Chapter Text
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Notes: Rin is 100% OC, I’m not even going to pretend to be ashamed. I was aiming for “Yugo with boobs” but who even knows.
~.~.~
Chapter 1: That special thing
As children, Rin and Yugo had one thing in common — both of them had something.
In the Commons slums, any possession was to be treasured, but it was also a danger. It pained a target on your back because what you treasured, another would certainly covet.
Rin and Yugo each had a treasure. A single thing they fought tooth and nail to keep. No matter how bruised or bloodied they got, they wouldn’t let go of that one single treasure. Those were their earliest memories, curling tightly around that precious thing until the would-be thieves gave up and finally, finally went away.
A bracelet. A card.
A pretty, shiny thing. A symbol of power. Precious metal and stone that could be pawned. A rare card that was the currency of the black market.
Sometimes it seemed like having that one thing meant having nothing else. ‘Come on, why are you keeping it to yourself?’ the other children at the orphanage would jeer. ‘Don’t be selfish, think of how much we could do for the facility with it,’ the adults would lecture. Rin and Yugo only clung tighter, never letting go, never letting it out of their sight.
‘I won’t give it to anyone,’ they thought, bitter and resentful. This, alone, was theirs.
Until they met. And then they gained a second precious thing — intangible but all the more special for it. Something they’d anything to protect, something warm and strong and gentle. A bond. Each other.
They had never asked each other to give up their first treasure, and they had never weighed the two. But the choice was obvious without even thinking. Between Rin and a card, between Yugo and a bracelet... They’d give those childhood treasures in a heartbeat.
~.~.~
Even knowing that in heart, Rin still stared at the card in her hand before turning her wide, shocked gaze up to Yugo. “Are... are you sure?” she wondered. “But this is...”
“Of course!” Yugo shot back without a moment of uncertainty. “If somebody’s trying to mess with you, Clear Wing will protect you. This way, it’s like I’m always with you!” He puffed up proudly, drawing back his narrow shoulders and sticking out his thin chest. There was a smudge across his nose where he’d thumbed it, still thinking he gesture made him look cool.
For a moment, the warmth that welled up in her heart was overwhelming, too much for Rin to express. Yugo yelped as she punched him the shoulder — wimp, it was just a love tap — but before he could cringe away, he found himself engulfed in a tight embrace.
“Thank you,” Rin murmured, her words muffled as she pressed her face into his hair. “I’ll take good care of it, I promise. I’ll get it back to you by the Friendship Cup, okay?”
His arms came up to hold her in return, the tightness of his grip giving away his own affection and concern. “It’s supposed to take good care of you,” he protested half-heartedly. Quietly, to himself, he added, “I’m counting on you, Clear Wing...”
~.~.~
Growing up in the slums, Rin was no stranger to being followed or even attacked by strange men. She’d learned to defend herself early. She’d learned to run too.
That was what she did now, running as fast as her feet could carry her. She shouldn’t have been afraid — of just one boy, shorter than she was and even more slight than Yugo. But she was. Something about the smile she’d glimpsed under the edge of his hood, about the tone of his voice and the way he’d advanced on her with the sure pace of a hunter... Rin had turned and run.
She knew these back alleys. She’d raced through them, even hidden in them, more times than she could count while growing up. This was her home turf.
...So why was it that she couldn’t shake him? No matter how fast she ran or what shortcut she took, she could always hear his steady footsteps behind her. Turning another corner, Rin chanced a glance back. For an instance, her eyes met that hungry, dark gaze, and a cold shudder went down her spine.
Rin didn’t know what he wanted from her, but she didn’t want to find out. Putting on a burst of speed, she tried again to lose him.
She was too focused on the pressure of his presence against her back, and lost track of where she was. It was a stupid, rookie mistake, one she should have known better than to make. But when she turned the next corner, it took Rin several steps into the dark alley before she realized she’d run into a dead end.
Hesitating too long — another dumb mistake — she finally turned and tried to backtrack to the main street. But it was too later. The cloaked silhouette of the predator boy stepped into the mouth of the alley, his shadow stretching along the ground toward her.
“Well,” he said slowly, relishing, “that was fun.”
Rin wavered. Nowhere to back away to, no way to get past him. He was light on his feet, she could see, he would stop her if she tried to slip by.
“I do so enjoy it when they struggle,” the boy went on. Even with his face in shadow, she could see the widening of his smile. “But now it’s time to go. The Professor is waiting.”
‘...Like hell,’ Rin thought.
She didn’t know who this professor was, but she wasn’t going to go along with it. She was going to get away from this creep. She was going back to Yugo. They would enter the Friendship Cup together, they’d leave the Commons and live out their dreams. She wasn’t going to disappear in some dark little alley. It wouldn’t end like this!
Her deck and duel disk were still in their pouch on her belt. Dueling would have meant standing still, and she hadn’t wanted to remain close to that unsettling boy. But in her deck, a card pulsed. It resonated — with its old comrade, with its young master’s wish, with her sharp, cleaving will.
“Just get out of my way!” Rin shouted, charging at him.
She leaned to one side, as if trying to duck past him. He was still smiling, of course, as he turned to intercept her...
Correcting at the last moment, Rin crashed straight into him. Her knee drove into his gut with all the force and momentum she could muster. They toppled together in a flurry of limbs and muffled curses. The impact was jarring, knowing the breath out of Rin — and of her pursuer too. She scrambled over him, to her feet. This was her chance, if she could just make it past him—
A hand wrapped around her ankle, pulling her down.
Rin screeched as she fell, and kicked frantically. “Get— off me!” she yelled. “Let go, you bastard!”
He grunted, taking a heel to the head. Knocked askew, the hood of his cloak slipped and slid off. Reaching for Rin, he moved into the moonlight falling around the corner of the roof.
The sight of his face made Rin freeze, staring in shock.
She knew that face. But it couldn’t be him. “Yu... go...” she breathed.
No. It couldn’t be Yugo. He couldn’t be her Yugo, Yugo who had given her Clear Wing, who tried to be strong and clung tight to hide how much he wanted to cry. Yugo wouldn’t look at her with twisted amusement at the fury, fear and doubt in her expressions.
“That was quite rough,” this boy who had stolen her friend’s face said, smirking despite the twinge of pain in his expression from her repeated hits. “I like it. What else can you show me?”
Desperation gave her a burst of strength to rip free of his grip, but her feet tangled clumsily, her knees weak, and Rin fell. Her palms scraped against the hard ground, and there was a sharp pain in her mouth as she bit her tongue.
‘Yugo,’ she thought desperately. She wanted him to be here. She was so scared— ‘Yugo! Yugo! Yugo!!’
Bright light flared. The importer reared back, bringing up a hand to shield his eyes. Rin, too, was blinded by white, but somewhere beyond the light, she could hear something — a dragon roaring. It was familiar... and comforting.
Rin fell, down and down and down, into a void deeper than darkness.
~.~.~