Hi kits! This is my fic for the Digimon big bang 2016! I've been caught up in switching jobs and moving overseas etc so very very busy, and this fic is nowhere near done. But I said I'd start posting on the 18th, so here we go! I hope you like it and I'll do my best to update weekly. (Although my wi-fi access is a bit iffy for the time being.)

This fic is an AU, virtual game-world type story starring Miyako and Hikari, feat all my other beloved Chosen. It will be Miyako/Hikari in the end. Not telling about any other ships!

A Parade of Butterflies

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp,
but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

- one -

Before First-August, convenience stores liked the I-Mart were often open round-the-clock for travelers on the late bus, night shift workers, or anyone having an episode of insomnia. But these days Miyako's sister Momoe insisted on locking the doors by 7 p. that they could sit down to dinner together by 7:30, potential loss of profits be damned. Now that their parents were gone, she said, now that the world had gone so bad, it was all the more important that they make an effort to act like a family.

Of course, that was back when there'd been four siblings to round up every evening: their only brother Mantarou, Momoe, Chizuru, and Miyako herself. Mantarou had taken off once Momoe made it clear the next time he went on one of his booze-guzzling, bottle-throwing tantrums, she'd sell all his stuff and turn his room into a home spa. Chizuru left too, after a while, taking a job as a hostess in a hotel two towns over. Supposedly she liked it and didn't want to come home. Momoe said that was just because it didn't feel like "home" anymore.

So Miyako and Momoe ran the store, just the two of them — just Momoe, often enough, since Miyako had school. But the Hida family next door helped out when they could, and somehow they managed to make ends meet. Miyako didn't mind whiling away the time selling bags of mixed nuts and cocktails-in-a-can to the smattering of locals who trickled in during the late afternoons. It gave her something to do, and it wasn't like she had friends. Life would be very dull if not for all the delivery men on mopeds, or the dour-faced accountant who bought the same soggy egg-and-cheese sandwich every day, or the chatty middle-aged housewives whose offspring always seemed to be getting married and producing more offspring.

She had a supplemental income from her repair service, fixing computers, helping old grandpas replace their prehistoric VCRs with shiny new Blu-ray players. Momoe liked to knit mittens and winter hats with penguin faces, which sold so shockingly well in her online store "Kitsch is Kool" that they had almost reached cult status.

Miyako jammed on one of the penguin hats when she left the store after closing up. Not because she believed any such nonsense as "kitsch is kool" or "replacing C with K is also kool." Because it was early spring, and goddamn nippy out.

Her hoverboard tremored as she kicked off the asphalt. She got down and gave it a whack it with a screwdriver. Usually that was all it took — damn piece of junk was old, but still recharged fine. Incredible battery life, those older models had. The thing sputtered indignantly, whether due to the whack or because it somehow knew she was calling it names in her mind, but quieted after a minute. Miyako decided to keep the screwdriver out just in case, as a reminder of what the consequences were for delinquent machines who liked to fool around.

She sailed down the sidewalk toward the stadium.

Even from a distance, the beat of the opening music thrummed in the night air, along with the cheers of the audience, somewhere between an ocean tide and the shrill of stormy wind through the trees. Miyako wove through crowds gathered around the outdoor screens to watch the game. Even if it meant she missed the opening, she was going to the stadium.

She hadn't taken into account the security, though.

"Your pass?" A gigantic black-suited tough with a chin three times the size of the rest of his face frowned at her with such intensity she thought he might have kidney stones.

"Pass?" Miyako repeated, intelligently. "Oh, pass! Right. … I'll 'pass' on through then."

A burly arm stopped her in her tracks.

"Your pass."

"Look, I'll make a deal with you," she began. "You let me in, and I'll put together a glowing article about beefy men in suits and what a turn-on their biceps are. My sister's blog is super popular, you'll be swamped with texts on Tinder in no time."

"Married," grunted the tough, threatening her with large balled fist. Oh, wait, he was showing her his wedding ring.

"See? What did I tell you! Who doesn't love toned abs and a manly, uh, monotone voice. I wish I could talk like that. If you hadn't noticed, I'm rather verbose."

His eyes — what little she could see of them from five hundred feet beneath his chin — took on a soft look. "You speak well," his voice boomed.

"Thank! You!" Her face went bright red. "No, really! Very much! This has been very… affirming! I'm touched to my very soul. If only more people in the world were like you!"

She clasped her hands to her chest in a gesture she hoped was reminiscent of someone touched to their very soul, and then very casually tried to limbo under his arm. The stadium towered above like the pearly gate of heaven. She'd made it…

… and then she was back on the pavement, upside-down, defeated. The tough, his mouth now looking less like a frown and more like a battle scar, sent her hoverboard careening after her. The penguin hat followed.

"No pass. No admittance."

"I'm not a fricking balrog, what does he think will happen if he lets me in?" Miyako muttered as she gathered her things. "Seriously, what kind of balrog would go around wearing this hat?"

Of course, she hadn't expected any other outcome. From the start she'd planned to wait by the player's entrance, which was open to the public, since the allure of coming here when she didn't even have a pass into the stadium was to grab a chance at meeting the players as they made their way out. Trying to pull a fast one on beefy Terminator-wannabe security guards had been a spur of the moment, "make your own miracle!" type of whim. Miyako was a whimsical girl. Whims were kind of like her thing (second only to machines). That was why now and then she'd waste money on a lottery ticket. Or risk asking Momoe for money to buy stadium passes. ("Sure, Miyako. And then we'll survive the rest of the year eating shoe leather.")

A handful of other fans of the games were camped around the player's entrance, with the same intentions as Miyako, of course. No one acknowledged her. Miyako unzipped her backpack and took out a blanket and some food. Dinner was miso soup in a hot flask and a couple onigiri nicked off the shelves from the store. She sat on the blanket cross-legged and went online to watch the games on her phone, taking a sip from the flask.

Today the arena was desert-themed, a rugged expanse of sand dunes dotted with saguaro cacti and colorful bursts of Mexican poppies. The Chimeras, Miyako's favorite team, was half-way through a sequence. The Emperor himself perched on his gold-rimmed Wind-disk skyboard, tall and stoic even as the dusty wind beat his deep blue cape, whip raised above his head in dark promise.

Out of the dunes surfaced Tortomon, spiny carapace glinting in the harsh sun. It let out a roar, bloodshot eyes red and furious. A roguish smirk crossed the Emperor's lips — Miyako reined in a squeal. That smirk always meant a monster was about to get trashed.

Not noticing the sign, or not caring, Tortomon charged him head first. The Emperor didn't so much as flinch. With one crack of his whip, Tortomon's bulk cleaved in half, then disappeared in bits of data. Amazing, Miyako thought, sucking in her lip, and yet, how disappointing. Tortomon hadn't posed anything like a challenge for the Emperor at all. You'd think by now the game would understand that a player of the Emperor's caliber was wasted on low-level brutes like this. Of all players on all the teams, he alone fought monsters man-to-man, greeting their rage-filled assaults with his trademark whip. The rest of the players harnessed monsters of their own to battle for them while they searched the landscape for Sacred Items. On the Chimeras, only the Emperor fought, which left his teammates free to collect Sacred Items. It was incredible, how he could destroy monsters in a single motion — no one on the other teams had come anywhere near to achieving such a feat.

"A solid victory for the Chimeras," shouted the commentator over the audience's screeches, "and another satisfied crowd, I'd say. There are rumors online that half the reason people turn out in such numbers to watch the Digital Games is thanks to the Emperor here, fifteen-year-old boy genius Ichijouji Ken. And he's only in high school! Whatever happened to lazy kids who shirk hard work and spend all night playing World of Warcraft? What's with his work ethic? I'm getting a complex. Which do you think would be more terrifying, having to stare down one of those digital monsters, or knowing there are legions of ardent fan girls who wait in line for hours just for your autograph."

Rude. What was wrong with caring about something? Or someone? Even if that someone was a celebrity who wouldn't know her from an apple tree? Besides, it wasn't as if she had a crush on the Emperor. Not that she'd turn him down if he did ask her out… though first he'd probably ask the apple tree.

The desert arena disappeared as the Chimeras flew off on their Wind-disks into the wings of the stadium to turn in their bounty. Soon the scoreboards flashed to show the result:

- One hundred credits
- One full battery
- Three Fractal Codes from vanquished monsters
- Two Digi-eggs

A respectable haul, even though the Chimeras hardly had use for the Digi-eggs. Eggs produced monsters, whose power could be harnessed for battles. Miyako supposed they'd gathered about a hundred by now, unhatched and stored away.

The horn sounded for the next team, who dove out of wings on color-coordinated Wind-disks, putting on a brief show with aerial flips and figure-eights to dazzle the spectators. The song was some dubstep mix, upbeat but forgettable. Miyako polished off the last of her onigiri. A chilly breeze bit at her nose, so she propped her back against the stadium wall and huddled into her blanket.

Midway through the next team's routine, the door to the player's entrance banged open. A girl darted out, white-faced and panting. On her left foot was a walking cast; how did she manage to move so quickly in that thing?

The girl seemed startled, as if she hadn't expected to find the little assembly in the lot outside the stadium.

"Everyone run!" she yelled.

No one moved. She looked around helplessly at the sea of confused faces, before repeating: "Run, now!" And if no one was moved by the urgency in her voice, they were by what happened next: a blast ripped the door off its hinges, sending screaming people running in all directions.

Miyako flung herself behind a pair of garbage bins as the blast kicked up some kind of odd, transient dust in its wake. After a moment she risked a peek out. The girl had fallen to the pavement and was scrambling back against a wall of shrubs. Now she did look afraid, but of what? There was nothing there. The doorway was burnt all up one side. Yet the girl's attention was trained directly ahead as if someone were bearing down on her.

Miyako squinted as hard as she could. The ground was empty, only — for a second she thought she saw — something — an impression, formless, indistinct. Like a ripple in a lake, gone just as soon as it's noticed.

Then the girl managed to find her footing, and ran towards the stairwell. Whatever she thought was after her, it couldn't be going very fast; hampered by her cast, the girl ought to have been run down in no time. Could she be hallucinating? Since she'd been in the stadium, she'd probably been watching the games, which were widely praised for their realistic quality and detail. Maybe the spectacle had simply been too much for her.

Either way, Miyako couldn't watch the poor thing struggle with that cast any longer. So as she rounded the garbage bins, Miyako reached out and grabbed her.

"Yaaaah!" shrieked the girl, and backhanded Miyako across the face.

"Ow?" said Miyako. Hello, tiny girl was strong!

Taken aback, the other girl could only stare like an owl, clearly unprepared for human contact. Miyako let her gather her wits, anticipating her apology. Instead, the girl gripped Miyako's arm and pinned her with a scowl. "Why didn't you run?" she hissed.

The girl was very petite, dressed in a sleeveless floral-print blouse and yellow shorts. Her hair was cropped short, and she wore an airy pink scarf around her neck. She didn't seem to be hallucinating. Her serious eyes were alert and steady.

"You looked like you needed help," Miyako replied, getting to her feet. She grinned. "You're not about to go for a jog with your foot like that, are you? How about I give you a ride?"

The other girl appraised the hoverboard. She shook her head. "No, you go on without me —"

"But my honor!" Miyako was already on the board. "I can't abandon a damsel in distress."

"Well —" She spun around suddenly, gaping at something Miyako couldn't see. After another moment's deliberation, she clambered on the hoverboard behind Miyako. "Alright, but push me off if it's too much weight."

Push her off? Yeah, news of her gallantry would spread far and wide if she dumped some kid splat on the ground. Just what Sir Lancelot would do.

But the the weight issue hadn't crossed her mind. Her board was designed for one and could carry up to 105 kilograms. Miyako weighed about half that, and the other girl looked even more slim. They ought to be okay. Hopefully.

The board stuttered on lift off, but sped to a decent clip in no time. There was still no sign of any pursuer, but the girl at her back kept throwing nervous looks behind them.

"What's your name?" Miyako asked conversationally.

Another pause. "Yagami Hikari."

"I'm Inoue Miyako. So, what are we running from anyway?"

The grip on her waist tightened almost imperceptibly as Hikari craned her neck around. "You can't see it then," she said, sounding wary but unsurprised.

"Nope," Miyako chirped, finding it hard to share her sense of unease. "Is that bad?"

"I'd be more worried if you could," came the answer.

"Okay. How do we shake it?"

"Can you go higher?"

"On a hoverboard?" The board whirred in response, but no matter how psyched up she got, she couldn't defy the laws of physics.

An arm draped over her shoulder, finger pointing to another staircase skirting the walls of the stadium. "Can you get us up there?" Hikari asked.

With no idea what she had in mind, Miyako shrugged and steered in that direction. Balancing while ascending the stairs took extra concentration. She felt the board tremble a little and gripped the rail with one hand to steady them. When they reached the landing, Hikari jumped off and ran to peer over the side.

"Shoot, it hasn't seen where we've gone, but it's still following," she said.

Miyako joined her and looked below with a quirked brow. No one here but us chickens, she wanted to say.

"We'll have to fly. It may give up if we're airborne. Or at least we can tire it out."

"What is 'it'?" Miyako asked. "If something preternatural is going to kill me, I think I deserve to at least know whether it looks more like Caspar or Oogie Boogie."

"Not a ghost," Hikari said, reaching for a long slender object chained up against the wall and keying in the code to unlock it. Miyako couldn't help but stare. It was a pink and silver skyboard, streamlined for speed. And not just a skyboard — it was one of the much-coveted wind-disks. Beautiful, sleek, and peerless on the air athletics market. It made Miyako's little hoverboard look like yard sale scraps. And it was fully customizable. Its nose tapered to an elegant point, and at the tail hung a long white-and-purple streamer that flared out at the tip. The board itself was a single-sitter, but as Hikari jumped aboard and it hummed to life, rising off the ground like mist above water, she held out a hand to Miyako.

"Don't worry. It's sturdier than it looks, and I know how to fly. I left it here when I landed."

Wind-disks weren't supposed to be used outside the tournament arena. You couldn't get your hands on one unless you were a player, or in training to play. Which meant this girl didn't just know how to fly. She was a pro.

All of a sudden, it hit her.

"Yagami Hikari. Not like Yagami Taichi? The Chosen team captain?"

Hikari's face flushed. "Yeah. I'm his sister."

"His sister." Miyako clapped her hands around her cheeks and staggered. "Yagami Taichi's sister. I can't believe it. His sister!"

"Nothing happens if you keep repeating that, you know. I'm not Beetlejuice. Besides, I'm already here. Now get on before we're caught! Those guys can be stupid, but it'll figure out we're above it sooner than we want."

"Um… well I would, but I really don't like heights…"

Hikari gave her a look of shock. "You just helped me run away on a hoverboard."

"Yeah, but hoverboards don't really fly, right? They just… you know, hover around. Nice and calm. And close to the ground."

"You got us up the stairs."

"Please, I was clinging to the rail the whole time!" Miyako laughed with a note of despair. She could not get on that board. No matter how much she lusted after a Wind-disk herself, it just wasn't an option. Her heart thudded in her chest. She swallowed, and made a valiant effort to sound normal. "Just leave me behind, okay?" Why should she put herself through this anyway, when she'd already helped the other girl run away, and when she wasn't even sure there was in fact anything to run from? Hikari had her own ride now, and a much higher quality one than Miyako could give her. It only made sense that here they would part ways.

But Hikari didn't see it like that, it seemed. Her small hand wrapped around Miyako's waist and pulled her on board — and now Miyako knew why she was so damn strong. Cast or no cast, she was an athlete. A player. Miyako yelped as she wobbled, but Hikari just moved her flailing hands onto her shoulders.

"I can't abandon a damsel in distress, can I?" Her eyes danced as she glanced up with a smile. "What about my honor?"

Miyako gasped. Oh, they were going to have words when this was over and she'd been sick on the floor, she thought ruefully, as the Wind-disk dipped forward slightly, preparing for launch. Rays of rose-colored light shot up and around the Wind-disk, forming two orbiting rings that domed over them, at times overlapping each other as they spun with increasing velocity.

"Hold on tight," Hikari said once they were level with the top of the rail, and that was all the warning Miyako got before the wind-disk shot straight up into the night sky.

She screamed. Or thought she screamed. Maybe it was only the death wail of her rational mind. The world beneath her twinkled with streaks of neon and fireworks, like this was all some deliriously fun game. Like the fate of Miyako's onigiri dinner didn't hang in the balance.

"I never heard of a knight rescuing a princess on a Wind-disk," she shouted over the gale, more to calm her nerves than anything else.

At first there was no response. Miyako figured she hadn't been heard, which was just as well, since her brain had turned to sludge. Instead of making chit-chat, she should concentrate on not dying.

"I'm not a knight," Hikari said.

Well, so she had heard.

"Oh no?" Miyako yelled back, spitting a wad of hair out of her mouth. "Then what are you?"

Hikari's reply was difficult to make sense of, between the wind and the speed and their impending doom. But it sounded like she said, "A dragon."