The first thing Chika realized when she woke up was that the bed was comfy.

Then she remembered that she didn't fall asleep in a bed and sat up, forcing her eyes open.

She lasted all of two seconds before falling flat on her back again.

"Chika!" She heard Ikuto yell, and before she knew it his hand was behind her back.

She turned her head to look at him. "Hey Ikuto-kun," she said groggily. "Where are we?" It looked like she was in an apartment somewhere, but she didn't recognize it. Which could mean any number of things that she wasn't really happy to be thinking about right now.

"We're in a safe house of mine," Takeru said, and Chika looked over at him. The blond was seated at a table, a netbook-sized laptop at his fingertips that he was typing on. "Couldn't really last long with what Patamon and I were doing without having several of these all over the place."

Chika tried to sit up again. For some reason it was hard to do, like her body had been shoved into a pool of jello or something.

Takeru looked away from the laptop and frowned. "You should save your strength. We're still not sure how suddenly being human again is going to affect you in the long run, and we can't go to a hospital or back to the base right now. No telling what spies Kurata has there."

Chika blinked. Something that he said didn't seen quite right... "What do you mean?" she asked... before the memory of what happened back when she had passed out hit her. Relena... Franz...

…

She wasn't a bio-hybrid anymore.

"Oh..." Chika said, laying back down again. "This is... I..."

Ikuto smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "It's okay. Just rest for now."

"Where's Piyomon?" she asked.

"He's in the other room," Takeru said. "He's only dealing with being blasted." He took a deep breath and shut his laptop. "So... what do you want for dinner?"

Chika had no idea. "Whatever you guys want is fine by me..." she said, closing her eyes again. "I'm... not that hungry. For once."

.o0o.

Broken Dreams

Written by: Custom_Magnum

Chapter 33: Return to Life

.o0o.

Relena had no idea what she should be doing right now. Apparently her real mission had been a success, but now she was in the exact same situation that Takuya and the others had been in before. But what was she supposed to do, yell at her Grandma for it? And why did they need the Spirits anyway?

V-mon grabbed her pants leg and started tugging on it. "Are you okay Relena?" he asked.

Relena looked own and frowned. "I'm not sure... I'm... not happy with what Grandma had us do, without telling us about it."

"That's one of the pitfalls of working for this organization," Mephismon's voice said from behind her.

Relena turned to look at the demonic digimon, and frowned. "And you care why?"

Mephismon smirked as he leaned against a wall. "Let's see, you're the granddaughter of the person who gives me money. Why wouldn't I have an interest in your wellbeing?"

Relena turned away. "Sorry, but I doubt Grandma would respond well to blackmail." She looked back down at V-mon, who was glaring at Mephismon now.

Mephismon laughed, but Relena didn't turn around. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of trying that. With all the resources at her disposal, I wouldn't last more than two seconds if I tried. But even so.. if there were any accidents with you... well, I wouldn't want to see the look on her face when she found out."

"V-mon, let's get out of here," Relena said. Getting away from him would probably do her good right now.

"So, what exactly are you planning on doing now that Daimon Chika is dead?"

Relena stopped suddenly. She hadn't even thought about it, she had been too concerned with everything else that had happened to think of it. But... she had gotten her revenge. Mephismon had brought back proof of that to her grandmother... "What do you mean? She asked, turning back to look at him.

Mephismon stared at her for a moment. "Are you still going to fight for us, or are you going to turn into the pretty little princess that you were supposed to grow up into and leave the fighting to us real soldiers."

Relena didn't say anything to that. How could she? The only reason she was here was...

Mephismon turned away. "Well, I guess it really isn't any of my business. You can do what you like." And with that, Mephismon turned and left her standing in the hallway alone with V-mon.

"Relena?" V-mon asked, tugging at her leg again. "Can we go get something to eat?"

Relena forced a smile and looked down at her partner. "Yeah.. let's go."

"Yay!" V-mon shouted as he started heading towards the mess hall.

Relena followed after him, lost in thought. Chika was gone now, there was proof enough for her grandmother and Kurata, so...

She shook her head and kept walking after V-mon, making sure that he didn't get too far away from her. She had told her grandmother that she had wanted to help in the fight against DATS... but if it came down to a fight with Touma... would she be able to do what she just did against Chika?

.o0o.

Chika slowly lifted the chopsticks holding the noodles into her mouth, slowly chewing and swallowing her food. It tasted good... Takeru was a pretty good cook, but for some reason it was... blander than she remembered it. Not that she was anywhere near as hungry as she usually was anyway, but still, she did need to eat.

Takeru and Ikuto both looked at her with concern, what was left of their own food sitting there in their bowls. "Are you okay Chika-chan?" Takeru asked.

Chika stared down at her food. "I guess. I still feel weak and... does this taste... kinda bland to you?" she asked.

"No. It tastes fine," Takeru said.

"Yeah," Ikuto agreed.

Chika looked up at them as Ikuto started shoveling his noodles into his mouth again. Takeru kept looking at her though, frowning. "Maybe it's just me..." she said, pulling up her food again and taking a small bite of it. "So... how long can we stay here?" she asked.

Takeru leaned back. "I'm not sure. We are in a city though, so it isn't like we can't go out and get more food or anything, but even so it'd probably be a good idea to take up a disguise or something if we want to stay here long. All it's going to take is one of Kurata's agents seeing us here to throw everything off. As long as they think you're dead, we have an advantage."

Chika looked down at her bowl again. "Not really... I'm not a hybrid anymore. Piyomon and I can't..."

"Chika, just because you're not a bio-hybrid anymore doesn't mean you're useless now," Takeru said. "You weren't useless before you became a hybrid, and Piyomon can still become Slash Angemon on his own. You'll be fine once you get used to the change."

Chika blushed a bit and took another bite of the food, but found that she couldn't really eat that much more. She wasn't hungry, and she still had half her portion left. "You guys want this?" she asked, pushing her bowl away from her as she stood up... and nearly stumbled as she started heading out of her chair.

Takeru and Ikuto both got up from the table and moved over to her, there arms lifting under her body and keeping her standing even as she leaned against Takeru's chest. "I... thank you," she said.

"Don't worry about it," Ikuto said as he and Takeru moved her over to the bed and helped her lay down.

Chika sighed as her head hit the pillow, curling up in a ball on the bed. "I'm..." She felt one of them give her hand a gentle squeeze.

"It's alright Chika," Ikuto said. "Just rest for now. We'll take care of everything."

Chika was way too tired to even think of arguing. Or even making a sound of agreement. Next thing she knew she was asleep again.

.o0o.

Yuka sighed as she stared at the practice dummy that was just taunting her with its inability to just fall and collapse. It was one of the few days when Makino-sensei wasn't trying to kill them with the training, and so Yuka was spending the time pounding her fists into the dummy's face... which looked a lot like Kurata's.

That may have had something to do with Chika breaking about four of the things, really.

Either way, no matter how hard she'd smash her fist into the dummy's face, it just bounced back! It was almost like it was built just to taunt whoever was using it!

"Yuka, no matter how hard you hit that thing it's not going to explode," Ai said from her seat off at the side, where her Impmon and Tsukaimon were sitting down next to her.

Yuka didn't say anything for a moment, she just shoved her palm in the not-Kurata's nose, before turning to look over at her. "Yeah, yeah, but still! It's just taunting me!"

Ai laughed. "Only you would feel taunted by an inanimate object," the older girl said with a smile on her face. "But really, you should finish up soon. We may only have two weeks of training left before the test, but Makino-sensei is probably going to try to kill us tomorrow."

Yuka sighed, and frowned, moving over to take a seat next to Ai. Tsukaimon immediately flew into her lap. She slowly ran her hand through her partner's fur. "Do you think we're going to be ready?"

"What's bringing this on? Misplaced doubt's supposed to be my thing, not yours," Ai said, wrapping an arm around Yuka's waist and pulling her closer to her.

Yuka wasn't about to object at all. "Yeah, I know, it's just... I'm still twelve. They pulled back the age requirements originally for a reason. What if I'm not good enough?"

Ai sighed and pretty soon Yuka found herself pulled into a deep hug. "Then you'll just fight and get up from everything until they make you an agent just based on your tenacity alone."

Yuka giggled. "Like they'd really do that?"

"Why not, it's how Daimon Masaru got his start," Ai said with a giggle.

Yuka blinked and looked over at Ai. "How did you know that?"

Tsukaimon laughed. "Maybe because she actually reads for fun?"

Yuka frowned. "Oh shut up!" she shouted, before bursting into giggles.

Ai laughed also. "See, you'll do fine! Besides, if you don't pass then Makoto and I won't either, so we'll be together again next time, right?"

Yuka sighed at that. "Yeah, I guess that's true."

Tsukaimon flew up and landed on her head. "Oh, don't worry! We'll win. We had Makino-sensei beating the crap out of us these last few months!"

Ai giggled some more. "Well, there's always that too!" She stopped for a moment and looked around. "Hey, have you seen Mako-chan?"

Yuka shrugged. To be honest, she had been wrapped up in her doubt the past few hours too much to really worry about him at all.

Ai shrugged. "Oh well, he probably just doesn't want to be near us when there's a chance of us being all 'mushy'," she said with a giggle.

Yuka laughed. "Well, to be fair you can be mushy at times Ai!" Before Ai could say anything to defend herself though, Yuka had already closed the distance between their lips. They just kissed briefly though before pulling apart again, when both of them burst into giggles again.

"I'm not the only one and you know it!" Ai said.

Yuka smirked. "So?" she asked, leaning back a bit.

Tsukaimon went tumbling back into her lap. "Hey, warn me next time you're going to do that!"

Yuka giggled and pet her partner on the head. "Sure, sure."

Both Yuka and Ai didn't say anything else for a few moments. Yuka spent most of the time just looking over at her girlfriend, and the smile on her lips.

.o0o.

It had taken a few days, but Chika was now at the point where she wasn't feeling weak at every single waking moment. She could actually move like a functioning human being now!

"God, that was one of the suckiest times of my life, I have to say," Chika said as she slipped into a chair at the kitchen table near Ikuto. All of them were in the room, including the digimon. "Morning everyone!" she then turned to Piyomon. "You feeling okay?"

"Yep!" Piyomon chirped. "I'm not looking forward to us fighting Relena again though."

Chika frowned. "Yeah..." Not only was Relena still a kid and everything was kinda there fault in the first place, but now they didn't even have easy access to Slash Angemon anymore. Chika grabbed her digivice out of her pocket and stared at it. "Hopefully I'll remember how to use the Ultimate digisoul when we need it."

Ikuto frowned. "You shouldn't really worry about that now," he said. "We'll have plenty of time for that later!"

"Besides, Takeru's bringing food!" Patamon chirped from his seat next to Piyomon.

Chika couldn't help but smile at that. "You digimon and food. I mean, seriously."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Falcomon asked. "It's not like food's the only thing we think of!"

Chika laughed. "Okay, you have me there. Unless you're talking about Agu-chan."

At that, everyone laughed. Agumon's appetite was well known around, well, everyone.

Chika sighed though, leaning back against her chair, staring up at the ceiling. "I wonder what everyone's doing back home? Did they hear we're supposed to be...?"

Ikuto shook his head. "I doubt it, it isn't like the people who did survive the battle with us saw us leave. We're probably labeled as MIA right now."

Chika huffed. "Yuka's going to be devastated when she hears that. And our parents..."

Ikuto cracked a smile. "I don't think they're going to worry about us too much. It isn't like we haven't gone MIA before."

Chika sighed, although Ikuto had a point. They had been in a similar situation before, back when the Nightmare Soldiers had attacked Yokohoma when they were still kids, leadings to DATS being forced to relocate...

"We're going to need to come up with fake identities," Chika realized, sitting up straight.

Piyomon nodded. "If we're trying to lay low until Franz can set it up for us to attack Kurata's... no, Agatha Norstein's base, then you're right. You can't show up if your dead, and it'd be better for Takeru and Ikuto to hide also."

Patamon smiled. "Yeah. And we can always hide in the digivices." He paused for a second and frowned. "Oh Yggdrasil, did I really just suggest that!"

Chika giggled and patted the small digimon on the head. "Hey, it can't be so bad. We'll only need to do that when we're out."

The door opened and Takeru walked in, carrying two bags... filled with what looked to be fast food. "Hey, sorry we're resorting to this, I thought I had more actual food stocked at this one."

Chika just giggled. "Highly fattening factory processed crap's just what we need right now anyway."

Patamon flew up to Takeru. "You got burgers! You're so very awesome!"

Takeru just laughed and put the two massive bags on the table... passing out several burgers to the three digimon, who eagerly started digging in. The blonde didn't even blink as he handed a burger to both Chika and Ikuto and took a seat in between them, pulling another meal out of the bag.

Ikuto just smirked. "How much did you buy?"

"Enough," Takeru answered simply, unwrapping his sandwich and taking a bite out of it.

Chika stared at his food. It was chicken.

…

Chicken seemed like such a tasty idea at the moment.