Warning for non graphic violence, ptsd, emotional neglect implied.

Chapter Twelve – There, In the Past

Two people showed up at Tagiru's house two days later. He knew it was two days because he had slept for half of one and been shoved at homework for the other half. It had ruined their trip out but considering his father hadn't seemed to have much inclination to go out, he had to agree with mom. It was for the best. They could go out later.

But two people showed up at his front door, much to the confusion of his mother as she went off to her part-time job. Tagiru couldn't blame her. Her son hardly had friends over and now multiple? In the span of less than a week? Either something very good or very bad, was happening all of a sudden.

Tagiru would agree with her if he wasn't looking at Tsurugi Zenjirou, full of life and with one arm on a set of kendo supplies. Envy filled his gut. He could never play kendo. He wasn't precise enough with the weapon and his form was, in the words of the top student, atrocious. There was too much work to be done to fix it and they had tournaments coming up, so out on his behind he had gone.

Tsurugi Zenjirou seemed to have the same amount of energy as he did, if not more. He twitched, his voice was just above a decent decibel point (until he took an elbow to the face anyway.), and he grinned like a million watt bulb.

All in all? As far as this guy was concerned, Tsurugi Zenjirou was awesome.

"What tea brand is this?" Zenjirou asked through a thumbprint cookie. His friend was looking a mixture of amused and annoyed, a look that Tagiru recognized from his mom in times like this. He blinked and then shrugged.

"I hate tea," Tagiru said, shrugging one shoulder. "It's always too bitter no matter what mom gets so I don't drink it. And soda's too sweet."

"A man after my own heart!" Zenjirou's declaration was met with a strong elbow to the ribs. "Ow! Akari-kun! After all I've done for you."

"My contribution to society is giving people a few more years with solid hearing," Akari said, going back to her phone. She did it so effortlessly too. Most girls that Tagiru knew made playing with your phone seem like the better thing to do among peasants. She just seemed to be waiting for something. Likely for Zenjirou to quit making a mess.

Still. He didn't mind being nice to them, his mother had left them here without any supervision whatsoever, but the question remained. "Uh… who are you?" Tagiru looked right at Akari when he said this. "And how did you know where I lived?"

Akari shot Zenjirou a smug look. "Told you we should have called Yuu-kun about it first."

Zenjirou made a face. "Well, seeing as it pertains to my life, Akari-kun, so it was fair for me to just get to the point."

"Get to the person, not the point." She cleared her throat. "Anyway." She smiled at Tagiru. "Sorry, we do this a lot. It's this or therapy and that's money none of us have. My name is Hinomoto Akari. You saw my best friend in your dream the other day."

Oh. Awkward. Tagiru flushed. "I… I'm sorry for-"

Akari shook her head, smiling through water. "I'm starting to get used to it. He has a bad habit of rippling through everyone in one way or another."

Tagiru chugged a swallow of water. Yuu had sounded sad and happy and confused when Taiki came up. Akari sounded fond and sad and knowing. Both had sounded unhappy, but happy at the same time.

What does that feel like?

Tagiru swallowed the envy on his tongue and ventured, "So Yuu told you where I lived?"

"He did," Zenjirou said with a grin. "He said that if I was the one at risk, I should meet the prophet for myself. It would be easier to break the prophecy then. So!" His loud voice softened so low Tagiru almost struggled to hear him. "Tell me everything."

Tagiru glanced at Akari. Akari, in turn, smirked.

"You think I have a delicate constitution, don't you?"

Oh-kay, she can totally compete with Cap in the tough girl department. Tagiru decided not to answer that question and launched into every detail he could remember. It was all so vivid even days later, which was weird. Dreams were supposed to fade away when you woke up, not still be clear as day in your head even days later. It was so gosh darn weird.

"So what do you think?" he asked once he'd finished. "Anything you know from that?"

Zenjirou had gone strangely green. Akari didn't look much better. She was pale and picking at her nails.

Then Akari took a cookie and crumbled it into pieces. "There's nothing in there on how it happens. Just that it does and it's at the school in the DigiQuartz place, right?"

Tagiru winced. She had a point, and he'd kinda thought about it too but it was all he had.I didn't ask to tell the story again anyway. He couldn't help the sulky thought. But it was true. He was getting tired of telling it, even if it actually helped.

"At his old school though," Zenjirou argued. "Like, a spirit haunting a place because they remember it." He looked back at Tagiru, who was busily playing with a pillow so he didn't say something rude. "Did you go look at the school?"

Tagiru shook his head no. "They wanted me to hunt a Digimon first, in case I couldn't do it by myself." Which I couldn't apparently. Well, okay, they couldn't but it still dug under his skin to have to be saved because he didn't have the experience. Because he apparently wasn't good enough.

"And you've got one?" Tagiru nodded and Akari stood up straight, heading towards the door. "Good. Then let's go."

Tagiru blinked. "Wait really?" She glanced back at him and he waved his hands. "I mean, sure, I can, but do you have Xros Loaders or anything? It's pretty dangerous right?"

"Plus this idiot can only have one Digimon out at any time without DigiXrossing." Kokabuterimon's voice sounded all too amused about this fact. "Which he doesn't know how to do yet."

"I've only gotten one Digimon, give me a break," he grumbled. And I wasn't even able to get it myself. "Still. He's right." Tagiru scratched his head. "I'm not exactly a pro at this, so maybe we should call the others?" God that hurt to say. It was true but seriously. He got to school by himself, got average or so grades and heck he had hobbies. He didn't, well, he didn't need people. He had goals and everything.

Akari waved a hand. "If this is anything like our adventures, it'll be fine. We didn't even have Xros Loaders back then either."

Jealousy filled Tagiru's throat and then he shook his head. "How?" Yuu had made it sound pretty drastic and deadly after all. Like having a Xros Loader was beyond necessary.

Zenjirou shrugged. "We only were there for the first half, but luck, I guess. And we had skills that we could use that Kudo Taiki did not have. Strange as that may sound."

"It's not that strange," Akari muttered. "He's not a superhero, just fascination. Anyway, don't worry. We know the school. We can hold our own. We'll go through the earth side until we get closer. Then we can open a way through."

Tagiru nodded along to this. Then another thought occurred to him. "Wait… I don't think I can make a way in."

Akari palmed her face with her hand. "Seriously?" She went back to her phone and started dialing.

It's not like you can do anything either, Tagiru thought to himself. Then he glared at his hands. Clearly, they could do much more than him. They had been to the Digital World without any super artifacts and survived.

Not for the big part, said the part of him that kept gleefully deleting Mami's messages. Not for what matters. I can do what matters now and they can't. They wouldn't know anything without me.

That was true. Maybe having all these weird dreams wasn't so bad after all.

Amano Nene was grateful to DigiQuartz for one specific reason most of the time.

She could avoid the paparazzi.

She didn't do this often, but when she did it was so pleasant. The silence from a sincere lack of people was nice if disturbing due to the implications. The ability to not have to answer questions every time she went out her front door without a disguise was so refreshing. Hong Kong was a city like so many others in many ways, and everyone was around someone at some point in their time there.

Not for the first time, she was glad that Yuu was back in Japan at home.

Father hadn't wanted him to be. He himself worked almost constantly, so Nene was often left to herself when not under her agent's beck and call. So, of course, he wanted Yuu around to protect her.

Just thinking of that made Nene roll her eyes. If her little brother was protecting anyone from her, it was himself and his massive guilt complex. He was getting better at fighting, but he still wasn't exactly capable of protecting her. Seeing as her father hadn't been to the Digital World, she could forgive his concern most of the time.

Nene giggled to herself as she walked through the streets. He's probably so angry right now. She felt bad for interrupting his work, really, but she'd been here for three years now. There was just no getting around the possibility that she could look after herself.

"I'd been doing it just fine at home before you," she murmured to the empty buildings. "You didn't have to worry then, did you?"

Then again, she'd also had her mother, back then.

I'm not supposed to think about that, she reminded herself. If she thought about that, she would think about other things, other deaths, other sad moments that as an idol, she couldn't afford to have mar her expression. She had to look happier than she was. Especially if she somehow ran into Yuu or Sparrowmon around here. DigiQuartz was in pieces all over the world, but Yuu had admitted there were ways to travel around there, so it would only make sense that he could find her when she was feeling down.

She took a deep breath. The air seemed like it was cleaner than on Earth the more times she did it. Even with the heat of seventeen summers in the Bahamas down her shoulders, the air was probably purified by more plants than humans knew what to do with.

Nene still enjoyed that she could sit on a decrepit bench and not be bothered. The Digimon never came into the city of Hong Kong. Unlike Tokyo where they had all been congregated in an awkward mass forced to work together, the Digimon in this area tended to avoid cities populated by humans if they could help it. It was much more comfortable for them that way.

Which was good. It left her virtually alone here. If Sparrowmon showed up here, however, she wouldn't exactly be displeased by it.

That was the truth, at least, until, she heard the sound of someone's footsteps.

Three years of not hearing bombs were not enough to make her lazy, especially with three years in a place she didn't know like the back of her hand. Nene rose in silence, leaping without rushing the bushes and moss into the shadowy alcove of the nearest building. She didn't dare peer out, preferring instead to listen and not risk being found quite as easily.

Nene had spent enough time on all sorts of terrain to know what footsteps could sound like, human or otherwise. They were humanoid likely, maybe a person. But she hadn't seen a Hunter in the year since she had found DigiQuartz, so it could be a dangerously good liar or a newbie. Who found Hunters and made them what they were anyway? Yuu had claimed it was an old man with a strange Clockmon, but since Nene herself hadn't met him and Yuu had barely spoken to him twice.

The footsteps continued. Leisurely, slow. So the person could be like her, not expecting any threat, not expecting much of anything.

Then, the owner of those footsteps stopped. There was the creak of metal under weight. Nene covered her mouth so she could breathe. Just in case.

Then the stranger spoke, and they weren't a stranger at all. "Three years later and I scare you away. Are you okay, Nene? Did something happen?"

Nene should have stayed hidden. She should not have reacted, tried to escape, done something other than this really. In a better state of state of mind, she wouldn't have burst out the way that she did.

But then again, she had just heard the voice of a dead person and therefore, she could be forgiven for being foolhardy, just this once.

Kudo Taiki sat where she had been sitting, one leg over the other. There was a great big stain of blood reddening the blue parts of his shirt. He looked older now, like he had aged and died and aged and died until he'd caught up with them and had stopped somewhere down the line and now didn't know what to do with himself. His gray eyes were looking in the entirely opposite direction from where she had been standing, but a part of Nene took that more as a kindness on his part, rather than he hadn't heard her. It just wouldn't make any sense otherwise.

"Taiki-kun," she said softly. "You're alive."

"Kind of." Taiki patted the bench next to him. Without hesitation, Nene sat down beside him. Thousands of questions clamored around in her brain. "I'm not entirely sure if I am or not. I just know that I needed to talk to someone that wasn't a part of the picture yet. Someone who would ask different questions and you were the first person I thought of. Akari and Zenjirou are already involved. They don't really know it yet, but they will." He let out a small noise for a moment and rubbed his eyes with a stained hand. "Sorry. Did I interrupt your private time?"

Nene tamped down all the questions, all the desirable need to just sit here and see this. She barely managed to respond with, "A little, but you've always been a welcome interruption to my thoughts, Taiki-kun. You know I concern myself too much and act too little."

Taiki smiled faintly. "I've always liked that about you."

Despite years of compliments and pithy words relegated to her appearance and well-rehearsed speeches, Nene still found herself blushing at the sincerity of that comment. "Don't be such a charmer."

Taiki flushed himself and then laughed out loud. "I'll try my hardest." He closed his eyes. "They're in danger, all of them, back in Koto. I want them to get involved but for some reason, nothing gets through. They probably don't want me to get involved more than I am. They already can't figure me out."

"They?" Nene repeated.

Taiki shook his head ruefully. "I don't think it has a name, but it's one of many and they don't know what to do with me."

"Were they the ones who-" She gestured to his body, rather than speak the words. Somehow, they felt all wrong.

Taiki nodded. "Yeah. They did." He still seemed perfectly relaxed, but the sadness that tugged his mouth at the edges was hard to ignore.

"Does he need me?" Nene didn't touch his hand, she honestly wasn't sure she could. For all she knew, he was just a hallucination from the air she was breathing and soon she would go back to the human world and feel humiliated and ashamed and lonely. Still, she looked at him, forced him to look her in the eyes by sheer willpower alone. "Does Yuu need me?"

Taiki took a deep, shuddering breath. She saw tears turning into crystal at the corners of his eyes. "Yuu needs people," he said after a moment. "But Akari needs you. She's going to die without you."

Taiki shuddered and the rickety bench trembled from the force of energy leaving his body. "I've seen it, I'm sure of it. He's going to kill her or get her killed. But if you're there, fate will change. That's how it works. You change one thing and it changes everything." He laughed, the sound low and sweet and similar to a ruler on a chalkboard. "But you never know which one is the right thing to change so I'm just changing anything that makes sense and that I can do." He did look at her now.

She had no idea why she had thought his eyes were still gray. All Nene could see was pitch black.

"Hurry," he croaked with a bitter broken smile.

Then, he exploded. All over her. She heard him sobbing in the deepest part of her brain where nothing went that she didn't want there.

Nene let out a sharp sob of pain and disgust. She spat out something she didn't want to look at nor think about.

Then she picked up herself and ran to where her apartment would be.

She needed to find Sparrowmon. She needed to put her work on hold.

But first, Nene needed a shower, and a good long cry. She also needed Kiriha, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to deal with him right now.

As it was however, he was the best liar they had now that Taiki, if he was alive, was certifiably insane. And prone to destroying himself and supernatural visions.