The Showstoppers. [Maia/Rei & Boru]

“So? Is it worth anything?”

“I don’t… think so. This radar’s only function is to track a single digivice. One of those things humans use. It can tell you where said digivice is regardless of its location. It wasn’t working when you brought it, probably because said digivice is not in this world or is somewhere where it can’t be tracked. I did some improvements to it, so now its signal can track the digivice even in those far places. Furthermore, someone with your insertion data skill could even get inside and ‘ride’ the signal to its source. Which means it can physically take you wherever this digivice is located.”

“T-That’s great!”

“Sadly, no one without your ability can do that. I won’t charge you for the improvements I did to it but… I still don’t think anyone is going to buy this, Viza. This item is useless. I’m sorry.”

---

Ugh.

UGH. UGH. UGH. UGH.

Okay. Yes. So she could probably 'ride' this radar’s signal to physically appear wherever that digivice was. And then she could use her Insertion Data Skill to bring the human who owned this digivice here. Why was she even thinking about that now? Was she really going to grant this Psychemon’s stupid wish?

No! She was out of here! She was really out of here!

…

Ugh.

UGH. UGH. UGH. UGH.

Why did he have to wish for something she, and only she, could grant!?

Fine! She would do it. She was going to bring him his stupid human, throw it in his face and then leave!

Yes! That was it!

Viza took out the radar Boru had come looking for from below her hat, looked at it for a couple of seconds, and then… her body just digitalized into the item! This was the BlackGatomon’s secret technique!

---

Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a rainy afternoon in Shibuya.

Didn’t it feel like something amazing was about to happen? Like life was just about to change forever?

Nope.

Just another rainy afternoon in Shibuya for Rei Hajime. After almost getting out of the train station, the 19-year-old took his umbrella out of his backpack before he started making his way through the couple of blocks that separated the station from his home. He didn’t trust this old umbrella would shelter him all too well when the rain got more intense, so his pace was quick. Other than that? Nothing out of the ordinary.

As he got out of the station, he almost bumped into a green-eyed, curly-haired girl, who was accompanied by a brunette with long pig-tails and a lady with long, purple hair. Huh. That was a motley squad to see around the streets of Japan.

Around five minutes of walking later, Rei decided to increase the speed of his pacing. Mainly because the strength this rain was falling with increased too. At the moment? He only cared about his backpack being protected from the water. Studying engineering was already hard enough without having your notes all wet!

Yes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just an afternoon in Shibuya, empty streets, a woman with purple hair going into the station and an unusual downpour.

A downpour that didn’t let him hear the rushed footsteps of someone around the corner where he was about to make a turn!

BUMP.

“Ow…”

That was a hard hit!

Rei even stumbled a couple of steps back as someone bounced against him. As an immediate reflex, he let go of his umbrella to properly extend a hand and avoid this person from falling on their rear but…! He didn’t get there on time. They were probably going to fall.

His umbrella rolling through the desolated street, Rei rushed forward towards this passerby. “I’m sorry.” He immediately apologized as he tried to help this stranger reincorporate. It was then when he noticed this was a blonde-haired, short woman.

Had she dropped something to the floor? She seemed to have her phone out when they bumped but… Apparently, that particular item was safe. Then, what had fallen off her? “Are you okay?” He asked, waiting for her to take his hand to stand up. It would be only when this girl looked back at him that Rei would… freeze.

Yes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just an afternoon in Shibuya, empty streets, a woman with purple hair going into the station, an unusual downpour and the most beautiful girl Rei's eyes had ever seen.

He was mesmerized. Stunned. Come on, Rei! You have to move!

What could bring him out of his reverie? Well, obviously only something more shocking than this girl’s beauty.

But was there something like that ever to be found? Well, maybe something like the torso of what seemed to be a giant black cat with yellow eyes coming out of that gadget she had dropped. But what were the chances of that happening?

Apparently, quite a lot?

When the corner of his eyes caught a glance of this thing, it was too late. Everything happened too fast. Like, in less than a second, this cat thing had extended gigantic paws with gauntlets (No, I am not kidding!) and pulled them both into that mysterious gadget. For a moment, Rei could feel his body… defragmenting into a million pieces. Of course, he wouldn’t know but… he was being digitized.

Not even a second later, that corner in Shibuya was empty, just like the rest of the streets. Only an umbrella rolling through the road and a strange gadget lying on the ground.

Yes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just an afternoon in Shibuya, empty streets, a woman with purple hair going into the station, an unusually hard rain, the most beautiful girl Rei’s eyes had ever seen and an interdimensional black cat pulling him into a weird gadget.

In all honesty, Boru hadn’t even realized he had unconsciously spoken his wish, even if in a whisper. He remained standing there, his eyes closed and making sure he was going to funnel his real desires towards the fountain. Once he felt ready, he opened them and… nothing happened, of course.

Although clean, the water in the fountain only reflected the expectant face of the Psychemon and nothing else. Why? Why wasn’t it showing his true desire?

It was only when he realized the hut had gotten significantly more silent that he decided to turn to ask Viza. “Am I doing something w…?”

There was no one there anymore. Just the radar laying on the floor.

Although he should have been upset by being tricked, at that moment Boru just felt… sad. Slowly, he turned to look at the fountain again.

He was such an idiot, wasn’t he? What did he expect? A human to magically fall from the sky?

Well, he should have. A shade covered the water for a couple of seconds before something splashed against it aggressively. After having dropped two bodies into the fountain, a pair of enlarged paws traveled all the way back into the radar on the floor, going above Boru’s head. At the moment, the Psychemon didn’t even know where to look!

The paws got inside the radar and then… Viza digitized out of it. The BlackGatomon tipped her hat and wrinkled her mouth, looking at Boru. “There they are. Wish granted.” She took a pause while trying to regain her breath. “They looked quite different from one another, so I figured they were two different human species? I decided to bring both. Just pick one, I guess.” For the cat, this seemed like a simple transaction. She didn't really know how did the bond between a tamer and digimon work.

Completely shocked, Boru just turned his head again to look at the beings that the ‘witch’ had dropped into the water. At the moment, he didn’t even care who had granted his wish. He wasn’t even sure if this meant his wish had been granted!

The feeling of warm water around his lower half and the voices echoing around him was what brought Rei back to the conscious world. Although he was never asleep, his senses had ‘turned off’ for a minute or two and it was just now that he was gaining awareness of the environment. Of the people (?) speaking around him. Of the fact he was sitting on a wet surface.

Rei also became aware of the tightened grip around his hand. Since there was not much she would be able to do to stop it, it was likely this girl he had literally bumped into some seconds before had also ended up in the fountain, right next to him.

Instinctively, the brown-haired man began to reincorporate. He let go of the blonde’s hand in order to properly stand up. With the water reaching only his ankles now, his head moved to explore his surroundings. “Are you o…?” Once again, out of instinct, he was about to extend a hand to the female accompanying him. However, these motions came to a halt and he ultimately froze upon gazing at the strange creature that was right in front of the body of water they were occupying.

Rei took a couple of steps back, feeling clearly threatened by the hairy, colorful monster that was staring at them. “C-Careful!” He addressed the woman in a whisper. It was only as the seconds ticked that he started realizing he couldn’t actually tell what type of animal this was. He had never seen anything like it before. Never.

“What is… that thing?” He unconsciously raised his voice a little. His heartbeat was raising and he was getting progressively more nervous as the situation became harder to understand.

Portraying Rei like this brave hero, willing to prioritize everyone but himself would be too idealistic. The truth was that his head was currently trying to fight the instinct of just running away. Mainly for two reasons. One: that would mean leaving a poor girl who he believed to be as lost as him behind. And two: He didn’t know if making any sudden moves could turn this monster aggressive. In the end, the little regard he held for his own life was helping Rei think clearly and take things as slowly as he could.

The sensation of fear spreading all over Rei's body increased for a second to then abruptly decrease when this thing opened its mouth and… talked.

“Humans. Did you bring them!?” Boru was not very bright, but he wasn’t blind! He had seen Viza’s paws drop the humans in the fountain.

Rei gasped.

“It can talk.”

Suddenly, another voice echoed around the hut. Rei then noticed a creature that looked less menacing, a smaller version of the monster that had kidnapped them. It was standing some meters behind the pelted being staring at them.

“Whatever. Just pick your favorite or something.” Viza was panting, taking a minute or two to recover from what she had just pulled. Using her data insertion skill definitely demanded a lot of energy sometimes!

Evidently, Rei’s head was a mess right now. Maybe Maia could empathize with a newcomer to this world and try to help him keep his sanity. Or maybe she was just pissed she had gotten even wetter now. Not like she couldn't engage in both things.

For some reason, this lady seemed absolutely unfazed at the strange creatures they had encountered. She didn’t even seem to be too shocked at the fact they were occupying an entirely different place just some seconds ago until that cat had brought them here. The mixture of sheer desperation and calm that this fact brought to Rei was honestly hard to put into words.

While listening to her try to explain what these monsters were in a bland manner, the brown-haired man just went to look again at the two creatures. Then, his eyes went back to her. “What the hell is a lizard-dog? And that doesn’t look like a cat at all!” He whispered intensively again. Everyone could hear him though. “Harmless? I had never seen anything like those things.”

What was going on? Why did this girl seem so calm around these monsters? And why was it normal they talked? How could it be her only concern was finding a closet right now?

While Rei went through the much-necessary phase of 'this is probably a dream and now that I realized it is I’m going to wake up', Boru tilted his head while looking at Maia. There was a digimon somewhere around her body. He didn’t need to be too bright to know this girl knew what digimon were, though.

Naturally, the blonde’s question wasn’t met with an answer. Instead, Boru just jumped back a little upon seeing this over-energetic Kudamon come out of the girl’s coat. It wasn’t like he was actually going to pick someone! After all, judging by that human’s reaction, he seemed to have no idea of what was going on!

“I-I-I’m sorry!” The Psychemon bowed his head. “I didn’t mean this to…” He interrupted himself to look at the cat behind him. “W-Where did you find these humans!?”

Although she had managed to say a couple of things before, for the time being, Viza was just panting. Slowly, she decided to sit on the floor. Ugh, her Data Insertion skill was sure exhausting, especially if she used it to transport other beings besides herself. After taking a look at Boru, she delivered an answer.

"I told you... I'm a witch." She once again pointed at her hat. Meanwhile, the radar remained next to her.

Boru's attention went back to the conversation between Mai and Kuu as soon as a familiar name was mentioned. "D-Did you say Katherine?" The Psychemon walked inside the pond of the fountain and approached the pair. "Do you know her?" They said 'Katherine' and 'digivice', they had to be talking about his sister's tamer!

"... T-There's another talking thing!" Getting out of his reverie, Rei pointed an accusing finger to Kuu. Okay, so this wasn't a dream. He was almost sure because he had realized it was probably one and hadn't woken up. Now, the phase of trying to actually understand what was happening started.

... This one talked a lot, though. So that could be a bit harder than expected.

However, it was probably Kuu's attitude, which seemed very joyful overall friendly, that made Rei not get absolutely terrified when this thing approached him.

And, while he did listen to Kuu as he spoke, he couldn't help but let out some words quietly. His eyes remained widened and going all over the Kudamon.

"A talking ferret..."

It was only when the digimon finished talking (temporarily) that Rei tried to answer his question. A small pause and some thinking after, he let out what he felt could be some type of logical response after hearing this very odd description.

Something made of plastic that wasn't a cellphone...

"Oh." Rei's eyes trailed towards Kuu's tamer. "She had one of those. And she dropped it." Was this some type of answer? It probably meant no, he didn't have a digivice himself.

"Hey..." Time for him to squeeze a question in before this thing kept bombing him with words! "... What are you... E-Exactly?" Could maybe Kuu explain what Digimons were in a way a human could understand? Probably not. But it would definitely be fun to see him try!

... Probably not fun for Rei though.

Boru, on his side, pulled softly from Maia's shirt to get her attention. Once he had it, he issued a question quietly. "E-Excuse me, miss... Is Katherine okay?"

Maybe it was a good time for Maia to message Katherine through her D-Terminal and tell her her digivice was laying on the ground in some corner of Shibuya.

It would take a while for her to reply though. You know, time curvature and all of that.

“K-Kuda… Gitsune?” Rei stuttered upon the mentioning of a Pipe Fox. His dad had a scroll back in Nagano about those. Was this thing some type of spirit or mythical creature? In what kind of realm had he entered? He wasn’t the most skeptical person in the world, nor was he a believer in these types of things. It was probably for the best he was in the middle ground about these types of matters. It helped him be nor devoted to this situation neither in denial.

It did seem like he had offended this ancient creature, though. “I-I’m sorry… I didn’t even know your species… existed.” And that was the most honest form of apology he could muster! Why in the world would he think this was a Pipe Fox in the first place? That did explain the talking a little bit, though.

“So you’re a Pipe Fox who likes candies. Huh.” He should write that down somewhere around the back of his head. “I don’t have the bag of candies I carry with me everywhere right now, though." Mainly because said bag didn't exist.

While it was true Kuu was not being extremely helpful, Maia’s description of what these things were had not been the most useful thing in the world either so… it seemed like Rei was willing to take the chance with the Kudamon.

“Whoa… whoa… wait!” Not that he was prepared for this thing to jump on him though! Although quite scared and wiggling at first, eventually Rei’s brain seemed to be understanding this thing was not a threat. The huge, shiny eyes and the kid-like voice helped on that, too.

His eyes widening, trying to look at the monster over his shoulder, Rei traced the name of its species with his own lips. “Kuda…mon.” Like Kuda-Gitsune? “So all of these… creatures… are Digimon?” Digital Monsters, huh? Slowly trying to get used to their appearance, Rei glanced around the whole room again. By now, Maia was already crouching to talk to lizard-dog from up close. She seemed absolutely unfretted by that thing. And… why would she? She had her own monster!

“I did try to live under my bed once when I was a kid. I was angry about my parents letting my little sister eat more dessert and…” Oh. The blonde had taken care of interrupting that little and completely useless talk they had going on there. If he was already rambling with this thing, it probably meant he was getting adapted to whatever was going on here!

Nice and civilized huh? Well, it seemed like they were. Without knowing, Kuu was actually helping Rei feel more comfortable in this situation, by over-exposing himself as a friendly being, mainly.

Okay! So these are Digital Monster. Why not test his luck with another question? “And where… are we, exactly?” This time, the brown-haired human observed the insides of the house they were in right now. “How come it feels like… Maia, right?”… He made a little pause to make sure he had gotten that name correctly before. “… and I were in Shibuya just some moments ago and now we’re… here. Did we enter some type of alternate dimension or something?” This all sounded so unearthly but… at the same time, he didn’t have any other choice but keep looking for answers!

Boru, on his side, also had his own questions. He was naturally touched by Maia actually crouching to talk to him, paying him attention. Not to say he was a bit nervous about that, too.

It should probably go without saying that Boru had no idea of the possibility of different people having the same name in the Human World. He had never been there and didn’t know much about how it worked! Luckily, he didn’t have much room to be wrong about this Katherine. There probably weren’t many Katherine’s that were related to digimon anyway!

“Y-Yes. Huh…” The Psychemon took a timid pause while his eyes trailed down. “… When I met her, she had also lost her digivice. W-Well… more like I stole it from her…” That last part was said in a quite audible mutter. “… B-But that’s long past us. We’re great friends. Jazz, her digimon partner, is actually my sister.” And that was true! Boru was unable to lie, anyway. “… Just… “ A sigh interrupted his next sentence now. “… C-could you let me know if she finds her digivice?”

For a moment, Boru seemed set on walking away. However, he suddenly decided to say something else! “It’s just that…" He now glanced at Rei, who was still interacting with Kuu. “… I don’t want to cause trouble for another human again as I did with Katherine. And It’s my fault you two are here. I… didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have made that wish then.” Right in front of the fountain, Viza stood with her arms folded, still panting a little bit and with that hat still on her head. “By the way, you can change behind the hut, if you want. No one will see you there.” The cat directed her eyes to Maia for a moment to deliver the long-awaited answer.

“I-I didn’t know you were just going to steal them from the Human World!” Boru contested to the cat’s accusation, frowning and turning towards her.

“Well, how did you expect this was going to work?”

“I-I don’t know …! I guess… magic…?” Out of sheer embarrassment, the Psychemon made another pause. He was really expecting a fountain to magically bring him a human some moments ago, yes. “G-Get them back to their world, please!”

The cat shook her head. “Nu-huh. Can’t do. Once I use my Data Insertion skill, everyone and everything that has gone through it is unable to open a digital gate or digitally travel anywhere for 24 Digital World hours, including myself, of course. Not only I can’t use my skill, but these people also can’t get back home even if they have a way of opening a portal by themselves. Their digital structure will be unstable for a day, which means their bodies are unable to digitally travel by any means.”

… And that dropped like a bucket of cold water.

There was something about Kuu’s attitude that made Rei take the candy situation seriously for a moment. Or at least… to act like he was taking it seriously, at least. It sounded like the Kudamon couldn’t quite cope with the idea of someone having a candy bag and not taking it everywhere. Which totally fit what the brown-haired human knew of his personality so far, to be honest.

Boru did give Kuu the confirmation he needed; only briefly interrupting his chat with Maia to answer timidly. “The name of the species all end in… mon.” Rei blinked twice, once again taking a good look at all the creatures, some from very afar and some from up close, like Kuu. Could he memorize all of those names!? Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to. “I bet I’d be bad at it too if I had to remember all of that. How many species of you are there, even?” Well, at least the flow of the conversation had brought him to another logical question.

Like a little kid, Rei just repeated what the monster said in order to try to engrave this information on his head. “The Digital World…” So this was definitely some type of parallel dimension or universe. “I can’t believe these types of things actually exist.” It seemed like all of those people from science fiction movies and weird documentaries weren’t all that crazy! Again, assuming Rei wasn’t the crazy one and was just hallucinating all of this.

Wait… you could go there on a train!? It was probably for the best if he didn’t focus too much on the monster’s rambling for the time being. Otherwise, he would only get more confused. “I figured this was somehow her fault.” Rei muttered looking at Viza. Why ‘her’? Well, although it was hard to explain, this 'BlackGatomon' talked and moved like a female cat… if that made any sense. “After all, she was the last thing I saw before we appeared here.”

All of this conversation developed while the two of them looked at Viza approach Boru and Maia.

The Psychemon, on his end, blushed a little upon feeling the blonde’s hand over his pelt. This made a memory flash inside his head, reminiscing the first time Katherine had pet him. There was something about human’s warm gestures that made him feel very happy. Something that he was probably never going to decipher or… replicate by himself.

“T-Thank you.” Boru showed a timid smile to Mai while she stood up, once Viza had interrupted their little chat.

“No! There has to be a way to get them back!” Boru seemed fairly worried about being at fault for these humans to stay here for a whole day!

Rei did wonder what Kuu could mean by saying this Terriermon wouldn't have to wait for a whole day. Although he wasn't actually going to voice his doubt, the answer to this question was related to the time curvature, the thing that would cause Katherine’s response to take a while before reaching Maia. Not like the blonde and her squad could do a lot more than waiting for her message now. If anything, it was likely only a couple of minutes had gone by in the Human World since they left.

While Boru talked to Viza, insisting there had to be a way for these humans to be able to go back home before a whole day went by, Rei only wondered why Kuu wanted them to tell scary stories, of all types of stories you could tell. He had definitely gotten enough scary stuff for a day with all of this happening to him, so why not happy stories?

The Kudamon addressing them interrupted the small argument between cat and lizard-dog. They both turned their heads at the same time to look at Rei and Kuu. “S-She can't actually do magic.” Yes, Boru was totally sure of that now! For sure!

“Of course I can! I can magic-up the best snacks.” Viza noted, folding one of her arms and tipping her witch hat with a smug expression.

“C-Can you stop lying to people!?”

Ignoring the Psychemon, Viza just went ahead to tackle Kuu's next piece of input. “I mean, I am totally fine by myself. He was the one who asked for a partner.” She pointed her ‘thumb’ to Boru, keeping that smug expression. “So... considering you already have a human, then the right one for him would be…”

Maia going back into the hut interrupted Viza's matchmaking. Slowly, Rei seemed to be getting a grasp of the reason why the cat witch had brought them here. That little lizard-dog had asked for them to come, somehow?

By now, Rei and the rest of the group had already walked out of the fountain. This didn’t mean getting the towel from Maia would be a lot easier, though. For a whole two seconds, the man’s eyes just remained widen, while he stared at the blonde extending that towel to him. “T-Thank you.” He timidly muttered once he finally complied and grabbed the item. There was something about this girl that was just making him very nervous, definitely a whole lot more than how he usually was around people.

“Don’t worry about it.” He dismissed Maia’s clarification while looking at the sunrays going through the holes in the ceiling. “I can feel it’s hot outside, so I’ll probably dry up quickly.” Was that a weird thing to say? Ugh, hopefully not! “Where are we anyway, some type of beach?” For a while, he had been able to hear the sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline so… he figured that was the case. Having been outside, Maia could actually confirm that was the case! It was likely she had even been able to spot Whitewater City in the distance.

This constant, very relaxing sound, was suddenly shadowed by the sound of a deep, crispy voice. “Oh, Viiiiiza.” Several steps could be heard outside, someone –probably a group, even- was walking over the sand, approaching the hut.

The Blackgatomon flinched for a moment, her eyes widening. “Crap. Not now.” She muttered while the sounds coming from the outside made evident these beings were approaching their abode. “You need to get out of here.” She noted, looking at the whole group with a fairly distressed countenance.

“W-What’s going on?”

Not like this hut had any back door though! And not like they had the means or the time to react to this!

A single stomp on the house’s wooden door busted it wide open. The sunlight from the outside made the entrance cast a shadow on the newcomers, them becoming visible only when they fully entered the place.

Whoever knew enough about digimon species (definitely not Rei) would be able to identify the five creatures that had entered the hut as four Kiwimons and a Footmon.

“There you are.” The tall, humanoid-like cyborg digimon, who seemed to be leading the group, showed a cynic smirk while looking around the place, his eyes stopping over Viza.

“H-Hello… Rodney.” The cat replied timidly. Suddenly, her over-confident, smug attitude seemed to have taken a full turn. She didn’t seem scared, just… very uncomfortable.

Teasing the ‘witch’, Rodney’s smirk got a bit wider. “What’s wrong? You look like you just saw a monster. Or... could it be you’re already aware of what day it is?” Without expecting any type of answer, the Footmon’s attention drifted towards the rest of the people inside the hut. At first, he seemed a bit shocked about the appearance of some of these beings. “Oh my. One of the Kiwimon said he had seen a human entering this place but… I didn’t think it was true. You actually have humans with you in here, Viza!”

The whole group stared at Rei and Maia for a moment, with Rodney addressing the Blackgatomon again without taking his eyes away from the pair. “I’ve been looking for one of these for a while. Where did you get these?”

“… I-It was a... misunderstanding.” Viza’s eyes shifted towards the human pair and then back to Rodney. Her voice seemed about to break. What type of relationship did she have with this intimidating guy?

Suddenly, the situation had gotten a lot tenser. Rei was back to being scared and his head was back to being full of questions.

Although he was aware that understanding the current situation properly was impossible for him (mainly because he still hadn’t gotten the situation developing right before entirely), Rei was aware there was some type of tension in the environment. Maia stepping forward went to show she could be worried about this group’s intentions. Did she want to protect him, knowing he had no digimon? More so, was Kuu able to do anything at all to preserve his integrity against these things?

Well, having an outer-world monster on your side was better than having none, right? With her mentioning the name of the zone where they could be (which actually meant nothing to Rei himself) Maia had proven she knew her way around this world. If she was confident enough to step in front, it meant she (and possibly Kuu) had a way of reacting properly if things went south. Again, none of this made her attitude less brave. Why was this extremely beautiful girl forced to protect him in this situation? What was this feeling going through him? Was he... frustrated?

“Got it.” Rei whispered after Kuu told him the name of the armless things spread around the tall guy. Although for a second he had considered their leader could be human, the pipe-fox seemed to be pretty sure this was a digimon, even if he didn’t know the name of his species. That was probably a good thing, considering a human walking around dressed like that would be ridiculous, probably even for this world.

By the time being, the exchange between Rodney and Viza continued to develop into a war of subtitle words. There was something happening between these two. But what was it?

“A misunderstanding huh? Well, well…” Rodney walked around the hut while taking a good look at the pair of humans. “… I wish I were as lucky. I’ve been looking for one of these for quite a while. I’ve heard they can make us digimon pretty strong with their digivices and their strange powers.”

Boru flinched upon hearing this. The Psychemon seemed to be quite nervous about this guy’s presence too. Did he have a bad feeling? Not like anyone else didn’t, honestly.

“Who knows…” Rodney continued. “… Maybe I’ll dedicate myself to finding one of these once I sell that stupid casino in my territory.” While the Kiwimon’s giggled, the Footmon walked back slowly towards the Blackgatomon. Then, he crouched and got his face very close to Viza, who still seemed extremely uncomfortable. “The thing is… will I be selling it to you, Viza?” He wondered.

The false witch’s yellow eyes moved nervously, like running away from the threat this digimon represented. “T-Things… happened.” She explained timidly. “I… I don’t have the money yet.” That last sentence had some sad tone behind it. Something about it seemed to make Viza very sad.

“That’s really a shame, you know?” With a tone that could only be described as cynical, the creature issued his question before showing an evil smirk. “… Good thing I already found a buyer.”

“W-What!?” Somehow, these words had triggered an evident change in Viza. She was not only scared now, but she was also quite fretted. “No. Y-You didn’t.”

“Oh, but I did.” Slowly, Rodney started turning back and walking away from the cat. “I had the feeble hope that you had gathered the money by now, considering today was your deadline. But I can’t say I’m too surprised you didn’t. You've always been quite useless. ”

Despite the situation turning progressively more confusing for Rei, he understood quite well this cat needed to pay some amount of money she didn't have.

“R-Rodney, wait.” Viza stuttered, that distressed expression still on her face. “I-I think I was onto something. I can gather the money!” This time, it seemed like tears were about to burst off her eyes. “Please, Rodney. The Casino is my legacy. It's everything I have…”

To this, the Kiwimons giggled again.

“Oh, but the Casino is not yours. You don't even have that." He clarified. "I think I’m done giving you time, Viza. Some just don’t deserve to care for a legacy.” Rodney went on, his attitude turning a lot colder. “You’re a good-for-nothing. The only thing you’re good at is lying to others and yourself. Digimon like you don’t deserve a chance. Your lack of skills has made you unable to collect the money, therefore you don't deserve the opportunity to protect your legacy.” As Rodney spoke, Rei started clenching a fist. Being that rude... was it really called for? Why kicking someone when they're down? “I'm going to Whitewater to meet with a buyer, I will sell that Casino and you better be out of here in one hour.”

With his goons still laughing, the robotic creature started walking back towards the door, leaving a devastated Viza behind.

Right before he went through it? A voice stopped him.

“Hey. I'll buy the thing.”

Who said that? Could it be the person less qualified to do so? Someone who had literally arrived here less than an hour ago and had literally no idea of how money worked in this world?

Sadly, yes.

Taking a couple of steps forward, Rei ended up in front of Maia and closer to this digimon.

“W-What is he doing?” Boru muttered.

Rodney turned over his shoulder to look at the human addressing him. “You?” He asked, baffled. “You are going to buy the casino?”

What was Rei even thinking? Was he upset that someone, anyone, couldn’t have a chance of caring for their legacy? Was he trying to gain time just to not see Viza cry, even if he had no further plan? Or had he just convinced himself this was, in fact, a dream, and he was going to say whatever he felt like saying without caring of consequences?

Probably all of the above.

In any case, he now had Rodney’s attention. Now what?

One thing was certain: Swimming would have to wait.