Chapter 18:
Barriers
“Left. Right.”
Mana’s voice went on in a monotone as she, Jun, Salamon, and Patamon moved through the trees. Her eyes focused on her Digivice, which showed a small map of the area. Hundreds of glowing straight lines shined on the map, as well as four small, bright dots. As one dot neared a line, Mana pressed a button, rotated the map, and looked up.
“Salamon, go right. That invisible wall should end right at the tip of that root.”
Mana watched as Salamon did so, then turned her attention back to the Digivice. She sighed, and looked at Jun.
“This is stupid… Remind me why I’m doing this again?”
Jun had been staring into the screen of his laptop, miraculously managing to carry it and walk at the same time. “You’re watching that map and telling us what spots to avoid,” he replied, not bothering to look up, “so we won’t hit an energy barrier and get blown into next week.”
Mana scowled. “I know that, but why do I have to be the navigator? What are you doing?”
“Looking through the database. And trying to figure out how to make these barriers come down.”
Mana sighed again and looked down. “Well, at least all the ground warps disappeared. We’d look ridiculous flipping and flopping all over the place and getting blown out of ourselves at the same time…” She kicked at the ground in frustration. “Who in their right mind would set up crazy traps like this? It’s as if someone didn’t want us to get anywhere anytime soon…” She fell silent.
For the next few minutes, no one spoke. Jun glanced at Mana a couple of times, and saw that her head was lowered and her eyes were narrowed, as if she were thinking hard about something. The hand holding her Digivice hung limply at her side.
“Um, Mana?” Jun prodded, “Mana, the map…”
“Huh?” Mana snapped out of her thoughts and her eyes widened. “Oh, crap, I forgot!” She quickly glanced at her Digivice, and gasped. “Patamon! Go left-no, right-I mean, UP!!”
“What?” Patamon asked, confused, when he immediately crashed into an energy barrier and was blasted in the opposite direction. Jun quickly put down his laptop and jumped up, catching Patamon in mid-air.
“And how many times have you told me you weren’t dyslexic?” he asked, with a lopsided smile.
Mana glared. “I am not! I was just panicking – I couldn’t think straight!”
Jun laughed. “Well, at least you’re being honest. If I asked Seita or Kei that, I’d end up a couple of inches shorter!”
Mana smirked. “If Seita were here, he’d have been so annoyed at me that he’d have duct taped my mouth shut by now.” Then she stopped, and her smile faded. “Or maybe not… At this point, I don’t know what any of us would think or do anymore…”
Jun frowned. “What do you mean?”
Mana hesitated a bit. “Well… you see… it seems like lately, everyone’s been acting strange. Ever since we fought Devimon in the mountains, Akira started falling apart, and she doesn’t tell us anything anymore. Seita started to care about it, almost too much, and his worry is blasting out at us. Tian’s trying too hard to keep everything under control, and every time I see her, I can see the pressure building up. Kei and Yuka... they’re scared. Not all the time, but often enough to notice.”
Jun stared at her, surprised. “I didn’t think you’d notice stuff like that,” he said faintly.
Mana scowled at him. “I have eyes. Do you think I don’t look around if something’s going on that doesn’t seem right? I’m not that stupid, you know.”
“Well, we do know that you sometimes say things that sound so crazy that no one would believe them,” Patamon spoke up.
“But-” Salamon added, cutting off Mana’s protest, “most of the time, you’re right!”
Mana stared at her fearfully. “In this case, I hope I’m not… and it bothers me, too. They’re all acting like this, and I don’t understand why!” Her expression turned to anger. “Don’t you think that they know something we don’t? Like they’re keeping us in the dark?”
Jun thought about it, but Mana didn’t wait for an answer. “I feel so useless sometimes,” she blurted out, her anger rising with every word. “I feel like I want to do something to help, but help with what? I have no idea! Nobody tells us anything!”
By this time, Mana’s Digivice started beeping like crazy, and her Crest glowed brightly.
“Um… Mana?” Salamon murmured faintly.
But Mana didn’t notice this, as she kept up her tirade and was facing Jun. “When I look at everyone, I see everything from being mildly concerned to dead scared. The only people who aren’t going through this are you and me. We’re like the only people in this place who are still completely sane!” At this, she kicked a rock across the ground so hard it slammed into an energy barrier and ricocheted off in the opposite direction, barely missing Patamon.
Jun was caught between staring at Mana in shock, staring at the laptop screen, and staring at the spot where the energy barrier had appeared.
“Mana…?” he asked faintly, “Can you do that again?”
“The rock-kicking, or the energy boost?” a familiar voice intoned.
Both of them turned around to see Tailmon staring at them, her arms folded.
“Tailmon?” Mana asked, shocked. “How did you…”
Tailmon just sighed.
Jun looked at Mana again. “Anyway, can you throw something over there again?” he asked, pointing at the seemingly empty spot. “I thought I saw something.”
Mana looked at him blankly, then shrugged, picked up another rock, and threw it. It hit the barrier again, a faint light outlining its shape, and bounced off.
Jun looked at his laptop screen, a faint smile on his face.
“You figured something out, right?” Patamon asked.
“Maybe,” Jun replied, almost to himself. Turning toward Patamon, he added, “Can you and Tailmon throw some attacks over there? Maybe something will happen.”
Patamon and Tailmon looked at each other and nodded.
“Air Shot!”
“Cat Punch!”
This had the same effect – the attacks hitting and bouncing off. And every time they hit, the wall became more and more visible. Jun checked his data again, and his smile got bigger.
“Okay… so if I did this-” He walked up to the wall, stared at it, and gave it a light punch. Sparks shot out.
“What are you doing?” Mana said frantically, “You’re…” She looked again. “…not getting bounced back?”
Sure enough, Jun was still standing with his arm held out, his fist showing up on the other side of the wall.
“Bingo.” Jun chuckled. He pulled his fist out, then gave the now-visible wall a kick. With a flash and a shower of sparks, the wall disappeared, and the force of it sent Jun flying and landing on the ground. Mana gasped.
“I’m okay,” Jun assured her, getting up again. He returned to the same spot, waved his hand through it… and nothing happened. He smiled. “And the wall came tumbling down.”
Everyone stared at him, dumbfounded.
“How did you figure that out?” Mana asked shakily.
“It wasn’t very hard,” he replied, smiling. He lifted his laptop to show the screen. Showing on it was an enlarged version of the map on Mana’s Digivice, except there were energy gauges and numbers all over the place.
Mana shook her head. “I’m not even going to ask how you got all that to show up…”
“But you understand what I’m getting at, right?” Jun asked excitedly, “Those barriers weren’t designed to take a lot of hits and still keep their integrities. In the beginning, they’re strong enough to repel anything that touches them, and make it too painful to try,” he continued, getting lost in his explanations. “But, hit them enough times, from a far distance, and they lose enough energy for their structures to fail!”
Mana stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Um… okay. Whatever you say,” she murmured.
“Shh!” Tailmon hissed suddenly, her ears perking up. “I can hear something.” She turned in one direction and started running, her paws padding against the ground softly. The others followed silently.
The further they went, the trees began thinning out, and the noises grew louder. Soon they reached the edge of another clearing.
Mana slowly poked her head out of the tree line, and gasped at what she saw. There were scores of Digimon everywhere, large and small, and all black as night.
Jun pulled Mana back into hiding, and Tailmon motioned them to be quiet, pointing to something in the mass.
In the center of the crowd stood a little boy, and a red-and-black Digimon. The boy was coldly silent and the Digimon simply looked around fearfully. They were listening to another, very familiar Digimon, with black fur, golden eyes, and dark blue claws.
Tailmon’s eyes narrowed. “It’s her.”
Sure enough, it was Black Tailmon, and she was as angry as the last time they saw her, shouting at the boy and his Digimon at the top of her voice.
Mana groaned. “Not her again… But…” She frowned. “Who’s that kid? I thought the seven of us were the only humans around here!”
“Shh!” Tailmon snapped softly, trying to listen to what Black Tailmon was screaming about.
“How dare you tell me what my soldiers can and cannot do!” Black Tailmon snarled, “I take orders only from Mataymon himself, and not from you – you weak and foolish human!”
“It’s Rion,” the boy said calmly, “and you’d better watch your mouth. It was on Mataymon’s orders that I came. He’s very disappointed in you. From what I heard, you haven’t done anything useful since you left Wizardmon’s village.”
Black Tailmon stayed silent, shaking with rage.
“So,” Rion continued, “He’s giving you one last chance. You have to catch one of the Chosen Children and Digimon. Do anything you like with the Digimon, but don’t hurt the kid. Not badly, anyway.” He smirked. “Mataymon will need at least one of the kids, or at least their minds, in one piece so he can stabilize the Edge.”
A collective gasp echoed through the crowd. Black Tailmon’s eyes widened in surprise. “The Edge…”
Rion nodded, slightly amused. “You realize how important your job is, then.” His expression grew serious. “Fail, and Mataymon will have you replaced.”
Black Tailmon growled softly, her eyes flashing.
Rion ignored this, and addressed the crowd. “That will be all. We’ll leave you to take care of the rest.” He turned around and walked away, Guilmon reluctantly following. Then the crowd began to disperse.
After seeing this, Tailmon quietly laughed. “So that nasty black cat’s finally had it!” she said smugly.
“I still don’t get it,” Mana whispered, “Who is that little boy?” She thought a moment. “Rion – that’s what he said his name was. And he seemed hell-bent on getting rid of us.”
“An enemy we never knew about?” Patamon asked.
Mana frowned. “He had a red Digimon… Yuka said that she and Akira were attacked by a strange red Digimon. Maybe that was the same one. And the boy…” She shook her head wearily.
“What was the ‘Edge’ that he was talking about?” Jun asked. “It must be important in some way – just mentioning it scared half of that crowd! And he said that… someone… needed our minds to… stabilize it?” He shrugged.
Mana glanced at the near-empty clearing, with a few dark Digimon still milling about. “I don’t think we should stay here,” she whispered frantically.
Jun nodded, and he and Patamon started moving away. Mana followed, but when she turned around, she saw Tailmon still standing there, peeking between the leaves. Her eyes were narrowed.
“Tailmon,” Mana whispered, “let’s go!” But Tailmon didn’t move. Mana sighed and, motioning the others to wait, crept closer to Tailmon, getting a better look at what she was staring at.
Black Tailmon was pacing around, kicking at the ground with her paws. “I don’t believe this,” she said venomously, “So close to being fired, just because I couldn’t get rid of that idiotic, goody-two-shoes, rubber-clawed white cat!”
Tailmon growled, her claws twitching ever so slightly.
Black Tailmon gave a shout of frustration, kicking the ground again. “Oh, how I wish I could get my paws on her – I’d break her neck, rip her throat, claw her eyes out… And if that little brat Rion hadn’t said no, I’d do the same to that spineless old hag of hers!”
“Why, that little…” Mana’s face was like a thundercloud, and she bristled with anger.
Jun, fearing the worst, quickly grabbed Mana’s hand and restrained her, but he was too late to stop Tailmon. She hissed loudly and sprang from her hiding place, giving Black Tailmon a flying tackle. The next thing anyone saw was a blur of black and white fur and blue and green claws.
“Tailmon!” Mana cried out.
The scuffle and Mana’s shout had now gotten the attention of several nearby Midnight Army members, who rushed to the scene after seeing their leader being attacked.
Black Tailmon stopped long enough to temporarily pin Tailmon to the ground. When she saw her soldiers coming, she smiled evilly, only for Tailmon to kick her in the face and scamper off.
“Get them!” Black Tailmon screamed, cradling her aching head.
Soon enough, Jun and Mana were running in a panic, at the head of a growing sea of black.
“This is all your fault, Tailmon!” Mana screamed, “Why didn’t we just leave when I said to?!”
“This isn’t the time to be talking about this!” Tailmon shot back.
“You think?!” Mana shouted.
“Hurry up!” Jun called, “They’re catching up to us!” He looked up at Patamon and clasped his Digivice.
Patamon understood, and hung back, glowing brightly.
“Patamon, evolve to… Angemon!”
“Heaven’s Knuckle!”
With a flash of golden light, a few Digimon fragmented, but not enough to stop the onslaught. Grimacing, Angemon fired a few more punches, but they all either missed or made little difference.
“It’s not working!” Mana wailed, clutching at a stitch that had developed in her side. Then, she stumbled, Jun stopping long enough to help her. When they saw the hoard of Digimon closing in on them, they screamed. Then…
“Tailmon, super evolve to… Angewomon!”
“Angemon, super evolve to… HolyAngemon!”
The two kids stared in awe as two angels glided forward, blocking them from the enemy line.
“Holy Arrow!”
An enormous arrow of light pierced the dark mass, and it was driven back, but only for a moment.
“Heaven’s Gate!”
A massive circular golden gate appeared, sucking up every enemy Digimon that was close to it, then shut tight, disappearing in fragments.
The two attacks, strong as they were, didn’t destroy every enemy in sight, but they were useful anyway. They had bought the four escapees some time.
Without missing a beat, Jun pulled Mana up and they continued running.
Out of the corner of his eye, HolyAngemon saw something, in a direction way off from where they were running, and was relieved. “Come on!” he called out to the others, “This way!” They all darted around a corner, following him.
By the time Black Tailmon and her people reached that same corner, there was no one in sight.
“Search everywhere!” Black Tailmon called out, “They have to be around here somewhere! They can’t have gotten away from us that easily!”
When the commotion outside had finally ceased, Jun and Mana finally looked around at the small wooded cave they had blindly run into a short while ago.
“Pretty good hiding place,” Jun commented.
“Until they find us…” Mana said hopelessly, “What are we going to do?”
Jun said nothing, and simply opened up his laptop again.
Mana gaped at him. “What could you possibly be doing on that at a time like this?!”
Still, Jun said nothing. He stared intently into the screen for a few moments, then spoke up.
“HolyAngemon, you remember that last attack you made?” he asked, “The one with the golden gate?”
HolyAngemon nodded.
“Do you think you can set up more than one of those, at the same time?”
HolyAngemon thought a moment. “I suppose… but it will take up a lot of energy – I wouldn’t be able to keep them stable for a long time.”
Jun’s brow furrowed as he took that in. Then, he turned to Angewomon. “Angewomon, how fast do you think you can fly?”
“As fast as I’ll have to,” she answered quickly.
Jun nodded. “Mana, you do understand how to read that Digivice map, right?” he asked.
Mana looked at him, startled. “Uh… yeah, I think so. Why?”
Jun didn’t answer her. He now had a bright but determined look on his face.
“I know that look,” Mana said ominously, “You’ve thought of something crazy, haven’t you?”
Jun sighed and scratched the back of his head. “Well, that depends on your definition of ‘crazy’…” He took a breath and began to describe his plan…
When he finished, Mana stared at him in shock. “That’s not crazy,” she blurted, throwing up her hands, “that’s downright insane!”
Jun looked at her uncertainly. “But it can be done,” he said, more firmly than he had liked.
Mana snorted. “Oh, yeah, it can be done,” she said, her voice rising, “but can it be done with us still in one piece?”
Jun sighed. He hesitated a moment, trying to gain back a little of his composure. “Yes, it can,” he said slowly, “Angewomon only needs to fly fast enough to lead the crowd into the any of the barriers where HolyAngemon will plant his Gates, and get away without getting caught in the blasts when they detonate. You’ll be there to navigate and make sure the two of you won’t crash into certain death.”
Mana stared. “Easier said than done. And again, why do I have to be there? Why not you?”
“HolyAngemon can’t fly all over the place and concentrate on all the Gates he’ll be controlling at the same time. It’ll be too much. And I’ll have to be here at the screen to tell him which gates to open and when it’s safe to do it.”
Mana frowned. “I can do that.” But Jun shook his head.
“No, there’ll be too much to focus on. You’d not only do that, but you’d have to help Angewomon navigate through the barriers, and you’d also have to watch which places she can’t go, once the barrier energies drop low enough for one last explosion, and in what direction to go in when the Gates open, so she won’t get hurt. You’re better off just focusing on getting yourselves out. I can handle the rest.”
Mana hesitated. “That’s a lot of things to watch. Are you sure you can handle it?”
Jun looked down, his face expressionless. Then he looked up again. “Yeah,” he replied, “I can.” He brightened a little. “Besides, if you can navigate your own way out, I probably wouldn’t have to help you two very much.”
A while later, when most of the preparations were done, Mana and Angewomon emerged from the leafy cave and looked around. There seemed to be no one in sight, but they knew otherwise – some distance away, the dark Digimon were still looking for them. All the two of them had to do was show themselves, and then the madness would begin.
Mana sighed, and she and Angewomon walked until they were far away from the opening. Her hands went to a pair of headphones on her head. She adjusted the small speakerpiece attached to it, and spoke.
“Jun… can you hear me?”
A short pause. “Yes. Anything happening? What do you see?”
“Not much. They probably haven’t tried looking this way yet,” Mana paused. “Are you ready yet?”
There was an even longer pause. Mana waited, a concerned look on her face. “Jun?” she asked again, “Are we ready?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then Jun answered. “Yes.”
Mana nodded slowly. “Okay.” She swallowed. “See you later.”
“Good luck.”
Despite her nervousness, Mana managed a smile. “Thanks.” Then, focusing on what was ahead of them, she and Angewomon moved on. “I must be insane…” she whispered to herself.
After a while, they caught a glimpse of a dark Digimon looking behind a clump of bushes. Angewomon’s arms began to glow, and Mana slowly stepped closer. Trembling, she took a deep breath and gave a loud screech…
Jun closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He couldn’t seem to keep focused on anything. Memories, questions, and statements kept running through his head.
“That stuff looks really hard, are you sure you can do it?”
“What am I talking about, of course you can do it! There’s no way you’d make a mistake!”
“Go for it! We’re counting on you not to screw up!”
“We’ll be fine, as long as you know what you’re doing.”
“Jun,” HolyAngemon spoke up, “Are you okay? I’ve never seen you this nervous before.”
Jun’s eyes snapped open. “It’s nothing,” he said hastily, “I’m just warming up.” He turned his attention to the laptop screen again, trying to push aside his nervousness. This is terrible, he thought wryly, I guess this is almost like how Akira feels most of the time.
HolyAngemon laid a hand on Jun’s shoulder, smiling encouragingly, then glided out, soaring high above the treetops. After glancing about him for a moment, he took a deep breath and focused. At several places below him, large, circular golden gates appeared, rotating slowly.
When those were set up, he looked around one more time. He could see the great black mass moving swiftly through the trees, and a flash of bright, reddish-pink light, signifying that Angewomon had started attacking. He smiled. All was ready.
Down below, Jun still tried to relax, to no avail. Suddenly, he heard a faint scream, and a rumbling noise. The laptop screen came to life, and he could see millions of bright dots moving across the map, and two lone dots in another color, moving away from them.
He swallowed. “It’s begun.”
As minutes ticked by, a bright pink streak blasted through the woods, followed by a torrent of black. The longer they were at it, the more erratic their flight path became.
Angewomon flitted in and out, holding Mana tightly. Mana looked strangely calm and cool as she shouted out her directions over the clamor of grunts and howls. But on the inside, she was screaming.
“Mana! You’re getting close to a gate!” Jun’s voice crackled through her headset, “To your left!”
Mana looked up at Angewomon. “You heard him,” she called, fighting down her panic, “Left!” She looked at her Digivice. “But be careful, there’s a couple of barriers that way.”
Angewomon nodded, and, looking behind her, increased her speed. The mob followed, some colliding with the barriers and blasting away. The gate was visible now, turning slowly.
“Watch out!” Mana shouted suddenly, “There’s another barrier right in front of us!”
Angewomon grimaced. Then, making a split-second decision, she flew even faster. “Hold on tight!” she yelled.
Mana screamed as Angewomon streaked past the edge of the barrier, barely missing it. The gate loomed ahead of them, and right before Mana thought they would hit it, Angewomon swerved up, making a ninety-degree hairpin turn. The other Digimon plowed blindly into the gate, and it dissolved with a flash of light.
Angewomon lowered herself so that they were skimming the treetops, while Mana was breathing heavily from shock.
“That’s one down,” Angewomon said, smiling.
Mana sighed. “Jun,” she said into the headset, “How many more Digimon are there chasing after us?”
“At least half of them are still there,” he replied, “But most of them are disappearing because they’re crashing into everything in sight. Some of the barriers have already exploded.”
“Okay, then how many gates do we still need to blow up?”
“Seven.”
“SEVEN!” Mana screamed, “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” She ranted on until Jun stopped her.
“They’re coming back. Talk to you later!” Jun’s voice faded away.
“Jun…” Mana fumed, “Him and his stupid plan… just wait till I get my hands on him!”
“Well, at least it’s working,” Angewomon replied.
But she spoke too soon. As they lowered themselves to ground level, a small group of dark winged Digimon broke off from the large mass and moved up, unnoticed, toward a bright, shining figure hovering above the trees.
At the same time, when Angewomon least expected it, a small black blur darted out of the trees and slashed through her wings.
Angewomon shouted in pain, and Mana screamed in terror. The black figure moved until it was level with Angewomon’s face.
Mana gasped. “Black Tailmon!”
“Hello again,” the black cat said evilly. “Aw, did I hurt you?” she said in mock concern, “Here, let me make it worse!” She clamped her front paws hard around Angewomon’s neck. “This is for kicking my head and ruining my face!”
“Leave her alone!” Mana bellowed, pulling out her Digivice and pointing it at Black Tailmon. A bright red beam shot out of it, hitting her in the chest, and she blasted away in a far-off direction.
But the damage had already been done. Angewomon glowed, and her form shrank until she became Salamon again.
Mana felt herself falling.
Jun crouched in front of the computer screen, sweating bullets and ignoring the cramps forming in his neck, back, and legs. He had been calm every time he gave Mana a direction, but in the back of his mind, he was dead worried. The entire time, he was wishing, hoping, and praying that nothing would go wrong. And up until now, nothing had. But that did little to make him feel better.
So, when he saw a small cluster of enemy dots on the screen break away from the others and move toward HolyAngemon, he had already expected the worst.
“HolyAngemon!” Jun called out, “Watch out! Something’s coming toward you!”
No answer.
“HolyAngemon!”
Then, Jun heard some energy pulses coming from directly above him. Forgetting everything else, he ran outside and scanned the sky.
HolyAngemon was there, far up, dodging attacks by five black Digimon.
“Jun!” HolyAngemon called faintly, “I can’t keep this up anymore! There’s too much interference! I’ll have to let everything go!” His voice wavered, and Jun could tell he was weakening.
Jun breathed out in frustration. “Try to hold on a little bit longer,” he called back, more calmly than he felt. “At least until the girls have made it out!”
“I’ll try…”
Then, Jun heard a scream rip through his headset. His heart skipped a beat. “Mana!” he shouted, running back into the cave. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” His eyes zipped across the computer screen, desperately trying to find out where they were.
“Black Tailmon… she attacked us…” Mana’s voice trickled through the headset, “My Digivice blew her away, but… Angewomon de-evolved, and… we fell… I think I landed wrong somehow…” Jun could hear her hard, tortured breathing through the speakers.
“What part of you hurts?” Jun asked frantically, “Can you still walk?”
“Jun! I can’t hold them much longer!”A loud beeping sound from the laptop punctuated HolyAngemon’s outburst.
“Mana! Get out of there, now!” Jun shouted through the mic. “Everything’s going to blow!”
“We can’t!” Mana wailed, “Salamon’s out cold, and I can’t run! My leg…”
Jun’s eyes widened in fear. “Oh, God…” He glanced at the screen, and saw nearly all of the barriers, as well as HolyAngemon’s gates, reach critical mass. “Mana, please!” he almost screamed, “Move! I don’t care what you have to do, just MOVE! You’re running out of time!”
But his warning came too late.
A loud, pulsating bleep burst from the computer, and the energy gauges on the screen read zero.
A humming sound erupted from outside, soft at first, then growing louder and louder.
Then… a massive explosion. All that anyone could see was a brilliant flash of light.
The last thing Jun heard was Mana screaming his name…
After what seemed like a million years, the rumbling finally stopped and the light subsided.
Jun got up slowly, Mana’s scream still lingering in his mind. He shook his head, trying to get rid of his wooziness. For a few seconds, he just stood there. Then, realizing what just happened, his eyes widened and he ran out.
When he made it outside, the view he saw was almost unrecognizable. Almost everything in sight had been obliterated, save for a few snapped tree trunks and crumbling rocks. He looked around him in shock, then noticed a small figure lying on the ground.
“Patamon!” Jun rushed over to him and cradled him in his arms. “Are you okay?” Patamon stirred.
“I tried…” Patamon said weakly, “Some of those Digimon saw me and ganged up on me, and they were too strong… I couldn’t fight all of them off… I couldn’t hold those gates anymore… But I tried…”
“I know,” Jun answered sadly, “You did your best.” He looked around him again, aghast. It seemed as if almost nothing had survived the blasts.
Almost nothing had survived. Then, it finally hit him. Mana… Salamon…
“Mana!”
Jun’s scream echoed through the wasteland. Carrying Patamon with one arm, he ran, searching around him, refusing to believe that worst-case scenario. He looked and looked, but found nothing. No sign at all that Mana and Salamon had ever been there.
A feeling of despair filled him. He trembled all over as the realization sank in. They were gone. Because they were involved in his stupid, poorly thought-out plan, they were gone.
That thought remained in his mind as he shut his eyes tightly, trying to stop the tears that were threatening to fall.
He almost didn’t notice the faint vibrations coming from the headset he still held in his hand, and the soft, static-filled voice coming from it.
“…n… Jun!”
Jun’s eyes snapped open. He fearfully glanced at the headset he was holding, and, hoping against hope, he slowly moved it toward his face.
“M-Mana?” he asked, his voice trembling. “I-is that you?” He wondered if he had been hearing things.
“Of course,” the voice crackled faintly through the headset. “Who else could it be?”
Jun’s mouth fell open. “Where are you?” he blurted out loudly, looking wildly around him.
“I don’t know exactly… But you must be close to me… I can almost hear your voice without this thing…”
Jun ran a couple more paces, then Mana interrupted again.
“Wait! I can see you!”
“Where…?”
“Behind you.”
Jun froze, then slowly turned around. What he saw next made his heart leap.
Mana was leaning against the trunk of a tree that was snapped in half, keeping pressure off of a swollen left leg. She looked tired and disheveled, but her eyes were shining. A very dizzy Salamon sat next to her.
“Mana!” Jun put Patamon down and ran up to her, throwing his arms around her and hugging her. “Thank God…”
Mana hugged him back and smiled, despite the pain in her left leg.
“I was scared for a moment, back there,” Jun said shakily, “I thought you were…” He choked up, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I thought you were dead…”
Mana hugged him tighter. “Me too.”
They were silent for a while, and Jun let Mana sit down so she could rest her leg.
“I’m sorry,” Jun said softly, “I should have planned things better from the beginning. So many things went wrong. And I should have known better than to put you and Angewomon in danger like that…”
“You did the best you could,” Mana answered.
“But, I-”
“You’re only human, Jun. No one expects you to think of everything and do it perfectly!”
Jun sighed, but what she had said afterward made him stop and think.
“And besides, everything turned out right in the end,” Mana added, “The walls have come down, and the Midnight Army is gone!”
Jun looked directly at her, pained. “But I nearly got you and Angewomon killed!”
Mana put a hand on his shoulder. “But we’re still here. We’re alive.”
Jun looked at her, and his face brightened a little. But there was something about Mana’s expression that puzzled him. He mulled it over for a few seconds, and a thought occurred to him.
“How did you two survive that?”
Mana hesitated. “That was the strange part…” she said uncertainly, “I’m not exactly sure what happened.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“Well…” Mana hesitated again. “I can remember you shouting at me to move, and I couldn’t – my leg was hurting so bad. I could feel the ground shaking under me, and I saw a flash of light so bright that it hurt my eyes. That was when I screamed. And then…” Her voice faded.
Jun moved closer to her, listening intently.
“Then… all of a sudden, someone appeared in front of me. A girl. She came, just out of nowhere, and…”
“And what?”
Mana shook her head slowly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“She stood there, facing away from me, and held her arm out in front of her with her hand open, like she was pushing on something. And when everything started blowing up, everything that came near us started bouncing off. Nothing hurt us.”
Jun stared at her, eyes wide.
“When everything stopped, she sat next to me and put her hand on my leg. After that, it didn’t hurt so much anymore.” A faint smile appeared on Mana’s face. “Then, she smiled at me, got up, and walked away. It was then when I got a good look at her face.”
“Who was she?” Jun asked.
Mana looked back at him, her face full of wonder. “She looked just like Akira.”