"I’m sorry I lied to you, Taichi, but there’s no way I was going to let anyone else get involved in the Dark Ocean," Ichijouji Ken said solemnly to the boy grinning from the group photograph on his desk. With his one arm around Sora and the other around Hikari, he looked so different to the frantic Taichi who had confronted him in the library that morning. This Taichi looked like he could conquer any enemy, handle any problem, face anything that happened. That one had looked utterly defeated. His hand closed around the black Digivice on his desk, "If anyone has to go there, it should be me."

Swallowing, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to reach out the Dark Ocean as he had done twice in the past. Ignoring the nausea it provoked in him, he recalled the black, oily, heavy feeling with which he had lived for three years. He remembered every deed he had done as the Digimon Kaizer - the Digimon he had beaten and tortured, the experiments with Skullgreymon, the control spires which had become Kimeramon, and - most painfully - the way he had abused and murdered Wormmon. Battled to keep himself from being sick, he imagined that liquid darkness flowing out through his D3, pooling in the air and rippling in time with the waves on the Dark Ocean. He opened his eyes slowly, and . . . Nothing had changed.

There was no portal.

His fist clenched tightly around the device, knuckles going white. Why can’t I do it? I thought I’d never be free of the Dark Ocean, or of the darkness within me. Now, now . . . I need it to help Hikari, yet I can’t reach any of it. It’s all gone. I’m free of it. He could have wept at the irony. What am I going to do?

"Ken?" his mother tapped lightly on the door, before he could come up with another plan, "Daisuke is here to see you."

Shoving his D3 angrily back into his pocket, Ken opened the door to let his boyfriend into the room. Pain stabbed his chest when he saw him standing there. He had never seen Daisuke look so young or so lost before. He had a dazed, distant expression on his face, like a child walking in a nightmare. His jacket was turned inside-out, so that the label and seams were visible, and even his prized goggles were crooked on his head.

"Please. Don’t ask me how I’m feeling. Don’t tell me it’s going to be okay," his boyfriend held up a hand to halt any questions, "I’ve had it from everyone, including your mother. I can’t take it from you."

Enfolding him in his arms, Ken kissed him lightly on the forehead. He knew there was a small part of Daisuke that still loved Hikari. It did not matter that she had never returned his feelings or that they had never been out on a single date. It did not even matter that he had been seeing Ken for over a year now. There would always be a part of him that would look at Hikari and remember the first thrill of love. Remember sneaking glances at her under the cover of a book; passing notes to her under the desk; brushing against her hand by accident on purpose; saving up all his money to buy her a necklace on her birthday. Ken felt no jealousy at that. You never got over your first love completely. What mattered was that he loved him now and that they were together.

As Daisuke nuzzled his head into his shoulder, Ken suddenly felt a tremendous protectiveness surge up in him. Even after all that he had seen and done, Daisuke was still so innocent. He had never known the depths of pain and loss that Ken had, and he had never been touched by the darkness that had been a part of his everyday life. It was part of the reason he loved him, but it was the entire reason he needed to protect him.

For a long time, they stood in silence, simply holding each other.

Eventually, however, Daisuke spoke, his voice muffled by Ken’s sweater, "We had better get going, Ken. We have to meet at Sora’s place in a bit to collect flyers."

"Flyers won’t help," he told him grimly, "From what Taichi says, she’s in the Dark Ocean. I tried to reach across to it, to open a portal like I did with Demon, but . . . I couldn’t."

"Argh. I knew there was something I forgot to mention to you," Daisuke exclaimed, stepping backwards to look at Ken, "Taichi went to the Dark Ocean. He searched almost the whole place. Hikari’s not there."

Puzzled, "How did he get there?"

"I don’t know," he shrugged, "Sora was pretty vague when she phoned me. Something about Takeru and his crest."

Ken frowned. Of all the Chosen Children, Takeru was the last one whom he had expected to be able to reach the Dark Ocean. He hated darkness in all its forms. There was no way that darkness could touch him, because there was simply no crack in his soul into which it could creep. If it had to do with his crest, it was even stranger, because hope was the antithesis of darkness. Even cliches insisted that it was the light at the end of the tunnel.

"Are you sure?"

"About what?"

"Never mind. It’s not important," he waved it away with a hand, "By the way, you came all the way to Tamachi just to collect me?"

"Yeah, I guess. I couldn’t just sit at home and wait," his boyfriend admitted, running a hand through his hair, "I couldn’t just do nothing. I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin if I didn’t go somewhere or do something or help in some way. . . ."

"Well, I’m glad you came, Dai," Ken said warmly, "Now, let’s get going. We don’t want to keep Sora waiting."

*

"Thank you so much, Mr Hayashi," Daisuke called as he taped the poster securely into place in the shop’s window. It was the last of what had been a thick pile of them, all neatly photocopied and coloured by Sora and Miyako. He had easily found places for most of them. Most of the shopkeepers had been too happy to help when they had heard his story, and had even offered to take a stack of fliers and hand them out to their customers too. He doubted there was a store in Odaiba that did not have Hikari’s face plastered on it somewhere.

Sighing, he ran around to the front of the shore to check his handiwork. Even though he had been staring at the posters all day, even though he loved Ken now, his stomach still gave an odd, queasy twist when he saw Hikari smiling at him from behind the glass. It was a good photograph of her, taken at a Christmas party. She had a tinsel halo around her forehead, which made her look even more like an angel than usual, and her cheeks were flushed from the cold. He could not believe she had run away.

Dully, he read the words on the poster aloud: