"Kari--!" Angewoman swooped down and landed beside her human, pointing at Kari's hip. "Kari, your digivice is glowing again!"
"Huh?"
Kari glanced down at the digivice clipped to the waist of her pants. It was, indeed, glowing again. But...why? She gasped as she realized that it wasn't just the digivice that was glowing--ALL of her was! She was enveloped in a soft salmon-colored light, as though a glow were emanating from somewhere inside of her.
Was this the light within that Pipermon was talking about?
She glanced around and, as she watched, the digivices of her friends began to glow as well; Sora's red light of Love, and her brother's orange light of Courage, TK's golden radiance of Hope, and Mimi's verdant glow of Sincerity. Yamato's blue brilliance of Friendship and Izzy's violet glimmer of Knowledge lit up like candles, and finally, Jyou’s silver-white light of Reliability completed the color spectrum and cast a circle of prismatic colors on the faces of all the Digidestined children.
Light alone cannot destroy her...but you must be the catalyst.
Pipermon's words rang in Kari's consciousness like a clear bell.
The first domino.
That's what she had meant. Kari's light would start a chain reaction. Though Kari hadn't really done anything consciously, Pipermon had been right. Somehow, the light inside of Hikari Kamiya had known what to do.
"Hikari-san!" Pipermon called jerking Kari's thoughts back to the task at hand. Kari looked up.
"You can't hold me here forever, you know," Kurarimon growled. "You'll lose your power before these little children can destroy me. You can't keep me here."
"Oh, I'll keep you in there long enough to see you dead, Kurarimon," she seethed icily. She looked back over her shoulder at the children. "Do it now, Hikari-san," she said again, "finish it."
Kari nodded, and looked at the others. She closed her eyes and positioned her hands near her collarbone.
Guys, I need your power, she thought. I need your strength. Help me...help me, so we can defeat her!
Kari gasped as a strange tingling sensation crept through her body, seemingly from the inside out. She felt a surge of power run through her, and a feeling of confidence swept over her--a feeling she, as well as the others, had rather been lacking lately. She smiled as the warm tingly feeling rippled through her body, as though it was running through the very veins beneath her skin. They were going to win, she could feel it. Kurarimon's reign of terror ended here, and it ended now. Cupping her hands gingerly, as though holding a glass globe between her fingers, Kari opened her eyes for a moment and cast a glance at her brother. Tai winked at her, and flashed a thumbs-up. Kari beamed, then slowly closed her eyes again, concentrating. On what, she wasn't quite sure, but, whatever it was, it seemed to be working. A small pink sphere formed between her palms, much like the dark one Kurarimon had summoned earlier. The pink ball spun and swirled between Kari’s hands for a moment, and then it was joined by a streak of red as Sora's digivice shimmered brighter with a glittering crimson light. Then came a streak of orange, then gold, and every other color in turn until the swirling, writing rainbow of colors between her palms was about the size of a large melon, and nearly blinding in its multicolored brilliance. The colors began to spin, faster and faster until they all bled into one bright white glow that forced Kari to squint and turn her face away. The light erupted all around them, a blinding silver radiance that made all the children wince and flinch, shrinking their faces away from the light.
When the light had faded, Kari was left standing in the center of the circle of Digidestined children with the sphere glowing a pale pink color between her hands, the symbol of the crest of light blazing from somewhere within the shifting salmon-colored mists of the orb. Kurarimon reeled back at the sight of the pink-white orb, suddenly looking rather pale and sallow.
"You will never defeat me," she snarled to Pipermon, though she really didn't sound so confident of that anymore. She pressed her hands against the shell around her, trying desperately to break free. With a grunt, Pipermon set her jaw, gritting her teeth as she fought against Kurarimon's attempts to escape. She glanced back over her shoulder again.
"Hikari-san, quit playing around!" she scolded, fighting Kurarimon back, keeping her trapped in the sphere. "Do it now!!"
Kari nodded again, and turned her right wrist so her palm was beneath the sphere.
Okay, she thought, let's do this.
Setting her teeth, she gazed at her comrades. Her eyes again fell on her brother, and she felt her soul fill with a euphoric feeling of assurance as he winked at her. Grinning, Hikari drew back her arm and locked her red-brown eyes on Kurarimon, who was still trying desperately to flee from her translucent blue prison.
Here we go...she thought. One defeated evil arch-nemesis...
"Coming right up!!"
She took a deep breath and flung the ball of light forward, sending it hurtling toward the trapped Kurarimon. Pipermon darted straight up as the sphere of bright pale pink light approached, and Kurarimon let out a horrified wail as the shell around her vanished, leaving her alone to face the full mercy of the light of the Digidestined.
"No!" she cried as the orb exploded just before impact, engulfing her in a flushed pink light that was so bright it hurt to look at it. She was coated in the brightness, shrieking in pain and fury, and then the world went completely white, as though it had been swallowed by the sun itself.
With a cry, Kari turned her face away as the light exploded all around them, and Tai jumped forward, wrapping his arms about his little sister as they were consumed in the whiteness. The children's digimon suddenly found themselves no longer able to retain their Ultimate forms...even Gatomon had reverted to her Rookie form of Salamon, a small beige-colored digimon with floppy ears and large blue eyes. She flattened her body to the ground as the light enshrouded everything, and turned her eyes away. Pipermon was flung backward by the force of the blast of light, and she tumbled head over heels two or three times before she was able to regain her composure. Still hovering a good fifteen feet above the ground, Pipermon shaded her eyes as the light began to abate. She saw Kurarimon, doubled over as though the light were tearing her apart from the inside out. She was still floating, clutching her abdomen, clearly in terrible pain. The Digidestined looked up to see the pitiful sight...Kurarimon's form was slowly and steadily becoming semi-transparent.
Kari cringed. She knew Kurarimon was evil, and would have exterminated all the children had she not been stopped first...but Kari almost regretted having to destroy her like that. She watched as Kurarimon's body began to crumble and flake away, turning to digital dust, as all digimon did when their time in that form had come to an end. No more than compiled bits and pieces of data themselves, the digimon returned to the very microbes of information they were formed from. Kari looked away, and buried her head in her brother's arms.
"Kari?" he asked. "Kar, are you okay?"
"I just wanna go home," she whispered. She lifted her head and looked at him, pulling the goggles from her forehead. "I don't want anybody else to get hurt, I don't wanna fight anymore." She handed him the goggles. "I just wanna go home."
Tai loosened the strap on the goggles and then snapped them back on the crown of his head. He hugged Kari quickly, tightly, before rising to his feet and shading his eyes to watch as the enemy faded away into nothingness.
"You think you've won?" Kurarimon rasped to Pipermon, still clutching here stomach.
"We gave you every opportunity, Kurarimon," Pipermon said, though her voice held no emotion anymore. Her eyes were narrowed in angry yet almost remorseful determination.
Kurarimon laughed bitterly and tossed her hair. "Do you really believe this is over?" she asked. "You could not be more wrong! You can kill me, but this war won't end there. You cannot win. I may be killed, but I won't die ALONE!" She laughed again and snapped her arms out. "Moloch's Grasp!"
A black, sickle-shaped shadow flew from Kurarimon's fingertips and plummeted downward--right toward Tai and Kari.
"No!!"
With a horrified cry, Pipermon dove down toward the Digidestined, so fast Kurarimon could barely see her move. Tai let out a cry of alarm, and Kari glanced up with a shriek as she saw the sickle hurtling toward them, raising her arms to shield herself. There was a blast of blistering hot wind as the sickle neared its target--
--but nothing happened.
Kari snapped her head up in time to see Pipermon thrown backward by the force of the deadly attack and slammed into the far wall with a pained squeak, as though she didn't have the energy to truly cry out.
"Pipermon, no!" she yelped, suddenly having horrific flashbacks of Wizardmon, a dear friend of the Digidestined, who had once taken the brunt of an attack in an effort to save Kari and Gatomon, and had paid for it with his life. Kari had never really forgiven herself for that, and was not about to let it happen again.
Kurarimon let out a wicked cackle as the Digidestined watched in horror, and then she was gone in a cloud of digital dust. She was gone, the threat to the Digital World neutralized...but this was no time for celebrations.
"Pipermon!"
With a shout, Tai leapt up and started forward, gasping in surprise as the landscape around them suddenly vanished, leaving them in the middle of an open field. Kuroniji Mountain and the Forest of Illusions had vanished just as quickly as their creator had, leaving the Digital World no different than it had been before Kurarimon had corrupted it. Shaking his head quickly, Tai darted forward as Pipermon tried to regain her poise and fly, but failed miserably. She plummeted to the ground, landing hard on her left side, where she lay, curled, clutching her ribs.
"Pipermon!" Tai cried again, rushing over as the rest of the Digidestined followed quickly. He reached her first and dropped hard to his knees, turning her over and gripping her shoulders as he lifted her from the ground. He found she was surprisingly light, for being the tallest member of the group. "Pipermon, talk to me!" The others gathered around as Tai yanked off his goggles and folded the wide blue headband twice and pressed it against the gash in the digimon's side. "Pipermon--!"
She yelped and flinched as pressure was placed on the wound, but extended her arm and waved Jyou off as he dove into his duffel to find something with which to dress her wounds.
"Save your treatment, Jyou-san," she said slowly. "Don't waste your time."
"But--" he began to protest.
"We have to do SOMETHING!" Tai interrupted him, voicing everyone's thoughts.
She shook her head. "There's nothing you CAN do, kids," she said. "That's a sure-kill spell, even on me." She inhaled sharply, painfully, and Tai immediately loosened his grip on her shoulders, as though he had been the one who hurt her.
"Pipermon, what do we do now?" Yamato asked. "There’s got to be some way we can--"
"Weren't you listening?" Pipermon asked, a little more harshly than she really meant to. "It's a sure-kill spell, remember? Even my magic wouldn't be able to reverse it's effects."
"But--"
She grimaced. "Kurarimon wouldn't have used such a powerful spell if she'd had any other choice. It kills both, it uses up all of the energy of the person who casts the spell. If she hadn't already been dying, she never would have resorted to using it." She gave Tai a sever look. "She meant, Kamiya-san, to take you and your sister with her."
"Pipermon, you idiot!" Yamato shouted. "You threw your life away just as you had reclaimed it!"
"Iie, Yamato-san," she replied with a small smile, "I did what I needed to do. I atoned for my tarnished past, I made up for the lives I hurt... I helped you return this world to how it should be, and that is enough for me."
"But what if it's not enough for us?!" Kari wailed. "Pipermon, you CAN'T leave us now!"
"I am afraid, Hikari-san," Pipermon laughed, "that I don't really have much say in the matter anymore." She glanced at Tai again. "Oh, don't look so upset, Mophead," she chided, "if it hadn't been for you kids, I would have stuck with Kurarimon right up to the end and died in shame. Now, thanks to all of you, I can leave here with a clear conscience."
"But we don't want you to leave!" TK cried, his eyes glazed with tears.
Pipermon shook her head. "My time is done here, Takeru-san," she told him softly, and closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. "You kids saved me as much as I saved you, don't ever forget that." She hissed in pain and clutched her side tighter, and she made a wordless sound of disdain as she felt her blood ooze between her fingers. She squinted, then opened one eye and gave Tai a somber state. "Look, Mophead, this is a little beyond negotiation," she said, and winced again. "Don't worry about me, Kamiya-san," she assured him trying to smile. She wasn't very successful. "Don't worry about me," she said again, "digimon don't really die here, remember?"
"But--"
"No more buts," she interjected firmly. "Besides, now you've gone and stained your headband." Tai let out a tiny sound of protest, but she interrupted him. "This wasn't your fault...if I was destined to die in an untimely fashion, I'm glad I had the chance to meet all of you first." She gasped when a strange prickling sensation ran through her body, and her feet suddenly went numb. She realized she was beginning to fade away, and she cast her eyes on the Digidestined one more time. "Why so sad, children?" she asked. "You've won! Your world, and this one, are safe again, thanks to you! What happens to me now is inconsequential." She smiled. "You can all go home, put these past four days behind you. You can pretend as if they never even happened at all. Like you've simply awakened from some awful nightmare...just like in a fairy tale."
"But fairy tales are supposed to always have HAPPY endings!" Tai cried as Pipermon's body began to dissolve in his arms.
"Don't you get it, Tai?" she asked quietly, and he was a little startled that she had called him by his first name. "Don't you understand? Physical forms may come and go, but friendship is forever. It survives death, even if our bodies do not, into an eternity that needs no tangible indication." She winked at him. "Don't you see? There ARE no happy endings."
"What??"
A shocked cry arose at this, and she chuckled softly at their reaction as the numbing sensation crept up her spine.
"There are no happy endings," she whispered again, "because nothing ever really ends..."
"Pipermon--!" Tai yelped as she turned to dust in his arms.
"Remember that..." a voice echoed in his mind as the digidust shattered into the air and vanished, and he was left cradling the empty air. He shuddered as he looked down at his hands and watched the last traces of her blood dissolve from his hands and float into the air like dandelion seeds. The folded headband dropped to the ground, and the blood lifted away from that, too, leaving it good as new, as though no blood had ever touched it at all.
"No!" he cried, grabbing at the air desperately, as though he might be able to will her back if he could collect enough of the elusive dust in his hands. "Pipermon...no..." He grit his teeth, then clenched his fists and pounded one into the ground. "Dammit!" he shouted. "She sacrificed herself to save us, and there wasn't a damn thing we could do to help her!!" He beat the knuckles of his right fist into the dirt beneath him. "Dammit..." he whispered, and hung his head.
No one moved for a moment, almost afraid of what Tai might do next, and then Agumon took a tentative step forward, resting one clawed hand softly on his master's shoulder. "Tai," he whispered, and he looked at him, his eyes full of agony. "Tai, you have to keep in mind...it's like she said...digimon never really die here..."
"But she was different," Tai protested miserably, "she wasn't born in Primary Village the way the rest were...she was created."
"It doesn't matter," Mimi said.
"Don't you remember?" Sora added.
"That's what she had been trying to get across all along, Tai," Yamato continued for them, "that origins didn't really matter."
"A digimon is a digimon is a digimon," TK concluded softly with a tiny hopeful smile.
"She was still information," Jyou said, "even if she wasn't a naturally occurring digimon. Information, no matter what its form, will be reconfigured."
"She'll be back," Kari said, a sad hint of a smile on her face, "in one form or another."
Tai was about to argue back when Izzy let out a strangled yelp. They all turned to see him holding his laptop out, as though he expected it to bite him at any second.
"Izzy, what's wrong?" Mimi asked, wide-eyed, and the red-haired boy gasped when the laptop flashed white and began to glow.
He quickly placed the laptop on the ground and stumbled backward. A rainbow of colored light shot straight up from the computer, which now lay open like a book. The children gasped as a figure emerged in the pillar of kaleidoscopic colors and sharpened into--
"Gennai!" Sora gasped.
"We were starting to wonder what had happened to you..." Yamato added after a moment.
"Well, kids, it looks as though you've done it again," he said proudly. "I dunno quite how you managed, but you’ve restored the light to the digital world..."--he paused--"hey, why the long faces?"
"We...suffered a heavy casualty," Tai admitted after a moment of thick silence. The old man in the pillar of light frowned, and softly began to count to himself.
"One, two, three, four..." He twitched one eyebrow. "I still see all of you as present and accounted for," he said, confused.
Mimi shook her head. "Not one of us, Gennai," she said.
"It was another digimon," Gomamon said vaguely.
"And a good friend," Salamon concluded ruefully as a knot of remorse tied itself tightly in the pit of her stomach. It was like losing her dear friend Wizardmon all over again, and she almost couldn't bear it. Pipermon had relinquished her own life so that Tai and Kari might survive, and she had been so cruel to her...she hadn't even apologized for the mistrustful way she had treated Pipermon. She looked at the ground, hoping that, wherever Pipermon was, she knew how sorry she was for treating her that way, even though she would never get the chance to actually tell her so.
Gennai nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, kids," he said honestly. "I know you are all too familiar with losing people close to you...and I am truly sorry..." He paused a moment, then cleared his throat. "But there are a few things I feel I should explain before you all head back to your world."
The children all looked at him, eager for explanations for all the horrible things they had seen over the past few days.
"When this enemy, which I have now learned was a creation of Piedmon's," Gennai told them, "learned of your connections with me, she quickly set to work looking for any sort of contact I may have sent to you. She had already used her powers to seal away most of the light within this world, to prevent any sort of information being sent to you, but I managed, by piggybacking it on a stronger signal. She booby-trapped it so that time on your side of the digiport would freeze as soon as you went through it."
"Freeze?" Tai echoed. "I don't understand...why would she do that?"
"That way," Gennai explained, "even if you tried to escape, you would be trapped in time until you managed to defeat her. Now that she's gone, time will resume normally on your side. You will return home only moments after you left. It will be as if these past four days never even happened."
"Oh, that's just great," Jyou muttered, "another four days we've existed that the rest of the real world hasn't. If we keep up this time-warp business, we'll all be old and gray before we graduate high school!"
Tai ignored him, and cast a somber glance at Gennai. The old man hesitated a moment, frowned. "Listen, Digidestined...I know it hurts to lose friends, but you can't let it bring you down... War takes no prisoners...especially not in this world. Whoever it was that helped you must have known that."
"It's still no excuse," Tai whipsered icily, clenching his fists again. "It shouldn't have ended the way it did..."
Agumon started to say something to Tai, then stopped, realizing there really wasn't anything that could be said.
Gennai furrowed his brow and extended one hand to the Digidestined. "Are you ready to go home, kids?"
Tai clenched his fists again. Yes, he did...he just wanted to go home, to get away from that cursed ground, to forget about these past four days, just like Pipermon had said...to forget it all... But, at the same time, he almost felt like if he were to leave, he would be abandoning everything she had taught him...like maybe, just maybe, if he sat there long enough, and wished hard enough, she might come back. Then he realized that was never going to happen, and slowly rose to his feet, taking Kari by the shoulder.
"Yeah," he said, almost inaudibly, wringing his left hand like he could shake off the memories. "Yeah...let's go home..."
Ii yo, minna, don't worry, I wouldn't leave you hanging here...really, I wouldn't...that's why it took so long to get the ending to you, I was waiting till the Epilogue was complete. ::makes a face:: Er...I hope I haven't like...emotionally scarred anybody... >_< Nnnngh....
~~hikari
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