Japanese Title: The Mystery of Guilmon's Birth! The Mystical Water Space
Government agents approach a man dressed in yellow named “Mizuno”...but otherwise known as “Shibumi”. The man runs for it and vanishes in a puff of smoke.
Takato, Jian, and Terriermon find themselves in an underground cave, and Takato worries about Guilmon. Jian tries to get them out of the cave by using an Option Card to give Terriermon a drill, causing water to flow from a hole in the wall.
The kids’ parents approach the Wild Bunch, demanding to know how they can help their children. Dolphin tells the parents that only children can enter the Digital World, since originally his son had come up with the shapes and abilities of the Digimon and thus the Digimon are heavily attracted to children.
Jian uses a Yukidarumonnote card to give Terriermon an ice attack, and the frozen water confirms that there’s water on the other side of the wall. Takato tries to use the communicator Yamaki gave him and is surprised to see it working. He receives an email from Yamaki, wishing for their safety.
Yamaki approaches the Wild Bunch and presents everyone with the email Takato had sent him. They receive another one from Takato: “Emergency situation, SOS”. After Takato receives a reply that everyone’s families are worried, Takato responds that it’s an emergency situation but they’re not in danger, and Jian wonders why the communicator works after having been drenched underwater. Takato, receiving a reply to let the others respond, is forced to pretend to be everyone else in order to ease their parents’ fears.
Jian, reasoning that the water isn’t real, decides to inform his father about this. His logic is that the water is only wet because they believe that it’ll be wet, while machines aren’t affected because they can’t think. Because the water isn’t real, they might be able to breathe in it without problem. Receiving Jian’s email in Chinese, Jiangyu is able to shrug it off to the other parents as “nothing important”, but under Yamaki’s direction tells them to try it and have confidence. Jian manages to dive into the water and emerge after 300 seconds completely unharmed, with his hair not even wet.
Jiangyu receives his mail confirming this from Jianliang and thanks Yamaki for the help, willing to work with him. Curly says that all they need now is Shibumi, but Yamaki tells them that it won’t be possible – Shibumi, real name Gorou Mizuno, had disappeared when he had sent his men to fetch him.
Takato, Jian, and Terriermon freely explore underwater, and they eventually run into an underwater cave inhabited by a bunch of Otamamon. When the Otamamon swim away, a Hangyomonnote appears and attacks, believing Takato and Jian to be hostile to the Otamamon. After the misunderstanding is cleared up, the Hangyomon points them to a large pipe which could potentially lead to a way out. Terriermon tries to charge into the pipe only to get an electric shock, and the Hangyomon tells them that nobody has ever been able to make it through. Jian has the Otamamon make a giant bubble to protect them as they go through, and Takato, Jian, and Terriermon successfully make it into the pipe.
Shaochung plays with a Terriermon doll, but finds it a poor replacement and wistfully looks out the window wanting to have Terriermon back.
The pipe leads Takato, Jian, and Terriermon to a giant watery space, and they’re surrounded by the many strange creatures who had freed Culumon from his first cage. The creatures lead them to an underwater house, where they find a library with a giant model of an Ark and a single human inhabitant. The human man, who seems to have only a spectral presence in the Digital World, introduces himself as none other than Mizuno. He mistakes Takato and Jian for part of his creations, and says that he’s “sleeping” - in fact, he cryptically says that all of mankind is sleeping, and that when they wake, it’ll be time for a new evolution.
Takato presents his Ark to Shibumi, and Jian, wondering if he’s a member of the Wild Bunch, tells him that Jiangyu is his fater. Shibumi, still believing himself to be dreaming, recognizes Jiangyu as “Tao”.
Takato asks about the strange creatures, and Shibumi reveals them to not be Digimon but “DigiGnomes”, an artificial intelligence that developed separately from the Digimon, and that the blue cards are merely an “algorithm”. He explains that he wanted Digimon to evolve past what humans had expected, and that he created the blue cards in the hopes of getting them past that limit. However, the DigiGnomes are still a mystery to him, as although they wish to communicate with humans through their actions, they can’t speak to them.
The DigiGnomes pull Takato’s original drawings of Guilmon out of his Arc and the resulting data that led to Guilmon’s creation. Shibumi reasons that they probably used Takato’s information in order to create Guilmon from Digital World dust packets.
When Jian asks how they can get out, Shibumi tells them that the highest point in the Digital World is inhabited by the Four Holy Beastsnote , and Jian realizes that they must be the Devas’ “gods”. Takato recognizes them from Digimon media as Qinglongmonnote and the other three Digimon that protect the Digital World, and Shibumi points out the irony of Digimon like the Devas trying to pursue forms unlike those of their human creators but ultimately settling on forms similar to those of human religious figures.
Takato wonders if the Four Holy Beasts are good Digimon after all, and Jian remembers what his kenpo teacher had told him about good and evil not being absolute. Shibumi tells them that the Four Holy Beasts are somewhat rushing their desire to get everyone to evolve and fight against something, but he doesn’t know what they’re trying to fight against.
Shibumi uses the giant model of an Ark - which has a double-meaning as also being an “ark” that can provide transport - to transport them out, and returns to sleep. Takato, meanwhile, is worried about the fact that Guilmon is made up of only data.
Tropes
- Meaningful Name: “Mizuno” is a pretty fitting surname for someone in a watery space (the mizu kanji in his name means “water”).
