[fanfic] Digimon Adventure 02: Fade In Fade Out: Chapter 13

[higuchimon]

Story Title: Fade In, Fade Out
Word Count: chapter: 4,667||story: 60,166

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In all of his
life, Daisuke had only been this glad to see the rest of the team
once: when they'd shown up when he was facing Ken down and he'd
thought that they'd been the Kaiser's prisoners. All eleven of them
were there, complete with Digimon, and every one looked about as
angry as he could imagine.

It was a sight
of pure, undiluted beauty. And Ken looked pretty awesome too,
standing there with Stingmon right beside him, all fire and fury. It
wasn't often he broke out of his calm reserve, and it sent a chill of
pleasure down Daisuke's spine to know that this was because of him,
more or less.

Apparently
getting kidnapped had some good side effects. The reunion was
probably going to be pretty special, too.

“Kondo.”
Mori turned his gaze to his assistant, who looked completely
unashamed of herself. “What have I told you about letting vermin
into the fortress?”

The
young woman just shrugged. “Actually, they're the cleanup crew I
hired. They're here to clean you out, Kondo. You've gone too far and
this has to stop. What you're trying to do isn't going to help
anyone, least of all yourself. Or
Saburo!”

“That's
enough, Kondo.” Mori's voice dripped in ice, then he looked back at
the newcomers. “I suppose you want to know what I've done to
Motomiya and all the rest of it.” The ice vanished almost at once,
replaced by casual contempt.

“We
can discus that later, once you've let him go.” Ken declared,
taking a step forward. “That includes taking that thing
from around his neck, too.”

Mori
chuckled softly as he came back over to Daisuke, running one finger
across the collar around the redhead's neck. “You mean this? I
don't know, I rather like having your boyfriend obedient to my
every whim and wish. He's not quite that good for you is he?”

“Like I'd want
him to be in the first place. Half the fun of being with him is not
knowing what he's going to do next.” Ken just snorted, and Daisuke
grinned. Another memory clicked into place, of the first date the two
of them had ever went on. Daisuke had been the one to ask Ken out,
and they'd went to get coffee together. It had been Takeru who had
suggested that, really. Something simple, to get them some quiet time
with just the two of them, that had been what he'd said.

When Daisuke had
wound up describing his last soccer game, complete with wild waving
of his arms and legs that had wound up knocking both of their coffee
cups into their respective laps, they had mutually agreed not to do
this again. At least not sitting at a table and drinking coffee. The
dating, they both couldn't get enough of.

“Strange, I
was thinking that was one of the things I hated most about him.”
Mori's hand trailed alongside Daisuke's neck, passed his ear
teasingly, and began to toy in his hair. “He's much more manageable
like this.”

“You can stop
talking about me like I'm not here any time now.” Daisuke had long
since gotten tired of being ignored. “You heard what Ken said,
anyway, Mori. Let me out of here, and you might not get your butt
kicked. Too badly. Maybe.”

“Quiet.”
Mori's order was casual, and Daisuke felt as if his lips suddenly
couldn't move. His captor looked back at the others, ruffling
Daisuke's hair still. “Now, I suppose you think you're going to
just force me to give up my toy here, while I somehow just babble out
to you exactly what makes me hate Ichijouji so much.”

Takeru shook his
head, faintly grinning. “No, Kondo told us everything already,
really. She was very helpful.”

“I can tell.
She likes to be helpful to everyone, it seems.” Mondo looked at her
again, and she just shrugged, just as devoid of shame as she'd been
the first time. “That's really a bad habit. You should try to break
it.”

Kondo just
shrugged casually, not looking as if it mattered to her. “You
wanted revenge, Mori. I thought it was all right to help you, if
you'd just figure out that really wasn't what you wanted after all.
But like I said...”

Mori cut her off
irritably. “Yes, yes, went too far, too much, must stop. That's
been covered already. So, you told them about Saburo. How very sweet
of you. And I'm certain you felt such a connection with me, didn't
you, Ichijouji?” He sneered at Ken, who just looked back at him,
with hints of compassion and kindness in his violet eyes. Daisuke
felt his heart melting all over again. How could anyone ever want to
hurt someone who had eyes like that?

As well as many
other major body parts that were simply gorgeous. It boggled him
every bit as much as calculus and astronomy did, maybe even more.

Well, not as
much as calculus.

“Kind of,”
Ken answered Mori. He folded his arms across his chest, staring at
the other man like grim death. “And then you did something that
neither Osamu nor I would have ever done: brought someone else who
had nothing to do with this into your personal problem. You hurt
Daisuke.”

Mori
laughed, running his fingers through Daisuke's hair again. If he
hadn't been ordered to stay quiet, Daisuke thought he might well have
started purring or something. I
thought it was Ken I was reacting to when this would happen before.
Maybe it wasn't. The thought had one single effect on him: he
wanted to throw up. Liking this maniac's fingers on him? If anyone
was going to pet his hair and make him purr, it had better be
Ken and not some idiot who was just using his image to screw with
Daisuke's head!

“So
that makes you somehow better than I am?” Mori didn't even wait for
Ken to answer before he kept on going. “You act as if something
like this matters. It doesn't. I
would've taken anyone that would've hurt you. I thought about taking
that partner of yours, but he wouldn't have given me half the
enjoyment that Motomiya here has.”

He makes it
sound so dirty. Daisuke mentally shuddered at the way Mori
was talking. He didn't think anything like that had happened,
but there was no way he could be certain. Who knew how long the
collar had really been on him? He knew that he'd been away for two
weeks. That left a lot of time he had no idea of.

Now
if only he could get some answers here. Obviously they
knew what was going on. It would be appreciated if they could
remember him, who had the memory of Swiss cheese right now. He turned
to look at Ken, putting all the pleading he could into his eyes,
hoping that his boyfriend got the picture.

“What
you've done to Daisuke hasn't changed what happened to your brother
one little bit.” Ken seemed to have, as he started talking to Mori
again. “He's still gone. And I had nothing
to do with it, and I never have!”

“Is
that so?” Mori just snorted, shaking his head. “Then Kondo didn't
tell you as much as you think she did. If she did, you'd know that
you and your own brother have as
much to do with this as I do.”

Koushirou
cleared his throat quite politely. “Actually, if one were to be
technically accurate, your brother Saburo is the only one who truly
could be said to be at blame, if you wish to lay accusations at one
particular person. It would be more appropriate for our entire
society to be where the blame really arises, though, and our
insistence on excellence and achievement above all else.”

Great.
Koushirou sounded as if he were in a culture class or something like
that. Why couldn't they just lay it out simply for the poor kid with
the collar around his neck? He wished there were some kind of time
limit on the orders the collar gave. He wanted to be able to talk
again so much.

Oh,
wait, there went his brains again, floating off as Mori caressed his
hair slowly, rubbing each strand individually before going on to the
next. He couldn't hear some of what was being said now, and that was
getting really annoying, and it
felt so good to just lay here and not think, no matter
what...he could drift away forever like this.

“Daisuke!”
Huh? What? Oh! Ken! Daisuke snatched his head away from Mori's touch,
shooting the most annoyed look he could at his captor. What on Earth
had he been thinking? He wanted a
hot shower, right now. One lasting a good four or five hours at
least, until he could wash that touch of Mori's out of his hair and
out of his mind.

“I
don't believe you've ever made him
feel like that, have you, Ichijouji?” Mori sneered, folding his
arms over his chest. “You had to yell to get him to notice you. He
notices me no matter what. I just barely have to touch him.”

Daisuke couldn't
speak, but he snorted rather audibly. There was no way he couldn't
notice Mori. The guy was standing right beside him, and held the keys
to his freedom! But he still wanted to know what was going on, and
who that Saburo guy was, other than Mori's brother.

“As I was
saying, it's more the fault of our collective culture than any one
person, where your brother's death is concerned.” Koushirou had the
slightly irked tones of someone who had been interrupted.

“Our
culture?” Mori really wasn't
taking this well. “My brother killed himself because of his
so-called genius brother!” One finger was firmly pointed at
Ken, who didn't so much as flinch from the accusation.

“Saburo killed
himself because Osamu beat him for a scholarship when they were ten
years old.” Ken said quietly, apparently having noticed the
complete confusion in Daisuke's eyes. “Something they'd both worked
towards for over a year.”

Daisuke
shook his head; he knew that pressure to pull off things like that
was beyond enormous, but it had never occurred to him to kill
himself if he'd failed at it. He'd just try again later, or go for
something else. His parents had always thought he was a little weird
like that, after all. He could see why that would get Mori a little
on the irked side.

“And
that's why I'm going to take what you
have from you, Ichijouji.” Mori was virtually shaking with
rage. “Because you did the same thing to me. You stole the
same scholarship! And you never even used it!”

“I
couldn't, not after what had happened.” Ken touched the back of his
neck lightly, shaking his head. “I literally couldn't.”

“That's
not my problem, is it, Ichijouji? You took something I wanted more
than anything since my brother died. You Ichijoujis took him from me,
and then you took that from me,
and then you had the nerve to be so damned condescending
when BelialVamdemon was draining our strength from us! Both of you!”
Mori's eyes flashed in a kind of anger that Daisuke couldn't ever
remembering having seeing in his entire life. “Believe in yourself!
Believe in your dreams!”

Miyako
shook her head, confusion in every swish of her hair. “What's so
wrong about that? It's what worked,
and you did it then, remember? So what changed?”

“I
grew up.” Mori bit the words out. “The only dreams I want to have
now are the ones of revenge. All of you were honored
and respected and treasured for what you'd done for our
world.” Bitter sarcasm and mockery laced every single syllable that
fell from his lips. “What did we, the Dark Spore Children,
get? No, we're not Chosen Children, no matter what you wanted
to try and tell us. You were Chosen. By that idiot Gennai or
Qinlongmon or what have you. We were pulled in by our
fantasies, by our pain, to feed evil.”

“You chose not
to, though!” Iori spoke up for the first time. “You sided with
us! If you believed in our cause then, why are you doing all of this
now?” Daisuke could've cheered. That was the kind of question he
would've asked, he thought. Well, if Iori hadn't asked it for him
first.

“I
said it once already. I grew up. Unimon keeps trying to feed me the
same line, but I don't believe it anymore. What it all boils down to
is that I want revenge. You and yours took from me, Ichijouji, so I
will take from you.”

Ken started
forward, then froze as Mori placed a hand on Daisuke's arm. “Mori.
Let him go. This is between you and me. Hurting him won't take him
from me. It'll just make me remember him forever.”

“The
way he remembered all of you?” Mori smirked, motioning to his
scientific collection of vials and other things. “The Mushrooms of
Forgetfulness can poke several holes in memories, you know. I
certainly know. I know a lot of things. You could almost say I know
...everything.” Mori laughed darkly, eyes gleaming with shadows and
ice. “Almost everything, at least. Everything he has
forgotten, I know. It was easy to work out a way to put them where I
could get them if I wanted to. To make them easier to twist and
manipulate the way I wanted them to go. It all helped to make him
obey me even faster.”

This
was getting weirder and weirder by the moment. Considering how weird
things had been before this, that was saying something. He didn't
quite know what it was saying, but it was something.

“What are you
talking about?” It was Yamato who spoke, eyes gleaming in sapphire
anger. Well, it was nice to know that Yamato was capable of reacting
like this to a threat to him. Daisuke knew the two of them were
friends, but as far back as he could remember (as laughable as that
really was right now) he couldn't recall a time when they'd actually
close. That bothered him, quite a bit. Once they were out of this, he
decided to fix that. Maybe a 'friendship retreat' or something like
that. It sounded good, at least.

“This.”
Mori pulled a silver-blue disk out from somewhere and displayed it
like a trophy. It reminded Daisuke vaguely of either a CD or one of
those old computer floppy disks or something. “All of his memories
are on here. The ones that he can remember, and
the ones that he can't. If I destroy this, and then dose him up with
an extra strong extract of the Mushrooms, then the Motomiya Daisuke
you knew will be gone forever. He will never remember anything
of your time together. He will be my puppet forever, and he will
enjoy it.”

That was not
good. Daisuke shifted around the best he could, trying to get as far
from Mori as possible. That wound up being about three inches, three
inches that vanished as Mori took a step towards him.

“That's
enough, Mori.” Kondo entered the conversation, coming over quickly
to seize him by one wrist. “You're not going to do any of that. I
don't know what you think you want, but I know you, and this isn't
what you're like.”

“I wasn't like
this before. I am now.” Mori pushed her away from him sharply, then
closed his hand around the disk. A sharp cracking noise sounded, and
when he opened his hand, silver-blue dust fell from it. He brushed
his hands off lightly, then pushed her to the side once more, heading
over a rack of syringes. “I think it's time I showed you all just
how serious I am being about all of this.”

“No, Mori.”
The denial this time came from Unimon, as he placed himself in
between the angered man and the stuff on the counter. “I agree with
Kondo and the Chosen. This has to stop.”

“I
am getting so tired of hearing that!” Mori growled dangerously at
the unicorn Digimon. “Will no one
let me have the revenge I deserve? Is there something so
utterly wrong about crushing the heart and soul of the person who has
been responsible for my losing so much?”

A
flash of violet hair and a sharp strike across Mori's face echoed
around the room, and if Daisuke had been able to, he would've cheered
Miyako right then and there. “You keep claiming you grew up, but
all you did was grow stupid! Just because you didn't kill yourself
and you tried all kinds of weird other
things doesn't mean you were any better than your brother! Even if
you destroyed Daisuke's memories completely, we'd still
remember him! You can't take that way, no matter what you try!”

Mori
started to push past her, but she shoved him back a little more, fury
outlining her brown eyes. She hadn't even begun decently, it seemed.
“When Ken lost that scholarship, did you even think about trying
for it again later? Or did you just quit trying? And does it matter
if you're a 'Chosen Child' or not? Shouldn't you be a person first?”

“I
tried! But then someone else took
the scholarship! I started to watch Ichijouji, and I saw how even
without the Dark Spore's power, he had everything I could've
ever wanted!” Mori was almost spitting in his fury. “He had all
of you! None of you even knew my name until this! And none of
you cared!”

Jyou shook his
head sadly, an expression becoming quite common to this situation.
“We can't know everyone. We have our own lives, too.” Real regret
touched his voice. Daisuke was almost certain he was thinking about
his own brothers, his own hard fought nights of studying, and seeing
others succeed around him.

“And mine
wasn't important enough. Was anyone's, other than your own?” Mori
sneered, whirled back to Daisuke and stalking there grandly. “Reasons
and the past aren't going to matter that much shortly. I'll be quite
happy once I completely destroy every chance you've ever had of
saving your little boyfriend, Ichijouji.”

Taichi
had his 'I wish I could smack this guy from where I'm standing'
expression on. Daisuke had seen it quite a few times before, usually
when some of his soccer team got a little on the stupid side. “And
all this time when you've been plotting revenge and doing who knows
what else, you could have been
doing something really constructive with your life, like finding a
different kind of scholarship, something you could go for, and
finding your own love life!”

“But that
would've left him with his, and I can't stand for that,” Mori spoke
as if that were the kind of thing anyone with a functioning brain
should have been able to figure out. Daisuke was beginning to think
that this guy had been cracked since long before Oikawa and his dark
spore copies had found their way to him. “I'm going to take what he
has. Then he won't have it.” Yeah, definite wacko material here.

“He's
lost it.” Takeru muttered, and Daisuke wanted to tell him it was
nice he could finally catch up with the rest of them. He had to get
this collar off before it drove him
off the brink of sanity. He'd been teetering on it long enough.

Mori toyed
lightly with the collar, then slowly began to unstrap Daisuke, not
taking his eyes off of the Chosen and the Digimon there. “You can
say all you want that it's your memories that will keep him as he is,
but it won't change the fact he'll be gone. You'll never make another
memory of him. I'll be the only one who knows the Motomiya who once
was. Not that he was really worth knowing before. All prickly and
irky and disobedient. He's become much more tolerable under my
teachings. I think I'll enjoy keeping him around for a while.”

“Then
what you have isn't Daisuke, but just a pretty little pet that you
made from him.” Ken declared firmly. “My
Daisuke will always be with me.”

His
Daisuke. Daisuke liked the way that sounded. His Daisuke. His Ken.
That sounded even better. Maybe they could get away from here and
discuss a few things that could evolve from that. He wondered how Ken
would look with a nice tasteful leather collar on or something like
that. He didn't care how he looked
with it. He'd had enough of this kind of thing for the next couple of
centuries.

“Stand up,
Motomiya,” Mori ordered abruptly as the last of the straps came
undone. Daisuke then was on his feet, swaying somewhat as he did.
He'd never been seasick before, and he didn't want to start now. His
stomach wasn't quite feeling like co operating where that was
concerned, though. Up and down, all around...ohhh, he wanted to sit
back down.

“No!”
A flash of movement, this time someone entirely different. Daisuke
felt as if he could've recognized that person in his sleep, no matter
how much of his memory was gone. He did recognize them, after all. It
was Ken. He still bore his Rocket
nickname, and he deserved it a thousand times over.

Ken's arms
closed around Daisuke, pulling him away from Mori and back over to
the group. “You're not going to take him away from me, not now, not
ever again!”

“I already
have, Ichijouji.” Mori didn't seem all that bothered to see his
captive pulled away, and that worried Daisuke. His legs felt a little
stronger underneath him, but not nearly enough. He might've been able
to take a few steps, but running even a ten-yard dash was totally out
of the question. “He still wears my collar, if you missed it.”

“Does that
mean if we didn't miss it, that he's not?” Jyou asked, one pale
blue eyebrow quirked. Daisuke decided to giggle at that, as soon as
he got the strength, and the ability to speak on his own again.

“Amused, Kido,
but not amusing enough.” Mori looked at Daisuke, a thoughtful
expression visible in his dark eyes. “So you think that you've
retrieved your love, and nothing will keep you apart again, is that
so?”

Ken's
only answer was to tighten his arms around Daisuke. The redhead
enjoyed the embrace, closing his eyes a little. For the first time in
forever, he really felt as if he were home.
The light masculine scent of Ken in his nostrils brought up a
thousand more memories, and being near his friends was trigger ten
thousand more. The mixture in his veins was burning away faster and
faster with each moment, and he relaxed. It was over, no matter what
Mori said or thought. It was over.

“Motomiya,
stand up straight, and away from Ichijouji,” Mori ordered. Daisuke
straightened up at once, taking a step away from Ken before he'd even
realized that he'd done it.

He meant it!
The collar still kept him tamed and obedient to Mori, no matter what.
There had to be something that could stop that!

“Daisuke...”
Ken touched his shoulder, concern in his eyes. “Daisuke, are you
all right?”

“He can't
answer you, Ichijouji. I told him to be quiet, remember?” Mori
laughed softly. “But I'll be generous this time. You may answer
Ichijouji. Once you've done that, be silent until I grant you
permission to speak again.”

Daisuke turned
to Ken, a faint smile rippling across his lips. “I'm all right,
Ken. Well, except for having this thing around my neck which means
I've got to listen to the jerk over there. But other than that,
absolutely fine.”

Ken's lips
twitched a little as he gently caressed Daisuke's cheek for a moment.
Each of them stood there, gazing into the other's eyes, for what felt
like forever.

“That's enough
of that. If you two get any more sappy, I just might get sadistic.”
Mori growled, a dangerous edge to his tone. Daisuke turned enough to
see Kondo chuckling softly, shaking her head.

“Mori,
you've really lost it. You can't even tell that you haven't done
anything to them that you wanted
to. All you did is make everything between them stronger. I always
thought that would be the end result, anyway, but I wanted to help
you anyway. To see if you were right, even though I knew you
weren't.” She took a few steps towards him, holding one hand out.
“You can give it up, you know. You can start over. It won't hurt
you to just let it all go.”

Mori
shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Daisuke and Ken. “No,
Kondo. I can't. I won't. If
nothing I've done has broken them, then I will do it another way.”

“Don't
you get it yet? You can't do anything!” Takeru growled, eyes
flashing in rich anger. “They're together!
They love each other more than you can get through your thick skull!
You had to pretend to be Ken to even get Daisuke to look at
you, and you were being him when Daisuke didn't even think they could
be friends! And it still didn't work! What more do you want,
something written in stone? Is that what it would take to convince
you that there's nothing that you, or anyone else, can do to
get this revenge that you want, for no reason?”

Mori turned
slightly towards the blond, a faint hint of confusion flickering in
his eyes. “No reason? Everything you've heard and it's no reason?”

“So your
brother and you both went kind of overboard. You should've tried
harder, or just tried something different. You made wrong choices,
but you're not the only one who has.” Takeru pointed out. Daisuke
seriously gave a thought to hugging the Chosen of Hope. “So start
again. There are still scholarships and jobs you can have, and if you
work hard enough, no one can beat you at it. Even if they do, just
try again.” He blinked for a moment, shaking his head. “Daisuke,
I'm glad you're back. I'm starting to act like you and it's scaring
me.”

For
a moment, everything was quiet. Mori appeared to be thinking over
what Takeru had just said. Daisuke began to reach back to Ken, when
the madman's voice cracked like a whip. “Step away from them,
Motomiya, and do not go back
unless I give you permission. If they try to pull you back, stop them
in any way you can.”

Daisuke winced
as his body obeyed, moving to one side and away from them. Ken stared
after him, hurt and agony visible in his eyes as Daisuke glanced
briefly over his shoulder, one hand half-raised as if to pull him
back.

“If
nothing I've done has made a difference, then I'll just have to do
something that will. My brother
took his own life, Ichijouji, and yours died of an accident. But what
I'm going to do won't be any kind of accident at all.”

Daisuke
could see it, out of the corner of one eye. A snapped word froze him
where he stood, unable to take his eyes off of the slender knife that
Mori had pulled from somewhere. What kind of a psychotic evil villain
carried something like this on
him? Worse than just having it, he was aiming it, right at Ken.

“Time's up,
Ichijouji.” Mori clipped the words out, his arm jerking forward and
the dagger flipping straight to where Ken stood frozen in shock: and
to where Takeru stood, once the blond had brutally shoved Ken to one
side and the knife sank into his flesh all the way up to the hilt.

To Be Continued