Chapter 47:
Letting Go
No one said anything for a few agonizing moments.
“What do we do?” Tian asked quietly. There was an undercurrent of hopelessness in her tone. “What can we possibly do? This whole thing is too much!”
“And if we don’t do something, everyone on Earth will die!” Mana said, her voice rising in panic.
Everyone started talking at once. The tension in the air skyrocketed until Nami raised a hand for attention.
“Everyone calm down,” she said forcefully, “Calm down!” When the room quieted down, she continued. “Remember who you are, children. You and your Digimon have been chosen by the Digital World for this mission. You are the right people for the job, and you have the strength to prove it.”
She turned to look at everyone in the room.
“We have all these great minds together with us, and the latest and greatest technology on the planet at our disposal. If we all put our heads together, we can surely come up with a solution!”
Jun stood up. “She’s right. We have everything we need right here. We just need to stay calm and think!”
“Can we do it without Akira?” Mana asked.
No one said a word for a moment.
“We’re going to have to,” Seita spoke up, “It’s just as Souichi said before: we make do with what we have. We have to hold on, until she wakes up.” He refused to think, ‘if she wakes up.’
“So, to summarize the situation here,” Jun said, “We have shells full of Dark Seeds – let’s call them Dark Seed bases – that appear on a schedule, namely 6:06 AM each day. And each location is marked on the map, with coordinates based on the Fibonacci Sequence of numbers. Basically, a spiral. Everyone follow?”
Everyone nodded.
“When does the next Dark Seed base appear?” Tian asked.
Jun typed a few lines on the laptop. “In about… 12 hours. And the location is right here.” He enlarged the map to show a large building, very close by.
“The hospital!” Ryou exclaimed.
“The worst place to put what’s essentially a ticking time bomb,” Taira said darkly.
“So what we need to do…” Jun continued, typing again, “is look for a giant black polyhedron somewhere in the hospital building.” He pulled up an image of a Dark Seed base. “And looking at what happened at the school, there’ll probably be Apocalymon copies waiting for us there, too.”
“We know what to do with those,” Seita said, grinning. “Blow them out of the sky!”
“Now, hold your horses, young man,” Nami interrupted, “Remember, you’ll be in a hospital, with hundreds of defenseless people. Don’t do anything that will put the patients in danger.” She paused for a moment. “Akira included.”
Seita’s grin faded. “Right.”
“So what do we do when we find the Dark Seed base?” Mana asked, “We can’t just destroy it, or else the Dark Seeds will be released anyway!”
“That’s where I come in,” Naoko chimed in, “Protective barriers are one of my functions – it’s just a matter of downloading the code into each of your D-Coders, so any of you can summon it at will!”
Jun smiled at her. “That was easy! So with a barrier in place-”
“We can go to town on the Dark Seed base!” Seita said. As he saw Nami’s frown, he hastily added, “Once we make sure the patients are safe, of course!”
“You seem really gung-ho about all this,” Tian said to Seita.
“Of course!” he replied, punching a fist into his hand. “The sooner we get rid of these things, the sooner we can challenge Mataymon. I intend to pay him back. For Akira.”
“All right, then. Now that we know what to do,” Jun started, “We-”
“You all should get some rest,” Takashi interrupted. “You have 12 hours ahead of you – don’t spend it all worrying or waiting.”
Kei tiptoed over to Kyoko’s room and peeked inside. Through the sliver of light from the cracked-open door, she could see her mother sleeping restlessly. Terriermon, standing at Kei’s feet, shot a questioning glance at her, and Kei nodded.
Pulling out a piece of paper, Kei placed it on the dining room table and paused to read it one more time.
Going to the hospital to see Akira.
Don’t worry about us – we’ll be back soon!
Kei and Terriermon
“Ready, Terriermon?” Kei asked.
“Ready!”
Kei looked back at her mother one more time, then she and Terriermon left the house.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Terriermon asked, “Won’t your mom be angry?”
“Of course she will!” Kei retorted, “But I couldn’t stay in the house anymore. I need to do something. Even if it’s just to keep Akira company.”
The sun was just rising as they reached the bus stop. Kei looked around, noting the broken benches and booths that were still around from the last Digimon attack. Her mind locked on to the memory of SaintGalgomon and Auramon attacking together, and Akira looking over to her, shooting her a determined smile.
Kei’s thoughts were interrupted by the rumbling of the bus pulling up to the stop. She looked around again, then boarded the bus, carrying Terriermon in her arms like a stuffed toy.
As the others woke early to make preparations, Takashi’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
A moment later, Takashi moved the phone away from his ear in pain. “Calm down, Kyoko, I can’t understand what you’re saying!” he said into the receiver. “What? Kei? No, she’s not here. The hospital? No, we’re at the Infinity labs. What? I think you’re overreacting-” He moved the phone away from his ear again, wincing. “Fine, fine, we’ll go there and look for her. She’s probably there to see Akira, in any case. All right. Bye.”
He sighed as he ended the call. “Hey, guys,” he said, turning to the kids, “Look out for Kei and Terriermon while we’re at the hospital, will you? They’re over there right now and they won’t know what’s going on!”
Yuka nodded. “We will.”
It was a few minutes past 6 AM when Kei and Terriermon arrived at the hospital and entered Akira’s room. The nurse had just finished her tasks, leaving Kei and Terriermon behind in the room.
Kei nodded to Terriermon, and he unstiffened himself, jumping out of Kei’s arms and onto the bed. Kei walked up to Akira’s bedside, looking down at her.
“Akira…?”
Akira’s eyes remained closed, and Kei could hear her soft breathing.
Kei swallowed. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but… I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry for blaming you for Daddy’s death. For saying those awful things to you. It wasn’t your fault. You were doing your best.”
She paused for a moment. “I don’t know if you’d want to see me again if you wake up. If you do, that’s great! If you don’t… then that’s okay too.” Her eyes teared up, and she roughly wiped them away with her fist. “Just please wake up! We need you!”
There was no response. Kei’s face fell, and she turned around to leave the room. A loud beeping noise soon got her attention.
Akira’s D-Coder lay on the bedside table, glowing brightly and beeping. Her Crests lay nearby. The Crest of Spirit, in particular, began to glow a bright cyan blue.
“Huh?” Kei ran over to the table and stared at the glowing objects. “What’s going on?” Suddenly, the Crest of Spirit gave off a blast of light that knocked Kei off her feet.
“Kei!” Terriermon shouted.
“I’m okay,” Kei said, picking herself off of the floor. She looked over at Akira’s prone form on the hospital bed. “Akira… is this you?”
A bright light enveloped Kodamon as she stood in front of the hospital building. She looked at her paws in disbelief.
“I’m… evolving! But how?”
The light got brighter, and Kodamon felt a familiar warmth – Akira standing beside her, holding her paw, smiling at her.
“Kodamon, warp evolve to… Auramon!”
Auramon’s bright blue armor glinted in the morning sun as the other kids and Digimon stared at her in awe.
“No way!”
“How did you-”
“Akira! Is she awake?”
Auramon shook her head. “I don’t know. But just for a moment, I connected with her.” She closed her eyes, and could almost hear Akira’s voice echoing in her mind.
“No matter how far apart we are, we’ll always be together!”
Auramon nodded, strengthening her resolve. “Let’s go!”
Kei and Terriermon stared as the light from Akira’s D-Coder and Crests faded away and the beeping abruptly stopped.
“What was that all about?” Kei asked. Terriermon shrugged.
They were interrupted by a rumble and several loud screams coming from down the hospital hallway. Kei poked her head out of the doorway and saw a group of small, black polyhedrons whiz by, followed by BanchoLeomon and Cherubimon.
“Huh?” Kei stared at them with a puzzled look.
“Don’t let them get away!” Seita called out.
“Excuse us, coming through!” Yuka said hastily to the other hallway occupants. She looked over at Kei and Terriermon and smiled. “You’re here!”
“Where have you two been?” Seita demanded, “We’ve been looking all over for you!” His eyes widened as he saw Akira’s room number. “Is Akira awake?”
Kei shook her head. “No. But something funny’s going on. Her D-Coder and Crests came to life just a moment ago. What’s happening?”
“This place is Mataymon’s next target,” Yuka said seriously, “We have to destroy all the Apocalymon copies before they hurt any of the patients!”
“And meanwhile, everyone else is looking for a Dark Seed base,” Seita added, “If we find that and destroy it, we’ll be golden!”
“Wait, wait,” Kei said, holding out her hands to stop them. “Slow down. Apocalymon copies? Dark Seed bases? What are you guys talking about?”
Seita and Yuka looked at each other.
“That’s right…” Yuka said in slow realization. “You and Terriermon weren’t with us for all the explanations!”
“We can do this later,” Seita said tersely, “Right now, we have to catch up with those copies-” He was interrupted by another group of black polyhedrons flying past his face at high speed. “Aw, crap, there go more of them!” He looked back at Kei and Terriermon. “Stay here and watch over Akira. We’ll handle these!”
“No way,” Kei retorted, “We’re coming with.” A feeling of purpose filled her, for the first time since her father died. “If we can’t protect Akira by taking down these copy-things, no one can!” She pulled out her D-coder and nodded toward Terriermon. “Let’s go!”
“Terriermon, warp evolve to… SaintGalgomon!”
SaintGalgomon powered up his smiley-faced missiles and fired them directly at the escaping Apocalymon copies.
“Giant Missile!”
The missiles struck the polyhedrons in midair, dissolving them into bits of data.
“Nice one!” Seita said.
“Just be careful of the patients the next time you shoot!” Yuka said hastily.
They reached the end of the hallway as it turned into the stairwell leading to the next floor. Ahead of them, BanchoLeomon fired off an attack that vaporized the first group of Apocalymon copies.
“Flash Bancho Punch!”
The polyhedrons dissolved right above the heads of two people standing on the stairs, who let out screams.
“Sorry!” Seita called out as they climbed the stairs.
“Excuse us!” Kei added.
As they reached the next floor, Seita’s phone rang. “Yeah?” he said, taking the call.
“We found the Dark Seed base!” Tian’s voice sounded through the receiver. “On the roof!”
“Got it!” Seita answered, and ended the call. “To the roof, everyone!”
They reached the roof and found the other Ultimate level Digimon surrounding a massive polyhedron.
“Is this it?” Kei asked.
“It has to be,” Yuka answered, “Don’t you feel the evil coming off of it?”
Kei looked around, and gasped in surprise when seeing Auramon.
“Auramon! You… evolved?”
“Somehow,” Auramon answered, “With Akira’s help!”
“How much time do we have left?” Tian asked.
Jun tapped a button on his D-Coder. “About a minute!”
“Then let’s hurry up and destroy this thing!” Seita said urgently.
BanchoLeomon stepped over to Auramon. “Want to do the honors?”
Auramon nodded. She waved her arms spherically and erected a large circular barrier around the Dark Seed base. Powerful storms developed inside and increased exponentially in strength.
“All right, everyone!” Auramon shouted, “Give it everything you’ve got!”
“Flash Bancho Punch!”
“Izuna!”
“Seven Heavens!”
“Eden’s Javelin!”
“Giant Missile!”
“Lightning Spear!”
“Final Elysion!”
As the barrier absorbed each attack, the storms within grew stronger.
“Aura… Destroyer!”
The barrier kept everything safely contained as the storms shattered the shell and pulverized the Dark Seeds inside.
“We did it!” Kei shouted.
With a flash of light, Auramon reverted to Kodamon. She held her paws to her chest. “Akira…” she murmured, “Thank you.”
As the other Digimon reverted to their Child forms, the adults finally arrived.
“Kei!” Kyoko called out, running up to her.
“Mom!” Kei answered.
“Don’t leave home again without telling me,” Kyoko said furiously, “Don’t just leave a note!”
“You won’t let me do anything otherwise!” Kei shot back.
“Kei-”
“It’s the truth,” Kei said, “I want to help everyone, but you never let me!”
“I just want what’s best for you!”
“Terriermon and I have a mission to save the Real and Digital Worlds. You can’t keep us from doing it. I don’t want what happened to Daddy to happen to anyone else. Also…” Kei held her head up high. “I want to protect Akira, the same way she protected me. No matter what you say, Mom.”
Kyoko stared back at Kei, then sighed, her shoulders drooped in defeat. “I understand. I don’t have to like it, but I get it.”
Kei gave a relieved smile. “Will you help too, Mom?”
Kyoko didn’t say anything for a moment. “I need some time,” she said finally.
Nami nodded. “Take whatever time you need.”
When it was confirmed that there were no stray Apocalymon copies floating around, everyone met around Akira’s bedside. The nurses wanted to complain, but a few polite words from Takashi and Nami warded them off.
“So, Akira’s D-Coder and Crests shined this morning,” Nami said.
Kei nodded. “It was weird. It was like Akira was awake and listening, but she wasn’t.”
“She helped me evolve this morning,” Kodamon added, “I felt it!”
“At least we know she’s still in there,” Jun said softly.
“Maybe she’s trapped somehow,” Tian said, “And she can’t wake up!”
“If only we had a way to get into her head,” Seita murmured, “To find her and bring her back.”
“That remains to be seen,” Nami answered, “But in the meantime, we need to focus on the next Dark Seed bases.”
Jun nodded. “They’re pretty far away, and we have less than a day to get to them.” He sighed. “But I’ll come up with a plan. With everyone’s help, we’ll find a way to deal with them.”
Everyone took that as a signal to disperse and return to the Infinity Labs. As they shuffled out the door, Seita stayed behind, looking down at Akira’s unconscious form.
“Akira… you’re in there somewhere, I know it!” Seita said softly. “Keep fighting! Don’t give up!”
He squeezed her hand, then left the room, catching up with the others.