Digimon Adventure Tri: Echo

66) Star Cage

Daigo and Maki walked into the office the next morning feeling both more exhausted than ever and more well-rested than they had been in a long time. Daigo knew that talking about their emotions the night before had done a lot to help them, both, but it still felt like there was a lot they had yet to understand. It was as if their conversation had opened them up to trouble from a thousand different other angles, more uncertainty starting to close in on them from every other direction that they had been managing to avoid trouble from up to that point. Daigo was left to wonder when emotions grew to be this difficult to deal with, but he knew that the truth of the matter was that it had always been this hard. The Digital World's return to prominence just gave him no other choice but to acknowledge it regardless of how ugly his emotions on the matter were. 

Chisane, Kaya, Atuso, and Hiraku were already there much to Daigo's surprise. He would have thought Atsuo would want to sleep in a little bit longer given that he didn't have much of an obligation to be there so early in the day. Daigo didn't mind it of course, but he was hardly the only one who was confused on the matter. "What are you doing around here so early?" Maki questioned as she glanced over to Atsuo, Chisane, and Kaya. I thought you would want to sleep in a bit longer."

"I guess all of your nervous energy is starting to rub off on me," Atsuo commented with a light snort. Daigo honestly had no idea if he was kidding or not, but he ultimately decided that getting into the nitty-gritty in terms of information was going to drive him up a wall, so he stayed quiet as he looked over to his blonde companion. "The truth is I wanted to come here and see how much work we could get done before we got caught up in something else."

"I feel like we're getting close to figuring out what's going on in the Digital World," Hiraku said. "Maybe I'm just letting my optimism get to me, but I really do feel like we're on the verge of something big. If we can figure out what that is, maybe we'll be able to make things easier on all of us. The Chosen Children are doing what they can to find information elsewhere, and they've even gotten the others internationally involved. That means that we should be able to look forward to something new coming up sooner or later... I'm hoping, anyways."

"I didn't realize there were so many other Chosen Children out there," Chisane admitted with a shake of her head. "I mean, I was aware that Chosen Children were starting to pop up, but I didn't realize they were going to be so prominent worldwide. Who would have expected the Digital World to have such a large impact? Back when we first went, I was sure that we would be the only ones to know about it forever."

"Sometimes, life likes throwing unexpected challenges at you, doesn't it?" Daigo questioned, a sigh leaving his lips and a weary smile spreading across his face. He pretended he wasn't thinking about Maki when he said this, and his mind was cast back to the discussion they had shared not long beforehand. They were doing what they could to navigate all the issues that came with the Digital World, but that was proving itself to be much harder than he initially expected. 

"I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone is able to find," Maki declared, pulling up a chair behind Hiraku's computer and sitting down beside him. "If it really is just a matter of time before we strike gold, that means we have to be ready for it. I'm not sure exactly how we're going to work something like that out, but it wouldn't be the first time the universe decided to screw us over just because we existed, so I somehow doubt we'll be fumbling around for answers for too long. We can adapt and figure out what to do next without any issues."

"Or so we hope," Kaya commented. She was quiet for a long moment before glancing up to the others in the room. "I don't know how much longer Chisane and I are going to be able to stay here. As much as we love being able to help you guys out, it would probably be best if we got back home to help out with the restaurant again soon. We don't want to leave that place for any longer than we have to, so I think we should try to find a nice time to go back so that we can leave all of this to you without too many issues."