[fanfic] Digimon Adventure 02: Only Those Who Have One

[higuchimon]

Title: Only Those Who Have One
Friendship: BlackWarGreymon & Agumon
Word Count: 2,228||Status: One-shot
Genre: Angst, Friendship||Rated: PG
Challenge: Digimon Friendship Challenge 2: Digimon Adventure/02 Arc: round 4
Summary: BlackWarGreymon wanders, thinking of souls, his purpose in life, Agumon, and where babies come from.

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It was impossible for BlackWarGreymon to hide himself. The thud of his footsteps, the way that everyone scattered out of his way, the nearly tangible forbidding glare that preceded him, all of those announced his presence in a way that could not be disguised. Not that he wanted to conceal himself. He was BlackWarGreymon. He should be known no matter where he was.

He didn’t bother to look behind himself. Nor did he bother to look ahead. The past, the future, they were all the same. An endless search, with only the focus altering slightly. He wasn’t even certain if what he was looking for had ever changed. Only his awareness of it had, to some extent or another.

A powerful enemy. A purpose in life. Was there really any difference? Perhaps there was, and perhaps there wasn’t. He couldn’t be certain. If there was, it was entirely possible that the difference itself was so slight as to not bother with.

No. He did know what he wanted. He wanted a purpose out of life, to have some kind of a meaning for his existence. No one that he’d asked had ever been able to completely answer him. He had asked a Digital God and all Qinglongmon had been able to tell him was that there was one, and he would have to find it for himself.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t had any better ideas at the time. So he had left without even truly lifting a hand against the other, and had begun this search that had led him to this place. Whatever this place might be. He didn’t care. It didn’t have the meaning that he wanted.

“Why?” He growled the words out and didn’t care that it sent another wave of Digimon fleeing from him. Let them run! Let them fear him! They couldn’t help him, so they meant nothing. Everyone was the same. “Why can’t someone tell me what I need to know?”

Maybe because you already know? It wasn’t as if someone was speaking to him. It was more as if he were speaking to himself. But the voice, if voice were truly the right word, wasn’t entirely his. It reminded him of someone else.

A childish voice of sorts, but one that uttered thoughts he had never considered before. That was who it reminded him of.

Agumon. That was who he was thinking of. That was something that he would have said, perhaps. Foolishness to consider that weak creature as having been able to help him. He didn’t even know where his own soul was, much less someone else’s.

Though, if BlackWarGreymon were to be truly honest with himself, he didn’t know where his was either, which had been the entire point of that conversation which had gone nowhere. He knew that he had one, that he was unique among Black Tower Digimon for having one, but why he should have one at all eluded him.

Humans studied such things, he knew. How he knew this was yet another fact that escaped him. There were many such. He simply knew what he knew, but there was so much that he didn’t know that it baffled him.

Not that he would admit to being baffled. He had just a smidge too much pride for that.

No, perhaps pride wasn’t the right word either. Anger. Anger came so much closer to what he felt at not knowing everything that he wanted or felt he should know. Anger that made him want to punch his way through trees and mountains, fury that made him want to find someone stronger than he was and fight until he could fight no more.

He could understand the anger, even if he didn’t understand the reasons behind it. He could do something about the anger, if only by destroying something. He’d destroyed quite a bit in his quest already. He didn’t think it was going to stop any time soon. Right now, this was just a temporary pause in the violence that was the only purpose in his life.

Again it stirred through him, that desire to make everything around him as ruined as he was. He was ruined, a flawed parody of life itself. BlackWarGreymon. That said it all. He wasn’t a real Digimon or a real WarGreymon. He was a mutilated copy, a monstrosity that should never have been.

Agumon. That was why the other had wanted to talk to him. There were other Agumons in the Digital World. He’d passed by a village or two, and they’d all fled at the sight of him. But only that one, that one bonded to a human, was capable of becoming WarGreymon. Only that one was his…equal.

Not in a fight. Not quite like that, no. Though the thought of battling WarGreymon, absolutely no holds barred and to the extreme limit, was more than a little fascinating. But Agumon was his equal simply because he could become WarGreymon in the first place. That was all.

Should I talk to him again? Agumon had offered his friendship, and BlackWarGreymon did not doubt that the offer was sincere. All of the Chosen and their partners appeared to care to some degree. They would stop him from doing harm, but that didn’t mean they didn’t like him.

Even if that liking was pure insanity. Especially because that liking was pure insanity. How could they care about someone like him, simply because he existed? He could offer them nothing but a focus for their hatred. That was something at least some of them needed. That confused him as much as anything else did, if not more.

Do you really want to be hated? That little thought, that reminded him so much of Agumon yet could not possibly be Agumon, wormed its way through his mind again. It was annoying, and brought up issues that he really didn’t want to think about at all. Because, he knew the answer to that.

He didn’t want to be hated. Part of him wasn’t certain if he wanted to exist at all, but if he did, he didn’t want to be hated. He didn’t want or need to be loved, either, but he also would possibly not have been utterly displeased if people didn’t clear out of his way just because he happened to walk through their neighborhood.

Not that I want to put up with their endless chatter. Those times that he had spoken with the Chosen or their partners had been times of need, for the most part, subtle as that need might’ve been. Conversation was not one of his skills. At least not with words. If someone wished to converse via Gaia Force, he was more than capable of that, and preferred it.

If being hated, however, was the true purpose of his life, than he was more than willing to accept it. What harm could their hate do to him? Nothing. He was all but invulnerable. He had been injured once or twice, but nothing to the point of death, and he could think of nothing and no one that would be able to bring him that much harm.

But regardless, if he did have any friends, he would not sit around and talk with them constantly. Speaking was for when one had something to say, not simply to break the silence.

What would he do with friends? What did friends even do with each other? That was something he’d never asked Agumon. Did they always sit around debating the presence of souls and hearts and the purpose of life, or was there more to it? What did people do all day? Digimon or human, what got everyone through one day to the next?

Their purpose. That word again. They had deeds and tasks to accomplish, be it as small as gathering food for the day or as great as…saving the world from Archnemon and Mummymon. Though what threat those two idiots could pose baffled him every bit as much as anything else ever had.

Archnemon. His ‘mother’. If she were like any being that created a new life, then he couldn’t see why humans cared about theirs so much.

Did Agumon have a mother? That was yet another question he hadn’t asked the smaller Digimon. Or did he consider his partner to be everything to him? Would Agumon suggest that he get a partner?

A ridiculous thought. What human would even want to be his? What human would he ever want for his partner? Was there someone who could understand him on the level that the Chosen Children and their partners understood each other?

No. There wasn’t. There was no use of even debating the question, when there was so much else that he could spend his time usefully doing instead. Not only did he need to eat, but he had to find that purpose that was beyond being hated. If that was all he was, it was what he would be.

But he was going to find out if it was all he was first. He would not be hated simply because he couldn’t find something else to do with his life.

Perhaps he could fight with the Chosen against their enemies? It was not a completely unappealing thought. Perhaps that would give him a chance to compare strengths with WarGreymon after all. To fight with someone instead of against them? He had never fought with someone by his side. Everyone on the battlefield was an enemy to him.

No. There was no enemy that they could have that he couldn’t finish in moments, and while that thought was pleasant in and of itself, there was no worth to it, simply because of that. If a fight was too easy, there was no joy in the victory.

Fighting…fighting could not be his purpose. Friendship would not be his purpose. Partnership was not to be thought of. There was nothing else that he could imagine for himself or anyone else. Their ways were not his ways. Their choices were not his choices.

Perhaps…part of the purpose was in searching for the purpose itself? The journey and the destination, all in one?

BlackWarGreymon paused in his endless roaming to consider that a little more intently. It was a thought that had not yet occurred to him, and it pinged something deep within. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t yet discovered what it was he was meant to do, because he was already doing it and hadn’t realized it.

My search for meaning is the meaning of my life. He repeated it out loud, tasting the words carefully. They felt right. They felt true. It wasn’t entirely true, though. He had found part of the meaning, but not the full depth and breadth of it. But it was farther along than he’d been a short time earlier.

Something that he had never realized was tight within him eased. Perhaps it was something of his endless rage at a world that would not give him the answers that he craved. Perhaps it was something else. But he did not question it this once. Certain factors he did not wish to argue with himself about.

He moved onward, now turning that thought over and over in his mind. Was it possible? Could someone’s quest for their purpose be the true purpose in and of itself, to any degree?

Why not? If he, a creation of Dark Towers, a monstrosity that wasn’t meant to exist, could have a soul and choose his own path instead of being the mindless tool of his creatrix, then why could something so much more complex than that not exist?

There was still much that he didn’t know, but now that he had worked out this to some degree, there was a small bit of contentment in BlackWarGremon’s soul now. Perhaps, now that he considered the matter more, it wouldn’t be so bad if he should cross paths once again with Agumon.

Not that he was going to do so on purpose. Agumon would seek him out, as he had the first time, if he wanted to talk. But should it occur, then they could speak once again of the soul. Perhaps it was not something that one kept. It could not be kept in the head or the heart.

A soul is not something that you keep. A soul is something that you are.

Perhaps that was it. It still didn’t explain everything, or even anything, but it was a soothing realization regardless.

Do Archnemon and Mummymon have souls? If they didn’t, they weren’t troubled by the lack, and if they did, it made them no better for it.

Archnemon had created him. But who had created them? It was easy to tell where humans came from. They had parents, who had had parents. Digimon, normal Digimon, came from eggs. Those eggs came from data. The data came from humans. Yet, there was still something that was different about Archnemon and Mummymon: such as their ability to become human.

There was still much more that he didn’t know. Each answer only led to more questions.

One day, he would find the last question, the last answer. And what he did after that…perhaps that would be something he could ask Agumon, if no one else.

Who else could you ask, but a friend?

The End

Notes: I watched all of 02 subbed before writing this. A three-day marathon, with especial interest paid to the BlackWarGreymon episodes. BlackWarGreymon is hard to write in anything that even remotely relates to friendship. I had another idea for this, but that one didn't want to co operate, so I went with the 'angsty inner monologue that vaguely refers to friendship' idea instead. BlackWarGreymon is good at angsty internal monologues.

Oh, and the title comes from A Spell for Chameleon, by Piers Anthony. The full line is “Only those who have souls are concerned about them”. I thought it fitting.