A/N: The internet was out for a while at the beginning of last month so I saved this chapter for this month instead. It's also the last chapter of my backlog, so if I can't write the next chapter in this month, next month's chapter might be delayed. Hopefully not since it's holidays, but you never know. :D Cross your fingers for not!

septimo distentione

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Omegamon burst into the digital space and struck a course, moving steadily. For everyone else, time had moved too quickly. It seemed barely a breath ago they had taken off on Imperialdramon, when they'd been struck by that beam of fire, when they'd crashed into the desert that had been, by some poetic thought, their destination.

It had seemed just a breath ago they'd seen Demon before them, so suddenly despite it being their plan that they'd been caught ill-prepared, still scrambling in the sand. And UlforceV-dramon had flown to their aid, bringing with him a molten gold orb that had exploded into the energy of golden armour digivolution.

They hadn't even the time to wonder how Gennai had done the work of years in mere minutes, just enough to stare in awe as their companions transformed into golden knights and steeds: a new force burning with hope and newfound power.

And then they'd been swept away again, glimpsed the burning sky before Omegamon's cloak hid it from view and they were flying, flying with Omegamon through empty space and letting their thoughts catch up to them.

Perhaps it was surprising. Perhaps it wasn't. But someone had to talk in the silence, drag their thoughts away. 'Is the world…gone?' It was Mimi. It sounded like her, however distorted with the echoes through empty space.

Omegamon considered, then replied with a simple: "no". And that was the kindest answer he could give. The Chosen's digimon had the same level of power but not the level of experience of the Royal Knights. And that had made the difference: Magnamon who had obtained his digivolution and the other five who had not. UlforceV-dramon who was still standing, while Imperialdramon had been knocked down. But that experience did not give them an edge against Demon; they were lacking in time.

It seemed like such an inconsequential thing when it flowed slowly, without change. But now it was a thing they were in dire need of – and unless time would rewind for them, it would not be a thing they would come by. Instead, every move they made wasted even more time, those few minutes that had gained after so much needless destruction before.

It had opened up a chance. Demon would be weaker, with those wounds. At the very least the chances he would follow them into their destination was very slim.

He could hear Magnamon, and UlforceV-dramon. Something he hadn't noticed – not even as Agumon and Gabumon, or even as Omegamon before, when he'd formed to take apart Diobolomon. What he didn't think Magnamon had noticed the two times he had released his golden evolution: against the Kaiser's final stand, and against the Cherubimon swept away by virus. But now he could sense them, at the back of his mind. The other Royal Knights. Those other worlds spread far and wide, linked only by frail threads so they could go on in independence, making separate futures for themselves apart from those other worlds.

And he remembered so much more as well. The prophecy that spelt their doom. Their time before, in other lives, before the Chosen who they'd become partnered too – and grown to, so fiercely, love. And he still loved them. Those memories and bonds created in his current life were still there, still the strongest. In truth nothing much had changed, except the knowledge of other things: the engraving of thousands of fights he didn't recall humming beneath his skin. His body remembered, even if his soul had forgotten. That experience that let him fly straight without even a memory of having flown before. That experience that gave him confidence he could carry the weight of twelve humans and nine Child digimon and still fly reasonably fast. The knowledge that even if he carried nothing at all, if a vengeful, uninjured Demon was on his tail he might not be able to go fast enough.

Though it didn't matter, if he couldn't save those children. 'Taichi, Yamato…everyone…' He heard screams in the back of his mind, and saw Demon leaving, escaping the others. Saw Magnamon's one lustrous gold shield cracked, almost black. Saw UlforceV-dramon's great dragon body crumbling in on itself, his wings patchy and holding itself together like loosely tangled skin.

Magnamon and UlforceV-dramon had been unable to stop him. Demon was coming after them.

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Chapter 4
The Sleeping Beast

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Under the temple, Belphemon's digitama still slumbered, wrapped in chains. Masaru kept his distance, remembering well the rage Kurata had felt towards him, and how potent it had been. Enough to wrench his consciousness away from Belphemon's. Enough to awaken that sleeping beast too early and almost destroy both worlds.

But, in the end, Masaru could feel nothing but pity towards Kurata. Kurata, who'd feared digimon, who'd never understood them, or human beings. He was a lonely man, even working under Daimon Suguru, who opened his heart to everyone he met.

Kurata may have had no-one to blame but himself, but he was still pitiable. Pitiable because he'd never seen the true beauty of the digital world, and of the digimon. Pitiable because he'd never opened his heart to anyone, or loved them. Pitiable because he'd let fear and the anger that disguised fear rule his life, and turn him into a monster who couldn't see what he was doing to the very world he so wanted to love him. His last ditch attempt had brought the two worlds crashing down upon one another. His attempt to rule had ended in destruction.

Belphemon could be pitied too, sleeping so peacefully under the temple to be forced awake by Kurata. Grumpy was perhaps an understatement but that was what Belphemon had resembled. The rage at being woken unbidden from a beautiful sleep.

If a beautiful sleep could be had wrapped so firmly in chains. But legend told of the digital world's destruction when he awoke: a single yawn that could demolish the temple and the forest that surround it – and that was just the beginning. Claws and jaws that could rip apart digital space in hunger, a hunger that had a thousand years to fester and grow. They had seen it first-hand, weaker than its legends but still an enemy that had taken almost everything they had to defeat.

A chain link twitched and crashed into another, the resounding sound echoing through the empty halls and causing his skin to stand on edge. 'Geez,' Masaru muttered, rubbing at his arms to get the goosebumps to go away. 'Could be just the wind.'

'But we're here because Belphemon could be waking up, Aniki,' Agumon still child-like voice reminded. Over the year in the digital world Masaru had grown into almost an adult: taller, more muscular – and he'd undergone more subtle changes as well. His voice was one of those: no longer stuck in the higher cracking pitch of teens but now lower, more stable. He still had a few years of growth before he was an adult by human terms, but he had certainly changed.

Agumon on the other hand was like all digimon: digivolution was what graphed change, and as a partnered digimon he had already digivolved to the limits of what they knew: the Burst Mode. There was nothing greater than that: nothing they knew, or had been told. There certainly had to be. Human potential had no limits after all, and with him Agumon could digivolve infinite times. But they had not found that need, or that path. They grew in size, certainly, but that seemed to reflect Masaru's growth as opposed to any independent process of maturation.

If Belphemon did awake at his full power they would need something greater, whether that be the growth they'd undertaken since or a new stage of digivolution. But he thought it was unlikely. Belphemon's digitama was wrapped in chains. It would take an ordinary digimon hundreds of years to digivolve into their Ultimate stage. Even the digimon partnered to Chosen could not do it in minutes. It had taken Agumon many months to reach that, and he'd been the fastest. It had taken Gaomon and Raramon several years.

But Craniummon seemed unusually worried. Worried like when he'd lain down his spear in defeat and let them pass to Yggdrasil. Worried like when he'd faced BanchoLeomon holding up the digital world, when he'd made the decision to take his place so BanchoLeomonm could deliver his final message and hope. And Masaru had no problem in checking it out. Apart from the fact that it was the last thing in the digital world he wanted to get close to.

If it had been two years ago he'd have been happy for the challenge – and would have gone back home in a body bag for that recklessness. But he was stronger now, and wiser. Belphemon's digitama was chained for a very good reason, and that was how it should remain.

The Demon Lord of Sloth… Honestly, Masaru didn't understand how such a sin described him. Sure, he slept for almost a thousand years before waking up, destroying the world, and going back to sleep, but sloth still seemed a strange descriptor to him. Destroying the world would require a little effort, as it were. Wasn't sloth not bothering to fight? Sleeping for eternity and just sucking the energy out of every little thing like a vampire that didn't need to bite their prey?

Though that was irrelevant in the end. Another chain clicked, and this time the digitama grew brighter. He was sure of it. The temple light was poor at best; such changes were easily seen, easily verified.

'You saw that, right?' His voice was steady. If it shook, he would feel his own confidence falling like a house of cards blown over.

'If you mean the digitama grow brighter, then yes, I saw it.' In the dark, Agumon's eyes seemed wider than ever. 'What do we do, aniki?'

Masaru thought. 'Go to Craniummon,' he said, in the end. 'He's the one who wanted the information – and as long as those chains are still there, that digitama's not doing anything.'

'Yeah,' Agumon agreed, brightening visibly – or as visibly as Masaru could make out in the poor light. And they walked carefully up the steps together, Agumon ahead so he could extend those flaming wings at the top towards the cloudy sky: those wings he'd been granted during their final battle with Yggdrasil, and now came and went with will. The harness came as well, and Masaru climbed on to his partner's back. He was bigger now, but Agumon had seemed to grow proportionally to him so it was all the same. 'Off to the server tree,' he called, taking in the fresh air and anticipating the wind.

They both hoped it would drive out those quiet clicks that had sounded louder than Masaru's heartbeat in the silence.

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Omegamon seemed to flee without aim, but perhaps that was more the lack of landmarks than anything the Royal Knight could control. He was silent now, his energy focused on getting to his destination, whatever that may be, before Demon caught up to them in the digital space. One advantage they had was Omegamon's familiarity with it. The passages accepted him as a Royal Knight. They did not accept Demon.

It was a small matter, seeing as the lack of acceptance did nothing to stop Demon's approach, but it slowed him a little. Slowed him like the weight of twelve humans and nine digimon slowed Omegamon – but he would not lose them. As Agumon and Gabumon he had spent far too long with those humans: with their partners Taichi and Yamato, with their families, and all those other children who were close friends. Logic called on him to drop a few of them; he would fly all the more faster with less weight and the survival of the rest became a more probable event. But it was not guaranteed.

And he did not have the time to consider if he would, or could sacrifice any if were. Even UlforceV-dramon and Gennai had not in the end; they had simply used the deaths that would otherwise have been in vain to restore them. Would it have made a difference if the blood had been fresh, sacrificed, instead? There was no time to think of such things like that either, with Demon so fast approaching.

The world they'd left behind – it was still there, though barely. Magnamon and UlforceV-dramon were there. Perhaps Gennai was still there. There were few digimon in history who had discovered the means of eradicating that order, but those had taken place during the times of Demon's captivity and perhaps that knowledge had never reached out to him – or it was inconsequential. For a scale that measured and maintained balance was useless if there was nothing to place on both plates of the scale. Gennai would be nothing until the world reincarnated – and it would not do that if they could not defeat Demon and lock him away.

A flower born while the flame still burnt would only burn into ash before its first breath of life, after all.

Inside his cloak, the Chosen and their partners huddled together. Ken felt the seed burrowed deep in its neck, its heat spreading to the surface and giving him that annoying itch again. But it was easy to ignore that this time. They could see nothing, hear nothing save something akin to wind passing them by as Omegamon continued to fly on. The cries of the looser tongues – those tongues not stuck behind their throats in deep thought or stuck to the roof of their mouths in fear – elicited no response. It seemed Omegamon needed his energy to fly, felt some sense of urgency even greater than before.

Does that mean Demon is following us? Ken wondered, drawing his knees up closer in the cramped up space. He could very well be; the seed had drawn him to the desert, so why couldn't it draw him from there as well? That same damning thought that had stopped him from going to the human world, which had frozen that desperate wish to see his family and make sure they were safe.

And that thought ceased him viciously, and suddenly.

Demon won't stop hunting the seed, hunting me. And as long as Demon hunted him, they wouldn't be able to escape him.

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Craniummon and Duftmon were together at the tree when Agumon approached, and their superior eyesight helped them see the other far before Agumon came close enough to see them and begin his descent. It took a few minutes before Masaru, riding on Agumon's back, had disembarked, looking windswept as only a human could.

'You're back,' was his first words, looking Duftmon up and down. 'Nice to see you.'

The lion-esque warrior frowned. Masaru was a constant presence in the digital world now and Duftmon had to tolerate him, but there was no love lost between them, only grudging respect and minimal contact – and Duftmon had no problem in showing his displeasure. Neither did Masaru, who was always irked they couldn't get along as well as he and Craniummon, or with Sleipmon. But Duftmon was not from that world. He had only come because that fragment of Yggdrasil's conscience had called out through digital space, gathering them all. But even then not all the Royal Knights had assembled. Not Gankoomon. Not Alphamon. And in later times he had only been passing through, looking upon that consciousness sleeping under the digital earth, under that tree. He had been passing through when Craniummon and Sleipmon had been occupied with the trembling digitama of Belphemon, and Leapordmon had promised to stop on his way back to his world after answering UlforceV-dramon's call.

And he had the misfortune of delaying his departure just enough to meet with Daimon Masaru.

'I'll be leaving now.' Duftmon gave a small nod, then a larger one to Craniummon. 'Where is Sleipmon?'

'In the human world,' Craniummon replied.

Another frown. 'Then I'll leave my greetings for him with you.' Duftmon spread his fine lined wings and flapped: one strong flap to get him high into the sky where he opened up a portal into digital space and disappeared. Agumon and Masaru looked after him, Agumon lamenting how many more beats of his wings it would take for him to reach that height, and how effortlessly Duftmon seemed to hold himself in the air. He was tired from his flight already.

Masaru grinned at him. 'Go find something to eat.'

He did so quite happily, leaving his partner with Craniummon. Craniummon sat himself carefully down: while he was roughly the same height as Duftmon, a human like Masaru was many times smaller. Even seated and Masaru plopping down himself on a rock the difference in height was there. Masaru leaned back on his hands so he could look up at the Royal Knight more easily.

'Those rattling chains can give a guy nightmares,' he said.

Craniummon showed a little amusement at that. 'Unfortunately,' he said, 'it is more concerning with a nightmare.' He closed his eyes, then opened them again. 'How quickly?'

'Not too bad,' Masaru said, counting off in his head. 'Worse than before. Rattled twice in the few minutes we were there and the light's gotten a little brighter, but there aren't any cracks in surface of the digitama so far as I could see. And the chains are all intact.'

'That is good,' Craniummon said, and it was, because he was especially worried now, after hearing that Demon was prematurely stirring in that other universe. The concern that Belphemon was stirring equally quickly was real, and potent. Though Belphemon was an egg wrapped in chains as opposed to still in his Ultimate form, he was also a Demon lord. And UlforceV-dramon was not one to alarm prematurely. Optimistic to a fault when there was not undeniable evidence that suggested their doom.

But perhaps there was something to be said about the prophecies they so blindly put their faith in, when they offered hope. It made that one prophecy all the more brutal and hopeless in comparison. But he, Craniummon, was less likely to put such blindsighted faith in such things after seeing the results of unlimited potential: that power that had held up the digital world by human and digimon hands alone.

'So.' Masaru leaned further back on his hands. 'What now?'

'We wait.' Craniummon sighed. 'It is too big of a risk to try resealing the digitama before the chains physically break. Belphemon might be released instead of resealled.' If he can be resealed, he added silently. Because if it were that simple, it would also be possible for Belphemon to never awaken – and yet he did, without fail, ever one thousand years.

But it hadn't been a thousand years since his last awakening. It hadn't even been one. Nor had it been a thousand years since the awakening before: the last natural awakening before Kurata had interfered. It was a new situation for them. Would Belphemon be stronger? Weaker? Easier to seal away? They didn't know. And they had almost no records left to speak of. They'd had Yggdrasil instead, and he had sunk into slumber without leaving a physical tome behind.

Not one to their knowledge in any case. They searched still, in case he had. But they had found nothing yet.

'We wait.' For Masaru, it was an exceedingly frustrating answer but he could understand the sentiment behind it. Contact with the human world was limited to the Royal Knights because of the sealed barrier on the other side, but, but if necessary they could negotiate with the Savers to reopen it. He'd known though he wouldn't be able to see his family and friends again for quite a while…and possibly before, but he was fine with that. Losing Agumon was what he couldn't handle. His family he knew would be okay, with his father there to protect them. And he'd been apart from them before. After meeting Agumon, only in that time his memories had been stolen away had he been separated from his partner. Dramatic it may have sounded, those suddenly profound and poetic words spewing from his mouth, but they were the truth. The world would be cold without Agumon's baby flame heating it up. The world would be cold without him.

It was enough to know they were safe, and happy, and praying for his wellbeing. It was enough to be able to send them photos, thanks to a camera Yoshino sent along with Sleipmon one time. It was enough to be able to send them letters, and receive replies. It was enough to be able to hear all the little stories Sleipmon brought back with him. It was enough to know his family still loved him, and were proud of him.

Masaru stood up. 'Let's spar some,' he said. 'I'm already tired of sitting around doing nothing.'

Craniummon chuckled at that. Masaru never ceased to make him smile, or stare in awe. No-one else had the courage and the tenacity to punch the ruler of the digital world like a petulant child. No-one else was so ready to leave his home and family behind to protect them, and add some stability to their world.

Anything seemed possible. But still there was doom at the back of his mind.

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Sayuri had not been expecting Sleipmon, but it was always a pleasant surprise.

In truth, she hardly ever could expect him. Time differences were such a fickle thing with the barrier restored, and if her husband had in his research failed to come to a complete understanding about the matter she doubted she ever could. But often he went to see Captain Satsuma first, and someone from his office would ring ahead.

In those cases, it was enough time to make some of Masaru's and Agumon's favourite fried eggs and send a bento box with the Royal Knight who came to visit. And of course she couldn't send her guest with an empty stomach, so Sleipmon would usually enjoy a filling meal before his departure. She was always there when he came. Occasionally, Suguru would be home as well, and the conversation would turn to more technical matters. Sometimes the entire family would be at home, and then there was not a sentence that did not mention Masaru in some shape or form.

Sleipmon would always have stories about what Masaru was up to in the digital world. Often it was just breaking up fights, but even those were things his family wanted to hear about. Just like Masaru liked to hear about what his mother had made for lunch, what had changed in the house, if Chika had gotten any taller… All those little things they were missing out on, but could be passed along.

But, occasionally, Sleipmon would come by the Daimon house first, and usually that meant there was something he needed to talk at length with Suguru about. It hadn't been worrying yet and she had stopped expecting it to be. Masaru seemed to be doing a wonderful job in keeping the digimon in line, sort of like the red paladin of the digital world.

Lately, she'd entertained the notion of dressing him up for the part, but no inspiration on the costume had struck quite yet. She'd actually been planning on heading out for some clothes shopping (since Masaru had written home last time complaining about the tears in his jacket, and she hadn't been able to find a nice one for him yet) when she'd seen him coming from the front lawn.

She let him in and hung her purse on a chair. It was spring in the digital world last Sleipmon had come, so she had quite a bit of time before Masaru would be needing a jacket again. That was also why she could afford to be picky. She had the time, and the means, and it made her happy to be able to fuss over racks of jackets, looking for that perfect one.

But not right then. Sleipmon came in carefully, settling himself on to the living room carpet and nodding at Suguru who had been lounging with some papers there.

'Oh.' Suguru cleared his papers away. 'I hadn't been expecting company.'

'I hope this isn't a bad time,' Sleipmon said, still looking somewhat tense.

'Not at all, my friend.' Suguru waved the concern away and leaned forward. 'Is there something wrong in the digital world?'

'Well…' Sleipmon could hear Sayuri shuffling through the cupboards. 'How aware are you about the demon lords?'

'The demon lords?' Suguru repeated with some confusion. 'I know a little about Belphemon, and I know there are seven demon lords in total, including Belphemon, but that is all.'

'I see.' Hooves seemed to play with the carpet thread, and if Sleipmon had been a lesser horse that would have made for a rather entertaining scene. But Sleipmon was too refined, and the action only served to make him look more uncomfortable: the bringer of bad news. 'It will be easier to explain with everyone present.'

'Everyone… the Savers?' Suguru guessed.

Sleipmon inclined his head in agreement.

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Wormmon did not like the look on his partner's face. It reminded him too firmly about those looks he'd had after he'd returned: that sad guilt-ridden look, yearning for some sort of action to save grace and give respite. That look that said he was willing to walk into that place that bore so much of his guilt and darkness and die with it, so long as whatever force that left it there and dangerous was destroyed. That look that said he was willing to walk into Arachnemon's hands to stop her hurting those other children, or into Demon's hands to stop him from burning all of them to a crisp.

But he hadn't, this time. He'd chosen to fight on his own. Was he regretting it now? But if they'd left just seconds later, they might have fallen with the palace – if indeed it had fallen. Perhaps it was fortified: strong enough to resist a strike like that…but it hadn't looked like a stronghold of any sort. Just a meeting and resting place.

'Ken,' he whispered, crawling up his partner's legs. The other digimon were equally worried, looking towards their own partners, and those around them. All of them were crammed together, but close enough to feel the loss of gravity, and that confusing despair.

But not one of them asked why they were leaving the battlefield. It was all too obvious, with how quickly they'd been blown back, and how fragile they were on the battlefield in front of those flames. It still seemed surreal, but they knew it wasn't. They knew the drastic changes across the land some of them had flown over just half an hour before were not a dream, nor hallucination. That was the reality of a force that had somehow grown too big to fight.

If only they'd known how to fight. If only there'd been many more golden armour digimon, each leaving a hole in Demon's flesh and in his power, so that he'd fall apart and the data that gave him that never-ending cycle of life scattered about, never to be brought together again. If only there'd been a way, like with Vamdemon, where everyone could fight, and where it didn't matter how young their digimon were, or how far they'd managed to come along the digivolution path. Where it didn't matter that not all of them had digimentals, or were capable of digivolving with them. Where it didn't matter what country they were from, or what language they spoke, or how much time they had.

But things weren't always so simple, upon them in the fever of the moment and gone before they could slow down enough to think. Because they'd had time to think: almost a week. They'd thought too much, and when that preparation was called upon there was almost no time to do anything. The golden digimentals that had opened as a door of hope had come to them in time, but it had still been fleeting. Too quickly were those digimon back to their human forms…save the Royal Knights: UlforceV-dramon, and Magnamon whom they'd left behind.

Daisuke hadn't been able to even call out to his partner before they were worlds apart.

And they hadn't been able to save a single beam of fire from crashing into their world, and laying waste. They hadn't been able to drive Demon away from either world. They'd only managed to draw him in: perhaps that was the one plan that had worked, as hastily made as it had been.

Or perhaps Ken had been thinking about it all week, after that strange, almost precognitive, dream.

'Ken?' Wormmon tried again. Ken had not replied the first time, but he looked up a little now.

And his neck hurt, beyond simple irritation like a mosquito bite that could be somewhat alleviated by scratching at it. The dark seed was squirming inside, trying to get out. Demon was getting closer, he thought. 'He's getting closer.' He said it, aloud.

Breaths caught. Eyes widened in the cramped space they sheltered in. Hands gripped other hands, or wrapped around knees or other's waists for comfort. None of them asked the question in all of their minds. Will we make it? Will anyone escape Demon alive?

Omegamon said nothing, did nothing save flew on the course he had chosen. There was no time for him to doubt. To falter would slow him down and to lose speed was something he could not afford. He had to deliver those children: his friends, his companions…and Taichi and Yamato were even so far as a part of his soul, those precious partners of his. He could not lose them. And he could not lose the only chance their world had of rebirth: that sleeping thing that still lay within those children. That was his conviction, as UlforceV-dramon's had been to get hope and power to them: that hope that might have turn the tides in their favour.

But even weakened by the golden armour digivolutions, Demon was a formidable hunter and they were the hunted.

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Masaru sighed in content as he dipped his now bared feet into the cool river. Sparring with Craniummon was always a challenging task, particularly without desperation to give him that extra push. But it was always a learning experience, and for someone like him who talked most with his fists it was always an important one. And satisfying: there were few that dared to fight him one on one, and Agumon and Craniummon were two of those.

Agumon was splashing about as well. He'd found fish there earlier and had cooked them to perfection with his baby flame. Now he was catching more fish for his partner, and Masaru as just relaxing his aching muscles. The coolness crept up his feet and undid the knots in his legs and back, the things warm water in the human world could never so quickly manage.

He'd gotten used to the odd quirks in the digital world soon enough, and his body had adjusted nicely. Sickness of the human world, for the most part, did not exist. There were a few viruses that attacked, much like antibodies against foreign objects as Touma had once said and Craniummon had reiterated, but at some point Masaru's body had stopped being considered foreign by that defence mechanism. But he couldn't get things like colds from get wet and not drying off properly; in fact, it seemed the water had some sort of healing property, because he always felt better after being wet, and no digimon except the exceptionally furry ones bothered drying themselves off at all.

It was a perfectly innocent scene, and only the visit they'd paid to the temple before and the still grey sky dampened it.

And it was almost funny which one was at the forefront of their minds.

'I wish it would just rain already,' Agumon scowled, blowing at the new fire he'd made, flickering precariously as though it was about to go out but picking up again. 'The indecision drives me crazy.'

'I know what you mean, Agumon,' Masaru laughed, kicking the water a little and watching the ripples bounce about. 'Better do something and make a mistake in my opinion. Though I wonder, would Touma still punch me for saying that?'

'I think Touma will have grown up,' Agumon said seriously. 'Same as you.'

'Yeah.' The ripples faded, and Masaru kicked at the water again. 'We have, haven't we?'

They were silent for a while after that, until the fish was ready and Agumon had offered it to his partner. Masaru took it and bit into it, ignoring the heat his mouth. Those sorts of heat didn't burn him anymore. The desert did, but it was a different sort of burning now, as though his very body was evaporating. The only thing that really burned were attacks from digimon: Agumon's baby fire, and all those other walking fire sticks.

'Do you miss them?' Agumon asked suddenly.

Masaru lowered his fish. 'Of course,' he said finally. 'How can I not? Only knew them for a few months – Ikuto even less – but we were pretty close by the end.' He closed his eyes. 'Still, it's not like I don't get to hear what they're up to and send letters and pictures and stuff to them and get other stuff back, and it's not like we'll never see each other again –'

'You think so, aniki?' Agumon asked.

'How many times do you ask that?' Masaru rolled his eyes. 'Of course I think that. How else are we going to make the perfect world where human and digimon can leave together peacefully?

'I know.' Agumon sat down nearer to the riverbank and kicked at the water as well. 'I just wish it would hurry up sometimes, you know. I miss your mother's fried eggs.'

Masaru chuckled at that. 'I'm sure she'll send some with Sleipmon.'

'I hope so. But in the meantime – ' He leaned forward, spotting another fish, and fell into a river.

Masaru's chuckles turned into full-blown laughter – until the sky suddenly exploded with rain.

.

Omegamon winced and faltered a little as fire scorched his arm. Demon had gotten close enough to shoot, and shooting he was. The restraint that had held him earlier was gone; he was sick of chasing them, and he wanted them gone.

He dodged the next few, but another struck his cloak and burnt a hole through. The children hiding inside screamed, terrified, but he heard no horrified wail of tragedy after. Hopefully that meant it hadn't hit anyone. His cloak was a barrier of sorts as well. It was enough.

Except if the fire got inside now, it would fry them all to a crisp. He tried to fly faster, ignoring the pain in his arm. But that was impossible. Demon's fire left some sort of scar and it burned, but still he thought about his destination, about how far they had left to go.

It wasn't a terribly long distance, but if Demon got in a crucial hit it would be too far. But there was no way to slow Demon down: not without sacrificing someone as the delayer.

All he could do was fly and dodge and hope Demon's aim would only get poorer so they could make it to the end of that passage alive.

.

'Geeze, downpours really know how to take it out of you,' Agumon grumbled under the shelter of a tree. It wasn't particularly good shelter: water poured through the branches and leaves and something above them creaked. But it was better than nothing, and there was a difference between friendly rain and the sort that seemed to scrape data cells off with its ferocity.

And being next to a riverbank wasn't a great idea in heavy rain, in case it overflowed or they stumbled and fell into the rushing waters. Agumon hadn't ever heard of a digimon drowning, but he had grown up in the human world where such things were in the newspaper or on the television every other week. There were a lot of things like that, some which didn't really affect digimon and others that did. And then there were ones like floods which were somewhere halfway: destroying property but never the primary cause of casualty.

For Masaru, it represented that last night in the human world, when he'd faced the prospect of never seeing Agumon again and had decided it was unbearable. But it wasn't a sad memory in the end. He and Agumon were still together, still the ultimate team. Agumon still went around calling him aniki and the pair of them did take on the world from time to time (or rather, a few fickle individuals within it who just had to make everybody's lives more difficult). They still gorged down his mother's fried eggs whenever she sent them, and anything they could get their hands on otherwise. They still chilled out everywhere, taking life by the day and trying to keep peace. Nothing complicated like monitoring the barrier. All that was done from the other side anyway. He just received updates from time to time.

And things did seem to be improving. Just slowly. He could be an old man by the time the gate opened up again – but that seemed like too far ahead to think about, for him. The future was made by his own hands after all. That was the way he lived.

Though it was hard to make anything when the rain was so fierce, it would wash everything away. He was sure he'd dropped his half-eaten fish somewhere. It was long gone. So were his shoes, and the shoes that some bazaars in the digital world sold didn't quite fit his feet. It was probably because they were for SuperStarmon and other digimon like that, not for humans. But even the custom made ones weren't so comfortable, so maybe it was what they were made of instead.

He could deal with them for a bit though. He'd just ask his mother to send some the next time Sleipmon went to the human world. It wasn't like his toes were catching a cold or getting frostbite or gangrene or gout anything of the sort. He could cut and scratch and bruise, but all those were a little different than the human terms as well.

Still, he lived there. He got used to it. Used to knowing what sort of rain was fine and refreshing, and what made him feel like a byte. Used to all those seemingly random things that went against human world logic – though he wasn't a very logical guy to begin with, so it was easier for him to adjust. Someone like Touma would have struggled far more, rewriting that sense of logic to conform with digital world ideals.

But he was Masaru, not Touma. And Masaru didn't care too much about theorising things. So long as he knew what to expect, it was fine. It was even fine most times when he didn't know what to expect. That was all part of taking the cookies and the crumbs life threw at him.

He had caught his father's best fast ball after all, before that faithful day over ten years ago.

'Hey,' Agumon said loudly.

'What?' Masaru lazily opened an eye.

'What are you thinking about?'

Masaru closed that eye again. 'My family,' he replied.

'Oh.' A pause. 'Do you think Sayuri is making fried eggs now?'

Masaru laughed. 'That never gets old.' He looked at the sky. It was difficult to tell the time, but last he'd seen it was just past noon, so… 'Maybe. If she's not going shopping or visiting a friend or doing the gardening…'

'In the rain?' Agumon had trouble imagining that. Rain in the human world was always a stay inside time, unless you happened to be a little kid in a raincoat chasing frogs or the parent that had to follow to keep an eye on the proceedings.

'It's not necessarily raining in the human world,' Masaru pointed out.

'Oh…' Agumon stared at the sky, wondering if it was dry on the flipside. 'I wonder if the sky is like eggs.'

'That's just silly.'

'Because I'd eat it?'

'Maybe.'

They laughed together. The fried eggs, for whatever reason, never got old.

'Hey, the sun's coming out. Will we see a rainbow?'

Masaru stared at the light Agumon pointed at. 'Since when is the sun that long?' he asked. 'Looks more like a beam of light to me.'

'I guess that means there's trouble.' Agumon glared at the rain, then shook a fist at it. 'Hey, we need to get going! Clear up already!'

The rain did not stop.

.

Captain Satsuma's new headquarters were far smaller than his old one for the Savers team, but everyone still fit in there quite snugly. Yoshino, Miki and Megumi were all there in uniform, the latter two at their desks and the former leaning against the wall. Touma was there by video confidence, currently back in Austria with his family. Chika and Ikuto were on the floor, playing with Ruka. Suguru and Kenji were in two of Satsuma's hard chairs; the two ladies had the couch along with General Yushima.

It was a little cramped, but they all fit without their digimon partners there. Only Sleipmon was present, on the floor in front of the kids. And he was the one who had called them all together.

'The seven demon lords,' he began, by way of explanation. 'Demon of wrath, Lilithmon of lust, Lucemon of pride, Beelzebumon of gluttony, Barbamon of greed, Leviamon of envy and Belphemon of sloth. Each of them are powerful enough to destroy a world. Each of them are counteracted by a number of Royal Knights.'

'So the Royal Knights weren't there because of Yggdrasil?' Chika asked, brow furrowing.

'That's…complicated.' Sleipmon bowed his head. 'We are sworn to protect the digital world at all costs, and if there is a dominant ruling power it goes to reason protecting the digital world means following them.'

'Until they try and destroy everything,' Chika pointed out.

'Indeed. And I think we learnt the hard way Yggdrasil was not always correct in what was best for the digital world…and the human world.'

'But why tell us this now?' Kenji asked. 'Belphemon's been destroyed, and the barrier's slowly repairing itself.'

'Unfortunately,' Sleipmon sighed, 'the demon lords cannot be permanently destroyed.'

'That explains the seal,' Satsuma said thoughtfully.

'Always did think that was a foolhardy system,' Yushima agreed. 'I guess there had to be some reasoning behind that madness.'

'Yes.' Sleipmon nodded. 'The seal is supposed stop Belphemon from awakening prematurely. He awakens one every thousand years as the norm, and during that time the world is destroyed as he fights with the Royal Knights. After that, both powers and the world are reborn, and Belphemon's egg is sealed away again. A never-ending cycle that, unfortunately, Kurata has interfered with.'

'Interfered how?' Suguru asked. 'As in Belphemon is prematurely awakening?'

'Yes.' Sleipmon nodded again. 'Worse, he is not the only demon lord. The relationship between worlds is beyond even our understanding – those of us with the power to pass through the digital space to those other worlds – but the concept of the same time in different worlds still exists.'

'You mean the idea that, right now, something is happening in each of those words, regardless of what speed and direction time flows in?' Kenji asked thoughtfully. Ruka looked at him and giggled, and he managed a tight smile in her direction.

'Precisely,' Sleipmon agreed. 'Collectively, we call that the present. And there are certain forces that need to be balanced in that collective present. More than two demon lords awake at once upset that balance – and, in another world, another demon lord is waking up…or has already woken.'

'So what will happen?' Ikuto asked, 'to digital world? And to the human world?'

'That depends on – ' Sleipmon suddenly stopped, wincing as something flashed behind his eyes. He shook his head, that strange feeling passing and leaving an echo behind, like water in one's ears after a long shower. 'That depends on a lot of things,' Sleipmon continued. 'In the worst case scenario, there is a prophecy that spells the permanent destruction of both worlds.'

.

Ken peered through the hole in Omegamon's cloak. He could see Demon now: a fuzzy shape in the distance slowly growing more pronounced. Omegamon flew steadily despite the hit he had taken, but he was slowing down. Whether it was because of the wound, the weight of his passengers or the effort it took to dodge Demon's attacks was anyone's guess.

By the looks of things, they wouldn't be able to dodge forever. And his neck was burning even more fiercely now. The seed was thrashing about inside, and if he weren't so cramped already he would have curled into the tight ball he was in now.

'Ken!' Wormmon was worried, and when his body stiffened uncomfortably it was impossible to say things were fine and leave it. The space was too confined. Everybody could feel it, could see it.

'The seed,' he forced out instead. 'It's –' He stiffened again, this time in fear, when Demon's voice roared through the digital space.

'Give me the seed!'

Omegamon did not answer or slow down, except to dip a little so the next blast went overhead. The Chosen and their digimon still felt the heat from that attack: that searing heat like from a hot dry sun, not alleviated by even a drop of sweat.

Miyako began to cry. 'We're not going to make it out of here. Demon's going to catch up to us.'

'Don't say that.' Taichi's voice and expression were both grim. 'Have faith in Omegamon.'

Daisuke gritted his teeth, looking as though he wanted to punch something. 'If only we could help,' he muttered. 'I feel so useless without V-mon.'

'We weren't much good,' Patamon pointed out soberly. 'I wish we could have done more damage.'

'I felt completely useless,' Gomamon said. 'And Jyou's my partner!'

Nobody laughed. All of them felt like that: felt useless, failing to carry all the hope that had been handed to them. All of them felt like a hindrance. If Omegamon had been on his own, he wouldn't have to flee like he was now. He could turn and fight. Maybe, if he had fought with Magnamon and UlforceV-dramon, they could have done more damage to Demon. Maybe they could even have destroyed him.

'The seed!' Demon roared again, sounding closer.

Hikari covered her ears. So did Takeru. 'Go away!' he yelled, before dropping his voice and repeating it like a mantra. 'Go away, go away, go away…'

But Demon wasn't going to go away, Ken knew. Not while he was with them. Not while Demon was still searching for the seed he carried.

His hand was there; at some point he must have scratched it, or tried to massage it. He tried to dig his nails in that space, but they were too fragile, and too small and blunt. But even if they were hard and sharp, the idea of being able to dig that seed out was ridiculous. He wasn't a surgeon. And not even a surgeon would do an operation blind and without tools.

But that dark seed was going to kill them.

He doubled over, almost knocking Patamon off Takeru's head. But he couldn't apologise. That seed was burning, struggling to escape.

If only it would escape and let them all escape as well! But it seemed stubbornly attached to him, dragging Demon closer instead. 'The seed,' he cried, the beginning of tears starting to form along with that unquenchable despair. A year ago, he wouldn't have cared much at all but then he had learnt to love his life, and his friends. 'It's going to kill us all.'

He felt for the hole in the cloak. He felt Wormmon's scaly skin first and for a moment his hand stayed there, not wanting to leave. But he couldn't kill Wormmon. Not again. I'm sorry, he thought. But I don't see another way.

And he wasn't going to drag everyone down because of the taint he carried by himself. He found the opening: large enough for him to fit his shoulders through, and stood in it. Omegamon felt him and twisted in the air in alarm. Demon saw him. The Chosen reached for his legs: yelling in a sudden rush of panicked understanding, trying to pull him down.

He jumped instead, let Omegamon vanish ahead of him and Demon stop. It didn't matter if the fire swallowed him and the seed, or left the seed behind. It sounded like the others would be safe if they made it to the other world.

And that was the only way they could hope to slow Demon down.

.

Masaru and Agumon flew once again. The rain hit them hard: sharp droplets straight from above. Masaru wished he had something to cover his eyes with: goggles or a wide-brimmed hat that could shield, at the very least, his face. It made it difficult to see. Luckily, what they were heading towards was so obvious, they didn't need twenty-twenty vision to get there.

Agumon's wings struggled in that rain, beating against the extra force and the water. His wings were made of fire after all. Not the sort of fire that was easily doused with water, but it was fire nonetheless. The wings could still form, and still fly, but it was a greater effort than if he were flying under the sun.

If he could fly high enough to break through the clouds, they would be able to move far quicker and more smoothly, but he had not that strength as a Child, and no desperate state of his partner or the world that begged him to go to his Ultimate level. And it wasn't impossible to fly. It was just uncomfortable.

It was also necessary. Because pillars of light appearing in the sky were never a good thing, and that was what they did: looked for the troubles of the digital world and straightened things out, so the world could go on in peaceful times.

They got there eventually, drenched and sore, though it took them a bit to recognise where "there" was. When they did the problem seemed to suddenly expand. Light coming out of somewhere was one thing, but when it was coming from inside the temple where Belphemon's egg lay…well, that was another thing entirely.

The two of them pressed on: slowly, carefully, as though Belphemon's egg might hear them and hatch. The entire interior was flooded with green and echoing the loud rain from outside. It would mask their footsteps no matter how loud they were, but the presence of that green light made them uncomfortable.

Masaru was sure the light in the sky wasn't green though. It was more white. And he saw that when they got nearer to the egg: that white light coming from the egg itself.

Or rather, it was coming from a small crack at its head.

Masaru cursed quietly. The crack widened and he held his breath, but the crack widened a little more again.

'Aniki…' Agumon backed away a little, before planting his feet. The chains rattled dangerously, but for the moment they were still there. 'What do we do?'

Masaru gritted his teeth. He honestly had no idea. 'Hope he's shedding?' he suggested weakly.

The crack widened a little more, and then, as they watched, a single chain snapped, the bottom part falling with a loud smack on stone floor.

.

Daisuke missed Ken's leg and would up grabbing Wormmon instead, and just like that both Ken and Demon were gone, swallowed up by the black they'd left behind. Omegamon seemed to be slowing down as well, but he was continuing straight. 'Go back!' Daisuke screamed at him. 'You can't leave Ken!'

He didn't want to think of that first, betraying thought: that it was already too late. And perhaps Omegamon didn't want to say it either, because he simply ignored the other and kept going. No-one else spoke, though tears had started to slip down Hikari's cheeks and Miyako was shaking badly in the limited space. The shock showed on each of them in some way, but at the same time the scene they were in hid that shock, that horror. Time flew past them, a renewed silence as Demon ceased his chase, and they could have flown for a minute or all of eternity in that stretch.

And then they saw light: the shadowy, blinking light that was the gateway to another world: their only chance of survival. And then they were flying through, falling without Omegamon's cloak there to protect them, feeling the sting of that darkness that surrounded them.

It was a darkness unlike anything they'd ever experienced on earth. There was no oxygen, and yet while their bodies seemed to protest the lack of it wouldn't kill them. There was no warmth, but at the same time no cold: the only warmth they had felt was the burning of Demon's flames getting painfully close, and those had pulled away.

And now there was nothing supporting them, so they could float, or fall. And Omegamon was like an angel before them: cloak billowing, form aglow by the light behind them and the only thing framed in the darkness. Just like Ken, a moment before vanishing from their sight and reach, like a dream. Just like their world, gone before they could even properly look at it one last time.

And Omegamon watched them swallowed by the light, pushed through to the new world. He watched their slowly changing faces: those expressions that might still count as shock, in a different time. But time went slower for him than them: for those children and their partners, the events that had happened hadn't quite caught up to them. Flashes, snapshots: that's what it was, until they had the time for those memories to settle into their flow.

And when they were all gone, he raised a hand and bid the opening to close. It did, leaving nothing but darkness again, and then he turned and headed back through the digital space. Back the way he had come, to the demon of wrath that had chased them all to the corners of the world.

He would have dearly loved to go with those precious partners of his he had had a small lifetimes worth of experience and bonding with, and through his time as a Royal Knight there were no others he could grow so close towards – except those other Royal Knights: that group that had been there since the dawn of time they recalled, constantly putted against the demon lords and the survival of their worlds. UlforceV-dramon, and Magnamon: the two with whom he'd stood guard upon that close knit of worlds that were now fragile skeletons in space…

But his brothers were still there. He could feel their presence: soft, like faraway starts, in the far reaches of that space. And Demon was there as well. Far closer. Demon who they could allow past.

Demon, who now had the seed he had chased them so far for.

But that might have been what saved those other children. Cold thoughts, to consider someone's sacrifice a worthwhile cause, but when two words, perhaps more, and their inhabitants had been sacrificed for hope, what was one more life for an opportunity?

Logic. That was what it was. Logic which ran the world, the survival. And maybe that was where the weakness from human bonds came in: a weakness amongst the strength of hope and possibility denied to a purely digital race. Because he couldn't deny those tears slipping down his cheeks now that there wasn't anyone to bear witness to them: their failure to protect those worlds, all the humans and digimon that had been lost including one he'd gotten to know very well…and, finally, turning away from his precious partners and all those other friends without a goodbye, because even if he had lived long enough for time to slow down for him, he didn't think he could have said goodbye without those tears.

But he could say it now, because only the darkness of that never-ending space would see those tears.

'Goodbye…Taichi, and Yamato…and everyone.'

.

There was something in the sky.

Kouji heard the sudden cries in the waiting room, saw the people rushing to the windows where others were pointing, muttering to themselves. An aeroplane probably, he thought carelessly. Or a helicopter or something stupid like that.

He certainly wasn't going to stop and look at something like that. And those who did couldn't have their eyes set on something more important to them. Little things probably: a tiny scratch a kid could be up and running about with in a heartbeat, a mild sprain that'll have them walking around on crutches for a couple of weeks before they're back to full speed, a baby on the way: one of those rare cases where the patient wasn't injured or sick…

But then he heard the whispers of a human like figure with wings, and he shoved his way through, panic rising.

Lucemon?! What else could it be, that had appeared in the sky – and Lucemon had appeared, in their world for those precious few seconds before they'd been able to drag him back: their failure.

No, their failure was before that, not destroying him before –

He stumbled into the glass, its cold hard surface a small shock to pull him away from that thought. Regret – that Kouichi had said he didn't have, but then, Kouji was carrying enough for the both of them. And it would all have been in vain if it was Lucemon up in the sky…

But it wasn't. His eyes were sharp: sharp already from martial arts in his childhood and sharpened further in the Digital World. Those weren't wings. It was a cloak – and those hands, weren't the sort that could become fists…

They reminded him of Duskmon's hands, actually. Another digimon?

But there was nothing unusual about the sky, and all too quickly that image vanished and people drifted away, muttering, forgetting.

He stayed plastered to the window a little longer. Unlike the others, that little scene in the sky had some meaning. A digimon. That was definitely a digimon.

But was he just seeing things, or was there some new threat approaching them?

He glared at the sky, but nothing changed. The warm sun still smiled back, framed by the clear blue sky.

Not that it mattered. His fingers tightened around the phone in his pocket: the phone that had become a D-scanner, and then turned back. If he got a message like that again, he knew what his reply would be, without hesitation. No.

He left the window, slowly, resolutely. The crowd in the waiting room was still there, but scattered now. That was fine. He didn't need to wait. He knew where he was going. The elevator. To the third floor. Right. Straight and passing two corridors before going through the large double doors on the third. Stopping at the second door. Squeezing the bottle attached and getting that dry alcohol hand cleaner on his hands and rubbing it in.

The first few days, they had stung fiercely, because of all the little cuts and scratches he had from kendo practise. But he hadn't been going to practise since, and using that hand cleanser so many times a day was getting his body and mind used to that sting. He barely felt it now, nor how his hands begged for something moist and warm.

He rubbed them thoroughly, mechanically, then pressed the button of the intercom. 'Minamoto Kouji,' he said. 'I'm here to visit my brother, Kimura Kouichi.'

'Come in,' came the reply, and the door unclicked.

Kouji stared at it a moment, then took a deep breath. Forget about everything else. The slight sting that still clung to his hands. That shape in the sky. He drove them all out, then pushed the door open and went inside.

It clicked shut behind him, locked from the outside again.