Warnings: emotional pain, blood

Chapter One - The Blank Pages

"Meiko-chan."

Nishijima Daigo looked at her with disappointment and a frown and she quailed in her seat.

It was 2005. She was in high school. And this wasn't the first time he had looked at her with some kind of expectation and she hadn't matched it, but that was more because she was clumsy. Normally, it had nothing to do with secret keeping or monsters or anything. She didn't even have many friends, though the special children, the children who Wizarmon whispered about in her shadow, did talk to her often and she talked to them. She hadn't found the courage to approach the girl with the cat, and this filled Wizarmon with relief each time she turned back.

(I'm a bit of a coward, he would tell her every time, but she doubted it every time. He wasn't her after all.)

But of course, inevitably, after three years of keeping it to herself despite the many, many times she had seen monsters in real life, she'd been caught out stealing from her Auntie Maki. She'd almost succeeded too, if only Daigo hadn't come to her house. Not Uncle Daigo yet because her auntie was a lot of closed off things and what happened to her parents had happened badly and nothing was letting her feel better. Not the people she spoke to, the medicine she took to let her breathe. Nothing.

"Why did I catch you stealing from Hime-chan?"

Meiko made a face. "I wasn't stealing from Hime-chan," she said with the best eye contact she could muster and trying not to sound like an errant child. "I let her borrow it when I was little and I wanted it back for a bit." By a bit, she meant eternity but three years of lying to her mother about sharing snacks with non-existent classmates and that the stray cats ate the extra leftovers rather than Wizarmon liked her mom's food and was very neat and tidy about it.

He still looked unimpressed. "And why did you come and get it when she told both of us over the phone she'd be working late so I could grade papers in peace and not to come over?"

Meiko let out a sigh. She still couldn't handle him being one of the youngest teachers ever. "Because I thought you'd be late?" she offered. "I really was just going to take it home and bring it back when I was done."

I'm not sure you're helping your case here…

It wouldn't be an issue if he'd just gone through the doorway and gotten it himself. But apparently he couldn't touch things for very long when he did and the book wouldn't go through with him fast enough. So.

I really am sorry.

She wasn't mad at him, not really. Or at Daigo. This was just… very inconvenient. She didn't like things being inconvenient or out of place. Dad didn't like that.

She, at sixteen, was really struggling to understand why he'd bothered to have a child, or work with children. Money or knowledge probably, for his own sake.

That sounded like dad.

Daigo sighed. "All right, fine. I've really got to grade these. But you have to give it back to Hime-chan. While I'm here to see it."

Meiko shrank in her spot. She didn't mind doing it, but the implication here was that she would have to admit she'd stolen the book in the first place, without asking or anything. She… didn't want to do that either.

But this was to help Wizarmon, so she swallowed and nodded. "Okay, sorry Uncle."

His face softened at once, eyebrows loosening and shoulders slumping. "I'm not your uncle yet, Mei-mei."

"No but you might as well be."

Daigo smiled a bit. "Maybe someday. Now scoot." He waved a hand. "I really do have to grade this work and I hate working in the office."

Meiko escaped all too gratefully, book in hand and Wizarmon finally able to open his eyes.

That was terrible, he said quietly, walking beside her in mimicry of her shadow. He usually stayed there or in the shadows of her room, sneaking her books onto the floor to turn them to various pages. Her mother or various family members wouldn't think anything of it. Not that Meiko cared much, everyone had a quirk or two.

"It worked out," Meiko said, a bit of defensiveness in her voice. "We've got the book now."

Which, that it had taken so long was due to her own nerves, digital world… things and avoiding the problem than anything. There had been, in Wizarmon's words, bigger things to worry about than his lack of a body.

We do, he agreed in that genial voice. And that's enough.

Three years with Wizarmon had caused his eternally gentle voice to grow on her. It was a bit monotonous, but it didn't hold a candle to her father. So she could pretend it was fine.

"Now what?" She asked, exiting the apartment building.

Now, he said. We go home and read it.

Something in her heart warmed at him calling her apartment with her mom, home. "That sounds good to me."

Home wasn't far. Home was near the Yagamis, two Chosen Children, and Wizarmon's dear friend Tailmon. Neither of them interacted with her more than a casual passing by in the walkways and at school, which was a relief because those were usually the times when Wizarmon was not with her and she didn't want to be present for that.

Meiko didn't hurry however. It was nice out and Wizarmon didn't get much time outside.

This was her first mistake.

Her second mistake was stopping at the store for ice cream. She got more than two, one was for Wizarmon to enjoy, one for herself, and a few for cousins and their hacking friends. There was supposedly this new wave internet thing in the works that he was working on (or hacking in he was never very specific and Erika hardly talked to anyone anymore, or went outside that closet, or anything. She wished someone would explain what was going on just once.) and it helped him profit off of his internet cafe and it was really neat and Meiko understood none of it. She did understand that every time she brought ice cream, everyone cheered up, so she could do that.

Except, when she got to the building, none of them were in sight. There were a few people at the computers but there always were. None of the blue jackets that she'd secretly hoped she'd get to wear when she got a bit older in sight barring the one hung at a coat stand. The receptionist waved.

"Meiko-chan!" Meiko went to her in response, grinning herself. She was admittedly, a little flush from victory. Soon, she'd be home and she'd have Wizarmon and she-

Well, she wasn't entirely sure what would happen next but she knew that something was hers for the taking, if she just reached for it. That was her hope anyway. She needed something.

Anything.

"Yuri-san," Meiko said, passing her one of the ice creams. "Is anyone in today?"

The woman sighed. "Erika-chan's in her room, but that doesn't mean much. Poor Keisuke-kun's been running around on the net like a bat out of hell. They work their gopher too hard."

And yet she calls him a gopher anyway…

Meiko didn't laugh. "Well, she has a mini-fridge in there, I'll just go ahead and drop these off with her."

"The fact that any of you can go in there and not get your face mauled off by her plush keyboard is beyond me," said Yuri with a soft huff. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

Meiko did laugh at that, if only because that was absurd. Erika? Her cousin? Her moody, fragile cousin? She was more likely to hurt herself first.

She reached the former storage closet and knocked. There was silence barring a whir of monitors and electronics and a suddenly hushed voice.

"Erika?" Meiko began. "It's Meiko. I have ice cream."

Another pause. Then the click of a lock.

Meiko understood Erika's like of privacy. She didn't think locking herself in was healthy though. Then she opened the door and was immediately dragged inside and latched onto, much tighter than usual. "Erika?"

Erika sniffled and Meiko nearly dropped the bag and exploded ice cream everywhere in her haste to hug her cousin as tight as she could before the girl burst into wailing sobs.

"Erika…" she murmured, completely at a loss.

Erika had stopped being a crybaby long ago. The inevitability of her condition, the overexertion on her brain, the tension of anything was enough to make her fragile equilibrium fall apart nearly instantaneously if she wasn't careful.

Naturally, this led to Ryuji being a bigger control freak than he had ever been in his life and to have actual grey hairs before the age of twenty.

So to see Erika crying at all, let alone without Ryuji guarding the door like some kind of rottweiler, sent off so many alarm bells, she almost forgot Wizarmon was moving around in her shadow.

"Onii-chan…" Erika was whimpering. "He…"

Meiko's alarm bells got louder and she almost missed the timid little voice saying, "Erika…" from the computer screen. A small set of green pixels was moving back and forth on one of her many monitors.

The girl whipped around. "You were supposed to be quiet," she hissed, walls up, cat mode activated.

The little green thing quailed. "But Erika…" It almost sounded like it was saying "Ewika", which was adorable. "There's another digimon in here…"

Meiko paled. This was not how she'd wanted this to come up.

Apologies…

It's fine, she said before he could feel too bad. We'd have been found out anyway. "Ah… Erika… why don't we start at the beginning? I'll tell you everything and you can tell me everything."

For a moment, the slightly younger girl looked ready to protest, a thick scowl at the ready. But then her shoulders slumped and she looked much too tired to try.

"All right…"

Meiko quickly explained the book, the ghost, the day in 2002 and her offer to help said Wizarmon, but unable to reach Maki very much for the past few years made it difficult, along with her weird hours and general… Hime-auntiness.

"Let me see the book," Erika demanded when she was finished. "I could do this much faster than you."

Wizarmon's form ruffled at her back but Meiko was used to Erika and her general thirst for knowledge and hunger and immediate assumption that she was the smartest person in the room, in a desperation to overcome the brother who acted like he was the most qualified person in the room because he had no brain cells in that hacker head of his.

So, Meiko, who would always cow to her father, did not cow to Erika's general spoiledness. "After you tell me what's going on here."

The girl scowled, but did not cry again. She wished she would. It was probably better for whatever was wrong with her brain. "There's not much to talk about. He wanted to hack EDEN… the full server, the deeper servers, again. Like with Arata-san and Judes or something. Or he's supposed to watch them, he wouldn't tell me."

"He never tells anyone anything," Meiko agreed and Erika nodded, eyes sparkling at being heard. "So…"

"I'm not sure of all of the details. Have you heard of EDEN syndrome?"

"No…? But I only have a regular computer, not one of the touch ones you have."

Technology had changed so much since 1995…

Erika nodded. "Sometimes, when people log into EDEN, their mental data gets disconnected and they can't log back out."

Meiko immediately could imagine it. A whole set of breathing bodies trapped and unmoving and their data lost in the stream of it. "Oh gods…"

"Yes." Erika shivered. "According to Keisuke, Chitose was also down there and he got it and now my brother won't leave his room or log out. He just stays down there and broods. Wormmon's able to go and check on him but that's only because he's too out of it to see them."

That… wasn't like Ryuji. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Meiko saw her jaw clench, her eyes narrow and her mouth open to shortly tell her where to shove her concern. But then she sagged and said, "Keisuke will be back to take me shortly. I can take myself though now. I've been walking much better lately."

Meiko nodded. "Keisuke-kun sounds kind."

"Unfortunately he is and I haven't figured out how to get rid of him."

Her lips quirked as she said that, so Meiko was kind enough not to tease her.

Then Erika held out her hand. "Book. Now."

Meiko sighed and handed it to her, feeling Wizarmon twitch as she did.

She's smarter than me, Meiko told him. She'll figure this out much faster than I ever could.

Yes but… I lost my entire livelihood for that book. You must understand if I… am weary of losing it.

Sure. But I trust Erika and I won't leave until we get it back.

… Thank you Meiko.

Meiko nodded and watched.

"Is that guy telepathic," Erika asked without looking.

Meiko nodded again, noticing her pausing and turning the page from diagrams to paragraphs and back again. "How are you reading that?"

"Wormmon showed me how so I showed them how to hack." Her keyboard on the other side, she was already typing with her right hand as she turned with her left. "The words here, it's in this language called digimoji, which you can basically convert to hiragana and katakana. It's easy to understand once you know that conversion."

Meiko wasn't even going to bring up that explanation skipped how you figured that out in the first place. She liked her ears where they were.

"Are you making a copy of that book?"

"Kind of. There's a reason he got kicked out for having it, right?"

Meiko waited for the response and translated, "Only Wisemon and their line are capable of comprehending the secrets of the Book without devolving to insanity and even Wisemon are suspect to it."

"... Hm." Erika paused for just a moment. Then she shrugged. "I'm not sane anyway. What's the worst it could do, fix me?"

And she went right back to it.

Meiko settled back on the pillows to wait.

She awoke three hours later to her cousin shaking her, face too pale, eyes too wide.

"What?" she managed to say. "What, what is it?"

"I got it," Erika whispered, voice full of triumph. "So I went to check the news, to breathe. It's… It's Auntie Hime and-"

"What's wrong with Auntie Hime?" Meiko burst up, glasses askew, brain aching, a thrumming of guilt in her veins.

Erika pointed silently to the monitor, where the news showed her and four children. She recognized three of them from that day in the tv station. Each of them on oxygen masks, blood trailing into the stretcher fabric. Horror and pain filled her stomach and Meiko almost vomited up her ice cream.

Erika passed her a bucket, freshly cleaned which meant freshly used and she threw up in it at the words,

"Digital Menaces harming children."

"No," she heaved. "No, no no, that's not true that's not what it is. They don't understand."

"Of course they don't," Erika told her, not condescending for once. "This is what humans are. This is what people are. They're different from digimon."

There was something there, something a right minded Meiko would want to ask about. But as she wiped her mouth, determination pooled into her guts. "Erika, let's help Wizarmon. Then we can go to the hospital, hide your stuff. It'll look better."

"Hidden, convenient." Erika nodded. "Help me clean up."

She did, creating an open, if dusty space on a usually fluffy floor.

Erika opened the book. She didn't chant exactly but she placed her hand on the page and ran her fingers over the pages, the lines, the little squiggling lines. Then she started to speak. The air filled with a low hum of electricity, crackling dangerously from computer tower to monitor to wire to storage to things ready to burn.

But nothing burned. Instead, something like the ripping of a page from under her feet tingled down the heels of Meiko's feet and her body began to thrum. A steady beat slower than her heart but faster than the resting drumbeat coursed up her skin in a vibration. Her fingers closed around the small device that had carried her this far these three years.

And power began to rise.

She stared off into space and Erika continued, steady, cheeks flushed with life, with herself was glowing, awash with something great and somehow terrible.

And then with a final tear, the thing that had held her, carried her, tore free.

Then, just as quickly something else, unseen, something you could never see and only try to her, tied back around her, in every cell, in every existence and moment and everything she could have been and would have been and might be. He was not a part of her shadow, he was a part of everything she was and everything she might be and everything necessary in her and was never leaving ever.

And she started to cry the second it was over.

His thin, straw arms wrapped around her from behind, gentle and warm and crackling with something undefinable.

"Thank you Meiko," he said softly. "You saved me."

"Thank Erika," she managed to say through her tears.

Just as he was about to, the ground shook. The world wavered and Erika started screaming.