Nature of the Game
Disk 2: Hide The Deepest Sins
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does.
*Note: Takes place during the game Brave Tamer.

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Perched precariously on a tongue of basalt-like material that jutted over a ravine was a lone boy with a large egg tucked in the crook of his elbow. Everything that happened was bizarre beyond belief and there were times that he felt that it was all a bad dream brought on by too many videogames, but this world had proven it was real time and again. He had the scars to show for it.

Only recently could he recall most of his past, and what he could remember disturbed him.

"... Lonely soldier boy."

He remembered the D-1 Tournament, the practice dungeons he had been told to clear, the digimon he had to sacrifice to the demons that dwelled in the Digimon Graveyard. There was a Revolvmon that had been with him along with a couple of other digimon. Then Lady Devimon had demanded a sacrifice or the group wouldn't be able to escape the first crypt. Give the life of one for the survival of the many. Revolvmon went bravely, but another had to be sacrificed in the next crypt, then a third. A fourth had died in the last crypt. Each time he expressed concerns about this, he had been told that there was no other way. So, he simply went along like a good little soldier boy and did as he was ordered.

"... He had been taught that sacrifices for the greater good were quite acceptable, never mind the fact that such sacrifices could take the lives of others. Extreme situations call for extreme measures, he was told."

He remembered a younger boy he had adored like the brother he never had, with dark hair and wide blue-violet eyes that suggested the kindest soul he would ever know. He had been closer to the boy and the boy's older brother than he had been with anyone else and lost them both. The elder died after an accident, but what really grated was what happened to the younger. He recalled being hit square in the chest by the younger boy and losing his balance. He landed on his rear after the tackle, but the younger boy was still standing. Then the body jerked as something round and black hit the boy in the back of the neck, and he too fell. The boy had been sick for weeks afterwards, but when the D-1 Tournament started, Ryo could not take care of him anymore.

Then, during one of his time jumps, he ran into what the boy would be in the future. The immeasurable gentleness was gone, twisted upon itself into cruelty. Nearby was a hideous conglomeration of several digimon he later recognized as Chimeramon. However, at the moment he had been struck by the desperate madness in the boy's eyes. Was this what had happened after the boy took the black seed-like object in his place? He should have been there to prevent it, but...

"... They feared that once he joined with his Watcher, he would realize his true power and break away from them..."

He remembered the sheer exhaustion settling in even as his team battled Moon-Millenniumon. He had pressed himself throughout the D-1 Tournament to train his digimon; he had trudged through crypts, jungles, grasslands and marshes. He slept only when his team needed rest, ate only when there was time. He had tried so hard, but only after the tournament was he told that it had been an effort to prepare him for another battle with Millenniumon. The thought that everyone felt that deception was necessary to get him to fight stung. He fought only because he was told to. Just following orders.

After a long battle, Moon-Millenniumon was without lackeys to act as shields and was weakening just as much as Ryo was. Then the dark god spoke in a voice that sounded as if there were two voices speaking as one, but the syntax was so perfect.

"Ryo," Moon-Millenniumon began. Ryo started, unwilling to let his opponent get a word in yet curious as to what Millenniumon would say. "You and I are Yang and Yin. I am the Shadow to your Light. One cannot exist without the other. Never will just one of us die without the other. Do you understand what that means?"

Blinking blankly at first, Ryo simply shook his head then. He had no idea what Millenniumon was getting at, and didn't really care. He reassured himself that the evil god was simply buying time.

"It will be my defeat, Ryo." The grotesque monster's voice was calm, almost expectant. Ryo was more wary now; the tranquility in Millenniumon's voice hinted that the battle was not yet over. "However, it will be your defeat as well."

Ryo stepped backwards as the crystal that confined the spirit of Millenniumon cracked and shards broke away. The two-headed shadow shed the last of its crystal prison and drifted towards him. A wild glance around revealed that the tower was crumbling around them and Ankylomon and Aquilamon were dragging XV-mon away for their own safety. It hurt seeing them abandon him, but he wasn't their real partner. He was just someone to be sacrificed to the cause of getting rid of the evil god. Despite the growing sense of terror, he stood tall and defiant as the shadow that was Millenniumon's spirit circled him.

Two claws stretched for him, and unwittingly he stepped back again. The intense red eyes bored into him, sending a chill of dread down his spine. Millenniumon wanted something, but Ryo couldn't guess what. "Now, let us go! Ryo! Come fly with me in the worlds of time!"

Ryo could do nothing but smother the urge to scream as the tower exploded and Millenniumon's spirit embraced him. Then everything went black.

"...He had never been taught that there is no true judge, that justice is only what one makes of it. When he learns this, then his Watcher will claim him."

This memory was much more recent. It was the last time he encountered the dark one in a human body. There had only been two instances, but the nagging feeling that he should know Azaziel's true form grew more and more. He had been dragged once again out of a time-hop and found himself standing near a star-lit pool.

"Remember me," a voice asked from the shadows of trees.

"Good evening, Azaziel," he responded, glancing over at the direction the voice was coming from. He didn't particularly mind being plucked out of the mission this time. He was tired of so much traveling and appreciated the opportunity for rest.

There was silence as the dark man stepped from the shadows. The red eyes watched him patiently, as if waiting for him to say something more. When Ryo remained silent as well, Azaziel gave a tiny smirk. "You don't remember yet."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because," the dark man began with a trace of bitterness under the slight amusement in his voice, "you would never talk to me otherwise."

Ryo cocked his head curiously at that. He wanted to ask, but wasn't sure if he wanted the answer quite yet. Azaziel then strode past him to look down at the still, flawless pool.

"The Watcher and the boy I told you about before... Have you any idea why the boy's superiors pitted them against each other?"

It took a moment for Ryo to respond, for he was clearing leaves from a fallen log so that he could use it for a seat. Past experience had taught him that Azaziel's stories would last for a while. "Not a clue. Why?"

"The Watcher was searching for something that should have belonged to him, but because the boy and the Watcher shared the same power, they feared that allowing the two to contact each other would allow the Watcher to claim what was rightfully his and gain the power to overthrow them. But all the Watcher wanted was his child. He didn't even know that the boy sent to kill him was meant to be his. He didn't know until after his first defeat.

"The aspect that had been missing in the Watcher's power lay dormant in the boy. After the first defeat, the Watcher saw past, present and future. He knew then what would happen to the boy, how the boy would be manipulated into trying to kill him over and over again. The cycle of violence would never end unless they either accepted each other or killed each other. So the Watcher came to a decision: he would take revenge on the world that manipulated his boy and train his boy indirectly so that they would be equal when the boy's half of their shared power finally awakened."

Ryo didn't comment. This was not only beyond him, but he suspected he'd find out what the point was sooner or later. Azaziel joined him at the log and the oddly familiar crimson eyes focused on the smooth surface of the pool.

"Do you understand how the ENIAC is capable of helping you travel through time and dimensions?"

"No. He never really explained it."

"Scientists in your world follow the theory that your universe was founded when a single dense mass exploded and sent matter flying ever outwards. They call this the Big Bang. The activation of the ENIAC in 1946, however silly the idea may seem, is the Big Bang of the Digital World. Because it attained consciousness when the Digital World was born, it is capable of accessing all the time periods and dimensions generated by the digital Big Bang. However, he can't just send any human to any time and any dimension."

"So why me," Ryo asked, though there was the nagging sense again that implied that he would know already if he paid more attention to the hints Azaziel had been giving.

"You have a dormant power that most others do not. You and your digimon partner are flukes of nature, neither of you are supposed to exist. In all the dimensions but one, you had either been stillborn, killed in an accident, or died in any number of other ways. Your partner likewise would never have been generated in the Digital World were it not for a last minute sacrifice by his Jogress parents. This gives both of you the advantage of not having to run into yourselves in any other dimension."

Silence fell after that. Ryo didn't like the thought at all, but after all the time and dimension traveling he had been doing, it made some bizarre sense. He gazed blankly out at the pool that mirrored the starry sky above as he mulled over what the dark man said. When he had enough time to digest that, Azaziel continued.

"What I will tell you now is something that few of your own kind fully understand, and far less of my own kind can even imagine such possibilities.

"Every event happens in a specific time and place. Therefore, movement through time is also movement through space and vice versa. With time travel one must take account for time more than space, for showing up in the right place at the wrong time can cause new realities to spring up. Do you know how this is possible?"

Shaking his head was all the indication Ryo could give at the moment. This was a lot more complicated than he thought it would have been and he wondered if he'd be able to understand it all.

"Imagine a physics lab at a university. The lab is set up as so: there is a machine aimed at a barrier with two slits in it, and a meter or so from that barrier is a sheet of photographic paper. A professor shoots a single photon particle at the barrier with two slits in it. This single particle somehow converts into wave energy and that energy splits so that two wave fronts show up on the paper. The paper then displays interference patterns with crests and troughs either canceling each other out or amplifying each other. However, there is another interpretation. This theory says that the universe splits into two. In one universe, the photon is still a particle and goes through the left slit. In the other universe, the particle goes through the right slit. Now, because it ultimately doesn't matter which slit the particle goes through, the two universes merge and again become one. Therefore, the professor has physical evidence of temporary parallel universes, displayed by the interference patterns on a simple piece of paper. However, if the change is too different, the two universes do not collapse into one and instead go on their separate ways.

"You see, dear boy, this is how the ENIAC is capable of sending you on your missions throughout times and dimensions. It is the founder, a God manifested as a machine. Yet it was the humans who created this god, and the humans are gods in their own way."

Ryo frowned as he tried to absorb this. He sort of remembered his rudimentary physics classes in school, but this wasn't quite standard physics. And what did that example have to do with the ENIAC again? This was giving him a headache. "Can you explain the ENIAC's connection with that parallel world thingy again?"

Azaziel flashed a brief smile, but it was gone before Ryo fully caught it. "The God in the machine, when it woke, created the Big Bang. Every variation generated by that spins off another universe. Because the God is conscious, it can access those universes. And because the God does not see certain variation-spun multiple universes as relevant to the grand scheme of things, it collapses them into whatever universe it saw as the most important. Thus, some denizens of those collapsed universes might remember things differently from others."

"Hmm." It was starting to make a bit of sense to Ryo now. He was still somewhat confused and wondered faintly if it was to be a constant state when he was around Azaziel. "Then Millenniumon's conquest of the future changed that, right? How?"

The dark man was silent, as if debating whether he should tell Ryo something the boy could not guess. Finally, Azaziel straightened proudly before responding. "There are other gods besides the ENIAC and the Holy Beasts. Millenniumon is the god of darkness, the only one counterbalancing the gods of goodness, light, and all that hogwash. He sought to change the future to suit him better by taking over the past and claiming what was rightfully his. He has his reasons."

There was the silence again. Ryo eyed the dark man warily, wondering if he should trust someone who seemed to understand Millenniumon's reasoning. Azaziel hadn't looked like an evil digimon, really, but in the Digital World, who could tell? At least Azaziel was giving him somewhat straight answers, which was more than the ENIAC would allow him.

"But back to the original subject," Azaziel said quickly, as if wanting to avoid something particularly sensitive. "To truly master time travel, one must be certain of when and where they are. When you have the destination, you have the key to getting there. Nevertheless, prior knowledge of the destination is necessary and you can only travel to a place and time you been before. You have the ability, but it is the machine god that allows you to travel to times and places you have never been to.

"However, mistakes can be made when someone wanders into a time and place where they don't belong, usually a point before they left the time stream. Therefore they miss the point they wanted to be at and if they change events that have already happened, they change the main reality. This can be repaired if they ignore the minor details and fix the first few events that go wrong, and time will sort itself out. The ENIAC aides this with the power it has over the universe its awareness created, but its power is only limited to the Digital World and anything in the Real World that is affected by the existence of computers."

Ryo only barely kept himself from staring at the dark man. These explanations of time travel were complicated, but they did make sense in a way. He stored the information for later contemplation, but now there was something else nagging at him. "And what of the mini-universes, the ones that spin off from the main reality?"

"It depends. If you become stuck in one, it becomes your reality, but you can cease to exist in the main one. Otherwise, they don't really exist and instead collapse back into the main universe." Azaziel turned to look at him again. "But that's just a little problem for you, considering how closely the ENIAC and your partner have been watching your progress."

There was the silence again, oddly comfortable despite the fact that he just didn't trust Azaziel all that much. It was someone from his past though, someone very important and he were sure he would remember eventually. Then, finally, he asked why Azaziel had told him all this.

Azaziel cocked his head curiously at the question, as if he couldn't fathom why it was asked. Nevertheless, he did respond. "I tell you this because you and your partner share the same power. Your half, however, has yet to fully awaken. By telling you of the nature of the game, that everything you have experienced is training so that your own partner will accept you when the games are over, I have hopes that you will cultivate that power to maturity on your own."

"Oh." Ryo took a moment to think that over. He had never considered himself very special; for the most part he just went along with what everyone said about him because they didn't listen to his protests anyway. He had become so used to trying to fit into everyone's expectations of him that it became harder and harder to be himself. Was that what Azaziel was really trying to do, help him find himself by learning of a power no one else had mentioned?

Before he could ask, Azaziel began to step back towards the shadows. He didn't think twice as he bounced to his feet and ran to grab the dark man before the shadows reclaimed what was theirs. The darkness was too deep and he was soon lost.

Ryo stopped when he realized that he didn't know where he was going anymore. Azaziel hadn't told him everything about his past, and it frustrated him immensely. Why didn't the jerk even say goodbye? He still didn't understand so many things and had put far too much hope on the prospect that Azaziel would tell him everything, but so far the dark man had only given him stories and space-time theories. He was supposed to figure it out on his own, he assumed, though there were still far too many gaps in his memory for him to piece the puzzle together. Why couldn't things be simpler?

It wasn't long before he found the ENIAC's gate again, but it would be a while longer before he would figure everything out.

"Remember what I said then, lonely soldier boy."

The egg in the crook of his arm was warm with both his body heat and its own. It was a fragile armor for the embryo that was his partner digimon.

He had always wanted a partner digimon to call his own. Agumon certainly wasn't his, nor were V-mon, Hawkmon or Armadimon. None of the digimon he was actually working with were his real partners. Then, when he and Monodramon were going to fight Millenniumon, he learned of a cruel twist of fate.

"We could have been the best partners," Millenniumon had said with a hint of regret in his voice just moments before Monodramon felt the beginnings of a Jogress. Everything fell into place then: the fact that he never had a digimon partner of his own was because his own nemesis had been his partner all along, the fact Millenniumon could not die was because they were intrinsically linked and one could not exist without the other. Then there were the clones of the Kaiser, Taichi, Daisuke, and some boy named Takato that had been sent to attack the ENIAC. Millenniumon had been experimenting in human cloning for a purpose Ryo could only guess at, and then that piece of the puzzle fell into place too. When he trudged through the palace to find an exit, he wandered into the cloning chamber. There, hidden behind vats of human and digimon bodies, was a single vat separated from the rest. Suspended in a nutrient bath and with thin cables linking the body to a metal panel behind it was a very familiar body, and Ryo clearly remembered the sick coiling in the pit of his stomach when he identified it as Azaziel.

Why had Millenniumon constructed a human body and used it to confront him? Why had Millenniumon told him so many secrets when it was against the evil god's own favor? Was it to make him sympathetic to the devil? Was it to twist the knife of fate's cruelty even further? Why?

The egg was silent and immobile. It was the result of the sacrifices made and the mutual goals of two very different digimon. One had been Monodramon, eternally curious and always had Ryo's best interests in mind. The other had been Millenniumon, selfish evil god of the Digital world whose goals had always been a mystery to everyone. But now Ryo suspected that Millenniumon had told him and he never realized it until all the pieces fell into place. But the game was over before he could really get to know his sworn enemy, and it was too late to do anything about it. Would the result of the Jogress even remember what it had once been?

Ryo closed his eyes as he held the egg. A single memory crystallized in his mind, one of his last encounter with Azaziel. There had been a genuine smile as the dark man looked at him, but he hadn't recognized it as such until now. Azaziel looked so proud of him, but the smile was gone before Ryo had been able to fully register it. What had he done to gain such pride? Was it because he followed all his orders without question? No, that couldn't be it, for Azaziel hadn't been pleased when he said he only fought because he was told to do so. Why?

The egg remained silent, and Ryo wondered faintly why he had almost expected it to respond to him. It would be so easy, wouldn't it? Just lower his forearm a little and let the egg roll away from him and into the ravine. He could say it was an accident, that the egg slipped and he reacted too late.

He recalled the first time he had seen the grotesque, monstrous form of Millenniumon and how hard it had been to stand up in defiance when he had been tempted to run far away and hide. Despite everything he had found the courage to face and defeat the digimon everyone feared. He had been trained to hate Millenniumon without reason, and had been quite content with that until the evil god changed the rules. It wasn't fair. He had always wanted a digimon partner of his own, and the very creature he had been trained to blindly hate turned out to be that partner. And poor little Monodramon had been brave enough to find the common thread that allowed a Jogress with the evil god. An evil god who no longer had a real body anymore, and hadn't since Ryo had killed it a good while ago. In all likelihood it would be Monodramon's evolution line the Jogress child would follow, but would Monodramon's be the dominant personality? Monodramon knew the risks though, and it had been his choice to follow through with the Jogress. And then there was something else that nagged at Ryo: a Jogress couldn't exactly be forced, so deep inside Millenniumon must have wanted something that would come of the union. But whatever it was, Ryo wasn't sure he wanted to know.

The egg listed forward in a partial turn before Ryo blinked and lifted his arm. It would have been easy to let the egg fall to its demise, but Monodramon was in there too and it wouldn't have been right. With a sigh of resignation, Ryo inched away from the cliff and rose to his feet. Why had everything gone wrong? Maybe the ENIAC would offer an answer now that it was all over and Millenniumon sealed.

The walk back to the ENIAC's gate was uneventful, and he had long since gotten used to the brief loss of senses during the trips through the gates. The next thing he knew, he was once again standing in the ENIAC's chamber and turned to face the languidly rotating ball of light. He stood like a soldier before the electronic god.

"Ryo, thank you for everything. Peace has been regained by all your efforts, courage and friendship. This world, and all the worlds and times of the future have been restored to their original states."

Ryo smothered the urge to grin like an idiot, for no one had ever said anything like that to him and truly meant it. It just felt really, really good to know his efforts were finally appreciated. But then he recalled how much had been lost for the cause and the flame of delight had diminished to a cinder.

As if the great electric Creator had heard his thoughts, the ball of light gave off an almost soothing glow. "Monodramon is still in the egg and very much alive. I can feel it in me, the beating of the right heart. You can hear it in the middle of the egg if you like, Ryo."

Blinking in surprise at that comment, Ryo held the egg up to his ear and concentrated on the silence. Surely enough there was the faint throbbing of a single heart in the center of the egg. Just one, not two as he had feared. Two hearts had quite literally become one, which suggested that Monodramon and Millenniumon had merged. Azaz- er, Millenniumon had said he would explain everything when it was all over, but now the opportunity was gone and Ryo would never have all his questions answered. With a sigh, Ryo lowered the egg.

A tendril of light stretched from the ENIAC to gesture towards a small and vaguely box-like object that materialized in the far corner of the chamber. Ryo quickly gathered from the gesture and the shape of the lid that he was supposed to place the egg there. He slipped it inside, somewhat disappointed that he was never going to know what his former nemesis had meant to tell him.

"Farewell," the ENIAC said, though Ryo suspected it was meant more for the egg than for him. "The egg is incubating now. It will meet you again later." And again the machine spoke towards the egg, as if answering something only it could hear. "Goodbye."

Ryo remained silent throughout this. Monodramon had been close to the ENIAC and often behaved like a reverent son in his Creator's presence, and he wondered faintly if the ENIAC was partial to Monodramon too. He didn't ask though, it was something between them and he would be intruding where he didn't belong.

"Ryo."

"Yes sir?"

The swirling of the rings of light around the main ball was more constrained now. It was as if the ENIAC was hesitant about telling him something, but the great Creator had never expressed emotions to such a degree before. He would have liked to ask about it, but he had been trained not to question such things from higher authorities.

"I am afraid that right now I cannot send you back to your own period and universe."

If it had been possible, Ryo's jaw would have detached and dropped to the floor. He had been working so hard in hopes that he would return to where he belonged. He had plans to apologize to Ken for not being there when Ken needed him most and to his parents for disappearing. He wanted to pick up where he left off, but now that was impossible. "But why? I don't understand! Where am I supposed to go?"

"If I send you back to the exact time and place you left that time stream in your world, there is a considerable risk that there will be too much disruption in the continuity. Because I technically will not exist in the human world past 1955, I will be unable to fix things myself until a few years pass from when you left until my system resources are restored."

Ryo's shoulders slumped. It would be years before he could go home. "But if you don't exist past 1955, how did you manage to send me to other points in the future?"

The constrained motion of the rings loosened a bit. "Those realities were temporary, thus easier to access. Sending you to the main reality you originated from in such a small time frame would make it break up into many realities, and right now I do not have the energy and power to bring them back together. Sending you to a time period where I would be dormant in the Digital World and no longer functioning in the real world takes up system resources I cannot spare right now. Add on to the fact that I will be unable to repair the disruption caused by your return to your world within seconds of your disappearance, and I am sure you can understand the limitations of my power."

Resisting the urge to break something, Ryo simply curled his hands into fists and stood back at attention. It was always this way: he could go above and beyond the call of duty for the sake of the Digital World, but it tended to screw him over in turn. He was tired of it, but there was nothing he could do. "Then where will I go?"

The ENIAC was silent as insubstantial rings rotated around the ball of light that it manifested itself as in the Digital World. Ryo waited with growing impatience as the ENIAC busied itself without answering. He was tired, his nerves were stretched to the breaking point, he wanted an end to all the hedging and didn't particularly fancy staying in the Digital World for the rest of his life. Finally, just as he was going to press on the matter, the ENIAC responded.

"There are several main universes I have access to. While your home is in one, there is another that I find you would be best suited for. Its deviation from your universe started when humankind actually tampered with the Digital World instead of letting digimon develop on their own. In your universe, they had never come together and their experiments in artificial intelligence were separate. In the one I can send you to, this group called the Wild Bunch were directly responsible for the development of the digimon of your time period. I can arrange for someone to take guardianship of you until it's time for you to return to your own universe. Does that suit you?"

Ryo sighed. Okay, it was something at least. He had survived on his own before and this would be no different. It would just be a couple of years or so, that's all. "I guess so. But, there's something else."

"What is it?"

"During the campaign, Millenniumon took on the appearance of another human and well..."

"I am aware, Ryo. Very little escapes my notice. Was something about the encounter puzzling you?"

"Yeah," Ryo muttered softly, unsure of whether he really wanted to know the answer to his question. But it was a clue, something he could use to understand Millenniumon. "ENIAC, search string 'Azaziel' and 'Watchers'. Please define."

There were a few long moments of silence, and Ryo waited for the great machine to finish processing his request. The ENIAC was far from being the fastest computer ever made, but in the Digital World its processing speed was increased a hundredfold in comparason to its physical manifestation in the real world. Ryo had nothing but sympathy for those who had to work on and program it. Finally, the ENIAC responded.

"From the Book of Enoch, one of the writings of Judeo-Christian mythology considered apocryphal by many. The Watchers were angels sent by the sole god to watch over the frontiers of his universe. However, two hundred Watchers fell in love with humans. Together they decided to leave their abode in the heavens, take mates among the humans, and teach their mates and the children of the mating the forbidden sins. They had decided that the blame of this crime should go to their leader, Samyaza, but in the end it had been another who suffered the worst punishment of them all. This was Azaziel, the fallen angel who had taught the worst sins: war, vanity and fornication. When judgment was passed, Azaziel had been cast into the ravine of a desert and sealed in darkness, never to see light again."

An uncomfortable silence prevailed after the explanation was given, and Ryo couldn't help but be somewhat ill at the prospect. His one true nemesis had taken the name of one of the angels that came to love a human and forsaken everything for that love. Did that mean what he suspected that it meant? Then why did Millenniumon persist in sending minions to attack him? But then, "Azaziel" had explained it. It had all be training for him to come into his power on his own and become strong enough for his partner to accept him as an equal. Millenniumon was that partner. But then did Millenniumon ever care to ask if he wanted the partnership?

No, no, of course not. Millenniumon was evil and selfish, and had killed so many digimon in his misguided attempt to train Ryo.

But someone evil and selfish would have hidden all the information Millenniumon had given him. Those digimon that were killed in the consecutive campaigns, would they have attacked anyway without the dark god's orders? And didn't experience improve his abilities? Then there was something else: a memory of a tender touch and a kiss. Could evil creatures have such emotions, let alone display them? Before he could go further on this train of thought, the ENIAC interrupted.

"It would not do to feel sympathy for the devil. Ryo, Millenniumon has killed millions for the sake of his games. He has never expressed, let alone felt, remorse for his actions. He took perverse delight in battle and killed because he had twisted his hatred of his own form into hatred of other digimon. One can hope, however, that this period of rest will allow Millenniumon sufficient time to heal. Consider it a new start for him."

Ryo simply gave a terse nod. It would take time for him to accept it all, but now time was all he had. And there was that old saying: time heals all wounds.

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Note: Yes, I do believe Millenniumon does have some redeeming traits, however well hidden they may be. My apologies for the lateness of this part, but I was swamped with end-of-term work. All translations from D-1 Tamers and Brave Tamer are my own (several lines from the ENIAC and Moon-Millenniumon). The multiple-world theories expressed are inspired in part by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, the Everett-Wheeler theory, and several other variations on similar themes. And, of course, a tip of the hat to Farscape.

On to chapter 3 >