Chapter Text
The SWANN entity was really bored. Ras Ras was just doing his boring normal job, the Bear kept running away from his place of responsibility while painting worlds by rainbows and sprinkling glitter, the blue-haired dwarf chibi was eliminating afterimages... It just kept repeating.
Multiverse? The lazy ones barely bothered to continue creating and maintaining worlds. Nothing to read, to watch or to do, well, the entity started thinking of an idea. Create a theater? Done. The entity chuckled before bringing to life an avatar.
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Yagami Taichi didn't want to wake up at all. He tried to continue sleeping, but his body rejected his wishes. After a few seconds of stubbornness, Taichi decided to open his eyes. He noticed a few things.
First, he was sitting on a comfortable chair in a large, dark room instead of his bed at home. Second, Taichi wasn't wearing pajamas but casual clothes. And third, around him were many chairs arranged like... a theater, and on each chair was a sleeping child leaning against them. Taichi could recognize his friends along with the newer chosen children. The rest were complete strangers, not even international chosen children. They were all wearing casual clothes like Taichi.
All this was enough to ring all kinds of alarm bells his mind could have. Taichi really wished he had Agumon here, better all of their partners. He tried to call out loudly to wake everyone up, but Taichi's throat suddenly couldn't move at all.
The lights turned on, and Taichi saw a big black screen and a boy sitting on the floor, humming a song softly. When he turned to look at Taichi, he noticed the black-haired boy had jet-black eyes, and was wearing black shirt and jeans. Barefoot, he smiled slightly at Taichi before placing his finger on his lips, signaling silence. Taichi stopped trying to make a sound and felt more comfortable.
Taichi narrowed his eyes at him, but the child just clapped his hands. And all became chaos when the silence was broken and all the others woke up.
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The chaos in the theater was a sight to behold. It was a far cry from the peace that had once reigned in the theater. There were shouts, confused looks, guarded postures. Some of the younger ones either tried to project courage or cowered because of fear. A few children were calmer, reassuring those sitting next to them. But in general, most of them looked around, observing the friendly and unfamiliar faces.
They tried to understand with concern what had happened, looking at the strange children. full of doubt. Some things that can be heard are "Who are you guys?", "Where am I?", "Huh?", "Where is this?", "What is going on?", "Where's my partner ?" and "I don't know."
The black-haired child observed everything with an interested expression. Taichi noticed he seemed unfazed by the chaos. The child waved his hand and all the children suddenly fell silent. After a few minutes of trying to speak, they looked at the child. It was clear he had their attention. Izumi looked at the child with a curious look. After a bit surprised, she supposed she should use a careful approach. "Who are you?"
The child hummed. "Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. Konnichiwa, everyone." Others gave doubtful glances. Noticing this, he chuckled. "Calm down, I have no intention of harming you." Ikuto frowned. He didn't sense any bad intent from this boy, but he was still skeptical. Ikuto decided to just keep silence for now. Meanwhile, Kiriha was giving the boy a cold, menacing look. Others may give this boy belief, but he wouldn't.
The black-haired boy, with his nonchalant demeanor and seemingly effortless control over the crowd, piqued Kiriha's interest. He was clearly no ordinary child like his... friends or others. There was an underlying power to him, a sense of authority that seemed to emanate from his very being.
He made Kiriha feel competitive. An interesting puzzle to solve, a challenge to win. "So, you're the one who brought us here?" Kiriha asked, his voice laced with a hint of contempt. "A theater? Really?" He frowned when the boy didn't have any noticeable reaction.
Takato was trying to have a conversation with the boy. "Um... Can you tell us your name?" Some of the others nodded. Ruki just rolled her eyes. "It's clear that he kidnapped us, you idiot. We all just need to join forces to deal with him." Jianliang just sighed when he tried to calm his group while observing the boy.
The boy stood up with a smile on his face. "I will tell you my name, just because our soft Takato here has asked politely. You can call me Oru, and no honorifics, please." Takato blinked at confusion, and Izumi frowned. "And gomen, Izumi, I don't answer you because I want to observe your interaction. It's interesting, right?"
Ruki created a discontent sound, scaring those who were near her. "Give me a reason why I shouldn't punch you here and now."
"Hmm... you can try. Taichi here had tried to scream to warn all of you, and you can see how that ends. Well, any questions else?"