The silent boy stepped forward.
Tai registered it the way you register a storm front moving in—subtle, inevitable.
The boy opened his jacket fully.
Pinned inside, in a neat row like medals on a uniform, were eight gym badges. Tai didn't know all their names, but he recognized the idea instantly: proof. Progress. Earned victories.
They began to glow.
Not like Digicrests exactly, but close—like parallel wavelengths of the same emotion. The light pulsed in steady beats, synchronized, disciplined.
Izzy sucked in a breath. "Those— they're acting like crests. External bond-symbols amplifying the connection."
The boy lifted the strange device—Digivice-shaped, but not—and Charizard's whole posture changed. Like it was bracing to become something more precise, more contained.
SkullGreymon turned, cannon-mouth blazing, and fired.
The beam was rage made visible: wild, unstable, leaking power at the edges.
Charizard answered with flame—then the badges flared brighter and the transformation snapped into place.
Mega Charizard X emerged with a heavier presence, as if gravity itself had become stricter. The fire it gathered wasn't chaotic; it was focused.
The two attacks collided in the center of the arena, and the coliseum shook like it was trying to throw them out of itself.
Dust blasted outward. The Champions struggled to stand. Tai shielded Koromon—because somewhere in the chaos, SkullGreymon's form had flickered, and Tai couldn't stop imagining what was trapped inside it.
The clash strained.
SkullGreymon's beam sputtered, surging in angry pulses, like a tantrum with infinite fuel.
Mega Charizard X held steady—compressing, refining, controlling.
Then SkullGreymon's beam collapsed.
And Mega Charizard X didn't "win" with a finishing blast to the chest.
Instead, it veered its flame upward, carving a clean channel through dust and gloom, blasting the sky open like a curtain.
Light poured down.
Not metaphorical light.
Actual sunlight, sudden and real, washing the arena in warmth and clarity. For a breath, the Digital World looked like it remembered how to be alive.
SkullGreymon staggered.
The corrupted form cracked—then broke.
A small round body tumbled to the ground.
Koromon.
Tai sprinted, dropped to his knees, and scooped him up like he was fragile glass.
Koromon's voice was tiny, wrecked. "I… I'm sorry… I got scared…"
Tai's face crumpled. Then steadied. He held Koromon close, forehead pressed to the little Digimon's soft head.
"No," Tai whispered. "I'm sorry. I did this. I wasn't listening."
Behind him, the badges dimmed. Mega Charizard X settled back into Charizard—still massive, still powerful, but calmer. The strange device's screen flickered once and quieted.
The boy stepped closer. He didn't loom. He didn't posture.
He simply stood where Tai could see him, and Tai realized—too late, too clearly—that the boy's silence had never been cruelty.
It had been discipline.
It had been attention.
It had been care expressed through control.
The boy looked at Tai, then down at Koromon.
A micro-action: his shoulders lowered a fraction, tension easing now that the danger wasn't immediate.
When he spoke, it was barely louder than the dust settling.
"Your feelings… reach him first."
Tai swallowed hard and nodded. The truth hurt because it was simple.
Charizard glanced back at the boy—seeking the next instruction—and the boy's hand rose without urgency, two fingers making a small downward motion.
Charizard's tail flame steadied. Like a heartbeat calming.
For the first time since entering the coliseum, Tai felt like he could breathe.
The boy looked around the broken arena, the shattered stage, the empty arch where Etemon had fled. His eyes tracked exits, distances, possibilities.
Then, for the first time, uncertainty flickered across his face—not fear. Just a practical problem.
"By the way," he said, quiet as ever, "how do I get home?"
The DigiDestined stared at him.
And in that brief sunlight, in that wrecked arena, Tai realized something that made his chest tighten:
This kid wasn't a villain.
He was just someone who'd learned the hard way how to take care of his partner.
And Tai was finally, painfully, starting to learn it too.