Chapter 128: The Shadow of Reality Begins to Spread
Most people who crossed paths with Yukio Oikawa walked away with the exact same impression. He was unremarkable. A timid, shrinking shadow of a man who hugged the walls of hallways and avoided eye contact at all costs. Society deemed this normal. He was a recluse, utterly devoid of social grace, preferring to bury his head in his own isolated little world rather than engage with reality.
What those dismissive onlookers failed to realize was that Oikawa was not weak. Far from it. When it came to the singular obsession anchoring his fragile mind, he possessed a terrifying, manic drive that eclipsed the limits of ordinary men.
It was this very drive that had fueled his childhood quest to find the Digital World alongside his best friend. And it was this exact same drive that had just pushed him to break into a freezing city morgue in the dead of night, dragging his best friend's lifeless body out into the shadows to force him back into the waking world.
"Lord Myotismon... please." Oikawa's voice cracked, raw and wet with desperation. "I do not care what price I have to pay."
He threw himself onto the cold concrete floor, his knees hitting the ground with a heavy, bruising thud. The stiff, pale corpse of Hiroki Hida lay between them. Oikawa slammed his forehead against the floor, bowing so deeply his spine curved into a tight arch.
"I beg you. Please save Hiroki..."
Towering over the groveling human, Myotismon looked down through narrowed, calculating eyes. A faint, cruel glint caught the moonlight reflecting off his pale features.
By all rights, the Vampire Digimon should have remained in the Digital World. His premature arrival in the Human World was a direct consequence of his recent, infuriating encounter with the Chosen Children. Initially, Myotismon had viewed the DigiDestined with mild caution, treating them as mere nuisances rather than genuine threats. He acknowledged their ability to trigger Digimon digivolution, but he had always assumed that power was entirely dependent on their mechanical trinkets—the Digivices and the Crests.
Then came the anomalies. Taichi had forced an digivolution without relying on a Crest. And worse, that other boy, Mizuki. The brat did not even possess a Digivice, yet he had somehow pushed his partner straight into the Ultimate Level. The sheer impossibility of it had rattled Myotismon to his core.
Taichi was one variable, but Mizuki shattered the entire equation. What if the Chosen Children were not uniquely gifted at all? What if this terrifying potential lay dormant within all humans? What if the Digivices and Crests were nothing more than training wheels for a much greater, innate power?
The moment that theory took root in his mind, Myotismon had abandoned his previous schedule, leading a vanguard of Digimon into the Human World ahead of time. After days of lurking in the shadows, observing the flow of human society, his suspicions were confirmed.
The light of the human heart—their raw, volatile emotional energy—was a wellspring of unique, devastating power. The children were simply the easiest conduits for it, their pure hearts offering zero resistance to the flow of energy.
Armed with this knowledge, Myotismon's grand design shifted. If human emotion held such vast potential, simply slaughtering them to devour their data was a waste of resources. It was the least efficient method of conquest.
Instead, he needed to farm them.
He envisioned a new world order. He would whisper into the ears of human leaders, tempting them with promises of military supremacy, manipulating them into drafting policies that legally bound humans and Digimon as partners. Once these humans poured their hearts into evolving their Digimon, cultivating that rich, emotional light to its absolute peak... Myotismon would step in and harvest the crop.
His gaze naturally drifted toward the horizon, across the vast ocean to the world's reigning superpower. The United States. Even from this distance, he could taste the chaotic, churning unrest boiling beneath the nation's supposedly stable surface. It was a land overflowing with uncontrollable greed, paranoia, and ambition. Those profit-driven politicians would be the easiest prey imaginable.
But before he could cast his net across the Pacific, he had to secure his foothold here in Japan.
Myotismon pulled his attention back to the present, his crimson eyes settling on the pathetic, weeping man at his boots. Yukio Oikawa. If the vampire had not been paying close attention to the subtle digital currents in the air, he would have completely overlooked this hidden gem.
A talent. That was the only word for him.
Beneath the eccentric, socially ostracized exterior lay a mind that had achieved the impossible. Oikawa had created Digimon. The human likely did not even realize the magnitude of his own actions, but Myotismon could sense it clearly. Tucked inside the battered notebook Oikawa carried everywhere, two distinct digital lifeforms were gestating. Their data structures were still incomplete, raw and unrefined, but the oppressive aura leaking from their forming Digicores was unmistakable. They were Ultimate Level.
Spontaneous Digimon creation. If Myotismon could harness this man's obsession, he would never need to abduct Digimon from the Digital World to pair with his human cattle again. Oikawa could manufacture the partners for him.
Deciding his course of action, Myotismon extended a pale, gloved hand toward Hiroki's corpse. Oikawa held his breath, his eyes wide with manic, desperate hope.
Dark, necrotic data spilled from Myotismon's fingertips, sinking into Hiroki's gray, sunken flesh. The effect was instantaneous. The corpse, dead and stiff for days, suddenly jerked. A violent shudder ran through the limbs, the joints popping as they regained a grotesque mimicry of life.
Oikawa scrambled forward on his hands and knees, tears carving clean tracks through the grime on his face. "Hiroki... Hiroki! Thank god, it is working. You are coming back..."
Just as Oikawa reached out to touch his friend, Myotismon abruptly severed the flow of data.
Hiroki's body went rigid, collapsing back against the concrete like a discarded marionette. The chilling silence of the morgue rushed back in.
Oikawa froze, his trembling hands hovering inches from Hiroki's face. He looked up, panic bleeding into his expression. "Lord Myotismon? What... why did you stop?"
"Before I complete Hiroki's revival, there are two conditions we must discuss." Myotismon let his posture sag slightly, feigning a sudden, heavy exhaustion. He met Oikawa's terrified gaze. "The process of pulling a soul back from the abyss is taxing. I can save your friend, but doing so has drained a significant portion of my strength. I require your absolute loyalty and assistance to recover my power."
"Yes! Anything! I will do absolutely anything!" Oikawa screamed the words without a single second of hesitation.
Hiroki was the only light he had ever known. The only person who had ever looked at him without pity or disgust. They had sworn a blood oath to reach the Digital World together. He had failed to keep that promise in life. He refused to let death steal his second chance.
A cold, satisfied smirk tugged at the corner of Myotismon's mouth. The prey was securely in the snare.
"Excellent. As for the second matter... I believe a man of your intellect has already deduced the truth." Myotismon gestured lazily toward the unmoving body. "I am an undead Digimon. The data I am using to repair his vessel is necrotic in nature. This is not a true resurrection. I am not returning him to the light. I am converting him into an entity akin to a phantom, a creature of the night. An undead."
Myotismon leaned down, his voice a velvet whisper. "Can you truly accept this?"
"I..." Oikawa choked on the word.
Deep down, the rational part of his brain had known this. He had felt the cold, unnatural malice in the data Myotismon was using. But the intoxicating high of seeing Hiroki move again had completely overridden his logic. Now, forced to confront the ugly truth, the horror of his actions crashed down on him.
An undead. A zombie. A vampire bound to the shadows. Would Hiroki ever forgive him for this? Would his kind, gentle friend truly want to exist as a rotting abomination?
But the alternative... the alternative was the grave. The thought of burying Hiroki, of walking away from this cold room alone, felt like swallowing broken glass. On one side stood human morality, the natural order of life and death. On the other stood a lifetime of shared memories, whispered secrets, and a childhood promise that burned like a brand on his soul.
Oikawa clutched his chest, his fingers digging into his shirt as his heart hammered violently against his ribs. The air in the room felt too thin. He could not breathe.
Suddenly, a warm, familiar laugh echoed through the freezing room.
Hiroki?! Oikawa whipped his head around, his eyes wide and frantic, searching the empty shadows behind him.
Nothing. Only the cold, blank walls of the morgue stared back. It was a phantom memory. A trick of his fracturing mind. He was completely, utterly alone.
The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. A tidal wave of suffocating grief crashed over him, wrapping around his throat like iron chains. He could not do it. He could not face the endless, hollow nights. He could not wake up to another gray, meaningless morning without his only friend. The sheer cruelty of a world without Hiroki slowly devoured the last remaining shreds of his sanity.
Deep within his soul, the final, flickering candle of his humanity was snuffed out.
"It does not matter..." Oikawa whispered, his voice dropping to a dead, hollow rasp. He slowly turned his head back to Myotismon. "Let it be. Please. Revive him."
His eyes, once filled with frantic desperation, glazed over with a chilling, absolute resolve. "Even if he becomes a monster... I do not care."
'Hiroki... I am sorry. Please forgive me for being so selfish.''Because I truly... I cannot survive in a future where you do not exist.'As the final words left his lips, the shadows in the room seemed to surge forward, swallowing Oikawa's hunched figure entirely. When he finally raised his head, the gentle, timid light that Hiroki had always nurtured within him was gone. In its place burned a pitch-black, obsessive will.'I will bring you back, Hiroki. I will drag you to the Digital World with my own two hands.''Because... that is our promise.'
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