Chapter 121: These Companions Are Really Unbearable
Izzy had noticed Mizuki's extraordinary talent for data manipulation from the very beginning.
At first, he hadn't paid it much mind. He simply viewed the older boy as a prodigy, a genius whose comprehension of the digital landscape far surpassed his own. That assumption held firm until just moments ago. While they were working together to generate the hot spring from raw environmental code, a cold knot of unease began to form in Izzy's stomach. Something was fundamentally wrong.
Mizuki had claimed he needed the group's help because he lacked a solid conceptual grasp of what a hot spring should look and feel like. In practice, he had turned himself into a living conduit. He acted as the paintbrush, channeling the raw data, while the children served as the artists guiding the strokes. It sounded incredibly offensive to think of a friend this way, but Izzy couldn't shake the clinical observation. Mizuki was far too easy to use. He interfaced with their commands without a single point of friction.
And that was exactly where the terror lay.
Even after crossing over into the Digital World, even after their physical forms had undergone partial digitization to exist in this space, the core essence of their humanity remained intact. Humans were still humans. They possessed limits, hesitations, and biological inefficiencies. They could not function as flawless tools, let alone process information like a pure string of binary code.
Yet, as Izzy watched Mizuki manipulate the environment just moments prior, the boy hadn't seemed human at all. He operated with the terrifying, frictionless precision of a high-end supercomputer.
Izzy's fingers twitched at his sides. Earlier, after discovering the nature of their physical transition into this realm, he had run a diagnostic. By channeling the Light of his Crest of Knowledge through his laptop, he had managed to analyze his own structural composition. The results confirmed that his body's digitization level hovered right around thirty percent. He had run the same passive scans on Taichi and the rest of the group. The values were nearly identical across the board.
But Mizuki?
During their brief physical contact while shaping the hot spring, Izzy hadn't needed his laptop to run a detailed diagnostic. His heightened perception of data had done the math for him. The numbers flashing through his mind were staggering.
Mizuki's digitization level wasn't thirty percent. It was eighty. Perhaps even ninety percent.
If that fragile, lingering ten percent represented the most fundamental human soul, the core of his heart and willpower... then everything else was entirely synthetic. Excluding that tiny spark of humanity, Mizuki was composed entirely of data. It wasn't that his physical body had undergone severe digitization. It was far more likely that the Digital World had aggregated ambient code to construct a brand new vessel for his soul from scratch.
The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity. This perfectly explained why Mizuki, who had suffered from a frail and sickly constitution his entire life, had suddenly recovered his health upon entering this world. The illness belonged to his flesh. This body was just code.
A cold sweat broke out across Izzy's neck. If this was true, what had happened to Mizuki's original body back in the Real World? Without the supporting anchor of his soul, would that fragile, bedridden shell simply cease to function? Would the doctors declare him deceased?
Izzy's hands curled into tight fists, his fingernails biting into his palms. He gritted his teeth. He desperately wanted to open a gate back to the Real World right this second, just to check the hospital monitors, just to confirm the truth for his friend.
But he was trapped here. He could do absolutely nothing.
Worse still, he couldn't even breathe a word of this theory to Mizuki. Based on everything Izzy had learned about the underlying mechanics of this dimension, human emotion was the ultimate power source. The heart dictated reality. If Mizuki learned the cruel truth, if the realization that he might already be dead in the real world broke his spirit, the resulting wave of despair wouldn't just destroy him. It would corrupt the data around him.
Izzy's gaze drifted sideways, landing on the elegant, quiet form of Belle resting nearby. The backlash would devastate her.
Could Mizuki's legendary optimism carry him through such a devastating revelation? Could he accept it and move forward?
The moment the hopeful thought surfaced, Izzy ruthlessly crushed it. He could not gamble on a vague, optimistic hypothetical. Not with a human life. Izzy looked down at his own trembling hands. He was just a kid. His shoulders were too narrow, his strength too meager. He was completely incapable of bearing the crushing weight of another person's existence.
For Mizuki's sake, the only logical, safe course of action was absolute silence. He had to bury this deduction deep inside. He would only speak of it when he was one hundred percent certain he had a solution to stabilize the fallout.
Just as Izzy locked that dark secret away in his mind, a heavy hand clapped down on his shoulder.
Caught completely off guard, Izzy let out a sharp gasp. His center of gravity shifted, and he stumbled backward, his feet tangling together. Before he could hit the dirt, a second arm shot out, catching him firmly by the back of his shirt and hauling him upright.
Izzy blinked, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Taichi?! And... Mizuki!?"
"Izzy, what is wrong with you?" Taichi leaned in, his brow furrowed in genuine concern.
The goggle-wearing boy had been in the middle of a loud, animated discussion about the hot spring with the rest of the group. When he noticed Izzy standing completely frozen at the edge of the clearing, deaf to his repeated shouts, he had jogged over to check on him. He hadn't expected a simple pat on the shoulder to nearly send the resident genius sprawling into the dirt. Thankfully, Mizuki's reflexes were as sharp as ever.
"Why are you standing out here all spaced out?" Taichi asked, tilting his head.
Izzy swallowed hard, forcing his racing pulse to steady. "...It is nothing."
Under the intense, concerned scrutiny of his two friends, Izzy quickly organized his expression. Although his deduction regarding Mizuki's data composition was logically sound, it remained a theory. He needed to find a private moment to consult with Piximon to confirm the mechanics of cross-dimensional soul transference. Until then, the vault remained sealed.
Pushing the grim thoughts aside, Izzy offered a small, reassuring smile. "I am perfectly fine, Taichi. Just lost in thought." He turned his gaze to the older boy who still had a steadying grip on his shirt. "And... thank you for catching me, Mizuki."
"Why are you being so polite?" Mizuki released his grip, his face breaking into that familiar, easygoing smile. Bathed in the pale silver light of the digital moon, he radiated a deep sense of inner peace. "Aren't we companions?"
Izzy stared at him for a long moment. The word echoed in his mind, heavy with newfound responsibility. "Companions... Yes." He looked between Mizuki's gentle smile and Taichi's earnest, goofy grin, then gave a firm, heavy nod. "We are companions."
"Izzy, you are acting seriously weird tonight..." Taichi muttered, scratching the back of his head.
But the confusion vanished as quickly as it came. Taichi's eyes lit up with renewed energy. He threw one arm around Izzy's neck and the other around Mizuki's, dragging them both toward the steaming water.
"Let's go, let's go! Time for a proper hot spring soak!"
"How about we make it interesting?" Mizuki suggested, his tone suddenly shifting into something far more mischievous. "A contest to see who can endure the heat the longest?"
Taichi pumped his fist in the air. "Sounds awesome! Let's do it!"
"Um... can I opt out of this?" Izzy asked, his voice cracking slightly.
Seeing the feral, competitive glint in both of their eyes, he instinctively shrank back, trying to slip out of Taichi's headlock. He was completely different from these two! They were absolute meatheads who regularly engaged in hand-to-hand combat with giant Digimon! He was just a fragile, indoor researcher whose delicate constitution could not handle such barbaric treatment!
The moment the plea left his lips, Mizuki and Taichi's hands clamped down on his shoulders like iron vises.
"Of course not!" they declared in terrifying unison.
"Mizuki and I have already decided the rules!" Taichi announced, a wicked grin spreading across his face.
"Not only will we compete to see who can survive the boiling water the longest!" Mizuki chimed in, his eyes sparkling with pure, unadulterated troll logic. "But we are doing it fully clothed!"
"Let's use this trial by fire to forge an unbreakable bond between us companions!" they shouted together, their voices echoing through the quiet forest.
Looking at the two lunatics flanking him, Izzy suddenly felt a deep, soul-crushing wave of regret. Why had he just sworn a silent oath to protect these idiots?
"About that companionship..." Izzy squeaked, digging his heels into the dirt. "Can we put it on pause for just a little bit?"
Hearing Izzy's desperate plea, Taichi and Mizuki exchanged a single, knowing glance. A synchronized, devilish smirk stretched across their faces.
"Absolutely not!"
Before Izzy could even scream, four hands grabbed his limbs. They hoisted him high into the air, swung him back on a count of three, and launched him directly into the center of the steaming pool. A massive splash erupted as Izzy hit the water, clothes and all.
"Do you feel it, Izzy?!" Taichi yelled from the edge, already winding up to jump in after him. "This is the burning heat of our bond!"
"Let's be companions forever!" Mizuki shouted, laughing as he prepared to dive.
Breaking the surface of the water, completely drenched and sputtering violently, Izzy could only articulate his feelings in a string of pure, unfiltered gibberish.
"@$%!"
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