Present: The Digital World

"Okay," Tsuriai gave a single nod of her head.  "Now, are you ready?"  She knelt down at Cody's feet, looking up at him for the go ahead.  The two of them and their digimon were too wired to go to sleep again, so they decided to stay at the lake for a little while longer until dawn arrived.  Then they would return to camp.  But now was a time for fun.

Cody's voice was nervous.  "I don't know about this," he objected.

"You'll be fine," Tsuriai smiled brightly.  All signs of the dark sadness that had overwhelmed her earlier had gone away.  Thanks to Cody, Armadillomon, and Rakunamon, she was in much higher spirits.  Her inner drive was rekindled.  The dark-haired boy watched with unsure eyes as the blonde girl reached over to his ankle.  "Trust me," she said.

The dark-haired boy smirked.  "You always tell me that," he noticed.  And he was right.  Every time he wasn't sure of something, she always said those two words; 'trust me'.

Tsuriai just giggled.  "And have I let you down yet?" she countered.  Then, without warning, she pressed a hidden button on the side of his shoes.  Actually, they were HER shoes.  Cody had asked her about their incident earlier that afternoon when she hover-skated down the roller coaster track with him and Armadillomon on her back.  By the end of the conversation, she had convinced him to give them a try.  "Here we go!"

All of a sudden, Cody rose up from the ground about three inches.  "Oh!" he breathed in, his eyes full of excitement.  He was taller than Tsuriai now!  But, just as he was starting to get excited, his legs turned wobbly and gave way beneath him.  "WHAAAAA!!!!!" he yelped, tumbling to the ground.

"Hahahaha," the girl laughed aloud.  Tsuriai got up and walked to the fallen boy, extending her hand to him.  "Come on," she encouraged him.  "I'll help you.  We'll get this together."

Cody looked up at the smiling girl who offered her help.  She was back to herself again.  Nothing could have made Cody happier.  Except maybe an icepack for the bruise he was going to get on his right leg.  Tsuriai giggled at him, but she wasn't making fun of him.  She was just having fun.  Which is what she needed.  Cody shot his arm up, ready for Tsuriai to take it.

The blonde girl grabbed his arm with a firm grip and pulled him up.  Then, before he could fall forward, Tsuriai took hold of his upper arms, bracing him.  "You have to find your balance," she instructed him.  "It's just like rollerblading."

"I don't rollerblade," Cody grimaced.

"Oh," Tsuriai paused a moment.  She started to remove her hands to see if Cody could hover on his own, but as soon as she let go, he lurched forward.  "Whoops!" she laughed.   She steadied him again, standing him up straight.  "Do you play any kind of sport?" she asked him.

"Kendo," Cody responded.  Slowly, he could feel his legs getting used to floating in the air.  "I practice with Grandpa everyday."

"Wow!" the blonde girl beamed.  "That takes so much discipline!  That's amazing!"

Cody smiled at her praise.

"Okay, then," Tsuriai went on.  "So lets use your Kendo skills to help you with hover-skating."

Suddenly, the boy's eyebrow rose up in puzzlement.  "What?"  He wasn't sure he heard her correctly.

Tsuriai could see his confusion.  "Just go with me on this," she assured him.  "Practicing kendo demands a lot of concentration," she told him.

Wow, Cody thought.  She knows her stuff.  "Right," he nodded in agreement.  "I have to meditate before practice so that I can find my center and be totally involved in the fight."

The blonde girl just smiled up at him, still holding him up.  "So find your center and be totally involved in this," she shrugged her shoulders.  She made it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world.

"But this is diff..." Cody started to argue.

Tsuriai cut him off.  "It's exactly the same," she countered.  "Your body will be doing something different, but your mindset will be exactly the same."  Then she said her favorite two words.  "Trust me."

Cody looked down at her with a skeptical smirk but decided to give it a try anyway.  Secure in her hands as he floated over the ground, he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.  He called up images in his mind that would calm his thoughts and his muscles.  He imagined himself at his grandfather's place, practicing.  His sword was drawn and his opponent was near...

Rakunamon and Armadillomon quietly stepped up to Tsuriai, looking up at her and the boy she supported.  Their eyes were questioning.  But the blonde girl just winked at them, and then, she gingerly opened her fingers, pulling her hands away from Cody's arms as quietly as she could.

As soon as Tsuriai was away, Armadillomon called up to his human partner.  "Cody!"

The boy shot his eyes open, only to discover that Tsuriai had left him.  His heart started to pound with fear.

Tsuriai could see him getting nervous.  He was going to fall again if he didn't stop.  "You're doing great!" she cheered for him, trying to instill confidence.  "Look!  You're hovering!"

"I am!" Cody couldn't believe it, but he was.

Suddenly, Armadillomon leapt up, jumping into his partner's arms.  "Yea, Cody!"

"No, Armadillomon!" Rakunamon and Tsuriai both jumped forward, trying to stop him, but they were too late.

"Wh...who...whoooaaa!!!" Cody yelped.  In an instant, he was back on the ground in a jumbled heap.

Armadillomon lay on top of him.  "Oops."

And then, all four of them broke down laughing, some so hard that tears came to their eyes.

The dark-haired boy sat up and pulled off Tsuriai's special shoes.  "Here, Armadillomon," he said.  "You try it."

Rakunamon and Armadillomon slapped each other a high five.  "Alright!" they said at the same time.  Then they each picked up a shoe and ran off to play with them.

Tsuriai smiled as she watched the two digimon play together.  She kept an eye on them as a mother would her children.  And as Rakunamon tried to teach his newest best friend how to hover skate, the blonde girl took a seat in the dewy grass beside Cody.

Cody turned his attention to the new girl who wasn't so mysterious to him anymore.  It was weird to see Tsuriai and realize that, even though she was the same age as he and his friends, she was really the child of TK and Kari from who knew how many years in the future.  As a matter of fact, it was a little bit more than weird.  It was disappointing, too.  Tsuriai and I are just now starting to become very good friends, Cody lamented.  And soon she'll have to go home.  To the future.  Now that all his suspicions of her were put to rest, his emotions regarding her ceased to confuse him.  I like her a lot, he realized.  The two of them seemed to click from the first moment when they met in the Digital World after she had rescued the Digi-Destined from Pirates.  She was shy and reserved like he was.  And smart, too.  Cody could sit with her all day and have so many intelligent conversations!  It's like she understands me, Cody smiled inside.  But, as much as they had in common, the green-eyed boy enjoyed their differences as well.  She has such a big heart, he discovered.  She has a way of making people feel as if they are special to her just by the way she smiles at them.  Then it hit him.  Just like Kari...

Tsuriai IS just like her parents! Cody came to realize.  Athletic and confident like TK.  And, like Kari, she's sweet-natured and full of love for everybody she meets.  Wow, Cody sighed.  He sat there on the grass near the shore of the lake, observing the blonde girl beside him as she laughed and watched over their silly digimon.  As he stared at her, he thought about her current predicament.  TK and Kari in the future must be going crazy trying to find Tsuriai, Cody wondered.  She misses her family so much, and they probably miss her even more.  At least, he thought, Tsuriai will go home after the Digital World is safe again.  Armadillomon and I will make sure of that.  But, for some reason, Cody wasn't very thrilled about the idea.  She'll be leaving soon and I'll never see her again.  This made the dark-haired boy feel somewhat saddened.  I should be happy for her, but, at the same time, I don't want her to go.  Not now that we just met.  But Cody decided it wasn't his place to feel this way.  He was just being selfish.  She needed to return to where she belonged, and where she belonged was not in the past with him and his friends.

That's when Cody decided it was time to get his mind off the subject.  So he spoke up, trying to strike up a conversation that would let him think about other things.  "You're a good teacher," he complimented her, thinking back on the hover-skating lesson he had just received.

"Oh," Tsuriai grinned, still laughing a little bit as she turned to look at the boy who spoke to her.  She could feel her face start to warm as it blushed.  "Thank you."  Then her eyes started to twinkle with happy memories.  "I get that a lot," she admitted.  "Daddy says I take after Mom.  She was a great teacher."

"You know," he chuckled.  "I remember thinking earlier that you and Kari seemed to get along so well.  It didn't dawn on me how alike you two actually are."

The blonde girl just smiled, her eyes still watching over the digimon as she and Cody talked.  "Yeah," she sighed.  "Mom and I were like best friends before she passed away."

All of a sudden, Cody took in his breath.  "Passed away?"  His eyebrows turned up in surprise.

Now Tsuriai turned to face the boy she sat next to.  "It was my fault," she started, her voice somewhat solemn.  "If I hadn't asked her to come pick me up after practice, she'd still be alive today."

Cody just sat there, not moving and not saying word.  Just listening as Tsuriai talked.

"I could have gotten a ride from somebody or ridden the bus home," she went on.  "But I didn't know."  She paused a moment, reflecting on that horrible day.  "I waited by the extreme sports track," Tsuriai continued.  "But she never showed up.  Uncle Matt came instead.  And he was crying."  Tsuriai swallowed hard.  "A drunk driver had crashed into her just a few blocks away from school."

"Tsuriai..." the boy's heart went out to her.  He could see that bad memories were coming up, but he could also tell that this was something she wanted to get through.  So he let her continue.

The blonde girl gave Cody a small, barely visible smile.  "Please," she begged him.  "Call me 'Suri'."

Cody nodded his head and smiled back.  "Okay, Suri."

That seemed to make the girl feel better.  "So," she started up again.  "With Aunt Sora passed away and Uncle Tai having never married, Daddy asked my uncles to come live with us after Mom passed away.  Now it's just the four of us living in the house."

The dark-haired boy considered Tsuriai's words.  She said that Sora had passed on as well, and that she was her aunt.  Matt and Sora must have gotten married, he put the clues together.  But the red-head would eventually die as well.  So that's three people in Suri's life who have gone.  He imagined ticking his fingers.  First, her twin brother, Ryoichi, which he had heard about from Rakunamon's stories about the Future Guardian.  Then Kari and Sora.

"We have fun, though," the blonde girl continued, never losing her stride.  "We've always got friends over, too," she smiled.  "Like Dr. Kido and Dr. Izumi..."

"Joe and Izzy!" Cody's eyes lit up.

Tsuriai giggled.  "And Mr. Motomiya, too," she added.

Cody laughed as well.  "That's Davis!"  It was good to hear that the Digi-Destined were still very good friends in the future.  When he settled down, he turned to face the blonde girl.  "Suri?" he asked her.  "Do I know you in the future?"

All of a sudden, the smile on her face disappeared.  "Cody..." she whispered, remembering the stories her father had told her about some of his friends she never got to meet.  They had all died before she was born.

The dark-haired boy could sense her hesitation, and he didn't think her answer was going to be one he wanted to hear, or even should hear.  "It's alright," he told her, shaking his head.  "You don't have to tell me."

Tsuriai bit her lip, not sure what to say.  She didn't want to come right out and tell him that he would die as a young man.  But if she did tell him, then he could prevent it from happening.  And then maybe, when she returned to the future, he would be there waiting for her with her father and uncles.  With her mind made, Tsuriai reached her arm out and laid her hand on top of Cody's.  "Just promise me you won't go on any rock climbing trips," she told him.

Cody furrowed his brow for a moment, but he thought he understood what she was trying to say.  "I promise," he nodded.

Suddenly, the screaming and laughter of two digimon caught his and Tsuriai's attention.  "Yeehaw!" Armadillomon called out.  Rakunamon was on top of his shell, acting like a cowboy riding a horse.

"Hehehe," the blonde girl giggled.

Cody laughed as well, seeing his digimon having a blast.  Tsuriai's digimon was quickly becoming Armadillomon's best friend.  "So," Cody began.  "Did you meet Rakunamon when you got here?"

"No," Tsuriai shook her head, still laughing at the shenanigans of her and Cody's digimon.  "Veric has been with me since I was in elementary school."

"Really?" Cody was surprised to hear that she had had a digimon for that long.  "But I thought you said you didn't know about the Digital World until you arrived here."

"Except through Mom and Daddy's stories," Tsuriai corrected him.  "But, you're right.  I didn't have a digimon until I came here."  This statement just confused Cody even more, so she figured she should explain herself.  "Veric isn't an ordinary digimon," she started.

"He doesn't show up in our Digimon Analyzers," Cody put in.

Tsuriai laughed.  "I know.  You see," she went on.  "Just like Mom, I was born with a medical condition that causes me to have frequent attacks of high grade fevers.  Everyone figured I would grow out of it like Mom did, but, by Junior High, I was still having them.  So Ryoichi constructed a handheld computer device for me to carry around at all times."  She counted on her fingers all the things the microcomputer did.  "And it monitored my health and reminded me to take my medication."  Now a big smile played across her face, lighting it up.  "Ryo even designed an Artificial Intelligence program to go inside the microcomputer.  He called the device a Versatile Realistic Interface Companion, or V.R.I.C."  She pointed ahead of her at the raccoon-digimon.  "So I stuck an 'e' in there and named it Veric," she explained.  "He's been my best friend ever since."

"So that's where you came up with his name," Cody finally understood.  But he was still confused about one little matter.  "So Veric was a piece of software on your handheld," the dark-haired boy revamped.  "How on earth did he become a digimon?"

"That's a whole other story," Tsuriai grinned.  She told Cody all about what happened to her when she entered the Digital World for the first time.  How Veric was damaged during their fall.  How Leomon and Centaurumon helped them.  How Tsuriai couldn't repair his microcomputer so she stored him on her computerized wristwatch.  She even talked about the battle at Primary Village and Leomon's death.  And how she found a single digi-egg there that was cracked, but not deleted or purged.  That egg eventually merged with Veric's programming to become the digital creature that rode atop Armadillomon's back.  And her modified watch transformed into a digivice.

"Wow," Cody sighed, letting all the stories sink in.  "That's some adventure!"

Tsuriai looked on as the two digimon played.  "I think he's happier this way," she commented.  "He must have felt so trapped locked up in that microcomputer.  And now..."

"Now he's free to do anything he wants," Cody nodded his head.  He was watching the digimon, too.  "Which includes fighting for you."

This made the blonde girl smile.  "There isn't a thing in the world we wouldn't do for each other."

Suddenly, a bit of sunlight peeped over the tree tops, casting shadows on the grass.  "Oh!" Cody looked up.  "It's morning!"

Tsuriai got up and dusted herself off.  "I'm going to take a bath real quick," she announced.  She made her way to the shore of the lake, eyeing a spot that was shielded by a towering rock.  "Wait for me," she told him.  "I won't be but a minute."

"Oh!" Cody blushed at the thought.  And then she disappeared behind some large rocks.  One by one, Cody saw something get tossed up into the air only to land on the top of the boulder.  First, a shirt, then, some socks.  In a flash, Cody spun around, turning his back on the rock.

Rakunamon and Armadillomon came running up to him.  "Where's Suri?" the furry digimon asked.

Cody pointed to the lake behind him.  "Taking a bath."

"Oh!" Armadillomon's eyes shot wide open.  "I completely forgot," he cried.  "Her uniform is still in my shell!"

Tsuriai's digimon partner hopped onto Armadillomon's back.  "Let's go give it to her!"  And then off they went, like a valiant cowboy on his noble steed.

Episode 20

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