8人目の選ばれし子ども
Where to buy: Amazon.JP.
Chapter 6; Tokyo ① August 1st, 1999
The buses boarded with children arrived at Odaiba. Summer camp was cancelled because of the unexpected snowstorm, so rather than stick to the original plan of sleeping over for the night, they had decided to head back for home.
“In any case, I’m glad you children are all right.”
“Sensei, what’s this doomsday prophecy you’re talking about?”
“Bye!”
The children scattered noisily back to their homes.
After Jou had walked for some distance, Gomamon popped his face out of Jou’s bag.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah, but let’s wait for Taichi and the others here.”
The moment the buses parked, they should have jumped off and managed to hide themselves.
Jou called out to them. The children and their Digimon had taken a wide detour before coming here, so as not to be spotted by Mr. Fujiyama and the others.
Taichi brought Agumon along. Next to them, Patamon was riding on top of Takeru’s head.
“Shh, you’re not allowed to talk yet, Patamon.” Takeru covered Patamon’s mouth with his hand. “You still need to pretend to be a doll.”
“I’m pretty comfortable,” Tanemon replied. “But it was hard work holding on to the roof of the bus for the whole ride.”
“Anyway,” Sora said, looking around to make sure the area was deserted, “Let’s all go home for today. We’re all tired, and we can’t let our families worry about us.”
“We’ll put off deciding what to do and how to search for the eighth child tomorrow,” said Sora.
Tokyo in August was warm, even around the time the sun set. The humidity clung to their bodies. It was completely different from the cold they had felt up in the mountains of the campgrounds.
“We’re home,” Jou said.
In the real world, they had physically only been in these houses just this morning, but mentally, more than half a year had passed. This was a feeling that hadn’t really hit them when they had returned back to camp, but it hit them now.
When they had woken up, there was snow everywhere. Jou didn’t remember right away that there had been a snowstorm just before they had entered the Digital World, and thought for an instant that time had passed and winter had come. As proof that their adventures in the Digital World had not been a dream, their Digimon were with them.
When they left the shrine on the higher side of the mountain and climbed back down to the campgrounds, they reunited with Fujiyama and their friends. It didn’t take them very long to realize that it was still August 1st. Only three hours had passed. Both surprise and joy overcame them at once that they almost forgotten to hide the Digimon from their friends.
“Here’s my house,” Mimi said.
“See you tomorrow,” Taichi said at the pedestrian crossing. Taichi and Yamato lived in the condos that were located by going across the street and turning right from here.
The only ones left standing there were Yamato, holding Tsunomon in his arms, and Takeru, with Patamon on his head.
Hearing his brother call for him, Yamato returned back to himself and began to walk.
Even if he went back home now, his father wouldn’t be there at this time.
By the sound of the front door opening, Hikari knew that Taichi had returned home. She heard their mother’s voice calling out from the living room.
As Taichi listened to her voice, he quietly shoved Agumon into his room. Looking at Hikari who was inside with an expression that said ‘Look after him,’ he turned nonchalantly to face their mother who had come walking out of the living room.
That was as far as he got when his smile crumpled. He hadn’t seen his mother in over half a year.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Agumon looked at her and grinned. Hikari smiled back.
Agumon didn’t know what she meant by ‘this time,’ so he cocked his head in puzzlement.
“Yeah.” As she answered, she put a finger to her lips and said quietly, “Shh.”
“I’m okay. I’m not hurt anywhere.”
I shouldn’t be thinking like that.
“Thank goodness nothing happened. Would you like something cold to drink?”
Koushiro took off the laptop bookbag he was carrying and entered his room. As she watched his back, his mother felt that, yes, something had definitely changed. She heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.
“Over here, Tentomon.”
“Wow, it’s hot weather here. I just can’t stand this heat.”
He caught sight of Piyomon flying above them.
Sora’s house was empty.
“I forgot. She said that she’d be back home late because she has a class today. We didn’t even need you to come through the window, Piyomon.”
“For flower-arranging. They put flowers together all pretty-like. She teaches that.”
Besides, what would her mother say if she was suddenly face-to-face with a Digimon?
There was something Sora wanted to say to her mother before any of that, anyway. She didn’t know how to put it into the right words, but for a start, she wanted to tell her, “Thank you.”
“The food you make is so delicious, Mommy!” Mimi said happily, as she ate the kimchi fried rice topped with strawberries and whipped cream.
Mimi’s mother Satoe smiled as she held out a dish.
While Mimi had been unable to endure many things in the Digital World, the reason she had the least complaints in the group when it came to food there was because this was how she normally ate.
“Okay, thank y–”
“What’s wrong? Are you full?”
“Okay, if that’s what you want to do, Mimi-chan.”
If she saw Mimi, who returned to her room with a heaping plate of food, feeding a creature that looked like a plant bulb with eyes and a mouth, she probably would not have been very surprised either.
“This is so tasty! Mimi, your mommy is a cooking genius!”
Because Mimi’s room was overflowing with dolls, the plant bulb chewing on a piece of ham — Tanemon, did not look so out of place.
“I can’t do that. There’s something we must do.”
After all of that effort to make it back home, would she have to go back to that world again? Would she have to fight again?
Mimi grew slightly depressed.
“Ahhh, warm baths are the best thing ever.”
While they had been traveling those months in the Digital World, Jou’s secret worry had been his school studies. Since he was the only sixth grader of the group, and no one else was considering taking an entrance exam to a private middle school, he couldn’t discuss it with anyone else. It was a big problem for him. No, forget studying in fact, he had given up convinced that the day of his exam had already passed.
“I can still make it in time. Thank goodness.”
“I can’t do that, it’s very important to me. My dad is a doctor, and my brothers are working hard to become doctors too.”
“My brothers are amazing. Not only do they have good grades, but Shin-niisan was always chosen as president of the student council, and Shuu-niisan is also good at athletics. He even made it to the nationals on the track team once. But…”
“This is more important right now. We have to find the eighth child somehow.”
“Are you getting sleepy?”
Even as he spoke, Jou realized that he was also pretty tired. Until now, as he lay on his bed, he had never thought of how comfortable his sheets felt.
“It’s been a really long day,” he whispered, as he immediately fell into a deep sleep.
Yamato and Takeru were inside the Yurikamome heading for Shinbashi.
“Yeah, he’s never back at this time.”
Yamato’s father worked at a TV station and was often home late. The two boys had dinner for themselves. As Yamato was accustomed to cooking, he used leftovers in the fridge to make pasta.
Patamon gave a secret nod. Both he and Tsunomon were riding on their laps, pretending to be stuffed animals.
After the divorce, their mother and Takeru moved to Sangenjaya. Since Takeru was supposed to have slept the night at summer camp, their mother was most likely working late that day. However, Yamato thought, it was probably for the best that Takeru go home too. Being in the Digital World meant that Takeru hadn’t seen their mother in over half a year. He didn’t speak of it, but he must be wanting to see her soon.
Regardless, he shouldn’t be made to go home on his own. That was why Yamato was accompanying him to Sangenjaya.
Someone was watching the Yurikamome.
Wizarmon knew that two of the Chosen Children were on the Yurikamome. But instead of showing any interest in pursuing them, he disappeared into the night’s darkness.
“Cell phone communications are down in all areas throughout Tokyo, followed by blocked reception of TV and radio waves. There is a high suspicion that someone is using illegal radio waves to jam electrical communication systems. The first of such phenomena to be found occurred earlier this afternoon, in the Nerima district near Hikarigaoka–”
“So? Did you find something?”
“Nothing yet, sir. The scope is just too big. I thought it was only Nerima at first, but it’s extended north to Saitama, south to Shinagawa, east to Ginza, and west to Ogikubo.”
He hung up without waiting to hear an answer. Grabbing his cigarettes and a lighter, he headed for the smoking area. When this new office building for the TV station was built in Odaiba, the one thing that troubled him most was that he was no longer allowed to smoke at his desk.
The electromagnetic interference (EMI) that had begun in Nerima had grown in range as time passed. Or would it be more accurate to say that it had scattered? It was as if vehicles carrying a device that messed up radio waves had spread out in different directions from Nerima towards other parts of the city all at once. The problem was that no one could find those so-called vehicles.
There had even been reports of traffic lights being on the fritz. Uncovering where those vehicles were or who the culprit was, before the police or other TV stations caught them, was his top challenge at the moment. Unfortunately, time passed without him grabbing any form of a clue.
He had no way of knowing that creatures called Digimon were the cause of that EMI… or even that his own sons were involved.
The erratically blinking signal at the intersection of Ginza’s fourth crossroads was restored at once.
Although it was nighttime, the neon lights of Ginza lit up the sky, lighting up against a black balloon sailing through. The balloon had flapping wings, but no one noticed that either.
“Have you found the Chosen Child?”
“My role is to report to Lord Vamdemon. Finding the child is secondary to that,” PicoDevimon sneered.
Although their replicate Crests did not completely possess the same functions as the original, at the very least, the Crest ought to glow when it came nearer to the child that was meant to bear it.
Some searched from the skies, while others searched the sewers. Still others with enough of a human shape, like Wizarmon, or who were small enough, like Tailmon, searched as they walked around. Wherever they went, traffic signals would blink like crazy and cell phones went out of service.
“Where is Lord Vamdemon?”
“He has gone out to supper.”
Vamdemon’s other miscalculation was the strength of the sun in midsummer Tokyo.
But the night belonged to him. And his “supper” was also exactly as the legend said.
“Well, do your best and find that kid by morning. I’ll be waiting for a good report.”
“What’s the matter? Why were you hiding?”
“There is something that I must tell you, for your ears only.”
Koushiro noticed when Yamato and Takeru left Odaiba.
Koushiro had his laptop opened and had been working away at something on it for some time now.
Thinking that his Digivice might have something other than its data link to his laptop when connected, he unhooked his Digivice and took it in his hand. That was when he saw two dots moving across its screen.
“Yamato-san must be taking Takeru-kun home.”
As Koushiro said this while looking at his Digivice, he noticed one other thing.
A thick mist several meters wide abruptly rose up in one, isolated part of Tokyo’s night. Within that mist, some said, they heard the creaking of heavy wheels. Some even said that they saw the shadow of a carriage, but no horses pulling it.
“It’s like she was bitten by a vampire,” the paramedic helping her whispered so low that nobody could hear. It didn’t occur to him that what he’d said himself was the truth.
As the mist slowly traveled south, the number of victims grew.
Yamato and Takeru found themselves in Shibuya.
“It was my fault for yelling at him all of a sudden like that,” Takeru said sadly.
That was all Yamato could say.
Both of them found it hard to part from each other, and Patamon seemed to sense that because he asked, “Is it really that hard to leave each other?”
“You have no right to say that!”
People in Shibuya paid no attention to other people. Not even Patamon flying appeared to have caught their interest.
They ran into such a group that would have caused screaming in a normal town while they were walking down Spain Hill.
A weird duo the size of children was laughing as they ran up Spain Hill towards them.
“You two work for Vamdemon, don’t you!”
“There’s a Shibuya babe even scarier than Vamdemon chasing after us!” the Digimon who, for all the world, had the head of a lit-up Halloween pumpkin, said. What made him slightly different from a regular pumpkin was the large ax buried in the top of his head.
Yamato, Takeru, and Gabumon looked at them agape, while a girl’s shrill cry of “Where the hell did you go?!” came from below the hill. The two Digimon hid at the side of the road.
A girl came running towards them, waving her bag as blood dripped down her nose. Upon closer inspection, the girl had a large nose-piercing which was where the blood was coming out of. The pumpkin Digimon must have pulled at it.
“Thanks a bunch! I’m Pumpmon,” the pumpkin Digimon said.
“We’re Shibuya-type Digimon!”
Although they didn’t know what was going on, the boys chased after them.
Koushiro quietly sneaked out through his window onto the streets and stood in front of Taichi’s condominium. Standing next to him, wearing a raincoat that fit snugly over his entire body, was Tentomon.
Koushiro showed Tentomon his Digivice screen. There were several dots blinking on it.
“The three over here are Jou-san, Sora-san, and Mimi-kun. And these two here…”
“No, Yamato-san and Takeru-kun left Odaiba a few moments ago. These two dots were here even after they left. Yamato-san hasn’t come back since then, and besides, Yamato-san lives over there.”
“Eh? Then, what? That means that light is…”
Koushiro looked up at the condo.
“The child lives in the same place as Taichi-san.”
“We love to have fun!” Pumpmon said as he licked a pumpkin-flavored ice cream cone. He had stolen it from an ice cream store.
Gotsumon was eating sweet potato ice cream. This had also been stolen.
When the store owner had chased after the two thieves, Yamato, Takeru, and Gabumon also had to run away since they had been spotted together with them.
“Enough, you guys,” Yamato said, annoyed. At this point, he didn’t know what they were chasing these guys for anyway.
Several empty plots of land like this surfaced after Japan’s bubble economy had burst. Only walls of sheet iron separated it from the building next door. Construction materials were carelessly piled up within the vacant lot, providing a place for them to sit down and rest.
“Yamato. I want ice cream too.”
“Later,” he was about to say, when a chill wind made Yamato turn around.
“It’s Lord Vamdemon.”
There was no time to decide whether the two Digimon could be trusted or not. The boys and Gabumon ran further into the vacant lot, flitting behind some sewer pipes that were stacked up high.
“Pumpmon, Gotsumon.”
“No, not yet…”
There was no need for them to reply. He knew everything. They could tell so by the sound of his voice.
Pumpmon and Gotsumon knew what was coming for them next.
Even as he spoke, Vamdemon approached, revealing himself from within the fog. The mask he wore over his eyes seemed to glow a brighter red, which was not completely because of the neon lights that fell upon him.
As he slowly extended out his cape, a large flock of bats burst out.
Despite his appearance, Pumpmon was a Perfect level and his offense ability was not at all weak. The pumpkin which he summoned through strange technique had both the mass and the toughness to crush most of his enemies flat in a single blow.
Flying back in the opposite direction, they dove into the pumpkin with their mouths wide, stopping it in its descent. The pumpkin was soon covered in bats, becoming a black mass that gradually grew smaller. The bats were eating up the entire pumpkin with their boundless appetite.
“Angry Rock!”
The bats finished eating the pumpkin above his head and flew down upon Pumpmon and Gotsumon. The two of them disappeared behind a black mass of writhing bats.
Yamato, who had been watching the entire thing, covered Takeru’s head with his arms. He never dreamed that Vamdemon would lay a hand on his subordinates like this so easily. They wouldn’t make it in time to save Pumpmon and Gotsumon.
The sound of bat wings gradually faded into quiet.
“I know you’re there, Chosen Children.”
Yamato pushed Takeru away as he spoke.
Tears were falling from his eyes as he looked up.
Taking in Yamato’s feelings, the gauge of his Digivice shot up to its highest point.
The bright light of evolution made Vamdemon shut his eyes.
“Fox Fire!”
“It was only for a little while, but those guys were our friends.”
“Garurumon!” Yamato screamed.
Garurumon’s entire body became wrapped in light. His shape changed in mid-air.
The giant wolf turned into a werewolf wearing jeans, and he made a wide kick into the air before the light surrounding him had time to fade.
That kick was still too far away to reach its target. However, a shockwave born out of it in the shape of a crescent moon flew towards Vamdemon.
The shockwaves flew about where they stood, making silent explosions.
The street lights smashed to pieces and the glass windows of buildings scattered everywhere.
Koushiro and Tentomon rode the condo elevator up to stand in front of the door with the nameplate “Yagami” on it.
“Taichi-san said once that he had a little sister, didn’t he…? Is she…?”
Hesitant to ring the intercom switch at this time of night, Koushiro decided to return to his room and call up Taichi instead.
The plaza in front of Shibuya station, where the Hachiko statue lay, was a famous spot for people to meet up since a very long time ago. Patamon must have heard that information somewhere because he was there, looking down from the trees above.
But how was he to find Takeru and the others now? He wasn’t sure if waiting here would help to find them again, but he could think of no other options.
He heard the sound of people murmuring. Far away, there was the sound of an explosion. When he turned to look in its direction, the neon lights within the city were being smashed up one after the other. Vamdemon and WereGarurumon’s fierce fight was on the move.
“Bloody Stream!”
After leaping through the air to land on the wall of “Tokyu Hands,”[20] WereGarurumon dug his nails in and made a vertical cartwheel to avoid it. The electric whip smacked into the wall where he had once stood.
“Kaiser Nail!”
Vamdemon, floating in the air beneath him, raised up both arms to block it. However, the force of the impact pushed him backwards into and through the wall of a building behind him.
WereGarurumon used his arms and legs to shake off the bats. He could not dodge the red electric whip that came towards him from within the storm of bats.
Vamdemon descended towards him with a triumphant smirk. Twin red electric whips slowly fell down towards him from both hands.
Yamato and Takeru, looking up at them from below, were helpless. Takeru screamed within his own heart.
“Someone, help! Patamon!”
His scream reached Patamon, who was flying through the park. The gauge of Takeru’s Digivice shot up.
The people in the park, who had been taken aback by the neon explosions, were even further shocked when they witnessed a glittering angel soar over their heads.
Vandemon could feel the light, the power of holy good, approaching him from behind.
Angemon moved faster than he had expected, and it took all that Vamdemon had to dodge the blow of the golden rod that came towards him.
“Angemon!” Takeru cried out. His voice was happy, but with a touch of fear. He had only seen Angemon once before, and that time…
Angemon, without letting his guard down, stood poised before Vamdemon as he spoke to WereGarurumon behind him.
“Yeah, I’ll manage.”
If the one with holy powers has arrived, then it would not be a smart move to stay here long. Vamdemon remembered that he still had yet to finish his supper.
“Kaiser Nail!”
They unleashed both a wave of hollow air and golden light.
Vamdemon unleashed his bats and, at the same time, shot out his red whip of lightning.
“Bloody Stream!”
The powers of light and darkness collided into each other in Shibuya’s skies. As the impact changed color, it expanded large enough to cover the entire city. The glaringly lit city suffered a blackout for the next 15 minutes.
Vamdemon had fled while they were distracted.
“Patamon.”
Takeru hugged Patamon carefully. He didn’t die this time, he thought. Thank goodness, he thought.
Instead of returning to his baby form Tsunomon, WereGarurumon had returned to Gabumon.
“What’s wrong, Koushiro? Why are you calling me so late?”
“You must listen to me really carefully, Taichi-san. You have your Digivice on you, correct? Look into the screen and tell me how many dots you see.”
Koushiro’s next words were the biggest shock of his life.
As Taichi walked back to his room, still unable to believe what he’d heard, he saw an even greater surprise.
“Taichi!” Agumon cried out to him, sounding as if he didn’t know what to do.
“Tailmon!”
Hikari smiled at him and said, “Oh, brother. This is Tailmon, my Digimon.”
He didn’t know what else to say.
“She’s my partner. Just like you and Koromon.”
However, Taichi wasn’t the only one who was troubled.
Whatever effects his words contained, they began to bring back bit by bit Tailmon’s forgotten memories.
“Yes, I was always waiting.
I woke up in an unfamiliar place
And waited
And kept waiting.
It was a very long wait.
During that time, I even forgot that I was waiting.
I learned to survive on my own and evolved little by little.
If I didn’t evolve, I would die,
Even though I knew that, in truth, I was supposed to evolve with someone else by my side.
I searched for the person I was waiting for.
I couldn’t find her.
At what point did I start working for him?
By then, I had already given up waiting.
But the truth was,
Even before I was born, I was waiting.
For my partner.
For Hikari.”
“Hikari.”
“When you say that this– that Tailmon is your Digimon, is it…?”
Tailmon understood the meaning of this girl’s gentle look into her eyes.
From that word alone, Wizarmon understood.
“Yes. Hikari is my… dearest partner. The one I had been waiting for all this time was Hikari.”
“Then Hikari really is the eighth child…”
“Oh, this? I found it when you came back home that one time, but then it disappeared. I found it again on the veranda a few moments ago.”
After he and MetalGreymon had been sucked into Etemon’s black hole, it may not have been a coincidence that instead of the campgrounds and Hikarigaoka, they had come to Odaiba instead. This thought would occur to Taichi much, much later, after he recalled these events.
“It’s dangerous for her to have that Digivice,” Wizarmon said to Taichi. “Vamdemon has ordered us all to find that Digivice, from responses to these.”
“Is that Hikari’s Crest?”
Tailmon’s eyes grew sharp. “We must take it back. We must take back Hikari’s Crest from Vamdemon.”
“It’s too risky. We’re going with you, too. Right, Agumon?”
“Of course, Taichi.”
“Taichi, are you still awake? You have a phone call from Ishida-kun.”
“Oh, I’ll be right there.”
“Crap…”
Tailmon and Wizarmon slipped quietly through the night’s darkness.
Unluckily for them, PicoDevimon caught sight of the two leaving Odaiba. He had been following Yamato at Shibuya under Vamdemon’s orders, and had just arrived from Sangenjaya with Yamato back to Odaiba.
Vamdemon’s coffin lay in the underground of Hikarigaoka. It was protected by a magic barrier that made normal humans unconsciously avoid moving closer to that area. Even looking in that direction, all that could be seen was dim darkness.
When he’d managed to undo the final seal, he opened the box to take out the real Crest. There were two of them inside, the ones that Sora had missed when she’d retrieved the Crests from the storehouse. Silently, they tucked both of them away.
But by the time they arrived back in Odaiba, it was almost dawn.
“You’re late. The morning is almost upon us.”
“Those eyes. Eyes that never lose hope, no matter the circumstances. Eyes that believe in tomorrow. They are what I hate the most,” Vamdemon said, his lips curled into a smile.
His eyes narrowed.
“Give this to Hikari.”
“Tailmon!”
Wizarmon raised his staff into the air and chanted a spell. Dark clouds appeared above his head at once.
Lightning fell down towards Vamdemon. It would have been a direct hit.
“Night Raid!”
“Ah! The Crest!” PicoDevimon cried out fretfully.
Vamdemon picked up the unconscious Tailmon.
“No need to rush. Let us wait for tomorrow evening. Gather up all of the others here by then,” Vamdemon ordered PicoDevimon, and boarded his carriage.
The carriage without a horse clattered into the mist and disappeared. The mist floated away.
Wizarmon sank into the ocean.
In his tight fist, he held the two Crests.
To be continued…
FOOTNOTES
[20] Tokyu Hands
[21] Parco