Digimon Adventure Tri: Echo

11) Burning Loyalty

Much to the surprise of everyone in the group of Chosen Children, the following week and a half passed without much of consequence. Days appeared and vanished just as quickly, and nothing too particularly notable took place. It was something shocking to everyone involved with the recent Digimon attacks, but nobody dared to question it. After all, this moment of peace had proven itself to be scarce over the past week and a half, and they all wanted to take full advantage of it before something else happened to shake their lives to the very core. That had happened more than enough as of late as far as they were concerned. 

No other attacks had taken place, but on the other side of the same coin, no new information had been revealed. Taichi hadn't heard anything strange from Daigo, and even though he was being far more careful with information around his teacher than he once had been, Daigo seemed to be doing the same. There was no slipping up from either one of them, leaving it nigh impossible for anyone to figure out the truth of what was taking place. The suspicions that had been shared between Taichi and Hikari had been passed on so that the rest of the Chosen Children were aware of them, but beyond that, information remained just as limited as it had been before. 

There was a universal yet quiet suspicion about what Ken had discovered regarding Hiraku the night of the attack. The picture of the device that seemed all too close to an original Digivice model had been circulated, but nobody had been able to find an explanation for it quite yet. It was similar to the issue behind previous matters; there wasn't enough information at that moment, and none of them could fully hear about what was happening unless they learned more. 

Gennai and Qinglongmon had not yet gotten back to the group either. It was decided in silence that the members of the group would have appreciated it if they had simply been told that no new information had been uncovered quite yet, but there was nothing on that front either. Everything was simply radio silent, and it was impossible to say if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, no news could certainly be considered good news given the circumstances, but it was upsetting in the same way to the Chosen Children. 

They had gone to the Digital World two times since Taichi and Hikari came to the conclusion that Daigo and Maki were somehow connected with Hiraku, but neither trip had yielded any results that could be considered helpful. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. No Digimon had been taken over by the infected dark patches as far as the Chosen Children were aware, and if anything else had happened, then it was out of their line of vision. They didn't have a way of knowing about it because of how limited their searches had been despite their best efforts. Unfortunately, they couldn't drop everything to focus on scaling the Digital World and combing the spaces within for clues, leaving the week of quiet unsatisfying and unresolved. There was constant tension in the air, as if they expected something to happen at a moment's notice that prompted everything to start to fall apart once again. After all that had taken place, it simply felt par for the course, and none of the Chosen Children were able to convince themselves otherwise.

Koushiro sat in his room on Thursday night, and he took a long sip from a glass of tea nearby before setting it back on his desk. Tentomon was sitting on his bed nearby, watching his partner curiously. "Any updates?" Tentomon asked. He already knew the answer, and he was asking primarily because he wished to be polite. 

Sure enough, Koushiro offered the response that Tentomon had been anticipating. "Not yet," he said, careful to leave it open to interpretation by offering a sense of hope despite the dismal situation. Even if they hadn't been given any information recently, that didn't mean that it wasn't out there at all. After all, previous adventures in the Digital World had been shrouded in mystery as well, but the truth had eventually come to light. It was how everything worked. 

"It isn't like Gennai to not respond for this long," Tentomon remarked as he stretched his arms out in front of his body. He let out a small groan since he had been sitting still for so long before returning to his previous position effortlessly. "You've been in contact with him for the past three years, and the communication has never been quite this stagnant before. Are you sure that your messages are actually getting through?"