be a reason to preform genocide, two of them deciding that the god’s words were held above even their own morals, and one of their members a member of that very same population they were supposed to kill, only gaining the strength respectable of the Royal Knight when it was time to kill the god, with a fearsome blade besides them. How when Yggdrasil died, it cursed all of its formerly loyal knights with an X-Antibody, a Death-X-Evolution, killing them and using the X-Antibody to bring them back - giving them life but extreme and everlasting pain in return.

The little V-mon talked about how afterwards, Homeostasis stepped in as a god, took the name of God, became such to the digimon living in the digital world. How Homeostasis made their own set of Royal Knights. How they took from the living digimon the kindest, the strongest, the most moral, the best. How they searched out and found the dragon who had defeated Demon and gained the highest form, and made him one of their Knights - giving him life as long as any of the other digimon would have had, compared to the shortened lifespan he had expected previously, with the ability to retain his previous strength after every death. How Bagramon had once been an angel at the side of God, with a brother that was supposed to be destined for evil, and how Bagramon had started a war because he refused to allow Homeostasis to judge others for the supposed paths that they had in life.

By the end of it, the little dragon had moved to sitting in her lap, his back against Akari’s belly and stomach, head tilted up to stare into her eyes. 

“So,” he concluded, softly, “that is the history of this world. That is how you find yourselves all in this war.”

“Did you want me to tell Taiki?” Akari asked, voice just as soft. The sun would be rising soon, even though it had been just barely after midnight when she had found him.

The V-mon hums, and eventually shakes his head. “No. There’s too much lingering regret in those stories. Best the others are told after the war is over.”

“And what about me?” Akari challenged. “What am I to do?”

The V-mon with red eyes blinked at her. “You’re the main head of intelligence, aren’t you, Hinomoto-san?” 

Akari had not told him her name. His eyes had not been red a second ago. “What do you mean -?” She tried to ask.

He only giggled mischievously, eyes gold with two thick rings of red concentric around the slitted pupil. “It’s - drrr - a secret! You’ll find out when~ you’re~ supposed~ to~!” He called, sing-song, before smoothly transitioning to a second form with the accompanying soft glow of evolution, turning on his paws and bounding away into the surrounding woods, leaving Akari feeling like she’d missed something important.

The sun began rising behind her, and Akari stifled the urge to groan. She’d ended up sleeping barely a wink, what with the conversation and her writing down all she could remember onto the backs of her calves. She blinked at Taiki blearily about an hour later, when he rose well-rested, and told herself that in a little bit she’d tell him everything. In a little bit. She’d just close her eyes for a few minutes, and take a short nap for maybe five minutes. Just that much.

Chapter Text

She wakes with -

She wakes.

She wakes alone.

She does not wake alone.

He is there. He is there. He is there he is there he is there heisthereheisthere heisthere -

Floating on the edges of her thoughts, like spiderwebs gently landing on your cheek when the breeze blows them your way.

Scratching at an itch she can’t reach that she can’t get to, an itch she wants to scratch but cannot because she cannot reach -

He is there. Beside her. No. not beside her. Far away. In a different world. (Beside her, in the little plastic rectangle with its little pixel screen.)

She wakes. Breathes. Opens a set of pale pale pale eyelids, with delicate lashes of hair that should be white were it not for the copper verdigris that builds up on any keratin deposits that her body has. Her eyelashes are green and her skin is paler than death and beneath her eyelids is another far more delicate set. Translucent, red-tinted, these too slide open, exposing eyes that are the red of blood when it has no oxygen left. Black pupils, drawn into thin, thin slits as the light reaches. A blink of the inner set of eyelids, where the eyes fade from candy apple red to carmine, a ring of imperial red around the edges of where the pupils would have reached. And then that cherry red shade is visible again, black pupils like a slice across a sea of red nothingness.

That’s too romantic a description, probably.

She wakes up. Breathes. Stares at the ceiling. She lets her thoughts sink inwards, lets her mind meet his in a gentle embrace, feels the phantom touches of limbs that are not hers, with cerulean fur and a tail made for balance and not yet for gripping things. She gives a cryptic warning to a girl caught in a war that none of them save one were prepared for.

She does not notice when thick, molten-gold rings of color circle around her pupils, the way her grin becomes just a bit feral and her eyes filled with a light that is not quite human.

Lingering in the doorway, her brother watches. Cool gray eyes noticing, assessing. Black hair falling in front of his eyes, making others think he could see less than he did. Watching, observing, then nodding. This is nothing to be alarmed about, not yet. She and her dragon are used to this, by now, communication with a brother kept far away using the only method known. Her twin will not begrudge her of this.

The gold fades from her eyes, and the inner eyelids slide up to cover the light-sensitive pupils as she stretches, and begins to wake up properly, getting read for the day. Carmine once again envelopes the irises, those two simple rings of imperial red, and pushes pear green (it will fade to seafoam, and then mint, and then finally it will stay at tea green, just barely pigmented) hair out of her face. 

In a world on the other side of everything, a dragon shakes of the lingering melancholy that having to say goodbye to his sister (for now, always for now, she always speaks again each morning if she can). His eyes are molten gold, with pupils that do not exist and are ringed by star-silver instead. There are people to be talked to, and he knows that if he is careful he can return a warrior and protector to a land he lived in and be able to meet his sister in the flesh at the same time. The dragon vibrates with the excitement, and shoots out to go off and do something - for something will always get done. He is a Kuga, if not by blood then by the name his sister and her brother and uncle-father have taken up form themselves, and a Kuga is nothing but someone who gets done exactly all of their goals in half of the allotted time given.

Chapter Text

The war is - difficult. Taiki doesn’t want to think about it. If he thinks about it too much, he’ll think about all the dreams he’s crushing under his weighted words and iron decisions, all those dreams shattered by the loss of life.

Taiki doesn’t want to think about it. He tries not to think about it. (It is very hard not to think about it.)

Leading Shoutmon's army is exhausting, even if Taiki does his best not to show it. He cannot afford to show weakness, cannot afford to have a weak spot that an enemy could take advantage of. If Taiki did that, then who would help Shoutmon become King? 

They're somewhere in one of the Zones - Taiki doesn't know it's exact name. Bright Zone, or something? It certainly is very bright. There's a lot of natural light in the area, and it all shines down harshly on both Shoutmon and Taiki's Xros Heart army and on the residents of the Zone itself. Bagramon's army has not appeared here yet, though, so that is good. There haven't been any sightings of Amano Nene and DarkKnightmon's Twilight army, nor Aonuma Kiriha and the Blue Flare army he lead. 

Taiki wasn't sure who the real owner of the army was - Xros Heart belonged to Shoutmon, the King, with Taiki as a general and Akari and Zenjirou as message-runners mostly, information people. Twilight belonged to DadkKnightmon with Nene as it's general and Kotone kept safe by that same general. But Blue Flare had no higher leader that Taiki knew about, just Kiriha as it's general and his MetalBirdmon and Greymon as the primary fighters, like how Shoutmon was also the primary fighter for Xros Heart, or how Sparrowmon was the first to jump into battle when Twilight was nearby. It was odd.

Still, the Bright Zone was going well. The residents weren't particularly kind, but they also didn't go out of their way to hinder Xros Heart, either, and let the army as a whole stay in the more shaded areas and rest some. They got the Code Crown for the area, and they left and moved to the next Zone. Repeat the process over and over.

Akari seemed tense, after that day a few months ago when she'd stayed up all night. She refused to tell Taiki why she hadn't slept, but she'd been bringing out that ballpoint pen without any ink, scribbling kanji and kana onto her legs and arms, tracing over the skin in empty hours between any actions as if her skin would reveal all the secrets of the world under her fingertips. It worried Taiki. Akari had always been so carefully put-together, good at taking care of herself, always the one to keep Taiki from working himself too hard. Taiki didn't know how to do that. Taiki was getting scared, for once. He did not fear death - he would die when ne needed to - but he did fear that slow decay that Akari seemed to be falling into, day after day. Taiki didn't know what to do, and it scared him. 

He just hopes - he just hopes that he won’t make a mistake. He doesn’t want to make a mistake.

The air tastes like ashes and the sweet, decaying rot of things left in the sun for far too long, and from a plane that humans can’t quite See, Taiki senses the coming of an end. He doesn’t know what it is an end to , only that it is an end.

Taiki doesn’t know what to do. It scares him.

Chapter Text

Tatsuya remembers, barely, what it was like to run.

Maybe it would be easier to remember if it was a smaller thing, but it’s not . Tatsuya had been sick, but nobody had known until he’d collapsed in the middle of a track event. Taiki had looked so devastated, so upset, so confused like he couldn’t believe that that was happening.

It was the first time that Tatsuya had ever actually Seen Taiki, instead of being easily fooled by the pretend-humanity he wore like a cloak. Taiki had let his guard down because the god-to-be didn’t understand that humans couldn’t keep up with him. Or, maybe he had, and he’d thought that he’d been careful. Or some other thing.

Tatsuya was never really sure. He wasn’t sure of anything about Taiki, anymore. He never saw Taiki after he’d collapsed. Tatsuya had a suspicion that Taiki felt guilty for it - for Tatsuya pushing himself, farther and farther and farther, trying to be the same level as Taiki if he could just go a little bit further -

There was a reason why gods weren’t considered in the same level of power as ordinary people, after all.

Tatsuya had heard all about Taiki, though, even if he didn’t see Taiki. Taiki seemed to have made it his mission to help everyone else get to whatever they decided their dream was. It was. . . nice enough, Tatsuya guessed, but that part of him that was still that little boy running track with his best friend wondered if Taiki bothered trying to achieve his own dream anymore.

. . . Probably not, if he really thought about it.

It was all sad, really. Tatsuya who couldn’t remember what running was like, because even when he could still walk sometimes, running was beyond him, with the way his lungs would strain to get enough air from even just a light jog. Taiki who was driving himself to the ground to make others happy and make their dreams possible, all while not letting himself have his own dream. 

Tatsuya sighed, and turned to face the window of his room. It was a nice room. Very fancy with a neatly-made bed, and soft plush chairs, and soft throw pillows and blankets in all the little corners in case Tatsuya wanted to just curl into a ball on the floor somewhere or in the little tight spaces. He did that a lot, more recently. Maybe it was one of those weird things that had to do with trauma. The spaces were cozy, and very tight, and if he wasn’t standing up then Tatsuya didn’t have to worry about collapsing anymore. 

His parents wanted to bar him from any physical activity at all, paranoid as they were about his illness. Tatsuya just wanted to live normally again.

He wondered what Taiki would say, if he ran into the eldritch-person again. Would Taiki agree with his parents, that it was better for Tatsuya to stop pushing and settle for a life of doing nothing but stay where it was comfortable and safe? Or would Taiki tell Tatsuya that he should keep trying to get better, work his way up as slowly as possible until he could run again? Tatsuya wasn’t sure - it could be either, because it had been years since he’d actually talked with Kudou Taiki, and Tatsuya was well aware of how much someone could change in even just a few months.

He sighed again, and went over to curl up in one of the soft chairs. He was tired right now, and he couldn’t do much about the Taiki thing, but maybe if he let himself take a nap he’d at least feel a little better. A nap sounded really good right now.

Chapter Text

The UlforceV-dramon known as Zeromaru was very, very old.

He has lived since the earliest days of the Digital World - back when the V-pet digimon lived there the same as any “pureblood” digimon did. Before the V-pet digimon truly became aware of their own little network of pocket dimensions - before they delved into their own culture distinctly unique.

He watched as Taichi and Neo and the Alias III and Rei all defeated Demon and helped rebuild what parts of the Digital World they had broken - and as they left, returned to their own world. He watched as he, and the other V-pet digimon, returned to that small bubbled world they hadn’t known they’d left, that space of connections and small bubbles that would grow into the V-pet digimon’s own cozy, careful little network of interconnected pocket spaces. He watched as the V-pet digimon died, much sooner than those “normal” digimon, as they were reborn over and over again with those same memories that they’d held, a continuous recollection of all their past lives.

He watched as Yggdrasil, that bit of data left behind by Neo and Sigma, grew into the World Tree that called itself a God. He watched as Yggdrasil assembled its selected group of digimon, named them the Royal Knights, determined which digimon would be made to fit those forms, and shaped its chosen thirteen. He watched as Yggdrasil made a decision based on what it determined to be the optimal amount of digimon, as the V-pet digimon retreated to their pocket network to keep themselves all alive, and he watched as the world was decimated by a virus that none could survive.

Zeromaru watched as the V-pet digimon all slowly waited, as Yggdrasil continued its motioning and scheming. None of the V-pet digimon other than a few brave souls would dare leave the pocket network. Not for a long while. V-pet digimon remembered everything - every past life, every word spoken, every sensation they’d felt. Many of them knew, quite intimately, what it felt like to die. 

(Dying of old age was not such a bother - they simply went to sleep, and woke up again. By that point, their data had stopped registering pain or the wear in their bodies, so it was easy to fall asleep and hatch as an egg again, and grow up again. Dying of pain, sickness, hunger, however? Those were the worse deaths. The X-program that Yggdrasil sent out promised agony. They had all watched it, those first few tormented souls who’d been unlucky enough to get sick dying in their own skins, ripped apart from the inside. Their V-pets, their physical cores, meant that they did not disappear into nothingness, luckily. V-pet digimon were made to endure, programmed by the hands of humans whos tenacity leeched into everything living that they touched.  

V-pet digimon died from the X-program at first, yes - but then they all latched onto that foreign code, dug into it, pulled out what good parts they could and they the rest away. Like a swarm of hungry insects, pulling that ability that let their bodies drop in place so that their programs that ran the resurrection process did not have to sort through the data of their bodies in order to record and store the data of their memories. They took the X-program and made it a part of themselves - more pain tolerance, more strength, taking their deaths and using it to become better, stronger, smarter. Those few that had died at first worked together with the whole to improve the living of all the V-pet digimon.)

Even with their wariness and caution, the V-pet digimon did not leave their network, aside from the few that were still brave or that had their own ways of avoiding too much trauma. The ones that were strong enough, fast enough, to avoid being detected and killed. So they watched, as a whole, as a little DORUmon challenged a god, grew in strength, his Ouryuumon companion providing a sharpened weapon for striking down something that had grown beyond control. 

(They had watched as the Knights came to doubt the orders of their God, who had been almost benevolent, at first. First was the Magnamon - then the Craniummon, the Sleipmon, the LordKnightmon, the UlforceV-dramon, the Dynasmon, the Gankoomon and Jesmon, the Examon, the Duftmon. A few were willing to give the benefit of the doubt at first - but as Yggdrasil stated to kill all those who did not fit its standards, indiscriminately, they, too, turned away from the God that had been corrupt all along.

The Magnamon had poked, subtly, at the Omegamon and the Dukemon. Despite their misgivings, however, the two did not come to the same realization - they concluded that Yggdrasil’s execution was bad, but were still all too willing to believe in its ideology of some digimon being better than others, as if all life was not worth living. Those two had been polluted far too much by the influence of a tainted God.)

Zeromaru watched as that DORUmon became the Alphamon that would be known for legends to come, perhaps, in a few centuries. Zeromaru watched as Yggdrasil left a dying curse on those it had claimed as its own, those Royal Knights all being killed and revived with the X-program twisting their cores. It was not the same as how the V-pet digimon had dismantled the virus and used it for their own purposes - this was malicious, painful, meant to torment. The process called Death-X-Evolution was nothing but agony, a body constantly hurting because it was not supposed to still be functioning. Zeromaru could relate to that, a bit - he remembered what the effects of Dragon Impulse did. He could never remember what using Dragon Impulse did.

Zeromaru watched as the V-pet digimon poked, a bit, explored the three new Terminals that were free of Yggdrasil’s influence at last. File Island still existed, similarly enough, as did the Server Continent - though each Terminal seemed to live in its own period of time. The various digimon all collected in their preferred habitat, and for a while things were good.

Homeostasis rose from the ashes of Yggdrasil’s data - with the void where Yggdrasil had been, the Digital World itself seemed to shiver, and another God was created. This one far more compassionate - they offered freedom from the pain to those who had death-x-evolved (the old Royal Knights refused), and they collected their own set of Royal Knights. This time those who had grown into the forms naturally - these Royal Knights would never be forced to follow the whims of a God. Examon was free to be an Emperor of her own little Empire however she wished. LordKnightmon, forgiven for his sins as a small child by the name of Arkadimon, forced to grow much too quickly. Duftmon who’s kin resided underground, where the curse that befell the Leomon species could not reach them, and who had been a friendly face from the travels to defeat Demon. Jesmon who had once been a Gabumon named Gabo, knowing Zeromaru like a good friend would. 

Zeromaru watched, and lived, that small golden age where there were few problems, the digimon traveling freely between the three servers at their own whims, Homeostasis a kind and compassionate God. Zeromaru was granted an extended lifetime, as, he suspected, was LordKnightmon (who had yet to be given an individual name). 

He watched as Homeostasis decided to sort digimon into good and evil, and as Bagramon, formerly a loyal Archangel, reacted with no thought to hearing out Homeostasis or letting themself elaborate more. To Homeostasis’ credit - they were still a new God, and had not yet gotten skilled enough at elaborating or articulating their thoughts, and had only really thrown it out as a potential classification for if needed. They had never intended to preform a genocide like the kind that Yggdrasil preformed, and had never intended to be interpreted as doing such, either. In Bagramon’s defense - the fall of Yggdrasil had only been a couple of thousands of years ago, which was a very short period of time for “normal” digimon, and so many digimon were still wary of Homeostasis ending up as the same sort of God. It was not an excuse to go to war, however - Bagramon had reacted and left no time for explanations, and had instead decided that a mass loss of life was instead necessary.

So Zeromaru watched as the world fell into chaos and disarray again, as two of the Terminals were locked from the first and that Terminal being split apart into many, many different Zones. So the Royal Knights were split apart, unable to see each other for millennia. Perhaps it was a long time in a human’s eyes - but the digital world’s time was skewed, and a digital world year was only half a day in the human world. For a V-pet digimon like Zeromaru, it was not very long - nor was it long to a “normal” digimon whos lifespan was so much longer, and who did not measure time by human years. Still, it was time spent apart, and that was still painful.

Zeromaru ended up in the human world, eventually. He didn’t exactly remember how - he remembered getting into a fight with Tactimon, one of Bagramon’s generals, and he remembered being struck across the face and chest - that blade of his sword cutting deep into his eyes, splitting them open; the blade digging into his chest, ripping through the muscles and flesh until is scraped across bone, armor cracked and broken. The pain was - honestly, the pain was fucking awful to bear, and the only thing Zeromaru ever remembered being more painful than that was when his whole body was disintegrating and falling apart from his repeated use of Dragon Impact against Arkadimon, so Zeromaru was rather disoriented when he’d stumbled to the nearest way to get free and ended up in the human world. His memory of this event was fuzzy, because his experience of it had been fuzzy - pain clouding everything, sudden lack of sight being an additional component that made determining what had happened more difficult.

Regardless, he’d ended up in the human world, stumbled around, dragged himself somewhere dark and generally quiet and thankfully big enough to keep him (hopefully) hidden. He’d later learn it was an underground sewer system, once he’d been informed by Spadamon - a small digimon who had fought beside Zeromaru and the other Royal Knights. There was also Coronamon and Lunamon - all three of those digimon were small, and had no knowledge of the human world. Zeromaru, at least, was passingly familiar from when he’d lived in his V-pet’s pocket dimension - Taichi had talked a lot to him, after all. And, Zeromaru was the biggest, and the strongest, so he had to keep them safe. He was injured, though - so Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon had to help him stay hidden and safe until he could heal.

Except. . . except, Zeromaru didn’t heal. His Ulforce wasn’t working - he wasn’t sure if it was a lack of joy (no, it couldn’t be that, he still remembered all of those wonderful quiet peaceful times spent with Dawndove, his husband - still remembered all those wonderful days of youth where Taichi had given him love and affection as a small child), or perhaps an effect of Tactimon’s blade. Whatever the cause, his injuries did not heal. Not how they should have, would have, at least. Anything that healed was slow, and for the first few months it was all that Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon could do to keep Zeromaru’s wounds from being infected. His armor had long since been removed - it was heavy, and cumbersome, and damaged besides, making it difficult to get to the wounds. Better to remove it, and any pieces of the metal and fabric that may have gotten caught in the injuries, to better help Zeromaru what bit that he could be helped.

Zeromaru had gone out of one fever and into another one for the first month. When that was done and over with, he was weak, still under immense pain, and even if he did not need to eat, because of Homeostasis’ gift that prevented him from dying then and there, he still remembered all too clearly what hunger and a slow starvation had felt like. (For once, his habit of hoarding food and keeping it carefully preserved and stored in his belly pouch had come in useful - he had enough food to last the three of them for about three months if they didn’t gather anything else.)

That was how it had ended up being. Zeromaru, kept in the dark where no one could get to him and hurt him, recovering from his injuries slowly and carefully. Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon were all a blessing during this time - they didn’t ask anything of Zeromaru but to be easy on himself and not make the wounds break open again. This wasn’t too hard to do- though it did leave Zeromaru with a lot of time to do nothing but think.

(Sometimes, Zeromaru thought about Taichi. He thought he could smell or hear Taichi around, almost - but no, Taichi never came. Did Taichi know that Zeromaru was there? Did he blame Zeromaru for not being good enough? Did Taichi even know about anything that was happening? His heart sang mine mine mine but Taichi never appeared, and Zeromaru’s wants were left wanting. A dragon missing part of its hoard.)

Zeromaru heard rumors, stories, little bits of information, all from the V-pet digimon’s pocket network. He wasn’t disconnected from them - probably more connected than he’d ever been, even when he couldn’t really enter the network anymore, now that his data was in the same plane as his physical core - the plastic V-pet that Taichi still had somewhere. That was how he kept himself sane, all alone for those months aside from Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon. That was also how he’d heard rumors of Kudou Taiki, the general of Xros Heart, and of Amano Nene, the general of Twilight, and of Aonuma Kiriha, the general of Blue Flare. Those names didn’t mean much to Zeromaru at first, but he paid attention. It wasn’t like he could do too much else, anyways.

Eventually, Zeromaru got curious, and asked about them, wanting to know more than just the rumors or stories. The answers were mostly the same - these three children were not quite human, not quite digimon, something in-between, with an ability that allowed them to merge digimon in a way that was not jogress, and allowed them to be efficient generals of war. Even if some of these children were coping with it better than others. Aonuma Kiriha, cold to outsiders but soft to his digimon, accepting V-pet digimon and “regular” digimon and anyone who wanted to fight with him, but never blaming anyone who chose not to go. Amano Nene, crafty and always three plans ahead of everything, detached from her small but loyal army even as the fights wore on. Kudou Taiki, more kind-hearted and hot-blooded than the rest of them, seeming driven by some force that made him push himself more and more and more, jagged around the edges even if he didn’t realize it. (And the human companions, as well - Tsurugi Zenjirou, the one clinging to the human world’s rules the most, and Hinomoto Akari, the one who followed Taiki like a sister and who wrote down invisible words onto her skin. Amano Kotone, who slept, a power too strong for her body to handle, kept watch over carefully by Nene.)

Zeromaru is surprised to learn that most of the information that the others tell him comes from one source - a small V-mon who’s name is V.V.. The dragon feels - off, somehow, some edge bleeding into his data. In the pocket network it is hard to truly distinguished between your data and that of your closest neighbor, but V.V.’s data signature is so wholly unique, sea breeze mixing in with petrichor and the smell of fresh watermelon and the edge of something red bleeding into that gold sheen his data carries. It’s odd - whatever it is mixing into his data, it’s something decidedly not digimon or human, just-enough-to-be-inhuman, and V.V. gives no answers unless they are vague ones. No one bothers to ask more than that, because respect is something the V-pet digimon care for more than they do about sating their curiosity, but it’s still odd . The more Zeromaru thinks about it, though, the more it makes sense - whatever V.V.’s odd data is, it must make collecting information on the human generals easier for them. That not-quite-humanness of theirs clashes with V.V.’s own not-quite-human edges, so he says, and that makes him better aware of where they are and what they’re doing.

Zeromaru is dozing on a day that may as well be the same as any other, when a message rings its way through the networks.

[ Kudou and his army are in the Human World. Aonuma and his army are in the Human World. ]

Now that was odd. How’d they get into the human world? Zeromaru hadn’t been aware of any digimon in the human world other than himself and his three small digimon that were his hoard - were the two children using some method to keep their digimon hidden so as to avoid panic? It would make sense, definitely, though Zeromaru did wish he could know more. Still, as far as Zeromaru knew, there weren’t any consistent portals between the human world and digital worlds, so how the small group ended up in the human world in the first place was still a bit of a mystery.

As it turned out, despite his predictions, Zeromaru didn’t have to get up and go searching for them - they found him. (Well, they found Spadamon, who took the children to him, but that was close enough.)

Zeromaru, for some reason, was surprised that they were so small. He really shouldn’t have been, considering he was much bigger than he had been when he was a V-dramon, and his V-dramon form was about the same size as Taichi, but - listen, it had been a while, okay? Point was, they were all small - the girl and the boy and that one with the goggles that Zeromaru didn’t want to question the gender of because he didn’t know how weird eldritch people worked and he didn’t want to be rude. (Eldritch people were probably similar enough to humans, but it was still better not to assume things.)

As far as Zeromaru could tell, they were all staring at him. Maybe they were making some funny expressions, but alas, Zeromaru couldn’t see any of them. Not for the first time, he cursed Tactimon and that gods-damned sword very - creatively in his head.

“If you’re just going to stare,” he began, tone kept light and hopefully not one that would frighten them, “then I’m afraid that I won’t be able to do anything about what your faces look like, because I can’t see them.” it was nothing but the truth, of course. He couldn’t react to faces that he couldn’t see. Even if everyone acted like he should (or - everyone who wasn’t a part of his hoard. Spadamon, Lunamon, and Coronamon. Any outsider digimon that had met with him when Zeromaru had closed his eyes had assumed Zeromaru would react anyways, nevermind the fact that he closed his eyes so as to not have to react to things like faces).

“What do you mean?” Asked the Eldritch One. 

Zeromaru motioned to around where his eyes were (he would have tapped them, really, but he still wasn’t confident that he could do that without accidentally opening those mostly-scabbed-over wounds again ). “See these? These go through my eyes. I can’t see. Couldn’t do much but lie in pain for a few months, really,” he added on, “because of the one who did this to me. His sword disabled my healing ability, so now I have to heal the slow way and that means these will all scar.”

To their credit, none of the three children seemed to have any reaction to that. That Zeromaru could see at least.

The Girl spoke up. “Um. . . are you one of the Royal Knights?”

Ah! Someone who knew things! “Yes, I am.” he bowed his head in what was hopefully her direction. Even if he couldn’t move his upper body too much yet, he could move his neck. “I am the UlforceV-dramon of Homeostasis’ set of Royal Knights. You three are members of the. . . Xros Heart Army, right?” He hoped so. The Eldritch One was probably Kudou Taiki, since he (he? Did eldritch people have genders? Zeromaru really didn’t want to be rude but it’d probably be awkward to ask-) was the only one with other humans, so. Probably Kudou Taiki.

“We heard from someone that you were looking for us. Or, the Royal Knights in general I guess.” Spoke the Girl (Hinomoto . . . Akane? No, Akari, right?). 

“Oh?” Who’d have known about the Royal Knights that would tell the children about it? If Zeromaru’s sense of time was right it’d have been several months, so at least several decades in the digital world, which means that most digimon should have only known rumors.

“He didn’t say more than that.” Hinomoto admitted. “He just kind of showed up, said some cryptics, and left, with me having not slept the entire night.”

That did sound familiar . . . oh! He’s got it! “You met V.V.-kun!” Zeromaru said. “That’s so fun! No wonder he knows the most about you out of all the rest of the Network!”

He shook his head before any of them could really react to that. “That’s not important right now. Do you need me? Can I be of assistance?”

Kudou Taiki stepped forward. “We were hoping that you could help us defeat Bagramon.” He said. “Do you know what’s going on with all that?”

Ah. That . “Several centuries ago, Homeostasis made a prophecy.” He began, voice much more somber than it had been.

“What-” Starts the third child, but Zeromaru continues. They need to know this.

“Homeostasis predicted that the world would be felled by a great evil - a red and black dragon. The Royal Knights were tasked with finding this evil and defeating it before it could tear apart the digital world as we knew it. At first,” he says, hands resting in his lap, wings draped as both a cape, curtains, and wings themself, “we considered that it might be Leviamon. But Leviamon was slumbering in the Dark Area without a care, and had no wish to get involved in anything. 

“Next we considered that it might have been Belphemon, or one of the other Seven Demon Lords. But we checked on them as well, and there was no sign of any great evil - they were all contained and kept prisoner in the Dark Area. 

“We were at a loss for what to do.” Zeromaru admitted. “It was then that Homeostasis decreed that any digimon that had been of an ‘evil’ species would be killed. Many were afraid at these words - it reminded them of the god we had before Homeostasis was born, though I’m not going to speak of that false god. All you need to know about that one is that its actions caused digimon to panic because of how similar Homeostasis’ words were to that one’s previous actions. What Homeostasis meant was that we would find any digimon who were cruel or malicious, and kill them for the safety of others. What Bagramon heard was that any digimon that didn’t look like the stereotypical ‘light’ species would be killed indiscriminately, even if they were a good person. So he started a war over it, and I got injured in a fight, and now I’m here.” he shrugs with one shoulder, the top of the wing brushing against the ceiling of the sewers. “I could go into more detail, but I don’t want to elaborate on how painful that was. I’m sure you can all guess.”

He stretched his two wings out as far as he could in those cramped spaces, then folded them back in close to his body. “I’m willing to help you, so long as you let me act on my own. I don’t want to join your army - there’s already another group that I’ve sworn allegiance to.”

“We wouldn’t ask you to do that.” Kudou hurriedly assured. “But your help would be greatly appreciated.”

Zeromaru nodded again.

The Boy (probably Tsurugi Zenjirou?) spoke up. “So, all we need to do is get UlforceV-dramon-san in the Xros Loader and we can figure out how to get back to the digital world, right?”

Zeromaru choked. “ What ?” his head snapped over to where Tsurugi probably was standing. “I’m not getting in that thing !” 

“What’s wrong with the Xros Loader?” Kudou said. It almost sounded like a pout.

“I have my own mechanical device to go sit in, thanks!” Zeromaru protested. “I’m not gonna try to force myself into some little box when my own core is still in this dimension!”

It was Hinomoto who actually put it together - smart girl. “Are you a V-pet digimon, UlforceV-dramon-san?”

Zeromaru nodded. “My tamer is around here somewhere. I can feel my core is near, and Taichi’s got that weird citrus-y smell that never leaves.”

“Taichi?” Kudou asks.

“My Tamer.” Zeromaru clarifies. “His name is Yagami Taichi. If you can, could you find him and bring him here? Tell him Zeromaru wants to see him, and lead him here if you can. I’d go myself, but -” he motions to his whole self “- I kind of can’t, as I’m sure you can tell.”

Hinomoto is the one who steps forward and bows. Deeper than Zeromaru would have expected - he doesn’t think he deserves that much respect, right? It’s probably because he’s a Royal Knight. “We’ll find Yagami Taichi-san for you, Zeromaru-san.” 

As the three turn away to leave, Hinomoto calls out one more time - “and that’s kind of a dumb pun with both of your names!”

Zeromaru grins. Looks like at least one of those kids has a sense of humor.

He’s dozing when some movement makes his senses snap back to awareness. Footsteps, light but not gentle, and three different smells of three different people. One that’s flowering bluebells, one that’s of hibiscus and honeydew watermelon, and one that’s of watermelon and rain. 

“Hello.” One of them states. The watermelon one. Her voice is high-pitched, and clear. He feels like he’s heard it before. “You’re Zeromaru-san, right?” 

Zeromaru nods. “I am. I’m afraid I’m not as familiar with you three as you seem to be with me.”

Hibiscus-honeydew makes a noise. “I am Kuga Yuuya.” He introduces. “My sibling, the one you just spoke to, is Shinomiya Rina. Our other companion is Aonuma Kiriha.”

Aonuma Kiriha sounds familiar - a quick root through his memory reminds Zeromaru. “You’re the general of the Blue Flare army. Right?”

Aonuma Kiriha - the bluebells smell - nods his head. (Zeromaru assumes so, at elast.) “That’s correct.”

“Does your army have a leader?” Zeromaru asks, leaning forwards a bit. His back hurts from leaning against the walls so much, so hopefully this will help? “I know that Kudou Taiki is the general for Xros Heart, and that Shoutmon that’s with him is the leader, and I know that Amano Nene is the general of Twilight and her army’s leader is their DarkKnightmon. What about your army?”

A beat.

“How do you know all of this, Zeromaru-san?” Asks Aonuma. 

“V.V.-kun told me.” Zeromaru answers. “He’s been chatting with anyone in the pocket network that will listen.”

Shinomiya perks up. “Oh, you’ve met my otouto -? Of course you have, what am I saying, I’ve literally seen the v-pet pocket network through his eyes-” she trails off into a quieter, annoyed-sounding mutter at herself. She straightens, shakes her head, and steps forwards again. “Technically,” she begins, “I’m the leader, because Kiriha-kun decided he’d answer to me above everyone else. But I can’t really lead except by going through V.V., ‘cause our minds are connected, so I guess you could say that V.V. is the leader.”

Zeromaru hums. “Do you know how that mental connection works?”

“Nope!” The girls says cheerfully. “We’re pretty sure my Decode does something to amplify it, but we don’t know how it works. It’s probably the Balancing God’s fault. Homeostasis, or a version of them at least.”

“You seem to trust me an awful lot, to tell me all this.” Zeromaru points out, candidly. 

Shinomiya shrugs. “Well, you’re the oldest digimon I know who isn’t a god, and this world’s Homeostasis trusts you. Also, Taichi-sensei trusts you, and Taichi-sensei is a good person, and Neo-sensei says you saved his life even when Neo-sensei was mean to you, so I figure you’re trustworthy.” A pause. “Also I don’t have any real reason not to tell you this. You’re friends with V.V. already anyways.”

That was a lot all at once, but there was something Zeromaru latched onto in particular. “‘Taichi-sensei’? You know Taichi?” If Zeromaru was vibrating a little, no one mentioned it. It was a V-mon line thing (probably).

“Taichi-sensei is our teacher.” Kuga answered, calmly. “Originally he was hired to teach Rina and I Russian, but we’d bothered our brother, Niko, to teach us that instead, so Taichi-sensei taught us French instead. Then Rina and I decided we wanted to learn more languages, so now he just teaches us whatever languages we ask, as long as he can get a chance to learn the languages first. It’s very entertaining to see him and Niko argue over whether something is or isn’t correct in Russian.”

“Oh.” Zeromaru said, softly. “So he hasn’t been avoiding me, and just was busy?”

“I didn’t know if you wanted to see me or not.” Taichi admitted, stepping into the particular room of the sewers that they all were in.

Zeromaru’s head snapped around to face where Taichi was. “ Taichi .”

It was Taichi. It was Taichi - Zeromaru’s Taichi, his partner. There, stepping forwards, and Zeromaru’s heart sang mine mine mine .

Taichi stepped forwards again, a bit hesitantly. “Hi, Zeromaru. Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.” A longer pause, no one daring to speak up (even as Kudou was almost certainly looking warily at Aonuma, just as Aonuma must have been doing the same). Zeromaru could hear the moment that Taichi inhaled sharply, his heartrate speeding up. “Zero, what- what happened? Where did all those scars come from? Who hurt you?!”

A flash of rage reared its head, tearing through Zeromaru’s code - a memory of a past time, when anger was necessary. Of course Taichi asks now , the first time he’s shown up in years, rather than any of the other times when he could have visited. But - no, no. It’s not Taichi's fault. They’ve both grown up. Taichi isn’t Zeromaru’s anymore, not the way he was. They’re partners, yes, but they no longer need to depend on each other to survive. They can live apart. Have lived apart. Zeromaru relaxed from where he’d tensed up.

Zeromaru huffed, and, unhurriedly, slowly enough to avoid reopening any wounds, crawled his way across the floor (on all fours the way he might have done when he was V-dramon and was carrying Taichi on his back) until he could sit down and have Taichi be right there next to him. “I got in a war.” he answered, simply. “My enemy was strong, and his sword was able to disable my Ulforce, so I had to heal naturally. I drifted in and out of a fever for the first few months here, and it’s been a bit painful healing for these past six or so months. I still can’t see, and I don’t think I’ll be able to until I die and get reborn,” he admits, “but I’m doing better now, at least.”

Taichi’s heart rate spiked again.

“I’m doing better!” Zeromaru repeated again, a bit frantically. “It’s okay, Taichi!”

“It’s not, though!” Taichi said, sounding - wow, he sounded really upset. He - he sounded as upset as he had when Zeromaru’s data had fallen apart as AeroV-dramon, before his evolution to UlforceV-dramon meant that he didn’t die.

“It’s okay, Taichi.” Zeromaru repeated, again, even softer and gentler than he had said it before, as if the gentleness would cut away all that rage never-forgotten, carried from his youth to the rest of his life. “I’m not dead. I still have all my other senses, and I hurt Tactimon pretty bad, and I gave enough time for the rest of the Royal Knights to get away safely.” Well, except for Omegamon-san, but he’d already given his life in a previous battle at that point .

Oh, everyone smelled more upset now. Had he said that aloud? Hmm. A shame, really. Zeromaru didn’t like making people upset.

“How many Royal Knights have died because of Bagramon’s war, Zeromaru-san?” asked Kuga.

“Only Omegamon-san.” Zeromaru replied. “I took the worst injures out of everyone else.” His heard swiveled towards Kudou, and that Shoutmon that had been standing beside the boy for some while. “You remind me of Omegamon-san, partially, Shoutmon-san. Not all the way,” he clarified, “but. . . part of the way. Halfway, maybe. You’ve got a similar aura to him, I suppose.”

“Thank. . . you?” The dragon said, a bit awkwardly. Ah, social awkwardness. Zeromaru wished he didn’t know that feeling.

Zeromaru didn’t say anything after that, and no one seemed willing to really speak up and break the awkward silence that had descended upon them, so for about twenty minutes it was just. . .silent. And awkward.

Then Spadamon came scrambling around the corner, Lunamon and Coronamon behind him carrying something. “UlforceV-dramon-sama!” Spadamon said. “It’s dinner time. Are you going to eat?”

“Have you three eaten yet?” Zeromaru asked, instead of answering. “I don’t want any of you to go hungry.”

All three of them pouted at him. Zeromaru knew this, because he remembered exactly what their body language was like when they did it, ever since he’d been given them as apprentices to look after some three years ago. (Now, these three - these three were his . Mine mine mine sang his heart, and Zeromaru refused to budge on this. They were his apprentices, his to watch over, his hoard - Zeromaru’s, and no one else's.)

“If I may,” Kuga spoke up, “if we head to my father’s company’s building, we would be able to order large amounts of food, as well as having a safer place to go to while we attempt to find a way to travel back to the digital world. Either to finish the war there, or to at least send the digimon back to their home plane.”

“Or to test out the Vitium program that Niko’s dad and Mirei-san are working on?” Shinomiya piped up. “If they get the program running, that’d make a lot of things more efficient.”

Kuga shrugged. “Perhaps. Regardless - it is acceptable to regroup at the GIGO building? Zeromaru-san,” and Zeromau’s ears perked up to listen, even if he was still leaning his head onto Taichi’s shoulders, “if possible, might I suggest that you rest in your V-pet for the travel, until we’re at a location that would be big enough for you to fit in? I can’t promise about your three. . .”

“Apprentices.” Zeromaru supplied.

“I can’t promise about your three apprentices, but it might be easier to hide them and claim they’re plushies or such, if we move quickly.” Kuga continued. “It would be better to be in a location that’s less cluttered and has more available resources than this area.”

Zeromaru shrugged. “That’s fine by me.” He raised his head some, to hopefully look Taichi in the eyes (though he probably wasn’t doing that overly well). “Do you have my V-pet on-hand?”

“Of course I do.” Taichi said, and the rustling of fabric let Zeromaru know he was reaching into a pocket. “I’ve kept it with me ever since I got back from saving the digital world from Demon.”

Ah. That small piece of yellow plastic. His core, on the physical plane.

There was the sound of all the various parties present agreeing to Kuga’s plan - Zeromaru listened enough to be sure it was safe enough, before he tipped forwards further, pressing his face into the plastic of the v-pet and letting himself fall into that pocket part of the network that was his and his alone.

It was always a bit of an odd experience, being in that pocket of space, compared to more concrete worlds like the digital world or the human world. Where space did not exist, a dark gray surrounding that enveloped everything. Small pinpricks of light from the other small pockets of space that held a V-pet digimon that was not Zeromaru. Small, only-rarely-visible tunnels made of a lack of light, connections made stronger as each V-pet digimon was born and added to a conversation.

It was comfortably warm, in the pocket space - the whispers of all of the others of Zeromaru’s species flitting in and out of earshot. Wavering the way a tide might, a gentle sound lulling those to sleep. Promising a place to rest. A place to be safe.

Predictably, there was an uproar as soon as Zeromaru settled himself firmly into his own pocket. Thousands of voices, all asking what had happened, if he was okay, why he was entering the network fully instead of only enough to get information like all the previous times, and all you’d expect. Zeromaru had to take a few moments to reassure them that no, he was fine, he was just in a position to be safe enough to enter the network fully.

[ Zeromaru rests? He visits ?] came a question from Fluffkins.

[ I’m visiting for now .] He sent, in small packets of data - not enough for memories, just a vague impression, brief words spoken in his own voice. A small piece of his self. [ Taichi is bringing me to the safe medicine nest .]

[ Laboratory? ] offered another, who’d been listening. [ The place where Yuuya and Rina rest .] Ah, it was Black.

[ Laboratory. ] Zeromaru confirmed. [We’re making portals. Making plans. I will need rest. I am too injured to move alone .]

[ Did you see Rina? ] Asked V.V., that rain and watermelon scent intertwined into any of his messages. [Give a memory transfer, please please ?]

Zeromaru focused on those memories - the girl smelling of rain and watermelons, the words she’d said, any and all sensory input related to her, those soft words with the high-pitched voice - and sent it to the V-mon with gold eyes.

[ Thank you thank you for the gift .] A bit of a smile, a bit of a happy wiggle - little tidbits that found their way into the sent messages whether intentional or not. [ I have a gift for Zeromaru. ]

[ A gift ?]

[A gift. ] V.V. said again, adding a bundle of memories -

Taichi standing next to Zeromaru, his brown hair no less wild and untamed than it had been as a child, his eyes alight with some softness as he pet the top of Zeromaru’s head, gently. Taichi’s face, baby fat from youth long gone but no less kind or handsome. Taichi’s - still somewhat bad sense of fashion, with the clashing colors he wore, which still was another thing that hadn’t changed. A sadness that was visible. (With experience, Zeromaru pushed down the rage that rose at the knowledge that Taichi had grown up without him . It was fine. They had different lives, and they both had different responsibilities now.)

[ A gift .] V.V. repeated. [ Zeromaru let Vivi see Rina, so Vivi lets Zeromaru see Taichi. A fair trade. ]

[A fair trade .] Zeromaru agreed, and his digital voice only wavered a little.

He was given the sight of a clean, white laboratory space from V.V. when Taichi and the others had arrived at GIGO’s building, in the room that they’d probably decided to stay in for the time being. [ Rina says it’s time to come out .] Came the accompanying message.

Exiting the pocket network was the same as entering - a feeling of something rushing past his ears and limbs, a squeeze like trying to put on clothes a size too small, and then a pop that was felt and not heard - and then he was in the physical world again.

It smelled like chemicals in that room. Chemicals and something beginning to decay. Hmm. Zeromaru didn’t like that very much.

There were also more people than there had been before. The group that Zeromaru had been expecting - Aonuma Kiriha, Kudou Taiki, Hinomoto Akari, Tsurugi Zenjirou, Kuga Yuuya, Shinomiya Rina, and Yagami Taichi, as well as the rest of the Blue Flare army and the Xros Heart army hidden away in those devices - but there were also others. One Fujimoto Hideo, one Gotojuki Mari, one Enemoto Sadaaki (commonly known as Sigma), one Saiba Rei, and one Saiba Neo. The Alias III and the two Saiba siblings.

There was also an adult that Zeromaru was not familiar with, so he focused his attention on her for the time being. She smelled like that thing that was beginning to decay - sweet almost to the point of being nauseating, like something light and airy and dark and heavy all at once. 

“Hello, everyone.” Zeromaru greeted, generally, because it would be rude not to. “Have we decided what to do yet?”

“We’re ordering food for everyone.” Informed that woman that Zeromaru didn’t know. “We’re used to Rina-san’s appetite enough to be familiar with areas that deliver large amounts of food, so it shouldn’t take a large amount of additional time to get food for everyone gathered here, human, digimon, or otherwise.”

She seemed like she was considering saying something else, but at the one end of the room, Neo stood and called everyone to attention, all heads turning to look at him (or look in his general direction, in Zeromaru’s case). “Everyone,” he began, and then motioned to the side. “There is now food. Eat before it’s gone, because it’s going to be gone with how many of us are here right now.”

Oh, Zeromaru hadn’t been paying attention enough it seemed. He wasn’t able to notice when the food had gotten there, so not paying enough attention. (It was a little funny to hear Rei jab her elbow into Neo’s side. Even after these years they were still the same - Neo being kind of rude and Rei poking him to get him to stop, ineffectually.)

Zeromaru wouldn’t admit how much he’d missed a proper meal like this. Oh, Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon had all gotten what food they could while the four of them were hiding and healing in the sewers, but that was only a small bit of food that they had to share between four people, supplemented by Zeromaru’s food hoard that ran dry soon enough. With the food in front of him now - takeout from at least a dozen different places, with Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon all clustered around Zeromaru in case he needed help with any utensils or such - it seemed like the best thing Zeromaru had ever eaten.

The others were all eating their own meals of course, but Zeromaru was fairly confident that he, Spadamon, Lunamon, and Coronamon all ate like they were starving (which, well. . . they kind of were , really). Regardless, after everyone had eaten their fills, the larger group of people split back into smaller chunks, focusing on figuring out how to do whatever it was they were doing (either finding an existing way into the digital world or building a new one - Zeromaru was too well-trained of a Royal Knight too pay that little attention to his surroundings). 

The woman from before introduced herself as Mikagura Mirei, Kudou and his two friends introduced themselves to Taichi, Neo, and the Alias III, and vice versa, and another taller man with heavier steps joined them at around the half-hour mark to add to the discussion of using an experimental data-transfer program to get access to the digital world. It was probably very exciting to people who knew what those big fancy words being thrown around meant, or to people who weren't still huritng a lot because they had large wounds that had been partially pulled open by your movements, even if you hadn't moved a kitty in the first place.

"Ah - Zero-san, are you alright? Are your injuries causing you any trouble? Taichi mentioned that you said your Ulforce doesn't work currently?" Of all people, Zeromaru was almost surprised it was Neo speaking up and noticing it first. Then again, he had wanted to bed a doctor when Zeromaru had last seen them man, as a small boy, those twelve years ago. 

Zeromaru made a slight shrugging motion (a full shrug would pull at the bandages on the gash along his chest, and Lunamon had worked too hard on those for Zeromaru to willingly mess them up again). “They’re not causing too much of an issue.” He answered, somewhat vaguely. “I don’t think there’s much that can really be done at this point other than just letting them heal slowly.”

Neo let out a low hum, tapping his fingers against the sides of his thighs in a pattern that made Zeromaru think the man wasn’t doing it intentionally. “Well, maybe. But it’s also possible that there is something I can help with. I at least have antiseptic and various painkillers to help you out, not to mention clean bandages.”

Well. Now that he thought about it, Zeromaru admitted that the idea of having clean bandages and painkillers was an appealing one. "Alright, I'll let you do what you can." Zeromaru agreed. "But please don't waste anything on trying to heal what can't be helped."

Neo was quiet for a few moments, and still - Zeromaru wondered if he was being given a Look by the blonde man. If he was, then he wouldn't be able to see it anyways, so Zeromaru just assumed he wasn't being given a look. It didn't really matter anyways - Neo got up soon after and went to grab something which was quickly revealed to be a medical kit once he opened the box up.

Some bandages, some antiseptic on the open wounds before they were carefully wrapped - that, and nothing else. Neo made some suggestion of an X-ray, checking the bones, but Zeromaru was far too tired to deal with that at the moment. He didn’t want to be a bother, and he was tired - he doubted he’d fit in an X-ray anyways, being as large a dragon as he was.

Zeromaru sat, over on one side of the wall, and listened. Shinomiya was talking with Neo and Taichi. Sigma, Mari, and Hideto were all discussing something with that woman, Mikagura, while Kudou, Hinomoto, Tsurugi, and Aonuma all discussed something else a little bit away from the gathering of adults. 

Surprisingly, it was Kuga who was closest to Zeromaru at the moment, sitting at the computer that was a few centimeters away from where Zeromaru had chosen to rest. Despite the noise of all the people in the room, it was still easy enough to overhear what the boy was saying. Well. Baby-talking, really. To one of the programs on the computer, for some reason. .  .? Well, it didn’t matter much. Kuga seemed content with baby-talking whatever it was he was talking to (probably a program - Zeromaru heard the name “Vitium” pop up once or twice), and Zeromaru himself was content to rest for a while.

He woke back up from his dozing when there was a sudden explosion of noise.

What -? Oh. There were more people here. 

Two of them, if Zeromaru’s senses were correct - one smelled like aster flowers, and the other smelled of edelweiss. 

“Who are the new people in the room?” Zeromaru asked, softly, to Kuga, who remained nearby.

“Amano Kotone and Amano Nene.” The boy answered. “Why do you ask?”

Zeromaru shrugged. “Best to know, just in case.”

Kotone herself - or, the one Zeromaru would assume was Kotone, the one who smelled like aster flowers - came waddling up to Zeromaru soon after, in the way that small children would waddle around. “You look like you need huggings.” She told him, very matter-of-fact.

“Maybe I do.” Zeromaru agreed. “What would you do?”

The little girl was silent for a few moments. “I’m gonna hug you real lots!” She decided, reaching forwards to hug around Zeromaru’s waist as best as her tiny arms could reach. It was nice. She was so, so tiny, and trying her best. How wonderful, tiny human children were. (If Zeromaru leaned into the hug, while Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon all joined in, and if Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon all piled into Zeromaru's belly pouch to rest in when Kotone eventually left, well - it was a little moment that could stay a fondly remembered one for now.)

Zeromaru woke up, from a true sleep this time, to the hum or energy and crackling of static across his fur and skin. Little sparks of electricity, dancing from strand of fur to strand of fur, making his skin tingle. The hum of power droned in the background, steady and unwavering.

Zeromaru inhaled, slowly, and let out an even slower breath. It seemed like there were less people there than before - the scents were all somewhat faded, stale like the lingering remnant of someone who once was there but hadn’t been for a while. The scents that were the strongest - the ones still in the room, most likely - were the scents of red spider lilies, old ink, and something wooden like a spoon that never quite lost the smells of all the soups it had been used to cook.

They faintest sound of someone moving about rewashed Zeromaru's ears. Hmm. Has something give wrong while Zeromaru was asleep?

"Ah," came a voice, from where the doorway was. "I see you're awake, Zeromaru-san."

Zeromaru yawned in response. "Did I miss anything important?"

The voice hummed. "The batteries have all gone down, likely due to whatever network issue is going on with that was of yours." they explained. "Or backup servers are still holding, but there's a lot of strain since they were never meant to be primary servers, and certainly not for this many people at once. So we're working to get our primary servers back up that's why we've power the beta version of the Vitium program - it's not strong enough to actually transport anyone anywhere while there's all the network congestion, but it does generate an energy of its own, which is good fit getting out servers online."

A pause. "Ah - I didn't mean to ramble to you, Zeromaru-san." They said, hurriedly. "please forgive me."

"It's no worry at all!" Zeromaru reassured them. "I haven't gotten to talk to many other people until recently. Learning more about current events is also a very useful thing as well." He shifted, stretching his kind and wings slightly. 

The person exhaled, moving to run a hand through their hair (and Zeromaru would know what that sounded like - he’d heard Dawndove do it often enough, in the past). “Still. We’re getting the network online, so once we get it stabilized we’ll be able to open a portal to send you back to your digital world - hopefully enough, at least.” They bowed at him, then moved away.

Well. It seemed Zeromaru would have to wait a bit, then. At least I’ll have more time to rest , he mused to himself. Bagramon couldn’t defeat himself, after all.

With nothing else to do - Zeromaru went back to sleep. There were battles to be fought, soon, and rest to be had. Zeromaru had finally found somewhere that was safe , where he could fully rest instead of being on alert, and the pain of his many still-healing wounds was duller and duller each day. Spadamon and Lunamon and Coronamon were all asleep, curled up inside of Zeromaru’s belly pouch, and he couldn’t stop some instinctual part of him from crooning in a possessive sort of joy, that his his his hoard his children his were there and safe near him. 

With a final small yawn, the Royal Knight turned over and tucked his head into the shoulder of his wing. Older things needed sleep, and, well. The UlforceV-dramon known as Zeromaru was very, very old.

Goodnight . He thought, drowsily, though he knew that Coronamon, Lunamon, nor Spadamon could hear him. We’ll be home by tomorrow. I promise .

Chapter Text

It ends with a dragon, and his beloved leopard, and four children who cannot be called human, and three humans that tag along anyways, refusing to be left behind.

It ends with shatter dream shards pulling themselves together out of sheer will, two childhood friends reunited again. 

It ends with two humans, one known and one not-yet-known, who were not ever expecting this but were pulled along regardless. 

It ends with a sister, and her younger sibling that she treats as her own most precious thing. 

It ends with a boy whos heart lies in the hands of two twins that are star-touched by some higher thing, and it ends with a boy who casts aside his blood kin for those siblings made by his own choice. 

It ends with a dragon, impossibly old, and his leopard, just as old, fighting alongside him throughout the centuries, throughout the lives, since the time when individual names were common for monsters before this age of going only by your species name.

It ends with shattering synapses, screamed words, battle wrought in iron and blood. 

It ends with Tactimon, Lilithmon, Blastmon, all dead, all dying with a fight. 

It ends with a twisting pull of heartstrings and fate and the Fatestrings tugged upon by a god the way a marionette’s strings are manipulated ever-so-carefully - it ends with Bagramon, disgraced by his assumptions, dead by his own arrogance, that he would be the one to save the world from a god’s tyranny.

It ends with the older generation of warriors, heroes, children - handing to the next, saying “this is no longer our journey, but we wish you luck, and we offer all the aid we can”.

It ends with a dragon and girl (or girl and dragon), split in body and yet whole in mind, the veil between worlds keeping them apart like the glass or a mirror.

It ends with a tsuchinoko, black with blue and red, curling around itself as if the universe will answer its endless question if it can just find the right question to ask.

It ends with networks torn and repaired, a portal made functional - a coding error, a body lost, the death of something smelling far too much like rot to those who knew how to sense Between the world.

It ends with the Xros Heart army, the Twilight army, the Blue Flare army - the Royal Knights, both Homeostasis’ fierce warriors and those god-cursed thirteen that had been loyal to Yggdrasil, once.

It ends with a splitting scream, a snarling sob, a whimpered apology.

It starts with Kudou Taiki, and Sano Tatsuya.