Salva Nos
Episode 23 - Point of No Return
by Ajora Fravashi

What has gone before: Some people escaped the attack by Amaterasu on the Kyoto convention, others didn't. Others had to wait outside while Koshikidake died from within, and the dragon in the south awakens.
Note: The previous chapter was edited to include new sections a few months ago. Please go back and reread if you haven't already. ALSO! This was planned back in the early 2000s, well before today's politics, and is heavily influenced by Jeremiah and Babylon 5. Please keep that in mind.

With her mother now safe on Toge Island, Takato shuttled off to Hiroshima Castle, her people returned from the Higashine work camps, and Hirokazu gladly handing command back to her, Ruki allowed herself a little rest. She had taken the time to process Kenta and Renamon's various reports, reviewed what work remained for her, and chose to lean back in her leather executive's chair and let her mind wander.

The jasmine tea that had gone cold in the mug on her desk was the last of a shipment from Ryukyu. Ships were going missing somewhere between the Amami port in Ryukyu and the port town of Sukumo in Shikoku, and Osaba was starting to feel the pinch of reduced resources. She had a probable cause, too: the Empire was growing bold now that Amaterasu was no longer a viable power. Taking out the trading ships was a clear act of aggression against the Ryukyu Kingdom, Osaba, and Iwakuni. Perhaps the Empire was choosing to strike before Ken's alliance became any stronger. She doubted that Ken was aware of the situation, as he was still in Higashine. It was something she would have to bring up. But first, she needed more than just the fact that a couple of ships went missing.

Reluctantly, she pulled her feet off the desk and rose to review her attire. She would need to swing by her quarters, first. Renamon's blue eyes glinted from the shadows in a motion that Ruki had learned to identify as her trying to catch her partner's attention without being overt about it. "Renamon, I'm going to go visit with the cheerleaders. Keep an eye on things here."

Renamon's head dipped in acknowledgement, and Ruki left to exchange her hole-riddled t-shirt and patched-up jeans for a more presentable button-down shirt and dark slacks. It was too warm a night for the blazer, but she shrugged it on anyway. Normally she wouldn't have bothered, but the cheerleaders' building was only a few blocks away and the madam had a thing about aesthetics.

She left the guards with instructions and went out the back gate, and the peacock blue paint on it flaked under her touch. Something else that needed to be addressed when there was time. There never seemed to be enough time these days. At least there was light, and it burned an orange-yellow at the street corners they hung over. The solar panels the Lighthouse Keepers had guided her to were working like a charm, and her geeks worked with Iwakuni's to wire them up at the most populous neighborhoods in short order. There were lights in some of the apartment buildings again; the red brick front of the Kusunoki Lions apartment complex that she walked past was lit up from within and the smell of roasting vegetables and boiling noodles wafted from an open window. It housed an even mix of the geeks and her posse and the families they'd created over the years. Save for Airu's house and the protective wall shielding it from view, the quality of the buildings diminished the closer she got to the ferry dock and park-turned-marketplace situated along the Ota River. Something else she would have to address. Then, finally, she came to the triangular block that housed both the brothel and the apartments the cheerleaders occupied when they were off work. The one house on the block was reserved for Airu's oiran, her most elite women who had enough prestige to reject clients at will.

The brothel's main entrance was through a former French restaurant that occupied the ground floor of a five-story apartment building. Airu had had several of the storefront windows papered over with a thin rice paper that protected her clients' privacy while still allowing shadows to insinuate. To Airu's credit, she kept the exterior a tasteful blue-on-white despite her taste for eye-searing pink. The sign that read "Suzaki Pleasure House" was black ink on a pink traditional lantern that hung outside the entrance, and it glowed brightly in the dark. She could smell food being cooked inside, because Airu preferred to cater to all pleasures and the brothel doubled as a pub. The interior was dimly-lit, and red accents were almost black against the white that plastered the walls. Orchids and lilies hung from the window lintels, and sprays of red carnations and poppies were at the center of each table. A few clients ate around the small round tables, ignoring everything but their food. A couple of guards lingered in the corners, and it appeared that the other two were on patrol. The sex workers awaiting clients lounged around a table towards the back, and all but the tayu and oiran wore garish pink and orange cheerleader outfits. The higher-class workers, the tayu and oiran, wore more subdued kimonos. A couple of them even played enka music on traditional instruments. One of the tayu looked up at her, and she gave a barely perceptible nod. That one she had business with later.

The maître d'hôtel was Airu's daughter, of sorts. She was an orphan born after the fall of the old world and adopted for her accounting skills, whom Airu had taken a liking to and was training as her second-in-command. She sat on her high stool at the reception desk and oversaw all proceedings, and very little escaped her notice. Unlike the sex workers, she was dressed in a somber, navy-blue business suit and her long black hair was pulled back in a tight bun that made her look older than her fourteen years. The one mark of her employment was the eye of a peacock feather pinned to her lapel. Her sharp brown eyes settled on Ruki immediately and softened with recognition.

"Why, good evening, my lady," the girl said. She leaned forward to whisper to Ruki. "Will you be wanting your usual?"

If nothing else, the girl was discreet almost to a fault and kept the clientele's various proclivities and preferences to herself. In a few years, Ruki would have to see about making a better offer than Airu for the girl's skills. "Business first. Is Airu available?"

"She's in her office. I'll have the chef fry up some tempura for you." The girl made a note in her ledger and waved her to the back. Ruki slipped her a small box of chocolates for her discretion. It had been a pain to import the raw cacao, and a bigger pain for her compound's chef to learn to process into edible chocolate, but it was worth it.

If Airu had been restrained in her decoration choices for the public front of the brothel, she let herself go with her office. There were brightly-colored stuffed toys sitting on every surface, pictures of kittens and overly cute anime figures taped on the canary-yellow walls, and a disco ball hung next to the ceiling light. The disco ball scattered the light it reflected from Airu's candles onto every available surface, tinting everything the light fell on with flecks of golden glow. Suzaki Airu herself was reading some trashy romance manga or another as she slurped down her miso soup, dressed in that blinding pink she favored and looking like she'd had no intention to move any time soon. The glare Airu shot Ruki confirmed her suspicions, but she went ahead and settled on the velvet-upholstered couch anyway.

"Got some time to talk business?"

Airu set her spoon and manga aside and drank down the rest of the soup, then moved to pour a cup of tea for Ruki. She accepted it with a mumbled "thanks" and sipped. "Whatever it is, I'm not responsible."

If Ruki had been here to address some slight or issue someone had with the brothel, she wouldn't have believed Airu's words. As fluff-brained as Airu might appear sometimes, she was a master with traps of every kind. Mind games were practically her bread and butter, and Ruki appreciated that enough to be wary of their meetings. "Different business. When things settle down at the Rocky Country, I'll be heading back to continue my work."

"It's a gamble." Airu watched Ruki as she sipped her tea, and her brightly-painted nails drummed out her discontent on the worn-down wood of her desk. "What makes you think the other powers are going to want to try again after what happened?"

"Since the Ryukyu Kingdom organized and consolidated, they've been our best source of goods from China and southeast Asia. The king has always been a fair and reliable trading partner. That his ships have gone missing is an early warning that the Empire is on the move. We've both heard the rumors that come out of the Empire, and it's in everyone's best interest to consolidate our power and defend the front lines should the Emperor decide to move against us." Ruki took a moment to sip and consider what followed. Revealing too much to Airu was always a risk, but in this case, they had mutual interests. After all, the bulk of Airu's business came from the docks. "I don't want to be caught off-guard."

Airu watched her carefully, and Ruki could almost hear the gears going inside her head. She would try to find any way to benefit from anyone's misfortune, which Ruki could appreciate on a purely theoretical basis. On a personal basis, Ruki misliked having to be on her guard all the time. "Let's say this coalition gets off the ground. How do you expect to fight an empire that was only waiting for the right time to expand? No one is trained for a war, not anymore. The Empire has been organizing for years, to the best of my knowledge. How are you going to get a bunch of conflicting interests organized enough to challenge them?"

And that was why Ruki swallowed her pride to talk to Airu and put up with the madam's quirks; Airu could find holes she overlooked. "I give them good reason to consolidate under one flag. Terror has always been a good incentive. Which is why I'm here. I need any sort of evidence your cheerleaders can find to present to the upcoming meeting. Bag me an informant, if you can. Anything that can help my argument."

"Sure." Airu gave an exaggerated shrug that made the sequins on her bright pink blouse sparkle in the candlelight. "But only because what I do hear about the Empire scares the shit out of me. I'll meet with the ones I trust and let you know what we find. You'll offer safe haven to any informants that may step forward, I trust?"

"That's a given. Thanks."

Tacky costume bangles clinked together as Airu stuck her hand out for her payment, because she would never meet with anyone without payment. Grudgingly, Ruki reached into a pocket for the ring she had Teppei reshape to Airu's size. Ruki was pretty sure the stone in it was a diamond, and pure greed glinted in Airu's eyes as she snatched it up. Airu turned it this way and that under the candlelight until she was satisfied, then slipped it onto a finger. "Always a pleasure doing business with you."

Whatever Ruki might have said was interrupted by the girl, who entered Airu's office with the tray of vegetables tempura. Before the girl could bother herself further, Ruki rose from the sofa and took the tray herself. "Goodnight, Airu. I trust that will cover tonight's expenses?"

The titter that followed was almost obscene in its insinuation. "Darling, you're always welcome to partake of all the pleasures we can offer. On the house. Goodnight. Don't run my treasures ragged, now."

Ruki congratulated herself for suppressing her instinct to roll her eyes. Had she not had one last bit of business to conduct here, she would have gone home and taken the tempura with her. But she nodded to the cheerleaders she knew as she entered the stairwell at the back of the former restaurant, which took her up to the apartments. The seventh door down from the first flight of stairs had an orchid tucked into the door knocker. This she plucked as she opened the door and entered.

The tayu who used this apartment was a pretty, quiet young woman who called herself Jauzi. Whatever her real name was, she never told anyone. Her skills as a listener and a practitioner of traditional Japanese music had earned her the rank of tayu, and her grace cemented her position. She sat on a floor cushion as she plucked away at her seventeen-string koto, and the colorful kimono of her trade almost dwarfed her. The room was decorated as traditionally as it could be, considering that the original floorplan was Western in design. Ruki was sure that the flower arrangements that accented the room meant something, but she'd never learned ikebana. Jauzi barely acknowledged Ruki's presence, and did not speak until Ruki locked the door and joined her on the tatami-covered floor.

"It is a lovely evening to be out," Jauzi began, her fingers curling together in her lap as she paused in her playing. "Will it be business as usual, my lady?"

"I'd like my report, first. Tea can come later."

The fingers returned to their places on the koto and began plucking away in some traditional song Ruki couldn't possibly identify. Jauzi's soft voice took on the intonations of a song, but the words were crafted to relay the critical information Ruki needed from her finest spy. "My good mistress has yet to break her agreement with my queen, to her credit. We flowers prosper under her, despite her. But all is not well in the fields flung afar, and there is discontent. Others wonder whether this union will be beneficial to all, and they will bring discord to the chorus. The birds tell this humble girl that serpents will be sent to instill further discord. My queen would do well to be wary of these creatures' silver tongues. The fish tell this one that he who would be the sun continues to force the willows into ill-fitting molds. The willows are too bent from the strain; few would dare to leave."

Jauzi's voice then segued into a real song, leaving Ruki to nibble on her tempura and ponder the meaning behind her symbols. If she understood correctly, she could expect the Empire to send one of their agents to the upcoming coalition meeting. Winning over the Empire's denizens wouldn't work, they had been beaten and bowed under the strain of their work that they would be too terrified to abandon the Emperor. But Ruki knew people, and she knew that there would always be malcontents. "Surely there must be some resistance."

"Like mice in the field, they are wary," Jauzi replied in her song-like intonation. Her fingers never strayed from the koto's strings. "Should my queen whisper promises she can keep, perhaps the mice will come out from hiding."

"Then tell your fish and your birds that we will protect those mice that come forward. But take care not to let those words fall into the wrong ears. We'll need all the allies we can get, especially on the inside." Ruki, finished with her tempura, set her chopsticks aside and caught Jauzi's eyes. It caused the tayu to pause. "Airu has been instructed to keep an ear out for potential informants and to extend a hand to shelter them, but she won't hesitate to protect herself first as soon as she gets the first whiff of danger. Keep an eye on her for me."

A thin, graceful smile appeared on Jauzi's face, and she removed the plectra and folded her hands in her lap now that their business was mostly concluded. "I always do, my queen. Would you like some tea?"

Ruki nodded, and Jauzi got up to prepare the thin green tea they would share. As the tayu busied herself, Ruki slumped and hoped that Ken appreciated the work she was putting into protecting this dream of his.

.*.

There was too much going on, even two weeks after the prisoners stepped out of the tomb that Koshikidake had become. Ken hadn't authorized the liberation of Higashine, and he couldn't pin down his generals long enough to get a status report. While he was proud of the fact that they could function without him, a small part of him wished that they had told him their plans, first. Yet Taiki and Daisuke were a highly effective team, Jialin and Sora managed Iwakuni well enough without him, and Manami was already telling people what to do the moment she was freed from Kurata's work camp. That the management staff of the work camp surrendered without argument was astonishing, and moreso was the fact that the priestess, Hikari, had managed to talk them into it. She had turned out to be a highly skilled negotiator, and Ken put her name on the list of people to ally with. Not that he had to time to meet with her.

At some point before Ryo returned from setting up Rumiko in her new island home, Jianliang seemed to have abducted a girl and fled. Osamu claimed ignorance the few times Ken could find him alone and Juri made herself scarce. Upon his recent return, Ryo simply smiled at him and said cryptic banalities and derailed Ken by turning the conversation onto his welfare. That everyone that Osamu associated with seemed determined to keep Ken in the dark bothered him deeply. When Ken finally tracked his brother down again, Osamu was planning out the scrubbing of Koshikidake with his limpet. At least they were talking business.

"—That said, I think we should only employ digimon who haven't been in the real world for this. It may not be prudent otherwise, if you're right about the long-term effects of real world physics on them. This virus hasn't been observed jumping species yet, but I don't want to risk it in light of—"

Ryo straightened when Ken entered the tent, which made Osamu look up from the tea he was leaning over. There was no reason for them to be sitting next to each other at a folding table, yet… "What's that about digimon? I thought the portal to the Digital World was closed."

Osamu looked like he'd sucked a lemon, which he usually did when Ken asked something he didn't want to answer. The welcoming smile Ryo plastered on the moment he noticed Ken's presence fell away to something akin to uncertainty. His hand went up to rub at a large quartz crystal pendant in something Ken could only guess was a nervous gesture. The two glanced at each other for a moment before one of them finally cracked.

"The Digital World is… unstable right now," Ryo began. There was something odd about his right eye. It didn't quite focus on anything. His thumb worried at the pendant as if it had all the answers. The crystal itself was strange; the surface was clear down to a few millimeters, but at its center was a black shadow that seemed to absorb light. Sometimes the shadow looked like it moved, but that was probably just Ken's overworked mind playing tricks on him. "In the interest of letting it stabilize and integrate, the portals were closed to keep certain unwelcome individuals out. Two of them have been taken care of, but according to reports, one may still be at large. No one knows for sure because the collapse resulted in too much destruction for anyone to make an accurate assessment. More to the point, no one from that world remembers anything. The only things to go on are legends."

That only opened up more lines of inquiry for Ken. Remember what? What did he mean by 'unwelcome individuals'? How did Ryo gain access? But he would have to keep on track, because he knew Ryo and Osamu would redirect him if they could. "Right. Now what was that about using digimon? And species jumping?"

"Koshikidake has equipment I need in order to continue my work," Osamu began in that authoritative tone of voice, "and I won't be able to complete Rumiko's small molecule anti-genomic treatment without it. I'll need either digimon or a properly trained task force to help me decontaminate the place."

Ken was lost on 'small molecule', but he did understand decontamination procedures and the need for them. "I can get a team together."

"I'd rather not risk it. The digimon will be safe because the virus will have no cell receptors to attach themselves to. All they'll need to do is remove any remaining bodies, disinfect the equipment I need and bring it out, and sit through quarantine until they're cleared to return to the Digital World. We can do a complete decontamination later." It all sounded so reasonable and perfect coming from Osamu. Ken had learned not to trust reasonable and perfect. Something would always go wrong.

"At least see to it that they're supervised."

"Of course." Osamu glanced at his companion and his expression softened. "Ryo, if you'll be so kind? I'll give you a list of what I need later."

"As you wish." Ryo got up and excused himself, and Ken was left with his brother.

He didn't quite know what to say now that they were alone. They barely said anything to each other in prison, though that was mostly because Ken spent his time unconscious and recovering. After the dust settled in the aftermath of the genocide and their release, it seemed like Osamu was deliberately avoiding him. The silence stretched until Osamu finished off his tea and started getting up himself.

"Are you going to come back to Iwakuni," Ken asked at last. "Your room is still available."

Osamu shrugged and studied the leavings in his teacup. "Perhaps. I don't know. There's too much to do now that I don't have to sneak behind Kurata's back. Completing Rumiko's treatment is paramount; if it can cure her, it will be a model for any other outbreaks."

"You can do all that at Iwakuni. There's enough space." Ken wished his brother would look at him. It felt too much like Osamu was hiding things again.

Osamu finally looked up and studied him instead. He looked exhausted, like he had been running on fumes for years. It wasn't so obvious in the artificial lighting of Koshikidake, but in daylight the shadows under his eyes were apparent. There was white in his hair and the lines of worry and concentration permanently notched between his eyebrows, even though he was too young for either of these elements. He was too skinny and pale, and his skin drew tight over bones and sinew. But the fierce, almost blinding intelligence still resided in his eyes, and Ken supposed that had to count for something. "When there's time. I need to touch base with the research group in Hiroshima, first. If I am to return, it should be made clear to everyone that I will never take up command of Iwakuni again. Under no circumstances will I abide any attempts to undermine your authority."

Something inside Ken deflated a little at that. Perhaps he had hoped that Osamu would come back and take all responsibility off his hands and let him live like a twenty-something kid was supposed to. But he remembered how burned out his brother was towards the end of his rule at Iwakuni. "You were working on this thing while you were still in command, weren't you?"

"Among other things, yes." Osamu's thumb rubbed along the rim of his teacup; it was an echo of Ryo rubbing at the pendant. Ken wasn't sure if his brother was even aware of what he was doing. "I can't do it again."

Suddenly Ken was nine years old again, playing at being king while Osamu worked himself to death in the effort to live up to all the expectations placed on him. While he was caught up in his own self-pity, Osamu had cut off most of his friends because he didn't have time for them. His brother had always been working for something Ken never understood, and it never showed more strongly than it did now. His brother should be tall and healthy and better off than him, not this shell of a human being. Moments passed in silence as Ken tried to think of some way to get his brother to stop, if just for a little while. The only things that came to mind were the people who should be facing repercussions for their actions. However… "Jianliang and Ryo were working for you, weren't they?"

Osamu watched him with those too-sharp eyes in the effort to figure out his angle. Then, seemingly satisfied, he shrugged. "For the most part. I trust them to do what needs to be done without my input."

"Come home and rest for a week, and I'll overlook everything they did for as long as I can." He didn't want to. He wanted to lash out at them for hiding Osamu's continued existence from him, for working behind his back and telling him nothing. He wanted to imprison them both for betraying his trust and let them rot. But if he wanted his brother back in his life, some sacrifices had to be made.

The first answer was a sigh of concession. It was followed up by an almost palpable tension that drained from Osamu's shoulders as they slumped in defeat. "Very well. I suppose I can send the data ahead to Hiroshima. My hypothesis has survived several computer tests so far; the next step is to develop the drug itself and test it against living samples of the virus."

"Which you can do once you've rested." Ken tried to use that tone that brooked no argument, but it sounded almost childish in his brother's presence. "I'm sure it's all very clever and I'll be duly impressed when you explain it to me, but it can wait."

The smile his brother gave him was wan, which was probably the most he could manage. "Fine. Go do whatever it is you need to do and let me stare at my tent until you have a helicopter ready for me and my partner."

Ken's eyebrow quirked at Osamu's choice of words, but he chose not to address it. He had too many other things to worry about, and he excused himself to attend to them.

.*.

In the aftermath of Koshikidake's fall, Juri made every effort to keep her contact with anyone else to a minimum. In her darkest moments, she preferred to be alone. Sometimes she sat with Osamu and let him bounce ideas off of her, and she tolerated it because he understood her. He said nothing about the fading rows she had raked into her arms during the quarantine; he'd merely looked them over and gave her a lotion to soothe the remaining inflammation. At least he had his work to distract him from his personal demons.

The remaining rows in her arms were why she wore a long-sleeved blouse in the muggy heat of July. Once people found her again, she agreed to help facilitate the processing of Koshikidake and Higashine citizens. Ostensibly it was because they knew her as one of their own, and she did appreciate the logistics behind appointing her and Mrs. Yamaki to the task. It didn't mean she resented it any less. Still, it gave her something to do, and that counted for something.

Having a task to do didn't stop her from folding on herself in a small corner, though. It was exhausting being around normal people, which was perhaps why she had never really dated anyone in earnest. She was sitting in an unused room in the courthouse the Iwakuni forces had appropriated for processing, her arms curled around the knees she brought to her chest, when she saw Takeru pursuing someone down a hall and asking about his parents for the hundredth time since she met him. Though Juri was tempted to leave it be and let him follow whatever false leads he might find, she got up and left the room to track him down. It was unkind to let him run around like this. Perhaps it was equally unkind to put a stop to this, but at least he would have an answer.

Finding Takeru again wasn't difficult. He was tall, gangly, and a natural blond. She just had to follow the trail of uncomfortable-looking people who had probably deferred from saying anything definite. She found him upsetting a little old lady who had once been worth billions of yen and rescued her as quickly as she could. Perhaps she was a little harsh in yanking on his elbow.

"Come with me," she said as sternly as she could, though she was sure that she couldn't even intimidate a puppy. Takeru only offered up the briefest of physical resistance and gave up entirely when the old woman fled. He followed her to the parking lot where the Ferrari awaited.

Initially she hadn't felt too bad about appropriating the keys when the Iwakuni agents allowed her to go through the key cabinet in the garage at Jinmachi. The spring-green sports car had belonged to a man who died of a heart attack two years before, and it had been lovingly kept up until then. It felt like such a shame to let it gather dust, especially when it was in her favorite color. It was like those bracelets Ryo kept bringing back for her; no one was using them anyway. But then no one said anything about her claiming it for herself, except for the mechanic who offered helpful suggestions for vehicle upkeep, and she kept feeling worse and worse about it as people turned a blind eye to her presumption.

Fortunately, she didn't have the time for that right now. She slipped into the cream-colored leather driver's seat of the Ferrari and gestured for Takeru to get in. "You wanted answers. I'm taking you to them."

When finally he buckled himself in, she drove out of the parking lot and towards a place she had worked at for years under Kurata's demands. While she could have sped and ignored what speed limit signs remained, Juri thought it prudent to prepare him for the shock.

"I was found about twelve years ago by one of the foraging bands and I didn't bond with the guy who brought me in, so I was largely left alone." Her refusal to call the man her father had been a major issue, she recalled. At least Natsuko never asked to be called "mother". After the blows of losing her mother, Leomon, and then her father and friends, she hadn't wanted to get close to anyone else for years. Natsuko respected that, and Juri appreciated her acceptance more than she ever knew. "Your parents adopted me about two months into my stay at Koshikidake. Sort of. It wasn't as if they lived together. I just lived with Natsuko, and Hiroaki visited sometimes."

Takeru looked at her like she had grown an extra head. She supposed she didn't blame him, for she did shake his world for a bit. Natsuko told her that both her sons could be prone to clinging to certain ideals. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"You had other things to worry about." She shrugged. That had been part of it, and avoiding drama was the other part. Juri had enough drama of her own, she didn't need to deal with other peoples' baggage and expectations. "That's not important. What's important is that they did try to get out to find you and your brother, but Kurata was busy hounding them for the information they managed to find on the virus. He thought they knew more than they did, and Hiroaki certainly hadn't helped in that respect. Around that time there was another kid they were taking care of, Kanehito, who was involved with the splinter group starting up then. Through Kanehito, they got involved in the first breakout attempt."

"So they're still out there," Takeru said quickly, hopefully. There was even the beginning of a smile. It was heartbreaking, really. She turned in to the entrance road of the now-emptied work camp and the smile fell away. Juri hadn't thought he'd been here before, but maybe he heard something from someone.

"They broke out with the splinter group," she began as she parked the car and got out. Her throat thickened around a lump of bitterness over the memory, and she tamped it away the best she could. It was better if she didn't feel. When he got out, she avoided his eyes and continued, leading the way outside the fence of the work camp as she talked. "I didn't want to go. It wasn't safe and I knew everything would go bad. It always does. I just hid out in a dark corner, so I didn't see what happened. I just know that the escape was only somewhat successful. Your mother escaped with Kanehito and a few others in the splinter group. The rest were captured and taken here."

They stopped at last at a haphazard grave site where the ashes of Koshikidake's unwanted were dumped without regards for the mixing of remains. A featureless slab of some rough, charcoal-grey stone she couldn't identify served as grave marker, and someone had made an effort at decency by setting up a small barrier around it for the funerary slats to lean on. Each slim plank of wood bore a given name that was either painted or hand-carved, because no Buddhist priest had presided over the establishment of the grave site or the bestowing of postmortem names. Juri flipped through the slats as if they were personnel files until she found the one she had painted. Ishida Hiroaki, ?-April 4, 2007. The white paint she'd renewed a couple of years ago, and it was peeling again.

Juri wrapped her arms around herself, feeling empty and chill even though it was hot and muggy and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Takeru's face drained of color and she looked away. "Your mother is still out there somewhere. I don't know where."

He said nothing and simply sank to his knees in front of the gravestone, and Juri didn't know him well enough to know how to comfort him. But surely he should have known that his quest might not be successful, right? She could feel herself dissociating just watching him, and she twisted a bracelet around her wrist just tight enough to keep her grounded. Not enough to cut off circulation or break skin, just enough for her to feel the unyielding metal press hard into her skin. It was almost a relief when she let it go. "I'll be in the car when you need to go back," she said at last, when the white impressions of metal on her skin faded to nothing. When he didn't respond, she walked back to wait for him.

.*.

Things were slowly winding down at Higashine, and Daisuke had even dared to be optimistic about it. They'd liberated the work camps where Kurata sent his enemies, freed what was apparently a butcher shop of a vast human experiment (and for that, Osamu had taken over to guide people on how to handle the surviving contaminated victims and mitigate their symptoms the best they could), more people surrendered than he had hoped for, and Akari was being set up as interim community leader until Higashine could learn how to operate without Koshikidake's puppets running it. When he found Hikari after the liberation of the work camp, he'd felt as if a great weight had lifted from his shoulders. She was a calming influence on everyone, from the occupying forces to the ones who had voluntarily surrendered. An older man, formerly a commander for Koshikidake, had taken a shine to her and followed her around. It wasn't as creepy as Daisuke thought it might be, though perhaps that was because the older man treated her with the utmost respect. It was still pretty weird, but Daisuke expected that. When Tailmon, Taichi, and Agumon arrived, Daisuke wrote off any chance he might have to reconnect with her. Which he was surprisingly okay with, all things considered. They were her family, he wasn't.

It was when the processing of civilians was over and the bulk of Iwakuni's forces started heading home that he'd come across Takeru again. Takeru followed Osamu's assistant (Sato?) around town with that lost look on his face that Daisuke almost didn't remember. It took him a moment, but then Daisuke recalled the smell of burning bodies and grimaced. He told V-mon to head back to camp without him and jogged to catch up with the two.

The woman noticed him first, and for the briefest moment she looked relieved. She paused and turned towards him, and her face became so placid that Daisuke wondered if he had been imagining things. "May I help you?"

Her voice was cool and so professional that Daisuke felt like he was tripping over his tongue. She reminded him far too much of a teacher he had once, not particularly stern but certainly unwilling to go out of her way to be friendly. "Er, can I, um…" He reached out and looped his arm around Takeru's elbow. Takeru's lack of response bugged the hell out of him and his eyes darted back to the woman. "What happened to my bud?"

"Bad news," the woman said simply. Her hand alighted on Takeru's shoulder. "If you need me, I'll be with Osamu." She paused, as if reconsidering her statement. "…I'll be around."

The question of what exactly that bad news was tingled on the tip of Daisuke's tongue, but the woman left before he could find the right words. He bit back a sigh and butted his shoulder against Takeru's. Or at least he tried, and ended up butting with his upper arm instead. The grin might have been a bit forced, but it wasn't like Takeru was paying him much attention. "You thirsty? I scored a bottle of sake from one of the locals. It's that milky stuff you like."

Takeru simply stared at the ground as if he could see something Daisuke couldn't. The forced grin faded, and again Daisuke felt at a loss. He gripped Takeru's arm and stepped in front of him to catch his eye. "Dude, I want to help, but I can't unless you talk to me."

The distant look didn't disappear, not entirely, but at least Takeru answered him. His voice was quiet and rasped and faltered as if it came over the radio from a great distance. "All these years and I never considered that he might have died."

It didn't take Daisuke long to connect the dots, and his heart sank. This quest to find his parents had been Takeru's entire deal for as long as they'd known each other. He had no idea how his friend was going to move on, but the least he could do was be there for him. But first he needed some help. "Damn. Sorry. Let's go find someplace quiet, okay?"

Takeru gave a brief nod and did not protest when Daisuke dragged him along to the Shinto shrine that Hikari and her group were cleaning out. They'd already trimmed the trees and cleared away the weeds, and only a stray dandelion flower remained as evidence of past overgrowth. Taichi, who had taken the watch with Agumon, took one look at the two and let them pass with little more than a sympathetic look. Hikari was guiding the shrine clean-up with gentle encouragements and praise padding the bulk of her orders, and her followers hummed as they swept the floors and polished the wood. A little looking around and he noticed Tailmon napping in the rafters.

Hikari noticed them almost immediately after Daisuke stuck his head into the shrine. She excused herself from her followers and padded to Takeru's side. Her arm slipped around Takeru's back, and her free hand brushed the shaggy blond hair from his eyes. Were he not a better man, Daisuke might have been a little jealous of the concern on Hikari's face. As it was, he was just glad that the disconnect Takeru used to shield himself seemed to have disappeared with Hikari's touch.

"Dad's dead," Takeru said at last. He tried to blink away what Daisuke was pretty sure were tears. "Has been for the past eight years."

Though she looked like she had long suspected as much, Hikari's voice was the spirit of compassion. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry." She stood on her toes the best she could in those geta sandals and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Is there anything we can do for you?"

"Don't suppose you have Patamon with you?" The smile Takeru cracked had no humor in it, and felt more self-deprecating than anything, but it was something. And it gave Daisuke something to do. He peeled off, as Hikari could probably do a better job with comforting than he could right now.

"I'll go tell Ken to get you on the first flight home." Daisuke then turned and ran for base camp, which was in the process of packing up now that Akari was set in place to get the town back on track. At this hour, which was an unfairly sunny mid-afternoon, Ken was most likely to be in the processing center and former courthouse. A little asking around and he found Ken nursing a mug of that willow bark tea of his as he frowned down at hand-written papers.

Ken looked up when Daisuke very nearly tripped over a broken tile and slammed the door against the wall in his effort to avoid a fall. In Daisuke's defence, he did run for several blocks. "Daisuke? Are you okay?"

"I'm great!" Daisuke flashed a quick, humorless grin. "Takeru isn't. He just got some really bad news. Can you spare a chopper to take him home to Patamon?"

Daisuke honestly expected an argument, or for Ken to defer with some excuse or another. He hadn't expected a quick response. "Of course. The next one should be leaving in an hour. Would you like to go with him?"

This time the grin was genuine. "Sure. Thanks. Who are we booting off? I'll go beg their forgiveness before we go."

Ken shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Osamu would weasel out of going back anyway, and his limpet apparently won't go anywhere without his say-so. They'll be happy for the excuse to wait." There was some bitterness in Ken's tone, and Daisuke thought it better to avoid the subject. "Just get Takeru and V-mon and be at the field in an hour."

"You're the best! Thanks!" Daisuke just barely caught the glimmer of a smile on Ken's face before he darted out to find V-mon.

It didn't take him long; V-mon usually hung out with the other digimon, who were making a ruckus playing soccer in the parking lot behind the courthouse. The lot was roped off, but it wasn't like many people had vehicles, anyway. Daisuke wanted to wait until V-mon was finished playing, but he didn't want to be late for the ride home. He waved and somehow managed to get V-mon's attention during the chaos of the game. His partner excused himself and trotted over to Daisuke's side.

"What's up, Daisuke?"

"We're going home."

It was funny, he thought in retrospect, after he collected Takeru and they were waiting for Mizuki to finish her pre-flight checks. He hadn't thought of any place as home for such a long time that he wondered why the word slipped so easily off his tongue when he thought of Iwakuni.

.*.

The month since Ruki's visit to Airu's brothel and pub had been mostly uneventful. For one thing, no one was stepping forward to serve as informant. Jauzi's contacts provided little more than ominous insinuations and innuendo, and Ruki had to refrain from commenting sarcastically that she could get more clarity from the fortune-tellers at market. A tropical storm earlier last month dropped enough rain to flood the river and force the market to move to higher grounds. The storms afterwards were too far away to do much more than drop a couple of centimeters of rain on the area, so life continued as usual.

It was around early August, during a lull in the rainy season, that the local leaders were called to Iwakuni to try again. On one hand, Ruki could respect Ken's demonstration of boldness and trust in his decision to stage this thing in his own home. On the other hand, it was tantamount to foolishness to invite unknown elements inside the safety of Iwakuni's doors. After all, it wasn't so long ago that she'd wanted the Rocky Country's resources for herself. Still, she went along and got an unusually taciturn Takeru escorting her as a result. Given what she learned from one of her chats with Juri, it was to be expected and she refrained from verbally poking him. Much.

Upon arrival, Ruki was assigned quarters for her indefinite stay and ended up bumping into Mimi and her son. She gamely withstood the proud clucking of a mother hen, though she wondered whether it was really wise to have a child sit in on something that was sure to fall apart into heated arguments. And, knowing some of the community leaders the way she did, she was pretty sure that the boy was going to come away with an entirely new batch of colorful vocabulary. It was almost a relief when they filed into the makeshift conference room and she and Mimi sat together in a show of solidarity.

Thirty minutes later, Ruki decided that if someone offered her a chance to go back in time, she would have shoved Tobari fucking Ren into a locker and let him rot. He headed a collection of mountain towns of little more than bandits who controlled the Kan'etsu Expressway and Mikuni Highway going from the Tokyo area to Niigata, and he was infamous for extortion. He argued in defense of his practice of beating taxes from travelers entering his domain, which got Ken falling into the trap of trying to reason with him, and several others dogpiled on Ken once they saw an opening. It was a mess and Ruki was just glad that she decided to reserve her words for a time when they might actually count.

Recess was called two hours into the session without much progress made, and she was already exhausted from the volatile energy in the room. For all that she'd said nothing at all, it felt like most of them were watching her. Frankly, it made her skin crawl. She left the assembly as soon as she could and found her way to Ken's office, which was empty save for Leafmon dozing away on the sofa. He was almost enough of a deterrent for her to consider leaving, but then she noticed the willow bark tea on a hot plate and ditched that idea entirely. It wasn't sake, but it would do.

While she was pouring herself a cup to mitigate the headache from the arguments, Ken walked in and cocked an eyebrow at her presumption. Ruki shrugged and leaned against the shelves. "You owe me."

"Mmm." Ken walked past her to pour his own cup and joined her against the shelves. His shoulders slumped as he sipped. "You've been quieter than usual."

Ruki shrugged. It really didn't seem worth it, not at this point. What she had to say could wait until they were ready. When she got all the words just right in her head. "I'll speak when the time comes."

They lapsed into silence, and at some point Leafmon rolled over in his nap and brought a brief smile to Ken's face. But, as the seconds ticked away, it faded back into the lines of worry that grew more frequent with time. Part of her wanted to whip him into shape, make him angry enough to go back into the arena and fight. The better part of her, however… "Want to know why they're fighting you so hard?"

"You would probably know better than me," Ken admitted.

She gave the barest of nods and pressed on, trying to articulate her thoughts the best she could. The mug of willow bark tea was cooling in her hands, but she ignored it for the time being. "Those of us who rose to power did so on our own, and we've had to fight the entire way while still fending off betrayal, con jobs, and assassination attempts. But we all want the same thing: a better world than the one we grew up in. Something to pass onto the kids. If you've never seen a birth, here's how it goes: it's always messy and almost always painful for both mother and child. There's usually a lot of screaming. If we play our cards right, what is born of this mess can be cultivated into the kind of world you want to build."

The briefest glimmer of a smirk tugged at the corners of Ken's lips. "How long have you been thinking about this?"

"Long enough." Ruki paused to swallow down a few gulps of tea. It helped, a little, but she would still prefer to have her aspirin in pure pill form. Time to switch topics. "My sources say that we should expect someone from the Empire to turn up sometime soon. Your people should keep an eye out."

"Oh, well, I was wondering if things were going too smoothly," Ken said, and she appreciated the hint of sarcasm in his voice. The screaming fits some people had were probably still ringing in his ears. He would be okay.

Ruki flashed him a smile in response and finished her tea. She set the mug aside and gave his good shoulder a light jab. She still needed to talk to Mimi, among others, and recess would soon be over. "Don't worry your pretty head over things too much. You'll be okay. Trust me, I still haven't played my ace."

Ken smiled back, and she left his office with a wave.

.*.

The next day proved to be just as difficult as the previous, and Ken wondered vaguely how long labor could possibly last. And he never quite thanked Ruki properly for that awful mental image. She was still keeping her thoughts to herself even now, and only occasionally had a word or two with Mimi. And Mimi, well… if he was honest with himself, he never expected her son to be this attentive throughout the discussions and arguments. He reminded Ken a lot of Osamu, when they were both younger. And that brought his mind back to his brother.

Osamu had grudgingly agreed to return, but he was seldom seen outside of his quarters. On the few times Ken attempted to see his brother, Ryo answered the door and told him that Osamu was still resting. Or he was doing research and didn't want to be disturbed. Or something along those lines. After a while, Ken gave up and decided that he didn't want to know what his brother was actually recovering from. The more practical side of him suggested that at least he wouldn't have to find quarters for Ryo, and maybe it was better not to ask how long this whole thing had been going on for.

When the gaggle of community leaders returned from their second recess of the day, Ken was already standing in front of his podium with his speech thoroughly memorized. His eyes wandered over them as they settled in; clan alphas bristled with distrust, mayors and governors of peaceful villages watched them anxiously, the guy who made himself a pain early on the day before stood with an almost belligerent air, and the only ones who seemed pretty sure of things were Ruki and Mimi. Ken was sure that they were planning something, but he couldn't possibly guess what it was.

"I know that we all have different views of how to achieve the same thing. I know that none of this is going to be easy," Ken began once they all settled in. "I understand. But in order to go forward, we need to work out our differences. We all bring something valuable to the table that's better shared than hoarded. No other prefecture in Honshu matches Niigata in rice production. Tobari, your Gunma villages are reknown for their sake. Osaba in Hiroshima is currently the largest trade hub in Honshu, and its technological development is accelerating at an unprecedented pace thanks to the alliances Ruki forged with other areas. The best seafood comes out of Miyagi. Through the Ryukyu and Ainu nations, we now have trade links to the mainland and southeast Asia. It is better to pool our resources together than hoard them. With a government in place, we can facilitate each other's growth and, in time, become greater than anything our parents could have hoped for us. We can build a better government, one free of the ghosts of the past. One that is kinder, more tolerant. One that lifts all of us up instead of grinds down the least of us. We won't be able to solve all our problems, but this is a start. Now that we've heard from everyone, it's time to decide whether you are all willing to unite in a new Japan."

Tobari unfolded his arms and stepped forward. He looked almost insufferably smug, and Ken was immediately wary. "Someone's missing. Why? You don't want us to hear all our options?"

"Er, no," Ken managed to say without sputtering. For all his preparations and contingency plans, he never expected this kind of interruption. Had he forgotten to invite someone? "But—"

"You have a visitor. Let him in and hear him out."

With great reluctance, Ken turned to Sora and told her to allow the doors to open for this stranger. As they waited, his sense of danger increased with every passing minute. Tobari was right, after all. He had avoided inviting the Empire, and for good reason. Whatever Tobari was playing at couldn't be good for any of them. In time, they were joined by a tall man who was so well-dressed and well-groomed that he could have walked out of a movie. His shiny shoes clapped casually on the concrete floor as he joined Ken at his podium as if he belonged there. The way Ruki's eyes narrowed at the man was deeply unsettling and Ken wondered if letting him in was a good idea.

"Good afternoon, my friends," the young man said with deceptive self-assurance. His white teeth glinted in the glare of the electric lights, and his hair practically gleamed. "I am Masahiko, emissary for our lord, Emperor Gyouichiro. Our lord was amused to learn of this gathering. We've heard that thanks to such a weak leader, there has been much strife over such tiny details as trade agreements. Our lord sent me to extend his most gracious invitation: join us, and you will be well rewarded. Through hard work, we've made a glorious return to our pre-Apocalypse standard of living, and you and yours can all benefit."

The nagging misgivings that started when Tobari interrupted him grew to full alarm, and Ken had to do something to salvage his position. "How was that standard of living achieved? Through slave labor?"

"There is ample employment for everyone in the Empire," the emissary deflected smoothly. "Even those with no skills and no direction have a purpose under the benevolent guidance of our Emperor. Everyone succeeds."

Ken had to bite his tongue to keep his tone civil, but still he responded. "None moreso than the dictator."

Rather than rise to the bait, the emissary smiled as if Ken was a particularly dense child and continued. "Our lord was blessed by the circumstances of his birth and entrusted by his people to speak for us. With one strong leader, there's no need for this kind of squabbling. Join us, join the Empire, and you gain the Emperor's favor."

Ruki rose at long last, as if this was exactly what she had been waiting for. She strode up to the podium without invitation and stopped before the emissary. Her pale purple eyes stared unblinkingly at Masahiko, and Ken was reminded of a snake ready to strike. "I think it's time for me to say my piece."

"You must be the infamous Queen Ruki." For the first time since entering, the emissary looked almost perplexed. It was gone in less than a second, and his self-assured countenance returned. "Our Emperor has expressed interest in—"

Whatever the emissary was going to say died in his throat when Ruki shot him a look of pure venom and turned to address the crowd. In her tailored black suit accented by a string of tiger's teeth around her neck and her hair pulled sharply back without a strand out of place, she looked as terrifying as her reputation made her out to be. "The Empire offers us a dictator who depicts himself as benevolent, but our trade networks with Ryukyu have been severed ever since Amaterasu fell. This is a threat, and these promises this man makes are empty.

"Like the Emperor, Ken could force us to fall in line. This place certainly has all the firepower he would need for that kind of conquest. What Ken offers are his ideas, not himself. The problem here is that people follow the leader, and those ideas are secondary to the figurehead. For the sake of our people and their children, you must look past the man to the ideas." Ruki pulled a piece of paper from her blazer and handed it off to Mimi to pass around. Upon finding it later, Ken would be reminded uncomfortably of some pictures in Osamu's history books of Mao Zedong as portrayed in propaganda posters. "The Emperor would have you worship him and be too blinded by his excess to see all the broken bodies that support him. Ken is imperfect, yes, and too modest for his own good. But I would rather follow him because he would be accountable to us. Why do you think the Empire's borders have been closed for so long? Because they do not want you to see the reality of what goes on within them. But here, you can go up to anyone who lives here and ask how their day has been, and they'll tell you honestly because they have nothing to hide. I would rather follow Ken and his dreams than follow a man who built his empire on fear and a cult of personality. If you want to leave, then leave. If you want to join me and Ken, then stand and be counted."

The seconds that followed were almost agonizing in their silence. Ken tried not to be anxious, especially as the emissary looked more and more smug, but…

Then Mimi rose, and the jostling of the dangling beads of her kanzashi caught the light and seemed to break the spell Ruki's words had on the others. One by one, the assembly rose to be counted. Two, Tobari and a representative for a clan that ran Ishinomaki, walked away and Ken had to mentally add them to his private watch list. Not that he expected much from them; Tobari's villages were too small, and Ishinomaki was nearer to the Ainu nation than the Empire. Still, it was disappointing to lose anyone. When the rest finally stood, Ruki's intimidating presence seemed to abate and she relaxed enough to say, "Welcome to the new National Diet."

The emissary nodded graciously, though perhaps he wasn't as quick to hide his disapproval as he could have been. He left the podium and retraced his steps, and Ken intercepted him before he could leave the room. "I don't know what you thought you'd achieve by coming here," Ken began coldly, "but your self-styled emperor is not going to win."

"You keep thinking that," the emissary responded with that smugness that Ken found so grating. "Good luck maintaining order. It won't last. This place won't last."

Then the emissary left, escorted by the security guards, and Ken couldn't quite quell the discomfort that had dampened what should have been a cause for celebration.

Notes:

- The oiran were a class of courtesans in the early Edo period, and while they could be sex workers, they were primarily entertainers. Tayu were the highest ranking of the oiran class; they could be exclusively entertainers and were able to reject clients at will. While this system has largely gone extinct in Japan and the niche of the oiran was later filled by the geisha, in SN it gained a resurgence because it is very, very difficult to find a geiko oneesan (geisha matron, sort of) to train newbies.

- Small-molecule anti-genomic therapeutics are broad-spectrum drugs designed to target specific DNA/RNA signatures. While this technology exists in the real world now, Osamu had to figure it out on his own.

- Yeah so I've been really busy and burned out and lacking in drive lately, and the loss of enthusiasm is due in part to tri and in part to feeling like my Digimon work doesn't matter. Sorry.