Japanese Title: Save Dukemon! Grani Scramble
Culumon is still unable to get a response out of Juri, to his dismay. He tries to get Beelzebumon to wake up to help, and although the mention of his name causes Juri to stir, she only sinks deeper into despair as she remembers Leomon’s death. As she recalls Leomon’s final words of his death being “fate”, it brings to mind another memory: the death of her biological mother and her father also calling it “fate”. The memory quickly transforms into a twisted vision of the doctors - and, soon, herself and her Hand Puppet - transforming into monsters and tormenting her about fate.
Takato’s father drives the other kids towards Hypnos headquarters to keep them safe from the expanding D-Reaper, while Justimon continues to fight off the Agents. At Hypnos, Daisy creates some modifications to the Ark that had brought the kids home, imbuing it with add-ons made of the virtual metal “Chrome Digizoid”. The Wild Bunch and Yamaki name it “ZERO-ARMS: Grani”.
When the kids arrive at headquarters, Shibumi borrows Jian’s Ark in order to use it to Realize Grani. With an explanation of how Realization works, which involves a bit of quantum mechanics, he reveals that the Ark is what allows Realized things to have a physical form.
Guilmon comes upon Juri’s depressed parents, while Megumi and Jiangyu show Hirokazu and Kenta the original form of the D-Reaper. Shaochung tells Jiangyu about how Culumon and Beelzebumon went inside the core sphere, and Curly and Dolphin speculate that it could be similar to the D-Reaper’s brain. They wonder if they can take down the entire D-Reaper by attacking it, but Takato, knowing that Juri must be inside there, can’t allow that.
Takato speaks with Juri’s father Hajimenote , telling him not to be mad at Juri. Tadashi only says nothing and departs.
Justimon continues fighting against the Agents, with Ryou trying to get him to hold back when the fight gets futile while Cyberdramon insists on keeping it up. At Hypnos, Juri’s stepmother feels insecure about her position, and as Ruki watches over her talking with her mother, she realizes that she’d taken Juri’s happy façade for granted.
Hajime turns out to have stolen one of the Hypnos vans in the hopes of saving his daughter from the D-Reaper. Once he gets to the D-Reaper’s surface, he’s only able to call for Juri, but Juri is unresponsive even when Culumon hears him.
Hajime blames himself for not having been a good enough father, especially since he’d coldly told her to come home by herself for having run off and had in fact rejected her stepmother’s offer to get her. A D-Reaper agent begins to taunt Hajime, taking on Juri’s voice, repeating the word “fate” over and over, and analyzing what it knows of Hajime from Juri’s memories. When Hajime offers himself in place of Juri, the D-Reaper deems this to be contradictory to how Juri remembers him.
The D-Reaper’s agent retreats, but Hajime pursues it and Ruki matrix evolves with Renamon to Sakuyamon in order to stop it from hurting him. Culumon recognizes Hajime as Juri’s father, which barely elicits a reaction out of Juri. This causes the D-Reaper to actively scan her memory, which incenses Takato enough that he matrix evolves with Guilmon to Dukemon.
The Wild Bunch wonders why the D-Reaper is so fascinated with the prospect of a relationship between a parent and a child, and Shibumi theorizes that it must be afraid of something it doesn’t know. Terriermon gets impatient, wanting to help fight with the others, but Shibumi tells him to wait as the progress of Grani’s transfer reaches 70%.
Justimon joins the fight against the D-Reaper agent, but together, Dukemon, Sakuyamon, and Justimon are ineffective against its power. Culumon cheers them on, but Juri has lost all hope, saying that it’s all useless because of fate.
As the D-Reaper parrots Juri’s declaration of “fate”, Ruki declares that they can change fate, and Hajime has the van slam into the agent’s foot. This causes the D-Reaper to release Dukemon, Sakuyamon, and Justimon, but also to turn on Hajime. Dukemon manages to save Hajime at the cost of being tangled up himself. Fortunately, Guardromon and Justimon bail him out.
More D-Reaper agents arrive, shooting at the Digimon in large masses. The agents come in large numbers, and Takato realizes that they have to defeat the large one at the center. As they fight, Grani manages to Realize with the help of Shibumi slashing a Blue Card across Jian’s Ark. However, Grani doesn’t fully materialize until it receives some of Dukemon’s energy, giving it a crimson-colored paint job and allowing it to become a vessel for Dukemon to ride on.
Now with Grani assisting him, Dukemon effortlessly slashes the Agents away. He successfully defeats the center Agent, and the Guilmon side of Dukemon identifies Grani as the Ark that had helped them.
After Dukemon splits again into Guilmon and Takato, Takato again tries to call to Juri, who manages to hear Takato’s voice. Takato promises that he’ll definitely save her as the others stand behind him.
Tropes
- Big Damn Heroes: Grani arrives to give Dukemon much needed support against the D-Reaper.
- Call-Back: When the D-Reaper studies Juri's father Hajime and goes through some of her memories of him, it recalls when Juri goes down to her parents' restaurant and fetches some juice for Leomon in Episode 24.
- Car Fu: Hajime drives and crashes a van into Paratice Head's foot, which did nothing but focus its attention on him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The D-Reaper is an unfeeling entity whose sole purpose is to delete everything with cold calculated precision. It goes into a "does not compute" mode when trying to analyze family relationships.
- Go Through Me: When the numerous Bubbles Agents started firing, Sakuyamon quickly grabs Hajime and shields him from the shots with her back. Fortunately Dukemon takes the heat off of her with his shield.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Hajime is forced to realize just how much he had failed Juri when he learns about her kidnapping and having the Paratice Head note pretty much reveal to him that Juri doesn’t think he cares about her due to the data it gained from her memories.
- Papa Wolf: Hajime, as he doesn’t even hesitate to ram his car into the Agent’s foot and demands that the D-Reaper return Juri, even offering up himself in exchange.
