"Riiing-riiiing-riiiing—!"
At noon, Narumi Akira was jolted awake from his nap by the urgent buzz of his phone.
The moment he saw the caller ID—the Yagami household—he knew the thread he'd deliberately left dangling in his chess match with two gods had finally been pulled.
Just as he'd stated when he struck that agreement: he would not set foot in the Digital World of his own accord—on the condition that the Chosen Children didn't come to harm.
Which meant he hadn't actually lost the right to intervene.
He had considered the possibility that, because of his earlier meddling, Yagami Taichi might no longer follow the original course of events—might not trigger that black-hole incident during the fight with Etemon and get spat back into the real world.
But Akira understood Homeostasis far too well.
That inhuman, chaos-stirring bastard would never let such an opportunity slip. There was no way it would waste a perfectly good hook—one that could be used to drag Akira into dealing with Apocalymon.
Of course, even if Akira had left that hook behind, he had no intention of going back to the Digital World to become Homeostasis' unpaid labor. And he certainly wasn't going to do anything extreme that might trip Yggdrasil's bottom lines.
But…
I said the Chosen Children can't get hurt. Now something's happened. If I go help a little, that's not unreasonable, right?
And if, during the process of "helping," I accidentally interfere with the Digital World's balance of power… well, that's just an unavoidable act of circumstance. Right?
With that cheerful logic in his heart, Akira slid off Xiao Ai's lap and answered Taichi's call.
"Hello? Akira—where are you?" Taichi's voice came through, tense and hesitant. "Um—uh… Akira, are you… are you still in the snow shelter?"
Oh? That tone… So Taichi called me first instead of calling the parents?
For a second Akira felt oddly honored—and then immediately began assembling a streamlined, fast-communication version of the truth in his head.
It wasn't that he wanted to deceive Taichi. It was just that his situation was far too messy to explain properly in a few minutes. He'd have to compress it—package it.
"Taichi, where did you guys go?" Akira countered. "I went back to the shelter to grab something—then when I turned around, you were all gone!"
"Ah—uh… I don't even know where to start…"
Taichi sounded like someone waking from a dream, startled by the question. Before he could figure out how to answer, a smaller, childlike voice piped up on the line:
"Taichi, I'm huuungry~"
"Koromon, wait a second!" Taichi hurried to soothe his partner, then tried again—this time in a more normal, "human" way. "So, Akira… we were outside looking at the scenery, right? Hahaha… something happened, so we went down the mountain first…"
Halfway through, his voice tightened again, anxious.
"Akira, you didn't tell the teacher about us… um—about us sneaking off to play, right?"
So Taichi's first instinct after coming back is fear of getting double-teamed by adults?
Honestly—too real.
But if Akira answered with a simple "No," Taichi would likely treat him as unrelated and try to keep him out of the incident—then hang up.
With a small sigh, Akira found himself thinking: Taichi clearly has the spirit of Friendship… so why did Friendship end up attached to someone who plays in a band?
Anyway.
"I was absolutely going to tell the teacher!" Akira declared, following the script he'd prepared. "If I didn't report it right away, what if something happened to you guys?"
"Wha—?!" Taichi yelped, heart leaping into his throat. "Seriously?!"
"I said I was going to, I was going to!" Akira stressed. "If I hadn't run into something weird on my side… I really was about to tell."
"O-okay… okay…" Taichi exhaled, easing up a fraction. "So… what happened to you?"
"You know how I was in the shelter looking for something? After I found it and came out to look for everyone, you were all gone. And there was this white thing on the ground—like a pager—with a weird pixel-y egg inside it."
"I thought someone dropped it, so I picked it up to keep it safe, but the second I touched it… a real egg popped out!"
"A Digi-Egg!" Taichi shouted. "Akira—what you found, that pager-looking thing… was it white, shaped like a hashtag?"
"How do you know what it looks like?" Akira asked. "Was it yours?"
"Uh… how do I explain…" Taichi hesitated, then tried to put it in terms Akira could follow. "We all have one. So that one should probably be yours, too… By the way, did the egg hatch?"
"No," Akira said. "I've only had it for a few hours. What kind of egg hatches that fast?"
"Yeah… right…" Taichi sounded both disappointed and oddly relieved. "Anyway—can I come to your place? We should talk in person."
"Your little sister's at home, isn't she?" Akira said. "Leaving her alone wouldn't be great. Let's meet downstairs at your building instead—how about that?"
"Sure!" Taichi agreed immediately.
"Taichi~"
"Koromon, just a little longer!" Taichi coaxed his partner again, then told Akira, "I need to… uh… deal with the hunger problem over here. See you soon!"
"Got it."
The call ended.
The moment it did, Akira moved straight to the next step.
"Xiao Ai, I'm going to talk to the Chosen Child in person," he said. "Can you hide yourself and protect me, just in case?"
"Of course," Xiao Ai answered.
A soft glow flickered from her fingertips, spread across her body, and her presence blurred out of sight.
"Is this acceptable?" she asked.
"Not bad—my partner's too good," Akira praised without restraint. "Xiao Ai, you're incredible."
After that, Akira secured the Digivice on his person, then picked up his black Darkness Xros Loader and looked at Bakumon.
"Bakumon. Nishijima Daigo won't be back for a while. Pipimon and Oikawa have reunited, too."
"Do you want to stay in my device for now? Just in case something happens."
"I understand," Bakumon said softly.
It nodded, became a ribbon of pink light, and slipped into the device—vanishing from sight.
No wonder Maki Himekawa never forgot this partner. Bakumon really is obedient.
Later, I should find a way to restore its evolution line back to Huanglongmon… and get Maki, the retired Chosen Child, back into the workforce.
Conveniently, the human world also needs an organization to manage Chosen Children. Rather than letting clueless adults "guide" experts, I should put my own people on the job.
And for the position that takes responsibility—translates to: takes the blame—I'll assign either Jou Kido (the so-called "Sincerity" holder who is really pure Responsibility)… or the more mature Nishijima Daigo.
Taichi can stay the front-line firefighter. He's got the momentum for it.
As for everything else… we'll fill seats later, either from the Chosen Children or from Wild Hunt. Witchmon over there already knows human-transformation magic, after all.
…Come to think of it, if I'm creating a whole new industry for the human world, should I consider monopolizing it?
I did secure Japan's private broadband rights early, once I realized the Digital World was real. If I leverage Digital World tech to upgrade hardware, boost computing power…
That kind of monopoly actually sounds… workable.
Once I'm done with what's right in front of me, I'll steer operations in that direction.
Because without enough material infrastructure, any agreement on paper is nothing but paper.
With the future taking shape in his mind, Narumi Akira pushed open the door—
and headed toward his next battlefield.
.....
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