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As I said, it was a very short story for this AU, since it wasn't totally related to CS/HM main stories and felt more likely a mini-series focused on a minor hacker team. This was an AU i had in mind in August 2021 when i was playing Cyber Sleuth for the first time and had a different approach.

The original approach was something more like Daisuke getting Aiba protag'd treatment, but he was also part of his own hacker team. There weren't much details on it since i was playing the game, but it was just a bunch of shenanigans related to the small Daily Daisuke Doodles i made featuring some parts of my own playthrough, but i drew Daisuke with Takumi's outfit while i played with Ami in-game. I attempted to design a Cyber Sleuth version of Daisuke a year later (i think?), when i finished Hacker's Memory.

The sudden change in the roles, and adding the Space trio & Rui into the AU came quite recently! And I may say, thanks to BeatBreak being similar to Cyber Sleuth series in plot and aesthetic that i had this silly desire to re-write this AU and make it a little more complex.

Despite everything, Ken and Ryo being part of the Amas Stellaire group as Pluton and Jupiter once is exclusively to this AU and it won't be related to Noel's lore or even YDP series at all. So I hope it can clarify any future confusion on whether Ken and Ryo are part of Noel's phantom thief group or not in the overall lore.

Also, Rui and Ken being related here is just a nod to my own jokes and a friend saying "they look alike!" when an art featuring 8yo Rui was released as promotional gift at Digimon Partners. She even explained why she had that feeling... And since then, i have this crack joke that Rui and Ken are distant relatives, lol. So, in this AU it felt like a good twist like when you learn Date Makkiko is Nokia's cousin.

I don't ship siblings or cousins, so i wrote this to be more family bonds instead. Besides, i'm starting to enjoy this headcanon seriously and especially now that i'm unable to stop shipping Rui with Daisuke and/or Meiko, and Ken and Miyako are married and with a child (soon more two kids) in my current main timeline stuff... So any previously romantic Rui → Ken stuff is outdated info. Thanks for reading my disclaimer.

BTW, even if this is a crappy finale or a crappy story... I hope it was at least fun to deliver an AU version of those characters. I am for sure happy i got to write another AU thing with a closure! Even if the Legend Xros Wars AU was released and finished in a document format, i know some people loved it and enjoyed its premise! I considered doing the same with this AU too, but i thought "Maybe i could try writing a story instead!" and there we are.

While writing this, i started to get some interesting ideas from Kamen Rider Drive & Persona stuff for YDP series. I'd like to work on those soon or later. Again, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy it!