Japanese Title: Confrontation, Volcamon! Junpei's Battle with His Past
Mercuremon, realizing that the kids have managed to make full use of their Spirits with their powers as a Digimon, decides to come up with a new strategy. Meanwhile, Duskmon ruminates on why he was incapable of bringing himself to kill Kouji and realizes that Kouji is the one who’s bringing “unrest” to his soul.
With the five kids together again, the group continues to head towards the Rose Morning Star, and Junpei seems to be in higher spirits than usual. Takuya and Izumi wonder since when he suddenly became the leader, and Kouji attributes it to Junpei getting this idea because he’s the oldest, and when Tomoki says that he wants to be the leader too, Takuya tells him to be a little less spoiled first and Tomoki retorts that Junpei eats a lot of candy bars, so he’s spoiled too.
The kids suddenly find themselves falling into the ground and sucked into a vortex, leaving Bokomon and Neemon behind. Bokomon looks up to see all of the kids trapped inside a large structure with multiple spheres. The kids realize that they’re trapped in some strange place, and suddenly a part of the wall pushes into another sphere when the others aren’t looking. Junpei ends up in a strange area, wondering who pushed him in and where everyone else is, and runs into a hostile Volcamon.
Volcamon taunts Junpei, claming that the others are the ones who left them alone, and Junpei begins to have doubts when he remembers the conversation the others had about him earlier. Volcamon tries to tell him that the others hate him, but Junpei has too much faith in his friends to believe that and spirit evolves to Blitzmon to fight Volcamon. Volcamon uses his attacks to psychologically drill it into Junpei that he’ll always be alone, but Junpei manages to get back up again and finish off Volcamon, scanning him and causing Volcamon to dissolve away.
However, the battle ends up having taken a psychological toll on Blitzmon, and even though he’s sure the others wouldn’t abandon him, his shadow suddenly talks to him, telling him that he doesn’t have any real friends. The shadow reminds him of his memories of school, during which Junpei would impress everyone with things like magic tricks and bribe people with presents but never make any lasting relationships with friends. The shadow tells him that Junpei knew for a long time that he would never have any real friends just by trying to buy them.
Blitzmon yells at his shadow to stop and his shadow continues to taunt him about having no friends, and manipulates the environment to attack him. Right outside, Takuya senses that something’s happening to Junpei, and they’re attacked by the walls that had dragged Junpei into the other area. The four of them respond by spirit evolving to Agnimon, Wolfmon, Fairymon, and Chakmon, and after they fend off the walls, Agnimon realizes that Blitzmon must be past the wall he was dragged through earlier.
While Blitzmon is able to fight off his shadow, saying that Takuya and the others have taught him how true friends aren’t made by bribing people, and his shadow manifests as a dark Blitzmon. The dark Blitzmon summons a bunch of illusions of the other kids who jeer at Blitzmon and call him names, but Blitzmon is smart enough to know that they’re not real. With that, Blitzmon and the dark Blitzmon begin fighting, staging it as a battle between the “old” and the “new” Junpei. The dark Blitzmon claims that since they’re the same, if one dies the other will, and knocks Blitzmon to the ground and causes him to revert to Junpei. Junpei is still resolute in having faith in his friends, and as if to confirm this the real Takuya, Kouji, Izumi, and Tomoki burst in to help. Junpei spirit evolves to Bolgmon and takes on the dark Blitzmon, who in turn slide evolves to a dark Bolgmon, and manages to destroy the dark Bolgmon at high injury to himself.
Junpei thanks the others for coming for him and apologizes for having doubted them for a moment. Unfortunately, before they can have any celebrations, the arms on the walls that had pulled them around drag them to different areas, separating them...while Mercuremon’s laughter echoes in the distance, and from the outside, the light on one of the spheres goes out and Bokomon wonders if the kids are okay in there.
Tropes
- Alien Sky: Junpei is trapped in an area with a swirly brown sky. Most of Sephirotmon's other areas have skies that are palette swaps of this area's.
- Breaking Speech: Volcamon and Junpei's Enemy Without show Junpei just how alone he was due to trying to bribe his way into friendships.
- Enemy Without: This episode features a major character facing a "shadow" version of himself that taunts him with all of the repressed feelings that he's denied - it's worth noting that the theme is very similar to that of Persona 4, with this episode having aired around six years before that game's release. Incidentally, Junpei manages to accept himself pretty quickly - it's just fighting off his shadow self and regaining trust in his friends that ends up being the hard part.
- Eye Catch: Junpei and Takuya’s variants are used for this episode.
- Genius Loci: Sephirotmon, as demonstrated by him attacking the other heroes in the tunnel.
- Living Shadow: Junpei's Enemy Without starts off as this, moving independently of Junpei himself to taunt him from several different directions.
- Mirror Match: Junpei's battle with his Enemy Without is this, down to the Enemy Without having the same Slide Evolution sequence. Junpei ends the match with a close-range Field Destroyer attack that neither of them can tank, destroying his Enemy Without and causing himself to revert back to human form due to the blast.
- Palette Swap: Junpei's Enemy Without appears as a dark gray version of Junpei's Digimon forms. This also applies to their attacks: Junpei's attacks all use yellow lightning while his Enemy Without uses blue lightning.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Junpei's Enemy Without's eyes glow red when it first appears.
- Tastes Like Friendship: Volcamon and Junpei's Enemy Without deconstruct this in a Breaking Speech.
- Womb Level: The tunnels between Sephirotmon's areas are organic.
- Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: Junpei uses yellow lightning as usual while his Enemy Without uses blue lightning.
