Message
Akira sat at the card table, calm and relaxed, as she flipped over the top card of her Digi-Egg deck, revealing a Cubmon. She checked her hand, and promptly evolved it to Kodamon, then Kodiamon. She checked her memory gauge, and made a split-second decision to play an Auramon in the Battle Area. It required a high memory cost, but Akira hoped it would be worth it.
She waited quietly as her opponent took his turn, hatching a Digi-Egg and evolving it several times. When it was her turn again, Akira moved Kodiamon from the Breeding Area to the Battle Area, then played a Tamer card, Aki Maeda. She smiled to herself, knowing the card was meant to be her. She evolved Kodiamon to Helamon, then promptly attacked her opponent’s security stack with Helamon and Auramon.
Akira smiled and nodded to herself as her opponent’s security stack was reduced from 5 to 3. She waited as her opponent took his next turn, moving a Digimon from the Breeding Area to the Battle Area, playing a Tamer card, playing another Digimon card, then attacking her security stack. Her security stack decreased by 1, but she wasn’t concerned yet. It was still early in the game, and anything could happen.
Next turn. Akira used her Tamer card’s effect to evolve Helamon to Auramon Ace for a reduced evolution cost. Then she played an Option card, Red Memory Boost, to gain more memory. She then had Auramon and Auramon ACE attack her opponent’s security stack. One attack was redirected toward one of her opponent’s Digimon, who defeated Auramon. The other attack was deflected by the effect of her opponent’s Tamer card.
Standing around the card table, a group of people watched. Seita and Tian were at the front of the group, observing quietly as Akira’s opponent attacked her security stack and reduced it to 2. Tian looked over at Akira nervously, but she showed no sign of agitation.
On her next turn, Akira flipped over another Digi-Egg card and evolved it from Cubmon to Kodamon to Kodiamon. Then she had Auramon Ace attack her opponent’s security stack, reducing it to 2.
Turn after turn, Akira and her opponent traded shots, their Tamer and Option cards and their Digimon’s abilities blocking and deflecting each attack to their security stacks. Eventually, both of their security stacks reached 0. Because of the turn order, Akira’s opponent was able to use his Digimon to make a direct attack on Akira’s side, ending the game.
Akira leaned back in her chair and sighed, while the crowd cheered.
“Crap…” Seita said, scratching his head, trying to figure out how Akira had lost.
“It was so close!” Tian moaned.
Akira shrugged nonchalantly. “It is what it is.” She and her opponent stood up and faced each other, then shook hands.
“Good game,” her opponent said.
Akira nodded. “Yeah.”
“You’re pretty good for someone just starting out,” he added, “I haven’t had this much fun in a while!”
“Thanks,” Akira replied.
“Hey, aren’t you the girl who won the Rosetta Cube contest here last month?” someone in the crowd asked.
“Really?” another person asked.
“Yeah! She solved a Rosetta Cube problem in less than 5 minutes, and won a big prize for it!”
Akira turned an embarrassed shade of red. “It was only a plushie…”
“Less than 5 minutes?!”
“That’s incredible!”
Her opponent turned back to her and stared at her in awe. “You’re good at math, too?” he asked, “That’s amazing!”
Akira laughed hastily at all the praise lumped upon her, while Tian and Seita smiled proudly.
“Well, keep your game up,” her opponent said, “I hope to see you in the next tournament!”
“You bet!” Akira replied.
The crowd dispersed as the card table was prepped for the next game. Akira, Tian and Seita left the game shop and headed for home.
“That was a pretty nerve-wracking experience,” Tian said.
Seita nodded. “It’s a shame you didn’t win, Akira.”
“It was fun, though,” Akira replied, smiling. “And winning isn’t everything.”
“I’m still surprised that you got into playing the Digimon card game, enough to play in a tournament!” Tian said.
“It’s a fun challenge,” Akira said, “It’s the same kind of rush I get when playing a soccer game, or solving Rosetta Cubes. And since I run a Kodamon deck, it’s almost like she’s with me, battling by my side!”
Tian and Seita nodded, understanding completely.
“I guess it also serves as a reminder to me,” Akira added, “About what Homeostasis said. To not forget the time we spent in the Digital World.” She looked at Tian and Seita pointedly. “To be there to answer when the next call comes.”
The three of them fell silent as they contemplated the message Yuka had relayed to them on the morning after defeating Kagulumon. About Homeostasis, and its role in bringing them to the Digital World in the first place. And its request to them to never forget.
“It doesn't seem fair,” Seita said, “that the only time we can see our friends again is when the world needs saving.” He frowned. “That we can't just visit them any time we want.”
“That's just how things turned out, I guess,” Tian replied. “The Digital World needs to heal after Kagulumon’s rampage, so the Digital Gates need to stay closed.”
“It still sucks,” Seita retorted, “There's so much that I want to share with Gazimon, but I can't even contact him and say ‘hey, how’re you doing?’”
No one said anything for a long moment. Then Akira spoke up.
“Well, it is what it is,” she said softly. “We can't do anything about it. We can only hope that they're doing okay.”
Later that night, Akira was seated at her desk, doing homework, when her D-Coder suddenly started beeping and shining brightly.
“Huh?” Akira looked over at her D-Coder in shock. After months of no activity, seeing it react to anything at all was surprising.
As suddenly as it started reacting, the D-Coder stopped and fell silent. Then there was a single beep, and a message appeared on the screen.
Message Packet Received.
Akira picked up the D-Coder and pressed a button, revealing lines and lines of Digicode. An amazed smile slowly crossed her face. She knew, even though she couldn't read it, that their Digimon friends had just reached out to contact them.
A few days later, a long e-mail from Jun arrived, with a translation of the Digicode message that had been sent to all of the Chosen Children. Attached to the e-mail was a program that would translate their responses back to Digicode.
Akira scanned through the message excitedly. It was composed of personal messages from each of the Digimon to their partners. When she found Kodamon’s message, her eyes teared up.
Akira!
It’s been a long time. I miss you so much! How has everything been? I’ve been doing my best to keep busy. I go to the Digimon gym on the Dakota server every week for battle training and wisdom training – gotta keep both my body and mind sharp! And some days I go to the Kotemon village on the Amaterasu server and spar with Gazimon, who is determined to defeat me one day, for some reason… (he hasn’t yet!) He says he wants to confess something to me once he defeats me, but it never happens, so maybe I’ll never know what it is he wants to tell me!
I keep hearing things about the Real World from the news packets that come in every day, and sometimes I see your name in them. I saw that you’re competing in a math competition in a few months. Good job! I also noticed your name on a list of players for a Digimon card game tournament – that’s so cool! The fact that there’s a card game about us Digimon, and the fact that you play it – so cool! I’m glad that you’re challenging yourself and having fun at the same time.
There’s so much that’s happened since we went our separate ways – I wish I could tell you everything, but this letter would be way longer than it already is, and there’s only so much room in this data packet for everyone’s letters. Naoko’s planning to have this be a regular thing, once we all complained enough, so our next letters won’t have to be so long.
Okay. That’s everything for now. Be well, and be sure to kick all your doubts away!
Kodamon ʕ ◕ᴥ◕ ʔ
Akira laughed and wiped her tears away with a hand. She was glad Kodamon was doing well, and surprised that Kodamon had managed to keep track of what she was doing the past few months. She sat in silence for a moment in calm contemplation, then opened the word processor app on her laptop and typed out a response.
Dear Kodamon,
I’m so glad you reached out to us. It’s great that you’re training and keeping yourself sharp – let’s both work together and push ourselves to be the best we can be! As for Gazimon… well… I have a pretty good idea of what he wants to tell you. (I can hear you asking, ‘what is it?’ but I’m not telling! That’s a secret!) …If you really want to know, why not pretend to lose to him once, so he’ll finally tell you? (I can hear you saying, ‘that’s dishonest!’ but hey, it’s either that or you never find out at all! Take your pick!)
I’ve also been doing my best to keep busy. I still play soccer with the Odaiba girls’ team, though not as obsessively as before. I’ve discovered lately that I’m really, really good at math, and I want to see how far I can take that ability. It’s almost time for us to consider what we want to do in the future, after high school, and until now, all I had going for me was soccer. Maybe my math skills could get me into a good university!
I admit, I’ve spent more time than I’d like missing you and feeling down because I couldn’t see you. It hurt so much, not being able to contact you, not knowing how you were doing. In a way, the Digimon anime and card game were both a blessing and a curse to me. Because of them, I see you everywhere – on TV, on game cards, as plushies and toys – but it was also a painful reminder that I couldn’t talk to you. But now, it’s different. Writing letters isn’t so bad. It’s not quite the same as talking face to face, but it’s something.
Well, here’s to many more letters between us. Until we meet again!
Akira (＾▽＾)
Akira saved the file, then ran it through Jun’s Digicode translator. Then, she e-mailed the translated file to Jun so he could pass it on to Naoko. She hoped that her reply would make it to Kodamon quickly and in one piece.
She sat back in her chair and gazed absently at the ceiling, feeling happier now than she had ever been in a long time. Now that she was able to talk to Kodamon again, the pain of separation had lessened greatly, and the future seemed brighter and more sure.
Until we meet again.
Notes:
I based the Digimon card game that Akira plays on the 2020 Digimon Card Game, with its rules and gameplay. I’m still a beginner at the game, so I hope I described it somewhat accurately! This piece was heavily inspired by the Digimon Tamers drama CD “Message in the Packet”, where each of the Tamers write messages to their Digimon partners and send the messages to the Digital World.