Chapter Text
“Please stop. Just kill me.” Piedmon had never known this kind of emotion before. He lacked the word to describe it. “I've told you where my old master is. What more do you want?”
The clown dangled between the jaws of Hydramon's leftmost head. Saki sat comfortably on the shoulder between the center and right heads. They were riding the enormous beast through the woods, headed toward the alleged entrance to The Master's lair. Monstrous limbs shredded through everything in their path.
“It's honestly embarrassing that you don't get it!” Saki yelled to be heard over the sound of the destruction in Hydramon's wake. “If I had kept Renamon alive for information, maybe we'd already be home! Can't ask any questions if you're dead! You could be lying about the shrine. How could we get any more information out of you if I just killed you now?"
“I'm not lying, I swear!” Piedmon cried. “Please, I'm begging you to believe me!”
Saki rolled her eyes. “Just shut up!” She turned her gaze to the center head. “Hydramon, can you give him more biotoxin?”
“No, please, I-- ARGH!” Piedmon seized for a bit before falling limp. Hydramon was able to give him exactly enough to make him pass out without dying.
Saki closed her eyes and felt the wind in her hair. The air was so nice up here, above the fog. “Thank you so much for everything, Hydramon.” Her normal speaking voice was inaudible even to herself, but she could feel that her words reached her partner's heart. “I love you.”
Hydramon said nothing.
So strange that between four mouths, none of them can speak in this form.
It was a long way to the shrine. Piedmon woke up and needed to be put under again six times. Each time he awoke, it was the same old sob story about wanting to die. If you had just left us alone, I wouldn't need to do this. You did this to yourself.
Upon arriving, Saki realized there was no way Hydramon was going to fit into the shrine entrance. “Uh, Hydramon? Do you think you can be Floramon again? Just for a second?”
The central head's eyes glanced at Saki. There was no reading the emotion behind those eyes, yet Saki felt no fear in her heart. “If you're gonna beat The Master, we need to get you in there first.”
An uncountable number of roots appeared from all over Hydramon's body. Saki looked around with confusion. “Do you have a different plan?” Each one of the dozens of flexing roots plunged themselves into the ground and began to vibrate. Saki could feel the shaking from all the way up on Hydramon's shoulder. It was as if the earth itself was being torn open. The shrine entrance crumbled. The ground loosened.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?” Piedmon jolted to consciousness and was horrified at what he was seeing.
Hydramon continued the awesome display of power. Bedrock shattered. Trees tumbled as the soil in which they were rooted fell into the pit formed by the tectonic rip. A brilliant flash of light blinded Saki. When her eyes adjusted, she could see Hydramon firing beams from each of its mouths into the hole.
She's digging her way into the lair! “Oh my god, Hydramon! You're amazing! I can't believe you're doing all of this for me! This power is incredible!" Saki was smiling from ear to ear. She hadn't felt so at peace in years. "Strength like this can only come from one place! You must love me so much! Nothing can stop us!”
Not a single thought was spared for the ashes scattering in the wind. Piedmon was still in Hydramon's left mouth when the blasting started.
It wasn't long before Hydramon and Saki found themselves at the bottom floor of the shrine. Saki did not share the Kemonogami's sixth sense for darkness and the like, but even she could tell that Piedmon had been telling the truth. The Master was near.
Suddenly, Saki was falling. Hydramon had disappeared from under her. “Hydramon!?” Saki had no idea what was going on. The ground was rushing up toward her, faster and faster. Saki shut her eyes.
The impact of the fall never came. Instead, the sensation of falling ended in an unsteady cushion of air. When Saki opened her eyes, she was somewhere else. Some dark, twisted dimension that stretched on forever in a blood-red expanse. Saki scanned the infinite directions and saw the fight she had come for, already in progress.
A paradox of perspectives-- a being that seemed to be both dome and crater, high up and deep below-- floated opposite Hydramon. The Master's true form, Saki figured. “Go get him, Hydramon! Wipe him out so we can go home!”
Wild beams flew every which way from both monsters. Saki felt hope in her heart and a complete absence of doubt in her mind. Hydramon can do anything.
“YOU ARE STRONG, KEMONOGAMI, BUT YOU ARE TO BECOME MY PREY!” The Master bellowed in an all-consuming voice.
“Fat chance!” Saki yelled. “You're about to--”
One of The Master's attacks found its target uncontested. A quartet of agonized roars from Hydramon filled the endless space. Saki could feel it. The pain in her chest burned exactly where Hydramon had been hit. Am I feeling what she feels? Why?
“BECOME ONE WITH ME!”
Everything went black. Saki ceased to be. Her soul, both the half belonging to Floramon and the half housed in her own body, became one with The Master and his millions of victims.
Miu had no destination. She just wanted the retribution she had earned. Let me face the consequences of who I am. Nobody else needs to suffer but me.
The cat-eared hat and oversized hoodie Miu had worn every day for as long as anyone but her family had known her were discarded on the ground. She continued running through the forest in a tank top with her hair down. She hated it. The feeling of the air on her arms and the hair on her face was torture, but her fashion was something she'd always been scolded for. If it had ever been even a small part of who she was, Miu wanted to shed it, run away from it, and be as far away from herself as possible.
I'm what's wrong. I accept that. God, whoever's listening, give me my punishment!
Miu ran until her legs were jelly. She collapsed to the ground, a mess of tears.
“Who's there?” A voice from deep in the fog asked.
Miu lifted her head and swept her hair out of her eyes. She could see a silhouette that looked like a small dinosaur a few dozen meters away.
“Agumon, is that you? Go back to Saki! I told you not to follow me!”
The voice responded indignantly. “I don't know who this Saki is, but I'll ask you not to use nicknames with me. My name is ToyAgumon, and it's a very important part of my culture.”
The Kemonogami waddled closer to Miu, and the silhouette became a clear image. He looked like a toddler tried to make a baby T-rex out of Lego. He's kind of cute, honestly. Miu cursed herself internally for thinking something positive. He buried her face in the ground.
“Uh, you're a human, right? I've never met one. Do you all eat dirt?”
Miu didn't look up. “I'm not eating dirt, I'm waiting for retribution. Now go away. You don't want to be here when it hits.”
ToyAgumon had no idea what what she was talking about. “What's 'retribution' mean?”
Miu turned on her side to face away from the little monster. “It means I'm a mistake, and I'm waiting to be erased.”
ToyAgumon walked around Miu so he could see her face. “That sounds stupid. Mistakes are something you do, not something you are, dummy.”
Miu rolled over again. Her hair kept falling into her face. “You don't know anything. I'm cursed. I always have been. Everything bad that happens is always my fault.”
“Why'd you steal my lunch?”
Miu sat up and looked at ToyAgumon. “What?”
“I found a really tasty-looking banana earlier, but I got distracted by a cloud and chased it to the beach. When I tried to go back for the banana later, I couldn't find it. So why'd you steal it?”
Miu puffed her cheeks. What's this guy's problem!? “I didn't steal your lunch, you just lost it!”
ToyAgumon frowned. “But you said everything bad was your fault. Speaking of, how'd you make all this fog?”
“That's not what I meant! Bad things just happen to everyone around me, and it's always my fault!”
“I donno, you don't really seem qualified to say that. You seem kinda dumb, and you're really small. Pretty sure you'd need to be a lot bigger and smarter to cause that many problems.”
Miu was getting furious. “Just shut up and go away! I don't need to explain myself to you! Nothing you say is going to change what happened, so stop trying to help me! I don't want to be helped!”
This creature was very strange to ToyAgumon. He wasn't even trying to help, he was just saying things he felt were true. And why wouldn't you want to be helped, anyway? Feeling good was better than feeling bad. “You humans don't make any sense, but I guess I'll go. Don't eat too much dirt, you'll spoil your dinner.”
Miu didn't say another word. She buried her head in her hands, and waited for the end to come.
It had been three days since Agumon got lost in the woods. He was more lost and lonely than he had ever known was possible. The fog had grown too thick to see anything at all. The world was a gray haze. And still, Agumon wandered.
“Takuma, I don't know what to do...” Agumon bumped into a tree and fell over. He hadn't been counting how many times he had bumped into trees since he raced after Miu, but if he had, Agumon would know that this was the 500th time it had happened. The milestone passed without notice.
“Everything I tried made things worse. We need you, Takuma. We can't do this without you.” Agumon's body was too malnourished to produce tears. “I'm sorry, Takuma. I'm trying so hard! I broke my promise to Falcomon not to fight, and I did it to keep my promise to you! I want to save the world for you! I'm just not good enough!”
Agumon needed an emotional release. He didn't care how. If he couldn't cry, he just needed someone to hold him, or tell him it was okay, or tell him he had tried his best.
Instead, he simply got up off the ground and kept walking.
“I just need to find Miu... then we can meet back up with Floramon and Saki... save Miyuki... and beat The Master...”
Agumon laid on the ground for a very long time after the 501st bump into a tree.
After the 502nd bump, Agumon got up right away.
The 503rd bump didn't even knock Agumon down.
Agumon took a nap under the 504th tree he bumped into.
It had been five days.
It had been ten days.
“Takuma?”
Agumon saw a figure in the distance. He did not question why he could make out the sight of his partner so clearly when the fog was too thick to see the tip of his nose.
The goggle-headed boy in the fog crouched to the ground and spread his arms, as if offering a hug.
“Oh, Takuma... I'm so glad to see you...” Agumon was far too hungry and tired to walk, and had been for some time. It took everything in him to claw at the ground. Was he even crawling, or was he just moving the dirt around? It was impossible to tell.
“I knew you wouldn't actually leave me, Takuma. I knew you would jump into the portal right after me. Boy, Kaito is gonna feel so dumb. You wouldn't send me to die. I knew you wouldn't.”
No matter how much Agumon tried, he couldn't get any closer to the illusion.
“We're gonna save the world together, Takuma!”
The image of his partner never said a word, never opened his eyes, and never moved a muscle. He stayed crouched there, ready to pick Agumon up in a loving embrace. Always just out of reach.
Agumon passed out from the exertion and dreamed about the first time he evolved. He awoke to the feeling of a hand grabbing his arm.
“Thanks for never giving up on me, Takuma."
