Digimon Adventure Tri: Echo

39) In Hell or Heaven

In the distance, Hikari could hear the ocean lapping at the shore greedily. 

It made sense, in all honesty. After all, they were still on the cliffside that they had fought on in the past, and the cliff had overlooked the sands and ocean down below, so they were certainly close enough to overhear the song of the twisted sea. Still, that did little to calm Hikari down on the matter. She detested the idea that they were in such close proximity to the ocean itself since the sea seemed to be almost as dangerous as the Deep Ones themselves in a strange way. It made sense that the ocean was there, but that didn't mean that she wanted to hear it. In fact, she would have been more than content with blocking all the noise out forever. 

That was the other thing; the battle at hand was so overwhelmingly noisy that it was upsetting to her whether she wanted to admit it or not. The Deep Ones were screaming in anguish when they got hit, and those that were not attacked by the Chosen Children and their partners wound up screaming regardless as a way of showing their readiness for the battle at hand. It seemed to be a cry of determination, and Hikari hated having to listen to so much. It was overwhelming her in a thousand different ways, and she wished not for the first time that she was not as empathetic as she was. 

GrandisKuwagamon's first appearance had come as a nice surprise, she had to confess. She was glad that Ken seemed to be doing better, at long last overcoming the painful struggle that he had been battling for quite some time. Well, perhaps overcoming was a strong word when he had not been given much of any time to truly push through his agony. He was making progress though, and that had to count for something given the dreary circumstances that the group found themselves in. 

Angewomon released an arrow from her bow that speared one of the LadyDevimon straight through the upper thigh. There were more Deep Ones that had completed the transformation process by now, though there were still a few that were fusing and growing to their full sizes. Angewomon was more than glad to leave the other Deep Ones to the rest of the Chosen Children, and she concentrated on this LadyDevimon. She clapped her hands together in front of her body before spreading her arms outward, creating a pink blast of energy that spread forward rapidly. The LadyDevimon screeched at the attack, only barely managing to keep herself from dissipating into data that spiraled into the open sky. A few other Digimon were clipped by the Heaven's Charm attack, though they were damaged less by it in comparison to LadyDevimon. 

HolyAngemon swept into view a moment later, and he thrust his sword forward in the direction of one of the SkullSatamon that had drawn a bit too close to him. The data sphere at the center of the Digimon began to crack before it splintered entirely. The last sound that he made was a cry of agony before he turned to data and joined the darkened skies along with so many of the other Digimon. Once again, Hikari resisted the urge to shove her hands over her ears and wait until everything was over. The Dark Ocean's mere existence was a place of stress for her, and it seemed even more impossible to escape compared to everything else that had been an issue for her in the weeks leading up to that point. 

At long last, there was an opening in the large batch of enemies, Hikari noticed. She let out a gasp and turned to the other Chosen Children in surprise, just to make sure that they had seen the same thing that she had. Sure enough, Yamato was cupping one hand around his mouth to attract the attention of MetalGarurumon. "Daemon is there!" he exclaimed. 

Sure enough, at the other side of the shifting cloud of Deep Ones, Daemon could be seen. He was so far away that the details on his body were difficult to make out, but Hikari could have sworn that she saw his shoulders grow tense with stress. He was starting to realize that there was something going wrong in this battle, and he wouldn't be able to escape as easily as he would have liked.