It was very quiet.

Night was waning, and soon it would be morning. Not that anyone really noticed, or cared if they did. Sunrises had ceased to have meaning; most things had.

It had been two days.

Taichi Kamiya sat quietly in a bare patch of earth near his tiny fire, which he kept burning almost unconsciously, as if afraid of letting the darkness overtake his eyes. Since then, the darkness had frightened him. Many things had, and still did, and he wondered if they always would, but cast aside the mental question nearly before it had completed its formation. He let his mind drift, trying to keep it from settling on any one thing, because he knew what that one thing would be.

Yamato and Jesanae.

Gone.

Try as he might, he couldn’t make himself think of anything else at all. Memories flashed in his mind, memories he wanted to block out for the pain they caused. Meeting Yamato at summer camp; that first moment when he realised that the reclusive loner had become his friend; the fights the two of them had had, one of them nearly lethal to their friendship; the tiny island where Yamato had landed in his flying bed, where Taichi had discovered just how much Yamato cared about his little brother.

Taichi felt a stab whenever he looked at Takeru. The kid hadn’t stopped crying, and wouldn’t speak to anyone except Hikari. God, I wish I could help, but I can’t . . .

The memories shifted to the recent past, when Jesanae had come. Being decked by her heel on first meeting; being smacked repeatedly for his own foolishness; her smiling and laughing at her new Digimon; her running forward to rescue first Takeru and Hikari, then Yamato.

Her and Yamato as he had last seen them, locked in the sweetness of their first and last kiss as they vanished from view.

The fire hissed and sparked as Taichi threw a rock violently into it. An ember flew out and burned his hand, and he savored it. Anything to blot out the memories, anything that could make him forget, even for a moment.

Nothing could possibly be the same. Nothing. It was as if Taichi had lost a piece of the innocence he had possessed, the innocence that had led to his naïve but eager attitude and natural leadership. It was gone, vanished into the wind, and Taichi knew it would probably never return.

He sat again, and stared into the embers until it was morning.

And when it was morning, they all began to stir. They had none of them slept, no, not for the last two days, but at night they reflected or grieved. Slowly they collected again into one group, a group smaller by two than it had once been.

And when they were in one group, Gennai appeared to talk to them.

“What do you want, Gennai?” asked Koushiro listlessly, as if he didn’t really want to know.

“There’s been a mistake. None of this was supposed to happen. I’m afraid you’ll have to start over from the beginning.”

“What?” Taichi exclaimed, growing angry. “You mean everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been through, has been for nothing? You can’t be serious!”

“I’m very serious, kids, and I’m also very short on time. I have to send you back to the beginning right away.”

“But you can’t! We’ve come this far, we’ll finish it, no matter what!” He heard the conviction in his voice waver on the last words, but refused to give up.

“I’m sorry, but I have to, kids.” He sounded like he meant it, and Taichi couldn’t bring himself to direct his anger at the person who had helped them so much since they arrived.

Things started to fade out, and Gennai’s voice became fainter with each passing second. A strange feeling of being shifted took hold as they heard his last words ringing in their ears.

“You have to start again, to make things right . . .”