They had run as fast as their legs could carry them—Matt, Mimi, Izzy, Joe, Naruto and the digimon partners, sweat-soaked and trembling. The sand burned beneath their feet, but they dared not stop. Not with the ground behind them being devoured, as though the world itself was collapsing into a silent scream.
The military bunker—half-buried in ancient stone and reinforced steel—loomed ahead like a long-forgotten tomb. And standing before its gaping mouth was Piximon, no longer the quirky, floating creature they had once known, but a warrior of old, cloaked in an aura of solemn urgency.
His beady eyes were closed in concentration, and in one tiny hand he held his gleaming spear, Fairytale, its tip glowing faintly with a light not born of this world. With a soft grunt, Piximon swirled it once, then slammed it down into the cracked earth.
"Shield of the Ancients… Rise!"
At that instant, the wind stopped.
There was no visible flash, no dome of light or ringing sound—but something unmistakably snapped into place around them. An unseen wall shimmered in the air for the briefest moment, like heat haze over stone, and then vanished.
But they knew it was there.
Because the howling, starved inhalation of the black hole — the sucking pull that had tried to drag even the pyramid itself into nothingness — stopped just short of the bunker's edge.
The children gasped, their hair still whipping around them from the recoil. Matt stumbled to a halt, falling to one knee as he pulled TK close. Mimi leaned against Izzy, her chest heaving with the weight of fear.
"Tai!"
"MetalGreymon!"
"Get back!"
"If you stay there, you'll get sucked in!"
Their cries rose into the turbulent air, their voices thin and desperate, lost in the chaos. But even so, they screamed louder, their eyes locked on the sky where their friends fought an impossible battle. Because it wasn't just a fight anymore. It was a defiance of oblivion.
Piximon floated silently above them, watching the black hole with narrowed eyes. Though his wings still fluttered as they always did, there was something heavy in his posture, something ancient. The distorted horizon twisted and warped, as if reality were melting like wax under a cruel sun.
"This is bad… pi…" Piximon muttered, the word barely a whisper against the rising hum of destruction. His grip tightened on Fairytale.
The distortion was growing.
The pull was intensifying.
Piximon's brow furrowed. "This barrier… even my magic may not hold long." He had encountered storms, dimensional rifts, dark Digivolutions—but never this. Never the pure, silent hunger of a black hole.
All he could do was pray, wings quivering.
"Please… die down and go away soon, pi…"
And somewhere beyond the veil of protection, Tai and MetalGreymon danced with death above a storm of darkness, their silhouettes small against the collapsing sky.
-----------------
Up in the skies where even the winds were afraid to go, the battle between light and darkness raged on.
Tai stood firm on MetalGreymon's shoulder, his stance wide, his fists clenched at his sides. His crest of Courage glowed with a fierce, golden brilliance—like a second sun defying the void. But it wasn't just light. No, this was a pulse of pure conviction, a heartbeat of power that surged from soul to partner, binding them with something ancient and indestructible.
MetalGreymon roared—a sound that shattered the air, a defiant war-cry aimed straight at the heart of despair.
His scales glinted in the dying light of the desert. His wings beat the hot air into storms. And then, in an instant, his body surged with energy. Tai's courage had unlocked everything.
Power. Speed. Mental focus. Recovery. Defense.
All of them rose like towers of fire, stacking onto MetalGreymon's frame until he shimmered like a living reactor.
Tai's voice rang out across the battlefield, unwavering.
"You're not alone! Not now, not ever!"
"RAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"
MetalGreymon opened his missile ports.
TERRA DESTROYER.
The missiles that screamed from his body were monstrous—each one the size of a truck, glowing red-hot with compressed fury. They weren't just explosives. They were judgment, each one empowered by the will to protect a world that had given them everything.
But the monster that met them… had changed.
Etemon, once flamboyant and ridiculous, now hung in the air like a falling star of ruin. His lower half was an abomination, a grotesque sphere of metallic scraps, writhing with tentacles made from dark cables, each one brimming with a sickening, oily blackness that shimmered like tar under moonlight. The cables moved with will—alive, aware, hungry.
When the Terra Destroyers neared—
They vanished.
Swallowed. Deleted. Erased from reality.
The cables cracked through the sky, slashing, whipping, devouring the missiles whole, not even allowing an explosion. The darkness didn't even leave a trace of heat—only cold, suffocating silence.
A voice, deeper now, echoing from within the ball of junk and power, spoke slowly.
"Nobody can kill the King of Digimon…"
His yellow eyes gleamed through the grime like twin suns swallowed in ink.
"You worms think you've bested me once. But I am no mere clown. No mere servant. I am the evolution of perfection. I am entropy's vessel. I am KING."
His words were laced with madness, but also purpose. Etemon was no longer chasing attention. He was now chasing supremacy.
He darted forward—so fast he broke the sound barrier with a thunderclap. The dark tentacles whipped around MetalGreymon like chains from another dimension.
Tai held on with all his strength, screaming his partner's name.
"METALGREYMON, HOLD THE LINE!"
The cables constricted, burning like acid as they slid across armored plating, slicing deep, aiming to pull the cyborg dragon apart.
Etemon cackled, eyes wild.
"Once I've wiped you from the sky, I'll go after your little friends… and your precious Piximon's barrier. And then, children, I shall have my throne upon your bones."
The sky itself seemed to flinch.
But Tai's eyes never wavered.
Even as MetalGreymon struggled against the impossible strength, Tai's courage only grew—a beacon in the madness.
He whispered, so low only his partner could hear,
"We don't run from fear, partner. We fight it."
And the crest blazed brighter.
-------------------
Naruto had had enough.
He stood now at the very edge of Piximon's shimmering barrier, that delicate membrane of light which kept the howling winds and gravitational fury of the black hole at bay. He had watched long enough—waited long enough—as Tai and MetalGreymon fought a battle that bent the skies. He had felt the tremors beneath his feet, heard the screaming of missiles, and tasted the bitter tang of ozone in the air.
But he had not been idle.
No—Naruto Uzumaki had been gathering energy, every breath building upon the last, every heartbeat dragging up power from a place deep within him, a place not born of this world. His fists clenched at his sides. His eyes, once bright with mischief, now narrowed with resolve. There was no joke left on his tongue, no snide quip. Only silence. Only purpose.
The power within him—it was ready.
Piximon's words echoed in his memory like a prophecy:
"Evolution is not about strength alone. It is desire that calls it forth. The need to grow, the wish to protect, the will to ascend."
Desire.
That, Naruto had in abundance.
He desired growth—not for vanity, not for pride, but because it was the only way to reach his dream. He wanted to be Hokage, not just a shadow chasing after greater men, but the greatest Hokage who had ever lived. One who would be remembered in history, sung in songs, etched in the hearts of children long after his time had passed. He had always known the path would demand sacrifice.
And now, standing at the edge of this alien battlefield, with a roaring black hole behind him and the sky burning above, he wanted one thing more than anything else:
Power to protect.
Power to change the world. Power to protect his friends, his memories, his home—even if he wasn't sure any of it was still real.
Something shifted. No, clicked.
Like the final piece in a long-forgotten lock, the desire within Naruto ignited. And with it, his very being began to change.
The energy flooded outward, light erupting from beneath his skin, brilliant and warm like the first rays of dawn after a long, starless night. He gasped, not in pain but in awe, as his muscles stretched, bones cracked and rearranged, and his body grew. His small frame, just 160 centimetres tall and wiry with lean muscle, transformed. His arms lengthened. His chest broadened. His height surged—180, then 185, then 190.
In mere seconds, he stood not as a child… but as something more.
Narutomon Teen had been born.
Golden light clung to his skin like armor, fading into orange markings that danced across his chest and arms like ancient seals. His whisker marks deepened. His eyes gleamed with a feral sharpness. The wind whipped around him in reverence. Power radiated from his every pore.
For a fleeting moment, joy surged through him—pure, untamed victory. He had evolved. He had grown. He had become.
But then—like a cold hand slipping into a warm pocket—the memories came.
And with them, the despair.
A wave of knowledge, unwelcome and unstoppable, crashed into him. Until now, his memories had only reached the start of his journey with Jiraiya. But now… now he remembered Pain.
He saw the ruins of Konoha, the bodies buried in rubble, the grief in Tsunade's eyes, the weight of leadership pressing down upon his own too-young shoulders. He remembered the Toad Mountains, the endless training, the flickering candlelight in quiet inns as he dreamed of home.
The knowledge came with a terrifying realization.
He was not like the others. The other Digimon evolved, yes—but they did so naturally. Gradually. Like people aging with time and wisdom. But he? He evolved and his mind evolved with him.
Which meant...
These memories had been sealed. Until now.
And that begged a question he could no longer ignore:
Was he even real?
Piximon had mentioned the possibility once, in a voice heavy with reverence and fear. That legends—famous, ancient, eternal—could be born into this world as Digimon. Not as people, not as reincarnations, but as digital echoes formed from belief, memory, myth.
Was he one of them?
Was he not a boy at all, but a myth wrapped in skin and laughter?
And if not—if he was the real Naruto Uzumaki—then the implications were even worse.
Someone had sealed his mind.
Someone, or something—maybe even Yggdrasil itself—had shattered his memories into pieces, like a mirror thrown down the stairs. And the only way to gather them again, to truly remember who he was, was to keep evolving, one painful shard at a time.
But that meant...
He didn't know the condition of his world.
He didn't know if Konoha still stood.
He didn't know if his friends still lived.
The last image was of a broken city. Of silence. Of death.
What if they were all gone?
What if he was too late?
His knees nearly buckled. The strength he had just gained turned heavy, dragging him down like iron shackles. The power of a warrior meant nothing in the hands of a boy grieving a home that may no longer exist.
He stood, strong enough to defeat Ultimate-level Digimon with a single blow, yet...
Frozen.
A young man on the edge of greatness, crushed under the weight of uncertainty.
The sky around him rumbled. Tai was still fighting. The others were still watching. But Naruto—Narutomon Teen—stood at the edge of the battlefield, trembling not with fear, but with the storm of questions that had no answers.
The battlefield needed a hero.
But inside, Naruto had become a boy once more.