A/Ns: Sorry this is so late! Thanks for being so patient, everyone.

Warnings and disclaimers from chapter one.

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Chapter 9:

Nightmare Dreamers

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Matt frowned up at the derelict building, then looked back at the piece of paper in his hand to make sure he had the right place. Yes, there was no doubt about it – this was where he wanted to be. In theory, anyway.

Heaving a sigh and hoping the place was structurally safer than it looked as he lamented Gabumon's inability to be with him in public, he cautiously approached the seemingly-abandoned warehouse.

Ken, Yolei, Izzy, and Cody working together had made short work of hacking everything there was to know about the teenagers reported missing. By lunch time, they were done. Most of the information had been pretty standard – grades, addresses, family; all fairly normal, though in some cases grades had begun rising or falling sharply with no warning one year ago. And every one of the six kids reported had spent a brief stint in the hospital one year ago, as well, all because of unexpected reactions to a bee sting. In all likelihood, the geniuses of the DigiDestined had concluded, those six were definitely members of the Darkly Destined.

Then, this report had come in – a seventh teenager noted as missing. Unfortunately, that was all the information they'd gotten; that, and the address the boy had lived at.

The source of the information had been a contact of Matt's – all of them had discreetly let it be known that they were curious about any mysterious disappearances happening yesterday – and so he had volunteered to go check it out.

An abandoned, overgrown warehouse on the outskirts of Odaiba was not what he had expected. Not exactly the kind of place one wanted to be just after sunset.

Knocking on the door brought no response; Matt opened the door slightly, peering into the room. "Hello?" he called.

Still no answer. Matt slowly entered, frowning at the disrepair of the place. It was, however, surprisingly clean, and there were definitely signs of habitation. Someone had paid for electricity, for one thing – the lights were on – and there were various pieces of furniture, including a couch, two futons with pillows and sheets, a refrigerator, a television set, and a wardrobe. There was also a large bookcase, with a very extensive number of hardcover books shoved into it, with paperbacks scattered randomly about the room.

Curled on the couch was a man. He had messy, short black hair, that fell into his face and stuck up in all directions. Unfocused green eyes stared blankly, half-obscured by the man's bangs. His clothes were rumpled and had probably been worn for at least two days, but were otherwise not in bad condition. Matt guessed the man's age to be about the same as his own – nineteen, or at the very most twenty. Certainly no younger than eighteen.

When Matt warily approached him, the man turned his face towards the intruder and finally seemed to focus.

There was silence for a few minutes, and then the man asked plaintively, "Where's Ryuki?"

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The man's name was Shoura Inajima. He was, in fact, twenty-four, but he was wide-eyed and childish and slightly malnourished, which was why Matt had mistaken his age at first glance. He was not mentally retarded, but he did seem to be a very confused individual, lost in his own thoughts and incapable of caring for himself.

All this the DigiDestined discovered at Rinsuke's luxurious apartment, which had become their group meeting place, since Rinsuke's wife was frequently not at home and Rinsuke wanted to keep up with what they found out about the Darkly Destined.

Cody rubbed his temples tiredly. The fourteen-year-old had put himself in charge of interrogation, since, his father having been a police officer and his own nature being very inquisitive, he best knew what questions to ask and how to ask them.

He had started with simple, easy questions about Shoura himself – name, age, and family situation, basically. Shoura had given disjointed, tentative answers to the first two, but when it had come to the third, he had merely asked where someone named Ryuki was.

"And who," Cody asked patiently, "is Ryuki?"

Shoura blinked at him, eyes unfocusing and refocusing before he answered. "My... my brother," he mumbled at last. "My little brother. Ryuki. Where's Ryuki? He's not supposed to be gone," Shoura told them, sounding more like a lost child than a grown man.

"How about you tell us all you can about Ryuki?" Cody suggested gently, shooting a glance at Izzy to see the red-haired genius already typing keys rapidly on his laptop computer, no doubt looking for anything he could find on Ryuki Inajima. "Then we'll be able to find him." Probably in the Dark Ocean.

Cody hoped Izzy would be able to find something on the computer, because Shoura just blinked dazedly at him, eyes unfocusing again. Sighing, he turned to Izzy and raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Found something," Izzy said, as Cody had hoped he would. "Ryuki Inajima – along with Shoura here – was a resident of a local orphanage until about six years ago, when Shoura became a legal adult and applied for guardianship of his little brother, which he received. There aren't any other records of either of them. Ryuki should be about fourteen now, but I'm not finding any school records for him."

"Ryuki doesn't go to school," Shoura piped up. "He reads the books."

"Books?" Cody repeated.

"There was a full bookcase at the warehouse," Matt interjected. "There were books all over the place, too."

"Ryuki's books," Shoura said happily.

"Find anything else, Izzy?" Tai asked. Izzy shook his head.

"No. Not even medical records. It's like they just disappeared after they left the orphanage."

"Why did Shoura receive guardianship of Ryuki?" Yolei wondered, obviously thinking out loud. "He doesn't really seem like he'd be great guardian material." She glanced at Shoura, who was curled up on the couch, hugging a pillow close to his body as if it were a buffer between him and the rest of the world. His eyes had unfocused again, too.

"He might have been better six years ago than he is now," Ken pointed out, circling Shoura and inspecting him. Ken's eyes were narrowed in concentration; Cody could tell he had some inspiration, or at least a theory, about why Shoura was so odd. "Things happen to make people change." Gently, Ken brushed the back of Shoura's neck with one forefinger.

Shoura yelped, jerking away and darting to the corner of the room, crouching with his back to the wall, clutching the pillow tightly in his fingers. His eyes rested warily, almost reproachfully, on Ken.

Cody inhaled sharply, realizing what Ken had been trying to test – and had apparently proved, judging by the grim twist to his mouth. "There's a Dark Spore inside him?"

"Yeah," Ken replied softly. "I could... sense it, almost."

"Wait," Davis protested. "If he has a Dark Spore, does that mean he's a Darkly Destined too?"

"Not necessarily," Yolei asserted. "He might not even be DigiDestined, like Ken is. We don't know enough about where the Dark Spores come from to draw a correlation between them and the Darkly Destined or the DigiDestined, and there's no way to tell how long he's had it. If it's longer or shorter than one year, he doesn't fit in to the pattern of when the other Darkly Destined assumably were infested by their Dark Spores."

"Shoura," T.K. addressed the man softly, "did Ryuki get really sick for a few days, about one year ago?"

Shoura's eyes darted to T.K., and for once, they lacked that fogginess. "Yes," he whispered.

"And you?" T.K. prompted.

Shoura's mouth twisted, and his fingers dug into the pillow even further. He seemed to be struggling with himself for a moment, and finally he said hoarsely, "No, not then. Longer. Four years ago." He shuddered, then folded in on himself, burying his face in the pillow.

No matter how they tried, the DigiDestined could not get him to respond to anything for the rest of the night.

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"But what if it's not enough, Alexander?"

Hesitancy. Reluctance. "Well... if you have to, you could ask the Digitally Destined who come after us to release their Destiny Crests to form a protective shield around the Digital World, but only if you absolutely have to, Gen."

"Why? That sounds like it would be really helpful."

"Because if the Crests are released, Galfmon's Dark Crests will be able to..."

"To what? ...Alexander? What's wrong?"

Blue eyes. Amazingly blue eyes, clear and wise, and very, very tired.

"Who are you?"

Ryuki jerked awake, chest heaving as he gasped for breath, sweat pouring down his body. A soft whimper caught his attention; his head snapped in that direction.

Itaro. Only Itaro. In the midst of a nightmare, too, by the look of it. But no, his brow unwrinkled and his breathing calmed. Itaro turned over in his sleep, sighing.

"You, too, huh?" someone murmured. Ryuki shot a sharp look in the direction of the voice.

Keiko sat in front of the fire, knees folded up to her chest, and there was a haunted look in her eyes. She was the only one awake; everyone else slumbered on, though there was a lot of restless shifting for a few minutes from the humans. Even Takori stirred slightly before returning to deep sleep. Apparently, Ryuki wasn't the only one who'd had uneasy dreams.

The Digimon, on the other hand, slept like the dead.

"Me, too, what?" Ryuki asked, sitting up and brushing damp bangs out of his eyes. Keiko sighed.

"You had a nightmare too?" she clarified.

"Yeah," Ryuki affirmed, staring into the fire. Going back to sleep didn't seem like much of an option; adrenaline was pumping through him, and his whole body trembled. Keiko didn't look much better off. Better to stay awake and keep guard.

The silence stretched on. Then, Keiko asked, "By any chance, did yours involve four people about my age and one more a lot younger? Three boys and two girls? The four older ones foreigners? The names I heard were Gen – the litte kid – and Mei, one of the girls."

Ryuki didn't answer for a long time. "I saw them," he said at last. "I heard Gen's name, and one of the other guys – Alexander. And something about the crests and a Digimon called Galfmon."

"It's weird," Keiko chuckled humorlessly, "I heard them talking about something completely different – they were saying good-bye to each other – and the only things our dreams have in common are the genders and general ages of five people, and the name of one of them... but I just can't make myself doubt that we were dreaming about the same people. The same day, even."

"Yeah," Ryuki whispered. He had the same unquestionable certainty that it had been the same people on the same day; that the only difference was which part of the conversation they were eavesdropping on. It didn't even strike him as a possibility that the nightmare had been nothing more than a bad dream. He hesitated a minute longer, then asked, "Did any of them see you?"

Keiko stiffened. "No. Did they see you?"

"Alexander looked right at me." Ryuki licked his lips; suddenly they felt dry. "We made eye contact. He asked me who I was. I don't think the others could see me, but I never found out for sure because that's when I woke up."

Keiko gave him a slant-eyed look, contemplating that. "Who do you think they were?" she asked at length.

Ryuki stared into the fire, not letting his thoughts reach his face. "Our enemies," he said at last, and resolved to find out exactly what it was the Dark Crests would be able to do.

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Yumi woke the next morning with a bad case of the shivers.

In fact, everyone was looking a little out of it. Itaro was more jumpy than ever, and kept rubbing his upper arms, as if he were really cold. Yumi felt that way a bit, too, but at least she didn't flinch whenever someone talked to her. Poor Itaro.

Zuma – oh, poor beautiful Zuma! – seemed distracted and snappy, saying mean things Yumi knew he didn't mean whenever she or Keiko or DemiDevimon tried to ask him what was the matter. Sukiko had bags under her eyes and was super-grouchy, even to ViElecmon. Hiiro was quiet, and when Yumi tried to talk to him, he didn't hear her. Keiko and Ryuki just seemed very tired, and they didn't seem surprised at all at the condition all the humans were in. Even Takori was acting weird – well, weirder than normal; when Strabimon tried to lead him forward once everyone was ready to continue on, Takori didn't move. He just stood there, staring. It took Ryuki giving him a gentle push to get him walking, and the blank-eyed boy's steps seemed to shuffle and drag more than usual.

The Digimon, for their part, looked really frustrated. Yumi felt too shivery to do more for Keramon than pat him on the head, and when she didn't scoop him up for periodic hugs as she had the day before, he became edgy and fell back with the other Digimon, whispering fiercely. The only Digimon that didn't join in the buzz of conversation at the back of the group was BlackGatomon, who, instead of riding on Ryuki's shoulder, walked on all-fours at his heels, glancing up at his human partner from time to time.

Yumi wondered if the others had had weird dreams last night, too. Weird nightmares, more like. Even though it hadn't been particularly scary, or much of anything at all – just some conversation between people she didn't know – it still had her shaking and shuddering like she did the day after she had nightmares.

The nightmare just wouldn't leave her alone, either, tugging at her thoughts like something important she'd forgotten to do.

"We'll never see each other again, Gen," a Chinese-looking girl had whispered, hugging a little boy close, "I'll really, really miss you."

"Me too, Mei," the little boy had cried into her shoulder as two other boys and another girl looked on. "Don't forget me."

"Never. Not you, not Yasyamon, not anything that's happened. As long as we still think about each other, still remember," the girl called Mei had continued, ruffling Gen's hair as she gave him a wet smile, "we'll still be together, in our thoughts and in our hearts."

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"What do you think's wrong with them?" Keramon hissed to his fellow Digimon, glaring at the Darkly Destined's backs.

"I don't know, I don't know," Gazimon growled in frustration. "Could this be a side effect of the Dark Spores, ViElecmon?"

ViElecmon frowned contemplatively, ears twisted backwards. "It could be – the Dark Spores amplify their host's worst traits, eating away at everything else, while giving the child some superhuman ability. I've no clue what that feels like to the host, but that DigiDestined brat never knew he was infested until the fact of the matter was thrust in his face. Perhaps it has something to do with their being Darkly Destined. A side effect, of being psychologically imbalanced enough to match a dark crest.

"Wait," Wizardmon interjected, shooting ViElecmon a sharp look. "'Superhuman ability'? How so?"

ViElecmon sneered at him, obviously not intending to answer, when DemiDevimon piped up, "I didn't know about that either."

"None of us did," BlackAgumon growled, giving ViElecmon a dark look.

ViElecmon snarled at him, and BlackAgumon hissed back. Finally, ViElecmon answered, though not without an ugly glare for BlackAgumon and Wizardmon. "Enhanced intelligence and physical ability is the most frequent one, and the only double-ability," he grumbled. "It's recurred in several of the humans infested by Dark Spores – Ken, Hiiro, Ryuki, Keiko, Zuma," ViElecmon listed. "If you know how to judge these things about human bodies, you can tell that they're stronger than they look and have a high amount of stamina. You can see the intelligence in their eyes. It comes out stronger in some more than others – Ken, Ryuki, and Keiko more than Hiiro and Zuma."

"Alright," Strabimon said patiently, glancing up at Takori with concern in his eyes. "What about the other, um, superhuman abilities?"

"Enhanced awareness of one's surroundings – that'll be Itaro, I think," ViElecmon said brusquely. "Better memory, sometimes to the point of being almost photographic... probably Sukiko, since she's not displaying any of the other ones. An enhanced sense of balance – Yumi definitely has that, look at how high the heels are on her shoes, and she hasn't tripped or misstepped once on this uneven terrain."

"What about Takori?" Strabimon asked insistently, with another nervous look at his partner.

ViElecmon barked a laugh, cold and cruel and harsh. "Why, isn't it obvious?" Sukiko's partner sneered. "Takori is extremely lucky."

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A/Ns: More action for next chapter, I promise! Hey, at least you got some interesting exposition, right?