******************

Millions the world over saw the moment when Taichi became digital.

The battle had been fought. Diaboromon had created innumerable copies of itself, which filled an Internet chamber somewhere in America with creeping insectile movement. Taichi’s dinosaurian WarGreymon, and my lupine MetelGarurumon had faced these multitudes of skittering mocking creatures, only to fall under their sheer numbers. They hung in the void; wounded, defeated and lost, while Diaboromon continued to eat data, cloaked by his facsimiles. The world saw this. Takeru and I watched helplessly from our distant village. In Odaiba, Koushirou frantically worked his computers, looking for a solution to our crisis. Of us all, only Taichi was prompted into action. Only Taichi had the power to break all the rules of physics and reality.

He reached through the monitor of his computer, across the barrier between realities, consumed so completely by courage, fear and the love for his wounded digimon that he transcended the very fabric of the universe itself. I could only watch as he poured out of the real world and into the data shadow, terror gripping my own heart at the very sight. Of course, much of my fear was for our digimon partners, but a great part of it was reserved for Taichi. Watching him move through the ether, his hands outstretched and reaching for WarGreymon, I felt my stomach twist in empathic response to the pain and strength that he so plainly displayed.

I saw his tears, heard the broken way he whimpered out his digimon’s name. As horrifying and serious as the situation was, I could not help the thought that formed in the back of my heart which whispered that Taichi was beautiful. He had always been, but now he was beautiful in his soul-deep pain, and in the delusory lighting of an impossible reality. Ethereal as he descended onto WarGreymon’s back and hugged his arms around the lagging creature who was so much a part of him. Each of his tears were like crystal gems, falling away into nothingness. Each breath filled his lungs with air that was not real, as if it were the last substance that his body would ever know.

And then, millions watched as I was pulled into the un-reality of the Internet as well. Pulled. No one else but I knew that truth. Taichi had forced himself in, but I was pulled, through no discernable power or will of my own. My feelings for MetalGarurumon were just as strong as Tai’s were for WarGreymon, and my desire to help just as overwhelming, but it was not the power of Friendship that allowed me to break that barrier between worlds. It was Courage, Taichi’s Courage. I felt it wrap around me as surely as a blanket in the night, warming me, filling every dark crevice within my heart and soul with a shattering light that was penetrating and demanding. I was so shocked by the invasion, by the sudden knowing of all of Taichi’s conflicting wildly swinging emotions, that at first I didn’t even notice that I was being drawn in.

It was like swimming through corn syrup, but the going was made easier by the fact that I was being dragged, being summoned by Taichi’s power. Perhaps . . . well, perhaps some of it was my doing . . . maybe it was even Friendship and Courage working together in tandem, the way both Taichi and I felt it should be. I doubt I’ll ever know for sure now, but at the time all I was aware of was the press of Taichi’s overmastering presence in my mind, and the sight of MetalGarurumon hanging helplessly beneath me as I was brought to him. I called his name, my fingers found and slid over the cold metal of his armor. I fought against my own tears as I descended and he made no response.

"Wake up," I said softly, but my voice was loud in the creeping stillness of the unreal dimension around us. I heard it echo, sounding as hollow as my own soul usually was, except that now my soul was filled with him, filled with Taichi and fear and desperation, and the numbing knowledge that the seconds were ticking away relentlessly. I tried again. "Don’t quit now . . ." And when there was no response, I naturally looked to Taichi for guidance, barely able to see him through the light shining down upon his figure across the ether, and through the stinging shine coming off my own tears. "Why won’t he answer me, Taichi?"

I felt Taichi’s dark golden eyes on me, and I felt a swirl within my chest as Courage surged insistently, demanding that I not lose faith. Unnatural light glinted from the lenses of his goggles, and his voice came from far away, echoing and almost small. "Keep trying, Yamato," he replied, and I heard what was unspoken articulated in my mind, whispering encouragement in his familiar tones.

The mental mantra waned, and I looked sharply across the void and saw Taichi briefly shut his eyes as if he were in pain. Pain. Pain as the realization came over him that perhaps this time there really was nothing that we could do. The digimon were near death and not responding to us. I saw a brief flash of understanding and impending defeat cross Taichi’s face, the battered emotion looking foreign and wrong where there had always been liveliness and faith before. No . . . I could not let Taichi, of all people, lose heart . . . I could not allow his normally unstoppable force ebb for even an instant.

For the first time during this crisis - that I could positively verify - the tide of Friendship rose within my own beating heart in instinctive response to his hurt and uncertainty, and I sent that feeling to fill Tai in return for his Courage. I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know how he was able to do it in the first place. Perhaps it was as simple as flexing a muscle that we didn’t know we had. But it worked. It always worked. Separately, he and I floundered. But together we were always able to accomplish great things. Taichi gasped, drawing in an unnecessary breath that was close to a sob, finding a new strength from my influx of Friendship . . . Friendship. That seems like such a weak word compared to what it actually was, what it actually felt like. It was so much more than that. So so much more.

Renewed, Taichi looked down at WarGreymon, strengthened enough by my support to continue. "Listen, I don’t have a whistle to wake you . . . " he said, and his words jogged some half-remembered vision in my head of a much younger Tai, seen from a distance, desperately attempting to wake another dinosaurian digimon from the daze of battle. A memory of Heighten View Terrace, before I ever knew Taichi, or any of the others for that matter.

". . . but I want you to know you’re not alone . . . " Taichi continued, his words taking on an edge of desperation that I had never heard from him before. Perhaps he was sensing how the seconds dropped away as well as I was, but it seemed to those millions watching as if his entire center of being was on his digimon, and only his digimon. I knew better. I could feel Taichi crying in my soul, crying plaintively in a way he would have never shown to anyone else.

"Okay? And the mail keeps coming. It won’t stop! Kids from all over the world are writing to you! They need your help. You’re the only one who can do it!" He gripped his hands tighter into WarGreymon’s wild orange mane, voice rising as the urgency grew. "Feel their hope! Feel their strength!"

I was nodding mentally, arms crushed around MetalGarurumon’s head. Yes! I silently urged both our digimon partners and the boy who was crying into the ether, the center of attention for the entire world we had to save. An entire world which was watching through their own computer monitors as this drama unfolded. I willed Taichi to feel the very hope and strength that he was insisting that WarGreymon feel, wrapped my invisible arms of Much More then Friendship around him and fortified his walls and battlements. I could feel him gratefully clinging to what I offered him

WarGreymon stirred, coughed wetly in his lungs and dryly in his throat. There was a tense moment, during which the raging tide and ebb of torrential emotions rose within both myself and Taichi, as faith blossomed within us anew, then paused trembling on its stalk to see if the time was right for complete flowering. There was a burst of light as WarGreymon’s consciousness flooded back to him and his eyes lit up, highlighting the sparkles of Taichi’s lost tears hanging in the ether. The digimon’s deep gravely voice poured into being. "I . . . feel . . . them . . . "

A proverbial damn burst then as Taichi’s all-encompassing Courage and my supporting Friendship reached a crescendo and crashed together. There was a surge throughout the entire data dimension, a roaring that seemed to come from within us both, and from within our digimon. All those e-mails that Koushirou had been so valiantly and sensibly trying to block and reroute found their way to us, as the combined energies of thousands of young people swelled and sought to protect us. Each file sprang to life, joining with the next until a growing wall of strength and faith and light began to surround and protect us from the sudden attention of Diaboromon.

WarGreymon was the first to move. Growling out in pain and determination, he began to grow, bolstered by all the energy which Taichi’s Courage had summoned, and which my Friendship was stabilizing. Tai stood on the digimon’s head, and then slid down his muzzle, an expression of wonder and confusion on his face, as if he had no clue as to what was going on. Could it be that he honestly did not know what he was doing? Could it be that he was unaware of the sheer overwhelming force of his own heart and soul? He had called all of this into being, he had been the catalyst for this miracle. Could he possibly be so innocent that he did not know?

Perhaps courage really is a kind of salvation, just as Plato said . . .

MetalGarurumon moved next, his body shaking with the strain, a deep wounded rumble coming from deep within him. I did as Taichi had done, standing up on my partner’s head and moving along the lines of his huge armor-clad muzzle as he grew and heaved, all of Courage’s energies filling him as if to the bursting point. Across the expanse, WarGreymon’s metal wing fins locked together abruptly, uniting the two halves of the sunburst symbol of Courage that adorned them, the sound echoing all throughout the realms of information, causing each speaker on every computer monitor tuned in to our fight to shake and tremble. A heartbeat later, the noble reptilian digimon’s body sparkled away into raw data, reconfiguring itself and leaving Taichi to stand alone on the armor headpiece that had been protecting his friend. A new metal component, shaped like a ball joint and clad with Tai’s symbol rose from within the battered helmet.

That seemed to prompt MetalGarurumon into following his battle brother’s lead. As I clung to the armor of his head, his lithe but broken canine body glowed brightly golden, the light billowing brilliantly until it had consumed his form and broken it down into the same raw data that WarGreymon now was. A new component rose from his helmet as well, very similar to that which Taichi now stood on, shaking me as it swung into place solidly, threatening to topple me off into the nothing below.

The squirming mass of Diaboromon’s copies surged in agitation as the wall of e-mail files continued to flicker and grow all around us, but we barely gave it a second’s notice. At least, I didn’t. I would remember later noticing how Taichi looked up and around, his mouth agape as he seemed to take in what was happening for the first time. I saw a shine of childlike wonderment in his teary eyes, saw how he clung to the horn of WarGreymon’s helmet like an infant creature clings to the familiarity of its progenitor. The time that I used in burning this image into my mind was so fleeting as to make no difference, and I would not recall it until much much later anyway, when I was alone and hurting and trying desperately to summon forth a small bit of the feeling that filled me during the creation of Omnimon. That would be when I remembered Taichi’s eyes, and his expression, and the beautiful naivety that was his companion in those few brief moments.

The e-mail files were in place, and as Taichi and I held tight to the corporeal remains of our respective digital partners, I felt that surge of Courage from him again. Buckling through me, through the digimon, through the entire unreal chamber and back along the lines of the Internet. It was a call, a summoning, and all over the world children just like us heeded it. From each file the essences of positive thought, of faith and conviction and promise, became things of reality. Fire lights of energy. They poured forth from the wall and were drawn toward us . . . guided through the foreign realm by the symbol of Courage that hung in the ether on the metal component spawned from WarGreymon’s helmet.

Each of these met between us, melding into a form too brilliant and shimmering to look at. I cast my eyes aside, throwing my hand up over my face in a futile attempt to block the phenomenal, wonderful glare. The light swelled and encompassed both me and Taichi, pulling us into its warm heart and dragging us through the thick heavy atmosphere until we were close enough to touch. We did touch. His hands reached out and grasped mine, and his fingers were shockingly cold. There was light and wind all around us, and we looked through the maelstrom at each other, and instinctively we knew what was happening.

Neither of us cared to fight it.

The watching world of reality saw only a giant egg of light that filled the data chamber. As far as they knew, the fateful seconds continued to tick away, each one bringing many of them closer and closer to death. Diaboromon had no sense of what was actually happening in that Egg either, he was concerned only with consuming data, and too obsessed with the particulars of his own conception to worry about what we were creating. Taichi and I. Together. Within the Egg of Light, we were aware of an eternity of time, and sensed nothing of what was going on outside the reach of our perceptions. Everything stopped for us. Time was suspended. We knew only each other and the inexplicable force that was drawing us together.

Perhaps, though, it was not so inexplicable. Had we not been drawn to each other from the very beginning, even against our individual wills? This simply seemed like the logical culmination of all of our fights and disagreements, of all the secret glances we shared with each other when we thought no one was looking, of all those times when we happened to be standing beside each other and he surreptitiously reached out and pressed his hand around mine. As we came together in the sheltering light, away from eyes that might scorn or look on us with disgust, I saw that tears of crystal bravery were still standing in his eyes. His hand reached up and brushed over my face and I turned into it, boldly daring to press my lips to his smooth cool flesh. He offered no protest.

In fact, he smiled tearfully and that smile lit up his dark golden eyes. "Yamato . . . " he said softly, gratefully, telling me volumes with just the simple utterance of my name. Just as it had been when we fought Piedmon, his Courage was dull and tarnished without my strength. Without my Friendship which had strengthened the waning life back into his broken body then, and which had formed a base of support and reinforcement for him now. He had drawn me here, perhaps unconsciously but perhaps not, because he needed me. Wanted me at his side. Without each other, we were only ourselves. Together, we were everything.

"Taichi . . . " I whispered back, almost unable to hold down the incredible tumble of memories and feelings what were turning over and over inside of me now. My Taichi. Angel of Courage.

He moved forward and kissed me, almost clumsily pressed his lips to mine and tipped his head slightly so that our noses wouldn’t bump. I was startled, not by the kiss itself so much, as I was by the cacophony of noise which accompanied it. As he threw his arms around my neck and fairly attacked me with a flood of released emotion, I was vaguely aware of the fact that by our act of union, we were building something powerful and wonderful within the glow of the Egg of Light. I snaked my arms around his slender waist in return, plunging into the kiss wholeheartedly, distantly surprised at the sensation of light against light as he pulled me close against him. There was between us a sense of having left our physical forms behind, of our digital images consisting only of what our perceptions were at any given moment. Thus the data versions of clothing that we had been wearing upon entering this realm were no longer needed.

All we required were our souls, our hearts and the two attributes that were ours to steward. The kiss we shared was ongoing and core-deep, and we rolled together in the ether simply from the sheer force and passion of it. With each touch of his hands to my form, the construction going on around us in the Egg continued, fueled by our need for one another and by the consummation of that need. We moved together in a dance that almost felt familiar, preordained even, as if he and I had been specifically made for each other from the same piece of energy, and that now it was time to fit our broken halves back together. He tipped me backwards and pressed himself into my form, and I cried out, not from any sort of pain, but from the absolute overwhelming beauty of it all. My Taichi, through the act of touching me, merging with me, becoming one with me, was creating something powerful and unknown. He gathered all of the energy that millions had donated and channeled it through himself, into me.

It was like a supernova. Pulse after pulse of warm holy light filled my form, coming from him and finding home in me. I gripped him wildly, kissed him, desperately tried to touch every part of him as he was touching me. When I was prompted to cry out again, he echoed me and his mouth found mine once more, and we were locked into each other, with no thought or intention of ever letting go again.

Within both of us there was a resounding, a living roaring thing. From the glow in his chest, it sounded like WarGreymon. From the glow in mine it echoed MetalGarurmon. As Taichi spilled all of that energy and power through me, those two sounds rose from us and gathered in the close tight ether of the Egg. There were mechanical sounds, the scraping of metal on metal, the snapping of parts into proper places. We clung to each other in absolute ecstacy, cringing, me with my eyes tightly shut and him with his wide open. I saw through him though, through a mirror that was reflecting our very thoughts and emotions back and forth crazily between us in a sort of chaotic synergy. I watched, with his wonder and amazement, as our attributes came crashing together and formed the very soul of the new digimon that we had created together. A digimon who was one half WarGreymon, one half MetalGarurumon.

One half Courage. One half Friendship. Absolutely us.

And then, time began to run again. We were pulled rudely apart and our perceptions abruptly switched back to the mass-accepted reality, putting us once again into bodies that were understood and which obeyed the laws of physics, back into clothing and morality. But, though we were drawn so suddenly away from each other, we did not mourn the moment of eternity that was now lost, for we were still connected, still part of each other. He was within me and I was surrounding him. We felt the nature of the world change as the Egg of Light, now drained of its energies, began to splinter away, breaking back down into data. From someplace far away, I was startled to hear Koushirou’s voice from the real world, sounding loud and echoing, and tinged with a hue of stupefied wonder.

"Part WarGreymon . . . " he said. I realized then that I was crouching on a shoulder made of metal, and that my hand was pressing against a head huge and cool. I sensed Taichi in a similar position on the opposite shoulder of this new creation, and I felt that he was just as startled by the sudden re-introduction of familiarity as I was.

"Part MetalGarurumon . . . " This was Takeru’s voice, coming from that far distant barbershop, and it ran through me like a sudden river of warm ice, as large and invasive as Koushirou’s had been. Eyes still tightly shut, I clung to my perch against the effects of a wind that did not truly exist.

Koushirou spoke again, as if to verify what my younger brother had said. "They digivolved together to become . . . "

He was interrupted by a deep thundering voice, a sound that was a hybrid of the noise that had come from within Taichi and the similar one that had come from within me. "OMNIMON!" it bellowed, abruptly and forcefully, and suddenly we were moving, as the massive digimon’s arms lowered and he surged forward out of the remains of the Egg, Taichi and I adhering to his shoulders almost like pilot fish, together forming the very heart and soul of this new and beautiful creature. He was a metal angel of war, a soldier clad in righteous armor, melding the characteristics of our two digimon in holy harmony. We three stood as one and faced the writhing masses that were endless copies of Diaboromon, and a sharp light of intelligence and spirit sprang into Onmimon’s determined eyes, gifts from the digimon from whom he was made.

Our opponent wasted no time in launching an vicious attack from its various incarnations, in what was perhaps desperation. Despite its seething numbers, it was outclassed, and it knew it. It would be only a matter of time. Unfortunately, time was exactly what we did not have. As Omnimon swung around, facing the attack with a shield emblazoned with the Crest of Courage and drawing the powerful Transcended Sword to block, I caught sight of one of the counters rapidly flickering away the very heartbeats of the lives of hundreds of thousands. It read one minute and forty seven seconds. That yawning maw of hopelessness began to grow in me again, and I could feel my heart start to sink. There simply wasn’t enough time. There simply wasn’t!

Taichi’s Courage immediately invaded my soul, to push the doubts away. It was his influence which braced my heart and prompted me to tug at the mental command which would urge Omnimon to raise his Supreme Cannon and fire at the attacking copies of Diaboromon. Over and over again that powerful blast belched out flame and death, the sound ringing down the highways of the Internet, incinerating all of those vile creatures amidst smoke and explosions. I heard Taichi whoop in bright hopeful victory and felt his joy race through me. When the smoke cleared, we were facing a white chamber at last, with only a single target remaining.

The legend of this final battle is well known throughout the world. Those who bore witness to it will never forget it, but truthfully all I remember is fast flashes of movement, swelling feelings of frustration and anger, and a scream in my heart which seemed to go on and on. I remember Taichi yelling, though I’ve never been able to recall exactly what he said, and I can starkly recall that at one point Koushirou shouted out the one minute mark, followed by the thirty second mark from Takeru.

Any account except for mine will tell of how, riding Omnimon’s shoulders, we chased after a lightening fast Diaboromon, desperately looking for a clear shot that we could not find because the bastard was simply too fast for us, until Koushirou brilliantly came up with the idea of forwarding all of the incoming e-mail messages to our opponent with the intention of slowing him down long enough for us to strike. Any account but mine will tell of how it worked, and of how Diaboromon was frozen in the ether like a bug in jello, completely helpless to counter our attack. Any account but mine will tell how Omnimon turned and rocketed toward the terrible virus with Transcended Sword drawn, and how Taichi was screaming a countdown and arrived at "ONE!" just as the blade of the sword split Diaboromon’s head in half and pinned him against the non-reality of the chamber wall.

I could tell nothing of such things, because all of my perceptions of the final fight were completely superceded by what happened after the virus was dead.

It all struck at once. Diaboromon disintegrated into data fragments. I heard Takeru yell out something incomprehensible just as the screen which showed Koushirou’s face went instantly staticy and then flickered out of existence. There was a shaking ripple in the ether, as if a shock wave of some sort were being passed along the lines of the Internet. All around me were the wails of distant screams and the heat of an impossible fire. There was a looming sense of something large bearing down on us, as if some sort of unfathomable monster where somehow stepping on the data chamber from without, threatening to crush it beneath a terrible foot.

But I didn’t consciously see or hear any of that. All I knew was a sudden painful wrenching of a vital part of my soul, the most important half of me being carelessly carved out by a white hot knife. Without any idea of what was actually happening, but knowing that the sense of extreme agony was originating with Taichi, I threw myself over Omnimon’s head, avoiding the flail of his horns as he thrashed with some sort of pain of his own, and grabbed my partner in a wild fit of terror, arms squeezing around his pale and shaking form.

He was convulsing, as if a fish deprived of the water necessary to live, his dark amber eyes wide open and unseeing, mouth opening and closing in a gasping panting way. Takeru was screaming for me now, and there was panic closing in all around us, but I simply could not stop to deal with any of it, not when my Taichi was being so mysteriously struck down by some terrible unseen force. I wailed, pressing him close to me, sensing him slipping away with no logical explanation, feeling his presence fragment and tear itself apart in its frenzied haste to leave. I did not understand! I could not comprehend! What was happening? Why was death sinking like a blood-red ship all around me, and why was it taking Taichi, my Angel of Courage, with it?

I felt his fingers grip me weakly, and it was as if my entire being was suddenly centered on that sensation, on that small frail last act of determination to hold on. Courage to the last. He wasn’t giving up. He was not giving up! He was holding onto me in a futile attempt to fight the forces of fate, all the while knowing that he was too far gone already. I knew it too, but I still didn’t understand it, still had no clue that the nuclear blast which was, at that very moment in time, mushrooming into the blackened sky over Tokyo, had killed him in the real world. It had killed them all. It had vaporized Odaiba and the surrounding neighborhoods in an instantaneous inferno; a consuming relentless firestorm which devoured each of our friends and murdered our families all in the same terrible blink of a second. It was now raging unstoppable throughout the greater Tokyo area, hunting and mercilessly killing all who fell in its path like a demon hound released from hell.

I didn’t know any of that at the time. I did not know that Taichi was already dead, and that I was holding only the last tattered remains of the digital perception of his soul in my arms.

Through the hugely towering chaos of sound, I heard his voice whispering, coming more from within my head than from his lips, each syllable forced and fought for, each sound one of torn and twisted wreckage and pain. He didn’t waste time with my name, that would have used up the last of his fleeing energy. He simply said what he so urgently wanted to, what he had always wanted to, and what he now had to, before he was torn away from me forever.

"A. . . i . . . shi . . . teru . . . "

I shook, trembling with anger and stunned grief and incomprehension. I gripped him in absolute desperation and despair, feeling my hold begin to fall through his fading form. I tried to choke out a reply, a protest, anything, but there was no voice available for me to use. Then suddenly, I was screaming in agony as Taichi’s form broke away into nothing more than raw data that dissipated as if it had never been at all, erased and destroyed and lost for good. I plaintively grabbed after the sparkles that remained and my fingers brushed through the memories of crystal tears. From beneath me, Omnimon was roaring, the pain in the sound reflecting exactly the open and shrieking wound that was now in my own soul.

The bedlam was getting closer. One by one down the line, the Internet connections were being fried, and this un-real dimension began to fall apart at the seams, electrical links shocked and appalled by the gruesome event that had just taken place half a world away. Overcome by raw weeping grief, I barely looked up as the white walls sparked and snapped and were torn away. At that point, whether I lived or died in this place did not make the least bit of difference to me,

But as systems and servers across the globe began to die and drop off-line, I was yanked abruptly from the Internet, and I found myself sprawled on the rumbling shaking floor of the barbershop, with a sobbing Takeru in my arms. The sky outside was blackened and rolling, filled with hideous formations of lethal clouds coming toward us from the direction of Tokyo. There was an almost silent scream in the air as the grown-ups stood at the door and stared at the signature of a destruction which would come to affect the lives of every person in the world. At first, it was all inexplicable, and I was too traumatized and shaken by the loss of my Taichi to understand what was going on. But as Takeru cried and begged me to respond, and the silent terror of the others began to slowly break down into wailing, I knew . . .

I knew what had happened . . . I knew what had taken Taichi away from me . . .

****************************

So much was lost in that heartbeat of time.

Koushirou, Jyou, Sora, Hikari . . . . Taichi. Our families and parents. Hundreds of thousands of lives, all snuffed out in an instant by the impact of a bomb which could not halt its descent simply because we were able to put an end to the virus which had launched it. Hundreds of thousands more injured or sick, grief-stricken or traumatized. An entire world shocked into silence for one horrible fiery moment that seemed to last forever. The accusations and politics that were amongst the fall-out changed the face of the world, sometimes for the better. Sometimes not. International barriers wavered and blurred and are still attempting to sort themselves out even now. Something so horrible should have brought everyone together, but things don’t always work as they should. Obviously. Since that terrible shattering moment, the armies of the world have had a difficult time figuring out if they’re fighting their enemies or themselves.

Of the original DigiDestined, there remained only myself, Takreu and Mimi, who had been on vacation at the time of the Digital Bomb, as the tragedy eventually became known. It was a long time before she was able to track us down, and I remember listening to her sob with relief and pain over the almost unusable crackling phone lines when she at last got in touch with us. Relief that she wasn’t the only one left as she had feared. Pain over the fact that there were, ultimately, only three of us. It was several years before we actually saw her again in person. Her parents insisted that she remain in the States, despite the desperate need for rescue and relief workers in the Tokyo area, and though she resented their fears and protectiveness, she abided by their wishes until she was old enough to act on her own. Then she, a changed and mature woman, joined us where we were still living, in our late grandmother’s village home.

Those years were long and filled with pain. For everyone affected, yes. But especially for us, because it had been our responsibility and we . . . we had failed . . .

I wanted to fall apart more than once, but I fought to stay strong for Takeru’s sake. He was hit hard by it all, starkly faced with the disturbing but very real notion that Hope cannot always make everything right again. He’s a strong kid, and he did his very best to help where he could and bring comfort to those who needed some, but during the long hot nights of billowing dust and dryness, I would find myself holding him. Returning the comfort that he had given away to others during the day. As time continued to relentlessly tick away, he became a pale thin shadow of a young man, tall and willowy with a fragile gauntness in his eyes that hinted at perpetual hauntedness. I did all I could for him, but he sensed the dire straits that my own emotions were in and made do for himself when he could, until Mimi came and took over the job of being his mother from me. Then, slowly, some of the life began to return to him.

But not to me. As far as I was concerned, I died the same moment Taichi did.

I somehow managed to stay strong, though. Somehow managed to fortify myself with the last lingering tendrils of Courage that I jealously guarded in my fractured soul. For ten years I worked in Tokyo, with the ill and the suffering and helping to clear away the blackened and twisted remains of a once proud city, all to alleviate my guilt and atone for our failure. I worked for Takeru and for Mimi and for what was left of who we had been, and I never wavered. Never once. I was their rock. I was their Taichi.

Until the day of the dedication of the Memorial.

Mimi had to practically drag me to it. I did not want to go, did not want to be reminded, did not want to have to face all of those thousands of people whose lives had been shattered by our failure, despite the continued public insistence that the crumbled DigiDestined were heros who had prevented a far worse tragedy. I couldn’t see things in those terms, what might have been was an impossible concept. I could only accept the reality of what had happened, and that had been failure. And I did not want to look at the uncountable names inscribed on those cold marble slabs and know that we had been responsible for the deaths of each person unfeelingly represented now by only a set of impersonal characters. How could I face such a thing?

Mimi insisted. Mimi is very persuasive.

The Memorial was placed at ground zero, a beautiful patch of freshly placed green sod surrounded by the current flags of all the nations and centerpieced with a huge round series of fountains that, when seen from above, formed the Crest of Courage. In radiating concentric rings all around the fountains, obelisks of black marble stood in silent guard, each inscribed with the names of all of those who had been known to have perished on that day, and in the horrible months which followed. At the outside of the circle, a brooding ring of blank obelisks surrounded the entire affair, meant to symbolize the great numbers of unknown, the victims who were never identified, or those who were never accounted for. Newly planted trees stood in for the concrete columns of the large apartment complex which had graced this spot before the bomb hit.

A place that many of the DigiDestined had called home.

After the lengthy and painful dedication, which I tuned out in favor of the roaring sound in my ears, we wandered with hundreds of others through the sprawling marble forest, looking for familiar names, while a band someplace near the dignitaries’ grandstand played a few tunes meant to show respect and honor to those fallen. Mimi held my hand as we went, staying quiet, her dark eyes brimming with tears as she systematically found the characters meant to represent old friends, and family members, and teachers she once knew, and someone she recalled meeting at a party once. Takeru followed us silently, his own eyes red with a grief still so fresh after so many years. He was shadowed by another young man, who rubbed Takeru’s back as we walked, and gazed with dark speculation at the barrage of names surrounding us.

It had taken a long long time to re-establish connection with the Digital World, and once we did, the end result was only sorrow as Genai described to us how each of the digimon that were partnered with our fallen friends had withered away and perished. Only Palmon, Patamon and a very torn and silent Gabumon remained. But that wasn’t the end of the news. Genai told us that a second team of DigDestined had been planned and prepared for, but that they too had been killed by the Digital Bomb before they ever knew who they really were. There had been four, and only one survived, saved by a family vacation in the same way that Mimi had been. Thus, we were not in the least bit surprised when he eventually made his way to our village to stammer out a nervous introduction. His name was Motomiya Daisuke.

I wanted to hate him. He was too much like my Taichi. Full of energy and enthusiasm and insistent perpetual bravado. More than once I had to restrain myself from turning on him in fury for daring to be like the one I had lost. But a slow change overtook Takeru as Daisuke moved in and forced himself into our close private family, a change that even I, as resentful as I was, recognized as good.

Daisuke’s exuberance and life began to re-infuse within Takeru the Hope that he had lost. Because of Daisuke’s relentless efforts, my little brother slowly began to believe once more that life did indeed go on and that it could be good, if only he would open up and let it. It wasn’t a lesson that I myself was at all interested in learning, but it was just what Takeru needed. That brilliant hopeful blue glow in his eyes returned, and he startled us all one day by laughing out loud for the first time in years. Daisuke brought a much needed warmth into our circle of tragedy, and now he and Takeru were constant companions.

The day of the dedication was bright, the sun apparently having decided that this was as good a time as any to once again grace Odaiba with its healing rays. I developed a headache from squinting against the glare. After we had found the names of our parents and extended families, and had roughly gotten used to the keening sense of grief that each name inspired, Mimi lead us eventually to the tallest obelisk of the Memorial, the one that stood at the head of the fountain. We gathered there together, side by side, with Takeru and Daisuke just behind us, and read the only five names inscribed on the polished black surface. Names each punctuated with the carving of a personal crest, falling one by one like tears under the heading: DigiDestined.

Yagami Hikari. Izumi Koushirou. Takenouchi Sora. Kido Jyou.

. . . Yagami Taichi . . .

Taichi. My Angel of Courage. The characters of his name seemed stupid and hollow, because they embodied nothing of what he, or any of the others, had been in life. This was not Taichi’s wild grin, or his constantly messed-up hair, or the darting light in his eyes. This was not the feel of his hand in mine, or the taste of his lips. There was no hint here of the incredible moment of creation that we had shared together within the Egg of Light, permanently melding our hearts and souls together. These damned characters were nothing of what he had been, and as I stared at his name I felt a fanatical desire to hit the marble block and break it in half, to ruin this senseless and hollow memorial that seemed created only to mock my loss and the loss of so many others.

Blind pain swelled within me. Pain and anger and overwhelming grief. I started to shake, and stinging tears forced their way into my eyes, and for a moment it seemed as if I would follow through on my urge, but Mimi’s firm hand, Takeru’s embrace from behind, and Daisuke’s hold on my shoulder stopped me. I went to my knees under their assault of comforting touches. I pressed my hand to the cold stone of the obelisk, gripped my fingers around Taichi’s name. Did they think that this unfeeling memorial could replace him? Did they think that remembering in this way would make everything right again? It all built in my chest, the absolute hollowness of it all and I screamed. Screamed from the depths of my ruined and wasted soul. Birds rose from the nearby trees, startled by the sudden enunciation of horrible agony, and the band faltered in their playing. All around the Memorial, people paused and felt with me the great empty sense of unspeakable senseless loss.

The others led me away. Led me through a thick darkness that had rolled out of nowhere to surround me. The band continued to play, but the tempo was slow and hesitant. I was hardly aware of putting one foot in front of the other, barely conscious of the hands of my brother and friend holding me up.

"Perhaps it was too soon," was what Mimi said in subdued tones as I made my slow stumbling way across the perfectly manicured lawn toward our car. People were watching us, many gazing tearfully at me in empathy. Members of the media tried to swarm us, wondering about my yell, and why we were leaving so abruptly and hoping for a few poignant and inspiring words from us, the last of the original DigiDestined, that they could splash across the news broadcasts from here to New York, but Mimi had become skilled over the years in avoiding such things. One scathing look from her was all it took to back unwanted attention away.

I wondered why, once we were safely in the car and the driver was pulling away from the Memorial, why Mimi repeated what she had said earlier. I wondered why everything seemed black and swimming and impossibly hot, and why there was an endless sobbing ringing in my head. I wondered why Takeru was holding me and stroking my hair and telling me uselessly that everything was going to be all right. I wondered, but it didn’t actually seem to matter, because really . . . nothing mattered. I hadn’t been a whole soul for ten years, I had been fractured since the moment the Digital Bomb hit.

"It’s been a decade . . . " Daisuke said from somewhere outside of my personal morass, speaking in quiet tones of respect, but challenging Mimi’s assessment nonetheless. But then, how could he understand? Daisuke hadn’t lost part of his very being. Daisuke hadn’t been torn away from the single person for whom he had been created. Daisuke simply could not sympathize with the tattered scream that had come from my lungs in front of the pointless memorial that failed to do justice to our lovers and friends.

Failed to do justice to my Taichi.

Takeru replied, because now Mimi was crying too. "Hai," he muttered softly, the word catching in his throat for a moment before he was able to continue. "Hai . . . it was too soon . . . "

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raptor@lavadomefive.com 2001

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