Inside the cave, the world had shifted.
Tai could barely see a few feet in front of him. A thick, soupy fog clung to the walls like cobwebs that refused to be brushed away, twisting and curling around the stone like living things. The cold dampness in the air kissed his skin and whispered against his clothes. Agumon padded beside him, claws clicking faintly on the uneven ground, golden eyes wide and watchful.
"Where are we?" Tai muttered, the sound of his own voice strangely muffled, like he was speaking through cotton.
The fog didn't answer.
It wasn't just any fog—it felt unnatural, as if it were made of more than mist and vapor. Like it was made of memory itself. And there was something oddly familiar about the dim landscape it cloaked. A nagging, half-forgotten scent hung in the air—old river water, rusted metal, and the vague sting of scraped knees.
Tai blinked. Something was shifting.
He didn't know how he got here, not exactly, but he was standing now on a narrow bridge of cracked concrete and peeling paint. A river flowed beneath, sluggish and brown, its surface barely visible through the gloom—until the smell hit him.
That rank, unmistakable smell of stagnation, plastic bags, and waterlogged leaves, the kind that clung to skin and never truly washed off. The memory slammed into him like a thrown football. He knew this place.
"This is… where I used to play as a kid," he breathed.
Agumon tilted his head. "Are you sure?"
Before Tai could answer, there was a sudden crash behind them—a sharp clatter of metal against pavement, followed by a child's voice crying out in frustration.
"Oh, man!"
Agumon's voice dropped into a whisper. "Someone's here."
Tai nodded. "Let's go check it out."
They walked together across the bridge, the fog thinning just enough to reveal the source of the noise. A small bicycle lay tipped over on its side, one wheel still spinning lazily. Beside it, a boy groaned, his tiny limbs tangled awkwardly under the frame.
Tai's heart gave a sharp lurch.
It was him.
A younger Tai, no older than seven, wearing a shirt two sizes too big and shorts streaked with dirt. His wild brown hair stuck out in all directions, and his scraped knees were stained with fresh blood and dust. He lay sprawled beneath the bike like a defeated knight beneath a fallen steed.
The memory bloomed, full and sharp.
Tai remembered the exact day.
He'd decided—on a whim, as children do—that he would learn to ride without training wheels. He remembered dragging the old bike out from the garage, determination flaring in his tiny chest like a torch. All day, he had tried and tried. And fallen. Again and again. The gravel bit into his skin, the heat of the pavement pressed against his cheek, the tears he stubbornly refused to let fall.
The young Tai slowly picked himself up, his lip trembling but dry. He winced as he stood, small fingers brushing dust from his elbows. Then, without a word, he picked up the bicycle, adjusted the crooked handlebars with clumsy hands, and got back on.
Watching it unfold, the older Tai felt a strange mix of pride and guilt twist inside him. The memory should've warmed him—should've been a reminder of strength. But instead, he felt… uneasy.
"What's the point of all this?" he asked aloud, half to himself, half to the fog. "Why show me this?"
Agumon didn't speak, though his expression was thoughtful.
Tai clenched his fists. "Is this supposed to be some kind of lesson? 'Don't give up, keep trying, you'll succeed eventually'?" He stared at the fog as though it might respond. "Because I already know that. Piximon said there wasn't a clear answer…"
The silence pressed in again, dense and suffocating.
He looked down. In his palm was the Crest—a glowing, ancient sigil etched onto a small metallic plate. The light within it pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
"The Crest of Courage," Tai whispered.
The word settled heavily over him.
Courage.
What did it really mean? Was it the absence of fear? The strength to fight? Or was it what had driven a scraped and bruised child to keep getting back on his bike, even as his body begged him to stop?
Maybe it wasn't about winning or being strong. Maybe it wasn't even about being fearless.
Maybe… courage was choosing to rise, even when you were certain you'd fall again.
Tai closed his eyes for a moment, letting the weight of memory settle over him like a warm, worn blanket. The air still smelled of wet stone and river water, but something had changed—subtly, imperceptibly, like the moment the night finally gave way to dawn. His eyes flickered to the glowing Crest in his palm, the Crest of Courage, and he remembered.
He remembered the first time he'd held it.
It had not been in a place of glory or triumph—but in desperation.
He had stood alone while his friends fled. His body had trembled with fear, his heart hammering against his ribs like a bird trapped in a cage. And yet, he had picked up a stone—just a stone—and hurled it at Etemon, a monstrous force of darkness. It was an act so foolish, so utterly hopeless, that it could only have been born from courage. Real courage. The kind that ignites when there is no hope left to borrow.
That moment had awakened the Crest.
But then there had been that other time.
He saw it again in his mind—the looming figure of SkullGreymon, wild and uncontrollable, a tragic evolution forced from fear rather than faith. That time, he had jumped in front of an enemy Greymon—not because it was the right thing to do, but because he thought it would push Greymon to evolve. It was tactical, deliberate. He'd manufactured a moment of courage.
Tai's brows furrowed.
That wasn't the same. It couldn't be.
"Was that still courage…?" he murmured aloud.
Or was it a kind of pride? A desire to control something sacred and instinctive?
While these questions circled his thoughts like curious birds, he was pulled back to the scene unfolding in front of him. The younger Tai, red-eyed and defiant, suddenly threw his bicycle down with a loud clatter and shouted to no one in particular:
"I can't do it! I can't ride a bike!"
The outburst was raw and honest. The boy's small fists clenched in frustration. Tears glittered in his eyes like starlight barely holding back a storm.
Tai let out a half-snort of amusement, his lip curling at the edges. "So that's how it happened," he said under his breath, arms folded. "Completely forgot about that part."
Apparently, that was the kind of memory that tucked itself away, hidden in the shadowy corners of the mind—eager to be lost, too inconvenient to carry.
"Tai," Agumon said, his voice uncertain. "Shouldn't we… help?"
Tai shook his head slowly. "No. This is something he has to do himself." He turned his eyes toward the boy on the bridge. "I'm not the kind of guy to give up just from that."
So he sat, his back pressed against the chipped railing, and simply watched.
His younger self continued, stubborn as ever, a storm of tears and frustration, rising and falling again and again. He would fall, curse, and cry through clenched teeth, sometimes wailing in sheer defeat, only to pick up the bike once more. Every movement was a declaration of war against gravity, against pain, against himself.
Stubborn little idiot, Tai thought, not without a trace of admiration. But he never gave up. Not once.
And then, without warning, it happened.
The boy's shrill voice rang out into the heavy fog, filled with glee and disbelief.
"All right! I'm riding it! I'm riding a bike without training wheels!"
His legs wobbled dangerously, the handlebars jerked this way and that, but he didn't fall. He kept going. It was graceless, chaotic—beautiful.
Tai stood slowly, unable to suppress the grin that pulled at his mouth.
"You did great, Tai," he whispered, almost reverently.
A warmth spread through his chest—gentle, glowing. Not the blazing fire of a hero's triumph, but the soft, enduring warmth of understanding. Something clicked, not like a light bulb being switched on, but like a book being opened to a long-lost page.
He hadn't found an answer exactly. Just… something.
A whisper of truth.
Perhaps, Tai thought, courage wasn't something loud and grand. Maybe it wasn't about battle cries or brave faces. Maybe, at its core, courage was the willingness to accept yourself. To see your own flaws, your mistakes, and your limits, and still say, "I'll keep going."
Everyone lacked something. Everyone made mistakes. But the moment you stopped trying because of those things, you buried the parts of yourself that were worth celebrating.
That wasn't the answer. But it was an answer.
And perhaps, that was enough.
He turned to Agumon, his eyes clear and his face brighter than it had been in days—as though the fog inside him had finally begun to lift.
"Let's go, Agumon," he said softly, the words carrying a quiet confidence. "Everyone's waiting for us."
Agumon nodded, his steps falling in beside Tai's as the cave began to ripple and shift again. The memory faded, the fog peeled away, and the path ahead opened like a chapter waiting to be written.
Tai didn't know exactly where it would lead. But wherever it went—he'd face it with courage.
Not the loud kind.
The real kind.
------------------------
Piximon hovered silently above the training field, his small form casting an oddly long shadow in the fading light. The wind whispered through the trees, brushing the grass like unseen fingers, and the distant cries of the Digimon trainees punctuated the air like fading echoes from a past that refused to stay buried.
He didn't interrupt.
Not yet.
He simply watched.
Matt was helping T.K. with balance exercises, trying to keep his tone light even though his eyes betrayed a constant worry. Sora and Biyomon were working on synchronized dodges, their movements fluid but half-hearted. Joe, cautious as always, was more focused on ensuring no one got hurt than on pushing his partner, Gomamon, to improve. Mimi was doing her best to participate, even if the mud was clearly upsetting her more than she let on. And Izzy… Izzy was off to the side, furiously typing into his laptop, running simulations instead of training his body.
It wasn't laziness.
It was fear.
Uncertainty.
They were kids. Piximon had known that from the start. They were not warriors. Not yet. And yet fate, cruel and unchanging, had chosen them again. Just like the others from the world before. The world that had already burned.
Piximon closed his eyes.
He could still see them—his first students. The ones from before the Reset. Brave, determined, foolish. He had trained them, just as he was training these children now. He had guided them through caverns of darkness and storms of despair. He had believed in them, just as he believed in Tai now.
But belief didn't stop destiny. Not always.
And when the universe collapsed in on itself, when the digital fabric of the world had torn at the seams… all that was left was him. The eternal observer. The trainer doomed to repeat.
Piximon opened his eyes and descended.
The kids stopped what they were doing almost immediately, sensing the shift in atmosphere. His usual cheerful tone was absent, and even his fluttering seemed… heavier.
"You're not pushing yourselves," he said, his voice sharp, each word measured like a stone on a scale.
Matt furrowed his brow. "We've been trying—"
"Trying isn't enough." Piximon's tone cut across him like a whip. "In this world, effort without resolve is nothing but delay. Do you think your enemies will wait for you to grow stronger at your leisure?"
The silence that followed was deep and uncomfortable.
Sora looked down. T.K. clutched Patamon tighter. Joe opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
"I did not bring you here to play at training," Piximon continued. "This is not a summer camp. This is the place where you prepare for war."
They stared at him. None of them liked hearing it, but they needed to.
"I know you are children," he added quietly, almost to himself. "But the Digital World does not care about age. It does not care about hesitation. And if you want to live… if you want your partners to live… then you must abandon the idea that you have time."
Piximon hovered down until he was eye-level with them.
"In another age, in another version of this world, I said the same things. And I lost them. All of them. I will not make that mistake again."
His eyes met each of theirs, and for a moment, the mask of sternness slipped. They saw something ancient and tired behind his gaze—something that had mourned and hoped and mourned again.
"Tai is walking a path that none of you can follow. Not yet. But he is doing it for all of you."
He turned toward the cave, as if he could feel Tai's presence pushing its way toward the surface.
"And when he returns," Piximon said, "he will not be the same Tai who went in."
Then, his voice hardened again.
"But he will expect more from you. And so will I."
He floated back, wings flaring.
"Enough delay. We begin real training now."
A beat of silence.
Then, with a quiet nod, Matt stepped forward first.
"I'm ready."
One by one, the others followed.
Piximon allowed himself the smallest sigh of relief—and buried the rest beneath duty.
The restart was coming.
The patterns were aligning, and the universe would fold once more into itself like a paper crane burned at the edges. But maybe this time—maybe this time—they could rewrite the ending.