Present: The Digital World

Two dark shadows came forth from the trees, stepping into the moonlight.  What Tsuriai and Rakunamon saw took their breath away.

"Cody!"

"Armadillomon!"

The blonde girl jumped to her feet and braced herself for anything.  She was afraid and she didn't know what to expect.  She felt as if she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing.

But the two visitors were equally as surprised and fearful.  Cody's emerald eyes were wide with worry, his brows knit in distress.  He wasted no time in walking toward her.  "Tsuriai!" he gasped.  "Your arm!"  His attention was focused on her hand and forearm as its form disappeared and then solidified over and over.  It was happening to her digimon, as well.  "Rakunamon!"

Armadillomon scurried to a place at Tsuriai's feet so that he stood right in front of Rakunamon.  "What's happenin' to you?" he asked with a sense of urgency.  He reached a paw forward in an effort to touch the raccoon's tail, but his claw went right through.

Instinctively, Tsuriai swung her vaporous arm back, hiding it behind her.   She didn't want anybody to see.  And, instead of answering Armadillomon's question, she asked a question of her own.  "What are you doing here?"  Her voice trembled with nervousness.  She had been taken by surprise, and now her heart pounded in her chest at a quickened rate.  

Now that she had moved her ghostly arm out of sight, Cody looked up to see a tear-stained face.  His eyes revealed the extreme concern he held for the girl who was now taking a step away from him, as if trying to get away.  She looks so frightened, he realized, observing the way she shied away from him.  "We didn't mean to startle you," Cody answered her.  The dark-haired boy took a few careful steps forward, trying not to scare her any more than she already was.  Slowly, he lifted his arm, reaching a gentle hand out to touch the arm that Tsuriai wished to hide.  He tried his best to appear reassuring.  "We came looking for you," he explained, his voice calm and composed.  "Armadillomon and I got worried when we found out you'd left the camp."

Tsuriai just stood there, frozen.  She didn't know what to do.  Cody and Armadillomon were her friends, yet she still had the urge to just run away.  She was scared of what he may have seen or heard while he was in the trees.  "Did you...?" she stammered.  A lump developed in her throat, making it harder for her to get out what she was trying to say.  "...did you hear...I mean...see...or...anything...I mean...?"

Cody took his arm back, deciding that it wasn't the wisest thing in the world to try and touch someone as upset as Tsuriai seemed to be.  He could tell that she was frightened and overwhelmed with intense emotions.  She was already distraught before he even arrived, and it didn't help matters that he and Armadillomon had snuck up on her and Rakunamon.  So now, in order to help the girl, he was going to have to calm her down.  Cody focused his green eyes on hers, his gaze calm and unwavering.  "We know," he nodded his head slightly.  He gestured toward the little yellow digimon.  "We overheard you and Rakunamon talking about your home in the future."

All of a sudden, Tsuriai could feel her heart sink to the pit of her stomach.  Slowly, steadily, she bent at the knees, lowering herself until she was kneeling on the cool, moist grass by the lakeshore.  Her sight was going blurry and everything around her seemed unfocused and unreal.  She forgot about hiding her arm and let it rest in her lap as she stared ahead at nothing.

"Suri!" Rakunamon immediately ran to her side.

Armadillomon did just the same while Cody took a few steps forward and fell to his knees beside the dazed blonde girl.

Tsuriai felt a pair of warm hands touch her, one on her shoulder, and the other moving back and forth through her wraith-like arm.  Cody was focused on it, his expression full of questions, yet, at the same time, full of a determination to find the answers as well.  The blonde girl watched him as he gingerly handled her arm, pleasantly surprised at his demonstration of concern.  She had a question of her own.  "Your not scared?" she asked him.

The dark-haired boy paused a moment and turned his deep green eyes up, still holding her fading arm in his hands.  "That you and Rakunamon are from the future?" he replied.  Then he shook his head.  "No," he said.  "Stunned, maybe.  But not scared."  'Relieved' would have been an even more accurate word to describe the feeling that came over him when he heard Tsuriai and her digimon inadvertently confessing their true origins.  Just having learned the simple fact that the two of them were from the future answered just about every misgiving and question he had about them.  And it was a good feeling to know that he had no reason to be suspicious of them any more.  But he decided not to include this in his answer to the girl's question.  It was more than she needed to know for the time being.  So he returned his attention to her vanishing arm, studying it with extreme curiosity and worry.  "But what I think doesn't matter," he told her sternly, his brows furrowed in deep concentration.  "We have more important things to worry about."

Armadillomon crawled up to the blonde girl, finding a spot beside her.  "Tell us how to help you," he instructed her.  "We gotta make this stop."  His bright green eyes turned to see a brown and black ringed tail fading into a mist.

Tsuriai hung her head, shutting her eyes tight.  "You can't," she countered.

"What?" Cody's eyes suddenly opened wide.

"You can't stop it," she repeated herself.  "Things here have already...I'm not going to be...I..."

Rakunamon climbed onto Tsuriai's legs, standing up on his back paws while resting his front ones on her chest, trying to get her attention.  "Suri," he called her name.  His voice revealed how worried and fretful he was for her.  "It's okay, now," he tried to tell her.  He could see that she was unsure of whether or not she could reveal the secret they had been keeping for so long.  "It's okay to tell them everything."  Finally, the girl opened her wine-colored eyes and took in the sight of her digimon reaching out to her.  "Now that we know things between your parents are changing, we don't have a reason to hide the truth anymore."

Cody and Armadillomon just sat there, watching as the blonde girl and her digimon talked.

He's right, Tsuriai realized.  Her burgundy eyes focused on her furry companion as the little raccoon looked up at her with hopeful eyes.  But this realization only made her feel like she had failed at something.  "We worked so hard to make sure..." she started to say.  "...to prevent the future from...to..."

Rakunamon nodded his head in understanding.  "I know we did," he interrupted her.

"And the future's changing anyway," Tsuriai whispered.  Her voice was dry and hoarse.

The dark-haired boy observed the girl who kneeled beside him.  Her face was drawn and tired with streaks of tears.  Her braids were falling out.  Her eyes were dull.  In a word, she looked as if she had been defeated.  She looked as if she had just lost everything in the world.  Cody's lips tightened at the thought as he recalled what he had overheard.  She might as well have.  Carefully, he reached his arm out.

Suddenly, Tsuriai felt a hand on her shoulder once more.  She turned to see Cody looking at her.  Their eyes locked and, for a moment, she felt as if he were peering inside her, searching her eyes for something.  "Tsuriai," he said.  "We want to help you.  But you have to help us understand what's happening to you."

She sat there a moment, running her and Kari's conversation through her mind again.  "My parents," Tsuriai finally spoke up.  "Their past is changing."

"Your mother and father," Cody asked.  "They're TK and Kari, aren't they?"  From what he had overheard, he knew the answer already.  But he wanted to hear it from Tsuriai.  "That's why you've been so protective of them."

The girl nodded her head slightly, her eyes watering up again.  "Yes," she responded quietly, her voice barely audible.  "At least, they WERE my parents."

Rakunamon saw that his Digi-Destined partner was becoming upset again, so he jumped in to finish the explanation for her.  "The past has changed too much," the furry digimon continued.  "In our future, TK and Kari married and had children.  But now, it seems that Mr. and Mrs. Takaishi will not be getting married at all."  Rakunamon took a moment to illustrate his point by telling Cody and Armadillomon about the conversation Tsuriai had with Kari in the woods.  He even explained to them that the altered image files on Tsuriai's digivice proved further that TK and Kari would never get together.

"And if they don't get married," Armadillomon caught on, "then Tsuriai won't be born."

"And neither will I," Rakunamon nodded his head.  He still hadn't unveiled the fact that he was once just a computer software program that had been uploaded into the body of a digital monster, but there would be time for that story later.  "So you see?" the furry digimon looked up to Cody, gauging whether the boy understood or not.  "If things continue to change in this way, then Suri and I will not exist in the future."

"That's why you guys are disappearing right now," Cody added.  "Because, if you don't exist in the future, then you can't exist here, either."

Suddenly, the blonde girl picked herself up and walked to the shore of the lake.  She stood right where the water met the dry earth, hugging herself as if she were cold and closing her eyes in an attempt to prohibit more tears from coming.  She had done enough crying for one day, but the tears just wouldn't stop.  Slowly, one made its way down to the tip of her nose, where it hung for just a second before letting go and falling to the ground below.  "I'm not even supposed to be here," she whispered, barely getting her words out.

Cody stood up as well but remained in his place, looking ahead at the girl who turned away from them.  "I know," he tried to console her.  He was sympathetic to her plight.  "You were pulled to the Digital World against your will."  He remembered the stories Gesshiruimon told that morning at the breakfast table about how he and Tsuriai had been taken away from their family, which, it turns out, included TK and Kari from the future.  "And back in time..."

"No," the blonde girl shook her head, interrupting the dark-haired boy as he spoke.  "You don't understand."  The moonlight danced on the gentle ripples of the lake water as a soft breeze blew through the area.  Tsuriai's braids glided with the wind as it swept past her.  "The Future Guardian said Mom and Daddy were never supposed to get married," she announced.  "I was never supposed to exist in the first place."

Scene 5

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