WoS Ch10 - The Forest of Dreams

The story so far: Five humans have been called into the Digital Worlds. On their way to the Forest Terminal, they each found a Human Spirit of one of the Ten Legendary Warriors, allowing them to turn into digimon.Tommy found his accompanying Beast Spirit two chapters ago and immediately lost control over his transformation, killing an ally. Now he's too traumatized to even think of digivolving again and everyone else walks on eggshells around him. They've stopped in the Forest of Dreams for the night where Keisaki woke up to find Tommy had unwittingly transformed into his Beast Spirit form! Or at least, so she thought...

Chapter 10 - The Forest of Dreams

-Zoe-

There was a disturbingly empty look in Kei’s eyes that scared me to no end. She wasn’t the most level-headed person, but I could usually count on her to stay focused on protecting the group. Now she was spouting utter nonsense in a creepy, lifeless voice—at least when she wasn’t shouting madly at the top of her lungs.

Kouji had taken point in front of Tommy after it became clear that she was a bit agitated over him (to put it lightly), and Tommy himself was completely freaking out.

It was safe to say that I had no clue what was going on, but I was ready to blame Kouji for it. Something had to have happened to Kei during his watch!

“And you don’t know what is happening to her?” I fixed Kouji with a pointed stare.

Kouji was trying to detach a distraught Tommy from his arm (which elicited a disturbing growl from Kei), but found time for an annoyed “No!”

Kei was standing in the middle of our clearing, quietly mumbling to herself, occasionally looking at me with this horribly blank stare.

“Maybe she’s sleepwalking?” JP offered. He’d been the last to wake up and looked like this really wasn’t worth his time of day. “Kei, wake up, it’s just a dream. Go back to bed!”

“You’re all crazy,” she decided. I hadn’t known that there was a thing like ‘dull agitation’ until I heard her say that.

“Kei,” I tried again, hoping beyond hope that this would finally reach her. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t you have eyes?!” And there was the random shouting that still didn’t manage to inject much life into her voice. It was seriously starting to freak me out. “That isn’t Tommy anymore! We need to save him!”

Despite all my instincts telling me that this was a really bad idea, I stepped closer to her and took her hand. Maybe indulging her would do the trick of snapping her out of whatever has gotten into her head. “How would we do that?”

In retrospect, this was a terrible question and it received an equally terrible answer when she freed her hand and grabbed my shoulders and looked at me with big, vacant eyes, completely expressionless.

“Zoe, don’t you understand?” she said beseechingly, and I was really glad she was talking too quietly to have the others hear the rest of what she said. “We need to kill Tommy in order to save him!”

I completely froze which gave her enough time to pull out her D-Tector.

Execute Spirit Digivolve to.... Anumon!

I was still stunned when the fractal code dispersed to reveal that Keisaki had indeed transformed into Anumon. My brain simply couldn’t compute what I was seeing and hearing. Had she really just said that? That didn’t make any sense! Was this really happening?

While I was stuck with denial, Kouji identified the problem that came with having a Spirit Warrior bound on the destruction of a teammate, and he pulled Tommy out of the way of Anumon’s Pyro Shot. She aimed high and completely missed the target.

“Anumon, stop!” I shouted and couldn’t help but repeat the question from before. “What are you doing?!”

“Why is she attacking us?” Tommy asked, looking lost and helpless and that was very counterproductive to his mental state! I had no answer for him. I only knew that she was dead set on killing him and, somehow, that didn’t strike me as an appropriate thing to mention.

“This isn’t funny in the least! Stop, Anumon!” JP came up next to me, but all signs of sleepiness were gone from his face. I also noticed that he had his own D-Tector in his hands and for the second time, we were in a situation where we might be forced to attack a teammate. There had to be another way! (Preferably one that wouldn’t get me strangled.)

“I think she’s serious!” Kouji deduced, helped by the fact that an arrow just barely flew over his head while he was bringing Tommy around and out of harm’s way.

Anumon groaned in frustration. “You should see yourself! Stop getting in the way.”

“We need to digivolve and take her on!” JP decided and summoned a ring of data around his free hand, but I stepped in before he could surround himself in a cocoon of fractal code.

“Wait! We can’t attack Kei like that!”

There was a huge flaw in that plan. Namely, that Anumon’s strong suit was impeccable aim. Now she decided that we were all game, and it took no time at all for things to get from bad to worse. It was here that we learned the hard lesson that, no matter how flimsy our digimon’s armour looked, it still protected us better than our human form. I should’ve been glad that in whatever craze that had infected Keisaki, she was still aiming to disable us (only to have free view of her main target—and that sounded more disturbing the more I thought about it). I wasn’t quite ready yet to learn what happened when we got fatally wounded in human form.

It was still unbearable to watch when a Pyro Shot went straight through JP’s thigh directly after I’d asked him not to digivolve and protect himself.

He went down with an awful screech, grabbing the injured limb even as the conjured arrow vanished into thin air. Right then, I didn’t notice that there was no blood, simply because there were other things on my mind. Like the fact that one of my friends just shot another of my friends in the leg!

That pretty much ended all pacifism still lingering on Kouji’s mind.

Execute Spirit Digivolve to... Lobomon!

While the wolf warrior drew his light swords, I nervously hovered over JP, who had his eyes screwed shut and was sucking in short, intermittent breaths. Asking “Are you alright?” didn’t seem very fitting, but I did so anyway. I couldn’t cope with the situation otherwise. What else was I supposed to do? Could I help him somehow?

Somewhere in the background, Lobomon split the arrows heading his way with ease. No surprise there, he was probably the one best equipped to deal with Anumon.

To be honest, I was glad I wasn’t involved in the fight. I had my issues with Keisaki, but I still considered her my closest friend in the group. Even with her on a rampage, I couldn’t bring myself to digivolve and attack her. Just like I’d been unable to even think of attacking Tommy when he’d transformed into Blizzarmon. I briefly wondered if these two things were connected. But Keisaki didn’t have a Beast Spirit and ended up taking a severe beating from Lobomon. Still, she very much looked like she’d completely lost control of herself.

Tommy seemed unable to defend himself and walked over to me in a daze, never taking his eyes off of the rather one-sided fight. The only reason Lobomon hadn’t finished Anumon yet was because he kept trying to reason with her. It fell on deaf ears.

At least my presence alone seemed to calm JP, and only after he’d stopped breathing quite so irregularly, I noticed that I had grabbed his hand. I took a tentative look at his injured leg, but all I could see was a hole inside the fabric of his jumpsuit.

“I’m better now,” he said, and despite his state, he still managed to give me an incredibly leery look.

I let go of him as if stung and got to my feet in a huff. Why did I even bother? Oh right, because he flinched in pain when he tried to sit up, because my friend had shot him in the leg!

Since Tommy was already distraught enough about the unfolding events, I tried to offer him something productive to do. “Come, help me move JP to the tree over there.” I pointed to a sturdy specimen at the edge of the clearing—on the opposite side of the continuing fight.

When we finally reached the tree roots and put Junpei down there, I heard Anumon gasp in pain and turned back in time to see her form getting dark.

The clearing wasn’t that big so I could clearly see Lobomon’s face, and at least he had the decency to look ashamed and guilty. It hadn’t been fun for him to battle Anumon and, by extension, Keisaki into submission, but if we couldn’t reason with her then purifying her like a digimon influenced by evil had to do the trick. He raised his white and blue D-Tector and said gravely, “Wake up, Keisaki.” He paused, but then swung the device, gathering a string of data. “Scan!”

I actually didn’t know what scanning a human would do and for a horrible moment, the thought of Kei vanishing without a trace (since surely we wouldn’t leave a DigiEgg behind like a digimon, right?) flashed through my mind. I took a distraught step forward. But Lobomon seemed well-versed in the art of scanning what was causing trouble and leaving everything good and valuable behind.

There was the familiar data cocoon and in less than a second, it revealed a thankfully intact Keisaki with her eyes closed. She opened them and I was so relieved to see that dull terrifying blankness gone from them. Instead, she just looked confused and a bit sleepy. “What’s going on? Lobomon?”

We had an injured teammate and still no clue what had caused her sudden bout of murderous intent, but at least we had her back. Lobomon watched her with clear suspicion which she countered with a frown before he decided it was safe to turn back into Kouji.

“You digivolved and started attacking us.” And of course he would be typically blunt. “I was hoping you could explain yourself.”

“I did what?” she asked, her eyes going wide. A rapid string of emotions crossed her face before she settled on dawning horror. “I... I— This wasn’t a dream? A really, really messed up nightmare?” Her eyes fluttered around until they settled on JP, propped up against the tree trunk and grey in the face.

She needed a second to process what she was seeing, then her hands flew to her mouth and she croaked out, horrified, “No way... This... I didn’t... I’m sorry!” She took an unsteady step towards us, but something made her stop in her tracks. “I’m sorry!” she repeated, blinking rapidly. Then, she turned around and ran out of the clearing—effectively leaving it to us to handle the aftermath of her freak out. A recurring problem in our group.

It looked like not even she understood what had happened. Now I was sure there had to be some sort of foul-play involved. I was ready to lay into Kouji, but he had more practical things on his mind and brushed past me towards JP.

“Do you need bandages?”

I hadn’t even known we owned bandages!

JP futilely tried to get up again, but cringed and looked at his leg in frustration. “It hurts a lot more than you think, but...”

But even I could see that he just looked roughed up and not like a piece of wood had pierced through his flesh.

He struggled a bit, but managed to get his idea out in almost one go, “I think that ultimately ... proves that we’ve become data.”

“We heal rather fast,” Kouji nodded in understanding.

I couldn’t really see that connection, but in my defence, I was really tired and stressed out. There didn’t seem to be anything of use that I could do here. But it occurred to me that Kei had been influenced into attacking us and now was completely alone out in a scary forest at night. Whatever had happened to her might happen again.

So after confirming that Tommy wasn’t freaking out anymore and watched Kouji and JP intently, I told them, “I’m getting Kei. Let’s figure this out when we’re back.”

Finding Kei was a bit easier said than done. It was really dark below the treetops despite the cloudless night sky giving an unrestricted view of the moon(s! The Digital World had three of them!) and stars. At first, I wanted to follow the river, but out of intuition, I went a bit deeper into the forest where the trees weren’t quite so tightly packed. Sure enough, after just half a minute of stumbling over roots, I found her sitting on a rock with her head in her hands.

She heard me coming, because she didn’t flinch when I said, “Hey.”

She just looked up and wow, did she look miserable. Her hair was dishevelled from having her fingers run through it in guilt and her eyebrows were drawn in over her eyes that looked dry, but were filled with so much shame and disbelief, I found myself asking, “Are you alright?”

Ouch, this quickly became my ‘most pointless question of the day’, but at least that made her give me a disapproving stare that I probably deserved.

“How could I do that?” she said afterward.

She clearly needed someone to talk to, and I felt more confident in supporting her than in supporting Tommy. She noticed me coming closer and, after a moment’s consideration, scooted over so we could share her rock. I tried to ignore how the uncomfortable bits and pieces of the rough surface felt.

Now that I was here, it seemed a dam broke and Kei just rambled on, “It seemed so logical. Like, my head was leaping from conclusion to conclusion, and it all made sense! Did you ever have a dream where you did something completely illogical that somehow felt just right at that moment?”

I made an affirmative noise because I knew she expected it right now. It wasn’t that hard to get actually, but it made me feel a little unnerved.

“Well, it was like that, but worse because...” Kei paused to think about how to phrase her feelings.

The pause grew longer, so I asked, “Did you ever sleepwalk?”

“No! Never! I don’t know what happened!” she insisted, lips pursed.

The unnerving feeling only grew. What if something in this forest made us act out our dreams? If she had never sleepwalked and if acting on our dreams wasn’t something regularly occurring in the Digital World...?

“We need to get back to the others!” I said in alarm and jumped to my feet.

“What, why?” she asked, confused, but getting to her feet as well.

A strange feeling washed over me, and I might or might not have heard a low voice accompanying it, but this wasn’t as important as the sudden realization of what she’d really told me. She’d basically dreamt about killing Tommy and managed to justify that to herself! How could she?! I actually didn’t know why it took so long to feel the stab of bitter betrayal. She’d been ready to attack me as well, and I thought we were friends!

Her voice came from somewhere far away. “Zoe?” But I had no patience for more of her weak justifications.

Out of nowhere, I remembered the last field trip I had with my new class in Japan. I hadn’t been back from Italy for long and hadn’t known any of my classmates. There was this girl who had been wearing her shiny new shoes for the long walk to the lake (which was entirely her own stupid fault! Who did that?! Hiking in friggin’ new shoes was so stupid!) and of course, they had been trying to murder her. Out of the kindness of my heart, I had decided to help her, and we’d been hitting it off really well. I had been elated at the prospect of finally getting a friend, because spending a few years abroad seemed to be akin to social suicide and nobody wanted to give me the time of day. But lo and behold, my moment of happiness hadn’t lasted very long, and she’d abandoned me at the slightest sign of opposition from her established friends! I had felt so hurt and betrayed; it was like getting stabbed in the back and just as painful! And somehow, Keisaki had managed to be infinitely worse than this!

That brought me back to the current situation and to Keisaki who was looking at me all concerned. How dare she. This was all her fault. I needed to put an end to that, but as I was now, I was too weak to do that. Almost on its own, my D-Tector had appeared in my hand. 

Execute Spirit Digivolve to... Kazemon!

  There was the tiniest tug of conscious thought in Us that shied back at Our dark thoughts, but We were too angry to concentrate on that. With pleasure, We watched the backstabber stare at Us in horror. She should be afraid because We were going to destroy her.

-Kei-

Keisaki had never been this blindsided. First, Zoe was all agitated and ready to regroup because she was sensing a threat. Then, she got this creepy blank expression, and a second later, Keisaki was eye-to-eye (or rather eye-to-visor) with Kazemon. What was going on? Was this how the others had felt with her suddenly going nuts?

While this was noteworthy and probably meant that the very same thing was happening again, Keisaki had other things to focus on.

Mainly, the aggressive burst of wind coming for her. She jumped out of the way, and it crashed against the tree behind her. Splinters of loose bark went everywhere. That didn’t seem all that threatening, but Keisaki wasn’t kidding herself. Kazemon had the weakest long-range attack out of their group, but even that could be devastating to a human. With dread, she thought back at Anumon’s Pyro Shot which wasn’t that strong either and had still managed to bring JP down, just like that!

“Zoe, you need to calm down!” Keisaki shouted, fully aware that shouting at Anumon hadn’t worked for the others earlier.

Her reflexes were all off since she barely managed to duck under Kazemon’s butterfly wing-tipped boot. Or maybe Kazemon really was that fast compared to just a human! Keisaki could barely keep up with her as Anumon, but at least then she didn’t need to worry about severe head trauma!

She backed away against the sturdy tree, trying to give reason a last chance. “Kazemon, please! Whatever it is, I’m sure we can talk about it!”

“You think you can just talk yourself out of this?! You betrayed me! I trusted you!” Kazemon shouted back in lifeless rage.

Keisaki slipped around the tree when the Wind Warrior physically threw herself against the trunk. Zoe trusted her... The whole team trusted her and... Okay, those words hurt, and she could feel guilty and terrible about them later, but that wasn’t important right now. Reasoning clearly didn’t work. She didn’t fancy getting a boot to the head, so digivolving was her only option.

Keisaki grabbed her red and black D-Tector. And that was pretty much it. No ring of data surrounded her hand, no data cocoon burst into existence. Instead of the glowing red symbol of Fire, the display showed only grey static, like a broken TV.

She couldn’t summon her Spirit! What? Was Anumon that disappointed by her slip of control?

Kazemon, of course, wasn’t the slightest bit perturbed and appeared around the tree with an air of terrible grace. It was somehow worse that Keisaki couldn’t see her eyes, only her mouth drawn into a hideous grimace that promised no mercy.

Uh-oh.

She couldn’t digivolve and Zoe was out to off her for reasons that probably made perfect sense to her in her current state of mind. In that terribly inconvenient time, after barely avoiding another kick to the head, Keisaki connected the dots. Something was out there, in this forest, and tried to play them against each other. She didn’t know why that made her unable to reach her Spirit or what she could do about it, but she could at least try to use that information to get out of this mess.

“Zoe! You’re trapped in a nightmare! Seriously! There’s something out there, and it wants us all dead! You need to st—”

Oof, she never knew how much it hurt to get a determined kick to the stomach, but there was a first for everything. The blow sent her flying against a nearby tree, and her frantic effort to break her fall only caused untold damage to her wrist. At least Kazemon decided to start monologuing in a dull, lifeless voice while Keisaki was wheezing for breath and trying to get her bearings.

“You’re no better than her. Making up excuses; not owning up to your promises. I never should have trusted you. I was always better off alone. I didn’t need anyone before you! And I don’t need you at all!”

Keisaki’s thoughts flew into action, and she desperately tried to remember what she’d done to tick Zoe off that much. This needed to come from somewhere, and while most of what Kazemon said didn’t make any sense, the underlying issues were very real.

Well, the Spirit Warrior was still talking. With Keisaki folded over and unable to move, it was best to make sure that talk continued until she got the pain under control.

It was considerably harder to squeeze out a full sentence in her condition, but miraculously she managed. “Do you like being ... being alone?”

With her track record, Keisaki was suddenly afraid of having said the wrong thing.

But over the course of their journey, Zoe had become a good friend to her, and she’d picked up on one of her problems. So instead of lashing out, Kazemon reeled back. Her mouth was still set into an angry line, but she used her anger to shout at her, “What gives you the right to ask that question?!”

“Zoe, I’m your friend! I know you! You’re one of, if not the nicest and kindest person I know.” And she was honestly surprised to have that ring true.

Kazemon hesitated, clearly lost.

Right. Violence wasn’t the only option. Keisaki just needed to find the right words to say. She could fix this even—or rather especially—without her Spirit. In that moment, a few pieces fell into place about her role in the group. She was not only responsible for devising strategies; she was also supposed to keep everyone together. And the first step was making an effort to understand them!

What else had Kazemon said? Right.

“I trust you a lot,” Keisaki said tentatively. “I messed up big time earlier, but I never betrayed you! I want you to know that I’ll do my darndest to never let you down again! You’re important to me!”

Then she braced herself. That was all the air she had left, and she was breathing hard. She had more to say, but she just couldn’t... manage... She was painfully aware that she couldn’t outrun Kazemon, and in her escape, she’d lost the direction to their camp. If this didn’t work—

“Kei?”

She almost slumped down in relief (only stopped by her protesting ribcage). “Zoe!”

“I had this weird feeling...” Kazemon trailed off when she raised her hands and noticed that they were clad in her metal gloves. “How...?”

“You also had an episode of the crazies,” Keisaki said in an almost apologetic tone.

“Oh no! Are you alright?” Her friend jumped to the logical conclusion and, honestly, Keisaki didn’t know what to say. She was glad that Zoe was back to normal, but she couldn’t take deep breaths without flinching in pain and that just made it worse.

“I think I might’ve bruised my ribs...” she answered. In a flash, Kazemon was at her side and helped detach her from the tree.

Then, the Spirit Warrior clasped her hands in front of her chest and said in an agitated voice, “I’m so sorry!”

This brought them right back to where they started. If Zoe ran off now, they would’ve come full circle, and this didn’t solve the problem of... Right!

“Don’t be!” Keisaki said quickly, taking a shallow breath to have enough air to share her suspicion. “There’s something out there... (wheeze) ...that makes us attack each other!”

Immediately, Kazemon switched from apprehensive to furious and focused.

Even with the moonlight, the night was too dark for Keisaki to see. Then again, she didn’t know how Kazemon was able to see at all with the metal visor in front of her eyes. After standing completely still for a few moments, the Wind Warrior turned around, her jaw set in a firm line, and sent a blast of wind into the bushes.

There was a shout, and a small creature fled the tormenting storm. From what Keisaki could see, it looked like a tapir riding a cloud. It was quickly disappearing into the night.

“Not so fast!” Kazemon took to the air. Keisaki had yet to see something that could out-speed her.

The butterfly fairy gave chase, and Keisaki intended to do the same. She pushed away from the tree—and doubled over in pain. Her chest still hurt! Experimentally, she touched one of her lower ribs and sucked in a painful breath. Okay, there was definitely something wrong with them!

She stayed put, leaning against the tree and peering into the darkness. Where…? A moment later, the cloud tapir streaked across her line of sight, with Kazemon hot on its cloudy tail. The ensuing battle was about as one-sided as what Keisaki remembered of her nightmare battle against Lobomon. After cornering the dingy thing with strategic blasts of wind, it only took a single kick right onto its armoured forehead to send the creature sprawling to the ground. A ring of fractal code appeared around its blackening form.

Kazemon landed on the ground in front of it, her D-Tector at ready. “Enough with the nightmares! My powerful storm will blast them into oblivion! Scan!”

Instead of producing a DigiEgg, the tapir remained mostly the same—though, curiously a golden ring appeared around its left front leg.

It was hovering about one and a half meters above the ground, blinking its clear blue eyes in confusion. “What’s going on? …How did I get here?”

“Looks like you woke up from a nightmare as well,” Kazemon concluded. She didn’t turn back yet, and asked cautiously, “You do have the ability to create nightmares, right?”

The tapir, though, was a picture of agitation. He fluttered about the clearing, muttering: “I have power over all types of dreams…” Then, he paused in midair, staring at Kazemon as if he only now fully noticed her. “A-Aren’t you one of the Legendary Warriors?” He looked past Kazemon and spotted Kei, and if possible, his eyes went even wider. “And you’re a human! How did you get here? What happened?”

While Kazemon turned back into Zoe and explained, Keisaki sat back. She drummed her fingers against the tree root next to her with nervous energy. This was their culprit. Yet, he’d been just as influenced by evil as most of their previous opponents. (Except Snimon. That guy had been just evil.)

The tapir proved her point when his little ears drooped upon the end of Zoe’s explanation. “I— Alright. My name is Bakumon. I’m a holy digimon.” Bakumon raised his left elephant-like foot. The ring around it glinted in the light of the moons. “And still, you’re telling me, that I… that I… attacked you?”

Kei threw a look at her wrist. Maybe it was the weak light, but it already looked swollen.

Zoe nodded emphatically, taking a step toward the distraught digimon. “It wasn’t your fault. You’re not the first digimon we needed to free of a bad influence!”

But Bakumon was drifting away from her, holding his head in his flat paws. “No… No, that’s impossible. You don’t understand. Things like that… They can’t… I’m a holy digimon,” he repeated helplessly. “There’s no dark influence in the Digital World that can corrupt us, unless…” He trailed off and suddenly, his demeanour shifted. He seemed to grow on his cloud and in his purple eyes flashed dark anger. “Cherubimon.”

“Cherubimon?” Zoe asked. That was the digimon that was destroying the land! Kei leaned forward, ignoring the painful twinge.

Bakumon met Zoe’s stare head on. “Yes! Cherubimon, the Angel of Knowledge and Truth! Only he still has the power to spread his influence like this!” The anger in his voice almost set his words ablaze. “How dare he! Even to a Bakumon…!”

Zoe bridged the distance between them and took a hold of the digimon. It had the immediate effect of calming him down and he peered at her out of half-lidded eyes. “What are you talking about?” she asked. Kei saw only half of her face, but her jaw was set in a firm line. Zoe was holding back her own anger.

“Cherubimon. The only leader who remains,” Bakumon explained, making an effort to control his emotions. “His power over Truth and Knowledge can twist anyone’s perception if you’re not careful. I never thought…! Ah, I can’t believe this!” He patted Zoe’s hands before floating away again, circling the clearing with agitation. “I never thought he would reach this far! I… don’t know what to do… I’m so sorry about what I did to you!”

Considering the damage caused by Bakumon’s interference, impotent rage welled up in Keisaki. They just went through hell: JP had been shot in the leg (by her...) and her ribs had seen better days, let alone that the foundation of trust in the group was severely shaken. But there was no one handy to blame. Bakumon had had no control over his actions, just like she and Zoe hadn’t. There was only Cherubimon. Cherubimon, who did more than just destroy the land. If Bakumon was right, then he was responsible for all the digimon becoming evil and corrupted. She suddenly understood Bakumon’s anger. Her own rage responded in kind. She would make Cherubimon pay for every single thing that mad digimon had done to them and this world.

“If it happened to me, then it can happen to everyone!” Bakumon said then. He stopped before Zoe and stretched out one leg. “Here,” he said and above the flat side of his paw appeared a swirling ball of pink mist. He dropped it into Zoe’s hands. “My apology to you. Use this for a night of healing dreams!” he told her.

“Thank you?” Zoe asked, poking the ball. It flashed once, in rose pink. Kei felt the pulse of happiness, even from several steps away. “Thank you!” Zoe repeated, more forceful now. A smile of wonder appeared on her face.

“And what are you going to do?” Kei asked, finally managing to detach herself from the tree. It still hurt. She eyed Bakumon warily.

“I need to check on the other Bakumon living in the Forest of Dreams,” he said. He gave them a wry smile. “You’re not the only one with the power to drive out corruption, Legendary Warriors. But thank you for freeing me! I hope you’ll manage a pleasant night!”

He gestured at the pink ball and then made his farewell. They didn’t want to keep him either. The entire night had been more than just a disaster. Keisaki just wanted to go back to camp and sleep. To camp. Where the others waited.

Who still had no idea what had happened.

Who Keisaki had attacked without any provocation. She closed her eyes, briefly, taking as deep a breath as she dared. Bad dreams aside, she’d harboured enough dark thoughts to produce a nightmare so vivid that it had made her attack their most vulnerable party member. Damn it. Tommy hadn’t needed that at all! How was she supposed to fix this? Was there even a way to fix this? In her frantic thoughts, she forgot that her ribs hadn’t fixed themselves in the last few minutes either, and she shuddered in pain.

Zoe was slipping the pink ball of Bakumon’s power into the pocket of her skirt but cringed at the sound. She turned around and gave Kei a pitiful look. “Oh Kei, I know it has been noble and all, but you really should have digivolved. I would have understood!”

And there was that. Keisaki took out her D-Tector again, and the display still showed static. “Zoe, there’s a problem. I can’t digivolve.” Even now, she couldn’t summon the data circle around her hand.

“You can’t digivolve?!” Zoe shouted and strained to look at the unresponsive D-Tector. “Why is it displaying static?”

“Maybe Anumon is disappointed in me for losing control?” Keisaki asked because she’d been thinking about that between the waves of crushing guilt.

Zoe grabbed her own D-Tector in alarm, but upon activating it, it showed the arching symbol of the wind. “I don’t think that’s the case. Maybe you’re just doing it wrong.”

Keisaki gave her a look. “Seriously? After digivolving countless times I’m doing it wrong now?”

“Alright, I’m tired and I’m just trying to help,” she backpedalled. “It’s worth considering, right?”

So Keisaki handed her the malfunctioning D-Tector. “Knock yourself out, maybe you can make something happen.”

She was already envisioning their future chances without Anumon. She would be forced to sit everything out...

But while this was a big deal and she was quietly freaking out about it, there was a much more pressing issue approaching. She thought back to Tommy and how he’d looked after he transformed back from Blizzarmon. He’d been unable to deal with what he’d done, and so he’d run off.

Only now she could draw the parallels to her own reaction. She’d been so immensely relieved with Bakumon’s appearance. It meant that she hadn’t lost her mind and randomly attacked her teammates for no reason. It was like a huge weight had lifted off her shoulders. And then crashed back down. Because it didn’t erase what she’d done. It had happened, and she was at least partly responsible. It was so much to handle, so much to fix—and now she had to look at the baggage that Tommy was carrying around for his lapse in control. It was so much more devastating and crushing! He had to be in such a dark place now, and all she’d been thinking about was pawning off the problem to the human world! He needed help much sooner than that!

With a sinking feeling, Keisaki admitted to herself that she hadn’t been doing Tommy any favours right from the start. He’d been a kid mostly, and that was all she’d seen. No matter how enthusiastic he’d been about saving the world, no matter how much he’d contributed to their efforts. In fact, he had no one in the group to really open up to; no wonder he’d withdrawn inside!

“Zoe…” she said. They had reached the river now, and it should only be a minute until camp, but she needed to share her thoughts with someone, or she was going to explode.

Zoe stopped fiddling with the D-Tector and looked at her in concern. She probably still thought about the cracked ribs, but they also needed to take a backseat.

“I thought about Tommy. There’s something we have to do to help him,” Keisaki said.

With what happened tonight, they could both put themselves in Tommy’s shoes. She took a breath and outlined her observations. Maybe her friend had an idea how to go about the situation.

“Do you really think Tommy has no one to talk to?” Zoe asked, brushing her fingers against her lower lip in a mixture of worry and thoughtfulness.

Keisaki made an affirmative noise and thought about how Shinya interacted with Takuya. When they weren’t arguing and using her as the disinterested tie breaker, Takuya had this warmness about him. Then, he could take Shinya’s stupidest ideas seriously. She never understood his connection to the little tyke, but she was starting to see the first step. Not only seeing him as the annoying little brother that needed to be entertained and cared for, but also as a person with interesting views and opinions.

Keisaki had been really great at dismissing Tommy. They all had been. The only one even remotely interested in Tommy as a capable group member was Kouji, judging him by his abilities instead of his age. A part of Keisaki still recoiled at the thought of a little kid fighting in this mess and she disapproved of Kouji’s stance, but he had a point. His acceptance of Tommy as he was (annoyance at his immaturity at times notwithstanding) had earned him Tommy’s respect. Still, Kouji didn’t seem like the type to handle delicate situations like this with the necessary finesse. Keisaki wasn’t sure she would handle them much better, but she was ready to give it a try. She’d been wrong so often recently, and she needed to finally start fixing things.

“You should try talking to him then,” Zoe said, unknowingly echoing her thoughts. “You’re pretty much our leader and maybe... well. It will mean much more if it comes from you.”

Keisaki sure had felt like their leader for a while, but it was still weird to hear her say it. She nodded slowly. “Yeah, I will.”

“Good, then let’s keep moving,” Zoe said and gave her a bright smile.

Immediately afterwards, Keisaki realized to what she’d just agreed and started sweating profoundly. She needed to fix the Tommy situation and its monumental importance constricted her breath more than her injured ribs. She grabbed her head to stop it from spinning and for a moment wished that she were anywhere but here. Zoe gently guided her along.

Frantically trying to distract herself from the coming confrontation, Keisaki latched onto the next best thing. “Can I have my D-Tector back now?” Great, now she was not only panicking, but also depressed. She couldn’t digivolve anymore. Some leader she was.

“Sure, but let me try one last thing,” Zoe said. She inspected her lavender D-Tector, trying to figure out if there was a difference in how they handled, and turned back to Keisaki’s.

She didn’t manage to bring forth the Spirit. (Would she have been able to do so anyway?)

Instead, something completely unexpected happened. The static display came to life with Kouji’s symbol of Light. Half a second later, it produced Kouji’s cautious voice. “What?”

The girls traded a surprised look.

“Kouji?” Zoe asked.

“Izumi? How’s that possible?” Kouji sounded more sceptical than confused.

That was an excellent question. They were almost in view of the camp now, but too far away to be able to hear their friends.

“Uhm... It looks like the D-Tectors are something like walkie-talkies too,” Zoe said slowly but then had a brilliant idea. “Kei and I are as good as back. We found out there’s a type of digimon that make nightmares a reality! That’s what happened to Kei. But don’t worry, we dealt with him!”

“Wait, what?” Kouji demanded, and Keisaki could almost imagine his disapproving frown.

She didn’t need to imagine for long. Too soon for her liking, the trees opened up and revealed their camping spot.

One glance jeopardized Keisaki’s carefully (not) laid out plans, because the others had sent Tommy back to bed. JP was also lying on his leaf mattress, but looked up when Zoe and she made their grand appearance.

Oh. Another thing Keisaki had tried to push out of her head. She drew her eyebrows in with guilt. Their oldest team member obviously noticed because he sat up and didn’t even flinch in pain. “Took you long enough! I almost had Kouji go look for you!”

This was probably the nicest thing he’d ever done for her. Her expression cleared, and she said gratefully, “Thanks Junpei!”

“Everyone says ‘JP’ now thanks to you, so whatever.” He shrugged. Then he looked to the frowning Kouji who was holding his D-Tector up accusingly and added, “And look what you’ve figured out. Walkie-talkie, huh?”

“What is going on?” Kouji demanded.

Zoe was on a roll and quickly explained the Bakumon situation. She glossed over her own nightmare in favour of producing the pink ball of mist. “He gave us this for a good night’s sleep!”

Of course, that didn’t make Kouji happy but what else was new? JP was more interested in their new D-Tector discovery but at least looked vaguely happy at the prospect of good sleep. He also was barely complaining about his leg; he only once mentioned in passing that it still hurt.

Keisaki felt like all she could talk about were her protesting ribs that didn’t like the pressure of taking deep breaths. She didn’t actually talk about them. Zoe was right next to her, and she didn’t want to make her feel guilty... Maybe that was JP’s reason too.

Kouji was in the middle of asking about Bakumon’s trustworthiness, sounding like he would stay far away from the mist ball, when Keisaki heard noises from behind. She froze. Tommy was sleeping there... Or had been sleeping.

As a quick look over her shoulder confirmed that their excited chatter had woken the kid. Tommy had sat up, fingers curled in a blanket, and blinked sleep out of his eyes.

Zoe proved once again that she was the best person in the entire world by stepping forward. For the third time, she took over explaining, from Bakumon to his powers and the whole mess they created. How could Kei ever repay her?

Just as she thought that, Zoe turned back to her and gave her a meaningful look. “So that’s basically what happened. No reason to be upset about anything, right, Kei?”

Keisaki cleared her throat. Right. So why did her nerves jump into overdrive? Her entire body tingled. She swallowed hard. Calm, calm, calm. She could do this.

So she started towards Tommy and almost recoiled when he curled up in apprehension. Damn, he was totally right. She hadn’t been exactly shining with compassion, and the last he knew about her was that she’d tried to shoot him. This was an uphill battle, and she almost gave up right then and there.

She felt Zoe’s eyes on her and swallowed hard. “Hey Tommy,” she said, voice wavering.

Tommy bit his lip, frowning. He didn’t know what she was trying to accomplish, and it probably weirded him out and— Focus!

“I’m so sorry,” she continued because he needed to hear that. She was sorry. “I don’t know what came over me and I don’t know how to make it up to you, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what I did—and for what happened to you. It’s really, really unpleasant to become less than a passenger in your own body, getting carried away by crazy whims.” She’d lost all semblance of a script and didn’t even realize how much her words not only applied to him, but also to her. “We know so little about this world, so I don’t blame you for what happened, and this might not mean much coming from me, but it really wasn’t your fault. It could have happened to any of us.”

Tommy just stared at her with those big, grey-blue eyes of his that looked nothing like Shinya’s but still made Keisaki feel like the older sister, trying desperately to connect to her younger sibling. He said nothing. Why? Was he overwhelmed because she jumped him right after he woke up? Or did he remain silent because he just didn’t want to hear that from her?

What Kazemon had said to her rang through her mind again. Making up excuses and justifications. Okay, no more stalling.

“I wasn’t much of a role model for you, and I should have given you the chance to make your own decisions.” It wouldn’t have prevented the Blizzarmon disaster, but it at least would’ve made Tommy feel more welcome. It hurt to look back at her behaviour. She’d never bothered to include him!

She didn’t even notice how she’d balled her left hand to a fist. “Tommy, you’re a valuable member of our team! We need you, and so it’s okay if you need us too.”

Before Blizzarmon, they couldn’t have talked like that. She wouldn’t have thought of it, and he might’ve been too immature to understand the message. Even now, she wasn’t sure if he was ready to hear it. But something in him had changed with Blizzarmon, and as terrible as that was, it had also made him grow.

He blinked at her, jaw tight and expression way too guarded for someone his age. It hurt. Then he couldn’t hold her gaze any longer and looked away.

Keisaki was vaguely aware that the others were watching them. He still hadn’t said anything, so she pressed, “Okay?”

When he looked back, he didn’t make eye contact, staring at a point above her shoulder. Still, she could see there was a spark of something in his eyes that she didn’t quite understand. Determination? Resignation?

Then he said firmly, “I don’t want to become Blizzarmon again.”

It didn’t sound like much, but Keisaki recognized it for what it was: progress! He hadn’t sounded hopeless and lost, like when he’d declared that he wanted to go home. It sounded like he was open to Kumamon again.

Keisaki quickly evaluated her options. Rationally, she knew, she just knew that if he decided to stay in the Digital World, he would have to learn how to control Blizzarmon. Or at least learn how to deal with the loss of control—in case that was just how Beast Spirits operated. It was just a consequence of what they were trying to do in this world. She remembered Kouji’s words: what if Grumblemon decided to bring in his friends?

 Her newfound empathy also told her it was a terrible idea to confront Tommy with that reality right now.

“Not like this,” she conceded slowly and swallowed nervously against her dry throat. “I’ll try my hardest not to have you go through that again, okay?” She stretched out her hand, only wincing slightly since there was still the pain in her ribs, and tried to radiate more confidence than she felt. She would try her hardest, that was a given. But she had reasonable doubts that that would be enough… Zoe’s stare burned on her back, and she straightened up a little.

Tommy looked at her hand, then up into her eyes. He gave her a shy smile and tentatively reached out to shake her hand. “Okay...”

Which she used to pull him into a hug. Kei didn’t know why she did it, but it felt like the right thing to do. She wrapped her arms around his small form, and after a moment of confused hesitation, he leaned into her too. It was an awkward position, and she made a note to herself that she needed to stop aggravating her injuries. Hm... Maybe in a bit. There were still a lot of things wrong between them, but in this moment, everything seemed to be at peace.