"Sort of," Shireika replied to Tomeo about sleeping well. She glared at Hanshin a little. She didn't turn back to Tomeo as she continued to talk to him. "But, otherwise, things are fine."

"Hi, Tomeo. I'm Ishida Hanshin, her twin brother," Hanshin said to Tomeo. "The silent, serious digimon is my partner Koumamon. Anyway, I suppose our family is a digi-destined family," Hanshin replied to Tomeo. He pointed to Shireika to designate who he was referring to as "we."

"Our parents were digi-destined, and so were our grandparents. I suppose being a digi-destined is in our blood, but we probably know as little as you do. Our parents weren't ones to talk about it. We're not exactly sure why, but they never spoke of it."

"And, we never asked," Shireika added. "By the time we really understood that they were digi-destined, Mom had died, and life suddenly was busy with other things. I don't know - it just never came up. We knew about it, but never asked." She shrugged a little and crossed her arms a little, watching the others arrive.

One by one, she watched them enter and sit down: Asakaye, Enma, Shuuichi, Tegiwa, Shouki, Naoko, and Yuu. She knew Kaze was on his way, hopefully, but who else was there? And Hanarei would be on her way too, she thought.

"Hey, sorry I'm late!" Aishou said as she popped into the library finally with her digimon partner in tote. "I got lost on campus. This place is huge!" She grinned sheepishly until she spotted Yuu and approached the newest student at her school. "Hey, Yuu. So, you made it."

"Let me out," Murimon demanded from inside Aishou's bag. "Now."

"Meet my partner, Murimon," Aishou said to the others shyly as she pulled out the blob of a digimon.

"Finally. First she gets lost and can't seem to understand the directions." The digimon seemed to roll his eyes as he bounced around.

Hanarei followed in soon afterwards, without a smile on her face. She one glance at Hanshin and Shireika sitting at the table in the private library and glared momentarily at the two of them. Yes, there was something about those two that would bother her endlessly, and it wasn't that they were twins.

"Hey all," she said as she pulled out Himotomon and set her on the table.

"I'm Himotomon," the in-training digimon said.

Seeing that many people had arrived, Shireika was getting bored and wanted to get going.

"Are we getting started yet, Uncle Matsuro," she asked her uncle, seeing him emerge with a pile of books. He dumped them on the table amongst the digimon.

"Watch out, guys!" he said as they landed with a thud near a couple of the digimon. "Well, is everyone here yet?" he asked as he looked around.

***

"I'm... sorry to hear that." Tomeo replied to Shireika, as he felt the tension between her and... her brother? Yes, it was, and now it had been confirmed. Tomeo smiled, added a quick "Nice to meet you.", and listened as Hanshin introduced himself and further went on to explain how little, like him, they knew about the whole digimon scenario. He bit his lip a little at Shireika's mention of their mother being dead, and felt a little surprised how she had just shared it as if it were common knowledge. "Hey, I'm... I'm sorry to hear your mother died... that must have been hard." he tried to show some empathy towards the two, but eased back from talking too much about it as others started showing up.

Tomeo looked across the room as it quickly filled up with people, some he knew and others he'd hope he'd get the time to know better. He noticed as Asayake entered the room she didn't look his way, and felt a little bit neglected. Hadn't he just made friends with her yesterday? Maybe she was just distracted and had forgot to greet him. "Hey there! No, you're not late Asayake-san. We just got started." he called out in a friendly manner to get her attention, but he wasn't sure if it had worked. He was trying to figure out if there was any obvious reason she was ignoring him that he had missed, when he was addressed to by Shuuichi and had to quickly switch his attention to him.

"Hi again... Shuuichi-san, wasn't it? Sorry, I didn't catch your last name." he first greeted him, and then listened to what he had to say. "Oh, I see... really?" he wondered, trying to focus on what his question had been, and then when he remembered he nodded in some agreement. "Well, I don't know about the whole 'winning' thing, but beating this 'dark queen' depends on if she actually exists or not, right?" he suggested, looking back towards the door for more incoming people.

Parumon was having a real field day with the types of digimon that had shown up, examining what had been produced so far. "So, I'm sure I'll eventually remember all your names, but let's see what we've got... the beautiful dragon queen that is I, Parumon; two birds, a horse-head, a squid thing, a tin robot, two furballs, two round blobs, a feather-ball and... a dog made outta tin foil?" She slinked forward in her lizard-like manner to examine Suzumon better, and made alught after hearing her speak. "Heh! That's what I like to hear! For a 'mon made out of tin foil, you sure got some spine in ya! So, does anyone of you think we'll get to hear some intel on who this 'Watcher' guy is, or this 'dark queen' floosie? Sounds pretty flakey to me... Hey!” She called out, sweeping her tail out of the way from being squashed by the books an adult human had just placed on the table. She looked up at him about to yell bloody murder at him, when she realised he wasn’t one of the digidestined. “Hey, guys – is that human with us? Who is he?” Her eyes darted around as she froze, wondering if she should hide or just pretend to be a toy of some sort.

"Hey, Shimakoto-san, right? From last night?" Tomeo grinned, spotting a familiar friendly face as she called out his name. It was funny how she had remembered him, even though they had only met briefly. "This is just more than a co-incidence I think, but it is nice to see you again, none the less."

As they were joined by another girl who greeted Yuu, he recognised he had seen her around in school and tilted his head to the side to catch Aishou’s eye. "Um, hello there! I'm Toyogawa Tomeo. It's good to see you here, I didn't know you were a digidestined, too!"

When a man Tomeo didn't recognise asked if everyone was here, Tomeo took a second glance around. There were a lot of people here, twelve in all save the strange man; not big enough for a class, but big enough for a group on it’s own. The stranger, he figured, must have been the previous 'child of Fate' that had been mentioned in Hanshin's e-mail, he assumed. What was the deal with all these attributes, like Fate, Sincerity and Knowledge? What did that have to do with all of this? Things just started to get more interesting, he considered in afterthought as he reached into his bag on the floor.

He took his mini-computer out of his tote bag and opened up his e-mail, counting the number of e-mails that had been in the list of e-mails made by the Watcher and Hanshin. “There’s thirteen of us altogether, it looks like we’re waiting on just one more person… at least, I think so…”

***

"Well, it looks like we're all here," Matsuro said as he repiled the books neatly.

"Finally," Shireika grumbled as she leaned back and crossed her arms. She looked around the table, recognizing some faces. She hoped that they would be on the same track as her and would force Hanshin from being stupid.

"So, I'm Professor Yasuragi, but you can call me Matsuro," he explained as he motioned for the digi-destined to sit down. "And, well, you're all here because you're digi-destined, guardians of this world and the universe. You keep the peace and prevent evil forces from destroying the balance of the universe." He paused. "I once was like you, the child of fate, but my crest has been passed onto my cousin's daughter Shireika. Anyway, that's beside the point. There is a history of digi-destined, especially recently, including some of your parents and relatives, and they have had the duty of keeping our world and the universe safe from powerful evil forces who threaten the balance of the universe. That is your job.

"Now, apparently, there is a possibility that someone is out to destroy this balance once again. This is all according to the Watcher, whom I don't know. When I was a digi-destined, we had a man named Gennai who lived in the Digital World. When he left us, I inherited his library of books of prophecy and history, which I'm sure will be useful to you in figuring out what's going on." He pointed at the pile on the table. "Sadly, there is little information on this dark queen that the Watcher spoke of, and I couldn't find anything on the Watcher himeself."

"So, what did you find out," Hanshin asked.

"I know about the key," Matsuro replied, opening a book up to a page he had marked.

The page was certainly newer, perhaps only thirty years old at most. In the center of the page was a picture of an unusually shaped key. It was as though someone had drawn two eight-pointed stars and placed on top of each other so the points were staggered between each other and then had punched a hole through the center of it. Small symbols were engraved on each point daintily.

"This is indeed the key that unlocks the some of the strongest powers of all in the universe," Matsuro explained as he pointed to the picture. "Its powers had belonged to a very dangerous entity, and they are currently being protected by the digi-destined." He paused, realizing that he was talking to the current group of digi-destined. "What I mean are former digi-destined. The role of protecting extreme powers, such as this one, is generally left to people who have no use for it, meaning their duties as guardians are over. This key was fragmented and then given to a group of digi-destined to hide it away from those who might abuse the power." He looked at the group of the new digi-destined. "So, it seems that the Watcher wants you to get this key. I give you the information I can, and the decision is up to you." He placed his hands on either side of the books on the table, seemingly standing guard over the information he had brought to them. "Any questions?"

***

"So...all we have to do is find this key? That sounds...way too easy." Enma shook her head, pulling at the hem of her shirt. She was keeping her eyes firmly planted on the stack of books, thinking it through. "But...you said the key was framented. Do you know if it is, still, Yasur...Matsuro-san?" She chekced herself, before making a face. "And, eh, what's with the books?" It wasn't that she hated books, it was just that she usually stayed away from them on Sundays.

***

"Hmm... so we're meant to 'protect the world and the universe from evil forces that threaten to destroy the balance'? No matter how many times I hear that, it still sounds like something I'd read out of a comic book." Tomeo said quietly, shaking his head a little in disbelief, feeling like he needed a bit of a reality check. It was only the digimon that were present before him that stopped him from thinking to himself that the whole thing wasn't real. "But, I suppose I have no choice but to believe it..."

He thought back to something he had remembered in the Watcher's second e-mail, and with it still in his hands he brought it up instantly from his inbox. "Hmm... he said, 'The only way to stop her is to unlock the greatest of all powers. Find the key, and I will show you how to break the door's seal so you can stop this queen in her tracks.' So that means... this 'key' he wants us to find is to unlock this door, to get the powers needed to defeat her..." He bit his lip as he thought for a moment, processing it all though his head until he was sure he had a good question that everyone could benefit listening to.

"Excuse me, Matsuro, I have a question." He raised his hand and waited for a moment to speak. "I'm Toyogawa Tomeo, by the way. I'm new to all this and I don't think my parents ever told me anything about being a digidestined... I don't know about 'crests' and 'powers' and such, but what did you mean exactly by there being a 'dangerous entity' that these strongest powers had belonged to? If the powers from this entity are dangerous, and this Watcher guy wants us to gather the fragments of a key to unlock a door leading to it... does anybody see where I'm going with this? Think about it. The key has been fragmented for a good reason. So by dangerous, Matsuro-sensei, did you mean that this entity was evil?"

***

"I see," Shuuichi had seemed to reply to everything with. He said it simple and bored.

He looked at Naoko. He gave a slight smile. "It could be. Why not? You seem just like what I'm looking for," he said slowly, whispering it in her ear, trying to just switch that button that would make her his.

"You may not be high class or scale anywhere that I can tell but you seem like fun," he said turning back to the meeting as people were asking questions back and forth.

"Was the entity evil? Sounds like a definite yes to me," Shuuichi said with a glare. He was getting sick of sitting there, in the smelly library with books that were of no importance to him. He wanted to get some action, work on things, and take care of competition. He had no time or life to waste sitting there and listening to some adult talk about a giant key.

"I guess let's start on those books," he said bending his fingers to make the loud cracking sound. "Do we have any idea where the key might be, or the parts of it at least? Is it here? Or in the digital world? Oh for the love of god don't say both," he said trying to make sure that they didn't have to read all of the books. "See if we find a place then we can lessen the amount of books... maybe?" he said with a little doubt in his voice.

***

"Yes, Tomeo, this dangerous entity certainly was evil at the time the key was created," Matsuro explained. "Hence, the key will still be fragmented to this day. The digi-destined who are now in charge of the fragments would not risk allowing the key to get into the hands of the wrong person."

"So, we'll have to ask those guardians for the fragments?" Hanshin asked.

"Yes, assuming they'll just give it to you," Matsuro replied.

"Like they would ever do that," Shireika mumbled about her brother.

Matsuro slid the pile of books towards himself to pick them up.

"The books were from research I had done on the dark queen and the Watcher," he explained to Enma. "I didn't find any." Carefully, he lifted up the pile. "I'll be putting these away if you need me. You guys have things to discuss." He turned away and headed into the back part of the private library.

"So, I think this Watcher guy is full of crap," Shireika said to start things off.

"Shireika!" Hanshin protested.

"What?" she replied. "You believe this guy? Okay, so threat to the universe could possibly happen, but would you trust someone you've never met before? I'm sorry. This all seems just a bit shady to me. We've never met him, and all he does is email us with cryptic messages." She paused. "I can believe that we're digi-destined and that we have digimon partners. That's a little hard not to believe, considering they're here. It's the Watcher that I don't like. We don't know anything about him. He could be pulling our strings for his own agenda, a dangerous agenda that involves the key to this great power. He could be using us."

"But, he was right that we were digi-destined."

"So?"

"If he knew we were digi-destined, he might be the replacement for Gennai. He might actually be associated with the Fates. And, he might just be right about the fact that there is the threat of a dark queen and that we need to get this key to stop her. Who knows when she could show up. Better to prepared, don't you think so?"

"But, should we even be trusting this guy in the first place?" Hanarei asked Hanshin. She, like Shireika, didn't like that they had never met the Watcher before and that they were now to suddenly believe his word, which came through an email. "Like she said, he could be trying to get the key for himself."

"And what if he actually is trying to help us?" Hanshin asked, returning Shireika's glare. "What if this queen suddenly shows up and destroys all, just like the Watcher said?"

Aishou had been listening to them. Shireika, Hanshin, and Hanarei were all saying good points, and she wasn't sure what to believe yet.

***

Asayake furrowed her brow, staring at Shireika and Hanshin as they bickered. what did she think of all this, then? Was the Watcher genuine, or just trying to get them to do his... her... its diry work? She really wasn't sure. On the one hand, Shireika made a very good point; the Watcher could just be a power-hungry idiot, bent on world domination or something like that, however cliche it sounded. Besides, it creeeped her out when she got the Watcher's email. How had the digivice gotten into her room, anyhow? How had Rogishimon, for that matter? It really didn't make sense.

However, there was still the other factor; this dark queen person. What if she was real? What if she really wanted to destroy the universe, or something like that, and they weren't prepared with this key thing? Or, what if she and the Watcher were working together to obtain the key, and THEN rule the world, destroy the world, or whatever they chose to do? It was a very confusing train of thought, and Asayake could feel her eyes crossing. Giving her head a brisk shake, she pulled Rogishimon from her sholder, holding the little bird out in front of her.

"What do you think, Rogishimon? About the Watcher and all that?"

"I'd like to believe he was telling the truth," Rogishimon said, blinking, "But I'd also like to believe he wasn't; if he wasn't, the Dark Queen lady wouldn't be coming to destroy us. But if he wasn't telling the truth, I'm not really sure why we digimon were sent here."

"That's... a good point." Asayake said, putting Rogishimon back on her shoulder. The little bird cooed softly with her own thoughts. Asayake chose to remain in silent contemplation for the time being, so she wouldn't go shoving her foot down her throat.

***

Kaze snickered as he listened to the whole conversation. "Well Tomeo, I'm glad you've grasped the concept of good and evil." he walked a little closer to the group in general, as he was leaning against the wall, silent up until then.

"And duh, obviously she'd dangerous, if we have to do her in, or whatever that guy wants us to do..." he yawned, as if the whole situation bored him.

"Oh, and have any of you heard that sometimes dark forces tell us truths to blind us?" he thought for a second. "No, that's not how it goes, but it's a line in Macbeth. Of course this watcher guy is going to tell us some truth. Obvious truth. So, then he can gain our trust. Then, because we think he's right about everything because he was right about us being digidestined... he gets us to do his dirty work." Kaze shook his head.

"No thanks. You can go run around doing this Watcher's dirty work. But I'd much rather figure out how to defeat this queen on our own... and find out what the real deal with this Watcher is." Kaze rubbed his arm, where it was sore from doing pushups the night before. Then he glanced quickly at Enma, before looking away. "But I suppose some of you are used to being traitors, ne?"

***

Enma visibly bristled at Kaze's comment, but ignored him, looking pointedly at a spot on the table. "The correct quote is 'and oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths.' It's said by Banquo in Act One, if anyone could remember anything from Literature last year. Of course, I was the one who did the studying for that, so you wouldn't know it, would you?" She muttered, sending a seering glare in the boy's direction. Intense brown eyes turned back to the rest of the group, , and she composed herself as easily as possible. Kaze would never get it through his thick head that he had been rejected without her helping the matter along at all, so why should she even bother with him anymore? The more mature part of the girl's brain argued that all friendships had their speedbumps, but she squashed those thoughts. "I think the Watcher is probably trying to win our trust, but if he is our enemy, we should at least pretend to trust him; give him or her a false sense of security. What's that old saying, 'keep your friends close, but you're enemies closer'? We should trust him to a point, then guard ourselves. But we shouldn't ignore his help and warnings straight out; they could help us in the long-term."

***

"Exactly my thinking," Hanshin said in agreement with Enma. "After all, the worst we could do is prepare ourselves for nothing. As I said, better to be prepared than not at all."

"And what if that's exactly what the Watcher wants us to do?" Shireika demanded. "You have heard of the foot-in-the-door concept, haven't you?" She didn't wait for Hanshin to reply. "Don't answer. He'll get you to do little things first, and then he'll work his wait into your trust so you'll be more willing to do bigger and more dangerous things later. He'll get you to find each of those little fragments that are under the guard of former digi-destined, and then he'll get you to do something else."

"And, then we'll be prepared for a dark queen if she does in fact show up. Besides, it's our duty to be prepared for the threat of danger."

"But, why do we even need that key. Why do we even need to follow the directions of the Watcher?"

"Because, who else do we have to turn to. Uncle Matsuro doesn't know what's going on anymore. The Fates don't communicate with him. They don't communicate with Dad, do they?"

"What are you getting at, Hanshin?" Hanarei demanded. The boy didn't know how to just say what he wanted, did he?

"Who else are we supposed to follow?" he asked the others, looking around. He turned specifically towards Shireika, his arguments directed right at her. "I know you think I don't pay attention, but I do remember Mom and Dad talking about a man named Gennai, and it sounded like they really looked towards him. He did give Uncle Matsuro all these books. He was their sort of guidance counselor, if you could call him that. The digi-destined turned to him for advice on what to do, to get information and to figure out what really was going on. Well, Gennai's not around anymore."

"Then maybe they don't need us anymore," Shireika retaliated.

"These things are here. Doesn't that mean anything?" Hanshin demanded as he stood up and tossed Alatusmon towards Shireika.

"Hey!" Alatusmon yelped as Shireika caught him.

"He's right. Who else are we supposed to listen to?" Aishou said, putting in her word. "After all, the Watcher came to us. If that Gennai person isn't around anymore, then maybe we're supposed to listen to the Watcher now."

"But, we have nothing to confirm that," Hanarei replied harshly.

***

Yuu shifted uncomfortably. In all this disputing, she really didn't know what to do. For her part, she mostly agreed with Hanshin his side of it; she wanted to give the Watcher the benefit of the doubt, at least until they really knew whether or not his intentions were malicious. Still, she could see where the other side was coming from, and didn't want to have to argue with them about it. So she just stayed silent for the moment, wishing that they could to some sort of accord. She was beginning to wonder whether or not this meeting was a good idea, and it was showing on her face.

***

Tomeo wasn't sure if the new boy that had just arrived, Kaze, was being sarcastic to him or not; but he gave him the benefit of the doubt and took it as a compliment.

"Those are all some pretty good ideas," Tomeo spoke up again after Hanshin had finished, "It seems like it a matter of thinking with your heart over your head. I would like to think with my heart and go ahead to save the world and all that, but the reality is that in this world today people can be decieving, let's face it. On the other hand, I can understand that unless we can see what we're up against, we'll have nothing to protect ourselves with but this power we have to unlock. We just don't know enough yet. I don't think we should go leaping off into the unknown without knowing the facts first."

"You know what I think we should do?" Parumon jumped in, straight after Tomeo had spoken. "I think we should bide our time with this one. We collect the fragments of this key or whatever, and in the meantime we gather as much information as we can before we bring the fragments together. Then we can nail the creep who's behind this! That's the smart way to do it."

"I just had a thought," Tomeo went on, nodding in recognition of Parumon's idea. "What if we don't need this Watcher guy as a leader, or anyone else for that matter? I don't know who this 'Gennai' guy is, but if the Watcher is meant to replace him, then what happened to Gennai? What if the Watcher got rid of Gennai to take over his position of power and abuse it? I don't like the idea of unleashing this evil power, especially if someone knows about it and wants to use it for their own twisted means. We should decide what happens together, not have someone else we've never met before tell us what to do. I'm not saying the Watcher is evil, but right now he's less convincing to me than any other stranger out there. I mean, what do we know about him apart from what's he's sent us in his e-mails? Nothing. I mean, he could be anybody!" Strands of his black hair fell across his green eyes, and he brushed them back behind his ear as he looked around the room at everybody individually. "I mean, am I right?"

***

Tegiwa shook his head. "Even if we could trust the Watcher, we can't be sure the emails are his or the instructions are his. Anyone powerful with bad intent could address an anonymous email to us with bogus directions. I suggest we take Watcher-spam with a large grain of salt, guys. If this guy wants our help then he can meet us on our terms. At least Gennai would'da invited us over for tea.

"Let's look into this thing before we decide who to trust. right?"

Tegiwa was acting cool, but the idea of getting parts of a door from their parents in order to open a door to humongus power sounded very bogus. Once they opened the door would they get the power? Would the Watcher take it? Would it simply return to someone like the Dark Master--who was defeated by their parents? Would the so called queen try to take it?

No, the power was best left sealed for now. He shot a wary and fearfull look to Shireika when Hanshin started tossed Altismon round. He knew Hanshin craved power, but never like this.

***

Naoko squeezed Shuuichi thigh under the table and gave him her best: Have me tonight look she could manage in Hanshins presence. Shuuichi stirred something in her. If Hanshin hadn't been there then she would have spent the meeting under the table giving him some pleasure with a personal touch.

Instead, she merely took the minutes of the meeting, and took special note of those opposed to Hanshin.

***

Shouki felt more lost than ever. He never understood the digimon thing to begin with, and hadn't considered the watcher would be a point of contention. Now, it looked like Hanshin was losing it with Sheireika. He did not like her negitive attitude. No wonder Hanshin was stressed out.

"Look, we are supposed to fight evil. The watcher gave us all these things to help us, and wants to make us stronger. That sounds like what the guardians are supposed to do. We might as well....." His confidence sunk again while his voice trailed of into ambiguity. He was used to being quiet. But, this lit a fire under him.

***

"We might as well listen to the Watcher. Who else do we have?" Hanshin asked the others, ignoring Shireika's piercing glare across the room. "Yes, it's a big risk, but it could have a huge reward. We could stop the pending doom of our own destruction. We could save our world and the universe from complete meltdown." He paused. "Big risks will have big rewards."

"And big risks can also have big punishments," Shireika replied. "I hate to sound negative, but jumping into this without knowing anything about the Watcher is foolish on our part. We know nothing about him."

"Which leaves it in the open. He could either bad or good." He tried to emphasize "good" in his statement. "Look, we take a big risk, but the reward of it could be absolutely huge. We could be saving the world from a dark queen who wishes to destroy all. Besides, what exactly do we have to lose? If we were to find the key, then we would have it. If the Watcher could get the key himself and had the power to, he would have done it by now. So even if he was out for the key and the power, we could keep it from him."

He looked around, hoping the others agreed with him.

"The Watcher has no power over us. Doing what he says doesn't mean we're going to everything for him," he continued. "He's simply providing us information, and we're going to use it however we want to."

"You really just want that power for yourself," Shireika interrupted. "Don't you?"

"Where the hell is that coming from?" Hanshin demanded.

"You just want power," Shireika restated as she stood up at the table. "Isn't that right?" She placed her hands on the table as she looked towards her twin brother.

"Fuck off. You just want to argue with me because you can't stand me."

"You're right that I can't stand you, but I wouldn't be damn foolish enough to follow directions of some guy who emailed me about being a digi-destined."

"We're not following him."

"He'll lure you in bit by bit."

"And you just love to prove how stupid I can be. I'm not as stupid as you think I am, Shireika, even though I don't care about my schoolwork."

Shireika and Hanshin glared at each other from across the table.

"I still keep my opinion: we don't find the key," Shireika said. "We don't listen to the Watcher, and we do things when the time comes. No use in getting ourselves involved in something without the right knowledge and without the right people to guide us through it."

"Fine, and I still believe that we should listen to the Watcher. We don't have anything to lose, and we have everything to gain. We could protect the world from protential destruction, and, like Shouki said, that's our duty," Hanshin replied.

"So, how are things going?" Matsuro asked as he interrupted the fight that had begun. "So, what's the conclusion, if any?" He looked around. He knew his cousin's children well enough that it wasn't a good idea to have them answer questions like this. He figured the two had started up another debate with completely different opinions. It was so strange that the two had become so drastically different in the course of less than ten years, when they had been so close when they were much younger. "Well?" He looked at the others sitting at the table, hoping the others would answer before Shireka and Hanshin would. If either did, they would never get out of here. At least, Shireika and Hanshin could continue their debate at home away from the others to keep them out of it, but Matsuro feared that it might be a little to late to keep the other digi-destined out of the crossfire.

***

"I'd rather follow the Watcher. What else or who else is there to follow?" Shuuichi said as he gave a small quiver from when Naoko squeezed his thigh. He smiled and smirked at the same time.

"So what or who will you follow and get advice and instructions from? Yu have the digivice and the digimon so that means you're stuck in fighting and protecting, with or without the follower. But what will you do when it comes to the fight or it comes to how to save the world. Will you just use your 'natural instinct' and use that 'sixth sense' to find the key and to find the way to save the world?" he said leaning back a little in his chair.

"Honestly you will be going blind into fights with no help or advice. And what about the idea of Gennai being gone, dead, deceased. What if the Watcher is a relative or maybe Gennai in disguise?" he finished.

***

"Namu Amida Butsu.....I think the power is something we all want even if I means losing all that we have for the chance. Am I wrong? We each would likke that power for ourselves. But, if the key lay in the hands of the guardians before us, why would they give the parts to a divided group like us? Why have they not forked these things over? We are their childern in most cases. You'd think they'd be in on the watchers plans, right? The whole think stinks because our parents worked in the light, and they worked with each other despite their differences. Can't we calm down for a second and maybe plan to find this watche guy. He could provide many answers. And then we could deciced if his he trustworthy."

Tegiwa's speech fell on deaf ears. The breakdown has begun. The lines drawn. It was the beginning of the death of friendships. Namu Amida Butsu...... Possibly death for them all.

***

Naoko continued to boldly stroke Shuuichi's Thigh region. Her sensitive fingers told her she was right to be interested in the one. His self assured attitude was no act for her pov. Yes, after the meeting she'd have to treat him to a nice hotel she knew of, the unquestioning kind.

"Looks like the sides are close to even. I can't believe you idiots won't listen to Hanshin. He's right. There may not be a better time to grab the power. The queen could be her already. She'd be stupid to just attack randomly. She'll have a plan."

***

Shouki flushed a bit when Hanshin mentioned him. Was this really such a good idea? He wasn't normally brave. But, the need to fight for a good cause was swelling inside him. He felt its what his sister would do.

"Guys, I know we have our differences. Can we possibly put them aside to focus on the areas we argree? Weren't the former digi's a team? Maybe we could be two teams, but work toward a bigger goal? I know I'll follow Hanshin before any Watcher. Shireika has her group. So, if we just work at common goals differenaly....." He stoped buying his own meassage at this point.

***

Enma watched the ensueing fight between Shireika and Hanshin as if she were watching a tennis match. The fight between the twins was ten times worse than any fight she had ever had with Nishi, and that was saying something. She sighed, and turned to Matsuro, an eyebrow raised.

"I'm not sure, since I'm not great with following fights even if I'm in them enough, but I think we've agreed to disagree. At least, I hope that's what we've agreed on..." she looked around the room, ignoring the spot Kaze was standing in completely. "What d'you guys think?"

***

Asayake let the realities Shireika's and Hanshin's opinions settle over her, taking in the good and the bad of each one. After some thought, she pulled Roghishimon from her shoulder and settled the bird into her lap, stroking her feathers abesently. "The Watcher seems kind of like a stalker," She said, feeling a shiver run up her spine, "I mean, it knows who we are, and it obviously knew enough about where we live and go to school to send us our Digimon, but we know nothing at all about the Watcher ourselves. Hell, I have to call the Watcher an it because I have no clue what gender it is. I realize that if it's telling the truth, and some Dark Queen DOES come down to wreak havoc on us, that we'd be toast if we didn't believe, but what would happen if we became the Wathcer's tools? If we find the pieces of this key, we'd be the most powerful living things in the known universe, but we don't know what else this key or the Watcher can do. What if the Watcher ends up manipulating us, using us for its own purposes, and we're powerless to stop it? What if the Watcher is in league with the Dark Queen person, and we give ourselves twice as much to die by by giving the Watcher the key? The Watcher didn't even tell the digimon that it sent to us what the plans were for the key. There's just not enough to prove that we're not being duped.

"For now, I don't trust the Watcher at all. When I see some evidence, or by some fluke of existance the Watcher manages to tell us enough to make sense, I might change my mind about him. Until then, I agree with Shireika; The Watcher can do its own dirty work. I refuse to be the little puppet of a twisted fuck."

Rogishimon stared up at her partner for a while, before nodding. "I agree with Shireika, too. I don't want to be a puppet either."

***

"Okay everyone, let's settle down." Tomeo reasoned, sitting up in his seat and putting his hands on the table. He, too, could feel the meeting was turning into a hostile debate. "I'm not saying your personal differences towards each other are unimportant. If you're going to swear and make accusations, leave them at home, because we're discussing the safety of our world as we know it. We can't let personal issues influence our way of thinking, not when our world could be in danger. So, just chill."

He looked over towards Shouki and Enma. The group was already divided on a course of action, and it was no longer important to try to win over everybody to follow one decision. "Shouki and Enma are right. Just because we have different ideas and opinions doesn't mean we have to work against each other. Maybe we can agree to go with Shouki's idea, and divide ourselves into teams. One team can hang back and find out about this Watcher guy, and the others could go ahead and try to find these fragments of the key. If we're lucky, maybe one of the two groups might find out a little more about what - or who - we're up against, or even flush this Watcher out of hiding. But we should agree not to assemble this key into a whole and unleash the power without everyone present. Agreed?" he suggested openly, looking around the table.

***

Yuu finally got up the nerve to speak. "I think Toyogawa-san has a good point. We'll find out more if we split into teams and both go by our own notions than if we only wait around bantering. Can't we just agree to disagree?" She sounded almost pleading. It was only her third day in here in Tokyo, she didn't want any of her new friends to suddenly become adversaries.

***

"Agree to disagree?" Shireika and Hanshin both asked at the same time, while looking around at the others who suggested the idea.

"What kind of compromise is that?" Hanshin demanded.

Both Hanshin and Shireika had inherited one similar trait from their mother and that was their endless stubborness. Once they had an opinion, it took a lot more than a debate to convince them of otherwise. More of than not, the two would battle it out until the end of the universe, and they refused to ever agree to disagree. That was like backing, and that was one thing an Ishida never did - never.

"I refuse to let any of us believe that any of this is a good idea," Shireika said. She whirled around to look at Tegiwa, pointing a finger at him. "You, of all people. I thought you agreed with me that this was a bad idea." She turned back to the table, hands slamming on the table top. "Are you guys so foolish? We know nothing about the Watcher! He may have bits and pieces of information to provide for us, but we have never met him! Searching for that key could get us into a lot more trouble than we want."

"And this is all because you can't trust me, right, Shireika?" Hanshin interrupted.

"All I'm saying is that something is fishy about this. We don't know who the Watcher is. We've never met the Watcher. And suddenly, we're supposed to find this key because he says it's the only way to stop this dark queen. How do we even know that's true? How do we even know that searching for this key is going to be safe? Even though some of the digi-destined are protecting it, that doesn't mean it's exactly a good idea."

"Have a little faith Shireika. You are the child of fate."

"Shut up."

"You should be the one to believe that things happen for a reason. You should be the one to believe that prophecies come true."

"Fuck off, Hanshin." She looked around the group. "Split up and find out information separately? Are you guys crazy?"

"I agree. This is all just a bit suspicious. Even though we may be digi-destined, I find it a little senseless to just listen to the Watcher," Hanarei added.

"And we could be risking the safety of the universe," Hanshin retorted angrily.

"Well then, I guess either plan would put the universe in danger. Going after the key or not going after the key," Shireika replied.

"Okay, okay, okay," Matsuro finally interrupted. He squeezed between two of the digi-destined and waved a hand a little to get Shireika and Hanshin to stop fighting. "Look, this doesn't seem to be an urgent matter." He looked towards his cousin's children, seeing that the two were completely focused on each other. Were it not for the table in between them and for the audience, the two might have started a fist fight. He looked at the others, seemingly trying to talk to them more than Hanshin and Shireika. "Let's do this. It seems that right now, we're not going to come to any conclusion." He nodded a little towards the angry fraternal twins, signalling that those two would never stop arguing today. "So, let's break the discussion for now and come back next Saturday evening to rediscuss this. In the meantime," he said before either Shireika or Hanshin could interrupt, "talk with each other in smaller groups to decide on what to do. Give yourselves time to consider this situation. Consider your options and the pros and cons of each one. This apparently is no easy matter. All right?" He didn't wait for a response. "Good. I'll see you guys here next Saturday."

"Fine," Shireika and Hanshin said at the same time.

"See you later," Shireika said as she glared at her twin brother. She grabbed Alatusmon and her bag before she left the private library.

As she walked out of the library, she felt like she was going to scream. How could her brother be so foolish as to trust the Watcher? How coule he believe that the Watcher was actually trying to help them? And how dare he accuse her of not believing in prophecy? She did, but she also knew that humans the will to change destiny.

***

Back in the private library, Hanshin had sat back down. He took a deep breath. His sister was something all right. She was more stubborn than their mother and father put together, and he wasn't much help to her nature with his own stubbornness. He just believed in the Watcher.

This felt so similar to the day that Shireika announced to him that she would stop taking music lessons to focus on her athletics. He felt like she was fighting against him and who he was just because she could. He had tried to fight to get her to take music again, but that did nothing. She wanted to play sports, and that was it. Now, she didn't want to follow the Watcher, and that was going to be it. It was as though she did everything just to argue with him, but he knew that she was not the only one at fault. He had done some things wrong too, but it pained him that she couldn't see it from his perspective. He wanted to be a musician. He didn't care for academics or anything else. And, now, he wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to do what his duty was as the child of light.

He rubbed his temples a little and sighed.

This was going to be something to work out with Shireika, if it ever could be. He hoped that by Saturday she would be willing to find the key and listen to the Watcher. He somehow felt that it was their duty to. They had no one else to trust.

***

Shireika stormed down the hallway of the humanities building where Matsuro's private library was. She couldn't believe that her own brother had fallen for possible trap the Watcher was creating.

"Shireika, you didn't need to get so mad," Alatusmon sputtered as Shireika marched down the stairs in the building as fast as she could. "Hanshin only was expressing what he believed."

"And the idiot boy needs to realize when he's being stupid. Following the commands of the Watcher is foolish. We've never met the guy before, and we don't know what he's really up to," Shireika explained. "Searching for this key could potentially be dangerous. We don't know the Watcher's motives."

So, maybe she was a tad too suspicious of other people, and perhaps she was too negative, but it was her opinion. She was the realist compared to her dreamer of a twin brother, which really didn't mean much. She and brother just never agreed on much, perhaps nothing at all. She just didn't want her brother pulling others into a possibly dangerous situation. He already did enough with his clout as the Wild Stallions lead singer.

***

"Well, I guess I'll be off. There's nothing else to discuss, is there?" Hanarei asked as she looked at the others, specifically Hanshin. She hoped the others would realize that following the Watcher was too great a risk to take without enough information. Besides, she didn't like Hanshin's guts either, more so than she disliked Shireika. Shireika was the lesser of two evils, and Shireika's opinions seemed to make more sense, even if they seemed a bit pessimistic. "Until Saturday." She held a hand up and waved a little as she left the room.

***

The meeting hadn't gone as well as Hanshin had hoped it would have gone. Actually, it was far worse than he had hoped. It frustrated him that his own twin sister perpetually argued with him on everything and that she would never listen to him. He wasn't entirely stupid, nor was he completely in the ozone when it came to serious matters.

But his differing values had changed everything between their relationship. The moment he began cutting off his other commitments for his band and music, Shireika began cutting her ties to him. Perhaps they just had nothing in common anymore. Perhaps they just couldn't possibly understand each other.

Though, he felt that there was something beyond all of this that he couldn't put his finger on.

He felt badly that they had fought again, but he truly believed that the Watcher was someone they could trust. What else were to they to do but trust him? Yes, the thought of saving the universe was definitely a nice bonus, perhaps something that was extremely important to some degree. He didn't mind the idea that he would be everyone's savior, but if there was indeed a dark queen coming to their world, he knew it was his job to protect Earth.

"I'm sorry about your sister," Aishou said to Hanshin. "And how you two argue. I wouldn't know exactly what it is like, but I can see how much it hurts you that you constantly disagree."

"More like fight," Hanshin corrected. "She's always like that around me, no matter the situation. We always argue about everything." He looked towards the people he knew best in the room. "Right?"

***

Tegiwa had turned a bit red at Shireika's rebuff. When she wasn't listening to her brother, she seemed to tune everyone else out as well. /Of course, I back you Shireika. I always will, but I will also keep you from running into a wall when I can. You are my best friend, but I believe in you because you are doing the right things. Mostly./ He walked beside her in silence as they left. After they were out of earshot, he cleared his throat.

"Shireika, I think we will soon have two problems: 1) that Watcher who knows far too much about us to ignore. And, 2) Hanshin. No way does he need to get that key. It's only a matter of time before he goes after it---alone even.

"Two, seems to be growing more important. Let's keep an eye on Hanshin for a while."

***

Naoko grabbed Shuuichi's arm. "C'mon handsome, lets go to Shinjuku and have some fun! I know lots of fun places."

She couldn't understand why people weren't with Hanshin. His plan was simple and direct. It's too bad Shireika was his sister. Hanshin had very persausive means with girls.

She glanced back at Shouchi who wouldn't look her in the face. She felt sad. Mainly for him.

***

Shouki watched as Naoko wound herself around the stuckup Shuuichi like she was his pet. He didn't understand her, her motives, or her appetites. She was a strange girl. He pitied her. He wondered if she could understand friendship.

He was also lost by the behavior of the other digi's. A simple compromise would have solved everything, but everyone had to enjoy egging on the fight between the twins. He felt they could never work to together.

***

"Wow, and I thought my sister and I fight," Shuuichi said after the whole fight. "I guess growing up does that to people," he said standing up.

"Something fun sounds just right after this argument," he said smiling as he began to walk out of the room but he noticed her stealing a glance at someone. "Miss Naoko? Is something wrong?" he asked looking at Shouki but he wasn't finding a connection or anything. "Naoko?" he asked again as he began to pull her away from the library.

***

Enma looked over toward Hanshin after the fight had diminished. "I know how you feel, kind of; my older sister and I have never gotten along, though, so it's probably very different. She's a lot like my mother, and I'm...the anomaly of the family, really." She took a piece of red hair and twisted it around her finger. The library was slowly emptying, and she looked up at the clock; she made a face. "My brother will be here any minute to pick me up and take me to his apartment to help out with his work-load, so I guess I'll see you all at school?" She waved mildly, but as she neared the wall, Mitikomomon in hand, she glared at Kaze and stopped in front of him. "We need to talk." She said blandly; she had no intention of starting another fight, but she wanted to make sure that the rift in their own friendship wouldn't slant their viewpoints on the twins' opinions.

***

Asayake kneaded at her temples as she attempted to take in the point to the meeting. It seemed they hadn't really accomplished anything at all; they were divided. It would've been easier if she could trust the Watcher, but she knew better than that; she'd been duped before, and she wasn't about to let it happen again. If only the Watcher would give them more information, a way to contact him... her... whatever! Anything would've helped. She wanted to believe that he was telling the truth, but the little nagging voice in the back of her head told her it was too fishy. Just the fact that a talking tropical bird, one who could think for herself, ask questions and make decisions, was sitting on her shoulder made the entire thing seem very surreal. Perhaps by next Saturday, they'd have more information; something to go on, or even an appearance from the Dark Queen. That way they could at least validate one protion of the Watcher's story.

"That all seemed rather pointless," she mused quietly, leaning back against a bookshelf, "We were meant to ask Matsuro-san about the key, but I don't think we managed to do more than confirm it's existance, if that."

"Should we go home, too, 'Sayake?" Rogishimon cooed softly, nibbling at one of the girl's braids.

"Nah," replied Asayake, snatching the braid from the bird's beak, "Mama and Papa won't be home until later on tonight anyhow. Mama said she was bringing back some take-out from Villa Italiana, though. You'll like it; it's a little restaurant run by an old Italian man. His japanese isn't very good, but his food is absolutely delicious. He makes really good bread, too. Yummy."

"Is he from Italian?"

"It's called Italy, but yes. He's Italian."

"So... He's an Italian from Italy?" Rogishimon looked rather lost.

"Yes. I'm Japanese, from Japan."

"Oh! I think I get it. So I'd be... What would I be?"

"Odd?" Asayake suggested, and Rogishimon puffed up considerably.

"'Sayake, you know that's not what I asked."

"I know." she said, smiling at the bird on her shoulder. She happened to glance over at Tomeo, and instantly felt a slight tinge to her cheeks. She tried to cover it up by coughing, but only managed to knock Rogishimon into her lap.

"Ooow, Asayakeeee!" She hooted, looking quite put-out.

"Sorry, um, frog in my throat." She picked the little creature up, cradling her in her arms. "Can you be still?"

"Why?"

"That way, you won't have to go in my bag. But no moving, and no noise!" Asayake said, wagging a finger."

"Okay~!"

She smiled; the little digimon could be absolutely adorable when she wasn't being haughty. Sudden;y, her thoughts drifted. She really hoped Tomeo didn't think she's been ignoring him. She'd been trying to, maybe, but that was only because she was slightly embarassed. It seemed rather stupid now, though. She walked over to him, scratching the back of her neck. "Um... Tomeo?" she asked, trying not to look directly at him, "I, um... don't want you to think I was... ignoring you, or something. Because I didn't mean to, if that's what you thought. I just - I mean... Can I make it up to you somehow, or something? I feel kinda bad about yesterday."

When she realized that what she had said barely made sense, as she'd jumped all over the place in her thought process, she felt her ears tingle, but held back the rest of the blush in her cheeks. At least, she hoped she had.

***

Parumon watched as Shireika stormed out of the room, followed by several others, and waved goodbye to them and their respective digi-partners. 'I admire Shireika for sticking to her guns, but she needs to take a chill pill. We're never going to sort any of this out divided...' she thought to herself, and slinked over the table towards where Tomeo was sitting.

Tomeo wasn't sure what to think - he'd been hoping to come to this meeting to shed a little light on the events leading up to this, especially about the former digidestined, but it had only made him even more confused, if anything. The whole meeting seemed to be focused on Shireika and Hanshin who had the strongest hold on their opinions, and until the two could tolerate the idea of working together, the digidestined as a group wasn't going to function well. He only hoped that the argument between the two hadn't influenced the other digidestined to take sides and therefore, pull the entire group apart.

He was still in this state of mind, eyebrows furrowed and arms crossed as he lay back in his chair deep in thought, when Asayake called his name. He looked up and suddenly brought a smile to his face, reminding himself that there was no need to take himself seriously any further as he looked at his friend.

"Huh? No, of course I didn't think..." he started to say, but caught himself speaking a half-truth and didn't entirely notice the blush in her cheeks. "Well, to be honest I did think that at one point, but I just thought that it must have been 'cause you were tired, or something. You know how it is."

He stood up and stretched his arms over his head, feeling a little sore from sitting down for so long, and then folded his hands behind his head. "This whole meeting has kinda tensed me out. Tell you what - you don't have to make anything up to me at all, but if you still feel like you do, how about we both go take the digi's out for some ice cream, or something? Ice cream always cheers me up."

Parumon looked up, interest in her eyes. "Did you say ice cream? You mean you guys have ice cream in this world, too? Sweet!"

"Yeah, sure we do. C'mon, hop in the bag and we'll go get some." He straddled his tote bag level with the table, allowing Parumon to bound across to the table's edge and drop into it. After zipping it up, he gestured Asayake to walk with him. "After you, ladies first.... that is, if we can find our way out of here easier than I did when I got here... this place is so confusing." he smiled, zipping his tote bag up as he waved goodbye silently to everyone still present in the room.

***

“Sorry, Shuu-anata. I was lost in thought. The argument got to me and I’d like to get out of here.” She was glad when he took her in hand. She needed to relax.

Naoko allowed herself to be pulled along by Shuuichi, and even faintly attempted a struggle against his pull while smiling and the time. But, as soon as Hanshin was out of sight, she pulled him back into her arms and kissed him. “Like I said, I know a place where we can get to know each other in more private surroundings. I’ll even treat this time because you look like you are a guy worth…knowing.” She looked at the handsome youth and a fire was kindled. He was prime boy meat and she wanted to sample some.

***

“I suppose all that, really, means you agree with me then? Watch you brother and watch out for the watcher?” He figured that’s what all that meant. “I s’ppose you can get home alright without killing your bro, or getting your self killed. I should go find my own bro” He hoped she made it to “the” car or Matsuro’s. If she rode with her pain of a brother, there would be bloodshed—but not hers. If she took public transport then she might get hurt, and Tegiwa would hate himself for not coming with her.

He wiped his mop of straw hair away from his face and set off in search of Kaze. “If the boy accidentally learns something in there, he’ll be intolerable for weeks. Well, I guess it might count as a miracle.” Tegiwa felt now was a good time for miracles.

***

Just when Shouki felt he had a grasp on the digimon thing, even though it was a tentative one, This meeting had to go and get him all confused. Or rather, get the others confused. He knew who he would stand by. Hanshin might have his flaws, but Shireika was a contrary upstart. Shouki knew he had to work on the others bit by bit, to get them to work together without Shireika’s blessing.

Shouki wondered about himself too. What would his sister do? His fingers found the prayer beads by route, and there smooth surface comforted him. Upon reflection, he figured she’d never get herself into this situation to start. Besides, people listened to her and looked up to her. She was the quiet leader that people followed because they felt safe around her. She never had to argue people the way these twins bickered with each other.

He felt far from Hikaru now. Would he ever live up to being like her?

He waved weakly to the departing digi’s, and wondered what he should do next.

***

The meeting had adjourned, and Yuu was left feeling more uncertain than ever. All they seemed to have accomplished was to create a rift within themselves, and that was the last thing any of them needed. Although, as she watched Shireika leave the library, and her brother, in a huff, she couldn't help but feel sad for them. Siblings shouldn't be so torn apart as they seemed to be.

After sitting quietly in thought for a little while listening to the others still in the room, she noticed that Toyogawa-san was leaving and gave him a friendly wave back. Just then, the boy sitting nearest to her caught her attention. It was the bassist from last night, Shouki. He looked so pensive... and she noticed him fingering something in his hand. Curious, she leaned over a bit to get a better look.

"Prayer beads...?"

Yuu pinkened a little as she noticed that not only had she observed this out loud, but also that she was being quite rude to stare.

"Ah, um, I'm sorry" she apologized lamely. "I was just... wondering" She felt very sheepish.

***

"I've got my own ride," Shireika said waving her car keys in Tegiwa's face as they stood inside the building on the first floor. "Don't worry. I wouldn't dare get a ride from Hanshin." She took in a deep breath. "For a number of reasons, including his stupidity. I can't believe that he trusts the Watcher enough to believe the guy!" A familiar anger and frustration seemed to come over her. "Mother never would have done that - follow some stranger." She threw her hands up in the air. "Hanshin's just power hungry, as he always his. Always trying to prove his worth to everyone." She paused. "No, he's out to prove that he's better than me." She shook her head and sighed. "I wouldn't worry about Kaze. I doubt he'd pick a fight anything along the lines of what Hanshin and I do. Besides, he wouldn't leave our side because, well, we know why."

Kaze was crazy, and that was all that she could say. The boy was a creepy little stalker sometimes, especially with his constant searching through her bags. Just a tad creepy. She didn't mind the fan club sometimes, but it sometimes got to the point where it was just a little much.

***

Hanshin watched the others leave after Shireika had in quite a hurry.

"Shireika's got quite the temper, doesn't she?" Matsuro asked.

"I didn't exactly help it," Hanshin replied. "Bad idea to wake her up in the middle of the night."

"It's okay. Shireika will be who she is."

"You think she'll see things my way?"

"You know Shireika better than anyone else, even though you two fight all the time."

"That doesn't help."

"I couldn't tell you."

"I feel like she would want to do something like this. She normally would."

"She has her reasons, Hanshin, and we know how your mother was. She was one of the most stubborn women in the universe, and your father was fairly stubborn too." Matsuro paused.

"Think about things a little. Let it sit."

"Are you saying she's right?"

"Just think about it, Hanshin. Go home and do whatever you would normally do on a Sunday."

Hanshin left the private library with his digimon partner in tow.

"Don't worry about Shireika. Do what you think is right," Koumamon said to encourage Hanshin. "It is our duty to deal with any threats, whether they're true or not. We have to be prepared. We are protectors of this universe."

"I suppose." Hanshin stood at a window, seeing Shireika talking with Tegiwa outside. He was sure that she was complaining about him again to Tegiwa. Did it have to be like this, or would this have happened anyhow?

"You guys fight a lot?" Aishou asked as she joined Hanshin.

"Something like that," Hanshin replied coldly. He didn't want to talk about it really.

"I'm sorry. I really am." Aishou knew that siblings, especially twins, shouldn't be so torn apart emotionally. Their relationship was worse than any sibling rivalry could be, or any that she could imagine. Perhaps they could be this horrible, but this was her first experience of it. "So, what are you going to do?"

"I still believe we should follow the Watcher. I don't care what she thinks," Hanshin mumbled as he turned away.

"Bye," Aishou whispered as she watched Hanshin walk off. She could tell Hanshin was bothered that he and his sister were always fighting. It certainly had to be a hard situation to be in. She still wondered how it had all begun. It would be nice to see the two of them rebuild their relationship as siblings.

***

Shouki was so lost Yuu’s first statement hadn’t registered until she followed it with her hesitant question. He felt his flush just a bit as he considered ignoring her, but that wasn’t the type of person his sister would want him to be.

Shouki was still looking solemnly at the beads as he formulated his answer. “Uh, yeah… they are prayer beads.” Lame. “There are some things, uh, people I pray I never forget. These are to help me remember.” Lamer. Well, he knew he wasn’t good at socializing.

He managed to look up at her, and her name escaped him. She looked familiar from school or somewhere; he couldn’t place her. He put his hand behind his head while managing a weak smile. “I’m, uh, Houzuru Shouki. I guess we’ll all be working together when those two finally straighten things out hmm?”

“Why are you both so red? Does that mean you like each other?” said the ghostly neko-like floating by his side.

“Kirimon….uh, this is my digimon Kirimon……Kirimon…it means that this is an awkward moment for both of us. Thanks for you contribution.” Gah. Shouki didn’t know if he could take Kirimon and Naoko. Normal people seemed hard enough.

***

Tegiwa was glad Shireika would be ok, but would he be so lucky? “Kaze? Kaze!” He knew his brother far better than Shireika, and was subsequently more worried about what could happen to him when let to his own devices even briefly. He looked around the hall and the library. “Where is he?”

He saw Yuu and Shouki still sitting in the library. “Which way did Kaze go, guys?”

***

Naoko enjoyed having Shuuichi next to her. He wasn’t a warm person, but his hands were warm. Good enough for her. She saw the hotel she frequented. It didn’t as questions, and it wasn’t expensive, but it was clean and nice anyway. “Almost home, guy. Then, I get to see if you are as good as I think.”

***

Kaze snorted as Enma confronted him. "Do you want something, traitor?" his voice was cold and dangerously low. He didn't want to have anything to do with the girl, even if deep down, he missed her terribly. She was the only person who truely understood him, but he let his pride slip ahead of that, and continued to put on an angry face.

"I don't associate with people who still their best friend's crushes." Kaze spun around, and faced the wall, feeling quite stupid, knowing that Enma was right behind his back.

"You... can beg for my forgiveness tho." Kaze muttered, his tanned skin darkening a shade or two.

"You are something else Kaze..." Laimon whispered, which prompted Kaze to swiftly kick his digimon partner.

***

"You are such a child." Enma said, dead pan, as she glared at Kaze's back. She crossed her arms.

"Enma...you're choking...me..." Mitikomomon complained. Enma released her hold somewhat.

"When have I ever gone after a guy?" She grumbled. She rolled her eyes at how juvenile that sounded, and licked her lips. "Look, if we're both digi-destined, we have to be civil to each other at points, which means that when we are forced to do something that involves us being in the same room as each other, there should be a truce; no exploding on each other like Shireika and Hanshin did." She pursed her lips, letting out a snort of breath through her nose. "And I am not begging for unneccesary forgiveness." She hissed out, very much aware of everyone else still in the library. "Well? Do we have a deal, or do I have to tell everyone about that sleepover we had in first grade?" She asked, mock sincerity and sweetness tinging her voice. She hated that she was fighting with Kaze, but her own stubborn streak had proven once again to bite her in the ass, and she wasn't going to back down when she knew for a fact that she was in the right, for once.

***

In Shuuichi's bag, he heard a chant of Squijimon singing, "Shuuichi and Naoko sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!"

Shuuichi smacked the bag as he looked at the hotel. Things were clicking now. He stormed to in front of her and gave a short glare. "What is your real motive? Am I just your toy?" he asked her. "I'm not where I am to suit some girl's sex pleasure. I have a respect and name to uphold," he said. "I've seen you with Hanshin a lot. Did he say something mean to you that makes you not want to go to him? Or did you have a fight with someone else? Honestly how healthy do you think is to go and have sex with the guys in our grade?" he whispered. "You remind me of my little sister. If all you want is pleasure from me, then I'm leaving. If you actually do love me then perhaps, I'll stay to take a risk," he said smiling.

***

Shireika watched Tegiwa run off to find Kaze. She figured he probably was still around, but where was another question.

"Why do you hate Hanshin so much?" Alatusmon asked as Shireika wandered outside onto the campus, which was generally empty.

"He does things that are just stupid," Shireika replied.

"But, you hate him?"

"I can't stand him. We've been like this for years, and we're not exactly sure why anymore. We just never see eye-to-eye."

"But, he's taller than you."

"We never can agree on anything. We've grown apart, quite drastically."

Shireika sat down on a bench along ones of the open fields in the middle of the campus. She took in a deep breath and smiled, something she hadn't done since yesterday.

Being away from her brother here was nice. There was something about this place that always relaxed her mind. Maybe it was the fact that she had always come here to study when she couldn't stand her brother, or that she had spent so many summers here for soccer and academic programs. Whatever the case was, she liked being here. There was always a warmth and familiarity about the place. Perhaps it was because both her mother's cousin and her father worked here.

***

Shireika's anger weighed heavily on Hanshin's mind. He forgot when it all began, but all he knew was that it had been quite a few years since the two had gotten along reasonably well. He vaguely remembered how they had been almost like best friends, but it was that turn of events when their interests changed that caused their newfound animosity around each other. He felt badly. He knew he had been the one to lash out at her for dropping music, and he knew that she had never done the same when he dropped soccer.

"Gomenasai!" he exclaimed, realizing that he had walked into Asayake. "Are you okay?" he asked immediately after bumping into her. "I wasn't watching where I was going." He shook his head. "Sorry about that..." he mumbled as he held out a hand to help Asayake up.

***

"Oh, Asayake-san! Are you okay?" Tomeo asked immediately to the girl he had been walking out of the library with, holding out another hand for her to grab hold of, along with Hanshin's so she could reach up with both hands to pull herself to her feet. "Here, let me help you too."

He looked towards Hanshin and offered a smile. He was a little hesitant about the thought of inviting along the lead guitarist of the Wild Stallions, what with Hanshin's popularity; but then again, he wasn't about to leave Asayake alone with him because of his obvious on-campus reputation with women. Besides, as far as he could sense, Hanshin wasn't such a bad guy. He could sympathise with his mother being deceased, but he had that feeling about him being more of a wildcard, in the pursuit of the evil power that Matsuro had mentioned, that made Shireika's opinon appeal more to him. It just made more sense to him that she was thinking clearer of the bigger picture, than her dreamer brother was.

"It's okay, Hanshin-san, I'm sure you didn't mean it. I can understand you must be at least a little upset after the way your sister left you like that... I know I would be, if I had a sister. Maybe she's just angry at you for making your decision, because deep down she cares about you and she doesn't want to see you get hurt, y'know? But I can't say for sure... I guess you'll just have to give it some time. If you are going to go ahead and look for these fragments of keys for the Watcher, just be careful, okay? If not for my sake, then do it for your sister's. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious, because I'm really getting the feeling there's more to this than meets the eye. In the meantime, though, why don't you join me and Asayake? We're all gonna go out and grab some ice cream, or whatever. You can come with if you're up for some."

***

"I-it's okay," Muttered Asayake, taking both Hanshin's and Tomeo's offered hands and hoisting herself back onto her feet again, "No harm done."

"Yup yup," Rogishimon peeped, shaking out her ruffled feathers and fluttering back into Asayake's arms, "We're okay! No boo-boos."

Asayake smiled at the little bird before turning to Hanshin, smiling as best she could; she wasn't entirely comfortable being with two men all on her own, but she figured that the little bird in her arms would do for protection. "Yeah, you should come for some ice cream, Hanshin-san. Unless you have other plans?"

"Ice cream?" Rogishimon asked, staring up at the redhead she was currently snuggling into, "What's ice cream?"

"It's really good," smiled Asayake, ruffling the feathers on Rogishimon's head, "It's this frozen dessert made out of cream and sugar, that comes in a whole bunch of different flavours. If you promise not to move, and not to make noise, you can have some of whatever flavour you think you might like."

"Oh, 'Sakaye, really?" The little bird began bouncing up and down happily, flapping her wings to expend some enegry, "I can? All my own?!"

"Sure you can," Prodding the little bird in the chest, Asayake calmed her down, "But you have to hold up your end of the deal. So that means no talking, no cooing, and no moving! And try to breate really quietly, so no one notices that you're not fake."

"Okay!" Rogishimon cooed, "When do I start pretending to be a fake animal?"

"You become a stuffed bird as soon as we leave the room. Okay?" Rogishimon nodded enthusiastically. "Good. Well, Hanshin," Asayake asked again, fighting a small nervous knot in her gut, "You going to join us?"

***

Naoko looked at Shuuichi. She dearly hoped her mouth hadn't dropped open. This had been one hell of a bad day for her, and Shuuichi seemed to want to make it worse. What is it with this people? Had all males been drained of their genetic urge to bonk girls?

Her pale face grew red with a mix of anger and embarrassment. (If this is what it was like to be turned down, she was glad she never did it to anyone.)

"Look, Shuuichi, sex makes a lot more sense than love at my age. I'm not going to give my heart to someone I just met you know. Even if it would get me what I want. So, no, that’s not what I'll tell you...

"But, if you think I'm looking to use you and brag about it, well, Mister, you don't know Naoko-chan! I thought we could /share/ some fun together as friend, that’s all. And, I never kiss and tell. Or, sleep and tell. What exactly do you think I am?" Horny, she was very horny. She wanted to lose herself in Shuuichi so badly she was trembling. Why, must he be this way?

***

Tegiwa looked past the classroom door. "There you are Kaze. Oh, hiya, Enma-chan...Whoa, I can feel the negativity between you two. What's up guys? And is it worth your friendship and the fate of the world?"

***

Shouki paused awkwardly in the story of his sister– The short version he told people he just met. "Sorry, Yuu. This is kind of hard for me to talk about with new people. Even friends."

***

"No thanks," Hanshin replied. "Not my thing." He started to walk away from turned back. "I hope that my sister cares, but even I don't know understand her." He shook his head. No one understand his sister, not even her closest friend Tegiwa. She kept her distance from everyone, even her father and twin brother. They were twins, fraternal twins, and did it only take a few years for them to grow apart like this? Still, no matter how much he wanted to patch up their relationship, it didn't work. They'd end up fighting about something, and usually he lost it first. He looked back towards Tomeo. "And I do nothing for Shireika. Only for our mother." He paused. "I'll see you guys later. I've got things to take care of." He waved a hand as he turned around to leave Tomeo and Asayake. "Ja ne."

Hanshin wandered outside. LIke Shireika, he knew the campus already very well. He didn't feel as comfortable here as she did, but he knew where she'd probably be.

"Are you going to talk to her about it?" Koumamon asked, when she and Alatusmon were in sight.

Hanshin contemplated the idea. She was wrong about the Watcher. Who else did they have to believe? What else were they supposed to do? If the dark queen did in fact come to destroy all, then they would need that key.

Yet, he knew that debating with her again wasn't going to do much. She was plenty pissed, and he didn't need to aggravate her any further. He wished there was something that would bring them back, but he feared that the only thing that would would be their mother, and she was dead.

"No," Hanshin replied to Koumamon as he sat down by a tree. He pulled out a sketchbook from his bag, letting Koumamon out as well.

"But -" Koumamon protested.

"Not now." He pulled out a pencil and began sketching his sister on the first blank page. He never understood why, but she alweays seemed happier alone. Or maybe it was just being away from him and everyone else.

***

Shireika leaned back on the bench, her mind wandering away from reality. Her blue eyes turned vacant as she stared up into the sky.

Alatusmon watched her for a moment. She normally was so focused, with a certain determination in her eyes. It was certainly a peculiar sight to see Shireika seem to be day-dreaming. She seemed so peaceful and so beautiful when she wasn't angry at Hanshin or doing her work, but it was very strange to see her like this.

"Shireika-san?" Alatusmon asked, startling Shireika. "Gomenasai. You were daydreaming. Made me a little worried."

"I'm sorry," Shireika replied as she looked down at her digimon partner. "Are you hungry?"

The thought of Shireika's most recent behavior completely left Alatusmon's mind at the thought of having food.

"How about something to eat?" she asked as she picked up Alatusmon and put him in her bag. "Ice cream?"

***

"Ah.. I see" Yuu replied to Shouki on his prayer beads. "It's good to have things to remember people by" She said that sincerely.

She smiled and introduced herself back. "I'm Shimakoto Yuu. Yeah, I suppose we will be" Then she flushed again freshly when the little misty creature she assumed was his digimon made his comment. This was rather awkward.

Yuu didn't mind it when Shouki had to pause his story. "That's alright," she assured him, "I understand" She did.

"So, um," she tried to lead the conversation in a different direction. "I was at the show last night. I really liked it, you all played wonderfully" She smiled again. "When's your next performance?"

***

"You don't know what ice-cream is, Rogishimon?" Parumon asked, looking a little shocked as she peered out of Tomeo's tote bag. "Girlfriend, I should take you up to the northern sea of the digital world where I met Frigimon. He can carve ice creams out of the snow like it's nobody's business."

Tomeo nodded and waved to Hanshin as he left. "See you later, I guess. If you ever want to talk to us, remember we're only an e-mail away." he offered, watching as Hanshin walked out of sight.

"Poor guy." he commented to Asayake, as he began slowly walking beside her out of the building. "He's there for his mother more than he is for his sister... thing is, when I showed up early for the meeting, Shireika told me that their mother had died. That's saying a lot, huh?" he explained to Asayake, but suddenly stopped in mid-step when he had realised he had just shared personal information that he probably should have kept to himself. Death wasn't something that should be taken lightly and passed on. He turned to Asayake, clasping his hands together as if he were pleading with her. "Please, don't tell anyone I just told you that. Shireika was pretty open about it, but I don't want it going around like it's common knowledge. It's about Shireika's and Hanshin's family, and we should respect that."

He continued walking in one direction, stopped as he changed his mind, then swiveled around to turn to the left. "This way, I remember the way I came. I like to think I'm good with directions, so hopefully..." He stopped speaking again and smiled, having found the entrance. "Ah, here we are! C'mon, let's go. The ice cream parlour isn't far from here. I swear they have the best gelatos Tokyo has to offer!" he grinned as he opened the door for her, and guided her with him off campus.

***

As soon as they got to the shop, Tomeo knew exactly what he wanted. "Boysenberry and banana sundae for me, thanks, don't hold back on the topping." he told the person behind the counter, getting his wallet out. He brought up his tote bag and unzipped it a little, peering in to see Parumon, and to anyone else he looked like he was getting his wallet out of his bag. "Parumon, what flavour ice cream do you want?"

"Oooh, get me digi-anchovy!" Parumon decided, but quickly changed her mind. "No, wait, get us catfish and black trout so I can share it with Rogishimon! Even better! And could you put it in a bowl or something so we can eat it under the table? Thanks."

Tomeo stared blankly. "Um, Parumon? I don't know what kind of twisted ice creams you eat in the digital world, but here we don't make them out of fish."

"What!?" Parumon almost shouted, forcing Tomeo to shush her to lower her voice to keep from attracting unwanted attention. "What kind of a world is this? Fine, what do you humans flavour your ice creams with, then?"

Tomeo looked through the glass of the counter for reference. "Well, fruits mostly. Banana, boysenberry, strawberry, raspberry and so on, and then you have others like chocolate and vanilla..."

"Fruits, huh?" Parumon said in disappointment. "Sounds like landlubber food. Well, what did I expect? Okay, strawberry sounds good. I did have a bit of that before I left the land for the Digital Ocean."

"Sounds fascinating, tell me about it when we get to our table." Tomeo offered, and turned back to the cashier behind the counter. "And a strawberry sundae too, thanks."

He took out his wallet, and looked towards Asayake in afterthought. "We'll pay for ourselves if that's okay, but if you're short on money I'll be happy to pay yours for you." he offered, passing the clerk some yen when the price came up on the register. "So, when you're ready, we'll grab some seats. Let's try to grab one that's further away from the others so the digi's can have a little more privacy." he considered, taking the sundaes he had ordered as they were handed over the counter to him, and looked over his shoulder for available seats. He was almost half-glad that the digimon were there to begin with to break the silence; in any other way the setup would have looked like that the two of them were going out on a date. He would have liked that, but he was considerate enough not to be too ambitious to read into things. Asayake was his friend and classmate, and as long as she was, he would always respect and be there for her in that way. Just like he would for anyone else.

***

Enma looked over at Tegiwa, and, lips pursed, she pointed to Kaze. "Tell him that; he doesn't lisen to me anymore." She hugged herself, making Mitikomomon start to gag again.

"Choking...not breathing..." the digimon groused, but Enma ignored him. She turned her attention back to Kaze, who was still facing the wall, and rolled her eyes.

"Now, if you please, can we just make this deal? I'm not going to provoke any fights between us while we're in mixed company, but you have to promise to do the same, Kenjitsu-san." She said, the last part falling flat.

***

Shouki paused he wasn't sure of the band's exact schedule. Naoko would know, but he really didn't want to bother her right now. She was likely busy with Shuuichi or someone else. He didn't even want to think about it. Her whole lifestyle gave him the creeps.

"Uh, Hanshin likes to have concerts every weekend, if possible. It's just a question of where. Someone in the band arranges where we play. I'm sure the girls will be handing out flyers soon.

"I thought I saw you...somewhere. It must have been there, Yuu. I'm...glad you liked the show. The whole band works really hard practicing to get things just right. Hanshin expects us to do our best for the fans."

***

"Kaze, sounds like a good deal. I'll leave you two alone, and go for a walk. Talk it over. Cuz, it’s a shame to see to good friends fight. Anyway, we have to work as a team now, guys, so work on burying the hatchet together."

He felt stupid talking to them like that after letting things slide with Tokyo's terrible Ishida twins. He left the building to walk around the grounds. He figured both twins had left but saw both of them from afar, still on the grounds.

Shireika was sitting on some bench staring wistfully into space. "This isn't natural for her. Maybe, this whole thing has stirred her up more than I thought."

"Her heart-rate and blood pressure are definitely lower, Tegiwa"

"I can tell, but thanks anyway little guy." Tegiwa didn't want to bother about anything at the moment, but he was deeply worried that Shireika's distrust for the watcher amounted to: ignore the danger while yelling at my brother. It wouldn't be the first time her relationship with her brother eclipsed her common sense. If only Hanshin possessed some..."

He couldn't get over the look on Shireika's face. He wished, not for the first time, he could read her mind. "Well, I'm not going to interrupt her peace. This may be the last chance any of us gets for a long time to come."

He wandered over to the tree where Hanshin was and sat down ninety degrees around the trunk from him. "Hey, Hanshin. I was in the old part of downtown, you know, where Angel plaza is. It made me very sad because the statue of The Angel hasn't been kept up in years. It's dull and the plaque has been vandalized. Lot's of spray paint graffti...but still it made me sad. No one knows the truth, except our families. Even the legend has dimmed. I heard rumors they want to bulldoze that whole area to renovate. I don't think a new angel monument is in the works, even those g-san Sho said it was a shrine, practically, when new. People forget so easily whats important.

"You get down to the plaza much Hanshin?"

***

"I don't have time," Hanshin replied as he looked up towards Shireika as he made finishing touches on it. He had caught her in the middle of her daydreaming and looking far off into the distance. "The band takes up a lot of time." He didn't understand why Tegiwa had come over to talk to him, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to talk to another digi-destined. "I know Grandma and her generation of digi-destined are sad to see it degrade over the years, but the memory of what they had done is barely remembered anymore. Still, Grandma and Grandpa keep saying that it doesn't really matter that no one remembers. All they care about is that they had protected their family and friends and that was all that really matters in the end." He shook his head. "They should be recognized. They put their lives on the line, just like an army hero." He paused. "No, they fought a war, even though no one really knew about it. Even our parents fought their own war, and now it could be our turn." He leaned back against the tree, staring up at the sky. "What are you getting at, Tegiwa? I'm not changing my mind. We should go after the key because it's our duty to protect this world and universe. We don't have much other choice, do we?" He looked over at Tegiwa. "But, you wouldn't listen to me since you tend to side with Shireika, right?"

***

Shireika had driven to the same ice cream shop that Asayake and Tomeo had gone to. After parking the car a block or so away, she walked towards the little shop, right by the window. She could see Asayake and Tomeo inside, and she stopped in her tracks. She gazed at them for a moment, not moving.

"Shireika?" Alatusmon chirped suddenly to catch Shireika's attention. "Something wrong?"

"No," Shireika replied softly.

Alatusmon peeked out from Shireika's bag, spotting Asayake and Tomeo immediately.

"Oh, look! It's Asayake and Tomeo!" he cheered upon seeing them.

"Yeah."

"Aren't you going in?"

Shireika didn't answer right away.

"I'm hungry, Shireika. Please?" He didn't understand why she wasn't going on in to talk with them. She normally would have. Had the fight with Hanshin shaken her up that badly, or was there something else on her mind? "Shireika?"

"Of course. Ice cream," Shireika mumbled as she pushed Alatusmon back into the bag and walked inside the shop, heading straight for the counter.

***

Hanarei was walking along the outskirts of the campus clutching her bag which contained Himotomon. Even though she was by herself, with the exception of Himotomon, she didn`t feel too happy. Himotomon took note of this as she glanced up from the bag. "A yen for your thoughts, Hanarei?"

"Hmm? Oh it`s nothing."

Himotomon eyed her partner. "It doesn`t sound like it`s nothing. There`s something on your mind and you`re not telling me."

"Fine," said Hanarei as though she as being asked to run an errand on the other side of town. "Ever since this whole adventure thing started, I`ve been feeling a sort of deja vu."

"Digi what?"

"Deja vu, the feeling of having done something before even if you didn`t. My dad never told me any of these stories even though he was a digidestined and neither did mom so I`m wondering why it sounds so familiar. Even when we were in that old guy`s library I felt like I knew him before."

"That is a little weird."

Hanarei wanted to find out why all these things seemed familiar to her. Unfortunately, that would probably mean having to join in with the rest of the digidestined, including Shireika and Hanshin. Well, just Shireika since Hanarei didn`t like Hanshin`s idea on what to do. She`d have to ask them later probably. "You hungry?" she suddenly asked Himotomon.

"Yeah, a little."

"There`s an ice cream store within walking distance. Let`s go there."

"But I`m a fire-type digimon."

"Then I`ll order some hot fudge or a cup of hot chocolate for you."

***

Hanarei walked through the door to the ice cream parlour. She spotted Tomeo and Asayake sitting in the far-off corner. She looked over at them and ended up bumping into someone in front of her. "Uppff, hey watch where yo...." She stopped in mid-sentence. "Oh, it`s you," she said grimly to Shireika. She did want to find out about this whole digidestined stuff but she was hoping to do that a little later. Still, the thought was nagging at her. "Look princess, I`m curious about what our parents did exactly on their adventure. My dad never told me anything and I`d like to know. You`re uncle told us some general stuff but I`d like to know with a little more detail." She didn`t really notice or care much for the expression on Shireika`s face.

***

Shuuichi watched at she trembled there in front of him. As soon as she was done he walked over to her slowly. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders as he hugged her there. "I don't understand you Miss Naoko. I just don't. You aren't willing to give your love but you are willing to give your body possibly, if I'm not mistaken," he said in that slow voice as he whispered it into her ear.

He released the hug and walked back in front of her. "Alright, let's go. If you really are sincere about it. I guess we could share a little fun," he said holding out his hand. "But please reconsider who I am."

***

"No, that's okay, I've almost always got money with me. My mom won't let me leave the house without a good 20,000 yen in my pocket. I'll have, um... A scoop of chocolate-orange swirl, please." The man behind the counter nodded, and busied himself with her order. While he was preoccupied, she poked the bird in her arms. "Pick a flavour," she whispered out of the side of her mouth, and the little bird in her arms carefully scanned the coolers of ice cream in front of her.

"Uh... that one, white with black dots in it."

"And one scoop of chocolate chip, separately please. That one in a cup."

Raising an eyebrow, the man shrugged and scooped some ice cream into a dish. "That's 530 yen."

"Thank you," replied Asayake, taking her cone and Rogishimon's cup and turning around. "Let's find a table... Oh." she said, in a rather surprised tone, "Hello, Shireika. I guess everyone had the same idea." With a polite smile, she looked over at Tomeo, nodded at a nearby table and nudged him towards it with her hip. She would've taken his hand, but she really didn't have a free one; one bird and two orders of ice cream would do that. She walked over, set the dish of ice cream down, and settled into her seat. She'd chosen a booth, so Rogishimon could eat her ice cream without getting noticed beside her, and put the digimon down. "Now, be careful with this. If you can't use the spoon, just... improvise, I guess."

Rogishimon regarded the spoon ominously, then dove face-first into her dish of ice cream.

With a sigh, Asayake cast her gaze at the seats around her. Two middle-aged women were staring at her and Tomeo, chatting and smiling. Asayake raised an eyebrow at them, watching as the one facing her talked animatedly to her friend. Though she couldn't hear what they were saying, Asayake was fairly sure she could read lips.

"Oh, aren't they adorable? It reminds me of Rei and I when we were that age."

She felt her face heat up, and became extremely interested in her ice cream. They thought that Tomeo was...! Was that really how it looked? She gave her ice cream a lick, trying to push the heat in her face down. Was it really such a bad thing that those women thought they were on a date? ...Yes! Yes, of course it was! Another wave of heat assaulted her cheeks and she let out a flustered sigh. Pretending to be totally immersed in the frozen confection currently melting over the edge of its cone, Asayake fought a losing battle with the scarlet tinge on her cheeks.

***

Tomeo stumbled forward a few steps after Asayake nudged him with her hip, almost completely falling over face-first into the sundaes he was carrying. Not that he was clumsy, he just wasn't expecting that level of physical contact from a girl he just met. If it wasn't for the fact that he noticed Shireika and Hanarei present, he probably would have wondered what to make of it, but that thought was wiped clean when he spotted the two girls.

"Hey, Shireika-san, Hanarei-san!" he perked up, not bothering to wave this time because of the frozen load of confectionary he was carrying. "Why don't you two join us at our table, after you've ordered? We can talk about... um, things. Whatever you want, it doesn't have to be about the Watcher or anything. I think we've all deserved a little time off from that. Well, we'll see you there, okay?" He turned around and looked around for Asayake, then spotted her at the booth she had chosen. Avoiding two small children that were running around the store floor unattended by their mothers, he slid into the booth opposite Asayake so both girls could leave the table without someone having to get up out of their seats. He dropped his tote bag under the table and after placing his sundae in front of him on the table, he inconspicuously held the strawberry sundae underneath the table.

"Parumon, the coast is clear. You can use the spoon too, if you like." he whispered as he undid the zip of the bag, prompting the little In-Training digimon to come out. Parumon slithered out of her bag and after trying to ignore the odd arrangement of gum stuck under the table, looked for her bowl. "Hey, put it down already. I want my ice-cream!" she demanded in a rather spoiled tone.

"Well, what do you say, Parumon?" Tomeo asked her, expecting some manners from the digimon he just bought ice-cream for.

"Um, I want some ice cream, now?" she replied rather rudely, getting impaicient.

"No, 'thank you'!" Tomeo answered her, and put the bowl down, shaking his head. Did his digimon have any etiquette at all?

"Yeah, don't mention it." she said rather ignorantly, forcing Tomeo to sigh at her behaviour. "Finally, some cold food!" she commented, and tried her best to pick up the spoon with her stubby webbed fingers. Her hand couldn't get the dexterity of her fingers right around the handle of the spoon, and eventually the utensil clattered to the ground as it slipped from Parumon's grip. "Ah, screw this, I'll just eat it like Rogishimon is." she sighed as she gave up, going into the bowl-mouth first. "Mmmm, good!" she finally said and kept eating, one of the few rare moments where she actually remained silent, but it didn't last long as she finished a scoop and looked up at Rogishimon. "Hey Rogishimon, wanna swap some ice-cream? Whatcha got up there?"

Tomeo looked back up from underneath the table, shaking his head in dismay at his digimon's terrible table manners. Well, it wasn't exactly at a table, but still she could have worked on being more polite. "You'd think after all this time they'd learn a thing or two... I think I have to teach Parumon a little lesson in humanity." he chuckled, not completely looking up at Asayake until he had finished his sentance. It was only then that the two of them were alone and he was looking at Asayake's face did he realise how red her face was.

"Um, Asayake?" he wondered out loud, trying to look her in the eye. "Are you okay? You look... um, flustered or something."

***

Tegiwa sighed. "I'll always listen to yah, Hanshin. Doesn't mean I'll agree with you. Now is one of those times, guy. You are jumping the gun. That's my solemn opinion. However, I'm afraid it could be you Shireika is against and not just the Watcher. Anyway, I'm going to see if I can't find out more about this Watcher guy. I'll ask mom and Aunt Trinity to see if they can trace the emails, look at my digivice, do some real cyber sleuth work. I'll let you know if I find anything. I'm not sure if any proof will be good enough at this point for your sister. But, I don't exactly think you'll be impressed if the Watcher is a geeky kid from Duluth either."

"I'll stand by your sister because she's my friend. Understand? I'll talk to her; talk sense to her that is. But, I'm not leaving her. If I did, I doubt I'd join with you. But, you aren't my enemy. My enemy is the end of the world. Mom drilled it into me that we would face evil again just like every generation before us. Evil that could wreck both worlds. I just wish I could see where that evil was"

***

"I know who you are. You are a guy and I'm a girl. For the next couple of hours that's all that will matter– that and our mutual pleasure. I know you are the rich guy who is breaking the curve at school. I know you could likely buy me a hotel if you wanted. But, I don't want your money or your title. I just want you for a little while. Shuuichi, team mate. Shuuichi, a friend. This is private, between us. No regrets. No obligations."

She hugged him and kissed him and took his hand leading him toward a nondescript inn with a fountain in front and hourly rates posted. It wasn't the best or worst of love hotels. It certainly wasn't sleazy. The décor was simple and clean in efficient Japanese style.

"And, yes, this is still my treat. The whole thing is my treat. Ask, and you will receive, Shuuichi-sama. I'll fulfill your desires. She winked at him."

Nothing they would do would leave their room. She promised him that.

***

"Because she's your friend," Hanshin muttered as he stood up. He closed his sketch book. "Look, she's my sister, and I don't agree with her all the time. Just because you're friends doesn't mean you have to agree on everything. I know you feel like you should stand by her because you trust her judgment far more than mine, but -" He stopped in mid-sentence. "You do whatever you want, and I'm going to do what I want. But, in the end, we're all going to have to come to sort of consensus." He looked away, in the direction that Shireika had walked away. "We have to do this together as a team. We shouldn't be divided because of personal reasons. We have a duty to do, and we should follow through with it."

***

"And you think I would know about what they did?" Shireika asked Hanarei coldly. "If you want more details, maybe you should ask your father." She turned to the counter, facing a young man with an ice cream scoop in hand. "Chocolate Fudge please." She pointed towards the tub of ice cream. "Just one scoop in a cup to. Thanks."

"Here you go," he said as she took the cup of ice cream.

"Keep the change," Shireika replied as she handed him a bill. She walked past Hanarei, eying her for a moment. "Seriously, talk with your father. He would know more than I." She walked by Asayake and Tomeo. "Hey, I'm going to go." She didn't feel particularly social at the moment and didn't care to sit around and chat. "I've got work to do and things to care of." She waved as she began to leave the ice cream shop. "Call me if you want to talk!" She stepped outside of the ice cream shop, her one scoop of ice cream in a cup with a lid.

Her eyes caught sight of a lone bird in the distance, flying towards her. As she stood outside the window to the ice cream shop, she watched it fly in large loops towards her. Just as she had been at Tokyo University's campus, she was unfocused and unattentive to what was going on around her. Her eyes softly focused on the bird in the distance.

***

"Ah, I'll be on the lookout for those flyers then" Yuu smiled. It looked like she'd have something to look forward to on the weekends from now on.

"It's great you guys work so hard for your fans" she complimented. "I'm a bit of a musician myself, really, but I'm not nearly as good as any of you guys are"

A moment later her stomach growled insistantly, and she realized she hadn't eaten lunch yet. "Hm.." she stood up and faced Shouki. "Hey, would you like to go out and get a bite to eat? I'm rather new to Tokyo, so I don't really know any good places... Ah, it's fine if you don't want to" she added with a wave of her hand. She didn't want to keep him from anything or make him feel uncomfortable.

***

Hanarei gritted her teeth and clenched her fists as Shireika brushed her off. Yes, she knew her father was an option, but in her eyes they weren`t on good terms with each other. She glared at Shireika as she left the ice cream store but did it by looking over her shoulder. `I just want to wrap her fingers around that little...` she thought.

"Hanarei?" Himotomon mumbled softly and bumped her partner in the back. Hanarei stopped for a second and turned to see the ice cream server looking at her. "Chocolate Peanut Butter on a cone and a small bowl of hot fudge. ... ... What?"

The ice cream man handed her her order and Hanarei headed for the door. "Tomeo, Asayake, I`ll leave you two to your little play date instead. Have fun." She walked out the door and past Shireika without saying a word. Now far from the door, Hanarei pulled off her backpack, opened up the compartment to Himotomon, and placed the hot fudge nearby. "You spill this and you die."

"I suggest that you not have kids when you grow up," said Himotomon before she started on the hot fudge.

"I didn`t ask for your opinion on my life. Now be quiet and *bump*." Someone had walked into Hanarei and fell over her. "What is with people not wa...." Again, she stopped shouting in mid-sentence. But this time, unlike the time with Shireika, Hanarei was red in the face from blushing. Her whole expression suddenly brightened up and she had a huge smile on her face. "YUKI!"

"Oh, hi Hanarei," said a blonde haired boy who was laying on the ground with some books next to him. He started to brush himself off before Hanarei suddenly cut in.

"Here, let me get that for you," she said.

"No, no, it`s okay," said Yuki. He had a smile on his face like falling down was a fun thing to do. "So what are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know me. I travel around a lot. And you?"

"My parents wanted a couple of things from the Tokyo U. library and sent me to pick it up." He pointed to the books on the ground.

"Oh Yuki, you`re so kind." Hanarei tried her best to make her eyes seem to sparkle.

"Well, I try to do my best." He and Hanarei started to gather the books. Hanarei mentioned the fact about going to talk to her dad but left out the details about digimon and such. "You should probably go talk to him," said Yuki. "It doesn`t sound like it would hurt to do so."

"I guess you`re right," Hanarei sighed.

"I`ll see you around I guess. I have a few more things to pick up around here."

"Okay then. Bye bye." She waved goodbye to him before heading off in the other direction. There was a smile on her face and an extra bounce in her step.

It wasn`t until they were outside of ear shot when Himotomon spoke in a mocking voice. "`Oh Yuki, you`re so kind.` For crying out loud, where did that come from?" Hanarei didn`t answer. "So you`ll listen to the same advice from some boy who you`re head over heels in love with instead of a girl who you despise?"

"Right," Hanarei said in a chipper voice.

Himotomon shook her head in disbelief. "You`re right. You are weird."

***

Shouki was starting to fumble around for some words. "Well, I`d, um, ah...."

"He`d love to," said Kirimon before Shouki could get in a sentence. "Kirimon!"

"What?! You have absolutely nothing on your schedule for the rest of the day. It`s not like you can play around with your prayer beads all day long either."

"But, my bass guitar...."

"Can have a day`s rest."

"But my little sister...."

"Is fine by herself. Go on, have some fun for the rest of the day. Just bring me along with you. Now do you happen to know any good restaurants in Tokyo?"

Shouki paused for what seemed like forever to Kirimon. "Well, there`s a nice sushi and ramen shop nearby we could go eat at, I guess."

"Super. I like the sound of that raw fish too. How does that sound to you, Yuu?" Kirimon leaned over to Shouki and whispered in his ear. "Seriously buddy, what did you ever do without me by you side?" Shouki didn`t answer and sat there quietly. "Let me guess; you do this all day."

***

"No," Grunted Rogishimon quietly, "My ice cream. Eat your own." She glared at Parumon steadily, as if the little digimon would leap up and snatch hers away. "It's called... um... chiplet chock. You ask your digidestened for your own chiplet chock."

'Damn!' Cursed Asayake, mentally of course, as she wrestled with the heat in her cheeks with a renewed force. They drained quickly, leaving her with only a soft pink tinge. "No, no I'm fine," she insisted, practically diving face-first into her ice cream. After developing a rather large brain freeze she looked up, eyeing Tomeo shyly. "So, um... Why did you, uh -- want to go out for ice cream? I mean!" She sat up straighter, nearly losing her ice cream. She caught the little scoop before it toppled off, smushing it back into the cone as she rambled on, "It's not like I'm upset or anything, I'm glad you did, I think, I just kinda wondered because, you know," she paused in her onslaught to scratch the side of her nose, leaving behind a little blob of brown and orange ice cream, "because I guess we don't really talk all that much, other than in math every so often, and I was kinda rude to you so I thought that maybe you'd be mad or something like that, but you're not so... Um, yeah."

Asayake developed a sudden mental image of a little imaginary her banging her head off of a large brink wall. Repeatedly. Until she passed out. Real-Life Asayake simply settled for staring nervously around her before diving, once again, into the safety of her ice cream, and mentlaly cursing her airheadedness.

***

Tegiwa noticed Shireika depart. "Looks like I interrupted your sketch...Anyway, teamwork is best, no doubt. But, its not like I see that in future unless you two compromise. I'm really not clear how we are going to make that happen.

"I do know the worries of the others can be easily soothed. It wouldn't even that much to convince me. Any proof at all that the Watcher is credible would suffice. I'll keep you posted, either way, on what I find. I'm sure you'll tell us if you find out anything, right?"

"Ok, so my choice is personal, like, I admit it. Shireika is my friend. She's been there for me when things were rough...in her own way, goes without saying. I know I have a duty to fight the evil in the world, but Shireika should not have to walk alone. I'll stay beside her. She'll join the fray if this dark queen appears. Barring that...her dislike for you is too intense for me to guess her actions."

"I don't like you, either. You are too much like a blind man. But, I said I'd listen and I will. I also have faith that you are the Child of Light somewhere deep inside you. Figure out what that means and you will be worthy to lead the digidestined. Because, the Wild Stallions don't play in this war, 'kay?"

Tegiwa was doing his best to be truthful to Hanshin. But, he wanted to scream what an arrogant bastard he felt the rocker was right to his face. He knew that wouldn't help though. He also knew Hanshin was right. In the end they would have to be a team, but that was going to be a long journey bringing them together. Hanshin could lead...The Child of Light had been the defacto leader for awhile with fate assisting. It made sense that Hanshin could lead...but he had such a long way to go, but war was a crucible. Conflict would refine them all.

***

"Being the child of light is going to mean whatever it will mean to me," Hanshin replied to Tegiwa. "What it meant for my mother will be different from what it will mean for me." He didn't care to share his thoughts with Tegiwa. Tegiwa would let Hanshin rant, as it had always been, but Tegiwa wasn't the least bit supportive. It was though Tegiwa sort of just listened and didn't particularly care. "You can stick by my sister for whatever reasons you want - that's your choice. Whether it's right or wrong, I won't be the judge of that." He turned away from Tegiwa and grabbed his bag. "See you later."

Talking with Tegiwa always got on his nerves. He knew the child of knowledge would always stand by Shireika. It had always been like that ever since the day he and Shireika began fighting and growing apart. Shireika had always been more of a friend to Tegiwa than Hanshin had been, and Hanshin knew that. But it bothered him that his conflict with Shireika was the cause for conflict among the digi-destined. That wasn't how it should be. They should be a united force, but it seemed that was going to be a bit difficult.

***

Shireika watched the bird disappear behind a building, took a deep breath, and then continued on down the street to return to her car.

Alatusmon sat in Shireika's bag, completely dumbfounded by his partner's recent behavior. The fighting with Hanshin, nothing new. The stubbornness was expected. But, the random moments of daydreaming was very odd, to the extent that it made him worried. This was the first time he had seen it.

"Shireika?" Alatusmon asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Shireika replied as they made it back to her father's car, which she had borrowed for the day. On the ride home, she pulled out her computer. With recent car technology, she didn't need to pay attention to driving.

[Tegiwa,

Study group today as usual? Chemistry exam tomorrow, remember? My place.

-Shireika]

***

Aishou felt horribly that Hanshin and Shireika didn't get along well. That was such a sad sight that two siblings, particularly fraternal twins, couldn't get along. She wandered down the street towards the ice cream shop that many of the digi-destined had visited.

She saw Hanarei talking with a blonde-haired boy, and she figured she should leave them alone. After enterring the shop, she saw Tomeo and Asayake sitting together. She approached them slowly.

"Hey, can I join you guys?" she asked as she stood at the end of the table.

***

"I was just asking for a little bit, haven't you ever heard of sharing?" Parumon pouted at Rogishimon, taking another bite of her ice cream and swallowed it down as she thought. "Well then, guess you're not getting any of my strawberry ice cream, are ya? Tough luck!" she teased, as she finished off her platter but still felt somewhat full. "You know what, I think I might just take your advice, Rogishimon. I'm still hungry, but I think I'll get something else other than that chipolet choc stuff. It looks pretty disgusting..."

Back at the topside of the table, Tomeo felt a little bit neglected as both Shireika and Hanarei left to go outside the shop instead of sitting with them. "Is it just me, or is everyone ditching us today? Hmmm..." He felt a little puzzled as he looked across the table at Asayake, having heard what she had to say as they interrupted his thoughts. "Why did I want to get ice cream? Well, because, I was... hungry?" he honestly answered, simply not getting what Asayake meant. "And ice cream is the ultimate comfort food! I definitely felt like some comfort after all this weird monster saving-the-world deal. To think there actually is such a thing as evil... it's ...a little scary, I gotta admit."

Listening further as he ate several scoopfuls of his favourite sundae, he started to assume what he thought Asayake was trying to say. "Oh, you're wondering why I invited you out for ice cream, even though we've only just met? Well, you said yourself you wanted to make up for not talking to me before, remember? And what better way for friends to come together than ice cream? But don't get me wrong, I don't want you here more than anything else but for your company... it's good to see that you recognised you were a little rude in math class, because, no offence, but you were leaning that way... just a little. When you asked me to help you out with math the other day, it was the first time you were actually... well, friendly, for once. If you had reached out a little sooner, I would have asked you to join me and my friends for lunch ages ago. The girls in our group would have loved for you to come sit with us." His spoon clattered into his empty bowl as he sat back to digest his boysenberry and banana desert he had just finished, and muffled a chuckle when he stared back at Asayake's face.

"Um, Asayake? You've got a little... um, ice cream right here..." he pointed at the part of his nose on his own face to mirror hers so she could understand where the droplet of brown and orange ice cream was protruding from her face. "No, no, the other side... that's it, you've got it." He directed her, smiling all the while at how funny it looked and couldn't help but finally let out a slight chuckle. "Asayake, you crack me up, really."

He felt a tug on his jeans leg, and looked down to see Parumon, staining his pant cuffs with streaks of strawberry ice cream she hadn't wiped off her front feet and mouth. "Hey, Tomeo, can I get another round of ice cream? I'm starving here!"

"Parumon!" Tomeo suddenly yelled out in a disappointed tone as his grin suddenly vanished from his face, looking down at his ankles. "My jeans... uggghhh." he groaned, and reached for a napkin from the dispenser on the table. "I'll get you some more ice cream, just stay still while I clean you up." he instructed, holding Parumon's head carefully with one hand while wiping her face with the other.

"Hey! I'm not a baby, you know!" Parumon resisted, but Tomeo quickly managed to get all the ice cream off her jaws.

"I know, but you haven't got any hands, either. So give me your feet." Tomeo told her, and wiped her feet off afterwards. "You can't do everything yourself, Parumon."

"I could a better job than you could..." Parumon mumbled.

"I heard that." Tomeo said flatly, but looked mischevious as he stood up at the table, moving out. "Doesn't sound like a girl deserving of more ice cream to me..."

"I'll be good, I promise!" Parumon objected, looking rather innocent as she stared up at Tomeo with pleading puppy-like eyes. "Get me some more strawberry, would ya?"

"I think that's just about as close as Parumon will come to a thank you." the boy winked at Asayake, stepping out of the booth. "Coming right up..."

He turned around as suddenly Aishou appeared at the table. "Oh, hello there! Sure, come join us! I'm just about to go get some more ice cream for everybody. So Asayake-san, and... Aishou-san, am I right? Would you girls like me to grab some more ice cream for you and your digimon?" he offered, opening his wallet up.

***

Hanarei walked into the flower shop on the bottom floor of a house. The shop was owned by her mother and the upstairs was where Hanarei and her family lived. "Hey mom," said Hanarei as she went to the back of the store. "Do you know if dad`s around?"

Her mother, Kosame, popped her head from behind a flower basket she was working on. Her long metalic red hair was held back by a bandana tied above her forehead. "No, I don`t think so," she said. "I think he had to do some work back at the school."

`Does he live there more then he does here?` thought Hanarei. "Okay, I`ll be upstairs if you need me." She made her way upstairs and plopped down on the sofa. She didn`t have anything else to do that day so she may as well wait for her dad to come back. She reached for the TV remote when suddenly her eyes blurred. `W-what?` She quickly back away and tried to make her eyes refocus. Just as fast, she had a headache. It was increasing in intensity till Hanarei couldn`t stand it anymore. She grabbed her head with her hands and clenched her teeth. "What`s going on?" is what she would have yelled had she been able to. Instead, Hanarei collapsed onto the sofa, unconscious.

***

Nikko opened the door to their living room in their house. He had just come back from work and had his jacket over his arm. "Hanarei, Yume, I`m home." He had ran into his wife downstairs. Nikko noticed that the TV was on but there was no response. "Yume? Hanarei?"

"Long time no see, Nikko."

"Hanarei? Is that you?" Nikko moved to the sofa and saw his eldest daughter laying there with the remote in one hand, flipping through the channels. She was staring at the screen.

"Yes, and no I guess." She paused for a moment. "You forgotten all about me, didn`t you?"

"What are you talking about? How could I forget about you? You`re my daughter."

"And yet so much more." Hanarei turned her head to look at Nikko. He jumped back several steps when he saw it; Yellow eyes with black slits. "I see that jogged you`re memory rather suddenly."

"What are you doing? You`re...."

"I`m you`re dark side," Hanarei said with a large grin on her face. She stood up on the couch and face her father. "Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?" She jumped over the sofa and landed in front of Nikko. She started to walk toward him slowly while Nikko backed away. "Ever since you met Kosame I was able to sense my presence starting to fade away and lose it`s grip. I had to find some way in order to survive. And then it hit me; if you two had a child, I could transfer myself to his or her body. And so, here I am. And this time, I`ve got exactly what I wanted: my very own life and destiney." Hanarei started to laugh at this. "I`m finally free and there`s nothing you can do about. Any sort of connection we had is now gone."

"You can`t be my dark side," said Nikko. "He never acted like such a lunatic."

Hanarei`s expression suddenly went cold. "Reincarnation can to that to a person. Like how it caused me to be surpressed in Hanarei`s, I mean, my memories. A child is born from the genetics of two people, right? Let`s just say mom`s genetics is what was able to keep me from appearing the way I am at the infant stage. Earlier today, something triggered in my mind that caused me to remember vague images from our past and they`re going to keep coming. My memory is stil foggy but I was able to gather enough strength to make this one appearance." Hanarei had the same manical grin on her face. "We are going to have so much fun once I fully come out, eh /dad/? Hahahahaha...." Hanarei was bent over in laughter as she made her way back to the sofa. She lay back down on it and the laughter started to die down into silence.

Nikko stood there, horror struck at what he had just seen. This had to have been some sort of nightmare and he was back in his office. But it was too real. Slowly, he made his way back to the sofa to see his daughter laying there fast asleep. Hanarei started to stir until she fully opened her eyes. They were back to being purple. "Oh, hey dad," she yawned. "Ugh, did I fall asleep or something?" She looked at her dad who was examining her. "Um, is everything okay?"

Nikko paused before he responded. "Yeah, um, everything`s okay," he said. "I`ve just got to make a phone call to someone." Dropping his things where he stood, he rushed to his office and closed the door. That thing in Kaze`s bag from the other day and now his dark side appearing. Could it mean that... it was happening again?

***

Shouki directed Yuu to the sushi and ramen resturant near the campus. It looked slightly old like something from the 2030s but it was still in good shape. It wasn`t that far from the ice cream shop either. "Well, this is the place," said Shouki. "It doesn`t look like much but it has really good food. The Miso ramen is pretty good. Just don`t get the Ikura sushi, the salmon eggs."

"Why? I bet they would be tasty," said Kirimon.

"Yes but you`re a cat-head-thing. So I would guess you like fish of any kind or form." Shouki didn`t know what to do in this situation. The closest he ever came to taking a girl to a resturant was with his little sister but he bet most people his age wouldn`t count that as going out. He made a mental note that such information was probably something he should not mention to others.

***

She was fed up with Kaze's silence. Throwing her hands - and, coincidentally, Mitikomomon - in the air, Enma let out an annoyed growl somewhere between a shriek and a yell, before catching her digimon and turning to stalk out of the room. She turned back to Kaze, glaring at him, and, letting her pent-up anger get the better of her, opened her mouth. "You know what? I don't know how I could have been friends with someone who's mind-set is still stuck in the second grade! Not only are you a bastard, and an egotist, but you're also a drama queen - worse than any girl I've ever met." She shook her head. "Goodbye, Kenjitsu-san." She said the last part harshly, before storming away from him, red hair flying out behind her.

When she got herself perfectly lost in the corridors, she stopped, leaning against the wall. Closing her eyes, she let out a long sigh and slid down the wall into a near fetal position. "Why are you two fighting? In those pictures you threw at me, you both seemed so happy!" Mitikomomon asked, watching her nearly comatose digidestined.

Enma picked up her hand and rubbed her temples. "It was about two weeks ago; there was this guy that Kaze liked -"

"That guy likes guys?" Mitikomomon asked.

Enma nodded. "It's not uncommon - girls that like girls, boys that like boys, and girls that like boys."

"Oh..." Mitikomomon nodded her body, before settling in next to Enma's chest to allow the girl to continue.

Scratching the puff-ball's head distractedly, Enma continued. "This guy, well, he was a kid that's in the school band, and so I knew him because he hung around when I went to practice my guitar. Kaze didn't know this guy that well, and he asked me to ask him out in leau of him actually talking to him. So, I did, because Kaze's been my best friend since we were in vetro, I think. Anyway, the guy flat-out refused Kaze, but he asked me out, instead. I turned him down, and when I told Kaze what happened, he flipped out, and hasn't spoken to me since."

The digimon was quiet for a few moments, before blinking. "All this was over a guy?" He asked finally, turning big black eyes on Enma. "Like, he won't talk to you because a guy liked you instead of him?"

Enma nodded.

"That's silly!" Mitikomomon said.

Enma shrugged. "That's Kaze." She said, monotone. Mitikomomon was quiet for a few minutes, and watched as Enma took out her cell phone carefully, and deleted something. "It's me, too." She whispered to the small animal, before sighing. "I guess I can skive off one day of work, it's not like Kou needs me around, all I do is fool around on his computer and ask if he's done with my amp yet."

Mitikomomon seemed perplexed. "What's an amp?"

"Not this again!" Enma groused as she stood up and started to follow the signs to the exit. "An amp is something that amplifies sound. For this one, I'd plug it into the wall, turn it on, then plug my guitar into it, and it makes the guitar louder than it is."

"Huh..." Mitikomomon mulled it over, before watching Enma head in a direction he had never seen. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"The Jazz Lounge."

"And that is...?"

Enma rolled her eyes. "My grandfather's club. My grandmother usually sings there, and since I know I can't stay in a room longer than five second with my mother without getting into a world war, I figured I should talk to a different former Child of Sincerity instead."

"Good idea." Mitikomomon agreed. They were silent as they walked through the streets, but after a good ten minutes, the digimon had to ask Enma yet another question. "What do you prefer, Enma?"

She looked down, confused. "Prefer what?" She asked.

"Boys or girls, silly!" Mitikomomon said, as if it were obvious.

Enma shrugged. "I'm inclined to say boys, but because I have never had any significant other, I can't say."

"Oh...so you don't just like Kaze and are jealous because he likes boys and not you?" Mitikomomon asked innocently.

"Exactly...no." Enma replied evenly. The blue digimon groaned, his head starting to hurt with all this information about the human world.

***

Asayake growled softly at the ice cream smudge on her nose, scrubbing at it with the heel of her hand. "Screw... Every single friggin' time..." All mumblings aside, she sighed inwardly with relief. 'Well, at least I know he's not got any alterior motives or anything like that... Maybe my non-male tendencies will let up a bit, now that I know he doesn't want in my pants.' Beside her, she heard Rogishimon harrumph softly, then felt something nudge her thigh.

"'Sayake? Could I have some more ice cream?"

Shuckling softly, she gave the little bird a pat on the head. "Sure you can. Different flavour, or same as last time?"

"Um... same-same, please!" The little bird cooed happily, puffing up with delight.

"Sure thing." She looked up at Tomeo, taking note of Aishou, and smiled. "You've got good timing; featherbrain wants some more ice cream. Chocolate chip for her, and a vanilla milkshake for me, if you would. Oh," She said, thinking last minute, "And since I'm supposed to be making it up to YOU, not the other way around, I fully intend to share my math tutor's amazing mathematical skills with you. Apparently Chiko, my new tutor, is a whizkid when it comes to numbers."

Turning her eyes to Aishou, she offered a grin. "Well, find a spot to seat your seat, Aishou-san. all are welcome at the table of... um... Digital-ness?"

***

Tegiwa sat under tree a bit longer as Hanshin departed. "They can't get along because they are the same in different ways...."

"Who, Tegiwa? You are aware that is a statement of flawed logic."

Tegiwa shook his head slowly. "The twins. Her. And. Him. Yeah, flawed would be how it seems. Each Ishida wants to be at the center of things. Hanshin is a star. He wants the attention...'Hey, look at me. I'm center stage. Aren't I great?' That sort of thing. Shireika is a doer. She's not just captain of the soccer team; she plays like a general who leads the charge. But, and it comes down to this at the moment, they occupy the same space which doesn't work."

The tiny robot looked up at his blond, chestnut skinned partner. "So, Hanshin's assessment is correct? We need teamwork."

"Yeah, hard to work out how between those two. They need to make room for each other. I can't help with that one."

"Why did you say you'd side with Shireika?"

"I can help her if only just a little. Hanshin won't listen to me yet, anyhow. Man, or rather, 'mon...I guess..." Tegiwa smiled a bit as he continued, "Hanshin has a lot...of growing to do. But, Shireika is the one who needs me now."

"You think this conflict will resolve itself?" Robotmon asked incredulously.

"Has to, dude. It's about their whole relationship and not just this stuff. I have no idea how it will work out, but it will. Take a while though, maybe."

"You humans do not make sense. Just do what needs to be done." Robotmon was incensed at the stupidity of human relations.

"Guy, if we always did what made sense human, all of history would be compressed into about two /boring/ weeks."

He checked his com after it played its important message tone. "Looks like Shireika does need my help...Chemistry study group!" Tegiwa needed Chemistry for his advanced tack diploma. He just wished it was less boring, less dry. He preferred the herbs and powders in the apothecary's shop where he worked. Besides that place had atmosphere.

Later that day, he turned up at the Ishida's for Shireika's study hall. He kept reminding himself he wasn't going to let Hanshin get to him if he made trouble during the group. Deep cleansing breaths...

He pushed the buzzer and hoped Hanshin was out, which was typical.

***

Naoko made her arrangements with the hotel manager. She hated to think of them as usual arrangements though. She was quick about it as Shuuichi would not want to be observed in a situation like this. The hotel looked classy enough for most people, but Naoko knew Shuuichi was used to the best.

She'd give him her best.

***

Kuinamon had been dozing off on a chair ever since that train wreck of a meeting had ended, but perked up when he heard his partner say something about eating. He hopped of the chair and bounced his way over. "Was' this about food?"

Yuu glanced down at him while Skouki was talking with his digimon. "We're going out to eat for lunch," she kneeled down, "and if you stay nice and quiet, you can have whatever you'd like, okay?" she said with a smile.

"Woo! Deal!" Kuinamon pumped his fin in the air, then jumped into Yuu's arms.

She stood back up and turned to Shouki and Kirimon. "Sushi and ramen sound great to me!"

***

Yuu liked the place that Shouki had led them to. It had a nice vintage feel about it. And if the great smell coming off the place was any indication, it seemed like they had some really good food.

"It looks great, Houzuru-san" she said to Shouki "I wonder if they have negi ramen..."

"Ewww, fish eggs" she heard Kuinamon mutter from inside her bag. "Who would eat that? Disgusting!"

"Kuinamon, keep quiet" she whispered.

Yuu looked back up at Shouki -- he seemed a little uncertain. She hoped she hadn't been to presumptuous asking him out for lunch, seeing as they had really only just met. But they would be working together from now on, and she wanted to make friends with him.

She smiled and beckoned to him. "Come on, let's go in, I'm sure the digimon are getting hungry"

***

"Oh, no thanks," Aishou said, waving for Tomeo to put away his wallet. She sat down across from Tomeo at the table, squeezing her way next to Asayake. She sighed a little. "So are we all here because of that meeting." She looked away. "It was so sad to see Hanshin and Shireika fight like they did." She rested her chin on her hands. "I mean, they're twins, and they can't seem to get along at all. I feel really sorry for Hanshin - he's trying so hard to get everyone to believe in his cause, and she just puts him down."

***

"That's Tegiwa, Dad!" Shireika called as she hopped from the table in the living room to the front door of their very large apartment. She shuffled towards the door and pressed a button, which slid the front door open. "Hey, Tegiwa." She immediately turned away and headed back into the living room. Being such good friends for so many years, the standard courtesy of welcoming him in had been long forgotten, especially now that they had this weekly study group to study and do homework together. She didn't particularly need much help, but it made studying on Sundays far more interesting, and it was easy since they didn't live too far apart.

She kneeled down at the table in the living room and got right back to work on one of the practice exams she had. Her chemistry textbook and notes were lying all over the table, along with completed homework problems and some old practice exams she had begun to work on. She had left Tegiwa the other half of the table for him to work at.

"Want anything to eat?" she asked without looking up at Tegiwa. "And please say Kaze decided not to follow you this week to watch me study." She finally looked at Tegiwa.

***

Hanshin headed to one of his favorite cafes in Tokyo. He knew Shireika was probably studying something with Tegiwa, and he figured he shouldn't make his presence be known for fear of distracting her from her work. He knew that she cared about her schoolwork and that it mattered to her. He figured he'd do his homework elsewhere.

He sat down at a booth in the cafe and began working on some math homework. He had dropped science entirely, and he had been forced to take math so he would have a sixth class.

"Hey, sexy," he heard from a familiar voice. "I knew you'd be here right about now." Two delicate hands reached over the back of the booth's seat onto Hanshin's chest. "Last night was amazing."

"You're welcome, Ami," Hanshin replied as he motioned for her to join him. "You weren't so bad yourself."

"Thank you," Ami replied as she sat down next to him. Her hands touched his thigh, gently massaging it. "So, what are you up to? Homework again?" She leaned closer towards him. "Come on, you don't have to do that, do you?" she whispered as took the pencil out of Hanshin's hand and brought his warm hand to her waist. "I was kind of hoping for a reprise of last night right about now."

Hanshin moved around in the booth, such that she could sit on his lap. He pulled her tightly up against him, brushing over her legs softly.

"A reprise?" he asked as his hands slipped beneath her green top.

"Please?" Ami whispered directly into his ear. "And however you want to do it. I'm game." She licked his earlobe quickly and nibbled on it quickly as her hands wandered lower on his torso. "Agree to follow me, or I'll do it all here."

Hanshin gave Ami a good squeeze on the rear, to signal his agreement.

"Just an hour, okay?" he asked.

Within ten minutes, the two were walking into the lobby for the same hotel that Naoko had just checked in for. Ami could see Naoko's figured in the distance with that rich kid from the junior class. Ami always found it amusing how Naoko would fail miserably to get Hanshin to herself. After all, Hanshin had no intention of having a real relationship with any girl yet. Everyone knew he just wanted to have fun, so why couldn't Naoko just figure it out.

"Hey, set the usual up. I'll meet you there," Ami whispered as she hurried off to the ladies' room.

"Sure," he replied as he watched her walk away.

***

Hanarei was curious why her dad suddenly ran out of the room like that. To her it was almost like he had seen a ghost. "Must have been a busy weekend for him," Hanarei mumbled. She checked her watch and started to tap her foot. "I hope he doesn`t take too long. I`d like to ask him about this digimon stuff and get out of here if I can tonight." She looked over at her bag and saw that Himotomon was fast asleep.

***

Nikko wanted to call someone who could clarify all of this. Someone who could check out whether or not the Digital World was indeed back open and if other digimon were running away. Further more, did his own daughter have one? The temptation to check her room or bag was killing him but he knew he`d never stop hearing about it from Hanarei.

Nikko turned on his mini-com and checked his student files. There were a couple of people who he could think of calling and both had students at the school: Tommy and Sho-rei. At least one of Tommy`s children was a good bet since both he and Sutako were decendents of digidestined themselves. The same went for Sho-rei plus she may have the technology to check on the Digital World.

Finally Nikko decided and punched in the phone number. "I just hope Sho-rei is around to answer," he said to himself.

***

"I`m sure they have it," Shouki responded. He walked into the resturant and the chefs behind the counter shouted "Irasshaimase!" to them. Shouki waved a hand to them and said "Hey."

"What did they say?" Kirimon whispered.

"`Welcome`," Shouki whispered back. He led Yuu over to a table near the back and sat down. "Can we have a small order of tuna rolls?" he asked the chefs. After that he looked rather uncomfortable by this situation. It wasn`t that he hated it but more that he was new to it. This was probably the moment he should make small talk or something. "So... what did you think of the meeting? Apart from the arguing I mean," he added. "Or do you really not want to talk about this whole digital thing at all? I`m fine either way the conversation goes."

The order of tuna rolls came. Shouki grabbed one and, trying not to attract attention, reached down and put it into his bag for Kirimon. There was a muffled "Yeah" before his bag started moving wildly for a second and stopped. "More please," Kirimon requested.

***

"Ah, gotcha. Cool, thanks." Tomeo smiled broadly at Asayake, taking in what Aishou had said. "Are you sure you want nothing? Alright, I'll be right back girls." He turned round to walk back to the counter, and after a few minutes he returned, this time using his head and bringing a tray instead of juggling around four cold food products in his hands. Moving slowly, he made it about half-way to the table, before he had to lift up the tray almost eye-level to his face to avoid the two small kids that had been running around the shop earlier, which had almost ran smack-bang into his hands during their game of tag. He breathed out a sigh of relief as they passed, and placed the tray down on the table. "Good idea with the milkshake, I felt like one myself." he said, placing down Parumon's second round of strawberry ice-cream on the seat next to him and his chocolate milkshake at his place on the table. "One vanilla milkshake, one bowlful of chocolate ice cream. You can tip me later." he joked, and settled back down in his seat.

Upon seeing the second helping of her ice cream, Parumon scrambled up the seat of the booth next to Tomeo in haste, and started chomping down to her heart's content. Facing inward towards the table, she now could look over the lip of the table to see who it was that had sat down with her human partner and Asayake. Recognising her as another one of the digidestined she had seen at the meeting, she peered back down underneath the table at Rogishimon. "Hey, Rogishimon!" she called across in a hushed voice, between mouthfuls of ice cream. "The digidestined that just joined us... reckon her digimon is in the bag? We should go check it out." Her eyes wandered to the bag. Was Murimon in there, and would he be coming out?

"Anyway, you were saying Aishou, about Hanshin and Shireika?" Tomeo remembered, taking a moment to sip down some of his chocolate milkshake through the straw provided before he spoke again. "I agree with you there; I feel pretty worried myself that the two of them are distant from one another. But, I think that it's probably something personal between the two of them that they should sort out; I think we should leave them alone for a while." He gave Asayake a look, hoping she would understand the meaning behind what he was trying to say. Both she and himself knew that it was could very well have something to do with their mother's death, but he wasn't about to let that slip out yet again, unless Shireika or Hanshin decided to share it with Asayake. Or, if Asayake mentioned having been told said thing previously.

"I don't agree with you though that Shireika was putting Hanshin down during the meeting, though." he continued, thoguhtfully sipping his milkshake again. "I mean, the way I see it, Shireika is just trying to protect her brother from getting himself hurt, by warning him of the risks he might be taking trusting this Watcher person. I admire Hanshin for having a good heart and wanting to protect the world from the dark queen, but getting the strength to defeat her from the sealed power of a evil entity? It just doesn't sound right. I don't like it at all." He glanced again from Aishou to Asayake. "So, Asayake, what do you think?" he wondered, wanting to give her the chance to state her own opinion.

***

Tegiwa sagged in a chair at the table. His eyes were as red as his mother's and seemed not to take much in. He felt he was asleep sitting up. "Meh, I wouldn'ta noticed him were he hiding in my bag. But, no I don't think he followed me. I had to work a shift at the herbalist's today, so I came from there. Kaze does know where you live, so he could get here ahead of me." He laughed weakly.

"I had to work all last night, too. Hanshin's little meeting set me back some sleep. I can't remember what we last covered in class. Tell me it was interesting..." Tegiwa pulled his Chem book from his bag with folded papers and stick notes infesting it, and Robotmon tumbled from his bag to the floor.

"Was it your intention to cram those objects on top of me?"

Tegiwa, blinked then focused on the digimon. "No, I'm sorry, guy, I forgot you were still in there."

"That apology would have been more meaningful had you remembered me six hours ago."

"Said I was sorry, tin man. I'll be more careful." He put the robot on the table with the book and shuffled through bag for any other items he would need.

"Remember when we used to blow up things with our old chemistry set? I wish Chemistry were more like that. This theory stuff gets rather dry."

***

A red window popped up in front of Sho-rei's rather skeletal looking CG model of her project. There was a lot of work left fore she could think about attempting a simulation. She looked at the name in the box, and opened the channel immediately.

"Nikko, what did Kaze do now? Wait, it's Sunday...Sorry, saw your name and thought of the school. It's been awhile since we've heard from you in a non-official capacity. What can I do for you?"

***

Naoko caught a glimpse of Ami walking away, and got a weird feeling. She quickly looked around to see Hanshin approaching her. She could not believe her luck. "I've got to take care of something with Hanshin, Shuuichi. Don't wait around if I don't come right back. I'll make it up to you later."

She hugged Hanshin hard from behind as he approached the desk. Her arms wrapped around his waist and her hands felt over the outline of his abs. "Hey, Mr. Wonderful. I've been missing you for a while now. I have a room already if you'd like to make up for some lost time. C'mon. I know you want to." She purred in his ear as stood on tip-toe. One of her hands wandered lower. "Yeah, you want to. No waiting for me. I want you now."

***

"Personally, I just don't think I can trust the Watcher with what little information we've got," Asayake said, taking a sip of her milkshake, "I mean, we know nothing about whoever the Watcher is. I've resigned to the fact that I have to refer to the Watcher as an it, since we don't even have a gender to place on the name. If the Dark Queen or whatever comes down to smite us all, then I suppose I was wrong not to trust in the Watcher's abilities, but I'd hardly think it was MY fault. If this Watcher wants our trust, I think we need a little more to go off of other than a name."

"As to Shireika and Hanshin," she paused to pass Rogishimon her ice cream, as the little bird was sighing at her dramatically from underneath the table, "They may be twins, but they're different people. I guess they both decided that going their own way was the only way to stay different. Because the thought that all twins are exact replicas of each other is a huge stereotype; I don't speak from experience or anything, since I grew up without a brother or a sister to bother, but that's how I think they would see it, you know? Maybe purposefully fighting over things is their way of proving that the one isn't the exact replica of the other, or something."

Choosing to end her ramble there, Asayake propped her elbow up on the table to make a place for her head to rest, and swirled the straw of her milkshake around with her free hand. "I personally found it more than a little creepy that the Watcher found my name, and managed to get this thing," she gestured to the digivice clipped to her backpack, "and Rogishimon into my room somehow. Kinda stalker-ish."

"There's probably a good explanation for that, though," Rogishimon quipped around her ice cream, "I mean, he can't be all bad, can he?"

"Unfortunately, you never know, Rogishimon." Sighing, Asayake took another long sip of her milkshake.

Rogishimon eyed Parumon wearily. "You like to get yourself into trouble, don't you," It was more of a statement than a question, and Rogishimon simply waved a wing at the Digimon across from her. "Do whatever you want, Parumon, I want to eat my ice cream. Besides, what if Aishou doesn't want her Digimon to come out and roam around?"

***

Shuuichi stared down the whole time, during the reservation, duiring the walk into the hotel, and during the whole welcoming of Hanshin. A whole scene unfurled in his head with himself. 'You don't want to do this,' said a voice.

'Yeah, you're right,' he said.

'She's not your type, or class, or level. She isn't good enough for the great Jounin-san. You desearve better than that. Look at her hugging and slinging herself on Hanshin. She doesn't love one person but she continues to have sex and play with any cute guy. She's just here for the fun not truly for love. Well except maybe for him,' the voice said.

Shuuichi looked up to see Naoko walked off to Hanshin. 'He always gets lucky anyway. Probably another night like all the others. Your girl just got wrangled in. To think how mnay girls love him truly, maybe even Naoko?' the voice trailed off.

'You're afraid because of your family and pride. You would be ruined if you had a kid now. You would be ruined if your family knew. It is too high of a risk that she wouldn't get pregnant isn't it Shuuichi. Think hard on this. No inheritance or anything. Living your life alone as a virgin like your dear aunt Sarika...' the voice said silencing itself.

"It's not like I don't want to do it, I really do. It's just there is nothing behind it. Really no motivation or romance. No emotion or will to do this. Just because it feels good? Is that really a will?" he whispered. "I don't find that right. I don't find it right to just do it with anyone for that feeling. I want to do it with a girl I love. And that is... it isn't her," he said as he turned around. "Maybe I should just leave now," he said as he began to walk away slowing towards the exit of the hotel.

***

"But, if there truly is a possibility that there could be a dark queen coming, we have to be ready, just like Hanshin pointed out," Aishou argued. "I know we don't trust the Watcher, but what if there really is a threat? What if there really is a queen coming to get us? We need whatever we can get, even if it's the former powers of an evil entity." She paused. "I just find Shireika's arguments so pessimistic. After all, what can we possibly lose by getting the key for this power? If we have it, we'll be ready. It's not like the evil entity is still around, right?"

***

Shireika laughed at Tegiwa as she continued working on some more chemistry problems. "The old chemistry kits were fun," she murmured as she worked out another problem on gas laws. "But, theory wasn't exactly ever your thing in science." She looked up after finishing the problem. "Last class was gas laws and review for the test. The gas laws were easy, and the review was relatively unhelpful. Then again, I actually do the reading and pay attention in class." She pushed her notebook towards Tegiwa. "You can look over my notes."

***

Hanshin immediately recognized the voice as Naoko's.

"Already?" he whispered. "Were you expecting me or something?" He loosened Naoko's tight hold around him and turned around to face her. His hands gripped at her waist, and he quickly pulled her up against his body. "And you've been missing me too?" he asked with a grin on his face. He leaned against the empty front desk as he ran his hands down her hips. One hand gripped under a leg as he pulled her even closer, and another held her head as he gently pulled her into a kiss.

All thoughts of Ami had completely left his mind, so much that he didn't notice when she had walked out of the ladies' room and had immediately left the lobby upon seeing Naoko with Hanshin. He might have wondered what had happened to her, but he figured that Ami wouldn't mind. He knew that Ami didn't really care who she did it with, as long as she got what she wanted out of it. Hanshin didn't particularly have too many preferences either, as long as she was willing.

"So, lead the way," he commanded as he turned her around to lead him to the room she had rented. He gave her a spank on the rear to get her moving, since he wanted it now.

***

"No, I'm fine talking about it" she answered. "The meeting... I don't know. It could have gone better, I think, but Hanshin-san and Shireika-san..." She began running her finger absentmindedly across the edge of the table. "I mean, it's nothing against either of them, and I know that this is a serious subject, but it don't think it warrented that much animosity. And now it feels like everyone has to take sides... I don't really like that"

Yuu paused when the order of tuna rolls came. She picked one up and, thinking twice, removed the fish before slipping the remainder into her bag. There was a muffled "Thank'ya!" and the sound of birdlike munching.

"By the way," she continued as she poked at another tuna roll, "it seemed like several of the people there had family who had been part of this before. Did either of your parents mention anything like this? My dad's the only member of our family who's lived in Tokyo before, and he's never said anything about it..." she mused aloud. It really was amazing that something like this had happened before, to other people. She wondered whether there had been another Child of Friendship, and who it might have been.

***

"Now that you mention it, Kaze was in my office the other day... but that`s not what I`m calling about," said Nikko. "I know it may seem like an odd request after not staying in touch very much except with school business, but could you run some sort of scan on digimon in the area or on the Digital World gate?" Nikko was thinking hard on a reason to his request without giving any details that may surprise Sho-rei too much. He didn`t know how she would react to the news that Kaze may have his own digimon. "I have a very bad feeling and several signs that it re-opened and let out more digimon into our world."

"I just hope this doesn`t mean a repeat of what happened with us."

***

Hanarei started to pace while waiting in the living room for her dad to finish whatever he was doing. "Hurry up Dad," she said to herself. She heard the sound of the door open followed by rapid footsteps.

"I`m HOME!!!" Yume shouted. She leapt in the air aiming for Hanarei. Hanarei caught a glimpse of her sister and leaned back instantly into a bridge stretch so her stomach was facing the ceiling and she saw her sister upside down on the couch. Yume had a childish smile on her face. "Hehe, I love it when you do that," she said.

"I`m just glad mom taught it to me just so I could avoid being hit by you," Hanarei angrly replied. She brought her legs over her body, did a quick handstand, then finished by bringing herself right-side up.

"Hey, what`s this?" Yume had found Himotomon in Hanarei`s bag and pulled her out. "AAAAAAA!!!! It`s so cute!!!" She squeezed Himotomon with a hug like she was a stuffed animal. Himotomon did not look pleased at all by this but she had her breath taken out by the hug.

"GIVE THAT BACK!!" Hanarei ordered. Yume played a quick game of keep away with her sister (who didn`t want to play) before giving her Himotomon.

"Have fun with your new toy," said Yume as she walked into her room. Hanarei`s face was mad with rage. Fortunately, Himotomon was there to distract her from killing her sister. "Can... ... I... ... breath now?" Himotomon panted.

***

Shouki grabbed another tuna roll but placed it in his mouth. "Yeah, it did seem like some people were trying to take sides. I just want things to be peaceful, especially between Hanshin and Shireika," he said. "I wish there was some way we could help them out with whatever kind of problems they`re having." He looked slightly gloomier after saying that. `Hikaru could have found someway of helping out,` he thought. The prayer beads caught a gust of wind and clattered as they moved back and forth. Shouki realized his expression and quickly straightened up.

He heard Yuu make the comment about some people being descendents of digidestined. "No, I don`t recall anyone in my family mentioning such a thing. Whenever my parents talked about their past it sounded pretty much same ol` same ol` as anyone else`s parents. I mean, as far as not having digimon and how they met and everything like that." He picked up another tuna roll and fed it to Kirimon as he thought of his next comment. "I think my digivice said something like I`m the Child of Harmony." The way he said it, he didn`t sound to thrilled by the title. If anything, he thought, his life had been anything but harmonious.

"I wonder if we will have to go through the same things they did. Or worse, if we`ll have to fight against something more powerful than before."

***

"Isn't this breaking and entering?"

"I have a key."

"So? If this key of yours is so wonderful, why are we sneaking in?"

"It's not 'sneaking' if the doorman's asleep. Besides, did you hear any alarms going off? Do I look like a criminal?"

"Do you want me to answer that?" Enma made a face at the digimon she was currently carrying, before turning the key and waiting for the elevator. She heard the 'ding', and go inside, hitting the button for the forty-ninth floor. Leaning against the wall of the elevator, she waited as it lifted her up to the correct floor. Getting out, she looked down at Mitikomomon.

"So, how do you feel?" She asked sardonically, looking at her sickly partner. When the digimon didn't respond, Enma nodded to herself, before trying the handle of the lone door of the floor. Finding the door unlocked, she poked her head in, looking around. "Hello?" She called, carefully stepping into the room and toeing off her shoes. "Grandmother?"

"Maybe this was a bad idea..."

"Enma? What are you doing here?" Enma turned, shocked when the voice wasn't her grandmother's, but her mother's.

"Uh...hi...mom...?" Enma tried, holding Mitikomomon tightly.

***

Sho-rei thought for a moment before answering. "I suppose I can think of something to try. It's been a few decades since I ran those gate programs by dad came up with, so I'll have to look for them. They quit working when our digivices shut down; I put them away after that.

"Now, two questions: one, what makes you think the gate was open and two, do you still have your digivice? I don't have mine anymore. Heh." She hoped her nervous laughter at the end hadn't sounded as loud to Nikko as it had sounded in her earpiece.

She swiveled her chair toward the hall. And looked apprehensively at a door set with a heavy lock; that door hadn't been opened in years for she had the only key. Then, she looked at her right hand which had started tingling. She guessed it was going to bother her slightly for the rest of her life even though the surgeons had claimed the hand was a perfect replica of her original. /I guess 20 years of irritation is the cost of curiosity./

"So, Nikko....why was Kaze in your office?"

***

Tegiwa smiled. His own notes were that random mess of papers spilling out of the book with pencil and ink hen scratch. The semester had barely started, and the binding of his chemistry book was ready to surrender. Shireika's notes were neatly recopied and typed, suitable for publication.

"Thanks, I'm glad we are in the same class. But, FYI, I do pay attention in class; it's just the hours in between each class that confuse me. Reading might help though. Most of my reading is done in the car or the ambulance.

"Now, Gas Laws. The equations are a bit complex to apply, but the forms aren't too hard to remember. PV=mRT. But, I tend to forget which person goes with each Law: Charles, Boyle, Dalton, Avogadro, Henry, and the rest of them. Seems the sure fire way to get your name in a text book is to find a law governing gases."

As he scanned her notes the fog in head lifted a bit. He had studied these laws in physics, but he was running on little sleep these days. To much to worry about outside of school.

"I'm going to do my best to find something out about that Watcher guy. I have to know. But, if he is a fraud what are we going to do with our digimon?"

"Error! The Watcher is legitimate! He dispatched us to you to fight in the coming battle." Robotmon was clanking as he walked around on the table.

"Brain-washed lil' dudes. Aren't they?"

***

Naoko needed no encouragement, and playfully let out an small yelp as Hanshin gave her a spank. She walked a little slower to tease him.

She noticed Shuuichi leaving and made a mental note to be nice to him later. Once she and Hanshin had made it inside the elevator, she pressed the button for the tenth floor. The doors closed behind them, and Naoko flung her arms around Hanshin and pressed her mouth to his.

Breaking lip to lip and tongue to tongue only briefly, she gasped. "That's some of what I've been missing." She twisted the ring on her finger and turned off her PDA messager. She only turned it off for Hanshin.

***

Shireika looked up from her work, upon hearing Tegiwa ramble about chemistry class and the Watcher.

"Hey, study!" she commanded, pointing her pencil towards the notes she had given him to look at. "As far as the Watcher goes, he can do the work himself. He may exist and all, but I don't trust him. He seems far too suspicious to do anything for, no matter what Hanshin believes. But, Hanshin just wants power, and we all know that. We all know what he just wants: more stardom." She rolled her eyes. "End of discussion." She pointed back at Tegiwa with her pencil. "Now, study or else."

***

Hanshin responded to Naoko by pushing her up against a wall in the elevator. He slipped his hands beneath her sleeveless top, which gave little to the imagination. He didn't utter a word as he leaned closer to her, trying to press her body as closely as possible against his body. He kissed away from her mouth down her cheek and neck.

"Hanshin," she whispered breathlessly as she lifted a leg around his waist. Just his touch was enough to get her going, and she wanted him now. She wanted these barriers of cloth to be removed. It had been weeks, maybe a couple months, since she last had time with him alone like this, and she wanted this so badly.

The doors to the elevator opened, to Naoko's disappointment, but she figured better get into the room before things picked up too quickly now. She pushed at Hanshin's shoulders while her lips remet his, and she managed to move them out of the elevator down the hallway towards their room. She bit into his lower lip as she pressed Hanshin up against the door to the room she had rented. While continuing to kiss him, she masterfully slipped the card key out of her pocket and into the lock of the door. Their weight pushed the door open, causing them to nearly fall onto the floor, but Hanshin managed to prevent such a disaster.

As the door closed behind them, Naoko began her real work. Forcing him to walk backwards, she directed him to the bed all the while kissing him passionately. Quickly, they both kicked off shoes and socks as they wandered through the room towards the bed. She tugged at his black t-shirt, and taking a break from his mouth, she pulled it over his head and threw it aside. She bit her oiwn lip as she stared at him as he fell onto the bed. The sight of his somewhat defined abs and developed pecs was enough to make her hot, and she wanted him more than she could ever have imagined. It definitely had been far too long since their last evening together.

"Come here," Hanshin beckoned. He grinned at her, with a smile that almost said, 'Come and get it.'

Naoko crawled on the bed towards him, letting him have a good view of the cleavage exposed by her low-cut top. She set her hands and legs on either side of his body as she continued towards him, until she was finally straddling over him. Her hands ran over his stomach and chest, feeling over his defined muscles and smooth skin. She shivered when Hanshin touched her knees, which were on either side of his torse, and slowly began to massage her thighs underneath her pleated white skirt.

She looked into his eyes, seeing the intensity they had whenever they were in this position. She had been here so many times with him, and she knew what every single look he had meant. Right now, he wanted her to take it off, and with a single motion, she pulled her shirt over her head. Her fingers then found their way to Hanshin's belt, which she unbuckled, and then unbuttoned his pants. She could feel the beginning of a tent building in his pants, and as quickly as she could, she left him only in his boxers.

She leaned down over Hanshin, meeting his lips with hers. It felt so good to have his arms around her and to have his hands on her body again. She hooked her fingers onto the elastic waistband of Hanshin's boxers and looked into his eyes. She grinned at him with pleasure.

Hanshin, meanwhile, was enjoying himself thoroughly. He always enjoying sex with Naoko because she was so willing and, of course, amazing with her body. She seemed to know every little thing that would turn him on, and he particularly liked that he could enjoy the beginning of the ride when she most of the work. It wasn't that he was unwilling to pleasure the woman he was in bed with, but it never seemed to come up.

Still, Naoko was certainly one of his favorites of the girls he spent time with. He loved the feel of her skin beneath his hands and the way she would touch him. He also appreciated that she was relatively undemanding and simply wanted it however felt natural at the time. Ami was always fun, but she was highly demanding, sometimes a little too much. Naoko would take it whatever way he wanted, and Hanshin enjoyed having the opportunity to try new things with her.

Certainly, this was a nice change to have right now.

***

Nikko ran his hand through his hair. He did not like being the bringer of bad news to parents. "From what I can figure out Kaze was aggitated and started a one-sided fist fight with another student. He was pulled back by a teacher and brought to my office. I`ll fill you in on the rest afterwards."

"Yesterday I could have sworn I saw... someone with a digimon in their backpack. They said it was a stuffed toy but I don`t remember ever seeing a toy like that. Especially with Yume around. And two, my older daughter, Hanarei, she`s been acting...." Nikko paused on whether or not he should mention his dark side to Sho-rei. He knew she knew about it, but even he was having a hard time thinking that his dark side was able to transfer its spirit into his daughter. "She seems to be hiding something. Not like hiding drugs or anything but something else. I have a strong hunch it`s digimon-related."

When Sho-rei mentioned if he had his digivice, Nikko looked down at his desk drawer. It had been years since he last looked at it. "Could you hold on for a second?" he asked. With the phone still next to his mouth, he reached behind his desk for the key that unlocked the drawers. Once he had a hold on it, he put the key into the drawer and opened it. "I do have it somewhere around here. I piled some papers on top of it on a drawer accidently. I guess I need to clean up more often." He felt around near the bottom but nothing was there. He started to pull out papers but still nothing. By now he was throwing papers out of the drawer and onto the floor. "Where is it?!" Finally Nikko was staring at an empty drawer with no digivice in it.

"Sho-rei, it`s gone!! I know I put it in here too and it`s always locked!"

***

Meanwhile, outside the door, Hanarei could hear her dad throwing the papers onto the floor. It didn`t take her long to figure out what he was doing. Hanarei reached into her pocket and felt the digivice between her fingers. "I am so dead," she mumbled.

***

Drawing a finger through the condensation on the cup her milkshake was in, Asayake sighed. "I know that there's a gigantic risk to be taken if we don't trust the Watcher, and I understand it, but what happens if we get the key, and the Watcher turns out to be a psycopathic S.O.B. in the ranks of the Dark Queen person? Then we're screwed, that's what. The Watcher needs to understand that we can't all trust... Screw it," She huffed, flicking a bead of condesnation from her finger, 'It's a him until I learn otherwise. He needs to understand that not everyone can simply go following the word of a person we know absolutely nothing about. Think about it; if some random person came up to you, told you the world was in danger, gave you a weird-looking talking animal, and sent you on your merry way to find some old key with enormous powers, would you go? I certainly wouldn't. That's like someone pulling up to you in a car and telling you to get in; absolute no-no on the Virtue scale, unless you're into getting raped or something. It's probably just because I'm not really into putting my faith in many people anymore, but I'm not going to do anything the Watcher tells us to until there's some solid evidence that he's not just yanking us around."

***

"Nn..." Yuu made a noise of agreement. She wished there was a way to help those twins get along better as well, but she didn't know how to go about it. It wasn't like she had any experience wish brother and sister relationships, she thought wistfully.

She looked up at Shouki. He looked a little forlorn... but then seemed to catch himself. Yuu was beginning to notice something about this boy; he always had this quiet sadness about him, just beneath the surface. She thought back to the conversation in the library, and wondered who those prayer beads were in remembrance of.

She popped a tuna roll as Shouki talked about his parents, and then what his digivice had told him, noticing the tone in his voice. "Hm.. that seems like a good fit for you, Houzuru-san" she said with a small smile. It faded at what he said next, however. "I'd rather not need to fight at all, but that doesn't seem very likely..."

***

Hanshin sat on the edge of the bed and faced the window. He had pulled his boxers back on and looked around the room for where Naoko had thrown his shirt. Their clothes were strewn all over the little hotel room, and he wasn't sure what went where. It was getting close to evening, and he and Naoko had gotten a little carried away with things for a couple hours.

"Dad is going to harrass me about not doing my work again," he grumbled at he fell backwards on the bed, his head falling gently next to Naoko's body. "So will Shireika, as always."

Naoko sat up and put her chin on his shoulder and hugged him with one arm. "Don't worry. They'll both change their tune soon enough. Your dad will see that music is your work, and your shreiking sister will see that you know what's best when the others follow your thinking and leave her out in the cold." She slipped on her only important article of clothing: her PDA ring. "Which reminds me..."

"She's got Tegiwa, and there are others just as suspicious as she is of the Watcher," he replied as he looked back at her. He swept away a long bang of blonde hair from his eyes and then ran a hand through his mess of blonde hair. "Anyway, what are you reminded of?"

"I've been working on setting up a gig at one of the new clubs. I just got things worked out with the manager, now we need to deicide on a weekend. The manger hinted that if the crowd liked the Stallions you guys might become regulars. I know you like Ryu [current club manager], but his place is a bit small... and this new club will pay in more than snacks, soda, and beer. The new club is kind of upscale. It suits your image, and the 'labels' might notice you there."

Hanshin sighed and grumbled something softly. He hated it when the girls brought business into the bedroom, and this was really not where his mind was at the moment. In fact, issues with the band and getting gigs were the last thoughts on his mind at the moment.

"Yeah," he replied as he got up to grab his black shirt, which had been thrown aside earlier. "Sounds like a good idea, especially if we'll get more revenue, which would be really helpful." But, he really didn't care all that much. He generally was one focused on the music, making sure it was high quality. Once that was down, it would be no challenge to get a label to hire them.

Naoko blinked. She had hoped for some praise but, Hanshin showed much interest in promoting the band. He expected people to recognize his talent-- prima facie. Changing horses in mid-stream again, she continued:

"Yeah....so, how do we handle the doubters' fears? They didn't seem all that eager to side with Shireika even though they may have agreed. Anything you want me to do before the next meeting, Hon?" Naoko brushed back her long black hair and scrounged her own clothes. "...now how did that get there?" She gave a little laugh as she extracted a sandal and her thong from inside the lamp shade.

"That's where you threw it," he replied as he walked up behind her.

”Oh…now I remember. I tossed them there when you…” Naoko giggled at memory instead of finishing her thought. She slowly pulled her thong on like a strip tease in reverse, wiggling her rear at Hanshin hoping to tease him into another round.

Hanshin was relieved that she changed subjects. The bedroom, or wherever they did it, just wasn't the right place to discuss business. He gave Naoko's rear a squeeze before placing his hands on her hips. "As far as the others," he whispered as he kissed her neck. "None of them want to see the group split up - none of us do, except maybe Shireika. And, for us, Tegiwa is the one who will stick with Shireika through thick and thin." He paused before things could get carried away again. "You might just have to seduce him."

He turned away, grabbing his pants from the floor, and pulled them on. He looked back at Naoko with a grin. "That's all assuming you'd be willing to," he added.

Naoko would do anything for Hanshin, especially when he touched her like that. She purred and looked at him playfully over her shoulder, returning his grin with a wicked smirk. "What makes you think I haven't done him already?" Then, her face fell a bit. "Well, I haven't.....Kaze likes guys, but I'm not sure what Tegiwa likes, beyond your sister. I'm fairly certain they aren't doing it. He doesn't look at her in that way....doesn't look at anyone /that/ way come to think." She looked at the ceiling. "Sure, I'll give it a try. Might do him some good." She'd sleep with Shireika if he asked her, but she had doubts that a lay would sway Tegiwa.

"It might," he said as he pulled his shirt on over his head. "The really problem is Shireika." He shook his head as he picked up his belt.

"Are you certain that she's your sister? She's so stuck-up and into herself. I mean, she lives in her own little world. It's not very healthy. Maybe, she's a changeling?" Naoko disliked Shireika almost as much as she disliked Ami. "I don't like how she's always on your case about being responsible. You work hard at you music to make people feeling great. You deserve to have fun, which is something she knows nothing about; she's alone in her own little world giving nothing to no one." Naoko slipped on her skirt and top. before stepping into her sandals. "I mean....she lives up here." She gestured to her head with her hand then twirled her index finger for effect. "Have you noticed? It's always her and Tegiwa, but it never really seems like they are in the same room. It's like watching two strangers on a transport."

Hanshin took a deep breath and contemplated Naoko's opinion of his twin sister. He and Shireika were certainly twins; there was no doubt that they were related. But as similar as they were, they were still so different. As far as Shireika's head being in another world, he wasn't sure.

"Shireika and Tegiwa have always been like that," he replied. "I mean, she's always been on some other wavelength, kind of lost in some ways." There was something that Shireika wanted, and he wasn't sure what it was. "And, yet, she's so down to earth." He shrugged. "She's her own person."

Naoko shrugged. "Well, you can get the key without her or her weird friend. You know you can count on me. I think Shouki will be reliable as will some of the others. You have all the friends you will ever need. I hope Shireika is smart enough to stay out of your way this time; she likes to cause trouble when she thinks you might be having a good time. Maybe if she found a guy...I mean a real guy...she wouldn't have enough free time to be jealous of you."

Hanshin sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed again. Dealing with Shireika was always a challenge. He couldn't understand her anymore, and he wasn't sure why.

"I don't think she's jealous," he said, "but a boyfriend might get her to pay attention to something else other than my lack of interest in school." He narrowed his eyes. "And, the likelihood of that is small. She's got her eyes set on something else."

"Oh, getting into Tokyo University," Hanshin replied confidentally. "What else? She's so caught with doing well in school and sports that she doesn't really have time for much else, does she?"

"Yeah, that's right. She thinks that stuff will advance her in life. Chasing a piece of paper, it's comical. The only way to make it in this world is to have guts and take chances. Her speech proved she doesn't have that. Hanshin, baby. You are the Ishida whose name will be written in the stars. Just count on Naoko-chan. She'll get you there!"

A ball of foil rolled out of Naoko's purse, flattened itself out, and rolled itself into a wide cone before sounding a fanfare. The tin trumpet morphed into a folded figure of a dog. "Yay! Hanshin! But, Naoko...It's not a wise idea to knock Shireika so much. I'm sure she matters to her brother even if most of that stuff you said is true."

"Have you been in there the whole time?"

"Yes. I'm always here for you when you need me..."

"Suzumon....This isn't one of those times." She could see a definite disadvantage to having a "partner" that looked like gum wrappers. She had forgotten about him....

Hanshin got up and chuckled a little.

"It's okay. My partner's in the bag," he said with a shrug. "But, he seems to stick to himself. I don't what he does when he's by himself." He grabbed his backpack. "I really should get going." He stopped before leaving the room and looked back at Naoko. "Shireika has her own opinions and desires. Hopefully, she'll come to understand mine." He took another look at Naoko and grinned. "See you later, babe." He winked as he left the hotel room.

"Ja na, Mr. Wonderful. See ya soon!" Naoko winked back. Hopefully, yeah, she'd understand that Hanshin life was his own. But, Naoko knew his sister would make trouble. She'd have to arrange... something...by next meeting.

***

Sho-rei felt worry creep into her thoughts. "Gone? Are you sure it was in the draw recently. It's not the kind of thing like to be stolen since it looks like a old MP3 player. On the other, they don't evaporate either." She self consciously flexed the fingers of he synthetic right hand. /They usually don't evaporate, unless you try to open them. She knew there was nothing normal about those digivices, and she their whole adventure in a new light.

Twenty-five years ago:

Sho-rei and Ken had just moved into their new flat. While setting up her computer studio and workshop, she found her old digivice in a box. She thought she had lost it ages ago, but she had packed it away and forgot about it.

Years earlier she had tried to open the digivice so she could figure out its workings. Her dad had managed to reproduce its effects once. It was his digital gateway project; however, he just analyzed the signals and never managed to open the blasted thing. The digivice was a puzzling tool. It was seamless and screwless. Nothing she tired back then would gain her access to the inside.

Now, the old curiosity that was both bane and boon to her family took hold of her again. She felt today’s efforts would be different; she was borrowing a Laser cutter from Trinity. It was far superior to any tool of the late 2030’s.

She took the digivice to a work bench in a small room off the basement hall where she set up the cutter. Securing the digivice in the machine, she set the depth for what she guessed would be the thickness of the case….

***

Tegiwa knew better than to cross Shireika’s end of discussion line. “Fine, fine. I’m studying. I’m studying. This test is the mondo most important thing right now. But, if you need me to do anything for the meeting Saturday, let me know soon. It might take a while for me to prepare. I’m, like, worried that the others will do something stupid unless we can proved the Watcher is false.”

***

"And if they do something stupid, that's their choice," Shireika replied as she pointed to the notes that Tegiwa was looking at with the intention of pointing out that he really should be studying. "But, I guess we're going to have to be the ones to keep them from opening a Pandora's box of trouble, right?" She shook her head as she returned back to her work.

After about an hour, Shireika had finished the practice exam, and she got up from the table.

"I'll be back," she said as she walked into the kitchen. The apartment had been designed such that the kitchen and living room were basically one room. The wall that separated the two rooms was really a tall table, with high bar stools on one side for eating at and a counter on the other side for cooking. Shireika shuffled through the kitchen to the fridge and grabbed a bowl of leftover noodles from last night. She leaned against the counter dividing the kitchen and living room and start eating.

Normally, she was a fast eater, but as her eyes glazed over again while she looked out through a window in the living room, she put her chopsticks down. Something was on her mind again. She propped her head on a hand and sighed softly.

***

"I suppose so," Aishou whispered, but she didn't like how people were simply dismissing the Watcher. Perhaps she just believed that the Watcher might have the right intentions, just like Hanshin did. Still, they were digi-destined, and there was some truth to that. There was no way that was a lie, and while the Watcher could have found that information out anywhere, Shireika and Hanshin's Uncle Matsuro seemed to know that they were digi-destined.

It made her worried that all the digi-destined were splitting up over something like this. They should be working together, but they couldn't seem to agree. They all had their own opinions, and no one was going to change their minds, especially Shireika and Hanshin.

Back