Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By this point, he thinks everyone in the digital world knows his name – or at least his occupation, so he's surprised and somewhat insulted to find this girl calling him "Fenrir" instead.

He's also surprised to find a human in the digital world five years after the gate closed, but that's another matter entirely. That one's more of a happy sort of surprise, because it might mean he can see his family again, and his friends, and they can all see their partners again and he knows they've been missing their human friends quite thoroughly, because he'd caught Lalamon singing that lullaby of Yoshino's just two days before. Except this girl looks only slightly older than his little sister and has a head of blonde hair and a black dress that both remind him of the biohybrid Nanami, but who's otherwise unfamiliar. Then again, two stark similarities with Nanami is more than enough. 'Who are you?' he asks her.

'Alice McCoy,' is the response, crisp but not wholly clear. There's an accent in there, but his English is pretty terrible so he doesn't know whether that's American or British or even an English-speaking country accent. 'I'm a researcher.'

And that comments reminds him both Nanami again, and Thomas. He'll take the similarities to Thomas because at least Thomas is his best friend and not the girl who tried to feed him to the snakes. Not that he can really blame her for that. Kurata messed up a lot of people, after all, but ultimately he doesn't know much about Nanami except for those battles when they'd been on opposing sides, and his figurative blades were crossing with Kouki more often than not. Kouki, he understood a little better as a result. The need to prove himself. The same force, except twisted, that had driven the rivalry between him and Thomas as well.

He sighs and shakes his head. The upcoming anniversary has him feeling nostalgic, though it's not quite holding the candles to the first. That had been a sledgehammer to his ribs. But that doesn't mean he regrets his choice. The digital world needs him. And Agumon is here and he needs Agumon.

And all he did in the human world was pick fights and bug his little sister anyway. It's just the people. His family. His friends. Miniature Nanami's aren't really either of those, but it's an abnormality anyway. 'There shouldn't be any other humans here.'

'There aren't,' says the girl pleasantly. 'Only ghosts that linger, and Fenrir.'

And that's the second time he hears the name "Fenrir", but he's yet to understand she means it to be a reference to him. And he's unfamiliar with the name as well – aside from the fact that it has something to do with a wolf – and so he asks. 'Who's Fenrir?'

'You.' And she smiles at him, as though there's an unspoken "silly" attached at the end of it. And this time, he's reminded of his mother, when he's asked a question whose answer he can work out himself with a bit of thinking.

But he can't work this one out, and the girl is definitely too young to be patronising him. 'Me?' he repeated. 'My name's Marcus. Marcus Daimon.' He puffs out his chest. 'The ultimate keeper of the peace, you know.'

'I know,' she replies. 'I've heard of you. But before a peace-keeper, you're Fenrir.'

And that still makes no sense to him.

She sees that this time, or maybe she saw that earlier but just decides to take pity on him now. 'Do you know the legend?'

'Wolves get their own legends?' He supposes he can't be too surprised, considering so many clans of digimon have their own legends, so why not the animals in the human world as well?

'Fenrir is a wolf in Norse mythology,' Alice explains, crouching down. A black dog melts out of the shadows to kneel with her, and Agumon clamours up behind him in response. Funny how the approach of one digimon catches the attention of another. But the same is true of humans, at least in a world where there are more than one – or more than two.

'Hang on,' he interrupts. 'Did you just call yourself a non-human?'

'I suppose.' She seems to consider the thought before attesting to it. 'I was human once upon a time, but no more. Just like Dobermon was a digimon once upon a time, but no longer.' She pets the black fur.

Dobermon looks like a perfectly ordinary digimon to him, just like Alice looks like a perfectly ordinary human (simply with an uncanny resemblance to Nanami). But Agumon is staring at the two with unexpected seriousness.

And the next to speak is Agumon, surprisingly cutting the chance for further conversation with his message. 'There's a bunch of Yukiduramon and Meramon fighting in the desert area.'

Then again, two sets of champion digimon can cause a lot of trouble, especially with a Yokomon settlement not far from there. So Marcus nods twice, one to Agumon in acknowledgement and once to the other two in farewell. 'Sorry,' he says. 'Duty calls.'

'I'll find you again soon,' says Alice, not straightening up from her crouch with Dobermon. 'We've got quite a bit more to talk about.'

.

The fight between the Yukiduramon and Meramon turns out to be over a new spring the former lot had accidentally unearthed. It was near their village too, so perfectly positioned, but was a trickle-down effect from the spring up on the mountain that belonged to the Meramon. It's more a monetary issue than anything, since the Meramon make a profit off selling the water, but they manage to put a compromise on the table that's good enough for both parties. The Meramon aren't great around water after all, despite their trade. The Yukiduramon don't have that weakness, so they can save the litres upon litres per year that get evaporated due to overdone exposure.

Whistling, Marcus climbs back up the hill. There's nobody waiting there.

'Hey, Agumon,' he says. 'What did you think of those two? Ever heard of them before?'

'I've heard of them,' Agumon replies, after a brief pause. 'They're servants of King Drasil, like the Royal Knights. Or they were, before the Royal Knights.'

But the Royal Knights were around before his father came into the Digital World. Before Keenan and Kristy had been even born. Alice would have been a baby herself in a time they weren't at King Drasil's beck and call, assuming she'd even existed at the time.

He voices this. Agumon shrugs. 'She says she's not a human, and he says he's not a digimon. Maybe they've been sent to keep an eye on things by King Drasil, or something.' He frowns at the thought. 'Can't say I like that idea, considering all the trouble it took to kick its butt.'

'No,' Marcus agrees. 'Maybe we should put them to work, then.'

Agumon snorts at that. 'The God of the Digital World, working under my boss. Why not?'

It was his right as the conqueror though, in a sense.

.

In the end, it was several days before Alice and her Dobermon showed up again. This time it was both of them from the onset, and Agumon who glares and covered up his pile of apples before either of them can get any ideas of sharing. Marcus snorts at the action; they're both rather greedy about their food, but there are plenty of apple trees in the area. They're in an orchard, after all. No shortage of food there.

But Alice takes the hint and twists two free from the nearest tree, one for herself and one she places in front of her partner's snout. The black dog-like digimon sniffs at it and then bites with an audible crunch. Alice just plays with hers.

'Best apples in the digital world,' Marcus prompts. 'Dunno what the Mushroomon do to make them so good, though.'

'Their spores soak into the soil,' Alice responds, and Marcus is again reminded of Thomas, and Nanami. 'It's the work of thousands of years, to nurture the soil until it can produce the healthiest fruits. But like everything, once they reach the peak, they'll only fall.' And then she takes a bite, as though savouring the peak she knows will eventually slip away.

Marcus' next bite tastes a little more bitter. He wonders if it's Agumon's words from before that cause that, or Alice's somewhat melancholic musing. Though he's sure Thomas would have done the same. Pressing on about his science, no matter how it kills the mood laid out. But maybe not so much, now. Maybe not so much earlier, either, considering how desperately he'd searched for Relena's cure – and in a way that wouldn't steal the innocence of her youth away.

The anniversary is dawning, and the reminder of Thomas is more unwelcome than it otherwise would have been. He sighs. It's hardly Alice's fault she's picked a bad time to appear…although… 'How come I haven't seen you before?'

'I didn't care to be seen,' the girl shrugs. 'We watch from the shadows, mostly.'

'For King Drasil?' Agumon asks, and rather bluntly at that.

'Not really.' And there's suddenly a look of frank sadness on her face. 'The God of the Digital World has taken on many forms, throughout the years. Once, it was a plural.'

'As in multiple Gods?' Marcus snorts at that. 'They probably fought a lot.'

'So to speak.' And it's a sad smile. 'One of the Royal Knights defeated one of the four, and the other three grew unbalanced. The result was them merging into one and the price the God-Slayer paid was eternal servitude.'

One of the royal knights. He hasn't met them all, himself. Probably won't, since none of them are around any longer, set free after King Drasil left them behind.

But she's looking at him expectantly, like there's something else she's said that should be nagging him. He can't think what it is.

Agumon does. 'Are you saying Boss is the same?'

'Fenrir,' the girl repeated, or perhaps said in answer. 'In Norse mythology, Fenrir kills the God Odin, and in turn is killed by the son of Odin.' Her lips slowly twist into a smile as she watches the pair of peace-keepers. 'Fenrir the God-Slayer,' she says. 'Before peace-keepers, you are the slayer of King Drasil as this world knows. A God-Slayer. And what goes around comes around, as the human saying goes.' She bites into her apple again, watching them still. 'Do you think your being here is enough of a price, or will there be something more?'

Chapter Text

He's rooted to the spot, like all those trees in the orchard in the peak of their productivity. The short tale of Fenrir seems both amusing and appropriate at first. Amusing because Agumon's a lizard or a dragon but never a wolf, and if anyone's a wolf, its Thomas and Gaomon. Or maybe even Keenan when they first came to the digital world, when he hissed at anything human shaped and anything that threatened a digimon friend. But that isn't so much wolf as lion, or one of those bird families that looks after any chick in their nest, even the cuckoo ones that push out their real child eggs for a place in the nest and the fruits it will give.

It's so easy to think of themselves and each other as the animals their digimon partners represent. And hard to envision something else. And him as a wolf…

'Is it that unbelievable?' the girl asks. 'The two of you fight alone in this world. You've staked your claim on peace and fight anyone who challenges your definition of it, right or wrong.'

'You think we're wrong?' Agumon raises an eyebrow at that. To him, the discussion is spiralling, and here is something he can latch onto to bring it back on track – onto a track he can follow, at any rate. 'Is that the problem here? You disagree with Boss –'

'I said nothing of the sort.' And this time, Alice's tone is cool, as though she is impatient with the interruptions or else he's managed to insult her. 'I'm simply explaining that wolves are both pack animals and removed from the rest of the world. The two of you are the pack. You have allies, but they are distant: subordinates and disciples and fans as opposed to friends. Your friends are all in the human world, and you may never see them again.'

'Aren't you jumping the gun there?' Marcus asks. 'Our human friends may be in the human world, but that doesn't mean they'll never come back here or we'll never go back. And our digimon friends, their partners and the ones we met on our journey, are all here.'

'I can give you that,' Alice agrees, 'or part of it. The partners of your human friends are here, yes, and they are real friends. But before you are their human friends, their human partners, and the two of you are an ideal they no longer have. Is that friendship not coloured? By loneliness? By jealousy? By regret?' Marcus frowns at that. Something tickles. Something he's only partially understood, and too viciously coloured. Something about Thomas, and that time they'd become RuinGreymon instead. That time Agumon had gone back to a digi-egg, when he'd been afraid he'd lost him forever.

But why would they be jealous?

Alice smiles. Her smile sees almost sad, like a parent telling something cruel and sad to their child. 'They are below you, you know,' she explains. 'Once upon a time, you were all equals. Now, there's a rift because you are here: a human and digimon pair in a world where humans and digimons have been ripped apart again, and because you've defied the old laws of the digital world and struck the old God.' When there was no answer forthcoming, she continues. 'You are the God-Slayer. Not a God, but close enough in this Godless world. But while the God is not doomed to be slayed, the God-Slayer is, by any hint of the God they slayed left behind. An eye for an eye, or so the human saying goes. The question is what your sacrifice will be.'

Marcus and Agumon both stare at her. Their apples sit, forgotten. Hers had been fully devoured by then, in small, even bites. She sighs at that. Apparently, it hasn't quite sunk in – and that is partially her fault as well. How long had it been, since she's had to communicate with a living thing? She and Dobermon haven't counted as a part of that umbrella for a long time.

She stands up and brushes her black dress off. 'I see you need some time,' she says. 'We'll be back, and perhaps then you'll be willing to hear the next part.'

'Hold on.' Marcus grabs her shoulder before she can turn. Not too strongly so that it hurts, but enough to stop her moving away without a particularly strong wrench out of his grip. 'Are you saying we're in danger? That the digital world is in danger?'

'You, yes,' she agrees. 'The digital world? Not necessarily. That depends on the nature in which retribution for the Gods will be delivered to the God-Slayer.'

He lets her go, after that, his mind is a buzz. Agumon is similarly overwhelmed.

.

He's never thought of his existence as lonely, but it often was, he realises, in retrospect. He'd grown up with only women in the household: only Kristy and their mother, and the vague memories of his father before he left for that mission and never came back. So he lacked an influencing male for much of it, save the vague idea that his father had been a hero and he wanted to measure up to that.

Now that he thought about it, his father had paid a high price to be that hero. Possession by a God. Ultimate death. It was only as a gift to him that his father had come out of it in the end.

Was that what that girl – that Alice – meant? But his father hadn't killed a God to deserve that. And neither had he, technically. King Drasil had conceded the fight, had chosen to back away from the world after accepting their show of strength and conviction, of passion. That wasn't a killing. That was a sparring match in the ring where he was the victor and they both walked out, unharmed.

He didn't get all of what she'd said. But the image of the wolf clung to him. Lonely wolf in a two-person pack and he was the alpha, right? Agumon called him boss. And even before that, he'd been a lone wolf. Friendly enough but no-one wanted to get too close because he'd let his fists do the talking as often as his mouth and they didn't want to handle that. But he didn't have a sharp tongue like Thomas, or like Miki (and even Megumi wasn't half-bad, though she couldn't measure up to Miki in that particular department). He'd only had his fists to defend himself – and his little sister when people decided she was an easier target for their ire.

It had been unfair. Their mother wasn't a divorcee or a widow, and their father wasn't some scumbag who'd walked out on his family, but they often got treated like one or the other anyway. They just couldn't grasp the idea that he'd gone missing working on a case with the police, that he was a hero that wasn't getting the respect he deserved and that their mother was just as heroic, raising two kids by herself in the aftermath of it. But at least everybody wasn't like that. She still had a job, and enough backpay from her husband's salary to make them rather well off, as things went.

Which was good as far as their family was concerned, but invited a few more uncouth rumours. And when someone said his mother spread her legs for that money, for that way of life – well, that was the first but certainly not last time he snapped.

At the back of his mind, he knew being a hero didn't mean punching everybody that said something hurtful, something wrong, but nobody listened to the honest words. But in any case, it served as his protective shield but also to drive a wedge between him and any potential friends – and maybe for his sister as well.

Until Raptor-1 – or, rather, Agumon…and DATS. And he could sacrifice DATS for Agumon, if it meant sacrificing the rest of the world for him. It had been easy. Still is. Too easy. Even if he misses his family and friends so much it physically hurt at times. Why?

Because you are apart from them now. In a different place, both mentally and physically. Or so that girl had said.

.

They see the digimon with new eyes. The ones who lose themselves in petty quarrels like he has in his youth and Agumon has as well and similarly understands. They are respectful, reverent. Sometimes they fight against their ideals but it seems more like a childhood rebellion than the all-out war they engaged in with the bio-hybrids years ago.

They are like the teacher on the playground, making sure the students behave and giving out demerit points and detentions when they don't. They are not on the same level. Not equals, but above them. God. God-Slayer. Why can't hero be a simpler thing?

Maybe it's just that girl's words bothering him, bothering them both. 'I wish we hadn't met her,' Agumon mumbles, one day.

A few days later, Marcus agrees as well.

Particularly when he sees the distance between their fellow DATS digimon and themselves.

.

Alice and her Dobermon do not come back for a while. And there's a brief lull towards the anniversary – and it's been like that for the past four years and he can't help but wonder if that's on purpose, if the digimon are paying respects to the digimon that freed them from divine rule…

He knows the world can't so easily accept the changes. It's why he came, in the first place. And the first few years were tough. Everybody fighting. Everybody trying to find their own place in this God-less world, and they helped with that. They all helped with that.

Five years later, everybody's more or less found their place – except for him. Who is he? The leader in this post-God world? But he doesn't want that. Not any more. He wants to be the hero like his father, the hero in the shadows that no-one meets, that can't make mistakes, that's not painfully human at the end of the day. And he wants to be an equal and a friend to all these guys: the digimon, and the human on the other side as well.

He wants the doors between their worlds to open up again. He can stand loneliness with Agumon for only so long, and Agumon is the same. The same, except his kind is here and they're still so far away, so removed.

He can become a God or a ghost, it seems.

He never wanted this. But what other choice had there been?

To let King Drasil wipe out their world? He couldn't do that. He can't do that. Even if the world is out of his reach right now, they exist, and they live, and he's not selfish enough to deny them that just because he's denied himself the right to live with them.

He's the one who jumped into the transportation device, after all. The one who left it all behind because he can't stand being without Agumon. And how can the others stand it? He doesn't know. Maybe it's just a consequence of them not being as impulsive as him, and they'll suffer for it now. But all of them stood to lose something either way, stand to lose something either way. There's no middle ground when the pathway between the two worlds is closed, but he can't do anything about it from here. That's DATS' work, to watch it stabilise, to wait until it's safe to open again.

That's right. It will be safe to open again, one day. And he'll wait until it is. He doesn't have to be a God or a ghost for that.

But five years later, does he still have a place with them?

Did you ever, after slaying the God?

There's no heaven for a God-Slayer, after all.

Chapter Text

The Anniversary weighs heavily on their minds, and Alice McCoy is careful to be far away from Daimon Masaru when it comes. Instead, she’s at the base of the Server Tree – or, rather, where the Server Tree once stood. Now there is only ash that refuses to be brushed aside by the wind, and sometimes, like today, the figure in blue armour sitting cross-legged with a spear on his lap.

                ‘Hello, Craniummon,’ she says.

                ‘Hello,’ he replies. He knows her. Knows of her. All the Royal Knights do, except Dukemon and that is only because she avoids him.

She must, because Dukemon reminds her of the innocent boy with his head in the clouds she met a long time ago. Before he killed a God. And it wasn’t even the God of the Digital World.

The legend of Fenrir has set quite a precinct, but that was the Digital World, obtaining its ways from such lore. When the idea of a government became ancient in the human world, they would adopt it. Or perhaps they’ll hang on to the arcane ways until the world is gone. The mistakes humans make and learn from seep into the Digital World, incomplete. It really is a shame, but such foundations can’t be easily changed, if at all.

Still, if Fenrir had been prepared for Vioarr’s revenge, things might have turned out differently.

                ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ she says.

He shrugs. He is not disturbed.

                ‘Have your feelings regarding Daimon Masaru changed at all?’

                ‘Perhaps the level of respect for him,’ allows the Royal Knight, after a brief pause, ‘but on the whole, no. And it is likewise for the remaining Knights, who also watch from afar and do their bit for the world.’

                ‘And yours is to guard a sacred ground that no longer is.’ She smiles, but is a sad smile – and a sad fate for God’s right hand, as well.

But revenge is too direct, isn’t it? Too picturesque. Reality involves more than three people and is ultimately a far more complex tale. Still, it doesn’t hurt to check, especially now that things are moving.

But why they are moving, she has no clue, and it’s her job to find out.

.

‘Good news,’ she says calmly and with a soft smile playing on her lips, a few days later, though internally she is wincing. Masaru has black circles under his eyes that weren’t there before.

She knows why, of course. But it can’t really be helped. She’s a Chosen before she’s an avatar of a God, and before both of those, she’s a curious little girl. Just like before a peacekeeper, he’s a God-killer, and before both of those, he’s a Chosen and before all of that, he’s a… well, she doesn’t know. She’s never asked, has she? And neither have most digimon. Human pasts are a bit of a foreign concept to them.

But now’s not the time to ask, either. She continues to the message she’s come to tell, instead. ‘The Royal Knights hold the same healthy dose of respect for you as they always have. And if you don’t have a reason to distrust them, I think we can safely cross them off the list.’

                ‘What list?’ Masaru asks, a little warily, and that wariness is enough to tell her he hasn’t forgotten, not at all. Of course, the black-rimmed eyes of his tell the same.

                ‘The Vioarr to you as Fenrir,’ she replies anyway, and seeing the mystified look, she elaborates: ‘Vioarr is one of Odin’s sons. The one who strikes Fenrir down in retaliation after Fenrir kills the God Odin. In other words, he’s the perpetrator of Fenrir’s curse, the price you inevitably pay for striking down a God.’

                ‘What goes around, comes around.’ Masaru snorts softly. ‘Huh. And punching Yggdrasil in the face was one of my better moments, too.’

                ‘It saved billions of lives,’ Alice agrees. ‘Billions of humans – and the Digital World as well. Even Yggdrasil can forget…forget that, without the human world, there cannot be a Chosen to enforce change when the Digital World finds itself on a new path of destruction.’

                ‘Why is that?’ Masaru wonders aloud. ‘I noticed it, in the five years I’ve been here. The digimon seem…’

                ‘Primitive?’ she suggests. ‘Yes, I suppose they do, without human influence. But what you see is very minor, as to what can be. Before you, there was that little boy who grew up with Yukidarumon and Merukimon –‘

                ‘Ikuto,’ Masaru corrects.

She’s never met him, only heard of his exploits. ‘Ikuto,’ she repeats. ‘And your father for a while as well.’

His thoughts derail at that mention. ‘You know him.’

                ‘Of course.’ She dips her head. ‘He’s a researcher as well. I’m the one who told him how to find the Server Tree.’ She considers that after a pregnant pause. That hadn’t necessarily turned out to be a good thing.

                ‘Guess my father would have figured it out somehow anyway,’ he sighs, after that pause. ‘Would’ve been nice to know he was…you know, okayish…in our first trips to the Digital World.’

                ‘Would it?’ she asks rhetorically. ‘Your father’s spirit had fused with his partner and there was more digimon than human in that body. It would have hurt more, unable to do anything –‘

                ‘You don’t know that!’ he snaps, clenching his fists. She flinches in surprise, and Dobermon growls. Masaru forces himself to relax. Don’t shoot the messenger. ‘You don’t know that,’ he repeats. ‘My mother spent years thinking he was alive, with nothing but blind faith to go on. And if would have been nice, seeing as I would up meeting Yggdrasil in his body before I realised BanchoLeomon was giving his soul a piggyback ride.’ Actually, he was still annoyed at BanchoLeomon for pulling that trick. It wasn’t like the opportunity had never come up.

Alice considers this. Masaru is correct in retrospect, but she is not wrong in thinking silence is the best course of action. And she is a researcher, not a publisher of information.

She is also a Chosen, but she hasn’t acted her part of the Chosen for many years.

                ‘Hindsight is always a wonderfully cruel gift,’ she says, after a carefully considered pause. ‘And, truth be told, it was a conflict of interest as well.’ And she realises that as she says it. ‘I’m as much Yggdrasil’s servant as I was a Chosen, but I’ll only be needed as a Chosen again if the human world is destroyed.’

Which had very nearly happened, and isn’t that a sobering thought?

Except it’s more than that, and she can’t really explain why. Not to someone who still lives instead of a mere existence which tethers between sleep and dreams, and immortality.

                ‘We’ve been wondering about that.’ Masaru shifts a little, after a more pregnant pause. ‘I mean, Ikuto never mentioned you, and it’s not like ‘tou-san and I had a whole lot of time to catch up, but nobody else in DATS mentioned you either. Do they even know?’

She shrugs. ‘Who knows how far word of mouth travels?’ she replies. ‘But I don’t intend to be a secret. For the most part, we just keep to yourselves. I’ve had a terribly long life, as human standards go. Dobermon has been reborn three times in between.’

There’s pity in his eyes, now. He understands, at least a little. But the immortality or the rebirth? she wonders.

The rebirth, it turns out. ‘Agumon was reborn once, as well. My fault he was an egg in the first place, and I – I was terrified he wouldn’t –‘

                ‘Remember you when he hatched again.’ Alice nods. ‘I have Yggdrasil to thank for this: that Dobermon has always remembered me, and always stayed by my side. But we also pay a heavy price for it.’ Dobermon slinks over, and she rubs his fur for both their comfort. ‘Now, everyone and everything else we knew from our life in the human world is gone, and am I even human anymore?’

Masaru wonders what he should say to such an admission. At least some other things make sense now.

                ‘Does it matter?’ he offers, finally. ‘You look like a human and that’s good enough for the digimon in general. What about Dobermon?’

                ‘Alice is Alice,’ says Dobermon, and none of them are really sure if that’s an affirmation or option C. ‘That’s all that matters to me.’

                ‘And you’re not acting particularly God-like at the moment,’ Masaru shrugs. ‘And living in the Digital World does make the average human here a little different to the human world garden variety –‘

Agumon snorts.

                ‘What?’

                ‘Garden variety? Really, boss.’

Alice laughs. They really are refreshing.

.

Masaru doesn’t know whether the news Alice delivers is good or bad, and it’s an impending clock over his head – because he doesn’t really consider the option of her being untrustworthy.

Which is probably a good thing, because she’s not.

And though Agumon entertained it before, her words are too raw now, raw and distant – and he can’t help but wonder if Ikuto, if he’d been far older (both when he’d fallen into the Digital World and when they’d met him), might have turned into something similar as well.

Living a long time is wearying, even for a digimon. That is why they forget their past when they’re reborn. A hindrance sometimes, but it allows a new start for them, without the emotional baggage. It allows them to be a child again – but a human doesn’t have that possibility, that option. And Yggdrasil has taken it away from Dobermon as well.

                ‘They’re almost like ghosts,’ Masaru sighs one night, as they lie staring at the stars. ‘Ghosts that haunt the Digital World.’

And that’s a chilling image. ‘Stop that,’ Agumon chides. ‘I won’t be able to sleep at night.’

                ‘Sorry.’

But Masaru really doesn’t have anything to be sorry for.

                ‘I’m sorry too.’ He’ll apologise the next time he sees the pair. ‘This Yggdrasil’s done a lot.’ He wants to say “damage”. From their perspective, it was a lot of damage. She’d tried to wipe out the human world.

Then again, Kurata had tried to wipe out the Digital World on similar principles, so objectively, they can’t complain too much. Kurata’s a fully-fledged human after all…until he went and merged with Belphemon anyway. And he’d had quite a bit of support before the end, as well. Too much.

But they don’t talk about Kurata. Not in this world. Maybe they still do, in the human world.

And they’ve got other things to think about. The legacy Yggdrasil has left. Keeping the peace. Their friends and family in the human world. Alice McCoy and her sobering prophecy and her reason for waiting almost five years to tell them.

                ‘Something’s changing.’

Agumon sits up. ‘That’s bad, right?’

                ‘Maybe not.’ The sky looks the same as it always has, this past five years. ‘It just means the world’s moving in a new direction. Maybe it means the gateways between our words are stable again. Might mean we can drop by…’ He stops, because he can’t say “home”.

                ‘Your mother’s fried eggs?’ Agumon asks hopefully.

Masaru has to laugh at that. ‘’kaa-san’s fried eggs,’ he agrees. ‘And I wonder if Chika ever did anything with her pigtails. And if Ikuto ever got over that accent of is. And what ‘tou-san’s been up to. And if Tohma’s little sister ever got better, of if she’s doing alright – you know, I don’t think we ever even met her!’

                ‘I don’t think so either.’ And they groan, though it’s entirely inconsequential now, five years later. But they have to look at the bright points, even if some of them are inconsequential, or nonsensical. They’re not the type to wait in the shadows for the arrows to pierce them. They’ll search – especially now when the Anniversary no longer weighs on their heads and there’s no large disputes in progress. Of course, things can change in a heartbeat, but five years later, the world’s standing pretty well on its own.

                ‘We’re going to give it the good ol’ Peacekeeper grilling, right?’

                ‘Of course we are.’

Chapter Text

Masaru finds the source of the changing winds. Or rather, it finds him. His family, grinning from the dojo BanchoLeomon had once occupied.

Masaru gapes at them, blinks, and then sweeps the three of them into a hug.

It takes him several days afterwards to realise that Chika never did get rid of those pigtails of her. But they still look more mature on a teenaged face than on the Chika he remembered.

.

Almost five years later, the barriers between the worlds has stabilised enough to open the gates again. ‘Not for big trips,’ Suguru explains. ‘Just us going and coming back through with the two of you has put us a few months behind – ‘ And they’re immediately horrified because what if they can’t go back? Especially now when there’s a potential crisis brewing – or the payment for their pasts.

But now his family is here, and DATS, and all the friends they’ve made and maybe they’ll know more. Except all they – even Tohma, when news of Masaru’s visit or return, reaches him in Austria – knows is the human world rendering of the tale. ‘The original is lost,’ he explains. ‘There are many versions of it, but useful in only an academic sense. The definition of a God itself is arbitrary, and the generic rendering of the tale implies the curse to be nothing but the want for revenge.’

                ‘An eye for an eye,’ Suguru agrees. ‘If you ignore Gods and supernatural powers, if person A kills person’s B’s father, then it is likely person B would want to kill person A in retaliation.’

                ‘Just likely?’ asks Chika curiously. ‘I mean, I guess we didn’t really get that option…but even then, wasn’t it Yggdrasil locking you up that meant you couldn’t come back to us? Ni-san has good grounds for revenge right there.’

                ‘That’s true,’ Suguru muses, ‘however it was BanchoLeomon who struck the killing blow.’

Chika chokes a little at that. Five years later, she’s not used to hearing her father’s death so casually – but Suguru had feared the worst and survived it, and it’s important in an entirely different battle now.

                ‘I guess you could also say Masaru and ShineGreymon were the ones who struck BanchoLeomon with the finishing blow,’ Tohma agreed, ‘so in that setting, the cycle of revenge is completed, assuming BanchoLeomon didn’t have a parent or child figure in his life.’

                ‘Assume he didn’t.’ And a small, sad, smile plays on Suguru’s lips at the thought of his dead partner. Yggdrasil hadn’t brought him back, after all, and Masaru hasn’t seen him since. But perhaps one day. He’s not permanently deleted like Yukidarumon, at least. He has the chance for rebirth, for a new life – even if it will in all likelihood be far removed from his old. But that’s not the topic of this conversation. ‘He was a loner before I met him. A – fiercely protective over his territory.’ He almost said “wolf”, but thought better of it. Fenrir was proving to be worrying figure of legend.

                ‘So the situation with Masaru and Suguru-san and Yggdrasil is essentially a new triangle.’ Tohma scribbles in his notebook. ‘Yggdrasil incapacities Suguru-san – ‘ Which is both a succinct and kind way to summarise the entire situation. ‘Masaru persuades Yggdrasil into abdication.’ This time, overly polite. ‘If we’re following the revenge theory, any supporter of Yggdrasil is a possibility. However, if Fenrir refers to a curse, it’s technically Yggdrasil who’s Fenrir and Masaru who’s Vioarr.’

                ‘Except Alice McCoy calls me Fenrir,’ Masaru interjected. ‘And she’s definitely aware of ‘tou-san – though I don’t know how much detail she knows everything in.’

                ‘I know of her,’ Suguru nods. ‘Little seen and little known. She and her Dobermon tend to keep to themselves. She only appeared to me when we were almost ready to give up searching.’

                ‘The dues ex machina,’ Tohma muses, ‘but she’s in a tricky situation, indebted to Yggdrasil and yet a Chosen. It would have been a conflict of interest during Yggdrasil’s attempt to destroy our world. Probably why we never came across her. And since BanchoLeomon knew how to repair our digivices, it wasn’t much of a problem, either.’

                ‘Merukimon died,’ Ikuto frowns. ‘SaberLeomon died. Innocent digimon like Yukidarumon died.’

                ‘And one person more or less may not have changed that,’ Tohma counters. ‘Alice McCoy calls herself a researcher, but she’s a researcher of the Digital World. Her knowledge of the technological advances of the human world will be rudimentary at best, and we don’t know how aware of Kurata’s machinations she was. She may have assumed the digimon would come back as eggs.’

                ‘I don’t think so,’ Agumon says, surprisingly. ‘Her partner is a Dobermon. They evolve into Anubismon, you know.’

                ‘Anubis as in the God of Death?’ Suguru asks.

                ‘Dunno any human myths –‘

                ‘Except Fenrir and Vioarr,’ Masaru interrupts.

                ‘Except that,’ Agumon agrees, ‘but in the Digital World, Anubismon is said to be the digimon who oversees the rebirth and natural deaths of digimon. Not when they’re destroyed in a fight or something, but when they’ve been at their current level for too long and are unable to evolve further.’

                ‘If digimon don’t evolve within a certain amount of time, they die,’ Suguru nods. ‘It’s a process similar to decay and shedding. As the body exists, it crumbles – and oxidation of the human body produces the same effect. When the digimon evolve, their data repoitre grows and they essentially obtain a new body. But if they don’t, their old bodies will eventually be unable to hold them up anymore. And some never get past the Adult level.

‘It’s why Ultimates like Merukimon are so rare – and it takes a very long time to reach that state again, without a human partner. It’s also possible that the bond between a human and their digimon partner allows the digimon to retain their memories.’

They process that. ‘So that’s why Agumon was able to remember me?’ Masaru isn’t sure whether he should be relieved or sad others – friends – don’t have the same opportunity. ‘And why it took a bit for Piyomon to remember Chika.’

                ‘Piyomon and Chika were never bonded by a digivice,’ Suguru agreed. ‘However, they were compatible and they did have a bond. Still, bonds and memories are both fickle things. You saw Kurata’s handiwork firsthand, and Belphemon at least had no physical bond with him.’

                ‘Hopefully, that will work to our favour,’ says Tohma. ‘Belphemon shouldn’t remember the human world when he wakes again, which makes it less likely – barring outside interference – that he’ll seek us out for round two.’

                ‘As for Kurata,’ Satsuma explains, ‘we honestly have no idea. The black space between worlds is still largely unexplored, and we sought an answer for closure more than anything else. However, if we are considering people who may have a grudge against Masaru-kun, I would place him quite high in the list.’

                ‘That’s true. He only yelled it every time we met.’ Masaru thinks about that. Kurata coming back from nowhere? He did do a lot of crazy things, things beyond his understanding. And it was Tohma who’d defeated him, in the end. Defeated him at his own game: a battle of intellect Masaru is far inadequate for.

Honestly, Kurata’s been yelling at the wrong person, but that’s his prerogative – unless he wants to take up the sword or whatever weapon of Vioarr and deliver his misguided brand of justice.

                ‘I’ll cook him if he tries it,’ Agumon decides. ‘Actually, I’ll cook him the next time I see him, regardless. I think we deserve that.’

                ‘Yeah…’ Masaru sighs, after a fashion. ‘Might be better to skip the who deserves it more argument, when it comes to him.’

.

‘Did you have a nice visit with your family?’ Alice asks, the very night they return to the Digital World.

It destabilises the gate again, but they know they can’t leave the world without an eye on it for long, in this tentative period. It’ll put them back several months, they think, but they should be able to get DATS to the Digital World for the next anniversary, and back again before they’re too heavily missed in the real world.

Having a steady stream of traffic from both worlds will be the work or at least another five years, they think. But at least the collective dream of theirs – for humans and digimon to live together peacefully – is becoming more of a possibility.

                ‘Yeah,’ says Masaru. ‘Great visit.’ But as he says it, he realises that’s pretty much what it was. Pretty academic, particularly with all the discussions at Headquarters, but even home was more of a visit. No chores, no homework, and anything he or Agumon wanted to eat. Similar to before (because when had he ever cared about homework) and yet so fundamentally different. And not just because he barely remembers what it’s like to be living in the same house as his father.

Gift for him, Yggdrasil had said. Funny how that’s worked out.

Alice regards his expression, but doesn’t comment on it. ‘I imagine you talked to the other Chosen,’ she says, instead. ‘Did they have any ideas?’

                ‘Belphemon.’ Masaru shrugged. That one was a bit out there, honestly, since he’s an egg last he’d checked and shouldn’t be waking up for another nine hundred and ninety five years. ‘And Kurata. But they’re both kind of impossible.’

                ‘Hmm…’ Alice hums. ‘Not so impossible. Belphemon was awakened prematurely by Kurata, after all. And Kurata is not in the Digital World.’

                ‘That may not stop him,’ Dobermon speaks up. ‘His interference with the Digital World began with the human world, and now we know the connection between the two worlds, however fragile, has been restored.’

                ‘Satsuma-san says they haven’t seen found any trace of him,’ Masaru points out, but Alice looks worried now.

                ‘It’s a possibility,’ she says, ‘and the fact that he was defeated by his own arrogance does not bode well for a potential rerun.’

Masaru wants to say something there, that it’s the Chosen and their digimon, or bonds, or friendship or pure will, that beats Kurata, but none of those are quite true. It’s Kurata who makes the mistake of thinking he can control an uncontrollable beast when he can’t, and that’s what gives them the opening. They’re outmanoeuvred otherwise – even if they do manage escape his traps time and time again.

It’s almost funny how they can say that about Yggdrasil. Pure stubbornness combined with the bonds between humans and digimon is what defeats Her.

                ‘Any other possibilities?’ Alice asks.

Masaru shakes his head. ‘Do you have any?’

Alice shakes her head as well. Nothing in the Digital World seems different to before, and yet the feeling of unease that guides her implies there is something. The gates are the only thing she can see, and she can only see them now, when Masaru has gone through them and back. Gates anyone can go through and from. Another human, one they’re not aware of – or are, in another capacity? Or is it really Kurata again, stumbling around in black space but all too worryingly close to finding a doorway to either the Digital or Human worlds again?

Dobermon stares into the distance. ‘Ragnarok approaches,’ he says, and to Masaru and Agumon, he sounds different.

Masaru is reminded of his father’s voice – and it takes him a moment to realise why. ‘Yggdrasil.’

                ‘Yes,’ and Alice sounds sad, and a little defensive as well. ‘It is the price we pay for each other’s company in this state.’

There is nothing more they can say for that, and Masaru finds himself feeling a little sorry for the blonde. That forlorn expression on her face spells a long and lonely life, even with her partner by her side.

And apparently he can’t be afraid of the same fate, because the person destined to kill him is going to show their face soon. Huh.

                ‘Ragnarok?’ Agumon asks, when his partner does not.

                ‘It translates roughly to “the Fate of the Gods,’ Alice replies. ‘In Norse mythology, it refers to a great battle that kills a great many Gods, including Fenrir naturally, as well as natural disasters enough to make a blank slate of the world. Two human survivors, the equivalent of Adam and Eve in Christianity and the Abrahamic fates, repopulate the world after that. In the scientific world, I suppose it’s the equivalent of the big bang.’

Which doesn’t bode well for any of them.

                ‘These warnings of yours are going from bad to worse,’ Masaru mutters. But…don’t shoot the messenger, right?

Chapter Text

In the end, it feels like they hadn't waited long enough. Not long enough to confirm anything, anyway. Not long enough to prepare. It's only a few days after Masaru goes back to the Digital World, as though he's left a slipstream behind him. And maybe he has.

And if he has, Kurata is one of the few people tenacious enough to latch on to it from black space.

Yggdrasil is aware of him quite suddenly – and so Alice and Dobermon become aware of him quite suddenly as well. They are back at the Server Tree – and it's lucky they are, because they can send Sleipmon off to warn Masaru and Agumon, and Craniummon to call the rest of the Royal Knights together.

After all, Kurata has been floating around in black space for over five years. He can't have any weapons except what he vanished with, and he'd exhausted that against DATS.

Except they're wrong. He still has his space-oscillation devices, buried in his body and merged with him until they've taken the place of his lifeblood. He could go between the human and digital worlds, once he'd stumbled into one of them. Before the Royal Knights could close in on him, he was gone. And each time he crossed the worlds, the barriers crumbled once more.

The stage is being rewritten. Back to that last, desperate battle. But this time, Yggdrasil won't be there to interfere. She's sworn it. She's sealed herself away from it.

Can humans and digimon save the world together a second time?

.

Chaos is quick to erupt. Digimon fall into the human world. Humans fall into the Digital World. Masaru has to double-task: breaking up digimon versus digimon fights as well as digimon versus human ones. He sets up the stray humans in the mansion and the dojo, making sure any scientist is in the former where the computers are, and anyone who's managed to stumble onto a digimon friend is in the latter where they can train their digisoul (even if he has no idea how to get digivices for them until he can get into contact with his father and DATS). And it takes a few weeks before they can get into conscious contact with Satsuma on the other end.

By then, they have some idea of what's going on. Kurata's space-oscillation devices are familiar to all of them, after the chaos it caused, but he's clever in hiding them. He can't hide the disappearances though. He can't stop them either – and maybe he doesn't want to stop them.

Things progress a whole lot faster than they had fifteen years ago. It took Kurata ten years, then, between the gates opening up initially and his final move with Belphemon. Now, it's a matter of weeks before the governments panic, before the Digital World has more humans than it can comfortably fit into the only human establishment it possesses, and even what scientists have managed to stumble into the Digital World and help them out, they're quickly becoming overwhelmed.

Their battle isn't just with humans in a new and unfamiliar world, or with digimon lost on the other side and held at DATS. It's with new viruses that Masaru and Alice are both immune to, but the other humans aren't. And there's no more vaccines. Keenan and Yoshino had used the last, and the scientists have to scramble to make it up from scratch.

They can't scramble fast enough. Three children and four adults die before they have a passable cure and vaccine, and more adults because their bodies are too old and weary to recover. And their absences weigh heavily on those who witness it, even when the space quickly fills up again.

Meanwhile, in the human world, there are other problems. Human microorganisms can't seem to latch onto digimon, but that doesn't stop the digimon from rampaging. As soon as there's conscious contact between the two worlds, Satsuma demands the DATS partner digimon (except Agumon), to return to the human world. They do so, but Suguru and Yushima (along with Kamemon) decide to go to the Digital World to hold the fort with Masaru. And that works fine because Suguru is the expert on digivices and Yushima's a little too old to be fighting in another war.

Masaru takes advantage of the veterans taking hold of the fort to set out travelling again, with only Agumon by his side. There are probably a lot of stray humans wandering around, and a lot of missing digimon, now that the DATS digimon are no longer around to help run inventory.

But Masaru and Agumon are used to doing things with just their two person team now.

And they can hunt Kurata while they're at it, too.

.

Alice and Dobermon meet them at the Server Tree. 'Kurata?' she asks.

'He's a slippery devil,' Masaru mutters, annoyed. 'You wouldn't have a better way to track him or keep him tied down, would you?'

She shakes his head. 'Is it a good idea, anyway?'

Masaru has to pause at that, before he realises what she means. 'No choice,' he says. 'I can't sit around. And I'm not one for organising chaos. That's 'tou-san and Yushima-san and Satsuma-san and Tohma… Agumon and I are for action. Going out and doing things with our fists and our mouths.'

'You won't even try to avoid a confrontation that may destroy you?' she asks.

'No way.' He shakes his head.

She wonders if Takato and Guilmon would have responded in kind, if they'd known what awaited them.

Then again, hindsight was a cruel, cruel thing.

'What about you?' she asks. 'Will you and Dobermon fight?'

'Yggdrasil won't interfere,' she answers distantly.

'Not Yggdrasil. You.'

She doesn't know. She's never so blatantly gone against Yggdrasil before. 'I'm a researcher,' she answers finally.

He shrugs. He doesn't seem to disappointed in her answer. 'Compare notes with Tohma and my father some time, okay?'

He leaves the Server Tree after that, and never returns to it.

.

They play tag with Kurata for quite a while. He seems content to hide in the shadows and unleash chaos on both worlds but that's a far cry from his plans before.

'How does he expect to take over both worlds if he hides like a coward,' Masaru pants, as they labour up Infinity Mountain towards the latest sighting.

'Who knows,' Agumon pants, alongside him. 'Kurata's always been a nutcase.'

Masaru's father doesn't agree with that, of course, having known the man a good deal longer and back when he didn't hate digimon so much, or the Daimon family name. But they're too far gone for words to have any effect. They were too far gone five years ago.

'He can't literally pop up from anywhere,' Agumon says, after a pause, 'right?' 'I mean, no-one ever show up at the dojo or the mansion directly – except the DATS guys and their supplies and your mother's fried eggs –'

'Enough with the fried eggs,' Masaru laughs, though it turns into a cough with the high altitude. 'But you know, I never thought of that. But surely Tohma and everyone will have thought of it.'

'Maybe not,' says Agumon. 'They do tend to get tangled with the complicated stuff.'

.

It turns out Agumon is right and Masaru is wrong. They hadn't thought to look at where Kurata had never been and when they did, they realised it covered all DATS emergence points and thensome. On that vein, they checked all of Kurata's previous emergence points and realised none of them repeated either – had digimon or humans stumble one way or the other, but never Kurata himself.

Which meant he has to make a new hole every time, as opposed to him doing so to mess with them. And that narrowed down their search quite significantly.

It also meant Masaru and Agumon couldn't run double duty any more, but by then those humans who'd found partners after coming to the digital world and mastered their digisouls enough to evolve their digimon to the Adult level, were sent out to cover the known rips on patrol.

And Masaru and Agumon hunted the rest for Kurata, never once thinking what would happen when the two of them met face to face.

.

They meet, eventually. The place is called Chaos Brain and Masaru and Agumon both consider the oddity of that name before they discard the thought. More important is Kurata in the centre, looking even more like a madman. And seemingly without protection.

Masaru falters there. What is he supposed to do now? Punch him?

Well… That's always worked before.

There's a black shadow rearing in front of him before he can reach the other though, and then he's pulled back by smaller hands, human hands.

Alice…

And Dobermon's chest has three green slashes in it, where the rest of him crumbles.

'That's not the space-oscillation device,' Alice frowns. 'We were wrong. We missed it entirely, because it seemed to function the same.'

Agumon steps up to flank Dobermon, letting loose a Petite Flame that doesn't push Kurata back at all.

'What are you doing here?' Masaru asks in shock. 'You're a researcher, aren't you?'

'What's the point of research if it comes too late?' Alice replies. 'The others are coming too. It'll just take them a little longer.'

'Too late,' Kurata cackled, 'but I am glad you made it here at least, Daimon Masaru.'

'Meaning what?' Masaru snaps back, before Dobermon's howl in pain snaps both his and Alice's attention away.

He twists and crumbles. Not like Merukimon when he disintegrates but something…else. 'Virus,' Alice hisses, and her face is suddenly anguished as she rushes to her partner.

Masaru lets her. He turns on Kurata instead. 'Explain yourself!'

He doesn't. He just cackles instead.

So Masaru's mind jumps to stepping stones on its own. Virus, Alice had said. So Kurata has infused his own body with a virus as well as the space-oscillating devices? When did he find the time to do that? Or maybe it's from the black space nobody knows anything about and they just assumed it was empty.

Maybe that's the virus from the mansion, too, and why the old research had been no good whatsoever.

But there's something else at play. Kurata's been waiting for something. A wait that's over. Why is it over now of all times? What's different?

Us. Here. He realises it. But what –

But then Dobermon is a purple blob and Alice stumbles back, shrieking in pain as it clomps onto her chest. He tries to pull it off but his hands burn as well. Agumon's Petite Flares do nothing.

'Evolve me!' Agumon cries.

He tries. It doesn't work. Kurata cackles again. 'It's over, Yggdrasil. I win after all!'

And he doesn't get it, but he also kind of does. When he defeated Yggdrasil, he took a part of Her. Or maybe it's her gift in his father. Or both. But there's a bit of Her in him. And there's a bit of Her in Alice and Dobermon as well. And Suguru, and the egg that's who knows where that will one day become BanchoLeomon again.

And then he laughs. His father and BanchoLeomon are still okay and Kurata's cackling too early.

'Agumon!' he calls. 'Lets do this the old school way!'

'Ready when you are, boss?' Agumon agrees.

They lay Alice down and rush at Kurata together.

At the end of the explosion, there's only a purple floating blob behind.

And the remnants of Yggdrasil where Kurata had forgotten about them. And the other humans he dismissed.