Butter-Fly Effect

"Well..." You aren't entirely sure how to talk about this. How do you just tell someone that the world they fought so hard to protect has finally been conquered? You're sure Daigo would know the answer to that, even if he's never had to use it, but that isn't something you've ever given serious thought to needing to explain.

Of course, you can't stand around like this forever, and eventually you have to speak. "The dome's here to keep out the Dark Masters, I guess. This is- Jijimon seems to think this is the only safe place left in the Digital World."

It probably says a few things if it is. The first time you were here, the city was bright and cheerful, with lights covering the streets at night and Digimon excitedly gathering for tournaments and nobody being worried too much about anything, beyond the occasional stray Black Gear.

There weren't any lights yesterday. No loud conversations in the streets- or conversations at all, when you think about it, beyond those held by your group. The Gears might be gone, but for all you know, Machinedramon could easily have made more.

It's different. You don't like it.

Haruka doesn't seem to like it, either. "Nobody's really acting like they're safe." And you guess she'd know, sitting out on the porch and watching the world go by. "But with them around, I can't really blame them."

You don't blame them, either. You may have only encountered Piedmon the once, but it's not something you'll ever be able to forget easily, and Machinedramon, in a way, has been shadowing your journey since the very start. There's little reason not to be scared of the Dark Masters.

"Jijimon said that they'd turned the rest of the world into a place called Spiral Mountain," You add, because context is good and odds are she'd figure out whatever happened on her own, anyway. That's just what she does.

The mad scientist pauses, glasses slipping down her face. "...That sounds like something from a game."

"Nobody ever said those four were sane," Biyomon chirps, and you and Haruka both laugh a little in agreement, because they really aren't. You could figure that out just by being in the same room as one for five minutes. Maybe less than that. You didn't exactly have a watch or anything, and you'd had more important things to do than keep checking the time on your Digivice.

"...No, I guess not. Are you coming in for lunch? Kaz is making shrimp burgers." That actually sounds good right now.

Eating things with seafood in places most wouldn't expect shouldn't be so nostalgic for you, but at no point did you ever claim to have a conventional childhood. And, honestly, anything made with fish is ruined for you these days, if anyone else makes it.

Sometimes, you're really glad his partner didn't start out as a bird.

---

When the others come back, some of them carry similar information to you- everyone is scared of the Dark Masters. Matt complains about how that's not really news, while Mimi's more annoyed that her favorite restaurant closed and she can't show it to Joe. Tai says she's just being petty, and get shoves out of his seat.

Honestly, you still can't decide if he deserves that or not.

None of you ask about Maki, or directly reference the dome, or question if any of the nearly-adults regret coming here. You just eat and share more minor, trivial things, like how there's only five Digimon currently working in the meat farm, or the story of how Gatomon met Wizardmon and DemiDevimon in the desert, each of them seeking out old legends for different reasons, but becoming friends either way.

"And then it turned out none of us were any good at digging through sand," Wizardmon laughs, still examining the cup of coffee he'd magicked away from Rikuto. Rikuto, for his part, hadn't seemed all that upset with it, simply pouring out another cup. "So we decided to track the trail of where Himekawa was last sighted, and, well... you know the rest."

"Nobody ever told me what a Digivice looks like," Kari's partner adds. She's forgone everything about this meal but the seafood, wincing a bit when she scoops the hot food up with her claws. "There weren't any pictures or anything, and Lord Myotismon never said a word about it."

There's questions this brings up, of course, things that none of you know the answer to, and everyone seems to know, that, because nobody asks.

But there's just as many things that you're wondering about, that somebody must know the answer to, because the ones who could answer it are already here. And, eventually, you have to ask.


[ ] How far did the Dark Masters get, last time?

[ ] What was Myotismon like, anyway?

[ ] They managed to track Maki to the castle?

[ ] If they were looking for things about the DigiDestined, why didn't they go to File Island?

[ ] Does anyone know why the Dark Masters would have chosen now to act?

"What was he like, anyway?" Your words come out so quietly, it takes a few moments for you to realize that you actually said them. "Myotismon, I mean."

"He was... very private," Wizardmon says. "He didn't talk much. At least, not about anything personal or important. I'm unsure if he was always that way, or if it was just a result of the castle."

"A result of the Dark Masters," Kazuya speaks up. "Leave the castle out of this. It's just a building, after all."

"I wouldn't be sure about that," Gatomon states. "Anything that has a door between worlds has to be more than just a building. And once it starts trapping people inside... Lord Myotismon hated the castle. It was the one thing that everyone knew about him- that he'd rather die, and risk being reborn without memories, than stay there for centuries more. ...Personally, I don't really blame him for that." Kari reaches over and hugs her partner. Gatomon snuggles up to her and doesn't say anything more.

"Not that this made him easy to kill, or anything..." DemiDevimon grumbles. "Oldest Digimon on Server, one of the most powerful around... He was never gonna let himself go down without a fight. And, you know, it probably wouldn't have fixed things even if he did. Was sort of fun to try, though."

"Correction: You thought it was fun to watch Gatomon try." Wizardmon doesn't turn towards the bat in particular, he just says, this, before continuing. "I am not sure that any of us really knew who Lord Myotismon was. He never spoke of the past, you see, or what the Crest actually was, or the Digivice, or the fact that he knew what they were to begin with. It's as if... no part of him mattered, except for the Lord of the Castle. And even that was likely a fabrication."

"You'd probably be better off asking Himekawa," DemiDevimon comments. "She knew him before all this stuff, right? So if anyone knows the truth, it'd be her."

You make a mental note to ask Maki about Myotismon at some point after she wakes up. Maybe. It's probably not that important.

Whatever that castle, and the vampire inside it, really were... They're gone, now.

---

You don't do much else for the next couple of days. You're too busy writing things down in notebooks Haruka gives you. Mostly, it's the information that you've gathered since you first got to the Digital World, that she hopes she can use it to figure out just what's been going on recently.

There's also a sheet detailing the process that she hopes to use to fix her eyes, but she hasn't quite perfected her plans yet, and as such she's not ready to put things into action.

"I thought Izzy was your assistant..." You grumble, shuffling through sheets of paper and notebooks and pens in more colors than you even knew existed.

"He's busy monitoring Maki's condition." The DigiDestined you met first- and know least well- hasn't fully woken up yet, though, like her Digimon, she's managed to grab for food in a daze, so you think she's on the way to getting better, sort of. "And Joe panics too much about possibly getting things wrong, it messes with his handwriting."

You suppose that, when messing with the fabric of reality involves the knowledge of certain runes, exact lines are fairly important. Hence the reason that, when possible, you're using a ruler. There's not a lot of thought involved in copying what Haruka says, so all you have to worry about is the runes potentially activating in a way you don't expect- which, so long as you keep them simple and detailing actual events, shouldn't be a problem.

Hopefully. You've never tested it before. And runes don't usually activate on paper, so you probably don't have to worry about it, but it's always best to be safe.

"...But, if you want to leave, go ahead. It's not like this is particularly important to the fate of the world, unless you're handing it off to the historians..." Or the fact that she'll be messing around with her eyesight at some point, but you're pretty sure she's not going to anything about it until she's certain it'll work, so it should be fine.

She's not Tai, after all.


[ ] Go to the Green Gym, to try and help Biyomon get stronger.

[ ] Walk around the edge of the dome, see if there's any points where you can properly see what's outside of it.

[ ] See if the battle arena is still there- you'd liked that place.

[ ] ...Honestly you should probably stay...