A/N: Sorry guys, but this story just wouldn't let me get away without writing it. Considering it wrote itself in my head, it didn't take all that long either (albeit the first chapter alone came out longer than what I had expected the entire fic to come out as). And since it's short (in terms of chapters: 3), I figured I might as well post it up as opposed to letting it cry on my hard-disk like a handful of other chapters and oneshots/poems (most of which are for my fictionpress account but there are several for here as well). This stems off episode 27: Stuck in the Sakkakumon with You. You know, the episode where Koji and Duskmon fought and Koji fusion evolved? Yep, that's the one, except it doesn't quite happen like that. So enjoy this somewhat ironic twist of events.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I skip the memories on purpose in this one. You know what happens, and it would have ruined the later description. So instead I put in a divider and allude to it rather than plodding through step by step.

Turning Towards Light

Chapter 1 - Apathy

The darkness was cold. Bitter. Unyielding. His eyes, blue and sharpened with years of training under various dojos, failed to piece the blanket and his feet were reduced to taking tentative steps in order to ensure his safety. It was a situation he not only disliked, but feared. Anything could loom from the infallible dark, and they would have the upper hand. They would, most probably, be not only more akin to the black than he, but able to hear the slight whispers of shoes scuffing gently against the floor…even as he tread with utmost care, balls of feet off the ground so that he could react as fast as possible should danger in actuality loom from the unseen depths. It might have appeared to be more advisable to remain in his position, but there were two flaws in that assumption: not only did he hate the feeling of being a sitting duck regardless of the circumstance (it somehow shook him) but it would also dull his response to any threat. And it wasn't like he was going to get anywhere standing still.

His left hand was in his pocket, fingers wrapped tightly around his D-tector. His facial features were set in a definite scowl of concentration. Blue orbs stared uselessly into the darkness, trying to pick out any shape. For a moment, his entire attention was absorbed by the black hole before him, but when something failed to show within the first few minutes, his mind began to wander blindly along with his feet.

There was no almost silent bleep from his D-tector. In this silence it should have been as loud as a gunshot: unmistakable. Karatenmon's data was still being purified them. The scowl warped somewhat as he remembered the sword the other had cast into his mother's death, as if using a darning needle to pick apart the careless stiches of some useless toy. His teeth grinded, loud enough to for his ears to capture and amplify the sound until it sounded somewhat like a dentist's drill, but he paid it no heed. That bird-brain had cut unhealed wounds. He'd sat far up upon the pedestal. He had deserved to be cut down. Even the purification process within his digivice was proving the digimon had been evil to the core. The cleansing of Woodmon hadn't taken nearly as long. Within seconds the data had been screaming for release.

And that fight had barely meant anything to him. It was just getting rid of a problem in his face at a stage where he had barely known the others nor found himself particularly thinking of their well being. Even at this stage, he realised, thinking back to the words he had responded with to Karatenmon's psychological assault, he didn't entirely think of them as his friends. Why else would his subconscious mind yell out for all to hear that he didn't need friends? Either that, or it was the definition of friendship that was undermined. He didn't think so. The only thing that separated friend from family was blood. And he'd plainly said he didn't need either of them.

And if he'd said it without conscious thought, then it must be the truth. His hand tightened his grip on his D-tector as he took another step and remembered his mother's face in the only portrait he possessed of her…and the way his father refused to look at the portrait or him in the eye when the discussion came up. It was one of the things that had forced the rift between father and son; for as long as he could remember, his mother had been dead and his father had done his best to go on with life as if she had never existed. But it proved impossible. Too many people questioned the absence of a mother in the household. Too many people questioned his father's morality; that was one thing he hadn't ever done himself. He knew where his father was for all those hours; when he was young and not at school, he'd stay on the couch his father always got as a part of the office. He watched his father work diligently; so did those he worked with. Others didn't know what they were talking about; the marriage to Satomi seven years later seemed to solidify the belief. But that had nothing to do with their strained relationship. It was all careless gossip: trash to be discarded, an extra burden to carry along high mountains and roughed terrains. But it seemed to be something strapped to his back. There was many a time he wished he had known his mother, if even for a little while so the idea wouldn't be so…fanciful like the mist a child forever clung to. Even better, or worse depending on the perspective, he wished she was still alive and with them. Not often though; nowadays he stared into the photo's face for different reasons.

He took another step, then one more. The darkness persisted, dragging him down like the early morning fog in winter. The cold was odd; it wasn't chilling, and yet it still somewhat chilled him. The air was stale; a rational part of him wondered if it was possible to run out of air, but the black seemed to span on to infinity, so perhaps the chances of that was rather small at all.

One step further…and then he froze as a voice spoke out behind him.

'Who are you?'

The words were carefully enunciated, meticulously emphasised. They echoed in the darkness that before only silence and the warrior of light had occupied…or had this shadow of darkness been present too, simply waiting for the moment he let down his guard?

And he had, Koji realised slowly. His hand was still in his pocket, but the grip was lax. The balls of his feet were touching the ground. There was no way he'd be able to turn around and evolve before a cutting sword came down upon him, ending his life.

But only a coward would use that method, he thought. And whatever Duskmon was, he wasn't the coward his…allies were. Provided one could lump Cherubimon's warriors into the category of "allies" of course, considering the fact that Duskmon had killed Arbormon in their first encounter without the barest hint of remorse.

The wound the carmine sword had left was still present upon his back, although it had faded into a scar, pink with new skin just beginning to firm. It burned somewhat as the voice registered as Duskmon, and the chilling darkness that had spread from the dark warrior as he had clutched his head, repeating his name like a mantra.

If anything, he should be asking the question, not the strange warrior of darkness.

'Tell me.'

The command wasn't as carefully pronounced as the previous statement; it displayed a lax in control. A lax of restraint. The boy's knees bent slightly forward. His heels lifted off the ground. His grip around the device in his pocket tightened.

'Dusk-' he began, using the sound of his voice bouncing off nothing to turn and attempt to evolve…but he had misjudged the other's sight and closeness. A hand snatched his jacket and shirt and yanked him off the ground with little grace, and the D-tector fell from the startled grip to spiral into the abyss below and disappear. Truthfully, it may have only slid a few feet away, but in a world where sight was a luxury he didn't possess, it may as well have been on Pluto. Particularly since he didn't have the opportunity to look for it, dangling an undefined number of feet off the ground at the mercy of a digimon who could probably cut his throat without a care. Coward he may not be; he'd given them more than a fair fight after all, but he was no honourable warrior.

But the fist that held him in the air was trembling slightly. Considering that, apart from gravity, it was the other's only mode of support, it functioned the same as a thinly truncated tree swaying in the wind.

'I need to know…' The words were getting more and more desperate. It was not only bemusing to the unfortunate subject, but frustrating as well to not know the entire story.

'Who-' he began, only to be cut off as the other squeezed harder, sharpened points (nails perhaps?) dug into his chest.

'Be silent!'

That same darkness from before; he could feel it around him. Soothing almost, numbing…It had pained Duskmon, he remembered, but even then it hadn't brought any pain to him as it had burst out. It had numbed the searing pain in his back, letting him embrace the blissful healing sleep called unconsciousness. It had only been when he'd almost tracked Mercurymon and Ranamon to their little hideout that the pain had returned to him. Even now, it was almost caressing, even as it burst uncontrollably from the other. Even if he couldn't see it, he could somehow sense that was what was occurring at that moment.

'I must know. Who are you?'

Something else joined that darkness, making it far more tangible and far less…dark. It was surprising, he noted with some irony. He could suddenly see better; somehow light had entered the tarry, and yet it had felt far better in its absence. Not the darkness he had wandered aimlessly in, but the darkness the other emitted in his own agony. It was something comforting. It was an almost sadistic thought, but there was no denying the blanket of apathy was welcomed, particularly when it was preceded or followed by pain.

Those black tendrils became more visible as the black turned into a lead grey, but they also became sharper, circling around him like claws waiting to tear the tender flesh of his skin and muscle from the framework of bone that held it erect in its position. The next second, they were digging into his mind with a fresh ripple of pain…or perhaps a wave travelling towards its peak would have been a more accurate term, as a ripple dimmed in intensity as it spread from its point of origin. Waves, particularly sinusoidal waves which were pretty much the basis of anything that could be defined as a wave, rose to peaks before sinking to throughs and then rising again. An endless cycle…unless it tapered off at some point and melted into the line one called the origin or the zero-point.

But that moment took a long time in coming. Before that came the memories as the darkness tore apart his mind…and the icy barriers that held all the emotions in check.

His head spun with symphonies of pain rolling down the length of his body. The rest of him was numb, dangling limply in the air before his form was cast aside like a rag doll as the cause of it all tilted his head back and roared.

The warrior of light gritted his teeth; it was not only a reaction to the trembles that ran down his frame but a physical display of the sense of anger and, despite how much he'd have liked to deny it, weakness. He may have defeated Karatenmon, but apparently he had lost the mind-game. His mind had still been reeling from the psychological assault…and now the memories that concerned it all had been thrown upon him, along with the dam he'd so long held in check. He continued to shake as he recalled the blurred face of his mother, her arms reaching for him with tears streaming down her face. It was probably the last time he had ever seen her, he figured. It was almost as if she knew she was going to die, to vanish from his life…to be wiped from the world as a truck ploughed her and their car down. For some reason the wrangled metal pieces shone brightly in his mind: twisted metal, all dulled with age. He knew why; his father had tried to get it repaired. He'd seen quite a bit of it before it went off to the rubbish tip. Then, his father had been clutching his arm as if in pain. The features suddenly looked years older. Their wedding photo, before it was put away to never be looked at again, looked like it depicted two strangers from that moment henceforth.

He always thought there was something to the accident that his father never told him. The almost dead look in his eyes whenever someone brought it up, the way he never made eye-contact with him; he was a kid at that age, and like all kids was in that phase where they and they alone were the centre of the universe. It was somewhat regrettable, considering those years passed with two males under the same roof without a female to mediate them. The truth was, Koji simply did now know how to adapt to his father, who was working at least eight hours a day and rarely home, taking on both roles and suddenly becoming a more dominating part of his life. Considering it was normally his mother filling that role, the natural instinct had been to disobey and Kousei simply had no idea how to deal with that, particularly in a world where slapping or hitting kids for disobedience was rapidly becoming a crime. Whoever made the law evidently knew nothing about the difficulties of parenting. The consequence had left the young boy shut in his room for punishment.

And then there was his father' job to contend with, and the constant moving around. Never long enough to keep friends; he tried the first couple of times, but he was quickly labelled as having an attitude problem and the few friends he managed to make were quickly lost as he attracted more than his fair share of trouble. The couple that persevered disappeared into smoke when he moved again; they'd call each other a few times and then that would be the end of their friendship.

It was when he was six that his father got him a pet dog, and then that was pretty much it. A man's best friend; his only trusted confidant, filling in for the gaping hole in his life. He poured out all his troubles to the playful pup, and he didn't need human contact after that. The father figure basically became someone who kept the rules and ran the house. Classmates were simply an inconvenience that had to exist for there to be a "class". People continued to whisper, how cruel fate was to turn a child so lonely and cold, but they didn't know what they were talking about. Kittens butted his feet sometimes. He let them. Birds always flew away, even when they came later to nibble out of the hand of someone else his age. Who cared, really? He had everything he needed to survive. But he'd locked away his earlier self, the boy crying for his mother and clinging to the worn scraps that had taken her. The boy giving his father a hard time because neither of them knew any better; he'd always felt guilty afterwards, but it was so easy to persist when the other never said a word of blame. When he started, it was too late. The stage had already been set.

And Satomi; her face was the sharpest of all, glaring with the tendrils of the red sun shining all around her form and her face, and particularly her eyes, the window of the soul. Filled with warmth they were, and it made him instinctively push her away even if she hadn't married his father and entered a house that was perfectly fine without her (at least in his view; it obviously wouldn't have lasted forever but he was still far from adulthood and that maturity).

It was the sort of thing people dealt with slowly. Having it burst upon him at once, particularly with an enemy in front, was a no-go.

His hands groped around in the near-darkness for the D-tector. It may have been more efficient if he used his eyes as well, but he refused to take his attention off the entity before him, even if he remained in a slight hunch, muttering to himself. It was somewhat satisfying, if sadistically so, that the other was affected to. It served him right for nosing about in his mind and his life.

Somehow, the anger rising within him helped rebuild the wall, and his right fingers closed around the cold plastic of his D-tector. And then eyes, red but unlike the vivacious liquid of life as he had first associated the colour with. A earth-red may be more accurate; it was almost devoid of that life. It made things grow, but there was little spirit behind those eyes. Once, there would have been none, or a whole one slowly decaying by the passage of time and darkness. It didn't matter; there was a spark there, flaring with the same anger as the crimson eyes lowered to meet a frozen blue. Perhaps anger was the wrong word to describe the electricity that sizzled between them, but if it was he knew of no word that could describe the situation better.

But then darkness flared between them, breaking the spell. Red eyes, these ones holding a far better resemblance to, loomed out of the mist, passing over the blue form for a mere moment before focusing on its own, slowly unhinging, servant.

'What is the matter?' the voice, akin to a male, asked. The tone was tender, but somewhat scolding deep down: scorning almost, seeping not only with disappointment but with something else. Something dangerous. Something treacherous. 'Destroy this pathetic world. Destroy this pain.'

Despite himself, the other found himself shouting out. 'Don't listen to him!'

'Rid the world of this evil, and you'll never have to suffer again.'

'That's not true.' But even as the words forced their way past his lips, his mind protested them. It made him wonder why he was protesting to words that were not directed to him. Perhaps he wasn't ready for the looming fight on the horizon. His hands held his spirits, his only weapon against the darkness, but his mind still grappled for silent footholds within his skull. He'd all but shoved the experience out of his mind, but between Karatenmon and Duskmon, the skin covering them was all but tender at best.

'He lies…' And it sounded so convincing that even Koji found himself believing it.

And then the darkness was being sucked in through a vacuum, and the surrounding blackness lifted into a medium tone of grey. Red blades extended, eyes raised and hardened, and reflex prompted the other to scan his fractal code through his own device and evolve.

It was a hopeless fight to begin with. Five warriors had failed to defeat this one, so did he really think he could stand up to the other on his own? He hadn't been left with much choice otherwise, elsewise he may have found his head detached from the shoulders. In any case, the warrior of darkness had managed to absorb or dodge every attack he had thrown at him. His beast spirit hadn't fared any better; the other had simply lifted his sword and the laser had split.

He was as bad as Karatenmon. The shoulder blades extended, sharp edges gleaming in the dim light, wherever it came from. Duskmon's expression didn't change but the swords swung to fulfil an arc to parry the blow: the first instance of anything other than holding a sword an inch away from his face to block. So he was afraid, the lupine thought with satisfaction. Good.

But the attack that came forthwith was unlike anything he had ever experienced before and it left him on the ground, broken and staring death in the face as a sword came to rest on his exposed neck.

'It's over,' Duskmon said to him, almost silently, moving the blade a little away to prepare for the final stroke.

It wasn't overconfidence; it couldn't have been; he hadn't particularly been left with much of a choice in the matter after all. But he couldn't believe it was all going to end here. Pain flared through his body: physical pain…but there was another pain underlining that. The pain of leaving knots untied to prick into his skin…and that, for some reason, hurt a lot more than the burns that littered his body. Who knew the light of the moon could be so searing to one's flesh?

There was his mother's portrait, collecting dust. Sad eyes, a small smile…he'd never figured out the person behind that image. His father, Satomi who had gotten caught in a problem that wasn't hers to carry…was he sorry for the way he acted all those years? Did he regret it all? Or was it that, in the fleeting moment before the thread of his life would be cut, his heart screamed in the pure agony of being left without the choice, without knowing the truth.

Ophanimon had promised him he'd learn the truth. It was the whole reason he'd made this journey. The whole reason he'd let people into his heart, people he knew were going to leave him…but no, he had been wrong. It was he who was leaving them. A final turn of irony where he could exact the revenge of a child being left behind as a mother's hand slid from the reluctant grip.

And there was his father crying. The stoic man hardly ever cried; he'd only seen those tears once or twice in his apparently short life. But he wasn't wasting away from cancer like those kids on the news. He wasn't being ploughed over by a truck speeding along the highway. He was going to die and no-one would be any the wiser. He was going to die alone, in the face of the one thing he should have been most powerful against. After all, what happened to the whole "light shining through the darkness" thing? The whole "good conquers evil" gig? It was all a lie; reality wasn't so easily predictable. Otherwise he'd know why his father was crying then. He'd know what he would do if the situation came again. Would he watch silently or climb into the embrace? Or do something else entirely? He'd never know, because the opportunity would never come.

Something cold trickled down his face, and his vision blurred slightly. But the gleam of the swords remained.

It was so cruel. They were taunting him. He was taunting him. Why give him all this time to think about the end of his life? Just hurry up and do it already!

He's not going to do it, you know. He can't.

His head rose slightly. The blade still hovered near his throat, albeit slightly closer, slowly inching towards his jugular vein, slowly sawing through that thread of life.

He loathes you for what you represent, as the warrior of light. He'll make it slow. He'll make you suffer. But he won't be able to finish you off.

Blue eyes flickered from side to side.

Where are you? He thought, lips parting without a sound escaping from his confines.

Here, the voice replied. It was somewhat familiar, but he couldn't place it. You don't need that pain on top of what you already carry. You don't need pain at all. It makes you weak. It makes you unable to achieve your full potential. It leaves you vulnerable, when you are clearly the stronger one.

And then it clicked.

Cherubimon! Those words almost escaped from his lips, but he held them in check. Teeth gritted again though. Would there never be an end to this cycle of manipulation?

You misunderstand, the other said almost tenderly. I simply seek a world without pain.

A world without pain didn't sound so bad.

Pain is cruel. Pain is unfair. Pain is unnecessary. This world is tainted of it. I seek only to free this world from that pain, and its inhabitants.

It sounded tempting, but Cherubimon was the enemy they had fought against.

But where are Ophanimon and Seraphimon, the angels who were supposed to protect you all? They have led you here…

But Duskmon is yours, the warrior of light protested, even as he felt the effects of the words sinking in, dulling his pain. Perhaps it all didn't matter. Perhaps it really was unnecessary. Perhaps they were all wrong.

He was, but he is a sad being lost in his pain. I had hoped to save him, but it was too late. Once a murderer murders his kin, there is no turning back for them. The kindest thing to do would be to let him rest. The kindest thing to do would be to defeat him, and obliterate pain, all pain, so such a sad tale never happens again. And he is causing you pain, is he not? It would be best for both of you. You'd both be at peace. Put on the blanket I give you. Use the power I can bestow upon you. This won't be your end Koji Minamoto. It is too much of a waste to see a child who can be saved withering away, slowly bleeding out into a dark void…

Someone, at some point, had said something loud because Duskmon finally reacted. The cry of denial was almost human as the second sword, the one towards no-one had thought to spare a second glance, swung down to cleave the head from its pedestal.

It was the moment of truth. The moment of judgement. There was a flare of light from somewhere but it quickly faded into the shadows that loomed all round. There was a slight whistling in the otherwise stagnant air as the blade swung down…and the next second, the entire world was being blotted out, and he was accepting it without another thought.

It was a different sort of light that encircled him; it wasn't the light from his spirits that he was used to. It wasn't the refined cutting edge, but a thick blanket of wool and mist that soothed and numbed and diminished the outer world into somewhat of a dream. It was a pleasant change. It was one that washed away all the aches and pains of battle like a warm shower that filled one's head with a dizzying fog. What had he been concerned about? he wondered to himself.

That was until the whistling of a sword flew above his head, leaving an annoying and unwanted prickle of pain.

Of course; that was it: pain. He had to obliterate pain.

He bared his fangs, His back, spotted and marking him both as a man-eater and active hunter, sloped earthward as he stood upon four legs, balancing with ease. Claws gleamed as they caught light from an unspecified sword. Fur was combed back with grey. Eyes gleamed too, a yellow colour that bled from the liquid of life.

The sword swung and missed, clattering uselessly to the ground as the warrior of darkness lost his grip on it. His heart screamed furiously at him, but he couldn't help it. He simply could not do it. He still had no answers, and every fibre of his being was protesting to the notion of ending the life in front of him for whatever reason; he could not fathom it. If he could, he would obliterate it. Oh, how he longed for the earlier days where nothing could pluck even a single string by a picometre from the violin that was his heart.

He understood nothing. Just who was this boy? Why did the mere sight of his face bring so much pain to him? Why hadn't his memories helped? Why had they simply made things worse?

And why couldn't he simply end the problem right then and there?

He was still frozen in those thoughts when the warrior of light suddenly flared with dark energy, driving him a few paces back. Light and dark combined; what a conundrum. A literary paradox, but somehow it was happening right before his eyes.

And then a new digimon, a hyena shaped monster, leered at him with fangs ready to sink their teeth into his neck.

He readied his remaining sword as the monster sprung.

For some reason, he feared this creature. He did not know fear. He shouldn't know pain, but fate had cursed him to experience it as he sought to eliminate that which plagued him to receive a final reprieve. But he instinctively knew that the emotion he was feeling then, this biting coldness, was fear.

Fangs clanged off metal again and again. Saliva dripped from the wide jaws, long tongue lapping up the excess without another thought as it lunged. Something white and creamy splattered on the ground as the hyena growled; he'd never seen a digimon like this before. For the time being, it was a nameless foe. Teeth bit into his skin, right passed the useless weapon in his hand; why couldn't he fight? Why couldn't he move? It wasn't that fear he was feeling; all digimon could sense fear. It wasn't that.

His power was fleeing from his body. Yes, that was it. And suddenly…his mind was engulfed in pain and he screamed: a human scream, long and terrifying and cloaked with agony.

And then the darkness was gone. They were in empty space, falling somewhere, towards something…and then he was pressed into the earth, stars gleaming above him and the hazy image of a scavenger about to feast as his body withered still in pain.

He could feel the paws pressing into his skin and muscle. The adversary, the bringer of pain…it had grown somehow. Or he had shrunk. The jaws gleamed white with light…and death. How ironic, that he had failed the very judgement that was now befalling him, lying nested amongst the earth his feet had barely touched upon and his eyes had barely seen, somehow fallen to the warrior of light while he,, the so-called bringer of death, had failed to take the life that would now take his.

There was a piercing pain, and then the scream grew sharper, more human as something was pulled away. And then his eyes were closing, almost against his will, capturing the last image of those yellow eyes staring at him in utter empathy.

And he tried to raise himself up, suddenly enthralled by horror as well as anguish as a great weight lifted from his body. A hand attempted to rise up, to grasp the fleeing moments of darkness in a failed attempt as that mercy was torn from him, leaving him with a spill of emotion and knowledge that overflowed the dark void that had been his soil. Tears flowed down his face, washing away the blood that stained it, and he trembled violently as the yellow eyes faded from view, mind attempting to organise the matter that had suddenly been thrown upon it.

Blue…they're supposed to be blue…

But there was something in them that spelt freedom. Any icy façade, a prison made of infallible glass that had been carefully carved away. It pushed his mind: the thoughts, the memories…it organised them, sleeving them into envelopes and into compartments that he could later fall upon…should the opportunity ever arise, and it seemed it never would. But it wasn't really the best time, all things considered, to go through an epiphany he really could have gone without. He didn't try to figure it out himself; that at least he could deny itself. It seemed so ironic…but some instinct told him the knowledge was only going to bring him pain in his last moments. He chose the numb darkness. The cold. Never mind it had been stripped from him; he clung to that which remained.

Blue eyes slipped closed and the hand fell uselessly to the ground with a soft "thump", failing to hear a cry or feeling the weight suddenly lift from his body.