Kaze reached for his mini computer, after he finished changing back into his regular clothes, telling it to open up the screen so he could read whatever new email it was trying to get him to read.

He read the new email from Shireika and made a disgusted face. 'So I have to put up with the enemy AND the traitor... perfect. Sounds like the best day ever!'

Sighing, he made his way over to the stands on one sideo f the soccer field, planning on getting a good seat so he could watch the girls' game. He ignored a few of the boys who were making comments about that being an email from his girlfriend, and that not being possible since he was a fag.

Kaze sighed. 'What year are we in? 2004? Some people need to get with the times, and drop the homophobia act.'

Taking a seat close to the front, he looked a little surprised when his bag started shaking violently.

"Oh, I forgot about you!" Kaze said happily, opening up the bag.

Laimon erupted from the bag, gasping for air, as if he were just escaping from being buried alive.

"I HATE being locked up!" he began to whimper, shaking slightly, sitting next to Kaze.

"Well, if you stay motionless, you can watch the game with me. People will just think you're a stuffed animal if you don't move." Kaze said, totally uninterested in what his digimon partner did.

"motionless my ass..." Lai huffed, pushing himself a little lower on the seat, eyeing the field intently, wondering what game they were playing. Maybe it was a staring contest, and you had to stare at the people on the other side, he thought. He quickly locked eyes with someone on the other side, and was determinted on winning his little game.

***

He couldn’t begin to understand what everyone else was saying. Tomeo leaned forward, trying to absorb as much information as he could, but as much as he tried to understand Enma, her explanation only made as much sense to him as someone speaking another language. “Digi – what?” he tried to repeat, but became even more confused by all the unfamiliar terminology she was using.

The view of the creature that Enma was hiding in her backpack didn’t seem to help, either. “You mean, there are more of these digimon things? How many more of them are there?!?” he wondered out loud, feeling suddenly very insecure. It was okay at first to be confronted by a little evil lizard that looked like some sort of cool new electronic toy, but now he wasn’t sure about if he could mentally handle this – it seemed too much to comprehend al at once.

And then, Asayake asked him out of the blue about her maths homework. He turned to look at her, surprised by her behaviour. It was like it seemed normal that there were weird, creepy little monsters wondering around with strange devices that made them bigger. It didn’t seem like the right time to be bringing up such a thing, but Tomeo tried to comply as nicely and politely as he possibly could.

“Well, Asayake, I…” he said, his throat feeling dry. “As much as I would really love to help you with your maths homework, I’m afraid I would be of no use to you. Maths isn’t my strong point either, and compound interest I’m really rusty with… um, I'm sorry...”

He could no longer keep up the false pre-tense that everything was okay, because it wasn’t. He couldn’t accept this. His brain had been overloaded with information he couldn’t use, let alone feel he could understand. He almost felt he should stand up and yell out loud, ‘What’s wrong with you people? Are you all insane?!? This isn’t normal!!!’ But he was with new people and first impressions meant everything, and he certainly wasn’t a immature little kid anymore.

“Excuse me… but, I have to go. I just remembered, I’ve got sprint practice now.” He stood up, shaking his head, pulling the strap of his bag over his shoulder. He nodded to everyone in respect, and even though he had overheard first names, it felt disrespectful to use them without a proper introduction. “Asayake-san, everyone, I’m sorry. I'll introduce myself later, when it's more appropriate. But this stuff.. it’s just… too… much. I have to think about this… see you.” He sounded uncertain and disoriented, as he slowly turned away and headed towards the sprinting track outside of school near the soccer field.

“Hey, Tomeo!” Parumon spoke loudly as she emerged from his bag, making sure first that they were alone without interruption from passer-bys. “That was pretty inconsiderate of you! They had digivices and other digimon and everything! What’s your deal?”

Tomeo didn’t turn around as he walked. “First of all, you should have stayed where I left you. I’m sorry, Parumon, but my ‘deal’ is that this is just way over my head. I have no idea what I’ve been dragged into, and nobody seems to be able to explain it to me in a way I can understand. This is just so unrealistic, I feel like I’m going to wake up from a dream any second…”

Parumon went silent for a moment, and then said, “Okay, I’m sorry about the disobedience thing. But I can’t believe you can’t even take my word for it, isn’t the fact you’ve got me and a digivice enough to convince you this is real? This is what you need me around for! You just bumped into some other digidestined, and now you’ve just left them because you’ve got cold feet? Just how many other digidestined do you think have little to no idea, like you, just why they are who they’ve chosen to be?”

It was Tomeo’s turn to be silent as he walked along, but then he eventually answered reluctantly in realisation, “Not many, I guess. But it doesn’t seem fair, I never chose to be a digi… digidestined?” He voiced the word carefully, for it sounded really strange. “Who made up that name? What are ‘Chosen Children’ destined for? It sounds pre-determined – it’s creepy. What do you know about it, Parumon?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” Parumon admitted, her voice growing less aggravated as she tried to recollect what she knew. “I can’t remember anything between when I hatched and when I entered this world – I think the transfer from the Digital World scrambled up me a bit. The only thing I can remember for sure is about digivolving…”

“Digivolving? Ugh, not another ‘digi’ word. I don’t want to know about whatever that is yet. One thing at a time.” He sighed. “I wish I had another one of those digi-destined explain it to me a bit better. Right now, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to even think about it, not at least until after my run. Please, just sit tight for this once and you can watch me do my laps. Don’t run off anywhere else again, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I promise.” Parumon mumbled, feeling they were missing out on all the talk going back on at the table. “Of all the kids I could have been assigned to, and they gave me the defiant one… sheesh. What a rip.”

The lockers waited ahead for them as they walked past the soccer field, Tomeo noticing the large numbers of people gathering. ‘Looks like that girl’s soccer game is on today… maybe I’ll check it out after practice.’ Tomeo considered in thought to himself, adjusting his path towards where the men’s and women’s locker rooms were.

‘But for now, I just got to clear my head and concentrate on matching or even besting my lap record today… that is, if I could just stop thinking about what kind of a day it’s been…’

***

"Well...that didn't go quite as planned." Enma muttered. She looked around at the others gathered at the table, before picking up Mitikomomon and holding him tightly to her chest. "Well, is anyone else going to freak out because of the talking, shoe-eating fuzz-ball or what?" She checked her watch quickly, wondering to herself when the soccer game started. Then she shook her head. 'Bad Enma, no more being dragged to soccer games for you. Be happy.' She made a face, but looked at the others. "Does anyone else have a....thing like this? Well, not exactly like this, but...slightly simliar?"

***

After hearing several beeps coming from the other student's computers, Hanarei pulled hers out as well and saw it was beeping too. She checked her own email and saw the two new messages from the Watcher and Hanshin. 'How in the world did Hanshin find my email address?' she thought. She checked out the Watcher's email and discovered that all of their email addresses were on it. Hanarei looked rather upset. She was probably one of the few girls, if not only, that didn't like Hanshin. There was just something about him that rubbed Hanarei the wrong way even though she had never had a class with him or talked to him. She also didn't like Shireika but not as much as her brother. It was probably because of the way, in Hanarei's opinion, Hanshin was always strutting around like he owned the place. But again Hanarei had never met Shireika but knew who she was from conversations. Hanarei's curiosity about all of this was greater than her dislike for Hanshin so she decided she could put up with him for a short time.

[I may come. -Hanarei] she wrote in her email and sent it. She didn't see a reason to make it lengthy.

She tucked it away and turned back to the group. Hanarei noticed the slight smile on Enma's face and figured she must have figured out who she was. Hanarei looked down and saw Mitokomon being held by Enma.

"You even have one of those things?"

"Good, then I can come out," Himotomon said from inside the school bag. She tried to jump out but was having difficulty doing so. Hanarei sighed before reaching in and pulling out her red flame-shape thing with wings out of her bag. "This is Himotomon."

"How y'all doing?"

***

Shouki had a glance at Naoko's chest as she leaned back but he quickly looked to the side. It was obvious his face had gone slightly red.

Shouki looked down at his wrist where Naoko had a death grip on him and felt himself being pulled up and dragged from the table. It almost seemed like he didn't have much of a choice. He glanced over at Yukio and Hiroshi hoping for something to break this moment but it didn't happen. He sighed and just decided to go along with Naoko. 'What have I got myself into?' he thought.

"Okay, um. you know my name already," he said uneasily. "I have a younger sister in the middle school next to us. We both have the same two eye colors. You'll always see me wearing my prayer beads." He raised his arm to better show the beads. "I collect charms." He really didn't know where to go with this discussion. He was nervous about what were Naoko's definition of "learn all about you" and "your preferences."

***

"He's slightly odd." Mumbled Asayake to herself, so only she could hear. Somehow, she found Tomoe rather interesting, and made a mental note to find out where he went when she was finished with her conversation. Hoping for it to be a brief conversation at that, Asayake scrunched up her nose in thought at Enma's query. "I don't know about talking, shoe-eating fuzzballs, but I found a deranged talking tropical parrot-thing in my room today, making friendly with my skirts. I can't say that fuzzballs would surprise me even more." With that, Asayake pulled Rogishimon out of her bag, who gave an indignant squawk, before settling the little bird on her shoulder. "So I take it everyone's pretty much got one of these things, since none of us are too surprised? Then I'm also going to assume that we all got digivice-things and weird emails, too."

"But, listen," Asayake began to speak faster, her eyes darting once the the hallway Tomoe had run off down, "I've got to get going. A few of you are in my math class, so if you need me for anything you can get a hold of me there. Okay? I'll see you all later, I suppose." Asaykae set off from there, almost forgetting to put Rogishimon back into her backpack.

"Where are you going?" Asked Rogishimon, slightly disappointed that she souldn't formally get to meet her fellow digimon, "They --!"

"I know, I know," Asayake sighed quietly, noticing that the hallway led outside and really no where else, "But I want to talk to Tomeo."

Rogishimon simply snickered.

"Where could he have gotten to? The only place I can think of... Oh. Maybe he's at the soccer game?"

A woman on a mission, Asayake headed purposefully towards the soccer field.

***

Some time later, she realised that Tomeo wasn't even at the soccer game at all. Sighing, she tugged at one of her braided pigtails. "Where the hell did that boy go? Can he fly or something?"

"'Sayake," Rogishimon's muffled voice floated up as Asayake stalked away from the soccer field, a few feathers sticking out of the flap of Asayake's backpack, "What's that place over there?"

Asayake followed the feathers over to the track and field area of the grounds, smacking her fist into her palm. "Aha! That must be where he is!" She half-shouted, changing directions and heading towards the stands. "Track should start pretty soon; I wasn't too long looking for Tomeo at the soccer field, was I?"

"About five minutes," Rogishimon stated, "All you did was scan the stands and huff."

"Whatever you say, Rogishimon." Asayake said, climbing into the stands and settling her backpack on the benches. She remained standing, hands on her hips. "Now, Tomeo, you better be here."

***

Shuuichi finally noticed his small computer beeping in his backpack. As he began to reach for it, it came spitting out from the top. "Thanks," he said sarcastically as he scanned the e-mails. "I thought maybe some fangirls e-mailed me," he said as he typed his reply.

Hanshin,

I'll be there.

~Shuuichi~ "So it seems my aunts stories weren't fairy tales after all. My aunt is Tsukimi Sarika. She told me stories when I was younger about digimon and..."

Shuuichi stopped as Tomeo and eventually Ayasake left. "Seems like Tomeo is still not believing everything. I guess this is unbelievable but I'm not freaked out about it. Since Aunt Sarika told me about the digital world and digimon and her adventures, it sounds like a breeze, I could probably do it single handed," he said smuggly as he made a quick pose.

"Shuuichi, get me out of here!!!" Squijimon cried out from the backpack. "Huh, oh I forgot about you. You were being quiet for once," he said as he picked Squijimon out of his backpack. "I better not find ink in the bottom of my backpack," he snarled as he showed the digimon. "This is Squijimon , or the thing that came out of my bag that got the digivice, oh and I can't remember if I said this, but I am Jounin Shuuichi. I guess all the digimon come in different shapes and sizes. A flame looking thing, a fuzz ball, and a bird plus even more. I guess we'll find out tomorrow," he said. "So what did your digidestine relatives tell you about this stuff?" he asked sounding a little curious.

"Everything's fine here Himotomon. I assume everyone sent crossed and found their partner sucessfully," Squijimon said in her high pitched voice.

***

Naoko smiled at Shouki's hesitation. "I don't bite at least not until I know you better. Just relax. I'm going to ask you a few questions and that's it. It's my job to make the gigs perfect for the band, and you are one of the band now. I need to know if you need any special setups. Don't you dare start with the bowl of green only m&m's Yukio pulled that one last year. I mean serious needs for you and your gear. So, get me a list."

Naoko looked at his prayer beads and his somewhat innocent eyes, along with his blathering about his kid sister, and she concluded he wasn't like the other guys in the band. She felt she needed to explain a few things but really was sure how. "Just remember we girls are very bon vivant, so enjoy the moment without clinging to it. Ok?" Poor guy. Ami is going to eat him alive. I hope we don't lose a bassist to ol' piranha lips.

Now, they were a good distance away from the crowd. Naoko hugged him loosely. "Welcome to the band. We want you to have a bright future. Remember, Ask me if you need anything. Your persocom received my contact info when we touched. Use it." Shouki didn't feel like any of the other band member when she touched him either. She was intrigued by this.

"I mean it. Call me up any time. We can talk or not."

She shifted her weight and brought them both down on the grass and behind a nearby hedge, lip locking him as they fell. She kissed his lips and face as the lay there, and snuck her tongue in his mouth as her hands opened his shirt to explore his chest. In a moment when her tongue was free she added. "This is a safe spot. I use it all the time. No one comes here except to screw..."

The 6 foot tall hedge of cypress had once concealed part of the electrical access boxes, but those had been moved years ago. The hedge formed a semi cube with an entrance toward the building wall. The top was open so dappled sunlight covered the couple in moving patches of light. A thoughtful person had concealed a blanket, sleeping bag, a kit of supplies, and a small refrigerator that ran of the school power.

She fidgeted with her blouse opening it. "Shouki..." Her hand, now grasping his belt, turned red and a loud claxon sounded in the tiny nest.

"Oh no! I'm late. I... I...I can spare a few minutes more, "She smiled at Shouki as she tried to calm herself, "They don't need me there immediately and you are far more interesting at the moment than watching a setup up crew."

***

[email to: Hanshin]

[Private]

[Hanshin, good thinking. We need a get together. However, using the 'reply to all button does not qualify you to be leader. Hope you have some good ideas too. You'll need them; I'm not into your cult or your music just like a lot of us.

Talk to you relatives about your background. There are true heroes in your family. If I can see them in you, I'll consider following. Otherwise not!

Giving you a snoball's chance, Tegiwa.]

Tegiwa gathered up his things, including Robotmon, and headed for the stadium. "Ok, little guy. We get to watch Shireka kick butt. Should be a nice diversion if I can catch Kaze. I hope the leash and collar are still in the bag..."

"Affirmative."

"Cool. Useful guy aren't you?"

"Affirmative, Partner Tegiwa."

"One tip. Loosen up. It's just Tegiwa."

"Yes, Tegiwa."

"Now, we ask ourselves a question. Who in blazes is running track right before a soccer game?"

***

Aishou smiled at Yuu as she sat down next to her new classmate.

"Nice to meet you too," she replied as she put her camera gently in her lap. Suddenly, something beeped from her pocket, signalling that she had email. "Oh, excuse me." She began searching through a pocket, pulling out both her digivice and her computer. She set the digivice on the table and grumbled something about thinking it was a little silly. She then went about looking through her email on her computer.

***

Hanshin read through his new emails. A couple said they would be there, and the one from Tegiwa was long. Talk to his relatives? Yeah, he knew that. He wasn't entirely stupid, unlike what Tegiwa probably thought from whatever Shireika told him.

"Girls, I've got to go," he said as he got up, grabbing his things. "Got to rest and get ready for the concert tonight." He winked at them as he walked away. He could hear the four girls giggle and chatter together softly as they watched him. However, he was not heading back for the school building to head home yet.

He knew that Shireika had a big game today, one that she had been getting pumped up for since the season began. Their father's old high school was their big rival, and while Hanshin could care less for soccer, he wanted to see her play, as much as she seemed to dislike, even hate, his guts. Even though he was disappointed that she had dropped music lessons entirely, he tried to believe that she did it for the athletic talent she had inherited from their father. She had always been a talented athlete, even when they were beginners years ago. He almost missed playing with her, but music was far too important. He would just watch from now on.

***

Shireika hurried by the school buildings towards the gymnasium, where she had to meet with her team. The game was in an hour from now, but as team captain, she had to be ready to go before they were. Early was on time, and on time was late. She had to set a good example.

She burst through the doors and quickly walked down the corridor towards the girls' locker room, where she was supposed to meet with her coach and then her team. On the way, she walked past Kousei.

"Good luck!" she heard after she had passed him. She didn't turn back to look at him. Their relationship was already awkward. Even though she had known of for the past four years because he was on her father's soccer team at Tokyo University, he was now a coach and an occasional substitute teacher here. While only twenty-two, he still had to receive that respect like any other teacher at Tokyo Academy, no matter how long she had known him. Besides, she was sure he had a girlfriend from Tokyo University still.

"Hey, Shireika!" her coach called as she entered the locker room. "So, same gameplan as last time. You know the deal. Get the girls warmed up as usual!"

"Thanks Miss Yukiko," Shireika replied as she dumped her bags on the floor. She sat down on a bench and leaned back against the lockers behind her. She reached down for her gym bag and pulled out her cleaned soccer jersey and shorts. It was soon to be game time.

***

Shireika and her teammates were huddled around an electronic clipboard held by their coach. The scoreboard currently read 3-2, with the Tokyo Academy Eagles in the lead.

"We've got a couple switches to do," the coach started. She began drawing around on the board with her pen. "We're changing our gameplan to Alpha. They're a stronger team than last year. Shireika, keep an eye on Watanabe. She's their strongest player, but you'll know how to get around her. Yoshino, Mariko, and Keiko, keep the ball moving. Don't pass the ball to Shireika, unless she makes a call for it. You guys know the code." She pointed toward the goalie. "We need to talk. The rest of you, get some water and chill. You guys are doing great."

Shireika joined the girls in a unison "Eagles" and then sat down at her spot on the bench. She regretted the fact that she and the team had begged for having their names on their uniforms this year. She knew who would soon be invading the players' area any minute now, unless Tegiwa had strapped him to the stands.

She looked back, seeing her father in the stands. Next to him stood the boys' soccer coach Kousei, and upon noticing him, she immediately turned away. No time for distractions. She needed to focus.

Her mind wandered away from the game and to the Watcher. She absolutely could not trust him. Never.

***

Hanshin lounged in the back of the club for the concert. He had only seen twenty minutes of Shireika's game, and in those twenty minutes, she had made the first goal, which instantly freaked out the other team. Perhaps, her time spent on soccer instead of piano was worth it. She could earn herself a scholarship with her talent.

He groaned a little as Miyu massaged deeper on his right shoulder. It was a little sore from all the practicing the other day and all the stress that was building up for this concert.

"Did that hurt?" she asked as she stopped.

"No, that was perfect," he mumbled, motioning for Miyu to continue.

In the background, muffled groans could be heard from another dressing room down the hallway.

"Yukio was really dying, wasn't he?" Hanshin asked with a chuckle.

"Something like that," Hiroshi replied while laughing a little. "You know what Naoko can do." He looked up from his guitar, which he was plucking at a little. "I wonder what happened with Shouki."

"Shouldn't he be here by now?"

"Unless Naoko..."

The guitarist looked towards Hanshin with a mischievous grin.

"Scared him off. I highly doubt that. Who wouldn't want time with her?" Hanshin asked. "Or, any of the lovely ladies."

***

Yuu was about to ask Aishou about photography class when the other girl's computer suddenly alerted of an incoming email. Patiently letting her check her inbox, it took Yuu a couple moments to realise that her own PC was beeping as well. Surprised, she took it out of her pocket, called up the holo-screen and went quickly to her mailbox.

She noticed it immediately -- another email from the Watcher. Reading over it, she saw that it was just as cryptic as the first had been. She sighed. It would be nice to have some straight answers about all of this.

Then another email cought her attention, mostly because she didn't recognise the sender. She opened it up.

It was from another digi-destined. She didn't know who Ishida Hanshin was, but the Wild Stallions rang a bell; someone on the BBS had mentioned them. And it looked like he had family that knew about this digi-destined matter as well, so meeting up sounded like a good idea. She hit reply and began to type.

[Ishida-san,

I don't believe I know you, I only just moved to Tokyo very recently, but I do agree that we should learn what your uncle may have to tell us. 1 PM is fine for me. I hope to hear from you soon,

Yuu]

She sent the mail and put the computer back away. Looking back up, she noticed that Aishou had set something on the table. She stared. It was a different color, but there was no doubt about it: it was a digivice.

"Nasake-san?" She turned towards her classmate and indicated the device sitting on the table near to her own. "You have one of these too?"

***

Tomeo quickly hurried to the boy’s locker room inside the gymnasium, which the sprint team had to use after the soccer team. Besides himself, the ‘team’ only consisted of himself and two other boys – soccer seemed to be the more popular sport this year.

Nobody else seemed to be in the locker room, and it was still in a state of utter mess that had been left by the soccer team. Smelling in the whiff of recent body odour and forcing himself to breathe out of his mouth, he made his way over to his locker and prepared to change.

“Phew… it stinks in here!” Parumon commented in the silence, peeking out of Tomeo’s bag and then unzipping it all the way to get some fresh air. Tomeo didn’t reply but instead smiled and rolled his eyes, grabbing his sports uniform that had recently been washed from out of his bag and moved to one of the stalls to change.

“So, what exactly are we doing now? What’s ‘sprinting practice’?” Parumon called out, facing the changing stalls. “It’s for a race.” The young man replied as he changed. “Since we’ve only got a limited number of people this year, the school’s holding a semi-final and then a final. The winner of the final gets to go to the state finals for Japan to represent the school. This is just the practice round before the semi-final, to see how fast our times are.” He eventually soon after came out fully dressed in a striped school sports shirt and matching pair of shorts, complete with track running shoes. “A race, huh? Are you fast?” Parumon wondered, eyeing the boy as she judged him. “Well… just wait and see. We’re about to start.” He neatly hung up his change of clothes in his locker and picked up his bag with Parumon, heading out to the field.

“Hey, Tomeo!” the boys on the track team called over to him as he walked over, joining in with them as they were doing calf warm-ups. One of them smiled a cocky grin and nodded his head backwards towards the stands. Tomeo followed the direction of the gesture curiously, and spotted Asayake sitting in the stands.

“Looks like you’ve got a fan this year.” the first boy grinned. The second boy chuckled. “And she looks like a 12th grader, too. Ever had an older woman before, Tomeo?”

Tomeo frowned at this as he continued to stretch, sighed, and shook his head to himself inwardly. These guys were on his team, but they were egotistical idiots. “Hiroshi, Renjiro, grow up. She’s just a friend.”

“Sure she is.” Hiroshi said slyly.

“You better pick up the pace today, Hiroshi, because you’ll be eating my dust at the finish line.” Tomeo shot back in an amused tone, and stepped past them as soon as he saw the coach arrive. He quickly stepped up the stands to where Asayake was, and put his bag down next to her.

“Hi again, didn’t think I’d see you so soon!” he said in surprise, smiling to her. “It’s about the math homework, right? Well, I’ll get back to you on that after the race. In the meantime, do you mind looking after my bag? Thanks, I gotta run…”

Wolf-whistles could be heard from the other two boys as Tomeo turned back around, which were obviously made towards Asayake. “Don’t worry about them,” Tomeo reassured her before he moved away, “They’re just a bunch of insensitive jerks. Watch me, I’ll make them regret it.” He strode back down the stands, joining the team as they laughed towards him. The coach walked in behind them, raising his voice. “Okay, okay, break it up. We’ve got some serious work to do boys. We’re going to need to shave off those seconds from the last time if we ever have a chance of becoming regional champions again. Now, assemble! To your places!”

The boys were sent to their starting marks. Tomeo had been put on the outside lane, and he hunched down on all fours, placing his spiked shoes in the starting blocks. This is what he had been waiting for all day. A chance to break loose, to gain his freedom, to show everyone what he was all about. Maths calculations, literature, history in text books – it was nothing compared to living in the moment.

The coach set up his stopwatch, then raised his starting pistol. Tomeo waited for the moment, ready to uncoil like a wound-up spring. Perspiration ran down his forehead. His skin felt itchy, but he ignored it. Up in the stands, Parumon was now convinced that she could smell another scent of a digimon somewhere nearby, sticking her nose slightly out of the bag. Back on the field, Tomeo could only hear the sound of his own breathing, and forced all other thoughts out of his head, concentrating only on his own inhaling and exhaling. Waiting, waiting…

BAM!

The gunshot rang out, and already Tomeo was one, two, then three steps ahead of the other boys before they had even moved out of the starting blocks. His muscular legs pushed him across the field and propelled him at a tremendous speed, his feet hitting the ground hard every time. The wind was in his hair and in that moment, Tomeo felt more alive again than he ever had before as adrenaline pumped through his veins. For the rest of the three-lap race, he stayed at a fair distance in front of the other boys and crossed the finish line first, having to wait ten seconds or so for the other boys to eventually catch up.

“Tomeo, well done, you’ve improved on your record.” the coach said with an impressed tone, looking at the time on his stopwatch. “Keep it up, I’ll see you next week. “Hiroshi, Renjiro…”

“Thank you, Kaze-sensei.” The black-haired boy nodded. Tomeo didn’t need to hear the rest. Asayake was waiting for him. He smiled in self-satisfaction as he caught the look of defeat on both of their faces, and turned around to race back up the stands again to where his classmate was waiting.

Parumon stuck her blue snout back into Tomeo’s back as soon as he heard him coming, and he scooped up the bag and carefully opened it half-way to conceal Parumon as he fetched for his towel. “Thanks… for looking… after my bag.” he said gratefully in between breaths, coving his face for half a moment more with his towel to wipe off the sweat on his face. After catching hold of his breath and taking a few deep breaths in, he looked towards the red-headed girl, admiring her persistence for waiting for so long. “So, maths homework, right? Don’t tell me. I tried to tell you before, I’m not so good, but maybe you’re right… two heads are better than one. Tell you what, we could go to the soccer match that’s happening over the way and do it there while we watch it. C’mon, let’s go.” He gestured her to follow him, moving down the stands towards the soccer field.

***

“So, if it was paid back quarterly over the next few months, then…” Tomeo sighed. He couldn’t concentrate. “We’re not going to remember any of this stuff, or use it for that matter. What’s the point?” he asked rhetorically.

He was in the stands, sitting next to Asayake as the second half of the girl’s soccer game played out before them. He had already pulled out his math homework to compare his answers to hers, to see if he could shed any new light on the problems she couldn’t work out. He looked up for a few seconds to watch some of the game, then went back to the maths problem. “So then, using the equation, the rate paid over that time, keeping the amount started off with in mind, would be… 5.7% per annum, I think?” He chuckled slightly and looked back towards Asayake. “I told you I’m not good at maths. I’m not being much help, am I?”

At this point in time, Parumon had become completely bored with staying put. She had to get out and stretch, but it was easier said than done with all the humans that were around them. She could still smell another digimon around, but couldn’t tell how far away she was. She poked a single eye out of the hole in the zipper of Tomeo’s bag and instead of watching the soccer game, tried to position herself to see what Tomeo was doing. She had to lie awkwardly on top of one of the textbooks in the bag, but could finally see what Tomeo was doing. ‘Oh, Tomeo! Can you think about the bigger picture for once and not think about chatting up girls? Unless… she’s one of them… but how do I know for sure?’ she thought to herself. ‘If she has a digimon and a digivice, they’d be in her bag…’She moved up to see better, catching a foothold but then slipping on it, causing her to fall a short distance to the bottom of Tomeo’s bag. “Gah, woah!” she yelled out without realising it, as the bag topped over on it’s side, half of Tomeo’s materials falling on top of her. She froze and didn’t dare move. Had somebody noticed?

Tomeo had noticed the bag had toppled over, but it was too loud from the cheering in the stands for anyone to overhear what Parumon had said. It was obvious that something was moving in his bag to anyone who was sitting near him, and if that wasn’t significant enough to catch attention, his movement to correct the bag back to upright position and then looking into it was evidence enough. He glanced back to Asayake to check if she had noticed. She didn’t show any device or monster when the others had, but she had been listening in to the conversation. Unless the voice he heard before hadn’t been hers… but he didn’t want to assume too much. Shouldhe move back to the maths homework, or could he trust saying anything to her about it?

***

Hanarei rolled her eyes at Shuuichi as he bragged and struck a pose in front of her and Enma. "You can drop the act, Casanova," she said. Her expression soon changed however. Hanarei tilted her head slightly at the sound of Shuuichi's relative's name. "Sarika?" she said curiously. "I... I think I've heard that name before but... where?" She waved it off and continued on.

"I don't think my parents were ever digi-destined. I can see my mom being a possibility but I would think she too would have made it a bedtime story. And my dad...," she didn't sound the least bit confident that her dad was a possibility. That is until Himotomon added....

"Your father was one of the previous digi-destined."

"WHAT?!" She held up Himotomon in front of her at eye level and stared. "You're lying!"

"No, really! Nikko was the digi-destined of hope last time. He knew your mother," she nodded to Enma, "and your aunt," now nodding at Shuuichi.

Hanarei was still in shock about this. She didn't expect to discover this big of a secret about her father. "But why didn't he tell me anything?"

"That you'll have to ask him as I don't know."

"Oh yes, I can see that being an excellent conversation. 'Hi Hanarei, how are you?' 'Oh I'm fine. School was okay. By the way dad, I discovered a digimon. Can you tell me your adventures with them?' And besides, how do we know how our parents would feel if they knew we were 'chosen' as well?"

***

"C'MON YOU PACK OF WIMPS!!! YOU SHOULD BE UP BY 5 BY NOW!!!" Hanarei shouted from the stands at the soccer game. She wasn't much of a fan for playing soccer but she did like watching sports. The thought of her father being a previous digi-destined was temporarily out of her mind. Himotomon was back in the backpack but the pouch was slightly open for her to look out and watch the game as well.

With school finished for the day, Hanarei had changed out of her uniform and into more casual clothes. She wore her black vest with an angel and demon wing on the back and a plain white T-shirt underneath. Her school skirt was replaced by a pair of jeans with a flower design coming up her left pant leg. She also wore her red-tinted sunglasses.

"AND REF., IF YOU HAD ONE MORE EYE, YOU'D BE A CYCLOPS!!!"

***

Shouki was taken off guard by Naoko's sudden actions that he wasn't able to stop her from doing anything and his eyes showed how surprised he was. When Naoko sat up and started to unbuckle his belt, Shouki's instincts suddenly kicked in and he found he right time to act. He quickly placed his feet on Naoko's shoulders and kicked her away. "STOP IT!!!" he shouted. He kicked her hard enough just to make her fall back but not hurt her. Panting hard, Shouki tried to re-buckle his belt with shaking fingers and started to head out of the hedge. He grabbed his backpack on the way out and started to sprint.

He ran as fast as he could. He didn't know where he was going. All he knew was that he needed to be alone now. He found the stairs and a small nook under them to hide in. He ducked under there and rested.

Shouki took several quick breaths before he was able to calm himself down and breath normally. Once again his prayer beads found themselves between Shouki's fingers. "I'm trying my best, Hikaru," he whispered to himself. His face changed from panicked to being full of sorrow. "I'm trying." A cold gust of wind went by his face and lingered there as though it were cradling his cheek

***

Shouki had his backpack over his shoulder and his bass guitar in his hand (he picked it up from the music department) and was heading down the street toward home. After that little experience with Naoko, he just wanted to get out as quick as he could. He reached the edge of the campus when....

"Oi, Shouki," someone shouted. He turned around and saw Narumi walking toward him. She was wearing her middle school uniform. "What do you think you're doing?"

Shouki didn't want to tell Narumi what Naoko tried to do to him earlier but he could still say what his intentions were. "I just want to head home. I'd like to rest a little before the concert."

Narumi raised an eyebrow at her brother. She could sense there was a nervous tone in his voice. "Listen Shouki, you're having a concert later tonight and it's going to be okay. Plus by the time you get home, there's not going to be much time for you to rest and the time when you have to meet up with the rest of your band. They're probably at the club where you're performing." Shouki still didn't move. Finally, Narumi thought of something that would work. "Come on. Be social," Narumi insisted. "I bet it's what Hikaru would have done even if she was tired." That seemed to be the magic word to get Shouki to start to head for the music club. Narumi ran up beside her brother and handed him something. "Here's a snack if you'd like something to munch on." She placed a box of pocky in his backpack before she headed home. "I'll be there to see you're concert, 'kay?"

Shouki took one last glance at her sister and watched her go around the corner. He took his backpack off and opened the largest pouch to see Kirimon eating the Pocky. "She's a talkative little girl," said Kirimon. "At least her heart is in the right place."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Shouki. He placed the backpack back on and headed for the music club. Despite the fact he didn't like Narumi using that tactic on him, she was right about Hikaru.

***

Enma nodded rather blandly at Hanarei's digimon, before turning to Shuuichi. "My mother's never really been a big fan of opening up about her teen life, she just likes to rain on mine. The only things I know where that she used to work at my grandfather's jazz club, but that's about it." She shrugged, before something came to mind. "She told my older sister, Nishi, everything, though. I remember one of the stories, vaguely. Something about a talking monkey..." She checked her watch, before cursing under her breath. "I've got to get my stuff together and get a memo to the Female that Gave Birth to Me." She turned to Shuiichi. "If you want to keep talking, meet me at the soccer game, alright?" She waved, before getting up, stuffing Mitikomomon into her bag.

***

Enma got the the game in the middle of half-time. She started up the stands, scanning for Shuuichi. When she didn't see him, she started toward an empty seat, but froze half-way to it. White hair, dark skin, bitch of an attitude. 'Should have remembered he'd be here.' She thought to herself, before looking for another seat. There was one a few feet away, but it meant walking past him. Letting out an annoyed sigh, she straightened her back and held her head up defiantly, walking by.

***

Tegiwa continued past the track and field area heading for the soccer stands. The whole athletic area had been upgraded and enlarged over the past two years. Between the super skyscrapers, man made peninsulas, and the underwater habitats, the available land in Tokyo was increasing. The school had managed to grow the campus a bit. That was a good thing, because enrollment was up too.

He found Kaze in the stands and sat down beside him. Tegiwa was prepared with a leash and duct tape this time. It was no joke. But, he hoped his brother would behave. "Hey, bro, lets not embarrass Shireka too much this game. She'd really like that. She knows we think she's great, but there are other players too. Soccer is a team game. Let's not hurt their feelings."

He put his side pack on the bleacher and set Robotmon on it so he could see. He felt lucky his digimon was a toy.

***

Naoko was knocked backward into to hedge by the force of Shouki's feet. She was left gazing through the hole in the hedge as she heard his rapid steps flee from her. "That was different. No one runs away from me. Not usually." She was still dazed, watching dust motes dance in the light. She sighed as she got to her feet, giving her uniform a brush off with no good result. She decided to take advantage of the moment to strip her dirty uniform off and change into her concert clothes.

A metal rustling told her the friend she had acquired was about. "Why did the boy run off?"

"He didn't want to spend time with me I suppose"

"Want me to go fetch him?"

She laughed a little. "No I think he's in Kyoto by now. But, thanks. I'll keep that option on file."

After using a few moist towelettes to freshen up. She donned her well worn black jeans and rolled the cuffs tight. She loved the way the jeans conformed to the curves of her body like a second skin. She pulled on a black t-shirt emblazoned "Bo Knows Diddley" which she found humorous but most people thought was weird. She liked all her weird t-shirts. She pulled the shirt to the side and tied it in a knot. Her tummy was toned enough to show. It had the same porcelain quality as all her skin. She wasn't a sickly white; her skin was radiant and fragile. Her silky raven hair that flowed below her waist made a nice contrast. She swept the bangs with occluded her left eye away briefly as she slipped into her black leather chukkas. Then, it was off to the club.

***

"Where is a horny guy when you need him?" Naoko mumbled as the club crew set a portion of the stage set way too far to the right. She looked back at the outlay on her hand and made them move it back.

She felt bad about molesting Shouki like that. She really didn't want to scare him. She wrote a quick apology to him in a spare moment.

[Shouki, please forgive me for the scene this afternoon. I promise I won't rape you if you come the concert tonight. Naoko.]

She still didn't understand that boy, but the note was a good way to get him to show tonight.

***

Making a foul face at her textbook, Asayake sighed and shut it in one overdramatic motion. "This stuff just stinks. Maybe I'll become a hermit and live off the land, that way I won't have to pass 11th grade math. I could grow... something. Carrots. Lettuce. I'd live off of acorns if I had to." She made the motions of putting her books back into her backpack, shifting them gentley so as not to squash Rogishimon. Said digimon, upon second glance at her bag, had found a granola bar and was munching away at the wrapper happily; the granola bar was sitting beside her, untouched. Asayake gave the little bird a quick prodd with one manicured nail, pointed at the granola bar, and snatched the wrapper away. Slightly dejected, Rogishimon grabbed the granola bar and munched not quite so happily on that instead. Righting herself, Asayake decided to play social -- or at least try. "Ne, Tomeo, I didn't know you were a sprinter. How long have you been running? You're pretty friggin' good -- better than those perverted friends of yours, which is a plus, I guess."

The wind picked up slightly, and Asayake put her hands on her thighs to keep the pleated skirt she was wearing from becoming an umbrella. She heard a dull thonk and what sounded like muffled words. Raising a graceful red eyebrow at Tomeo's bag's sudden topple, Asayake half-smiled. "You wouldn't happen be hiding a gremlin in there or anything, would you? I myself found a bird-ish one in my closest earlier this morning, playing with my other skirts." She jabbed her thumb at her backpack, hoping her intuition and the excited ruffling coming from her backpack meant what she thought it would.

***

Aishou looked up from her computer after seeing one from the Watcher and another from the popular Ishida Hanshin.

"Oh, this?" she asked as she took her digivice off the table. "I found it while trying to fix something on my mother's computer the other day." She looked at the device curiously. "Somebody named the Watcher told me that it would be important, and now that singer from the Wild Stallions apparently has one. And you have one too." She paused for a moment. "So, yeah. I don't really know much else about it. So, I guess we're both sort of in dark about this. Hey, since you're new, how do you like things here so far?"

***

"Good work, ladies. I think the different gameplan worked much better!" the coached called to the Tokyo Academy girls' soccer team as they began grabbing their bags. The alarm had gone off ten minutes ago, and the girls on the team were delighted on defeating Tokyo International High with a 6-2 for a finish. "Now, remember ladies! Rest up tomorrow because we've got practice on Monday!"

A unison groan came from some of the girls on the team, who were exhausted after the long game. Tokyo International High wasn't particularly an easy team to beat, and there was a lot of switiching around going on even during the second half.

Shireika could feel it in her legs. Moving around to keep up with the other team's top player wasn't easy. The girl could move, and Shireika found it sometimes difficult to keep up with her. On the other hand, she wasn't particularly tricky when handling the soccer ball, which made it easy for Shireika to steal the ball.

With a sigh, she slipped her bags onto her shoulder after she had removed her cleats and had put on her sneakers from school. She looked around, noticing Kaze and Tegiwa's location and then spotting her father at the top of the bleachers. She took a quick glance to find a good path to avoid her rabid fan. As she wandered up the bleachers to meet up with her father, she passed by Tomeo and Asayake, nearly hitting Tomeo with her gym bag on accident.

"Oh hey, Asayake!" she said as she stopped for a moment. "I didn't know you came to our soccer games." She smiled as she stuffed her towel into her gym bag, right on top of Alatusmon.

"Gross, Shireika!" Alatusmon yelped from inside her bag. He squirmed around the sweaty and dirty towel to pop his head out of the gym bag. "Who's there?"

Shireika immediately put a hand down on Alatusmon to push him back inside.

"Hey!" the little digimon replied.

Shireika smiled at Asayake and Tomeo quickly, trying to pretend nothing had happened, but it was hard to when Alatausmon finally made his way past her hand.

"I sense others!" Alatusmon whispered. "Other digimon...they're around."

Shireika sighed and held a hand over her face.

"Shireika! I'm sorry, but I know they're right here!" he tried to explain. He knew he was in trouble now. Shireika had told him to keep it quiet, but he couldn't help it when he noticed the presence of other digimon nearby. He wanted her to know that there were others like her. He wanted her to believe in the Watcher. "Please don't be mad!"

***

"If you want a horny guy, Naoko, go find Yukio," Ami muttered as she walked. "He's been dying to get a little action ever since you laid your hands on him earlier this afternoon." She sat on a portion of the set. She had changed into a short black pleated skirt that showed off most of her legs, a low cut blue top that cut off a couple inches above her navel, and black patent leather pumps. "You know he's easy like that." She grinned at Naoko. "Not like any guy is that hard - if you know what I mean." One of the men from the crew walked by and looked her over briefly. "Hey, sexy. Come find me when you're done if you want." She winked at the young man, who was probably just out of college. She turned back towards Naoko. "So, did you meet Shouki yet?"

***

"Dude, Shouki's not here yet?" Yukio asked as he finally stumbled back into the band's dressing room. He was still fixing his belt, and behind him, Michan was fixing up her blouse.

"He's probably on his way," Hiroshi replied.

"Naoko's here, right?"

"Yes."

"She owes me for what she did to me." He paused as Michan walked around him. He gave her a nice little spank. "Though, I didn't mind the favor, Michan."

"Anytime, Yukio," Michan replied as she looked back at him.

Hanshin hoped that nothing bad had happened to Shouki. Now was not a good time to lose the new bassist, for whom this concert was being held. They hadn't performed in weeks because they had lost their last bassist, since he had graduated from Tokyo Academy and had gone to Kyoto for college. This could get ugly if Shouki didn't make it anytime soon. Showtime would be in two hours.

***

Tomeo laughed a little at Asayake's idea of being a farmer, moving putting his own books into his bag. "You could always grow strawberries or raspberries, or something nice like that. Oh, or lemons! If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you math... well, just move to the country, I guess." He looked down past Parumon to check if she was okay, positioned the books safely underneath her so he wouldn't squash her, and zipped it back up. "Anyway, I guess we're done for the day. If you need any more help, you know where to find me..."

He was surprised to find she was interested in his running; he didn't like to admit he was the fastest runner in the school, but it was nice to be flattered once and a while by other people about it. He remained fixated on her eyes while he was talking to her and noticed they were green like his, not even noticing the way the wind was tugging at her skirt. "Oh, thank you. I've been running all my life, ever since I was old enough to stand on my own two feet I've been running like crazy. My mother told me once when I was little, she was afraid I was doing it so much that one day I'd run smack into something and really hurt myself. But, here I am, still running. I guess whatever I ran into didn't stop me." He nodded in reminder of the two boys in his team, not surprised by their behaviour earlier. "Look, I'm really sorry about that. They probably just did that because they're jealous they can't get any girls of their own. I hope it doesn't make you feel too uncomfortable if you decide to come watch me again, I'm sure they won't make so much of a ruckus next time now they know their place."

He looked towards Asayake's bag as she talked, suddenly conscious of the whole digimon situation again. This time, however, he didn't feel so intimidated with only Asayake present, and decided that now he might as well try face up to the reality of it, looking back towards Asayake. Curiousity was nibbling away at him, too. "Oh, so you have one of them, too? I was wondering why you were being so casual about it and trying to ask about your maths homework instead... I thought I'd gone mad." He looked around him in case someone was listening, and nodded his head slightly. "Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. My monster is a little lizard-like thing that played a practical joke on me this morning and scared me half to friggin' death. You can understand why I'm a little skittish about the whole thing today. She's been itching to meet others like her - here, let me introduce her to you..."

As he reached for his bag, for a few seconds he saw a girl their age coming towards them up the bleachers, with a gym bag that was about to knock him in the head. If he leaned forward to duck, his head would meet in an impact with the bag. If he played limbo and leaned backwards, he would hit his head at feet of the empty bleacher seats behind him. Acting quickly, he nimbly took the only course of action that he could take without hurting himself, awkwardly shifting over to sit directly next to Asayake and leaning slightly sideways over her lap, placing his arm for balance over her and his hand on the empty seat next to her. When the girl moved her bag to place her towel in it seconds later, he moved immediately out of Asayake’s personal space and casually moved back into his seat. “Sorry about that! Couldn’t be helped.” he immediately apologised to the girl, and made a very relieving mental note that he hadn’t made the situation worse by falling over on top of her, or hadn’t placed his hand for balance accidentally on her thigh. Thank god, that would have been downright shameful of him for a first impression.

He looked up at the girl that had very nearly clobbered him with her gym bag and was quick to courteously reply to her comment. “The reason for that is because I was the one that brought her here.” he smiled at her, and held up a hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you, my name’s Toyogawa Tomeo. I’m on the boy’s sprint team, and I noticed the game on my way here to a track meet. I thought you played a pretty awesome game, even though we were busy half the time trying to do maths homework. And you are - ?”

He was further surprised by the little digimon that popped out of her bag; today seemed to be filled with surprises. He couldn’t help it and chuckled a little, moving further over in his seat so that people behind them couldn’t see the girl’s digimon. It seemed so persistent that is was downright adorable. Maybe he had been overreacting a little to this whole thing.

“Hey, listen – he isn’t wrong.” he said to the girl in a lower tone of voice, checking around to see if it was safe, and was glad that the majority of the crowd had already left. He looked between Asayake and the blue-eyed girl, picking up his backpack next to him. “Alright, Parumon. It’s safe now, you win. Come on out and meet everyone.”

The zipper of his backpack suddenly worked itself open from the inside, and out came a blue and yellow salamander-like creature with a grumpy expression on it’s face. “Well, it’s about time! Did you even realise your psychology book almost squished me to death? Why, I oughta…” Parumon paused, her pearl-like eyes shifting up and noticing the company she was with. “Hey, um, hi there! Parumon’s the name!” she waved a small webbed foot in each person’s direction. “Finally, I’m so glad I’ve got some other girls to talk to! You know how boys are. This one thinks he’s mature and all-that, but when it came to talking to those other digidestined before, he hit the ground running in the other direction!” she mocked, gesturing Tomeo with her opposable thumb.

“Hey! That isn’t fair!” Tomeo said defensively. “I didn’t run… exactly. I just… I freaked out a little, okay? It’s not everyday that you wake up, do your meditative exercises, and, oh, by the way, get attacked by a digital monster from the closet, and uses that fact that I’ve never seen a digimon before as an amusement to make herself laugh!”

“Oh, boo-hoo.” Parumon complained. “You don’t see me crying. Lighten up. Digimon aren’t that scary – but don’t get me mad, or I’ll prove exactly the opposite. Oh, that reminds me!” She looked over to the black-haired girl’s digimon as she climbed up Tomeo’s arm, pointing at him. “What’s your name? Can you fill me in on what’s going on? I’m not as uninformed as sissy-boy over here, but I sort-of forgot a few things on my way over to this world.”

Tomeo sighed and shook his head, wondering how a girl, even for a digimon, could be so mean to him. He ignored her insult and added on to his digimon partner's request. “Actually, I want to know a little more, too.” he wondered out loud. “I got an e-mail I remember about digimon, but I thought it was a practical joke someone sent me and I deleted it. I was wondering why these digimon are here to begin with, and why we keep being referred to as ‘digi-destined’ and ‘chosen-children’. But, I guess that can wait for a moment. Asayake,” he asked, turning his attention to the red-haired girl sitting next to him. “You were saying something about a bird-ish one you had? I think we better get acquainted with each other first, before we move onto the bigger stuff at hand.”

***

Hanarei walked down the stands with a smile on her face. She was glad to see her school win with such a point difference. As she made her way down the stairs, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. It was Tomeo, Asayake, and Hanarei recognized the other person being Shireika. Something in Shireika's bag was moving around and Hanarei was able to see a glimpse of the digimon within it. "So she's one of us too," she said to herself. Shireika seemed rather embarrassed at the moment.

Hanarei changed route and walked up to Shireika, Tomeo and Asayake. "Relax, princess," said Hanarei as she walked over, "we have these things too." She held out her digivice and then held out her bag for Shireika to notice Himotomon. Himotomon waved at her from inside the bag. Hanarei felt uncomfortable being around Shireika for some reason and spoke in a tone that wasn't too pleasant. She stared at her over her red sunglasses. "I take it you've received an email from this Watcher person and your brother, right? Do you have the slightest idea what this is about or do I have to wait for your brother's meeting?"

***

Nikko leaned against the side of the stands as he watched the soccer game. He had his jacket draped around his arm and his tie loosened.

"Why weren't you joining in with the rest of the crowd?" said a female voice from behind. Nikko turned around to see his old school friend Haru standing behind him. "I hear it's a lot more comfortable sitting in the stands than being over here."

Nikko smiled at that comment. "Maybe so but I try not to intimidate my students when I don't have to. Plus there's always the chance that one of them has a clear shot at the back of my head. My own daughter has done it several times." He looked up into the stands. "Speaking of...." Nikko looked over and saw Hanarei holding up her bag to three people. He was outside of earshot but the scene did look similar to something that happened long ago. "So what are you doing here?" he asked Haru curiously, now turning back to her.

"It's not against the law to watch my son's school play in a soccer game, is it?" Haru asked sarcastically.

"Ah yes, Yuki. He hasn't figured out that Hanarei's crazy about him, has he?"

"Reminds me of a certain someone I know," Haru said in a sly voice.

"Ha ha, very funny." Haru had finally told Nikko how she felt about him in high school during their college years though they didn't date. "I guess it does seem rather obvious looking at it from this point of view." He checked his watch for a moment. "I think I'm going to hang out over here and make sure no one makes any trouble. You're welcome to stay or go."

***

Shouki saw the outside of the music club when he heard his mini-computer signaling he had email. He pulled it out and read the email from Naoko. He sighed when he finished reading it and tucked it back into his pocket. When he joined the band, this wasn't something he imagined. "Well, I'm going to have to face it sooner or later," he mumbled.

"That's the spirit," said Kirimon from the backpack. "By the way, is there any possibility of you letting me out of here for awhile? I may not have arms or legs but I know a cramp when I feel one."

"I'll let you out when no one is looking. Just try to stay out of the way." He zipped up the backpack and walked into the music club. "Sorry I'm late guys," he said and placed his bass guitar case on the stage. "I, um, got a little nervous and had to go back for my bass guitar from the music department." He lied but he didn't want to say what really happened as Naoko was also standing close by.

***

Narumi wasn't far from school when she heard fast footsteps coming from behind her. "NARUMI!!!" Yume, Hanarei's little sister, had jumped up onto Narumi's back. She quickly shifted so Yume's weight wouldn't knock her over. "Hey there," Yume said innocently.

"Hi Yume," Narumi replied. She was bent over, facing the ground and tried not to lose her balance. Yume slid off of her friend and straightened her skirt. "Do you always have to tackle me like that?"

"I think it's fun. And besides, I'm not that big so I shouldn't be that much weight. Anyway, changing subjects... I hear your brother is having a concert. I still can't believe Shouki even decided to join."

"Yeah, well, he needed a bit of a push," said Narumi. She wasn't looking at Yume in the eye.

Yume started to eye Narumi for a moment. "I get it now. You wanted him to join so he wouldn't bother you all the time, right?"

"It's a lot better when he isn't all protective and everything around me," she snapped, dropping all sense of playing innocent. "And he doesn't mope around the house all the time anymore. I mean, yeah, Hikaru isn't around and I'm special to him but still.... I have my own life and I want to live it my way, not behind someone trying to play guardian all the time." Her face had gone slightly red. "Yume, I'm going to head back home to change before the concert. If you want you can come along with me. *UMMPH* But I'm not carrying you."

***

Kaze completely ignored the rest of the game, including any comment Tegiwa might of made at any given point and time. He just grabbed his bag, stuffed Laimon in it, and began to walkaway, stony faced. While he walked away, one thought circled around his mind, alone in that wasteland. 'What is SHE doing here?'

Although it was uncharacteristic, he couldn't care less wether he saw Tegiwa or Shireika right there. Tegiwa was just too wise, in his opinon, and although he adorded her, he was often hurt by Shireika considering him a stalker, when in reality he was only a fan who aspired to be as good as her one day.

Clutching his bag a little too tightly, his tan knuckles began to turn white. The extremly attractive, exotic looking boy, had a deadly edge to him, and anyone who messed with him would not like the outcome of Kaze's retaliation.

"Oh look, it's the faggot! How you doing fag boy?"

Kaze grinned darkly, and turned around slowly. "Goh. I'm so glad you're here, really..."

"Oh really?" Goh flashed his pearly whites, dimples appearing on his pale cheeks. "Unfortunetly for you, I'm not into the whole, gay sex thing."

Kaze laughed as if it was a small joke between them. "Oh that's too bad... so I'll be kicing your ass instead of..." the last part of Kaze's statement wasn't heard by anyone, because the taller boy was howling in pain, from a powerful kick that Kaze delt to his head.

"I may be weak wristed, but I've got powerful legs. Years of soccer does that to ya." He smiled wickedly, and with a blood thirsty smile, he stepped on Goh's chest and pressed down.

"Kaze! Back off!"

Unfortunetly, Kaze decided to attack Goh in a teacher infested area, and allowed himself to be dragged off to the vice principle's office, assuming he was still there, like many times before. First he would be asked if he understood what he did, and then why he did it, then they'd call home, then his parents would go to school, and then he'd get scolded, and then he'd get punished. And then he'd go out and get in trouble again. Except...

This time was different. He felt a quick sharp pain when he realized he didn't have his usual partner in crime, and now more than ever, felt sad, and alone in the world, without his fellow rebel.

***

Naoko felt uncomfortable when she saw Shouki enter the club. He looked a bit edgy himself, so Naoko decided to get the urge to check out the rooms and hallway that served as "back stage" in this club.

She fiddled with the after-concert refreshments, rearranging things where the boys had started in them so that the arrangements were nice and symmetrical. Double checked the drinks in the fridge and on the table. The boys liked a variety of refreshments. She set out her own favorite poison, a dark green liquor called Fey Verte, along with a carafe of ice water and sugar cubes to dull the bitter edge. She set out her Green Fairy slotted spoons of which she had four. She had the same number of large glasses that matched, but even as few as four were too many. Only Yukio dared try the stuff so far. The boys liked a little beer and sake with the occasional vodka drink or whiskey. Hanshin rarely drank at all, she noticed. She was glad because she wanted him to protect his health and his voice.

Naoko had a fondness for the potency of the verdant beverage. It was her only vice and a reward for a job well done.

She did as much busy work and triple checking as she could stand while killing time away from Shouki. She wasn't sure what to think of him. She'd like an explanation of his behavior at some point. For now, she'd live with the confusion.

She headed for the bathroom to fix herself as nicely as she had arranged the snack trays. She touched up her makeup adding more eye shadow and lipstick than she normally wore. Then, she downloaded a picture of four wild mustangs racing along a rocky path lit by an orange sunset from her Palm(tm) ring to her biochip. She loved the image and had been using it on the bands promotional literature. The image displayed quite nicely on the electrogram web in her belly dermis. When she danced the horses looked like they where actually racing.

The four mustangs were white, black, ruddy, and grey. The white one was slightly ahead of the others, and she thought it was the best. It was strong and noble just like Hanshin. He'd be out in front too; he'd stay in front as long as she was with him.

She had more time to kill. She'd hoped Yukio might come by for a little "before and after", but ended up playing twenty questions with that tinfoil pet of hers.

***

Tegiwa watched them drag Kaze away. "Can't take him anywhere..." He relized this might be rehearsal for they day when they came for his brother with butterfly nuts.

He scooped up his gear bag with one arm and Robotmon with the other. He ambled down to the place Shireka was mingling with some people. On approach he saw digimon with the other kids.

"Digital Lifeforms detected!" Robotmon reported.

"Yes, I see them."

He walked to stand beside his friend, and said to all: "Looks like we all made the cut. I wonder what destiny has in store for us." He held up his purple digivice as a sign of recognition.

***

Enma watched the fight between Kaze and Goh apathetically. She turned when Kaze started to get hauled away, and concentrated instead on the playing field. She hated soccer, and most sports with equal zeal. They were too…sport-like. She couldn’t really say why she hated them, but she knew the reason why she had a newfound deep-seeded loathing for soccer in particular.

And it made her wonder why she had even bothered to come here. Well, besides wanting to be somewhat social, she also, deep down, wanted to either spite Him or have Him forgive her. “Of course, he wouldn’t, though.” She said reasonably to a very confused Mitikomomon. “Even if he were to talk to me, he’s as stubborn as an ass, and won’t make the first move. I’m not going to, either. It’s just not me.”

“Why aren’t you going to…make this first move?” the digimon asked.

“Because it’s not my style. That, and I didn’t do anything wrong, he makes these little things up in that tiny brain of his.”

“So, was he like, your boyfriend or something? And who’s ‘he’? I’d like to know who you’re talking about!” The digimon tried to crane his body so he could see the crowd. Enma kicked the bag to stop him.

“First, it’s none of your business.”

“It is so my business, I’m you’re…”

“Second,” Enma said, completely ignoring her partner. “Ew. Please, never even think that sentence again. Boyfriend, pheh.”

“Who’s this boyfriend I don’t know about? And why are you talking to yourself?” Enma looked up at the woman standing over her, grimacing.

“Hi, Mom. Not talking to myself, I’m talking to my bag, there’s a difference. And before you and your shrink-mind think I’ve completely lost it, it’s my cell phone, I swear.” She said, ignoring her mother but moving over so that she could sit down.

Megami sent her daughter a disbelieving look. “You, young lady, are lying.”

“Perhaps.” Enma shrugged, before turning to her mother. “Though even if I were tell the truth, you’d still think I was lying.”

Megami, flustered, sighed, trying not to let her youngest child get to her. “Enma, why are you alone?”

“Because I choose to be.” She said cryptically.

Megami’s lips contorted into a pout. “Now what’s this all about, Enma? Why are you always…”

“Acting out?” Enma asked acidly. “I’m not, Mom. I have never acted out. You just think this is all some act because you hate to see the big picture. I realize that Nishi’s perfect, but I’m not; I’m just one imperfect child out of a batch of three, let it go!” She turned, shouldering her bag, and started away.

Megami stood, watching slightly dismayed. Since Enma had turned ten their conversations had always been as explosive as this. “Enma, please. Where are you going?”

“What do you care, I’ll be home eventually, any way.”

“What about you’re ride home?”

“I’ll call Kou; he’s the only one who listens to me in this family.” She started muttering to herself, digging through her bag for her cell phone.

“Enma…?” Mitikomomon asked uncertainly.

“What.”

“What’s a ‘kou’?”

“It’s a twenty five year old with a car and his own apartment and junk in said apartment I can take my frustration out on. Plus he has my amp.”

“Oh…” Mitikomomon spit the cell phone into his partner’s hand. “Eh…what’s an ‘amp’?”

Enma sighed. “Never mind, Mitikomomon.” She said, before dialing her brother’s number. “Kou? It’s Enma. Look, I can’t…yeah….what else would have happened?...okay, see you in ten minutes, then.” She hung up, letting out a soothing sigh as she put her phone away, ignoring where she was going. She walked right into a person for the second time that day, and growled in frustration. “What the hell’s wrong with this day? Is fate that much against me? Fine then, smite me now if you think I should fall flat on my ass every ten God damned minutes!” She said under her breath. She looked around at the group; Tomeo, Ayasake, and Hanarei stood there. She made a slight face. “We meet again.” She said dryly, before turning to Tomeo, though she was still on the ground. “At least I didn’t walk into you again.” She said, sounding slightly apologetic. She closed her eyes as she turned to see who she had walked into this time – Mitikomomon was going to pay for causing her so much distraction – and begged every god she could think of to ensure that she hadn’t walked into the one person she didn’t want to talk to at that moment.

She opened her eyes, looking up lightly. Although perhaps it would have been better if she had walked into Kaze. She blanched, picking up her bag and scrambling up, holding out a hand. “I’m sorry, Itoh-san.” She said, before noticing the robot he held. She looked around slowly. She knew Tomeo, Hanarei, and Ayasake had digimon, but Tegiwa...? She looked at the other person in the group, trying desperately to make sure she hadn’t made the worst possible impression on someone she looked up to.

Thankfully, it was only Shireika. “Uh…good game, Ishida-san.” She said flatly, before grimacing. “I’m really sorry, Itoh-san.” She said. She had known Tegiwa for as long as she had known Kaze. At the thought, she felt her stomach churn. If Kaze had told Tegiwa anything…With her free hand, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This has not been a good day.

***

Asayake felt her heart stop as Tomeo was forced to lean across her to avoid being KO'ed by Shireika. Smiling warily, she attempted to smooth down her skirt. "That's... okay, Tomeo." Inwardly spurting a colourful array of words, Asayake tried to calm down the skinging feeling in her chest. As people began to gather around them, the felt the sudden urge to crawl underneath the bleachers and disappear. Resisting said urge, she forced herself to smile politely at the sudden group they had formed. "Sorry to disappoint you, Ishida-san, but I wasn't really watching it. If it's any consollation, I know we won? And hello to you, too, Itoh-san!" Asayake greeted them both, knowing them both fairly well -- as well as one could, haivng only played the name-game in classes. "I take it we're playing show-and-tell, then? Okay," She said, reaching into her back and plucking out a rather surprised-looking white bird, "Meet Rogishimon, plunderer of skirts and destroyer of socks."

"Ne, 'Sayake, the socks weren't me, they were Yuuki!" Rogishimon nagged, taking her perch on Asayake's shoulder. "Ignore that, okay everyone? I don't eat socks."

Asayake chuckled softly, stopping abruptly when the Watcher was mentioned. "He... She... Whatever it was was kinda creepy. I'd like to learn more about what was said myself, since I'm not sure I fully understand what was being implied. 'Evil' is rather vague." Asayake stated plainly, desperately trying not to go into social panic mode; she tended to avoid being in conversations with this many people. "I thought it was some sort of role-play I accidentally got added to at first. But I had found the digivice thing before I even read the email, so I ruled that out pretty damned quick. Does anyone know anything know anything else?" Pointing at Hanarei, she started off on another tangent. "You said something about a meeting. Was that an email? My Palm7 didn't go off."

"Um... Is that the thing that shakes and makes buzzes?"

"...It went off, didn't it?" Asayake sighed, pulling her backpack over to herself and digging around for her Palm7 organizer. She pulled it out, and quickly skimmed through the email, Rogishimon attempting to follow along over her shoulder. while she was reading, she spoke again. "I didn't quite catch all of your names. My name is Shinzuino Asayake. Call me Asayake, though."

***

"Cassanova?" Shuuichi exclaimed as he stuffed Squijimon back into his bag. He decided it was time to storm off and left the group with one thing in his mind, "Her father knew Enma's mother, and my aunt. It couldn't of been the one from that story, could it?" he asked himself heading towards the game. "It couldn't be. There must of been much more interesting guys. Much more interesting that the VP of the school!" he cried out as he continued to walk.

***

He looked through the crowd looking for Enma. Finally pointing her out, he waved and then began to walk towards her seeing her looking for seats. "Here," he said as he pointed to a few near him on his way to her. "Looks like a nasty glare to me," he said to himself watching her actions to the one person with white hair. "Wait howabout those," he pointed to the ones nearest her. "Why make you walk all the way back here when you were probably heading to those seats originally?" he said trying to bring a little charm.

He walked to her and found a seat for himself, placing or more throwing the bag with Squijimon in it to the ground. He heard a muffled noise and then made a shrug and whispered, "Sorry there, Squiji."

***

Shireika leaned towards Parumon.

"Just a little secret," she whispered. "At heart, all boys are pansies." She winked at the little digimon. She looked towards Tomeo and took his hand for a friendly shake. "Ishida Shireika, nice to meet you." She paused for a moment. "Yes, I've seen you around at the track, not that I run, but I think I've seen you there before."

She removed her hand from Tomeo's grasp and stood up straight next to Tegiwa, noticing that Enma and Hanarei had joined them.

"Princess?" she asked with a confused look on her face as she turned towards Hanarei. She raised an eyebrow at the other girl. A strange feeling came over Shireika as she looked at Hanarei, something cold, and it bothered her a little. "I'm no princess, Hanarei-chan." She took a deep breath to calm herself. She absolutely was not a princess, in any respect.

"Meet Alatusmon," she said holding up the bird-like digimon by a wing and setting him down on one of the bleachers. "I found him this morning in my room."

"Roshigimon!" he exclaimed seeing his fellow bird-friend, but he was still nervous. He was known to be a trouble maker among the digimon, especially those partnered with the digi-destined. He looked back up at Shireika. "Well, I would have made a better entrance if you didn't have those creepy birds in your room." He started to flap around. "She has these huge birds in her room. One is really firey, and another is really big, black and scary!"

"Posters, Alatusmon. They're posters," Shireika corrected sharply.

"I have never of Posters before. They seem like very dangerous birds. You shouldn't have them in your room," Alatusmon replied. "Besides, you don't need them for protection! You've got me!!!"

"Anyway, so I assumed we've all heard from the Watcher by now?" she asked, pulling out her computer. "And from my brother." She didn't seem enthralled by the fact that her brother had emailed everyone or by the fact that he was even related to her. Even though she didn't want to follow the Watcher's directions and commands, she had to do something to keep the others from following Hanshin, who appeared to be taking on a leadership role right away. What was more important was making sure these other digi-destined didn't decide that the Watcher could be trusted. "So, does the Watcher just seem a bit shady to you guys?"

***

"It's all cool," Hanshin said, waving for Shouki to join them backstage and to relax a little. "We've got about an hour and half before showtime." He nudged Kitsune off his lap and got up. "Time to get warmed up, get a bite to eat, and then showtime." He strolled out of the room into the main club area.

He quickly checked his computer for any more emails from other digi-destined, finding none. Koumamon had willingly stayed at home. The digimon was far too serious about things, and the horse-head-thing preferred to skip out on school and the concert. That made things easier on his end, but the digimon was going to be a bore for a partner.

He sat on the stood set up behind his keyboards and hit a couple of chords.

"Find your wings, and take flight," he sang softly to the chords.

He stopped before starting the next line and looked out towards the empty club. It always felt empty, no matter how many people were there. Someone was always missing.

"Hey, Hanshin," whispered a familiar female voice.

"Hey, babe," he replied without looking back at her. He began to play a few more chords from "Wings."

"I love that song," Ami mused as she moved around to look at him a little better. She turned his face away from the keyboards towards herself, forcing him to turn towards her. With Hanshin sitting on a stool, she had to look down at him a little, and it made it far easier to sit on his lap without actually sitting down. "So, I was thinking," she whispered as she straddled over one of his legs and wrapped her arms around his next, "that we have unfinished business from earlier." She leaned forward a little, positioning her breasts right below eye level.

***

Parumon couldn't help but giggle at Shireika's whispering, clasping her hands over her snout to stop herself from laughing loud outright. "That is SO true! This girl, she's a girl after my own heart. She slays me!" she chuckled, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye as a result of laughing too hard.

Tomeo shook Shireika's hand, but narrowed his eyes and smirked with the corner of his lips at her and Parumon. "Hey, I heard that! Well, that's probably true, I'll give you that. Not that girls are any different, anyway. We had to learn it from the masters!" he grinned, the joke directed at Parumon, but surrounded by mostly girls as he was, he wouldn't be surprised if one of them tried to clobber him again, especially since another girl had joined them just as he had finished. Tomeo waved sheepishly to Hanarei, and started wondering by what she had meant when she had called Shireika 'princess', but forgot about it when Tegiwa approached them. He was sure this time he hadn't seen this boy before, and waved to him quickly in a friendly fashion as well. As much as it was great to have girls as friends, it was a relief to see a fellow guy in the mix.

"Oh, yeah?" Parumon objected in reply to Tomeo, still up for a verbal trade of insults. "Well, you boys are just..."

"Hey, hello again!" Tomeo talked over the top of Parumon, as Enma shortly arrived at the scene after Tegiwa. Although he still didn't know the girl's name, he still made it in his own time to reply to her. "Yeah, don't you worry about that. Shireika here almost did the job for you when her gym bag almost collided with my head. I guess I had it coming. And yet somehow, I'm still alive, and I don't know why." he grinned to her, at the same time trying to make up for his previous comeback concerning girls. Parumon seemed to by it, and didn't bother trying to wait for Tomeo to finish to shoot another clever quip back at him.

He turned at the same time as Parumon to see Rogishimon, and smiled to him in greeting. "Hey, nice to meet ya Rogishimon. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone about the sock-thing."

"Yeah, you're secret's safe with us, bird-o." Parumon grimaced, but paused as she looked up at Tomeo. "Oy, Tomeo. A little help with human terminology - what are 'socks'?"

"What, you don't know what socks are?" Tomeo laughed, his turn to play the tormentor on Parumon. "That's pretty sad for a know-it-all. They're the pieces of clothing I had in my bag before that I put on my feet and wear in shoes."

"Shut up!" Parumon said defensively, and turned back to Rogishimon. "So, yeah, anyway, maybe later we can ditch these humans and go out for some delicious leg-garments, huh?" she teased, giving Rogishimon a wink to let him know she was only joking.

"That's enough, Ms. Comedian." Tomeo said seriously, and waved yet again to Shuuichi, whom he recognised, in passing. He was doing so much waving in one day, he felt like his fingers and hand was going to fall off soon. He wasn't sure if the boy had noticed him as he seemed focused on Enma, but he figured he had to be a part of the group as he let out the squid-like digimon that had he had first seen in the courtyard.

"Hello, Alatusmon!" Tomeo greeted Shireika's partner as he was introduced soon after, who was followed soon after by an equally enthusiastic, "Hey there!" from Takamon. The little salamander glanced at the bird digimon for half a moment, and then looked up at Shireika. "Hey, you don't suppose that maybe we got our partners mixed up when we came over here, did you? Wanna swap big bad birdman here for cute littl' ol' me? I think he's more Tomeo's type."

"No complaints here!" Tomeo joined in, grinning at Alatusmon. "Where do I sign?"

"You'ld like that, wouldn't you?" Parumon narrowed her eyes up at Tomeo as she twisted her partners words back at him.

"If it means I don't have to listen to you badgering me day and night, then yes." Tomeo chuckled at her, and listened to what Shireika had to say when she spoke up. He got his computer out at the same time she did, getting the idea that the e-mail warnings he had ignored earlier that day had been about this 'Watcher' and Shireika's brother. "Let me see!" Parumon called out as she tugged on Tomeo's sports shirt sleeve, making him lower his mini-computer down in his lap to allow the In-Training digimon to read. After they had browsed through it, he looked back up at Shireika. "Hey, this Hanshin guy is your brother, right? Too bad he didn't organise the meeting to be here and now, or else he would have had a pretty good turn-up. It'd be kinda funny, though, if the real meeting turned out to be exactly the opposite."

Thinking about the role of the Watcher, he wasn't exactly sure. He sat back, trying to clear his mind to think a little. What did he think about this Watcher person? Once he had formed an opinion in his head, he then turned his attention to everybody else, and cleared his throat a little. "Hey, everyone. I'm sorry if I didn't introduce myself before. My name's Toyogawa Tomeo. And this is..." he gestured for Parumon to speak as he trailed off.

"Parumon. Hey girls, boys and mon's, nice to meet you all... finally." She seemed to make a 'it's your fault' look back up at Tomeo as she finished this.

"... Right." Tomeo said in responce as he recognised the scowl from his partner, and looked back up to the group. "Anyway, I don't know about you guys, but this Watcher person... Shireika's right, he does seem a little shady. I mean, it appears he's sent us these digimon and digivices, but why doesn't he just do it in person? Parumon keeps telling me the place she came from is called the 'digital world' which is apparently another dimension! I guess I have no choice but to believe it, seeing as how the digimon are evidence of life that doesn't live on this planet."

"Damn straight we aren't." Parumon butted in. "I don't have any memory of having ever met this 'Watcher' or this 'Dark Queen', though. Sounds like a bunch of utter crap to me."

"I wouldn't say that, but we have nothing else to go on." Tomeo said in responce to Parumon, poking her slightly in a reminder to keep her voice down and to watch her mouth. Parumon snorted, but got the hint and nodded silently in reply. "If the Watcher is there, or somewhere else, then why didn't he just come along with them and give them to us in person?" the green-eyed boy continued. "What's he or she hiding from? This dark queen he mentions? Or, he could even be conspiring with her... or, um, him even. What if he or she, and this dark queen, don't even exist? What proof do we have that they do besides the e-mail? It could be the alias of someone either here or in the digital world. We just don't know yet. I don't think we should take any action until we have actual concrete evidence that any of what he says, let alone his identity, is actually true. What I'm saying is it's too risky to go with the flow on this one, I think we have to play it smart and find out a little more about this situation."

He looked around, feeling all eyes on him, and suddenly felt a little bit biased. He brought up both his hands to the sides of his head and combed his fingers upwards through his parted navy-black hair. "But, I'm just thinking out loud. I'm sure most of you think differently. On the other hand, if we ignore his call for help, we might be too late to assist her, or him. I just have this… this sort of feeling, that there's more to it than we're seeing, that's all. Especially since we've got these new friends that are creatures from another universe! What do you guys think?" he looked around, hoping for a healthy responce of ideas, agreements and rebutals.

***

Hanarei waited till Tomeo was finished with his explanations and introductions. "Are you done yet?" she asked impatiently. Before he could answer, Hanarei gave him a hard bop on the head. "That's for the 'Girl' comment you made. Now," she said as she turned toward and glared at Shireika, "as for the comment about you being a princess, it's nothing special." She turned away and spoke in a barely audible voice, "But with the way everyone treats you it's hard to say."

Himotomon looked up at her partner and shook her body. "Whether we like it or not, we were assigned to our partners correctly. I'm not sure what they based it on but this is the way we're paired up." She looked at Tomeo and Parumon. "I just hope it wasn't pulling names out of a hat."

Even though she had read it before, Hanarei pulled out her mini-computer and looked over her email from the Watcher. "You do make a good point," she said to Tomeo. "This Watcher person seems to be doing a lot of things from a distance and has been vague on the details. And this Dark Queen...." Her eyes narrowed. "I don't like the sound of her. She makes my skin crawl." She glared at Shireika. It was a similar feeling to being around her. "We may as well see what pretty boy has to say at his meeting tomorrow." She tucked her mini-com back in her pocket.

***

Nikko's pager in his cell phone went off. He pulled it closer to him for a good look and recognized it as a teacher's number. As he opened his cell phone to call, he was mumbling, "Please tell me you're too sick to work tomorrow." He dialed the number and got a quick response. "Hello, it's me. What happened? ... ... ... Oh for the love of... look, I'll be right there. I'll try to get to the office before you do. Mmhmm, good bye." He hung up.

"More trouble in paradise?" Haru asked.

"If you can call it that. Some kid started to kick someone and got pulled back by some teachers. And here I thought I was going home early." Nikko sighed. "I'll see you around, Haru."

***

Shouki followed Hanshin's instructions and joined them backstage. Once he was next to the drink table, he slid he bag underneath and opened it. Kirimon held his tail over his nose. "Ugh, what reeks?"

"Some of the drinks above you. But they shouldn't be that strong."

"I have a very sensitive sense of smell."

"Oh." Shouki moved the bag further back under the table. "Well I think you're going to be able to move around freely under here. But if someone does look under here, move so you're not spotted. And the most important thing I'll say to you is don't go to the front stage or in the crowd under any circumstances."

"Yes, mother," Kirimon said sarcastically. Shouki moved out from under the table. "Alright," Kirimon said excited. "I'm free to move again." He hovered around looked at everything he could from under the table.

Shouki pulled out his bass guitar and started to properly tune it. "Hmm, it's a little flat," he mumbled as he adjusted a string. He remembered the email Hanshin had sent to him earlier and was about to go talk to Hanshin about it. Shouki stopped when he saw Ami keeping him preoccupied. "I guess I'll talk to him after the concert then," he said as he went back to his tuning.

***

Kaze stared at the familiar ceiling of the vice principal's office, wondering how "surprised" Mr. Mayonaka would be to see him. 'I'm his favorite customer after all..." If there was any surprise waiting for him, it would be that there was only one person waiting in his office, Kaze's partner in crime no where to be seen.

"Stupid Goh..." he muttered, stopping himself from shaking his fist in the air.

"Go where?" Laimon popped up from the bag, with an inquisitive look on his face.

"No stupid, Goh!" Kaze said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I can't go unless you tell me WHERE to go!" Laimon shouted back angrily, "and stop calling me stupid!"

Kaze sighed, shaking his head. He sunk lower into his usual seat, wondering what was taking the vice principal so long. "Hm... Mayonaka-poo is taking unusually long today..." he sighed again, looking out the window.

'See what you made me do? Got me in trouble... I wouldn't of gotten in that fight with Goh if you hadn't pissed me off in the first place..." he cursed the traitor out in his own mind, yet he still felt sad about the whole situation. He'd be damned if he apologized for anything, she was the one who was sneaking off with his crush. However, he couldn't help but wish the whole thing would end.

"Kazzzzzeeeee..." Laimon whined. "Are we going to that meeting tommorow?"

Kaze snorted. "If I don't get a Saturday detention..." he smiled wickedly. "Which would be a lovely excuse to not go to either meeting, but I'm sure Mayonaka-poo will be unusually considerate of my free time today, and let me get off with a warning..."

"So... either way you win..? right?"

"Exactly." Kaze nodded, and with this new outlook on the situation, he sat there, smiling smugly, waiting for Nikko.

***

Tegiwa noticed Kaze's friend Enma had bumped him. He turned to her: "Hey, now, keep both eyes on the road." He smiled and squeeze her should in a one handed hug. "It's good to see you again. What happened between you and Kaze. He's been wandering around and ranting at inanimate objects in your name for a while now. I hope its nothing too serious. I saw you guys as good friends."

Then, he addressed the group: "Ok, we have two emails from the Watcher warning us of a dark queen. But we don't know this guy and I bet the former Chosen haven't heard of him. We shouldn't trust this guy, not yet. Dudes, I have 100 emails from some guy in Nairobi promising me a share of the cash he needs my money to get at. I don't trust that guy either.

"Now, as for the rest of it, my mom was Chosen. G-san was Chosen. They told me the devices and digimon do come from another world. They are assigned by Fate itself when the worlds are threatened. We Chosen are Guardians who protect both worlds. Our digimon can be very powerful; they help us fight. I know they aren't powerful looking now....but somehow the devices feed the energy. Mom never explained how."

"The others had a guy called Gennai to guide them. I'd vouch for him, but not the watcher."

"Ok, dudes and dudettes, this here little guy is Robotmon. He's my partner." He held up the 6in high robot for all to see.

***

Naoko looked around. Ami was missing. "Shouki, let me guess, Ami is out there and all over Hanshin. Am I right?....Oh. I bet she is. I don't even need to look."

"Can I talk with you sometime, Shouki? I mean really talk of course. Not drag you off." She hoped she didn't sound as nervous as she felt. Sex was easy for Naoko. Conversations were not so easy.

Suzumon sliped to the floor as a sheet of foil, folded himself into a dog shape, and trotted under the table. "I thought I smelled another digimon. *pant * pant* I'm suzumon. Pretty neat world we got sent to dontcha think?"

***

"Oh, I like it here so far" said Yuu, her mind off of digivices for the moment. "It is a lot bigger than then my old school, though, more campus and more people. I nearly got lost on the way to a few classes. The people I asked in the halls were really nice, though. And I liked most of the teachers"

A thought occurred to her. "Hey, that band, the Wild Stallions, don't they have a show tonight?" she asked, recalling the BBS post. "Do you think we should go? There might be some other people in our boat besides Ishida-san there, and besides, I'm really eager to hear them play"

***

A little while later, Yuu entered the club where the show was going to take place. She'd gotten there pretty early, so there were still quite a few empty tables. She sat down and placed her small backpack-like purse on her lap, where it gave her a soft prod.

Glancing around to see that no one was watching, she opened the bag and whispered discreetly, "What is it, Kuinamon?"

Yuu hoped he wasn't about to complain about it being uncomfortable in there, HE was the one who had insisted on coming. Instead he uncurled himself a bit and whispered back. "There're other digimon here! I can tell!" He looked quite pleased with himself.

"Well that's not to surprising," Yuu thought out loud. "Ishida-san might have brought his, and other people who'd gotten the email may have decided to come as well"

It occurred to her that talking to one's purse to long wasn't exactly normal, and decided to wrap things up. "Alright, the show is going to start soon, and I'd like you to please be as quiet as you can, okay?"

He saluted stiffly, but with a grin.

"One more thing," she continued, "can you hand me my glasses?"

"Wha', these things?" Kuinamon fished about and held up a pair of nearly transparent green sunglasses.

"Thank you!" she finished, and half-closed the bag again. Straightening up, she tried on the glasses. Her mom had insisted upon them -- they looked like fairly unassuming tinted glasses from the front, but at the touch of a sensor on either bar she could completely light block one of the eyepieces. They were in case the lighting got a little to flashy; she'd taken her medication, but you could never really tell if you were going to have a seizure or not, and she liked to be on the safe side.

Shifting the glasses up onto her head like a headband, she sat back in her seat and waited for the show to start.

***

"Oh no!" Alatusmon exclaimed. "I wouldn't trade my partner for the world! She saved me from those horrible birds earlier today, and I owe it to her to protect her with my life!"

Shireika rolled her eyes a little and then looked over at Hanarei.

"With how everyone treats me?" she asked harshly with an eyebrow raised. "I agree, the Dark Queen doesn't sound like such a great thing, but the Watcher isn't someone to be trusted, considering how little we hear from him and how we've never met him." She picked up Alatusmon and tucked in him into the bag, such that he was sitting on top of everything and could still be seen. "Even though my brother isn't here now, we should be there tomorrow. Who knows what could happen if we all don't show up." She started to turn away and then looked back.

She eyed Hanarei briefly and then shook head her. She had to be careful around her, but not because of her personal safety.

"Have fun at Hanshin's concert if you're going. I hear it's supposed to be pretty good," she said as walked away to meet up with her father. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

"You're going?" Alatusmon asked.

"Yes," she replied. A moment of silence cued her to explain. "Knowing my brother, he could send them all to their doom in following the Watcher. We know nothing about the Watcher. We can't just blindly trust him." She motioned to her digimon partner to quiet down as she zipped up the gym bag.

"Hey, sweetheart!" Tommy called seeing his daughter walking down the bleachers towards him.

"Great job today." He hugged his daughter tightly when she made it down the steps. "I saw you do that little trick I showed you for stealing the ball." He let go of Shireika and began moving his feet around.

"Only, it's more like this," she replied as she demonstrated on her father.

"Right," he mumbled. "Anyway, Kousei was looking for you."

Shireika froze and stared up at her father.

"He wanted to know that he thought you played excellently today," Tommy explained quickly.

"Okay," Shireika said, almost waving the message off as a little unnecessary and ridiculous. She began walking, quickly scanning the area to see if Kousei was around, but he seemed to have disappeared from the fields.

"Well, sweetheart, I've got to get back to work. I'll be home later tonight, okay?"

"Sure."

The two departed in different directions: Tommy to the guest parking lot to his car and Shireika to the front entrance of the school to catch the public transit back to the apartment complex.

***

"Oh, right, that," Hanshin murmured as put his arms around Ami's waist and pulled her closer. "We do have some unfinished business that we should probably finish later, huh." His hands slipped beneath her shirt and traced along her curves underneath the white cloth.

"We probably should," Ami replied as she ran her hands through his blonde hair, careful not to mess it up too much. "Talk to me later then." She slid off his lap and walked towards the backstage area, passing Shouki on the way. She winked at him as she strolled past him, quickly spotting a group of crew members hanging out together. "Hey boys. Anybody know where the ladies' room is?"

Hanshin chuckled a little. He didn't particularly mind when Ami flirted with other men. He didn't particularly care when any girl flirted with someone besides him. He knew they would come back for him. Besides, he wasn't interested in commitment or a real relationship. This was all fun to him.

He turned back to his piano and pressed the keys to play a chord. He closed his eyes as he played the chord progression that he knew by muscle memory. "Wings" was relatively new, and one that he felt he had written from his soul. Most of the time, his lyrics and music were written to appeal to the audiences, but this one he had to write. He sighed as he stopped playing and looked around slowly, listening to the rest of his band warm-up and tune.

"Okay, guys, backstage," he said, noting that the show would be starting any minute now. "Audience will be coming in soon." He headed on backstage, passing by Shouki. "You ready?"

***

Enma let out a small breath of relief she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She knew Tegiwa was nothing like Kou - besides the age difference, Tegiwa was Kaze's half brother while Kou was her full brother - but nonetheless, she thought he would have been a little more reserved with her. But one thing he said struck her as funny, and she had to keep herself from laughing. "He... curses me out using inanimate objects? He realizes that we have every class together - he could just start something there...I'd love to start a fight." She blinked, hearing Tegiwa ask what happened. "Oh...nothing happened, it was just something about a boy." She said, looking down and over toward Shuuichi. "Hey," she said, by way of greeting.

"Is that the boy?" Mitikomomon asked from inside her bag.

"No." Enma hissed. She looked around, realizing everyone else had their digimon out. "Well then, if we're introducing alien lifeforms..." She dug through her bag, taking out Mitikomomon by the tail. "This is Mitikomomon, I'm not sure exactly what he is, but he's blue and has a tail, that's basically all I know."

"I'm a rat!" Mitikomomon said.

"You look more like a dustbunny to me." she heard talk of the Watcher, and thought about what Tegiwa and Shireika had said. Although they were both older than her, she had her own opinions,t oo. She shrugged. "I don't think anything good can come from someone named Dark Queen, unless they're just someone who plays Queen in the dark, which I'm highly doubting." She ignored the blank stares she knew she was getting - her fixation with Twentieth Century music was infamous, and so she just plowed on. "And this Watcher should probably change his name to Stalker, but we should at least try to be open to his emails, because no matter how much we delete them and ignore them, he'll just keep sending them." She closed her eyes, rubbing the space between them, when she heard the familiar sound of her brother's custom horn. When hit, it played a polyphonic version of "Walk This Way", and reminded Enma of a ringtone more than a ca horn. "That's my ride." She took out a notebook and a pen, and, cradleing the notebook on her right arm, scribbled down her address and phone number, before handing it to Shuuichi.

"Her, if you want to meet up before Hanshin's meeting, either give me a call, or just show up, I won't be anywhere, since my friends have alientated me. Anyway, if you get the surgeon or the grief conselor either on the phone or at the door, just ask for me and ignore any and all of their questions, got that?" She turned to the rest of the group, bowing lightly. "I'll see you all tomorrow then? Bye, Tegiwa-san." She waved in his direction, before heading to the stairs and running off.

***

"I'd be fine knowing that the Watcher wasn't stalking us, or something really freaky like that. It's creepy how whoever it is knows our names and stuff." Sighed Asayake, scratching Rogishimon's head. Horray for having a life made more complicated by a talking... whatever they were, and all the little bundles of joy that came with them. She dug a little silver pocket watch out of her backpack, and pouted to herself. "Papa doesn't get off of work until ten tonight, and mama's working at the studio until five. I'm going to have to hang around here for a little while, until mama can come and pick me up. I'm lost on public transit. I guess I'll see everybody at the meeting then?"

"Ne, 'Sayake?" The little digimon nibbled at one of Asayake's braids, trying to get her attention.

"Yeah, Rogishimon?" She replied, tugging the braid out of Rogishimon's mouth.

"Didn't you say you wanted to get a math tutor today? At the... Guy Dance office?"

"Oh, that's right!" Asayake said, pulling her backpack onto her lap with a small 'oomph!' and shuffling around inside, "Hachi-sensei gave me a notice today about it. What did I do with it, though?"

"You put it in your pocket, 'Sayake."

"...Yeah, yeah I did." A pale pink tinge rising on her cheeks, she pulled a folded piece of paper out of her back pocket. "Here it is. But..."

Upon reading the flyer, however, Asayake really wished she didn't have to get a tutor; but she had little choice. It was either get a tutor, or fail math copmpletely. Again. Apparently, the guidance officer you were placed with looked at what your weaknesses and strengths were, and then chose someone FOR you. She dearly hoped she could at least DECLINE if they picked someone she didn't like. Not to mention the fact that the guidance office itself made her anxious. Huffing her displeasure, she was hit with an idea. She wasn't sure why her brain sent the signals to voice said idea before thinking it over, but before she could rethink anything she had already turned to Tomeo, smiling hopefully. "Ne, Tomeo, would you come with me?"

When her brain decided to kick in, however, she felt her face heat up instantly. She barely knew Tomeo, what the hell was she thinking?! "I-I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, or anything like that, of course, I just thought..." Feeling her nose tingle, a sure sign that over half the blood in her veins had decided to take a small vacation to her face, she stood up quickly, stuffing a surprised Rogishimon into her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder. "Nevermind, it was a... stupid idea. I'll see you all later, I guess!" She called, walking away as fast as she could. As soon as she felt she was far enough away from the stands, she broke off into a run, rounding the corner of the first building she came to and stumbling to a stop. That had been close; stupid social abilities. She took a deep breath, and decided to try and find her way to the guidance office.

***

When Shireika left the group, Hanarei felt slightly happier. It showed on her face when she gave a small smirk. 'Just have to put up with her and her brother for a short time tomorrow and hopefully I won't have to see them again,' thought Hanarei. "Well," she now said, "if everyone is deciding to leave, I'll take that as my cue and go as well." She put closed up the pouch with Himotomon inside and headed for the end of the bleachers.

"Ahhh, and just when we were getting to know each other so well," Himotomon whined.

Hanarei didn't make it to the end of the stands when she suddenly heard her cell phone go off. She picked it out from her pocket and opened it. "Hello? Hi mom," she said in a low voice so the others couldn't hear her. "I'm still at school and I'm on my way ho... what? Oh mom, c'mon. Can't she go with her friend's brother? ... ... He's in the concert. But mom, I don't want to go there," she growled. "... ... ... Fine. I'll take care of her. Yeah, yeah, bye mom." She hung up on her cell phone. Her mom had asked her to chaperone her little sister and her friend to Hanshin's concert. She stood there in silence for a long time.

"Hanarei, are you okay?" Himotomon asked.

Before the digimon got a response, Hanarei balled up her hand into a fist and punched one of the bleacher seats. There was now a small but noticeable dent in it. Hanarei didn't show any signs of flinching or pain. She turned to look at the others to see who among them were looking at her. She tried her best to recover herself before saying, "I guess I'll see some of you at the concert." She turned and headed for the music club.

***

Nikko was straightening his tie as he entered his office. He didn't look too happy when he discovered who was waiting for him. "Hello Kenjitsu-san," he sighed as he sat down in his chair. He noticed that Kaze was alone this time which was rather unusual in this situation. "Hmm, your other half isn't joining us today? Gah, between you two and my daughter...."

He turned to his computer. "Kenjitsu, Kaze," Nikko said to his computer. A small screen popped up in front of him which was Kaze's student record. "I hear you started to punch and kick another student, correct? I'm sure you've guessed but I'll have to call your parents on this, both Sho-rei and Fukushin. Also, since this is not a first-time incident, you'll have to do some more detention. But if this happens again anytime soon I'll have to suspend you." Nikko sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Now, if you can, could you explain why you decided to do such a thing?"

***

Shouki turned his attention from tuning his bass guitar to Naoko. She did sound different than she before she dragged him to that bush. Plus, Shouki now had a bit of a warning to watch for. "Yeah... I guess we could talk." It was at that moment Hanshin had announced they would be starting the show soon. "It's gonna have to be after the concert though. It looks like we're playing soon. I'll be around so just try to find me after the show." Shouki walked over to Hanshin, having just finished tuning his bass guitar. "As ready as I'm going to be."

Meanwhile, Kirimon was taken by surprise with the appearance of Suzumon. "AAHHHH! TALKING FOIL!!! Oh wait, you're a digimon. I haven't gotten to see much of the world outside my partner's backpack but so far it does look neat."

***

Kaze smiled wickedly at Nikko. "Oh but see, it's not my fault." He smiled wider. "See, Goh called me a faggot, which is a discriminatory term I'll have you know, and I know you'll be a good vice principal and act upon this swiftly." he nodded in a very offical way. "See, I was just defending myself, theoretically speaking, annnnd... I was just sticking up for every gay boy called a name." he sighed, as if his work was very tiring.

"I'm sure you understand my plight, so I shall be on my way...." he smiled getting up, tripping over his own feet, knocking Laimon out on the floor.

"KAZE!!! STOP THROWING ME AROUND!!!" Laimon screamed.

Kaze froze before quickly shoving Laimon back into his bag. "Stuff animal programmed to talk. I had better get home quickly since it's malfunctioning." he nodded quickly, before reachng for the door, hoping Nikko wouldn't tell him to sit back down, and talk to his parents. 'At least he only mentioned talking to Faja and Mon and not Dad... he would totally freak...'

***

"Whoa, extreme diaspora of digi-types." He should be surprised. No one else was hanging around after the game. Soon, the place would have emptied out completely, and the only thing lonelier than a stadium was one in a light rain. Fortunately, today was clear. "Robotmon, I suppose I should try to collect my brother. Mom will be completely uncalm and uncollected if Kaze is in trouble again." Kaze had stored up enough bad karma to last several lifetimes, while Tegiwa was on his way to being a bhodavista for bailing him out. Actually, his mom understood Kaze well enough not to kill him over things like this, but Tegiwa thought it tired her having to come down to the school to deal with the administration. Tegiwa knew that Mom and Dad loved the little pain as much as he did.

He was waiting outside the VP principal's office, hoping to plead his case to the VP to take Kaze home with him instead.

"You always carry a toy with you, Itoh?" the secretary smirked. If it wasn't for him and Kaze he was sure this lady would die of boredom.

"No, just recently. It's a new trend."

"I thought you were smart enough not to follow trends." /What a weird kid/

"I follow other things. Trends come with the package." /What a nosy secretary/.

"Is you father going to do something about the riots?"

"They are still discussing it, but if things get real bad then he'll have to. I don't want it to come to that. People should have a say in how their money is spent; why should a simple request cause so much anger?."

Tegiwa realized he should have stuck with the toy conversation The woman was no longer bored, but now clearly incensed. Her gaze would have killed him if it could.

***

Sho-rei was deep in thought as she worked on a simulation whose real components weren't to be tested for decades. Her project was so advanced it could be over 40 years before construction on the Gateway could begin. It was a top company project and a large chunk of the GNP of Greater Nippon. She figured it was one of those frivolous expenditures the people were upset about. Let them grouse in a generation. They would see.

She suddenly sneezed like a cat. Then, she caught site of the time. "Game's over. Kaze must be in trouble by now." It was a simple statement.

***

Naoko nodded in gratitude to Shouki, and went to wish Hanshin luck. She curled up beside him. "I know you'll be excellent tonight Hanshin. The band has made quite a mark because of you. Destiny has mapped thing out for you. I'm sure the Watcher wants you to be the leader of his people too." She gazed in his eyes, "There is nothing you can't do. The stars are yours for the taking."

She squeezed his hand. "I'll do the band intro tonight, Hanshin. When you guys are ready..."

***

Shuuichi looked at the paper and as soon as Enma was gone he crumpled it up in his hand into a small paper ball. "I have no time to mess with others below my own status. I have to go to," he mumbled as he walked off of the bleachers and headed towards the front of the school. He picked up his cell and held it to his ear to listen to voice messages. One of them was from his aunt. He decided to call her back.

"If you have time can you pick me up and take me home, Aunt Sarika?" he asked as he arrived at the front of the school. "I'm not going to the concert so I would rather study and work on... stuff," he said.

"Sure I'lll be there in a moment," Sarika said as she hung up. He shut his phone and sat there waiting for her to zoom in.

***

Shireika had taken the effort to change back into her school uniform in one of the girls' bathrooms in the main school building. It was chilly outside, with it being mid-October, and she pulled on her favorite black jacket, leaving it unbuttoned, and the scarf she bought at the school's store. With her bookbag and gym bag slung over a shoulder, she headed down the hallway towards the front entrance. She looked outside, seeing that the sky had clouded over.

"Please don't rain," she whispered as she stepped outside. A cold breeze picked up around her, and she held her jacket tightly to her body. She buttoned it up quickly as she stepped away from the building to walk to the public transport station at the corner down the street. She sat down at the bench at the stop, noticing no one else from school was there. The transport would come within ten minutes, and she really did not like travelling on the public transportation services alone. Since it was inexpensive, there was always strange people on board, especially after late games like today. Not to mention, being anywhere alone was dangerous in Tokyo. She was about to pull out her cell phone to call her father for a little security until a black car pulled up in front of her.

It was one of those new flying sports cars that Toyota made. It had certainly been spruced up. All the windows were tinted a dark gray, and it had been waxed and polished so well that she could see herself on the car. The window to the front passenger seat rolled down.

She bent down a little to look through the window, seeing a familiar face in the driver's seat: Kousei.

"Hey, Shireika," he said. "Do you need a lift?"

"No, thank you," she replied quickly. "The public transport will be here soon, and I've got my cell phone."

A rumble of thunder could be heard in the distance as the two looked at each other for a moment.

"It might rain."

"It's not a long walk from the stop to my apartment complex."

Another long awkward pause.

"Look, I would feel a lot better if I gave you a ride instead of you taking the public system home." The press of a button opened the door for Shireika. "I don't trust the people on the public transport."

"It's out of your way."

"And I would feel terrible if something happened to you on the public transport knowing that I could have gotten you home safely."

He was right though, but this was incredibly awkward. However, he probably did this because, A, he works for her school and, B, her father was once his soccer coach. So, there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with getting a ride. Besides, it was better than taking the public transport: warmer temperatures, better seating, faster, fewer strange people.

She got up from the bench at the stop, lifting the straps of her bags over her head to set them in her lap.

"Good," he said as she sat down in teh passenger seat. He grabbed her bags from her lap and seating area. "These can go in the back." He gently picked them up and placed them on the backseat. "Just don't want you to feel crowded," he explained as he turned back to face the road.

"So, where to?" he asked without even looking at her.

"2894 West Fourth. Near the TNS studios."

"Where your mother worked, right?"

"Yes."

Kousei had typed in the address for the computer, and the car soon took off. As the car flew to her apartment complex, the two sat in silence. Shireika had turned her eyes away from Kousei and had crossed her arms.

She now regretted taking Kousei's offer for a ride home. This was /incredibly/ awkward. She could feel Kousei looking over at her occasionally and then away. She wasn't sure if he was just looking to make sure she was okay or if she was /looking/ at her.

She could see her apartment complex distance not too far away.

"Thanks for the ride, Tsuyoikou-Sensei," she said without looking at him.

"It's Kousei, Shireika," he corrected.

"Kousei," she repeated softly. She finally looked at him, seeing that he had retrieved her bags from the backseat and was ready to hand them back to her. The car stopped in front of her apartment complex, and she hesistated to take her bags from Kousei. Finally, she took them back and stared up at Kousei for a moment. "Thank you again."

"Anytime," he whispered as he began to lean towards her just a little. "And, good job today. Great footwork." She had turned away a little, clutching her bags in her lap, and he moved a little closer to her, assuming that she, probably feeling mildly embarassed, would stay still.

"Well, see you later," she said quickly as she leapt out of the car, just before Kousei could give Shireika a soft kiss on the cheek.

He caught himself before he fell over onto the seat and watched Shireika escape into the apartment complex through the light rain that had begun.

"Bye," he whispered.

***

"You're going to do great," Hanshin said to Shouki before Naoko had joined up with him. "Thanks, babe," he replied to her encouragment. He leaned over, kissing Naoko on her cheek and then down her neck. "Thanks for all your hardwork," he whispered as he turned her face up towards his. He leaned down kissing her passionately, pressing her up against a wall. "You know how much I appreciate all that you do for me," he whispered in to her while giving it a soft nibble. "By the way, could you do me a favor tonight?" He kissed her neck a couple of times and felt up underneath her shirt, as he loved the feel of bare soft skin beheath his hands. "Shouki's new, as you well know, and, well, I thought it might be a good idea for you to take care of him tonight for his first time. You two seem to already have a good relationship already, and Yukio told me that you're the only one he's really been introduced to. It might be better if you take him tonight, since the other girls are strangers to him, if you know what I'm getting at." Between sentences, Hanshin had gently kissed along Naoko's neck near her ear. "I'd really appreciate it, and I'm sure he will too." He stopped, kissing her one last time on the lips. "Thanks, babe." He turned away to join the rest of the boys backstage.

Across the backstage area, Ami leaned against a wall, grinning at her fellow member of the Hanshin Appreciation Society.

"Have fun tonight," she said. "Shouki's quite the catch, if you know what I mean." She winked at Naoko and turned away to follow after Hanshin.

***

"And take your wings. And fly away!" Hanshin sang through the microphones while pounding out various chord progressions he had memorized. His eyes were closed as he performed as he simply felt the music run through his muscle memory and soul. The beat of the song was fairly slow, but it was a powerful piece with heavy bass and guitar. "To where you belong, and want to be. Because you deserve it all. Because it's where you should be."

"So, fly away. Fly away on your wings," he continued as the song finished up.

Before the song was finished, the crowd was already cheering for the band.

"Thank you, guys!" Hanshin said after the band had finished "Wings." "We all really appreciate all of you supporting us tonight, especially our new bassist Shouki in his first concert with the Wild Stallions. Check the boards for the location of next week's concert outside, and thanks for coming! It's good to be back! Peace!"

The lights dimmed on the stage as the band filed off stage.

"Nice work, guys," Hanshin shouted as the four boys headed backstage together.

"Time to part-ay!" Yukio cheered as he dumped in drumsticks on the couch in their large communal dressing room.

"How'd it feel Shouki?" Hanshin asked. "Being up on stage?"

***

"Aww, that's a shame." Parumon said in a final note to Alatusmon. "Well, if you ever change your mind... your partner knows how to contact mine. See all you digimon later!" she waved, and giggled at Hanarei when she bopped Tomeo over the head.

As the group split up after the game, Tomeo rubbed the top of his head where Hanarei had bludgeoned him, making himself swear he'd have to be a bit more careful about what he said around her. He smiled and waved as he said goodbye to the others, hoping they'd be a bit more open to him next time they met. He had become intrigued about Shireika's mention of her brother throwing a concert and, wanting to make a clear decision at the meeting Hanshin was going to hold tomorrow, decided that it might be a good idea to do a little detective work and get to know Hanshin's view on the situation, so he wouldn't feel too guilty on making his decision after he had heard from a different perspective. "I'm going to Hanshin's concert, but if you guys won't be there, I'll see you all tomorrow."

He felt slightly confused as Asayake almost asked him to come along with her, but then changed her mind and left abruptly. It wasn't like any of his friends ever did that, but he shrugged to himself, placing Parumon in his bag and walking back to the boy's change room in the gym where he had left his school clothes. "I guess she was late or something, for that maths tutor she was talking about." he said rather naively.

"Yeah, either that or she finally got a whiff of that B-O coming from you." Parumon giggled, snuggling into the backpack rather comfortably.

"Hey! Shut up! I don't smell that bad." Tomeo objected, knowing fully well Parumon was trying to get under his skin again. "Could you please stop with the insults? I know I reacted badly when I first found out about this, but can't you at least give me just a little bit of respect now I'm taking you to the concert to speak to Shireika's brother? We might find some other digidestined there, maybe even some digimon."

"Yeah, okay. It's too easy making fun of you, anyway." Parumon grinned, looking out of the backpack and trying to meet Tomeo eye to eye. "I'm only joking, okay? You don't need to take any of it seriously!"

The boy nodded, and smiled a little. "Thanks. Let's just focus on getting home to get something to eat, and then getting to the concert."

***

After standing in the crowd and listening to the show, a rustle from the new small tote bag that he was carrying under Tomeo's arm from Parumon reminded him that he could now try to get a word in to Hanshin. The awesome music and the huge amount of women in the audience cheering had been enough to take his mind off things for a while. The band had gone backstage however, which threw a spanner in the works. He was sure he wasn't allowed backstage, but maybe the band would appear later to have a final farewell to fans in the form of autographs and such? Maybe he should ask someone. He looked around as the crowd was breaking apart, noticing one certain girl nearby that was sitting at a table wearing on her forehead, of all things, a pair of nearly-transparent green sunglasses.

"Excuse me?" Tomeo asked as he casually approached her, shifting the strap over his shoulder to re-adjust the weight of the bag he was carrying to a more comfortable position. "Do you know if the band's going to come back out again? I need to see... No, wait.. what was I thinking? Hold on. Bare with me for a second." Hanshin had gotten a hold of his e-mail address through the Watcher, so he could do the same thing by replying back to him. He took his mini-computer out of his bag, careful not to reveal Parumon's presence to Yuu just yet, and started thumbing out an e-mail to him.

Hanshin,

Hello, my name is Toyogawa Tomeo. I got your e-mail about the meeting, and it seems like a fair amount of people including myself are coming. I also met your sister Shireika and heard her opinion about this Watcher guy, so I thought maybe if it's okay we could meet after your concert tonight so I could hear yours before the meeting tomorrow. Thank you.

Peace,

Tomeo

He pocketed the mini-computer back into the pocket of his denim jeans this time, the rest of his casual wear decked out with a casual t-shirt and a pair of sneakers. He looked back at Yuu, almost forgetting what we was meant to be asking. "I'm sorry, I just remembered a way to contact them. I'm Tomeo Toyogawa, by the way. What's your name?" he asked, after he had introduced himself, being polite.

Parumon, in the moment Tomeo had opened up the tote bag for the mini-computer, had taken the scent of something familiar nearby, something not quite human. 'I sense a digimon!' she thought to herself, and started squirming around in Tomeo's bag again to get a better view of the hidden digimon that only she could sense nearby.

***

She sat hunched over in the car seat, playing with the flip-top of her mini-computer. 'To email or not to email...' she thought to herself.

"Let's get two things strait....Hanaseika-san's decrepid computer blew up....not your personal chaufer." Enma blinked up from her musings, wondering exactly why her hearing was so bad. Maybe she should go to the ER...no, she was thinking about that in the first place when Mitikomomon....appeared, that was probably the best word for it. "...listening to me?"

"No." She said flatly. "Care to repeat it?" Kou groaned. They were still in the parking lot - he had his arms on the driver's side dashboard and his head on the emergency stearing wheel.

"Not really." He said, pushing dark brown hair out of eyes of equal depth. Enma looked at him curiously.

"Exactly why are your eyebrows singed off?" She asked. Kou banged his head on the steering wheel, groaning.

"I just told you, I was working on Hanaseika-san's decrepid old computer from 2048 or something and when I was trying to reinstall the hard-drive, it blew up, hence the eyebrows."

Enma smirked, then laughed, shaking her head. "You're calling Hanaseika-san's computer decrepid? Who are you and what have you done with my older brother?"

Kou looked hurt. "Hanaseika-san's computer's a piece of crap, mine, because it's from the twentieth century, is an antique."

"Right, Orren." She said, saluting him casually. "Old, rusty, dull...they don't make 'em like that anymore." He punched her lightly, and she looked up. "What?"

"You are not allowed anywhere near my DVD collection ever again." He said, before pressing a few buttons to start the car. "So, where to, Miss?" He said, in his best chauffer's voice. Enma shook her head.

"Stick to...what do you even do?" She teased. He looked hurt, before rolling his eyes.

"I'm assuming the homestead's out of the question, right? So...Nishi's?" He asked. Enma made a face.

"How about your apartment?"

"How about Kaze's?"

"No." The flat-out refusal surprised Kou, but he just shook his head.

"Alright, scratch that idea. Fine, we'll go to the workshop." He let out a wistful sigh, and Enma snapped her computer shut. Mitikomomon peeked out of the bag.

"Enma, is that a 'kou'?"

"Yeah, that'd be him."

"For a male version of you, you don't look alike."

"He burnt himself, and I dyed my hair."

"Enma..." Kou asked as the car started to leave the school. "Why are you talking to your bag?"

***

Hanarei hung out in the back furthest away from the concert. She didn't feel the need to dance to Hanshin's music even though Yume and her friend seemed to be having the time of their lives. She didn't have time to change and still had the backpack with Himotomon safely tucked away in it. Hanarei only had to move once after a much older looking man tried to hit on her but he was soon introduced to the wall then the floor with fresh bruises on his face. "C'mon Yume," Hanarei mumbled to herself. "The concert is over. Let's get a move on." Hanarei knew that if she were at a concert or night club or her choice instead, she would have stayed there as long as possible too.

Hanarei needed to find someone and talk to them if she could. She looked around but didn't spot very many people who looked like they were willing to talk. Personally, she was hoping Yuki was there but to no such luck. Yume and her friend were in the crowd of gawking girls, there was a timid looking high school girl (Kinoha) close to her friends, and then....

"Hey it's that kid from earlier," she said. "T-T-Tomeo." She was trying to remember his name. He appeared to be with someone but at the moment he was the only option available. She adjusted her backpack and made her way to the table. "Mind if I join you two?" she said.

***

"After hearing your side of the argument I can understand why you would want to stand up for yourself and who you are," said Nikko. "However, a fight is still a fight and under no circumstances should you have attacked another student like that. You should have gone to a teacher or me and told us and we could have handled the rest... from... there?"

Nikko heard something come out of Kaze's bag and it was shouting at him. He stood up from behind his desk to get a better look at it. He caught a glimpse of it before Kaze had stuffed the thing back in his bag. Nikko stared at the Kaze's bag as though he was trying to see if the thing would pop out again for him. 'Stuffed animal?' he thought. 'I've never seen a stuffed animal like that before.' It felt as though some distant memories were trying to make their way to Nikko's mind.

Nikko rubbed his eyes. The sight of the 'thing' Kaze had made Nikko's sense of thought go off track. Maybe he's been working too hard this week. "Go on," he moaned and waved his hand toward the door. "I'll deal with it and sort out something. But you're still going to receive some detention for fighting and I'll be calling your parents. I'll also have a talk with Mr. Goh about this."

At that moment those distant memories of Nikko's seemed to have found there way. 'That couldn't have been what I think it is, could it?' he thought.

***

Shouki had bowed when Hanshin mentioned him at the end of the concert and left with the rest of the group. He could have sworn he heard Narumi shout, "That's my brother!" Once he was backstage, he let out a sigh of relief as though he held his breath during the entire concert. He looked up at Hanshin with his usual blank expression. "It'll take some getting used to," he said. He sat down in one of the chairs and leaned on a table to rest. The sound of his beads clattered against the table sounding like applause themselves.

Meanwhile, Kirimon had been bopping his body and tail back and forth to the music. He was still under the table with all of the food and drinks. "Not bad," he said with a huge grin on his face, "I think I'm going to like this world while we're here."

***

The show had been wonderful, and Yuu had clapped as long as anyone when the last song finished. Now that it was over and people were starting to file out, she remembered part of the reason she'd come in the first place -- to talk to Hanshin. She was just wondering whether the band members were going to come out from backstage any time soon, when a boy came up to her and began to ask her just that.

Yuu was about to answer that she didn't know, when he told her to hold on and started typing something on his computer. Thoroughly confused, she waited.

Remembering that she still had on her glasses, she quickly took them off. Sunglasses indoors weren't exactly normal, and she really didn't want to have to explain why she was wearing them to someone she'd only just met. She opened up her purse to put them away... and a feathery little head stuck itself out and opened it's beak to say something.

Yuu nearly panicked. She stuffed Kuinamon, and the glasses, hurriedly back into the bag, and looked over to see if the boy had noticed. He was just now disengaging his mini-computer and putting it into his pocket, and it didn't look as if he'd seen anything. She sighed inwardly in relief, but then his partly-open tote bag tote caught her eye. Did something just move in there...?

But then he started talking to her again, and she looked back up at him. "Ah, I'm Shimakoto Yuu, it's nice to meet you" she answered Tomeo. "It's fine, I was just about to ask the same thing, to tell you the truth"

Just then a girl who seemed to know Tomeo came up and asked to join them. "I don't mind at all" Yuu said invitingly.

***

"So," Kaya said, putting another plate into the dishwasher, "What did Yamaguchi say about a tutor for you?"

"I get to meet him as soon as Yamaguchi-sensei gets a response back from thephone call he made." Replied Asayake as she piled the already clean dishes on the counter, opening cupboards and putting a few things away here and there. Although she had really needed a tutor, she wasn't really all that happy that it had been a guy. "Yamaguchi-sensei said his first name was... Oh, what was it? I don't remember." She pushed the last of the silverware into its drawer, and closed it with her hip. "Can I go back to my room now?"

Kaya, Asayake's mother, sighed. "Yes, I suppose. I really do wish you'd migrate out of there every so often. It must get lonely in there."

"Not really," Asayake shrugged, pulling the hair-tie out of one of her braids and unravelling it, "I have things to keep me occupied."

"If you say so."

Asayake's slippered feet squeaked softly on the hardwood floors of the hallway, only subsiding into a dull squish as she climbed the stairs to her room and reverting back to the squeak as she found her way to the door. She opened it, tossed her slippers into a corner, and closed the door again. Rogishimon was bopping happily next to her stereo, listening to a nameless pop song Asayake quickly became annoyed with.

"Turn that thing off, please."

"But it's fun!" Rogishimon chirped, bouncing to the happy tune, "It's so HYPER!"

"I'll show you real music, then." She huffed, flicking off the stereo and pulling her guitar case out from underneath her bed.

"What's that?" Rogishimon asked, wide-eyed, as Asayake unzipped the cover and pulled out a Flying V. "I like the colours! So pretty!"

"..." Asayake stared as her digimon drooled silently over her guitar. "Yes, Rogishimon. Orange and black look nice together..."

"It's not orange! It's fire!" Rogishimon said, pointing at the guitar.

"It's jsut irridescent." Asayake said, slanting the guitar slightly. Rogishimon cooed in awe. "You'll get used to it." She stated, sitting down on her bed, one leg hanging over the edge, and double-checked the tuning. Assoon as she started to play, Rogishimon went deathly quiet. She just listened to Asayake play her guitar; no words, no nothing, just chords. Whenshe stopped playing, Rogishimon just stared at the guitar in her arms.

"...That was pretty. It was sad, though," The digimon said, looking now to Asayake herself, "You wrote that?"

"Yup. All by my lonesome."

"It was sad. Is everything you write like that?"

"No, not everything. Some of it has words that go with the music, too."

"Really?!" Rogishimon chirped excitedly, bouncing up and down on one of Asayake's pillows, "Can you sing?!"

"I'd like to think so." Chuckling at the little bird's bouncing, Asayake smiled. "Want me to sing you something?"

"Yay! Of course I do!"

Still smiling, Asayake began to play.

***

Tegiwa sat relaxed in the chair. As relaxed as the plastic torture devices they had for seats would allow. For some reason, while transport seats, car seats, and even the classrooms had comfortable, ergonomic seating that conformed to a person's body, the offices still employed uncomfortable rigid bucket seats. He managed a calming meditative state while he waited.

This was all the rest he'd get until morning. He had a shift at the hospital riding the ambulances as part of his paramedic training. Good thing he could sleep most of tomorrow. Night shifts and school didn't mix well.

***

Suzumon cocked his rather flat head to the side. "Yeah, I'm a digimon. I'm a dog. Can't you tell?" He looked at the other digimon. "Are you supposed to be something?" He frolicked a bit as the music started in a very energetic fashion.

***

Naoko was swept away by the touch of Hanshin's lips on her skin. She just melted right there on the couch; she could barely focus herself on him long enough to kiss him back let alone hear his words.

She just knew she felt safe in his arms. She could feel his energy flowing through her, a potential Hanshin had a destiny to fulfill as a musician, a leader, a savior. With her help he'd achieve heights he dared not dream. Naoko knew she could make his dreams come true. Not one of the girls really believed in him. Naoko could tell. For them it was sex and power, but like Ami, it was high school power. Naoko saw Hanshin as a living god, and she was eager to worship him.

She agreed to what he had asked without thinking, a dangerous thing. Hanshin had ways of asking for things without considering the consequences. He had the random fancy worthy of a Roman god.

Then, Hanshin wasn't kissing her any more. Ami was taunting her and the words were sinking in. She had agreed to go with Shouki and give up her night with Hanshin.

The voice in her head was screaming NO!. It had been weeks since she had been alone with Hanshin. That was the only time they had together. In bed, Hanshin almost seemed to listen to her. It was a brief moment when they could be equals. Otherwise, she was a nuisance to him giving updates or one girl in a crowd of many. She had to press all the advantages she had.

She was certain her pale face was becoming a beacon as she glowered after Ami. "Typical."

She hurriedly put on her game face for Shouki. This wasn't any of his fault. She wanted to talk things over with him anyway. From his response this afternoon, she was fairly sure she wouldn't be having sex with him tonight. But, she could mend a few fences, and perhaps, cheer the guy up another way. Shouki always looked glum. For the sake of the band, she should improve his morale.

"Shouki, Hanshin asked me to go with you tonight... I guess we should be leaving. We can talk on the way."

***

"You did an excellent job," Hanshin said as he gave Shouki a soft punch in the shoulder. "You'll going to be great."

His computer beeped when it received Tomeo's quick message, wanting to discuss the Watcher with him. While sitting down on the couch backstage, he pulled the computer out of his pocket, and just before he was about to open the message, Ami had come along.

"You can take care of that in the morning," she whispered, grabbing the computer from his hands.

"It could be important," Hanshin protested as she down in his lap and held the computer away from him.

"More important than our unfinished business?" She dropped the computer onto the nearby table and fell onto Hanshin. Her hands ran into his blonde hair as she pressed her body against his. He had gotten sweaty from performing for so long, and she could feel the perspiration where her top did not cover. As she kissed Hanshin, she led one of his hands up the side of her leg underneath the short black pleated skirt she was wearing. She could feel his hand wander to her rear, touching the bare skin revealed by the black thong under the skirt. She moaned softly when he gave her left cheek a squeeze under her skirt.

Hanshin chuckled a little at her reaction, but he immediately stopped as she sat up. Her legs were straddled over him, and her breasts were at eye level with how she was sitting. His eyes watched her every move as she stood up on the couch, one foot on either side of him.

"So, shall we finish things up at your place?" she asked when she turned and bent down to grab the computer on the nearby table.

"Uh," he murmured as he took a good look as she bent over. When she had stood back up and stepped off the couch onto the floor, she shook the computer in his face. "It can wait until tomorrow, I'm sure."

"I'll meet you outside," Ami said as she grabbed her bag and headed out of the dressing room. "See you all later, boys...and girls." She winked at Naoko quickly as she left the room.

"Well, time for me to head home. I'll see you guys later," Hanshin said as he grabbed his keyboards and backpack while he headed on out.

***

Shireika sat on her bed, after changing her into her pajamas, which consisted of last year's soccer team shirt and a pair of old gym shorts. She moved around and lay down on her stomach.

"So, have you ever met the Watcher?" she asked Alatusmon as she pet the feather on his head.

"No, I haven't. None of us have really," Alatusmon explained. "Just sort of received messages from him, and that was it."

"Hmm. You trust him though?"

"I'm not really sure, but if you don't, then I guess I don't either."

"You do have a mind of your own, you know. You should follow your own beliefs."

"But, you are sort of right that we can't really trust him. We've never met him, and you have only gotten two very vague messages from him. And while the threat could be real, we should follow what we think is right. Well, you and I will follow what you think is right."

"Alatusmon." She wanted the bird to think for himself, but then again, he did have a bird brain in that head of his. "We aren't one unit. We're separate individuals."

"I know, but I trust you, so I'll believe whatever you believe in."

"Well, I guess that's okay," Shireika said as she stratched Alatusmon's head. "I guess we do have to stick together."

"And you're the smarter one between us. I'd probably get us in trouble. Seriously, I need someone to tell me what to do or I'll get into messes."

Shireika sighed a little. She may have the class ranking to be the top student, but was she necessarily the one who could make better decisions? There were things Alatusmon might know about and have better judgement on.

***

"Thanks," Hanarei said with a smile as she sat down with Yuu and Tomeo. She could hear the girls screaming behind her for the Wild Stallions, various names of the band members being screamed and shrieked in the middle of songs. She rolled her eyes a little. "Thank goodness it is over." She felt like her head was going to explode from the excessive screaming from the girls in the audience during the performance, and the pounding music wasn't helping much either. Plus, she didn't particularly like Hanshin's band either. The music was fairly good - the members of the band bothered her more than anything else. She couldn't stand most of them.

***

"...That was beautiful," Rogishimon cooed softly, watching Asayake put her guitar back in its case, "I didn't know humans could make that music."

"The music you were listening to on my stereo was made by humans, too, Rogishimon," Asayake said, tossing her now-loose hair behind her shoulder asshe stood, "Each song is different, depending on the person who wrote it andsings it. Songs are an interpretation of feelings using music, so each song embodies a different feeling or circumstance the singer or composer has had."

"You must have very lonely feelings, then, to make such sad songs."

Freezing, Asayake blinked slowly. She sighed then, throwing herself onto herbed. She landed on her back, stared at the poster of Jimi Hendrix above her pillow and tucked her hands behind her head, her eyelids lowering slightly. "I've never thought about my music that way. But it's not all sad..." She turned her head to look at Rogishimon, who was staring whimsically back, "Is it?"

"Most of it is," Rogishimon blinked innocently, cocking her head at her partner, "What makes you so sad?"

"Stuff." Asayake answered abruptly, turning her head back to face the ceiling. Rogishimon regarded her softly."

"'Stuff' can't make you sad," She said, watching as Asayake's eyes brimmed. Suddenly, unknown to Asayake, the little bird puffed up angrily. "People make you sad." Her digidestened shaking slightly, trying to keep from crying, she smoothed down her feathers. She clicked her beak, but calmed herself down enough to speak steadily again. "Who made you so sad, 'Sayake?"

Dams bursting, Asayake barely managed to stifle a sob as she curled in on herself, her back to Rogishimon, and let herself cry. She snuffled softly, clutching at her bedspread and pulling the fabric to her chest.

Rogishimon was shaking steadily with rage; she saw red. What had happened to the rough-and-tumble tough girl she'd believed Asayake to be? Taking another calming breath, she hopped over to Asayake, coosing softly as she nuzzled her beak against the girl's forehead. When Asayake had had a good cry, the digimon vowed, she'd get her to say who had hurt her. After all, she couldn't protect Asayake from something she couldn't understand.

Rogishimon also made another vow at that moment. She vowed revenge.

***

"So why not go to the concert?" Sarika asked as she drove towards Shuuichi's house.

"I just don't have time and it's just not my thing," he replied.

"I thought you were popular. When I was a kid, going to social events like concerts and stuff for upper classmen were cool," she said smiling.

"Nope, Hanshin's are mostly screaming fangirls all wanting a piece of Hanshin, including her," he said looking out the window dismally.

"Her? Oh you mean your sister..." she said getting the connection. "You know she is a girl and it's just a girl thing to gush over bands and guys."

"She'll get hurt. Like you..." he whispered but she heard him. She gained a grimace for a second but then brought her smile back. "So what do you need to work on?" she asked.

"Just thinking and stuff. I need to think on something," he said as the car arrived in front. He stepped out of the car and waved back as his aunt drove off to get to work. "I'll be there later," she said.

***

"She seems nice," Squijimon said as Shuuichi had placed her on the kitchen table.

"Yeah. She's like a mother to me. She always makes sure that I'm safe and doing alright," he said as he got a soda out.

"I guess she still has such a loving heart even though she has been hurt so much," she said.

"How do you know?" he asked getting a little bit defensive.

"I don't I just assume by her tone and your tone and what you whispered. I heard you, she's been hurt before," she replied as she took a quick sip of his soda and then cringed at the weird feeling.

***

Naoko led Shouki outside. The boy was looking glummer than ever as he let her pull him along; his bass was in his hand and her bag was slung over his shoulder. Both his eyes seemed darker and hazy in the shadows cast by a dozen dull signs that lined the streets. Naoko felt sad for him because he was so new...and different, some how. She wanted to make him feel comfortable with the band, but she needed to understand him. But, she felt sure the band would not accept his being uncomfortable with their favorite hobby.

/Wait,/ she thought, /maybe it is just me. No, he wasn't staring at Ami's ass when she was on the couch. I was, and I can't stand her. Correction, he had looked away. So, he's not gay... Oh, I've got no idea what he's thinking. Hanshin will blame me if he leaves the band./

This afternoon's rejection still stung her, but she had to admit she liked the challenge Shouki presented her. She wasn't often turned down for sex. While Shouki was just a skinny kid, Naoko was finding him very arousing. He was cute in his way. She'd gladly pounce on him again if he were willing.

She was deciding what to do with Shouki, when Yukio and the rest came out of the club. She figured it would be best to cover things now, and work them out with Shouki later. "Play along..." She put a hand on his chest and pressed him against the wall of the club. She had to stand on tip toe to kiss him, but she managed to press her mouth against his firmly anyway. Shouki struggled against her embrace and her probing tongue. She hoped the fool wouldn't bite her in his frantic throws.

She let up as soon as the band members while trying not to look disappointed. His flavour filled her mouth and his scent pervaded her nose. She wanted to take him right there, but calmed herself.

Shouki sputtered and coughed. He nearly gagged in his efforts to breathe. "What was that about?" he said between fits.

"Just a bit of smoke and mirrors. They expected to see that, so I figured they better. For now."

"I don't get you."

/You could if you wanted/ Naoko sighed and grabbed his arm. "I meant it about the talk. We need to find a quite place where I inform you about the facts of life..."

"I had that in school, miss. I don't need a crash course from you." He tried to pull his arm back.

"Baka, ...of life in the band. Also, you can call me Naoko. Call me miss again and I'll slap you."

"Naoko..."

"Perfect, now, follow me." She led him to the platform for the transports and climb to the express level. "Ever used the express pods? They are nice, just look for a two seater....that hasn't been thrown up in recently."

"I'm suppose to get in an enclosed space with you..." Shouki made it sound like a death sentence.

"The seats are in line, not tandem. There was a contest....well, you don't need to hear about it...but, I'll tell you. The girls had a contest to see who could figure out how to get in on in one of these pods...let's just say it's way too hard to bother."

"That makes me feel much better." He found his shoes very interesting during her story, and his face decided to flush a nice deep red.

"Awww. You are cute sometimes. Now, get in the pod." She pushed him in the back and hopped in the front herself." She keyed in a destination code and the pod sped of at high speed.

"Where are we going?"

"In circles. It's set for a loop around town."

"But, the express?"

"I'm feeling essential, so I thought it was apropos to go nowhere fast."

Shouki let out a faint groan.

"Now, I have discerned you are a little uncomfortable with me....So, what's the big idea running out on me...I mean. Is it me? Or is it something else." Her big brown eyes got watery as she looked into the camera.

Shouki couldn't find a nice way to tell her she was a tart, but he felt certain she knew this about herself. "I...I don't do things like that with complete strangers!" Why would she think he would?

"So, you don't like girls?" She was pressing his buttons now.

"No! I mean, of course I do, I don't even know you! Look, I've got a vow to keep." He rattled his prayer beads.

"You are a monk?"

"No, but I promised my sister I'd...I'd do my best to be the kind of person she was. She was... She wasn't the type do these things..."

"Shouki, I think your sister would want you to be yourself. Ask her."

"Uhhhmm...Naoko, she's dead."

Naoko wanted to pound her head on the windscreen for not reading his file more carefully. Crying softly, "Shouki, I'm sorry, I didn't know. That was sooo stupid of me."

"It's ..k.."

Naoko composed herself "Well, you should know. The Society Girls may flock to Hanshin, but we service the band too. We divvy up the band guys and go home with one. Sometimes two or three of us. All the girls love the band."

"That's degrading..." One more shock would be the death of him. Shouki was certain of it.

"Not to us. We all get what we want. It's over little game. But, since you are in the band you need to look like you are playing."

He imagined all the band girls pawing on him, each wearing Naoko's leering face. "No...I think I'll just quit thanks."

"NO! I mean, wait, I have an idea. Pretend you are going with me. Get me after each concert, and the others will leave you alone. So will I. We can just go out and get away from the others. I might be able to help you with those lousy social socials."

/I have lousy skill? She's the one who wanted to rape me./ "How can I trust you? Why would you want to help me anyway?"

"Simple. I understand promises."

"We shall see." Anything beat multiple pawings. He hoped.

***

Shireika's eyes opened and turned to the clock next to her bed. It was 1:38, in the morning, and they were still at it? With the way their family apartment had been designed, her bed had to be placed against the wall separating her room from Hanshin's. Sadly, Hanshin's bed was directly on the other side of the not-so-thin wall. From what she could tell, they had just started at it for the third time that evening, and she had had enough.

She threw off the covers and stormed out of her room and down the hall. She could hear the banter of moans between Hanshin and Ami as they were getting started. She didn't bother to knock when she made it to Hanshin's door and merely barged in.

"Holy shit, Shireika!" Hanshin exclaimed as he grabbed a sheet and pulled it over his torso. "Why don't you knock?"

"And why don't you two do this somewhere else?" Shireika asked. She pointed at the wall next to her twin brother and Ami. "I could hear you guys for the past two times. I do not need a third performance!"

Ami giggled and sat up a little, not caring that she wasn't wearing a thing at the moment. Her blonde hair was all over the place, as were her clothes around the room.

"What did you think?" Ami asked as she ran a hand down Hanshin's bare chest. "He sure knows what he's doing, don't you think?"

"Was I talking to you?" Shireika demanded. "Now, go somewhere else and do your business, or quit it for the evening. Otherwise, I will personally throw the bitch out." She turned around, pulling the door shut behind her. She didn't look as she headed back to her room and immediately ran into her father.

"Whoa, sweetheart. What's going on?" he asked. "I heard you yelling."

Shireika looked up at her father angrily. How did he hear her yelling but not them and their vocalizations for the past two and half hours?

"Because Idiot Boy here has less brain than a rock," she hissed as she continued down the hallway back to her room.

"Aiya," Tommy sighed as he watched his daughter head back to bed. He knocked on his son's door. "Hanshin, keep it down, or there will be consequences."

***

"Wow, what is this place?" Alatusmon asked as he peeked out from inside of Shireika's bookbag. She had brought a couple books for school with her, since she figured her Uncle Matsuro wouldn't mind her spending some time here to study away from Hanshin.

She was still pissed at her twin brother and had made an effort to avoid him as much as possible. She even begged to borrow her father's car isntead of riding with her brother. She knew what he did in that car of his, which was actually hers and Hanshin's, but he used it far more because of the band. She knew what really happened in the car, and she didn't care to ever be in that vehicle ever again.

"It's Tokyo University. We're in the history department, where my Uncle Matsuro has his private library. He actually works in the engineering department," Shireika explained. "I think my mother gave the school money and forced them to give him space." She smiled a little at Alatusmon as they walked down the hallway of the building.

She saw a sign on the wall, pointing towards the private library. She followed the signs and found Matsuro pulling various books off the shelves.

"Hey, Uncle Matsuro," Shireika said as she pulled out Alatusmon from her bag.

"Wow, look at all of it," Alatusmon mused as he looked around.

"Oh, hey, Shireika," Matsuro replied as he dumped a piled of books on the table. They nearly toppled over onto Alatusmon, frightening the digimon a little. "The other digi-destined are coming, I assume?"

"Yes," Shireika answered, rolling her eyes a little.

"Well, we'll see what Hanshin has to say."

"Can't you just tell him that he's wrong. You know he is."

"No can do. It's completely the decision of you guys."

Shireika sighed and sat down in a chair at one of the tables.

"Damn," she whispered as she looked around.

***

Enma groaned as she woke up. She had slept on the couch in Kou's apartment, and she was sure she had slept on something's harddrive. Mitikomomon was perched on her stomach, and she had to manuever herself to catch a glimpse of her watch. "Eh....12 o'clock! Shit!" She got up, ignoring Mitikomomon's complaints, and grabbed a pair of clothes she kept at the brother's just in case she had to stay there. Either that, or he had gone to the house that night and had gotten some for her. Either way, as long as she didn't have to wear her uniform to the library, she was happy. Grabbing her purse with bus fair , along with Mitikomomon latched next to her chest, she ran out of the aparment, slamming the door behind her.

***

Kaze smiled widely. "You do that sir." he then ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him. As he assumed, he found Tegiwa sitting in the waiting room.

"Ohhh... Hi Ani!!" he said impishly, grabbing his older brother's hand, trying to pull him up. "See, I haven't see Mr. Mayonaka in such a long time, I decided to visit him." his smiled widened. "I really REALLY wasn't in trouble, really. I wasn't really, really I wasn't."

Laimon popped out of Kaze's bag. "Did he mention he really wasn't in trouble?" Laimon smiled in the same impish style as Kaze. "Really."

Kaze pounded Laimon on his head, sending him back into the bag. "Okay, so, no need to tell mom I was visiting the vice principal... I mean, why bother her, ne?"

Deciding it was time to leave the vice principal's office, Kaze let go of Tegiwa's hand, and walked over to the door. "Ready to go?" he asked innocently, blinking a little more than usual.

***

Tegiwa smiled at his crazy brother. "Sure. I won't tell mom or dad, but I'm sure they'll figure out you did something. You do every week, bro. Besides, the veepee always phones the parents after a fight. I hope he gets dad and not mom. Mom hates it when you get it fights. She grew up not defending herself, so she doesn't understand why you need to fight back. Sometimes anyway. She never got comfortable putting her self first, yuh know?

"Dad-Ken would just be upset you got caught. 'Course he'd make you do push-ups."

He put his arm around his brother, and headed the for the public transport. "I think Laimon is the perfect digimon for you." He laughed. "Mine is fine, but he needs winding as often as yours needs feeding. Kaze, don't forget the meeting tomorrow. Shireika will be up at you of you miss. And, wake me in time to go too. I have a bummer of a late shift."

***

Naoko wasn't sure what to make of the deal she just made. It kept Shouki in the band; however, she had to sacrifice all concert nights with Hanshin for the foreseeable future, and spend them with a guy not interested in jumping her. She secretly hoped that Shouki might acclimate to the bands ways, but she felt it would be a slow change from what she understood of him.

As she lay back on her silk sheets with her unbound hair flowing about the pillow like a dark puddle, she realized just how long it had been since she had Hanshin alone. Worse than that, it had been...she figured...48 hours since she'd had sex; that’s a record time for her since her freshman year.

Her timepiece read after one. She imagined Hanshin and Ami would be still going at it like pros if that sister of his hadn't interrupted by now. That was all she could do for now: imagine. Good thing she had lots of that to go around. She grabbed Hanshin's picture and commenced her wishful thinking.

***

Shouki was taken aback by Naoko and her "deal." There was no way he could trust her even though she seemed sincere. Were Hanshin and his band really that wild? He had seen some evidence of it that night. Shouki had heard rumors, but that’s all he took them to be.

He rested his head on his desk and felt for his prayer beads. The room was dark accept of the dim light of his desk lamp. He felt rather confined by the glow. He was unsure about the whole thing even though he had agreed to it.

This is how it happened:

"I don't want that kind of reputation."

"You are a Wild Stallion. You've been with me for longer than five minutes. Trust me, Shouki. You already have one."

"It's not who I am. What if some nice girl..." Okay, it was a long shot. He knew.

"I'm not a nice girl?" Naoko rolled her eyes. "Ok, I'm not. But, I'm willing to help you out of a jam. This way you can stay in the band and be left in peace. You meet a nice girl you can tell her the truth."

"So, what do you get out of it?" He felt he was missing something.

Good question. "I get to keep a great bassist for the band. The band is my life. You just better be worth it." She winked. "Oh, and you do get to take me out on concert nights. I'll show you some really nice spots. Of course, you get to pay."

Shouki felt he could get along with the band as long as the groupies weren't mauling him. He felt he owed it to his family and his sister to stay in the game and learn to be social. He reluctantly agree to Naoko's agreement, but said if was off if she was all over him.

They had parted company. Shouki knew his agreement was right for the band, and he came away with the sense that the brash and bold Naoko was not as bad as she first seemed. But, she seemed very sad in some way.

***

Hanshin wandered down a hallway in one of the buildings at Tokyo University, with Koumamon in his backpack. How he managed to fit the horse-head-thing in it was a mystery, but it worked.

"So, what exactly do you have in mind, Hanshin?" Koumamon asked as they strolled down the hallway. The digimon didn't particularly care whether anyone else heard them or not. What they were doing was important enough that it didn't need to be explained.

"Make sure the others are in agreement that we should look into this power that the Watcher talked about in his email," Hanshin replied. "In his last email, he said something about a dark queen and needing the greatest power of all to stop her, so that's exactly what we're going to look for. I sent the email to my Uncle Matsuro so he could look into it. Also, I found a picture of a key in my printer this morning, which apparently was sent from the Watcher." The printout had been folded up into his pocket, ready to be handed over to Matsuro.

"A key?"

"Probably the one that will unlock the power we need to stop the queen."

He sped around a corner to head into the library belonging to his Uncle Matsuro.

"Wow, you're early, considering last night," Shireika said the moment Hanshin appeared in the room where he figured they would be gathering.

"Thanks," Hanshin replied with a smile and turned to Matsuro. "Here. I found this in my printer before I came here." He handed Matsuro a detailed picture of the key he had received. It was a strange star-shaped key, made of a silver-colored material. It looked as though two eight-pointed stars had been overlapped over each other, such that it resulted in sixteen points. The center had been cut out.

Beside the key, someone had typed: "Hanshin, here is what the key looks like. I hope this helps you. -the Watcher."

"Interesting," Matsuro said nervously as he took the picture and walked off.

"Are you going to -" Hanshin sputtered, watching his mother's cousin disappear behind a bookshelf in the private library. "- nevermind."

"He'll get you information," reminded Koumamon as Hanshin let him out of the backpack.

"Oh, hey, Koumamon!" Alatusmon said cheerfully as he bounced over to the horse-head of a digimon.

"Hi," Koumamon replied coldly. He didn't bother to turn towards Alatusmon and had no intention of talking to the bird digimon. This wasn't what he was here for. He was here to get the job done, which meant destroying that queen, whoever she is.

"Hey, sis," Hanshin greeted, trying to be friendly.

Shireika glared at her twin brother momentarily. She hoped someone else would get here soon so she wouldn't have to be around him much longer. She had better things to do than this, particularly discussing whether to trust the Watcher and do what he wants.

"I'm sorry, sis, really," Hanshin said as he sat down next to her.

He said that every time it happened, which meant he really wasn't sorry. He was just saying it. She couldn't stand that behavior, and she knew their mother was probably disappointed in him for being this way. For being the male slut he had become since creating that ridiculous band. Only, the band had been made in her honor. What a joke that was. A band in the honor of your mother. Seemed more disgraceful than honorable.

***

Hanarei felt uncomfortable as she took the public transport to Tokyo University. Something about both Hanshin and Shireika bothered her, and she really did not want to have to meet with them about the Watcher and that dark queen. Plus, the idea of the dark queen made her skin crawl as well. All of this made her just extremely uncomfortable, but she figured she could deal with Hanshin and Shireika for the time being. Hanshin less so because he was the egotistical band leader he was. She wasn't quite sure what it was about Shireika, but there was something about that girl she didn't like.

***

After dinner and a shower, Yuu finally plopped down on her bed and sighed contentedly. It was nice to be home.

She looked around at all the boxes around the room still in need of unpacking. There hadn't really been time between the school and the concert to do much besides dig out a bag and some clothes, and with the meeting tomorrow she didn't want to stay up to late. But there was one thing...

She'd just started rifling through boxes when Kuinamon hopped out from under the bed, crumbs of the food she'd snuck him from dinner still clinging to his beak. He looked up at her curiously. "Wha'cha doin'?"

"Looking for something"

"For wha'?"

"A picture" She opened up a likely looking box. There it was.

It wasn't anything special. Just a simple free-standing frame with a holographic display set to show a single picture: a dark-haired girl around the age of ten standing on the beach holding a similarly dark-haired baby who couldn't have been more than a few weeks old. She smiled as she set it on her small shelf.

Kuinamon fluttered up to the desk to get a better look. He pointed a fin at the picture and turned to look at his partner. "Who're they?"

"That's me and my brother, back in Niigata" she answered. "That was a long time ago"

He was puzzled. "Brother? I din' know you had a brother"

Yuu's expression turned forlorn. "He... died, not to long after this was taken"

"Oh," He looked cheerless for the first time that day. "Oh... that's to bad" he said apologetically, turning back to the picture. "He was only jus' hatched, too"

Yuu found it in herself to smile a bit at Kuinamon's remark. He really was quite cute. "It's alright. Come on, let's find you a place to sleep"

***

After she finished setting up the makeshift pile of blankets for Kuinamon to sleep on under her bed, Yuu finally turned off the light and climbed in herself. She heard him settling in under there and hoped he wasn't one to toss around in his sleep; she didn't want to explain to her parents in the morning why there was a strange bird-fish creature passed out on her bedroom floor.

"Good night, Kuinamon" she said softly when he seemed settled.

"G'night" he answered back.

Several minutes of silence, and she was beginning to drift off. Then, out of the blue: "Yuu?"

"Yes?"

"Can I be your brother?"

Yuu was surprised, and for a moment she just lay there. Then, in the darkness of her room, she smiled.

"Sure"

***

"Sure, you can join us Hanarei. Nice to see you again." Tomeo greeted, as he waited outside for the band with Yuu. Several minutes had already passed, and Tomeo looked at the time on his mini computer. It was getting late. Didn't Hanshin get his e-mail? Perhaps he wanted an early night. Besides, if he had got it by now, it would already be too late to discuss anything.

"I'm sorry girls, I've gotta go, I got to wake up early for a meeting tomorrow morning." He turned to Hanarei, who he knew was already a digidestined. "Hope to see you there, goodnight." Then he turned to Yuu. "It was nice meeting you, too, I hope I can see you again sometime. Bye!" He waved, heading out of the building as he dialed up his mobile for a ride home.

***

The university library had been hard to find; Tomeo had to ask directions several times before he was pointed in the right direction. It was unusual to come to such a place on a Sunday, the only day off they had from school, but usually he would just be out on one of his runs at about this time. This meeting seemed much more important, and Tomeo couldn't lie that the whole mysterious e-mail thing was beginning to get more intriguing to him.

He thought back to that very morning, where he had been sitting on the floor with his back to the wall in his room since he had woken up, going over the e-mails he had received over again and again. He had been contemplating whether or not he would go at all; it all seemed crazy to him. But what had won him over was that he was already pulled in too far by his own curiousity to ignore it all now; besides, how could he say no to his friends? They had all seemed nice and friendly enough, and hopefully, they would be there to support him through all the confusion.

Still following the directions from the last person he had bumped into, he came across the sign pointing to the private library. Not having checked there yet, he followed it and finally came to the room where Shireika and a new boy who were already waiting for him. The digimon that were assembled in the room was a dead giveaway that this meeting was no ordinary meeting someone like him would stumble across.

"Hello, Shireika. How are you? Did you sleep well?" Tomeo asked politely as he saw her, after poking his head in the room's doorway, smiling and waving to her. He assumed that the other boy in the room must have been her brother since he had been the one to e-mail about the meeting, but the two did look slightly different in appearance. Just in case he had gotten a mistaken case of identity, he turned to his direction and promptly introduced himself to the other boy.

"Hi there, I'm Toyogawa Tomeo. Nice to meet you!" he stuck out a hand for Hanshin to shake for a moment before pulling it back, like he had done with Shireika. His thin yet cheery smile remained constant, indicating he was very much a morning person, as he placed his tote bag down near the two digimon in the room and opened it up. "It's okay to come out now, Parumon." He then looked up, realising he should also introduce his partner to the others in the room. "Oh, and this is Parumon."

A small yellow and blue scaled salamander slithered out of the tote bag, looking more excited as she noticed the presence of some new company. "Hi there, folks. Name's Parumon, like the boy said, so don't forget it!" She looked between Hanshin and Koumamon intently, deciding to say something before either of them could speak. "So, mind if we get your names boys, or are you gonna sit there with those expressions of yours all day?"

Tomeo found a seat and sat down, near Shireika. He felt more comfortable sitting near her, only because of the fact that he already was familiar with her from the day before. "Don't mind Parumon. She's got a bit of a sharp tongue." Parumon shot him a 'don't you start' look, which Tomeo simply waved off. He had grown used to it by now. "So, I guess we won't be starting until more people show up, right? I guess we can wait..." He waited for a moment, before he decided to fill up the time with a question that had been on his mind.

"Um, in the meantime, can I ask you two something?" He went ahead and spoke in a soft voice after a moment's pause, hoping they would listen. "I've... I've heard a lot of rumours and stories from some of these other digidestined that they know older relatives and such who used to be digidestined as well. Does that mean this kind of thing has happened before? If so, for how long? There's also a lot of strange termology that I've never heard of before... but, I suppose I can pick that up as I go along. I'm just a little curious if there's any truth to there being a past to this... this whole thing, that's all. It's really weird..."

***

"I am totally and officially lost now." Asayake grumbled, staring squinty-eyed at a map of the Tokyo University grounds. Apparently, according to the large red 'YOU ARE HERE' dot, she was standing in the middle of the Drama Building. Since the woman she'd asked at the front desk told her to come in this direction, she assumed that she'd been slurring or something. "Where's that effing Humanities Building? Friggin' desk clerk can't even give directions to the place she works at... Airhead. History is NOT drama."

"She's not very good." Chuckled a deep voice from behind her, sending her face into a burst of dark pinks as she wheeled around. She found herself face-to-face with a man who was a good head taller than she was, with wavy black hair and a little goatee. "The Humanities are in the D Building, over here," He said, poking at the map with his finger, "So just find the main exit out of this building, and turn right. You'll see a big glass dome -- that's the Sciences Building -- and then across from that is the Humanities building. The history department is on the third floor. Are you new here or something? Just starting?"

Asayake didn't like the look he was giving her; it made her feel rather naked. "No, uh, I'm meeting a professor there in a library. He's the uncle of a friend of mine... Anyhow, I'm going to be late," She said, gurrying off towards the main doors, "Thanks for the directions!"

She heard the boy call "No problem!", and let herself out of the building. And people wondered why men creeped her out.

***

A little while later, she had finally managed to make her way to the library Hanshin had said to meet at. She poked her head in the door, checked to make sure she had the right place, and let herself in. She found a group of people aready there, and made her way over to them. She made a point not to look directly at Tomeo; she knew if she did she'd end up all embarassed because of her outburst the day before. "Hi everyone. Am I late?" She pulled Rogishimon out of her bag, settling the bird on her shoulder.

***

Enma sighed as she walked through Tokyo University. She had a vague idea of where she was going; her sister went to school there, afterall. But she was slightly apprehensive about not just who would be there, but what they were to talk about. It was a touchy subject in her family, the Digital World. Her grandmother had told her many, many stories about it, but her mother, on the occasions when they got along, would go into very little detail and just describe it as a 'bad place' or something of those sorts. She finally found the corridor that led to the library, and silently thanked God. "Mitikomomon, you can stop it now." She whispered.

The blue digimon let out the breath he was holding, and started to bounce madly in Enma's arms.

"I'm gonna meet other digimon!" He crooned happily. "And I can meet that boy from that book you threw at me!"

"Don't be so thrilled about that."

"Why, you looked happy in the picture."

"That's the difference between a picture and real life, Mitikomomon." She chided, stopping to read the sign at the entrance of the library. She could hear voices, and she wasn't sure she wanted to go in. Instead of her normal yellow star t-shirt, she had worn an old shirt from one of her grandmother's tours, and she played with the hem of it, before walking into the room. "Hey there, everyone!" She called absently, before letting go of Mitikomomon. The furball jumped happily, going over to Alatusmon.

"Hiya!" Mitikomon said to the general digimon. Enma rolled her eyes, before sitting down in a chair rather hard, and balling her hands into fists to keep her from chewing at her fingernails.

"So, how are you?" she said, looking at the small number of humans occupying the room.

***

Shuuichi touched the front door to the university and waited there as he rested for a second, bent over to get some breathes. The whole way walking there had been pure hell. First thing first, he had overslept which wasn't like him, except he heard the whole night his younger sister chatting and tapping away to her friends about the concert. The second thing had been thefact that he had to take out his old gym bag and stuff Squijimon into it. And the third thing was the fact that Squijimon was heavy and kept moving inside the bag, shifting the weight around and making his shoulder ache evenmore.

"Will you stop moving?!" he cried out as he then covered his mouth hoping noone had heard him.

"I can't help it if I don't like being in closed areas. It starts shrinking around me and then... and then... I can't... breathe..." Squijimon said as it squealed and started gasping for air.

He looked down at the bag and then unzipped a corner of it. He could see Squijimon's little eye as it peeked out of the hole. "Thank god! I can breathe, I can see," she cried out.

"Keep it down we're entering the library," he said as he opened the door.

His mouth dropped open as he only saw a few people. "There were a lot more e-mails on that list. I am wasting a good day of studying and practicing to be here? If this meeting is so important where is everyone? Doesn't anyone care enough to come?" he asked as he sat at a small table and slammed the bag on the table. He heard a small cry and then unzipped the bag even more to see a few tentacle squiggle out trying to reach his throat.

"I am going to kill you," Squijimon said.

"Oh and this is Squijimon. In the bag," he said pointing to Squijimon.

Ignoring the fact that the question had been focused onto two other people, not himself he simple sat there, turned towards Tomeo. "Of course the legends are true," he said with a slight lite airy and sophisticated haughty attitude in his tone. "There is a past that goes farther than our parents. And each time they have completed their mission and have won. Simply put we will of course win. Why start losing now? How hard can an evil queen be? She doesn't even have a scary name. The evil digimon in Sarika's stories were never that hard to beat. Their digimon digivolved and sent one attack and BAM! the digimon was deleted, end of story," he said.

"You don't know what you are saying!" Squijimon cried out but Shuuichi ignored her.

***

Tegiwa had been to the library on many occasion. Sometimes with his mother, and other times alone. He had not spent much time around Matsuro-san though. Tegiwa had never seen other people in the library in all the years he come here. That wasn't a huge surprise since the library's contents were from Gennai's place. Most of the books were prophecies written inscrutably on vellum tomes and rice paper scrolls. The youngest of the documents was a century or more before this time.

Now, the room would soon be full of people. It was an odd feeling seeing the others. And, each of the Chosen had their Digimon along. That added to the crowded feeling.

He put his stuff down and sat in the seat nearest Shireika; his denmin jacket with the Genius artwork on the back ended up draped over the chair back. He wanted to be able to whisper to her if necessary. Also, Kaze was behind him and would want this seat were it open. He placed Robotmon on the table with the other digimon. "Yeah, guys, I'm Tegiwa your Child of Knowledge and this is my little buddy Robotmon." Tegiwa yawned. His eyes were as red as his mother's behind his purple pince-nez, if that were possible. Nightshift had slipped into morning shift without warning.

"Incorrect: I am his digimon partner. Not his little buddy. But, he ignores me. Did you guys know that? Never talks to me. Treats me like a toy."

"He complains a bit, but he doesn't have to stay in my bag as long as he acts like a toy. Yo, Robotmon, you rather be crammed in my bag?"

"No!"

"Then, bear with the situation please. You could learn to understand better."

***

Shouki managed to find the building more by luck than dead reckoning. But, once found the building, he was he was afraid this meeting might end up like a Wild Stallion's party. Apparently, Hanshin liked that sort of thing. He wasn't sure if he could face Naoko or any of the other band girls. Or, look Hanshin in the face after what he learned. He wasn't a prude or anything like that. Okay, maybe he was. Just a little bit. He still had dreams of falling in love, not falling in bed.

His feet managed to get him into the library without his realizing it. He sighed when he saw the others, but he was glad Naoko hadn't arrived yet. He felt safer. He let Kirimon out of his bag so the furball could float above the table like a cat ballon. He sat away from the others, and Kirimon glared at him.

"Hello! Konoichiwa! I am Kirimon and this quiet boy is Shouki. Please make friends with him even though he seems down. He's fine once he knows you, but he'll sulk instead of speaking first."

Shouki was turning red. "That's enough. Thanks Kirimon." Why did he get the insane motivational coach.

"I'm sorry. Was I over the line?"

"Just a little."

***

Naoko wore her black leather pants with her red thigh high boots with inch thick crepe soles; these were the ones that laced up the outside. She wore her black babydoll tee covered in a skull print and her red vinyl trench to hold off the wind.

She talked with several people on the way across campus and added three promising people to her contact list. By that time she was running late and had to run to the History complex.

Naoko felt weird here. She doubted she'd see any campus, let alone this one, anytime soon. The band came first. The band being Hanshin, of course.

"Eww. This place smells like a old man." Naoko said as the air inside the library hit her in the face.

She got control of her breathing and sat down between Shouki and Shuuichi. "Hi, everyone! I'm Hanashi Naoko. This is Suzumon"

The amethyst foil that was Suzumon slipped from her stuff and folded himself into a dog. "Woof! That's right. I hope all of you wimps are ready to kick some butt. I won't be carrying any of you!" Somehow, Suzumon had become a drill sergeant.

Naoko was ignoring her pup's speech. Instead, she had draped an arm over Shuuichi and was starting intently at his face with her big brown eyes. She looked like she was about to melt into his lap at any moment. "Hey there, I'm sorry I didn't get to meet you earlier, Shuuichi. Why don't we go somewhere together after the meeting? It might be really fun. Kyuu~~~~"

***

It took Yuu a while to find her way around the unfamiliar campus, so that even though she had left home early she was only just on time getting to the library. She peeked in; there were quite a few people already there. She recognized Hanshin immediately from the concert the previous night, as well as the bassist... Shouki, was it? Glancing around as she entered the large room, she noticed that Aishou hadn't arrived yet. She hoped she'd come, Nasake-san was really the only other person in this group she'd spoken to.

Except...

"Toyogawa-san?" It was that boy from the concert last night. So that's why he'd wanted to see Hanshin. She walked up to him, hoping she'd remembered his name right. "Wow, so you're in this too? What a coincidence!"

Then, remembering her manners, she turned to the rest of the assembly. "Ah, I'm sorry. My name is Shimakoto Yuu, it's nice to meet you all"

Just then her bag began to squirm, and she quickly opened it up to let a disheveled, feathery head pop out. "Sorry, Kuinamon" she said apologetically, "I'd nearly forgotten about you in there"

"Oh, tha's nice, so you were jus' gunna let me suffocate in there all day an-- Hoy! Other digimon!" And he squirmed his way out of the bag to go off and join his ilk, apparently forgetting all about being cross at his partner. Yuu sighed.

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