Japanese Title: My Home! Takuya's Lonely Return
As Takuya, sinking into despair, rides the dark Trailmon back home, he suddenly finds himself transformed into Flamonnote , a lower form of Agnimon. The Trailmon drops Flamon off at the lower part of Shibuya Station, where Takuya boarded a Trailmon to the Digital World. Flamon sees Duskmon behind him and, screaming and about to cry, barely manages to get into the elevator back up before Duskmon gets to him.
Flamon finds himself back at Shibuya Station, where all of the people around him mistake him for some kind of strange cosplayer. Realizing for the first time that he’s no longer human, Flamon makes an escape out of the station, wondering why he’s turned into this. He climbs onto a train headed back to his hometown and wonders what he’s going to do now that he’s in this form, but the appearance of Duskmon causes him to flee. He makes a run back to his home only to scare his neighbor with his new form and when he hides in a tree, he can’t get his Digivice to change him back.
Suddenly, he sees himself as Takuya in his own house, idling and waiting for Shinya’s birthday to start. Flamon realizes that he’s been taken back in time to before he left for the Digital World. Flamon, seeing his family, realizes that he can exploit this opportunity to, in his mind, Set Right What Once Went Wrong by preventing his past self from making it to the Digital World. Flamon finds to his dismay that he’s invisible to himself, though at one point he’s able to push Takuya aside to prevent him from being hit by a truck. Flamon’s recurring hallucination of Duskmon appears again, as if to taunt him.
Flamon chases Takuya to the train, all the while causing a ruckus among the civilians and still wondering if he should stop himself. As he looks into the train, he sees something that startles him: Kouji, and a boy in the next car who has the exact same face as him. Takuya realizes that the mysterious boy isn’t Kouji, and wonders who is this boy who’s constantly looking back at Kouji without the latter’s knowledge.
As the train lands in Shibuya, things happen the way they did before: Kouji makes his way towards the elevator and Takuya sprints towards it, barely making it in...and the mysterious boy with Kouji’s face, also trying to get to the elevator, is unable to make it before the doors close and ends up trying to take the nearby stairs. Flamon continues to wonder who he is but ends up preoccupied with forcing over the elevator door to follow it down, while meanwhile out of sight the mysterious boy trips over while running down the stairs, falls on the ground, and begins to lose consciousness while muttering Kouji’s name. (This is totally not going to be important later.)
Flamon manages to successfully follow the elevator down and, as he sees Kouji running off, remembers his fight with Kouji in the Digital World; as he sees the other kids he’d traveled with in the Digital World enter the Trailmon they boarded, he remembers his first meeting with them and how they were all cold, abrasive, and generally unmotivated, only having gone on the Trailmon because they thought it would be interesting, and how Tomoki was weak and defenseless against the idea of bullies. He then remembers Bokomon telling him how the Legendary Warriors are needed to save the Digital World, how he and Kouji had fought, and how Duskmon had bathed everyone in darkness in rage and confusion.
Flamon realizes how selfish it is for him to be the only one to return and live in peace and comfort when everyone else is in danger and, seeing his past self hesitate the same way he did that day, urges Takuya to go and get on the Trailmon. While Takuya doesn’t hear him, he gets on the Trailmon, and Flamon declares that this is the right choice. Flamon’s hallucination of Duskmon appears again, but Flamon says that he won’t run away, destroying the illusion.
The dark Trailmon reappears, and Flamon asks to be taken back, saying that he’s changed his mind. The Trailmon warns him that he’ll be leaving a comfortable life and that he won’t have time to have regrets later, but Flamon is resolute. As Flamon boards the Trailmon, the Trailmon takes him back to the Digital World and back to the time he came from, and Flamon transforms into Agnimon. They arrive in the Digital World and Agnimon steps out in the Dark Continent, ready to take on what may come.
- Agnimon: Takuya Kanbara has returned to this world, on his own will.
Tropes
- Eye Catch: Takuya’s variant of the eyecatch is shown twice.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: This is probably reason why the universe somehow makes it so that Flamon is visible to everyone else (and thus able to affect the environment) but invisible to Takuya.
- Significant Double Casting: In order to avoid revealing future plot points through this trope, while the “Mysterious Boy” has an entry in the credits, his voice actor is listed only as “?” for this episode. This is to hide the fact that his voice actor is Kenichi Suzumura, also known as the guy who played Duskmon in the two previous episodes. (The dub version doesn't have to do this, as voice actors aren't labeled with the roles they play in the credits.)
- Threshold Guardians: The dark Trailmon and the illusionary Duskmon.
