Götterdämmerung
Finale
by Ajora Fravashi
*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does.
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Takeru simply watched as three digimon played amongst themselves.
Nahualmon, Mixcoatlmon's rookie form, had taken to following Ken
around until the raven-haired boy eventually gave in and adopted the
former codewalker as a secondary digimon. Oh, he and Ken had talked
about the dubious wisdom of doing such a thing, but the snake simply
did not have the emotional capacity to resent them for Demon's demise
or to even turn against them. Ken's reasoning for taking in the snake
was because it had nowhere else to go and was constantly drawn to him.
Such a nice gesture was what he expected from the Child of Kindness.
The digimon played in the grass of the valleys of Hokkaido. Ken had
set out to find Ryo since Ryo hadn't been responding to e-mails, and
he hadn't wanted to let Ken go out alone. Not that his boyfriend could
really be considered alone while being trailed by two digimon. And to
be honest, the back woods of Hokkaido that the Akiyamas said that Ryo
was camping out in were hardly any danger. Still, he wanted to be with
Ken. That was all.
It had been several months now since the operation, several months now
since the abduction that forced him to realize that he cared a lot
more for Ken than he thought he would. He hadn't said anything about
it yet, and was simply content with their relationship at the moment.
Since then their friends had supported their relationship, even if a
few of those friends did have moral problems with it. He did not worry
too much about those few, however, as they made no attempts to preach
to him or Ken and had simply wished to continue being friends. In a
world where same-sex partners were still unusual, that was better than
he expected.
Ken soon settled by his side on a fallen log and Takeru wasted no time
in catching his boyfriend's hand and giving it a light squeeze. There
was so much more he wished he could do with Ken, but that had to wait
until the day Ken no longer feared such intimacy. He could wait,
though. He had all the time in the world.
"No luck in finding him," Takeru asked as he laced his fingers between
Ken's. There wasn't any real worry in his boyfriend's face, which
suggested that Ryo could handle himself in the wilderness. That was
good then, he didn't want Ken to worry.
Shaking his head at that, Ken simply waited until Takeru let go of his
hand only to drape one around his waist. "He's probably out fishing. I
haven't checked the river yet."
Takeru leaned back to lay in the grass, hoping Ken would take the
invitation for what it was. "I don't suppose you'll be going out to
check right now, are you?"
"No, not right now," Ken smirked down at the other boy. "I believe
there's something else that requires my immediate attention."
"Like what," Takeru asked, feigning innocence as he did so. Ken knew
his game well enough, however, and leaned over him with an equally
false scowl. Soon enough the games were shuffled away and there was
nothing false about what happened soon after.
With a genuine smile of affection for his boyfriend, Ken leaned down
to take Takeru's lips in a kiss, not at all surprised when the blond's
arms wrapped around his back to draw him even closer. Really, he
enjoyed sessions like these far too much.
Takeru held his Ken close, relishing the physical contact as much as
he enjoyed the kiss they shared. The kisses were gentle, almost as if
he was afraid to hurt Ken and vice versa, but he needed them
nonetheless. All he needed was Ken and everything Ken could give him.
That was all that mattered.
They were so lost in each other's attentions that they did not notice
the passage of time, and it wasn't until they heard a throat clear
that Ken pulled off of Takeru and looked up, blushing slightly when he
recognized the intruder.
"Keep focusing on that and you'll never notice an oncoming wolf or
bear attack until it's too late," a familiar voice quipped dryly.
Takeru looked up from his place in the grass to recognize Ryo with a
fishing pole slung over a shoulder, a brace of various fish in one
hand, and Savali fluttering close behind with a bucket of clean water.
The bruises Ryo acquired from Demon had long since faded out, yet the
streak of white hair from the alien device was still there.
Ken flustered slightly at this. He certainly hadn't expected anyone to
discover them, not all the way out here. Unfortunately, Ryo was
beginning to develop a knack for walking in on them. At least this
spared him the trip to the river. "We need to talk."
"Has to be important if you've tracked me down all the way out here,"
stated the older youth as he began to resume his hike. "Tell me on the
way back to camp."
With a silent glance at Takeru to make sure that the blond understood
that he was going to take Ryo up on the suggestion, Ken soon followed
the retired Tamer into the woods. It did not surprise him when he
heard the voices of three rookie digimon pause as Takeru told them
that they were moving on.
"Took a digital gate to the nearest computer, I presume?"
"Your parents didn't look too unnerved when we hopped out of your
computer. I'm taking it you've told them about everything," Ken asked,
particularly curious about how the Akiyamas handled knowledge of the
Digital World. The last he heard about Toshio and Kumi Akiyama, they
were not the most imaginative of people.
"Well, how else could he have explained me," countered the tsukaimon
that fluttered at Ryo's side. "Creatures like me aren't native to the
area."
The raven-haired boy took a moment to glance at the tsukaimon. "Why
did you follow Ryo into exile, anyway?"
Huffing in disgust at the question, Savali turned up what he had for a
nose and deigned to reply. "It was starting to get boring without
anyone to play with." Once that was said, the tsukaimon darted ahead
of them.
"That's his excuse," Ryo muttered with a hint of amusement in his
voice. "You'll never get him to admit that he's become far too
attached to his 'plaything', or that he's trying to lay low because a
few of Demon's leftover minions are out for his head."
"Ah." Ken simply let conversation drop for a bit once they entered the
camp area and Ryo laid the brace of fish out on a boulder. He merely
watched as his first Jogress partner pulled out one of the blades of
the Swiss Army knife and began to gut one fish at a time.
Takeru, thankfully, knew he had to talk to Ryo privately and had
settled with their digimon far enough away to be out of earshot. He
was quite grateful that he didn't seem to need to explain himself to
Takeru.
"Will V-mon ever remember who he used to be," Ken asked as he watched
the blade slice through a fish's pale underbelly. If he could remember
what had happened back then, he was curious as to why V-mon didn't
seem to recall anything. As his words were voiced, he noticed that the
blade's progress became more ragged.
"The memory wipe was complete the moment I had to stick him under that
digimental. I didn't want to do it, you know." The blade was
then pulled away only to fall with a chop that severed the fish's
head. "I didn't want to do any of it."
Ken paused in consideration as he mulled over the other questions.
Asking if Ryo resented himself for what had to be done was pointless,
Ken knew the answer already. Asking if he had struggled when the
memory blocks were set in place would only be cruel. Asking why it was
done would be pointless since he had inherited Ryo's estate in the
Digital World along with all the documentation and personal notes that
had been hidden in Ryo's desk.
Recently, however, he had stumbled upon a few very well-hidden files.
There had been few written notes about the subject's activities, but
there were far more photographs of a digimon that had been dead for a
while now, probably taken from afar when she didn't realize that she
was under observation. That file was what bothered him most of all.
"Ryo? Why the Arachnemon file?"
This elicited a short, strained laugh from the retired Tamer. "Have
you ever gotten a good look at her, Ken? Didn't you ever think of why
she might have looked familiar? Did you ever wonder why I refrained
from confronting her while she was out doing Oikawa's deeds for him?"
"I've never considered any of that," Ken stated in a rather defensive
manner. "I trust you're planning on enlightening me about it."
"You're a clever boy, think about it. Oikawa oversaw Kageko's
operation, and when it failed he had the Dark Seed ripped out and her
body disposed of. What do you think a man like that might have done
with a cute girl like Kageko? White hair like Kageko's is a very rare
occurrence in the natural world, after all."
Ken's eyes widened unconsciously as his mind followed Ryo's lead.
Oikawa had lied to him about being the one who implanted the Dark Seed
into him, so Oikawa might have lied about Arachnemon's origins as
well. Oh, the man hadn't said anything outright, but there had been
the stolen files Ryo still had hidden in the desk. According to one of
the files that was a report to Oikawa's financial supporters, the man
claimed to have created two digimon from the data of his own DNA. That
had been dated after Kageko's death. Arachnemon had white hair. Kageko
had white hair. Arachnemon had the same facial features as the girl he
considered one of his few friends, but simply appeared much older.
Arachnemon was most likely to have been created from Kageko's DNA, not
Oikawa's. After all, Kageko had already been into the Digital World
before, and who else could have been a better genetic donor and was so
readily available?
All those times that he and the other kids had fought against
Arachnemon and Mummymon, all those times and he hadn't even considered
that she might have once been human. And Mummymon... Who had been
Mummymon's real genetic donor?
The Child of Kindness sighed as he attempted to keep the swirl of
rising emotions under control. "I'm glad that I didn't have a hand in
her destruction."
"You're not the only one," Ryo added as he gutted another fish. He had
hoped Ken wouldn't discover those files, but since he hadn't gone to
any real lengths to hide them, this was mostly his fault. In an
attempt to change the subject, he decided to ask about the odd digimon
that looked like an Archaeopteryx and was playing with Patamon and
Wormmon. "So, who's the new digimon?"
"Oh, Nahualmon? That's Mixcoatlmon's rookie form," the younger boy
stated, grateful that the conversation had been redirected to
less touchy subjects. "He didn't really have any place to go to since
the Demon Corps was disbanded and he kept trying to follow me around.
Takeru and I just thought it best if we adopted him for the time
being. Besides, he doesn't have a reason anymore for going after me."
"And it's better to keep something like that out of the hands of
anyone who would use it to get to you. Good idea," Ryo responded.
This brought a slight frown to Ken's face. "I wasn't thinking about
the strategic aspects of that..."
"Perhaps you were, subconsciously." As Ken shook his head at this, the
older of the two frowned slightly. "There's no point in denying your
natural talent for strategy. So you abused it once, big deal. You
can't beat yourself up over that, and it's pointless to try to bury
that aspect of yourself."
"I'm not," countered the younger before he could fully think about his
friend's words. The moment he spoke, however, he mentally rebutted
himself for being so quick to deny it. "Well, not so much anymore."
"Good, keep working on that. So, are you guys going to stick around
for supper or are you going to head back?"
Ken gazed thoughtfully at the rest of the campsite. He had never been
as much a nature nut as Ryo, and would prefer to stay in a place other
than a small tent that looked to be capable of holding only one
person. "We should probably head back soon, we didn't think to bring
any overnight gear. Besides, I doubt Savali would appreciate us eating
his share of fish."
"Yeah, there is that," Ryo muttered idly as he pulled out the
fishscaler part of the multibladed pocketknife and continued his work.
"Anything else?"
Ken sighed as he stuffed a hand in his one of his pants pockets in an
attempt to keep from fidgeting. This part was going to be difficult,
but Ryo needed to know. "They've made me a Tamer in your place."
Unfazed by Ken's words, Ryo simply continued carving the scales from
his catch. He had expected this the moment they exiled him. "You were
meant to be a Tamer, you know. Your permanent bond with Wormmon simply
threw a wrench into things, which was why you got the designation of a
Chosen. I'm assuming the Holy Beasts are simply making an exception
for you since I've been training you for the Tamer job anyway."
"That's what they told me," Ken offered. He was somewhat relieved that
Ryo had seen this coming at least, it made things much less stressful
than he imagined they would be. Ryo had been training him for this,
but Ryo was also expecting to do so in hopes of having company. Now
that Ryo was no longer a Tamer, he could only imagine what his friend
was feeling. "Do you mind?"
"No, but do you think you can handle the politics that come with the
job," Ryo asked as he dumped the bits of fish meat in a pan that had
been set aside a while ago. Ken didn't respond to him, but that was
hardly surprising considering just how little Ken actually knew of the
Digital World's politics. "You know you can come to me if you have any
questions, right?"
There was a pause as Ken considered the offer. He had only the
faintest idea of what he would have to do as a Tamer, but since all
the major evils of the Digital World were gone, he would be fine.
Right? Regardless, it was not wise to dismiss any aid from someone
with far more experience than himself. "Yes, I know. Thank you."
Once again a silence fell between them as Ryo washed his hands and the
bloody blades of the Swiss Army knife in the bucket Savali brought
from the river. Ken turned to observe Takeru, who in turn was watching
the digimon play. Nahualmon started and nearly flew off every time the
tsukaimon smiled sinisterly at it, apparently having never forgotten
its previous encounter with Savali's puppeteer strings.
Something else nagged at him as his eyes caught with Takeru's. What
it was, though, he wasn't quite sure. Some sort of premonition, if it
could be called that, seemed to dance around his mind as a wisp of fog
that could not be grasped. When Ryo seemed to be done with cleaning up
the mess from his hands, Ken turned his attention back to his first
Jogress partner. "Ryo? What happened to the Dark Seed after Jou
removed it?"
"Oh, that." The former Tamer took a moment to dig into one of his
pockets, dragging out the small bag of ashes once he found it. "It's
not really in a state where it'll bother anyone anymore. Want to do
the honors and scatter this into the wind?"
Taking the bag from his friend's fingers, Ken smirked down at the
grains of dead matter. How long had he wanted to do something about
the thing that ruined his life. how long had he waited for this
opportunity? Well, he had it now at least, and there was a mountain
close by. "You know, I think Takeru and I will stay for supper after
all. I'm sure there are some nice winds up on that mountain's peak,
and I'm sure you'd want to come along for the show."
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Ryo said, grinning at the idea of
seeing the ashes spread into the winds. He grabbed the pan and
gestured Ken over to follow him to the campfire site. "Hope you two
don't mind your fish with yams and mushrooms."
Ken simply shook his head as he watched his friend settle down to
light the fire. The wood was damp, however, and it was a while before
the telltale tongues of oranges and yellows began to lap at them.
There was still something that bugged him.
Oikawa's financial supporters had to still be around, but where were
they? Perhaps they still had Kageko's Dark Seed somewhere. It was a
frightening thought, one he did not want to cling to for long. Would
they do anything with it now that Oikawa was dead?
As if by divine intervention, Takeru derailed his train of thought
with nothing more than a few words of concern. Smiling thankfully at
the blond, he simply stated that he was fine, and began to explain
that he and Ryo were planning to scale the mountain close by to
scatter the ashes of the Dark Seed. Takeru replied that he would be
glad to go along.
Once again the peaceful silence fell between them as their hands
clasped together, Ken's fingers laced between Takeru's. And as their
eyes met once again, Ken's thoughts settled on more pleasant matters.
He could worry about everything else later, but now all he had to
worry about was finding a more secluded area for far more personal
purposes.
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Ajora: A nahual is a sort of Aztec protective spirit, and an
Archaeopterix is, of course, the feathered dinosaur much flaunted as
the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds
Oh dear, looks like my plotbunnies have been breeding again since I
started this. Which means, of course, yet another fic in this
universe. I'm sure everyone's already figured out anyway since I left
some plot threads hanging. "Knight of Swords" is currently in the
works and "Foreign Sands", the Tag Tamers era prequel, will be worked
on after that.