Memory Lapse
part 8~ conclusion-"if i am..."

"This isn't right," Ken whispered hoarsely. "This isn't me. What have I been doing, Wormmon?"

Wormmon frowned. "Ken-chan..."

"Is it all true? What Daisuke told me about the Digital World? Tell me it's not all real, Wormmon," he begged. "Tell me it's all a game. Please!"

"It's all real, Ken-chan. I'm real."

"Gods, what have I done...? I should have listened to Daisuke. I shouldn't have acted so hastily." Hot tears began to well up in Ken's eyes, tears that he refused to shed. "When my memories came back...I didn't want it to be true. Even though I knew in my heart that it was. I let my pride interfere. I couldn't forget what you and Daisuke had done. And now I've gone and screwed up the best thing that ever happened to me. Why did I turn him away?" His voice became a soft whisper and he drew his partner into his arms and held him close. "I'm sorry, Wormmon. I'm sorry, I sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"It's all right." The virus-type nuzzled his human's cheek comfortingly, and Ken smiled. "I forgive you."

"I'll change," he promised, hugging the small insect close. "Starting with you. I may be too far gone to ever face Daisuke again, but the least I can do is set what I've done in the past right again. You'll see. You can be Stingmon and help me anytime. I'll shut it all down and destroy it--the Towers, the base, my D-3--and go back to the Real World, and the Chosen will never have to know what happened to the Digimon Kaiser.

"But Ken, what about Daisuke?"

"I have to do this alone," Ken said firmly. "You saw Daisuke's face when I threatened to kill him at the canyon. Any friendship we might have had has been lost."

"And what about me?"

Ken hesitated. "I don't have any right to be in your world anymore, Wormmon. The deaths I've caused, the lives I've destroyed...no, I can't come back here. If you'll come to the Real World with me, I will keep my D-3 so that you can return whenever you wish. That's all I dare ask of you, my friend."

"You'll ask of me whatever you like," Wormmon replied firmly, "and I will be happy to comply. I'm your partner, Ken-chan...your companion, your ally, and your friend for life."

"Thank you, Wormmon." Ken hugged his Digimon tightly, and they lay there in silence, waiting for their respective dreams and nightmares to end.

The reverie was eventually broken by Daisuke, who clattered noisily into the room. "Ken!"

Ken sat straight up. "Motomiya," he said coolly, "what do you want? Surely you cannot be protesting the fact that I let you live another day."

The cinnamon eyes were as hard as diamonds. "Oh, so it's 'Motomiya' again, is it?"

"When have I called you anything but?"

"You called me Daisuke in the canyon, and don't deny it. You haven't forgotten anything that's happened over the past three days."

Ken sniffed regally. "I never claimed to have forgotten the past three days. That's in the past, Motomiya. I have no interest in befriending any of the Chosen."

"You're lying."

"What makes you say so?"

"Your eyes." Daisuke studied the violet orbs intently. "You've got a different look about you than you did an hour ago."

"You're imagining things. Now get out before I call my guards."

"If you were gonna call them, you would have done it already."

"Daisuke..." Ken's determination wavered. The mahogany-haired Chosen was so forceful. And...he seemed to know Ken better than he knew himself.

"There it is! Daisuke!" the boy said triumphantly. "What's happened to you, Ken? Why did you go back?"

"All the things you said...about the Digital World."

"What, about it all being real? Hell, Ken, if I were deluded--or should I say 'smarter'?--I wouldn't beleive in an alternate dimension existing inside my computer either. What do you expect? The Digital World is an...outlet. A place for you to escape reality."

"Dai..." Never before had Ken heard his feelings so accurately pegged.

"Please, Ken, just understand. That's all I'm asking you to do."

"I do understand. But that doesn't mean I can forgive myself!" The ex-Kaiser's voice was venhement. "These Digimon won't forgive me for what I've done to them. I don't belong here anymore, Daisuke. You've got what you wanted, in the end--I'm leaving, I'm going home, and I'm shutting down this little empire of mine before I step into the portal for the last time. I'm going to home to an overprotective family who beleives I'm my dead brother, a school where I'm hated for being so smart, and a life where I never have a bit of privacy. What more do you want from me?"

"I want to help," Daisuke replied, his voice firm. "I want to be your friend."

Ken's breath caught in his throat. "But Daisuke...what about the other Chosen?"

"It's no problem." Daisuke smiled. "They'll respect my decision, although it might take some time. And the way you've treated me has just made me more determined to win your friendship."

A small smile graced Ken's pale face. Daisuke grinned widely. "Now there's the Ken I wanted to see!"

"All right, Daisuke," Ken whispered, offering his hand to Daisuke the same way he had three days previous. "I accept your offer, of help, and frienship."

As he spoke the words Ken felt a tingling go through his body, an unfamiliar sensation. Daisuke jumped slightly and removed his D-3 from its clip, wtaching in awe as the soft blue light it emitted poured into the ex-Kaiser's small frame. Ken's own device lended its pink glow to Friendship's effort. Daisuke gasped. "Ken...?"

When the light dissipated, Ichijouji Ken stood before him, clad in his grey Tamachi uniform. The tattered jumpsuit that the Kaiser had worn was nowhere to bee seen; and the wild hairstyle that the despot had sported had clamed into a soft sheet of indigo that fell chin-length against a pale face. Ken raised a shocked hand and ran it through the silken tresses.

"Well...I guess that's the end of the Digimon Kaiser, hey?" Daisuke grinned.

"So it seems. It's rather like...a weight has been lifted from my shoulders." Ken smiled tiredly.

"What's that?"

"Huh?"

Daisuke stepped behind Ken and observed him curiously. The Dark D-3 had continued to glow, clipped to Ken's belt in the same place it had rested on the jumpsuit. However, there was another source; a small spot on the back of Ken's neck was also emitting rose light. Wormmon gasped. "The seed!" As Daisuke watched in fascination, the two light sources collocated on Ken's left hand and then suddenly disappeared, leaving a tiny square object on his palm.

"What's that?" Daisuke peered at it. "Weird..."

"I'm not entirely sure," Ken admitted.

Wormmon strained to see what his partner was holding. "Show me, Ken-chan?" Ken held the pink square out for Wormmon to see. "Oh! It looks like one of the ancient Crests from the Digital Legends!"

"A crest?" Daisuke looked again. "I don't recognize the symbol."

"It's Kindness," Wormmon said proudly, nuzzling his human's leg. "It must be yours, Ken."

"Mine?" Ken stared in disbeleif. "But...why? I've been anything but kind."

"The Crests represent inborn traits, Ken," Daisuke replied. "Hikari once told me that a Chosen receives their Crest or their Dejimental after acting on that inborn trait."

"It was inside you all along," Wormmon said happily. "You just had to bring it out."

Ken felt geniuinely happy for the first time in many, many months. "Thank you," he whispered aloud, unable to express the gratitude he felt towards the people who had brought this sense of closure to him.

@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@~*~@

It only took an hour to disable the systems in the Kaiser's base and set al the slaves free. The Dark Towers would be difficult and time-consuming, but Daisuke was confident that the Chosen would be able to knock them all down in no time at all. Ken secretly planned to return to the Digital World and destroy as many Towers as possible, as his penance for causing the destruction he had.

With the push of a button Ken shut down all power to the base except the main computer, and initiated the self-destruct sequence. A woman's voice blandly informed him that the base would be destroyed in T minus 30 seconds.

Ken took a last look around, holding Wormmon tightly to his chest. "It's all over."

"Yeah." The virus-type's blue eyes seemed torn between sadness and joy. "I hope we come back to this world together someday, Ken-chan."

"Don't worry, my friend. I think that maybe there's more work for me to do here. This world...needs to heal. And I want to help."

"I'm glad."

Daisuke, with V-mon at his side, looked at Ken with a grin. "Are you ready, Ichijouji?"

"Is that a challenge, Motomiya?"

"An invitation."

Ken smiled genuinely. "Let's go home."

The Digital Gate opened in a brilliant flash of light and the two boys disappeared. A moment later the Kaiser's base erupted in flames, heat racking the core, and exploded into millions of particles of Digital data.

For a nanosecond, floating between Earth and the Digital World, Ichijouji Ken felt the destruction of the last stand of the Digimon Kaiser, and breathed freely for the first time in three years. It was over.

And I'm going home.

~the end

Any and all feedback is appreciated, as usual. I know some of you were hoping for Kensuke, but I think the decision was made back in chapter 2 with the first reviews I got. This was definitely leaning towards friendship (although really you can take it however way you want.) If you're still looking for Kensuke and Kaizer-y goodness, go and have a look at 'Sadness-Colored Sandglass' (http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=229476) or 'Tomodachi.'

Thanks for reading this far, everyone--I really enjoyed writing this story. I hope you all liked the ending. (Look, my punctuation has returned--what happened there?) There may be an epilogue in store; though I'm not sure when, but if you want to add me to your AuthorAlert list (I have Support Services) then you'll receive an e-mail when it's complete. It'll probably be my next project, unless I take on the rest of 'Silver' first. Again, thanks for reading everyone. :-)