Yamato Ishida (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
angry_friendship_wolf) wrote2017-12-23 11:03 pm
angry_friendship_wolf) wrote2017-12-23 11:03 pm
[01 OOM] In which everyone leaves always forever
Etemon Chaos, Taichi, and MetalGreymon all vanish into the distortion, and the twisting vortex fades, leaving only the desert.
Taichi’s gone, vanished into some swirling distortion, maybe dead, and Yamato just can’t understand it. He was their leader, the one who set his eyes on the horizon and chose their destination, and without him, all Yamato sees around him are a band of scared kids in an empty desert.
(It’s fitting, he supposes, that the Crest of Courage is the sun, and Friendship is the moon -- because Yamato knows before he even talks that without Taichi’s light to reflect, he’s nothing special at all.)
“We need to find shelter,” he hears himself say, and he doesn’t know how he manages to sound so cold. “We can’t be caught outside when the temperature drops. Sora, get everyone ready to move. Koushiro, find a cave or a building on your map.”
“Yamato …” Sora starts, staring at him.
“We need rest,” he says, and the words come out as a garbled stream. “And then tomorrow …” He realises that everyone is watching him now, staring at him intently, the way they usually stared at Taichi while waiting for instructions.
They’re all idiots. He isn’t Taichi. He can’t do what Taichi does.
“Tomorrow we find Taichi,” he says.
“Yamato, you saw what happened,” Jyou says, voice trembling. “I think he’s -- …”
“In all likelihood, the distortion would have torn him apart,” Koushiro says, with the flat tones of someone relaying data. “It’s very unlikely that he survived passing through it, and even if he did, the chances of it sending him anywhere habitable are miniscule.”
“A lot of stuff that’s not likely has happened to us already,” Yamato pushes. “Back at summer camp, you wouldn’t have said it was possible for us to get dragged to another world, Koushiro. It was a miracle that we survived our first day here, an even bigger miracle that we defeated Devimon, pretty much impossible that we would all find our Crests. A week ago, could any of you have imagined that we’d defeat Etemon?”
He can see their moods lifting, just a little. Maybe it’ll last them until the morning, whenever that comes.
“Taichi’s done more impossible things than the rest of us put together. Trust that he’s survived this,” Yamato says. “And if you can’t do that, then trust me.”
---
They find a cave and rest there, and in the morning, the impossibility of what Yamato promised them starts to sink in. They’re lost, in a strange desert in a strange world, and Taichi’s probably dead, and even if he’s not they’re more likely to find a needle in a haystack than they are to stumble across him.
They do what they always do. They walk in whatever direction looks best. In this case, that’s North, chasing rumours of a great lake.
Every evening, they find somewhere to rest. Every morning, they start walking again. Yamato has hours of silence every day to come to terms with the fact that his best friend -- or the closest thing he’s ever had to one, at least -- is dead, and there isn’t even a body, and they’re never going home, and maybe that’s even better, because how would Yamato tell Taichi’s parents that their eleven year old son is atoms?
They keep heading towards the lake. Two weeks into the walk, they start to feel the air become balmier. They’re getting close.
Gennai doesn’t contact them. He doesn’t send them details of any great evil they’re meant to defeat to go home. Koushiro e-mails him every time they find a cactus with an ethernet port in it, or whatever nonsense the Digital World throws at them, but he never replies.
Sora catches Yamato one night and drags him aside.
“What’re we going to do when we get to the lake?” She asks.
“Find somewhere with food and shelter. Maybe people who’ll help us,” Yamato says.
“And then what?” Sora says.
“What do you mean, then what?” Yamato asks, and he hates how harsh his voice sounds. “And then we stay there. We’re stuck here, you know? Gennai’s hung us out to dry. We need to find somewhere safe for everyone, and maybe -- maybe someone’ll come find us.”
Sora gives him a disbelieving look. “Taichi wouldn’t -- …”
“Taichi’s dead,” Yamato snaps. “Ask Koushiro if you don’t believe me. He’s dead, and all we’ve got is fucking sand and a whole lot of hostile Digimon. I can’t -- I can’t make Takeru and the others chase after a pipe dream. I’ve got to keep everyone safe.”
Sora looks like she wants to protest. Then she just sighs. “I understand. It wouldn’t be fair to make the others search for Taichi.”
---
Sora and Piyomon are gone the next morning.
Takeru says that she left to go and find Taichi, and Yamato barely responds. He understands it: Sora and Taichi have been friends for years, of course she’d go to look for him.
But it still hurts, in ways he didn’t even think it could. Part of him is stupidly, irrationally jealous, that he can’t even compete with a dead boy. Part of him is just hurt that she didn’t tell him, that she stole away in the night.
Nobody talks that day. When they talk the next day, it’s for Mimi to complain, and without Sora around, Yamato has no idea how to cope with that, so he snaps at her to shut up instead, and ignores the way everyone else glares at him.
---
They make camp a week later, near the edge of the grasslands around the lake, and Koushiro tells Yamato in calm, clinical terms that he’ll be going East next morning, not North with the rest of them.
“I’ve traced Gennai’s signal to that direction,” Koushiro says. “Someone should find him and see if he knows how we might return home.”
“Don’t you think he would’ve sent us a message by now if he wanted to send us home?” Yamato asks.
“He’s the only person we know who knows anything about why we’re here,” Koushiro points out. “At the very least, he should have useful data. I’ll rendezvous with the rest of you at the lake.”
This is where Taichi would have said that they’d all go find Gennai. Yamato doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to send the others into the unknown.
Koushiro and Tentomon leave the next morning.
---
Part of Yamato hates Taichi. He was always charging into danger, and Yamato was always butting heads with him over it, telling him he was putting the others in danger. Figures that in the end, Taichi would end up getting himself killed over it.
He hates him just as much because he can’t live up to his example. He’s no leader.
They’re nearly at the great lake when Mimi leaves. She’s complaining, been complaining all day, when Yamato turns on his heel and yells, tearing into her with his words, letting loose with every angry, ugly emotion he’s been keeping pent up.
She turns and runs away, crying, with Palmon hot on her heels. Jyou, Gomamon, Takeru, Tokomon, and Gabumon sprint after her, but Yamato finds himself rooted to the ground, and without his anger, Yamato’s left with nothing but shame. Mimi’s a year younger than him, she’s a child, and she’s as tired and upset as any of them.
He can feel his eyes stinging, and he clenches his hand into a fist, knocking it against his forehead. “Don’t cry, don’t cry …” he growls to himself.
He keeps himself from crying, but he still feels like less than nothing. He wants his Dad. He wants his bed, and stupid shows on television, and to be able to just be an eleven year old for a few days.
Jyou, Gomamon, Takeru, Tokomon, and Gabumon return eventually. They weren’t able to find her.
They stay where they are for a few days, and eventually Mimi comes back, just long enough to get some supplies and make a remark about how she’s found some people who appreciate her, before leaving again.
They continue on.
---
“I’m going to look for Taichi,” Jyou says, after a few more days.
Yamato can’t look him in the eye. “You know you’re not going to find him. He’s -- …”
“He’s not dead,” Jyou says. “I mean, I think he’s not dead. Probably. I’m forty percent sure. Just -- call it a gut feeling.”
Yamato shuts his eyes.
“You’ll be fine without me,” Jyou says. “But I’m the oldest, you know? I’m responsible for all of you. Including Taichi.”
“You’re not -- …”
“Be honest with me, can you really tell me there isn’t part of you that thinks he’s out there somewhere?” Jyou asks. “A part of you as in, you know, you, not as the leader.”
“Yes,” Yamato lies, immediately. “Yes, I can honestly tell you I know he’s dead, Jyou.”
There’s a part of him screaming that Taichi’s alive, but it’s been almost a month, and if Yamato knows anything, it’s that hope lies.
“Guess I still have to look. I wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye back home if I didn’t,” Jyou said. “I’ll be back with Sora, and Mimi, and Koushiro. And Taichi, too, hopefully.”
Yamato doesn’t want to say goodbye, and admit that it’ll just be him, Gabumon, Takeru, and Tokomon once Jyou and Gomamon go. He waits at the edge of camp while the others say goodbye for him.
Jyou walks away without looking back, and once he’s gone, Takeru approaches, smiling like there isn’t a problem in the world.
“C’mon, kid,” Yamato says. “Let’s keep going.”
Taichi’s gone, vanished into some swirling distortion, maybe dead, and Yamato just can’t understand it. He was their leader, the one who set his eyes on the horizon and chose their destination, and without him, all Yamato sees around him are a band of scared kids in an empty desert.
(It’s fitting, he supposes, that the Crest of Courage is the sun, and Friendship is the moon -- because Yamato knows before he even talks that without Taichi’s light to reflect, he’s nothing special at all.)
“We need to find shelter,” he hears himself say, and he doesn’t know how he manages to sound so cold. “We can’t be caught outside when the temperature drops. Sora, get everyone ready to move. Koushiro, find a cave or a building on your map.”
“Yamato …” Sora starts, staring at him.
“We need rest,” he says, and the words come out as a garbled stream. “And then tomorrow …” He realises that everyone is watching him now, staring at him intently, the way they usually stared at Taichi while waiting for instructions.
They’re all idiots. He isn’t Taichi. He can’t do what Taichi does.
“Tomorrow we find Taichi,” he says.
“Yamato, you saw what happened,” Jyou says, voice trembling. “I think he’s -- …”
“In all likelihood, the distortion would have torn him apart,” Koushiro says, with the flat tones of someone relaying data. “It’s very unlikely that he survived passing through it, and even if he did, the chances of it sending him anywhere habitable are miniscule.”
“A lot of stuff that’s not likely has happened to us already,” Yamato pushes. “Back at summer camp, you wouldn’t have said it was possible for us to get dragged to another world, Koushiro. It was a miracle that we survived our first day here, an even bigger miracle that we defeated Devimon, pretty much impossible that we would all find our Crests. A week ago, could any of you have imagined that we’d defeat Etemon?”
He can see their moods lifting, just a little. Maybe it’ll last them until the morning, whenever that comes.
“Taichi’s done more impossible things than the rest of us put together. Trust that he’s survived this,” Yamato says. “And if you can’t do that, then trust me.”
They find a cave and rest there, and in the morning, the impossibility of what Yamato promised them starts to sink in. They’re lost, in a strange desert in a strange world, and Taichi’s probably dead, and even if he’s not they’re more likely to find a needle in a haystack than they are to stumble across him.
They do what they always do. They walk in whatever direction looks best. In this case, that’s North, chasing rumours of a great lake.
Every evening, they find somewhere to rest. Every morning, they start walking again. Yamato has hours of silence every day to come to terms with the fact that his best friend -- or the closest thing he’s ever had to one, at least -- is dead, and there isn’t even a body, and they’re never going home, and maybe that’s even better, because how would Yamato tell Taichi’s parents that their eleven year old son is atoms?
They keep heading towards the lake. Two weeks into the walk, they start to feel the air become balmier. They’re getting close.
Gennai doesn’t contact them. He doesn’t send them details of any great evil they’re meant to defeat to go home. Koushiro e-mails him every time they find a cactus with an ethernet port in it, or whatever nonsense the Digital World throws at them, but he never replies.
Sora catches Yamato one night and drags him aside.
“What’re we going to do when we get to the lake?” She asks.
“Find somewhere with food and shelter. Maybe people who’ll help us,” Yamato says.
“And then what?” Sora says.
“What do you mean, then what?” Yamato asks, and he hates how harsh his voice sounds. “And then we stay there. We’re stuck here, you know? Gennai’s hung us out to dry. We need to find somewhere safe for everyone, and maybe -- maybe someone’ll come find us.”
Sora gives him a disbelieving look. “Taichi wouldn’t -- …”
“Taichi’s dead,” Yamato snaps. “Ask Koushiro if you don’t believe me. He’s dead, and all we’ve got is fucking sand and a whole lot of hostile Digimon. I can’t -- I can’t make Takeru and the others chase after a pipe dream. I’ve got to keep everyone safe.”
Sora looks like she wants to protest. Then she just sighs. “I understand. It wouldn’t be fair to make the others search for Taichi.”
Sora and Piyomon are gone the next morning.
Takeru says that she left to go and find Taichi, and Yamato barely responds. He understands it: Sora and Taichi have been friends for years, of course she’d go to look for him.
But it still hurts, in ways he didn’t even think it could. Part of him is stupidly, irrationally jealous, that he can’t even compete with a dead boy. Part of him is just hurt that she didn’t tell him, that she stole away in the night.
Nobody talks that day. When they talk the next day, it’s for Mimi to complain, and without Sora around, Yamato has no idea how to cope with that, so he snaps at her to shut up instead, and ignores the way everyone else glares at him.
They make camp a week later, near the edge of the grasslands around the lake, and Koushiro tells Yamato in calm, clinical terms that he’ll be going East next morning, not North with the rest of them.
“I’ve traced Gennai’s signal to that direction,” Koushiro says. “Someone should find him and see if he knows how we might return home.”
“Don’t you think he would’ve sent us a message by now if he wanted to send us home?” Yamato asks.
“He’s the only person we know who knows anything about why we’re here,” Koushiro points out. “At the very least, he should have useful data. I’ll rendezvous with the rest of you at the lake.”
This is where Taichi would have said that they’d all go find Gennai. Yamato doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to send the others into the unknown.
Koushiro and Tentomon leave the next morning.
Part of Yamato hates Taichi. He was always charging into danger, and Yamato was always butting heads with him over it, telling him he was putting the others in danger. Figures that in the end, Taichi would end up getting himself killed over it.
He hates him just as much because he can’t live up to his example. He’s no leader.
They’re nearly at the great lake when Mimi leaves. She’s complaining, been complaining all day, when Yamato turns on his heel and yells, tearing into her with his words, letting loose with every angry, ugly emotion he’s been keeping pent up.
She turns and runs away, crying, with Palmon hot on her heels. Jyou, Gomamon, Takeru, Tokomon, and Gabumon sprint after her, but Yamato finds himself rooted to the ground, and without his anger, Yamato’s left with nothing but shame. Mimi’s a year younger than him, she’s a child, and she’s as tired and upset as any of them.
He can feel his eyes stinging, and he clenches his hand into a fist, knocking it against his forehead. “Don’t cry, don’t cry …” he growls to himself.
He keeps himself from crying, but he still feels like less than nothing. He wants his Dad. He wants his bed, and stupid shows on television, and to be able to just be an eleven year old for a few days.
Jyou, Gomamon, Takeru, Tokomon, and Gabumon return eventually. They weren’t able to find her.
They stay where they are for a few days, and eventually Mimi comes back, just long enough to get some supplies and make a remark about how she’s found some people who appreciate her, before leaving again.
They continue on.
“I’m going to look for Taichi,” Jyou says, after a few more days.
Yamato can’t look him in the eye. “You know you’re not going to find him. He’s -- …”
“He’s not dead,” Jyou says. “I mean, I think he’s not dead. Probably. I’m forty percent sure. Just -- call it a gut feeling.”
Yamato shuts his eyes.
“You’ll be fine without me,” Jyou says. “But I’m the oldest, you know? I’m responsible for all of you. Including Taichi.”
“You’re not -- …”
“Be honest with me, can you really tell me there isn’t part of you that thinks he’s out there somewhere?” Jyou asks. “A part of you as in, you know, you, not as the leader.”
“Yes,” Yamato lies, immediately. “Yes, I can honestly tell you I know he’s dead, Jyou.”
There’s a part of him screaming that Taichi’s alive, but it’s been almost a month, and if Yamato knows anything, it’s that hope lies.
“Guess I still have to look. I wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye back home if I didn’t,” Jyou said. “I’ll be back with Sora, and Mimi, and Koushiro. And Taichi, too, hopefully.”
Yamato doesn’t want to say goodbye, and admit that it’ll just be him, Gabumon, Takeru, and Tokomon once Jyou and Gomamon go. He waits at the edge of camp while the others say goodbye for him.
Jyou walks away without looking back, and once he’s gone, Takeru approaches, smiling like there isn’t a problem in the world.
“C’mon, kid,” Yamato says. “Let’s keep going.”