Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.

Just a small separate side note. We are coming to the end of Personified shortly. If you're excited about the third and final volume of this series let me know. Send me a message, leave a comment or a review, etc. etc. I'm no mind reader, but I can read between the lines getting a glimpse of what you're thinking. See you next Chapter! (Or should I say hear from you? Ah! Conniving Semantics!)

Chapter Nineteen: The Sacrificed Vessel

Takeru walked with Hikari chatting about little things. About their new relationship together. About the hotel and their digimon. Somehow just being with her and walking with her it did not matter where they went. That thought hovered faintly in his mind as they turned a corner entering into the main banquet hall. All of the digimon and the digidestined seemed to be waiting for them.

"Did something happen?"Hikari asked, holding onto Takeru's arm slightly apprehensive and shy to be singled out.

"We were waiting for you," Mimi said expectantly.

"For the both of you," Koushiro added.

Takeru stepped in front of Hikari holding his arm up to protect her. Something did not seem right about all of this, but he could not see exactly why he would need to be so defensive.

"I don't like the way this is looking," he said. "What is going on here?"

"Homeostasis," Joe said as if ignoring him, "We finally gathered."

"Now you can reveal the entire plan," Sora confirmed.

"Just don't harm my sister," Taichi scoffed.

"Or Takeru either," Yamato threatened.

"What are you talking about?" Takeru asked concerned for her. He turned and looked at Hikari, her eyes blazing with Homeostasis's presence as if Homeostasis had wrestled control away from her forcefully.

She pressed her hand over his chest, a light spreading through him, but his body pulsing with pain.

"What is this?" he asked falling to his knees. "It's not like my vision or the memory. What is happening?"

"You're body is almost at it's limit of retaining information for the Digital Record," Homeostasis said placing one hand on his cheek. "I had timed you becoming the Digital Record knowing your limitations. If Terrormon is destroyed, the Digital Record will be reset, and the cycle will renew itself with in you. But, if you are defeated your body will dissolve into digital information and be absorbed into Terrormon."

Takeru looked toward her fearfully, but resisting her. "I won't leave Hikari or Patamon alone like that," he grimaced. "I won't let any of us down."

Homeostasis smiled almost dangerously. "You don't have a choice. Even now your destiny is coming towards you. I either use the record within you to destroy Terrormon or he destroys you. Their is no other way."

"I don't believe that!" he shouted. "No matter how you have used us playing us to your advantage I have always hoped for another way; a way you cannot see because you aren't human. You're missing the element of humanity, which is stronger than looking outwardly in! Maybe that's why you relied on the digidestined in the first place."

She stared into him as if about ready to take his life. "What you say is true," she said unflinching making him uncomfortable. "But I am able to make humankind so much more. Without your digimon you are so weak and fragile. And only because of an outstanding trait of yours was I able to make you all outstanding. Of course, with you and Hikari that was different."

She then grabbed Takeru's hand and helped him stand up straight.

"Everyone," she said."Akama is on his way. He will seek to destroy me, and if he does, their goes your world. Takeru," she said, her hand over his heart, "The only way to truly defeat Akama is to use the digital record. Do you remember seeing anything in it the last time you were there?"

Takeru felt his chest, a sharp pain prodding from it. "Yes," he winced. "It was...a human being getting dissolved and a digimon's data merging with another."

"Precisely," she said. "What you saw, but what you could not see, was the very first experiment of mine. I have mended my methods ever since then, but though it did not work out, it did buy me some time."

"What are you talking about?" Taichi questioned. "What do you mean methods?"

Homeostasis looked at them as if threatened they were questioning her. "Very well," she said, everyone silent before her, terrified to make any sudden movements. "Like you told me before about being straight forward so you are on my side, I will tell you. But just mind that after this story is done Akama will arrive."

She took a deep breath. Takeru marveled as she started telling an incredible story.

"As long as I can remember light and darkness have always hung in the balance in the Digital World. The longer light remained, the more prosperous it became, but, a little bit of darkness seeped in, and eventually the world was destroyed. The world went through many painful processes and upgrades, no digimon strong enough to defeat the darkness. So, I initiated a process to where digimon could get stronger to defeat this darkness. Just as dark digimon thrive off of darkness and negative emotions I used positive emotions or attributes to help a digimon digivolve. However, despite this, the digimon still were unable to digivolve more than a champion level, and darkness continually won…"

Homeostasis weaved her fingers together continuing her story.

"...With my assistant Hackmon and my especially appointed knights committee, they took to the battle against the evil digimon and the darkness, and, though they were able to reach a mega level so to speak, the darkness kept returning and reforging faster, splintering as if copying itself, learning from it's mistakes, and, before I had known it, another entity came into existence, one of absolute terror.

This being systematically singlehandedly destroyed the knights, leaving myself and Hackmon. I had no choice, but to start over, trying to find some way to defeat it, but to do that I had to recreate the Digital World once again. This time though, I became self aware of a world outside this digital one, and I learned I was a part of it's system. To protect the data I became the god of this system, bringing all programs through myself so that nothing could be done unless I allowed it.

The medium of digital devices of which seemed to be an entryway to my world intrigued me, so I listened through an interface curiously and discovered a child. This child could not have been more than eight years old. He pretended to be playing with a stuffed animal as if it had super powers defeating an evil force which was another stuffed animal. I curiously took in the boys attributes and watched him, studying him. He was unusually polite from what I found out, and, seemingly his greatest attribute. So I tried a little experiment. I created a crest called the Crest of Courteousness and designed a digimon based off of that, a digital entity called Courtmon."

"Wait a second, you created us?!" Agumon exclaimed.

She nodded her head. "But not all of you. Now silence while I tell you the rest," she said giving him an intimidating glare.

"I sent Courtmon's digi egg to his world, and, when it hatched, Courtmon and this human became friends. Eventually as the two grew and I studied them, I noticed that the digimon was getting stronger thriving off of this bond. I realized then that I had to conduct an experiment to see what would happen if I could use their bond so I constructed a device called a digivice and had Courtmon give it to him so he could come to the digital world.

While that child, Akama, was there, I slowly tested him, allowing dark entities to attack him, slowly in strength and power, and, in order to protect Akama, the digimon digivolved into Chivalrousmon. Chivalrousmon defeated the dark entities, and, in time Akama was given the crest of Courteousness. Courtmon reached his ultimate form of Regalmon, and when this happened, I stretched the limits of this method of digivolving.

Akama at the time had reached High School Age as I found out from Courtmon's reports. I decided he would be mature enough to battle a final foe, and allow the darkness to attack him. It was my mistake. What happened then could not bd helped. Akama was by himself and he had no support other than his digimon."

"What happened to him?" Sora asked.

She turned towards her and shook her head.

"He ended up foregoing friendships, learning, and growing for the sake of his bond with Courtmon, and he threw himself into a role as the protector of the digital world which left him almost isolated from anyone else- even his family. What I learned about human companionship through friends had not come to my attention, but it seemed Akama lacking them did not help his situation," she admitted.

"Then, at the end of Akama's struggle I witnessed the final battle come to a climax. Terrormon, that evil entity nearly killed Akama, but Regalmon somehow digivolved into his mega form Noblemon. Even despite their best efforts, Terrormon still ultimately had the upper hand. When Noblemon was cornered by the darkness I had Hackmon unleash his 'third' attack with all of his power to obliterate Terrormon, but unfortunately, Akama was in the way. It weakened the blast. Akama was reduced to digital bits along with Terrrormon, and both of their data by force merged with Noblemon."

"Noblemon at that time writhed and twisted unable to discern between light and darkness. He changed form in his despair of losing his partner, and the dark influences of Terrormon's data. This being that remained after all of this became Fiermon, a cunning enemy, no longer on my side."

"Fiermon immediately set to recover himself as if by instinct all of his information as if to correct other information that made his code. Whether this was Terrormon's or Noblemon's doing I know not which. He tried to attack and kill many digimon, sometimes successful, sometimes forced to flee. Ultimately, we cornered him in my domain, and I thought I had annihilated him piece by piece, but I was mistaken. Somehow, Fiermon had survived my attack."

She looked intently at the others staring at each one for a short while of time.

"In the meanwhile, with the threat of Fiermon gone, peace was supposed to have been restored to the digital world, but that did not happen. You see, Terrormon had been clever. He had created an alternate dimension known as the Dark Ocean to tap into the same power I had used for humans. By rerouting digital virus's and feeding off of negative emotions, the dark ocean became a place where dark digimon were made and enhanced to become even stronger. I had my hands full dealing with this and needed a new strategy to fight."

She looked down at her hands, moving one of her fingers as if slowly counting away the youths that she had used before.

"From there, I continually experimented with two new humans, the next being a young boy and a young girl named Daigo and Misaki. Two humans did well. At the same time, I had other digital monsters interacting with people from your world seeing if any could be worthy, but, alas, even though a lot of children were interested, they did not show strong attributes that I could use, so their curiosity only stayed as a curiosity."

She stared at them all, Takeru not the only one mystified by her words.

"However, when the dark master's defeated the two of them, I had to try a new approach so as not to make the same mistake again. I possessed that girl, to a lesser extent, my first time, and had the four guardians destroy Tapiermon and the dark masters. I did not know then this would have a powerful impact upon them, but ultimately in the end as you all found out with the battle with Meicoomon, they too were casualties."

Takeru noticed Taichi's eyes look away shunning her gaze, frustrated with their loss.

"From there," she said not missing a second, "I became curious about myself in a way I had never noticed before. After the previous experiments had ended in misery I wondered if somehow instead of choosing a child with a certain trait and having them bond with a digimon, I could bestow my own light upon that child and see what would happen," she contemplated. "If I could somehow imbue that child with my light I believed that the tides would turn against the darkness."

Takeru knew somehow this would eventually tie to Hikari, and from what he remembered Hikari telling him, now it all seemed to make sense.

"At that time," Homeostasis said, "I decided to take a huge risk as the dark digimon coming from the dark ocean were becoming even more powerful, King Yggdrasil, a nightmarish entity in that dark ocean constantly attacking, a holder of Terrormon's power giving me such an example of trouble. Even in his sealed condition, it could not be helped he was causing so much damage," she explained.

"I realized that even using children and their positive attributes, that alone could not permanently destroy the darkness. So, in order to see if I could somehow use my own attribute, light, and fashion it to a crest to a human in that world, I thought it would be the best chance for victory."

"Even as the dregs of the dark ocean clawed to the Digital World I still listened to your world for quite some time monitoring conversations and extreme emotion for years on end, just waiting for one, and only one human that could be worthy of me. As I waited, I learned how truly selfish and dark human hearts could be," she mused. "I heard terrible things, loving things, but I still could not find my vessel," she said. "After listening to mankind for awhile I started to wonder if the darkness would take over the digital world after all, but it was not to be," she smirked.

"Then, providence came. In a late hour I listened through a monitor about a strange situation that instantly beckoned me towards a child. I listened in as a young mother kept weeping over and over calling her daughter 'Hikari'; a name, the same as the crest I had refashioned from my power. I instantly became fascinated, drawn to this child whom I did not even see," she said, her voice raising a bit higher as if excited to remember.

"I found out the child had just passed away, however, I did not yet know if her soul had left her, so I took a chance. I left my position as the digital goddess of this world and let my light fill this child. Life returned to her, her body reacting to me, pulling the light from me desperate to survive, and, though the heart beat had stopped, the soul had not left her, so I let her have my life force, and she became a part of me. I knew then that, this child, Hikari would be my ultimate trump card," she concluded.

"You saved her?" Taichi wondered, Takeru staring at her, his heart stirred as well. "Even when she was just born you were looking out for her?" he asked, tears welling up in his eyes. "I thought for sure Hikari was dead when my dad came out and shook his head," he said wiping them from his face. "But you, you saved Hikari Homeostasis," he said coming to terms with her. "Please, forgive me for ever thinking wrongly about you. I did not know you had been dealing with all of this," he said squeezing his fist as if frustrated with himself. "I may not have agreed with you a lot of times, but I am grateful you saved my sister," he said.

Takeru also walked up to Homeostasis and grabbed her hands with both of his. "Even though you've used me," he said, "Thank you so much for saving Hikari. You may have just thought of us as your tools, but you ultimately tried to do what you thought was best. That's almost a human attribute," he said cheerfully

Homeostasis looked at Takeru and Taichi a bit shocked.

"Human?" she said aloud as if confounded by them.

"That's right," Sora confirmed. "And it's because of you we were able to meet our digimon partners and develop such special bonds which helped us out in our own lives to."

Koushiro nodded his head affirmatively. "I guess you could say our meetings were mutually exclusive!"

She looked at them all strangely. "What is this?" she said. "You aren't digital data, so why do I feel as if I have a connection to all of you? I only care about saving the digital world."

"I think the answer is obvious," Mimi said. "I think it means you want to be friends with us?"

"Friends?" she said allowed. "How absurd! A digital goddess only serving the interests of the digital world becoming friends with her tools..." she said amused. "...Talk about playing with your toys."

"But really you've changed," Joe added. "You used to be so impersonal, unrelatable and we could not tell for the longest time if you were an ally or a villain. Especially with what happened to Meicoomon."

She stared at them all especially Yamato and nodded her head. "That was an unfortunate necessity. Evil digimon cannot be allowed to run unchecked."

Takeru noticed Yamato walk forward staring her in the face differently than before. "My crest is friendship," he said. "You took an attribute of mine I did not know I even had that been my biggest weakness and let me turn it into my biggest strength. I now have more friends than I care for, and the best digital friend I could ever ask for. So, thanks," he said slightly bowing his head, standing up and looking away, Takeru knowing how uncomfortable it made him.

Watching everyone's reactions somehow brought Takeru a strange peace within. All hostilities with her had somehow just ceased to be. Sure, she was still planning to use him and Hikari for her purposes, but, for a goal such as hers, what was wrong with that? He could not let the dark ocean sweep over the world, pulling everyone into darkness. He had to let her use him, even if it caused Hikari and Patamon suffering.

Takeru looked at Homeostasis and walked forward to her, putting her hand on his chest. "Ok," he smiled. "After all that, I think I can trust you now, though I still disagree with some of your methods. So, please, remove it quickly," he suggested. "I don't want to die a slow painful death," he winced.

He knew all eyes were on him, aghast he had said those words. Even though Yamato and the others were protesting, he had to help. No, he had to protect his friends, the digimon and his love, no matter what it cost him. Others had sacrificed so much for him; Both the others, their partners, and all the digimon and digidestined that fell in battle. Now he had to sacrifice himself for their peace.

Akama Akajirou leapt from building to building, following a trail of darkness he could sense from one of the digidestined.

"It's her," he winced, ignoring any pain he had previous felt from their previous encounter. "Once she's gone, my vengeance will be complete. I cannot pass from this world without avenging you Courtmon!"

All eyes stared at Takeru, many of the Digidestined getting emotional. They did not have to tell him about Hikari or his parents. This was something he knew he had to do, and no one else could stop it. And, if the darkness was finally defeated Hikari could go back to living her life, albeit painfully without him there. Homeostasis stared at him straight on wanting to confirm his response.

"Are you sure?" Homeostasis asked.. "Once I release the Digital Record, your data will forever be lost since we are not in the Digital World. You are not originally a part of the Digital World so a reboot would not save you."

Takeru felt an incredible sadness well up within him, but Patamon and Yamato and the others and especially the face of his beloved Hikari brought him to make his decision, noticing Hikari's hand retreating back over her heart as if she somehow had taken control of herself again.. He grabbed hers holding them, tears falling from his face.

"I'm glad I was able to meet you; to love you, to cherish you Hikari Yagami," he said kissing her cheek. "You can have all of my hope now. I give it to you."

He smiled at Hikari, wondering if maybe one day they would ever meet again. In this life, or if their was one after. He would find her again, maybe even by destiny.

All of the others started to rush toward him, but Homeostasis pushed her hand against his chest, Takeru feeling as if something had been unleashed.

He staggered back to his knees, falling on the ground, looking up, a single tear falling down Hikari's face.

"Hikari," he said amazed, tears pouring down his face, overjoyed to see her one more time and felt himself give way to an unrelenting force collapsing to the ground.