Butter-Fly Effect

You shake your head. "I-it's fine." You're not quite sure what else you could do, but at least you'll definitely be helping, this way. You don't have that guarantee otherwise, and with the Digital World the way it is now, it's important that whatever you do be useful.

Even if it's as boring as shuffling through papers and writing what you've been directed to.

Haruka doesn't let any emotions show on her face, simply turning back to her typing. "Okay, that's good then. For the next step, I'm going to try and analyze the area outside the dome. See just what's been done to it."

Given that there used to be a large island outside of the area that the dome encompasses, you imagine that the answer is 'a lot.'

Still, you grab another sheet of paper, and prepare to document the next step of this work- in bright green, this time, because there are far too many colors of drawing utensil around you.

Not that Haruka seems to mind. Or even notice. All she cares about is whatever's on the screen in front of her.

She can be predictable like that.

---

What Haruka's observations find out is... interesting.

First of all, the fact that she managed to find anything at all is honestly more than you'd expected, though in hindsight, you don't really know why. This is, after all, the person who created her own operating system for DigiDestined, even if it hasn't been widely distributed for obvious reasons.

As for what she finds... Well, apparently, the name Spiral Mountain is fairly self-explanatory. You hadn't fully expected that, but given that this is the Digital World, maybe you really should have.

"And it's not just on a geographical level," She continues, and your hand is sort of cramping with how much writing you have to do- and quickly, so she doesn't lose her train of thought while explaining things to you. "The data itself has been twisted- I'm not sure how many recognizable landmarks there are left, or how long it would take to unravel it if they weren't lazy about it."

"Lazy?" The Dark Masters went out and took over the Digital World over the course of about a week, Analog time. Even for really powerful Megas, that's not exactly being lazy.

"They never bothered to give it any sort of permanence," Haruka replies, her brows furrowing in the way that tells you she has an idea, and not necessarily a sane one. "All you need to do is take one out, and an entire quarter of the mountain simply falls apart. I'm not sure what would happen after that, but taking down the Dark Masters would clearly be the easiest way to fix the world."

Well. It's not like you weren't going to at least try and do that, anyway.

"That doesn't sound easy..." Biyomon points out.

"Well, relatively speaking, anyway. I don't expect it to be simple, by any means, but the alternative is trying to sort through an entire world's worth of code while there's an outside force actively trying to mess it up. I'm good, but I'm not that good. Otherwise-" She cuts herself off, hood falling down over her shoulders.

"Is something wrong?" You ask.

"...Nothing. It's nothing. I'm fine." You think she should leave the lying to Daigo. He's actually good at it. "So, it seems that they also managed to mess with the compass purely through data corruption, I didn't even know you could do that... And still no signs of any one Digimon in particular, beyond the fact that they tied this mess up with their life force." She sounds really annoyed by that last part, for some reason.

"Um... Miss Yamaguchi?" Before you can ask anything, Tentomon has flown down the stairs and is buzzing in front of you. "Miss Himekawa has managed to wake up somewhat, and she seems confused. We though you might be able to explain things better."

"I'll be right there!" Within a few seconds, her laptop is closed and she's rocketed up the stairs, leaving you and Biyomon with the large mess that's accumulated itself around you somehow.

...You think you can see now why her apartment's such a mess.


[ ] Follow Haruka upstairs.

[ ] ...Maybe clean up this mess. Keep someone from tripping over it.

For a moment, you simply pause and take in the fact that Haruka, whose total time spent exercising in the past year can be summed up as 'saw a program on TV once,' managed to put away her computer and make it up the stairs in less than ten seconds.

After that moment, however, you shrug and start to gather up whatever paper and notebooks you can in an attempt to sort them.

It's... not exactly easy. You break a number of pencils by accidentally stepping on them, and you really hope she didn't particularly like that red-brown pen, but you eventually stop destroying writing utencils, and even manage to get the ones that are still functional to all sit on the table.

"Would you like it if I helped?" Biyomon asks. You shake your head.

"It'd be nice, but... Maybe if you didn't have talons." You aren't sure Haruka would forgive you if you let your partner accidentally destroy all of this accumulated somewhat-mad science.

"R-right..." She seems sort of sad about that, so you ruffle her feathers before getting back to work.

You manage to stack up a good portion of the paper and notebooks off to the side- but nowhere near all of them. Which is strange, because you could have sworn you were limited to the stuff Haruka could find in the nearby filing cabinets, none of which have any runes on them, let alone the ones you recognize as being for advanced storage.

At that thought, you sneak a glance at the cooler, locked and covered in faintly-glowing permanent marker. You don't think Kazuya's going to be able to take that out in public anymore.

...To be fair, though, that's probably a good thing, given that the rune covering hurts your eyes less than the original color did. Despite actually producing light.

And then back to your efforts. It appears that at least one poor notebook has been cannibalized for scrap paper- which explains some of it, but not nearly enough- and the one three-ring binder you find to possibly hold stuff in is down to one ring. Which is unfortunate, because that binder does have storage runes on it.

Still, you've managed to clean up a good portion of the mess, even if you think the stacks of things you wrote on you tumble over in a stiff breeze, so you think you've managed enough for the day.

---

Daigo comes in a few minutes later. You have no idea what he was doing, out in the town, but it really doesn't concern you, what the older DigiDestined do with their time. You're a bit more focused on yourself.

It's not like they can leave the city, anyway.

"Haruka's upstairs," You answer his unasked question. "Maki woke up a little while ago, don't know if she's still up, but Haruka's still there, so... Also, could you tell them I'm leaving for a bit?" You've managed... whatever you were meant to do, and there's still enough time left in the day to do something, however small it might be.


[ ] You're going to see exactly how far the dome reaches.

[ ] You wonder if the arena's still there... Could be nice to check.

[ ] You'd like to just take a walk. Maybe see if there's anyplace where anyone actually stays outside at all.

[ ] Maybe you'll see what Kazuya and Rikuto are doing...

Fortunately, Kazuya and Rikuto seem to be rather close together. That's not exactly difficult- File City's big, but not that big- but it makes things easier for you.

After all, while the city's residents are sort of used to the idea of DigiDestined, you don't think using Birdramon to get around would be a good decision. If only because it seems like such a small thing to use Digivolution on, when Biyomon might need her energy later.

You hope she won't, but you're trapped in a dome and the Dark Masters are free. Things were never really going to be simple here.

Still, Kazuya and Rikuto are in locations pretty close to each other, so that's where you're going next. Both to see what they're up to, and to inform them that Maki has woken up, even if you're not sure if she'll be able to retain consciousness long enough to talk to them. If she's woken up on her own, by this point, someone else waking her up shouldn't be that much of a problem.

You run into Rikuto first. From what you can tell, he seems to be wandering. "Are you trying to get somewhere?" You ask as you approach.

"O-oh, Sora. I was just... seeing what this town has in it. It's a pretty impressive place."

"You should have seen it when we first got here." Back when everything wasn't covered up by an air of despair.

Biyomon nods, as much as she can when she's fluttering about. "Yeah! There were lights everywhere, and Digimon going just about every way, and nobody gave us odd looks or anything! It's still pretty great, but..."

Rikuto nods. "I suppose that would be better. But given that this is a world under the rule of the Dark Masters, the fact that any civilization could survive as this city has is something that the ones who had a hand in it should be proud of."

"...Are you going to actually tell Maki this?" You ask, curious. "Because she woke up a little while ago, if you wanted to go do that."

There's probably better ways to make an announcement like that, but you can't really think of them at the moment, so this is what you're going with.

"She's awake?" This is probably the most interest you've heard behind Rikuto's words, ever. You nod, and then he's gone, his dot blinking as it returns to the house.

Well. That's one down.

Just one more to go.

---

Kazuya, meanwhile, is at a restaurant, talking to a Centarumon. You have exactly zero context for any of this, but it sounds like they're sharing recipes or something, and you're not sure he'd respond well to any sort of disturbance.

Not that this stops you. After all, this is an important message that you have to deliver, at least in the context that this is Maki's friend, who cares about her, and who's probably been missing her a lot for the past four years. You know that you wouldn't be really okay with one of your friends vanishing to another world forever. Let alone without any sort of warning.

"Oh, there you are!" You call, waving as you approach. "I've been looking for you."

Kazuya glances at the Centarumon. "Sorry, this is probably something important." The Champion waves it off, and for a moment you wonder whether Kazuya being a DigiDestined has anything to do with that. He turns back to you. "Is something wrong?"

You shake your head. "It's sort of the opposite, actually. Maki woke up a while ago, and I thought someone should tell you about this in person." Versus Haruka's habit of two word Digivice messages that they might not fully understand, depending on how much they've kept up with learning Digicode. Assuming they ever bothered to learn, beyond the most important stuff.

"That... I see." And, suddenly, he's quieter than you thought he was able to be, if he weren't actually trying.

He might be thinking things through. He doesn't always do that, even if his more brash moments are still fairly rare, and it's as good a reason as any for why he's gone suddenly silent.


[ ] Does he want to go see her?

[ ] What is he thinking about?

[ ] What was he doing earlier?

[ ] Whatever it is, it's not your problem. You should head back now.