Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the future, there was a conversation. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant one, as far as they went- but Yusaku had been unwilling participant in more unpleasant conversations than he cared to count, and so at the time he simply wrote it off as another on the long list of them.

(In retrospect, Yusaku would come to see it as the start of some things, and the end of very many others. But only in retrospect, filtered through the lens of the years.)

On a particularly slow Sunday spent parked out by the ocean, Spectre came down to Cafe Nagi. They took this in stride, for the most part- it wasn’t the children, after all, who hurt them so deeply. If Spectre shared any of the same lingering apprehension from their past as enemies, he didn’t show it in his manner as he calmly made his order- enough for two, unsurprisingly enough.

“It’ll be a few minutes. Feel free to take a seat,” Kusanagi invited, waving a hand towards Yusaku at the table. Spectre, much to Yusaku’s irritation, took it. And watched him. Intently. Yusaku glanced up from his laptop every few seconds, trying to figure out what Spectre wanted from him, because it was doubtless something .

Spectre cleared his throat, but didn’t follow it up with anything. Yusaku looked up at him again. He didn’t know what he should be saying. He hardly ever did. “Sorry. I don’t know what you want me to say here.”
“In the end, things turned out for the best, I suppose,” Spectre said, which wasn’t an answer, but was a safe enough topic to discuss, Yusaku supposed.

He leaned back slightly in his chair, and it creaked as a gull cawed out over the ocean as if in answer. “I’m surprised. You seem like the type that would hold a grudge.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” Spectre replied, “We were simply protecting the places that we belong.”

Yusaku hadn’t been about to apologize. If anything, he was about to ask for an apology, given how Spectre had turned the Zaizens from players to pawns- but Spectre’s words startled him just enough that what he ended up saying was- “No one would blame you if you hated me.”

Spectre lifted an eyebrow and returned, “No one would blame you if you hated me . If you’d stayed silent on the bridge, I would have had no qualms about letting you perish then and there. I believe you’re the one more prone to anger.”

Yusaku huffed. What was he supposed to say to that, exactly- but he was saved from having to answer by Kusanagi calling from the food truck, takeaway bag in one hand and tongs in the other. “Sorry to keep you waiting! Your order is ready.”

“Well then,” Spectre said, and pushed himself up delicately from the chair without even so much as a scrape against the pavement. He accepted his food and left about as pleasantly as Yusaku supposed he was capable of.

“Is he gone? He’s gone, right?” Ai said, poking his head out of Yusaku’s school bag, resting on the ground propped against the leg of his chair. His eyes were squinted after the small shape of Spectre’s back, already halfway up the road. “What was that all about, anyway?”

“Who knows,” Yusaku replied with a shrug. Ai grumbled something that Yusaku instinctively tuned out, resting his fingers idly over the keyboard as he stared down at the code without seeing it.

They places that they belong .

Now that his revenge was a thing rooted firmly in his past, rather than his present… Yusaku blinked, and glanced around. He had his support in Kusanagi and Cafe Nagi. He had his partner in Ai. He had a half-formed purpose still lingering from the three goals that had guided him a decade. It was a place to belong, and he wasn’t willing to give it up for anything save a miracle that would fulfill that final purpose. But those hadn’t been what he was fighting for, not in the instances where it mattered.

The way he’d lived up until now was an existence, a boundless force propelling him forwards towards a distant promise of better tomorrows. A reason to fight. A reason to live.

But revenge was never a place to belong.

Yusaku had a home, now, carved out from what remained of his old anger and blanketed soft over the scars. But how, he wondered, was he even supposed to start reconciling that with the rest of the world that had marched on ten years resolute without him?

In the future, there was an introduction.

His homeroom teacher droned their way down the attendance list, and Yusaku, head propped in his hand and gaze off to the side, listened to not a single word after his name until he registered it was taking far too long to get to the lesson. He tapped his pencil idly against the desk, and hoped it was nothing terribly important.

But before he could lose himself in his thoughts, the lofty tones of a familiar voice had Yusaku’s head jolting up.

“My name is,” Spectre began, then froze as he caught Yusaku’s gaze across the room. Yusaku’s pencil rolled off his deskspace, and Shima in the row before him attempted for exactly thirty-two seconds to hand it back to him before giving up and dropping it atop his blank notebook, instead. Yusaku registered it all as white noise, blinking down at the utterly unreal sight of Spectre dressed in the school uniform at the front of the class. The name Yusaku had never thought to ask was written precisely on the blackboard behind him.

“Are you all right?” The homeroom teacher broke the spell, and Spectre shook himself back to reality with nothing but a shift on his feet.

“Yes, my apologies,” he said, and continued his introduction flawlessly as he stared daggers at some poor soul in the third row who was doubtless wondering what they’d done to deserve Spectre’s attention.

(Spectre informed him later that his eyes, stunned beyond words in those thirty-two seconds, were as wide as Spectre’s own. That was to say, comically so, and probably a bit alarming to anyone who happened to see.)

They didn’t have the opportunity to sit next to each other, because Spectre took a seat as close to the front of the class as he could. The result was that he ended up in the third row aisle seat, meaning Yusaku was stuck staring down at the back of his head for the next who-knew-how-long, struck by ridiculous disbelief. Ignoring lessons was less a conscious decision and more a necessity as he tried to trace the logic for every possible reason Spectre would be here. He ended up with a few, some more likely than others. They were, he reasoned, the same age. It wasn’t so unlikely to see Spectre here, at school, where sixteen year olds usually spent their days.

It wasn’t… so unusual. An odd thought. Yusaku hung onto it.

Eventually they broke for lunch- which Yusaku realized mainly because Shima shot up from his seat, chattering about his forgotten lunch as he made a dash for the cafeteria. Before Yusaku could so much as think of doing the same (albeit in the opposite direction) a girl was already standing in front of Spectre’s chair. She was popular- the kind of girl that went out of her way to make nice with everyone in a way that reminded Yusaku vaguely of Blue Angel. Her voice was just loud enough that it carried up the rows to Yusaku, and doubtless back to her gaggle of friends in the corner of the classroom.

“Hey,” she said, toying with the red ribbon tied in her short hair, “If you don’t mind me asking, where did you transfer from? And how was it like there?”

“I have no interest in answering that.” Spectre stood, picked his bag up from the ground, and immediately headed up to the back of the classroom. There was no mistaking it- he was walking straight towards Yusaku. The popular girl huffed, crossed her arms, then shook her head and went back to her seat, watching them out of the corner of her eye as her friends began to whisper amongst themselves.

Spectre stopped on the stairs just before Yusaku, not quite obscuring the girls. And, as always, wasted no time on needless pleasantries. “Are you ever going to stop staring, or is this as ridiculous an idea as I insisted to Ryoken that it would be?”

The girls in the corner were unabashedly staring. Yusaku couldn’t glare at them without Spectre noticing. He said instead- “Lunch. Do you have one?”

“Of course I do,” Spectre said, as if Yusaku should have already known exactly what he’d packed.

“Great,” Yusaku replied, and pushed himself up from his chair with both hands pressed against the desk. He grabbed his bag, then pushed his chair back in with a scrape. “Then let’s go.”

“Isn’t here fine?” Spectre asked, as if he was unaware of the eyes tracking them, trying to puzzle out how the transfer student and the loner in the back of the class knew each other from day one. Or, more likely, he simply didn’t care.

“Nope. Let’s go. Roof, come on.”

He expected Spectre to protest, to try and hold him back as Yusaku pushed out of the classroom. But when he glanced over his shoulder, Spectre was following along, gaze wandering absently the hall, the windows, the scenery outside. Yusaku took them up the staircase to the roof, and wondered what Spectre thought of it all.

The roof was a wide area, lined with benches near the fences at the edge. Planters stood at regular intervals, blooming with a seasonal white flower that Yusaku didn’t know the name of. They sat on a bench at the very far end of the roof, hidden in plain sight by the distance from their peers gathered around the doors. Facing outwards, they stared down into the courtyard and into Den City sprawling out beyond the school gates, a distant bustle. It was Yusaku’s favorite spot, if he was allowed to have a favorite spot in a place he hardly ever visited.

They pulled out their lunches- on Yusaku’s end, at least, a gesture that he had no intention of turning this into a confrontation. Spectre’s lunch was as impeccable as the boy himself, and just as lavish, too. Yusaku wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that he made it himself. Not that Yusaku’s paled in comparison- Kusanagi had made him a bento that morning after he’d fallen asleep in the back of Cafe Nagi. (Because even if Hanoi was gone and the most obvious target of revenge out of the picture, there was still SOL, still the mysteries of the Cyberse to uncover. Different circumstances, same routine, thought Yusaku, not dissatisfied.)

Neither of them touched their food. Yusaku decided to cut to the heart of it. “Why are you here?”

“Because Ryoken informed me that it would be beneficial. I’ve had very little opportunity to expand my circles beyond that of Hanoi’s upper command.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Yusaku muttered. The glance Spectre pinned him with was dryly unamused, so he continued quickly, “Kogami didn’t come with you?”

Spectre’s answer came a little proud, a little wistful. “He’s studying for entrance exams at home. There’s very little public education could help him prepare for at this point.”

How strange, Yusaku thought. For so long the Knights of Hanoi’s leader and the perpetrator of the Lost Incident had been a looming menace in Yusaku’s mind, vague agents of past and future upon which he’d sworn revenge. Now they were just Kogami Ryoken, a reclusive but tentative ally aiming at something so mundane as university, and a set of ashes at a family grave.

“What’s he going to major in?”

Spectre blinked silent, as if that hadn’t been the response he’d anticipated, then answered- “Business.”

“Huh. Seriously?” Not that he thought Spectre was joking, but that certainly hadn’t been what he’d expected.

“You know as well as I do he already has all the necessary coding skills. And there will very likely be vacancies in the network business once SOL is obsolete. If he’s to go to university, he may as well learn something he doesn’t already know.”

Yusaku couldn’t argue that one. The image of Ryoken as a CEO was dissonant, but not unpleasant, not unrealistic, as far as Yusaku could tell from their few meetings outside LINK VRAINS so far.

“What about you?”

Spectre, who’d just been about to start eating, lowered his hand. “Excuse me?”

“What about you? You’ve thought about it, right?” Or perhaps not. Yusaku certainly hadn’t. Whenever someone asked, he’d answered with ‘help a friend out with their family business’ which was satisfactory enough for most. Unambitious but loyal. Commendable in its own way, and kept people from prying. At the time, that was all he had cared about.

“I’ll follow Ryoken into whatever field he pursues, I imagine.”

So he hadn’t thought about it, then. Not concretely, at least. “You know Hanoi is done, right? You don’t have to keep following him around.”

The look Spectre shot him would have sent anyone unprepared running for their lives. As it was, Yusaku had seen it before, and won the duel at that. Spectre said, irate, “And you do realize that the two of us are friends, correct? You may have saved him, but I’ve supported him since the very beginning. I have no intentions of stopping.”

“Fair enough,” said Yusaku with a shrug. Spectre didn’t ask in return, and Yusaku figured he’d gotten lucky with that. They ate their lunches side by side in silence until the bell rang, then filed silent back downstairs, into their classroom. Yusaku made a conscious decision not to stare, though he hardly paid attention to lessons, either. The day felt slow, as if time was melting by, resisting its usual flow. Yusaku tried to remember the last time a day had felt this long, and found that he couldn’t. Another unusual thing , he thought, and filed it away neatly for later.

When the school day finally reached its end, Spectre left without a word behind him and vanished like his namesake the second he stepped out the classroom doors. It wasn’t a moment later before Naoki turned back in his seat to try and solicit Yusaku into conversation.

“Sooo,” Naoki said, “whaddaya think of that new kid? You talked to him, right?”

Yusaku shrugged and stood from his seat. Those secrets weren’t his to tell. “Pretty typical, I guess.”

“Details, Fujiki!” Naoki insisted, but Yusaku had no intention of selling Spectre out to the rumor mill.

“If you want to know, ask him yourself,” Yusaku said, waving over his shoulder as he stepped off, “You’re pretty sociable, right?”

“Yeah,” Naoki said, scrambling after Yusaku, “but he’s got that aura around him! Like, ‘you cross me and you die’ kinda intense.”

Yusaku paused in the doorway. He supposed one bit of information wouldn’t be terrible. “He duels. You like talking to people about that, right?”

“Yeah, but- Fujiki! Wait!” Before Naoki could finish his sentence, Yusaku ducked out of the room, heading out towards the public viewing plaza. He’d need to finish that data analysis, if Kusanagi hadn’t managed to do it before he’d opened for the day.

The more that changes, the more that stays the same, huh? he thought, not knowing if it was true but liking the sound of it all the same.

Chapter Text

In the future, there was a threat so mundane that Yusaku almost found it refreshing, to say little about how amused it likely made Spectre.

It took him all of two days to land himself in some sort of trouble. Honestly, Yusaku was surprised it hadn’t happened earlier- Spectre had an aura about him that tended to grate most the wrong way. His attitude when confronted about it generally didn’t help matters.

Yusaku wasn’t surprised that Spectre was the type to arrive early for school, nor was he even slightly taken aback to see Spectre standing quite prim and proper in the hall against a group of three troublemakers with slouches and even worse attitudes than Spectre’s the moment he turned the corner out of the stairwell. Yusaku pressed his back to the wall and glanced around it, not wanting to start something in the unlikely event the situation would diffuse itself.

“You were one of those Hanoi punks, weren’t you?” said the actual punk at the head of the group. He stood over Spectre, trying to use the half-head and significant amount of bulk he had as intimidation. Unfortunately, he’d yet to discover that Spectre wasn’t the kind of person that could be intimidated. “See, I’ve heard this rumor. You sound real similar to the guy who offed that SOL security-whatever, don’t you?”

Spectre’s expression was quite pleasant, neutral in the way that surely meant his thoughts were all condescension and a few choice words. “A mere coincidence, I assure you.”

“Then what about your face, huh?” chimed in one of the twitchy first-years, trying to sound full of himself in the same way Spectre did only to sound hollowly terrified instead.

Spectre’s stance changed slightly- in an instant he seemed much lighter on his feet, and much more fluid than the punks. It reminded Yusaku of how he stood when he dueled, sans all the posing. “It’s simply my face. An avatar can be arranged to one’s liking. That luxury is rather expensive outside of LINK VRAINS.”

The main punk sneered. “I could change it for you-”

“Hey. Back off.” Yusaku had stepped into the hall before he’d had time to realize what he was doing.

The punks whirled on him, though with a few feet between them they were hardly a threat. The leader said, “And what’re you gonna do, huh? Fight us instead?”
“No,” Yusaku said, pointing over his shoulder and down the stairwell from which he’d come, “I’m going to grab the teacher I just saw on the stairs and bring him here. I’m pretty sure I can run faster than you can get away.”

“You’re lying,” squeaked the other twitchy first-year. Yusaku stared at him impassive.

“Do you really want to test me on that?”

The punks glanced between Yusaku and Spectre, the latter whose manner had gone from polite to downright dangerous, and immediately skittered off with a few hollow words meant to sound tough but really just emphasized the fact they were a little pathetic.  

Yusaku crossed the distance to Spectre, who had again settled firmly into his usual manner- though his expression was a cross between displeased and amused, if Yusaku had to guess. What that actually meant, Yusaku had no idea. Until now, that wasn’t an expression he knew a person could make. Spectre turned to him, quirking his head slightly in lieu of greeting. “I assure you that I had everything handled.”

“Sure,” Yusaku replied flatly, because it was significantly easier to imagine Aoi decking someone across the face than Spectre. “Let’s just go.”

And together they went, settling down in their otherwise empty classroom without so much as another word.

(The would-be bullies showed up to school two days later with bandages slapped haphazard over cuts on their noses and with braces peeking out from under their uniform on their wrists, ankles. Yusaku glanced over at Spectre, who most definitely smirked with satisfaction as the group of them flinched towards the other side of the hall as they passed. Yusaku blinked, glancing not-quite-bewildered between them, and made a very prominent mental note to never underestimate Spectre- or Ryoken, or the pair of them, most likely- again.)

In the future, there was an invitation- extended without thinking, but unable (unwilling) to be retracted.

“Hey, hey,” said Ai, once they were alone on the corner of the roof, because apparently an act of violence made him decide Spectre was now a safe target to antagonize, “So which one was yours, huh? Green? Because of the tree?”

Ai looked Spectre up and down, crossing his arms before knocking his fist atop his open palm excitedly. “Nah, must be yellow. Yellow was always kind of an ass.”

“Ai. Shut up,” Yusaku said as Spectre shot him a withering glare- Yusaku, not Ai. As if he was being chided for his dog jumping up on someone’s legs. Yusaku glared back, trying to convey that Ai had a mind of his own- even if Yusaku had, admittedly, kept him on what was essentially a leash until now.

“Fiiine,” sang Ai in the tone he used when he absolutely didn’t intend on giving up whatever ridiculous misconception he’d latched on to, and sank back down into the duel disk. Yusaku hoped he’d gone somewhere else, but knew he likely wasn’t that lucky.

“Other than terrorizing me, is there a reason you followed me up here?” Spectre asked. It was Yusaku’s turn to take a page from Spectre’s book and lift a dry eyebrow at him.

“I eat lunch here too, you know.”

“There are other benches.”

“I’m pretty sure I picked this bench before you did, too,” Yusaku replied, though it didn’t stop Spectre from sweeping a hand towards the slew of empty benches on this corner of the roof. Really, it was a miracle Spectre didn’t just tell him to leave.

“No, but really-” Ai began in the silence before Spectre could reply. Yusaku closed the flap of his bag on him. It didn’t stop Ai from protesting, but it muffled him enough to talk over.

“Have you joined a club?” Yusaku asked, because it seemed the immediate safest topic at hand. Anything to keep Spectre from trying to delete Ai on the spot, really.

“And what exactly would the point of that be?” Spectre’s words were exactly what Yusaku’s were on the matter. There had always been more important things than extra time spent at school. There still were. But he couldn’t say that, or he’d just undermine his own point. If Spectre saw any sort of weakness in his argument he’d attack it, which left Yusaku no choice but to insist.

“We have a duel club,” Yusaku said, remembering Naoki who still insisted on trying to pry information on Spectre out of him, “You could show off there. It’s not like we can move freely in LINK VRAINS anymore, either.”

That might give Spectre away, actually- but even Aoi brought around her Trickstars, occasionally, and no one had ever once accused her of being Blue Angel. Then again, thought Yusaku, there was at least a disparity between personality and appearance, there. Spectre was about as unapologetically Spectre as he could be. Not that it was a bad thing, in theory. Anonymity had been necessary in his quest for revenge, but putting on a persona had always seemed more exhausting than it was worth. (In practice, well…)

Spectre broke into his thoughts with an unimpressed- “So you’re the one who sent that borderline stalker after me.”

That answered the question of if Shima had actually tried to talking to him or not. “He just thinks you’re intimidating.”

“Good.”

Yusaku resisted the immensely strong urge to point out that Spectre was willfully ignoring the reason he’d been sent to school in the first place. Chances were Spectre knew full well and was just being stubborn. Time for the ultimatum. “Just come with me.”

“If I’m free,” Spectre replied.

Good enough, Yusaku thought, and let them fall into silence. It was occasionally broken by snatches of loud conversation blown at them by the late winter wind, brisk but not uncomfortable- similar to their silence, really. And if Yusaku all but kicked his school bag over the next time Ai tried to yell a comment up at them, well… Spectre certainly didn’t complain.

Aoi stood with the harsh scrape of her chair against tile and walked out wordless the first time he brought Spectre to the Duel Club. Naoki called after her, but she didn’t so much as acknowledge him- or Yusaku or Spectre as she brushed past them out into the hall, the door sliding closed behind her with a firm click. Spectre watched her go, and Yusaku watched him watch her, but there was nothing in his expression that Yusaku could read.

“Oh, Fujiki!” said the club president, probably thrilled to see him after somewhat of an absence, “Good to see you. Who’s this?”

Yusaku ushered Spectre forwards, because he'd quickly found it was best to let Spectre handle his own introduction to avoid fielding questions about how they'd grown so quickly acquainted. Meanwhile, Yusaku slipped into the empty seat at Naoki’s side- the one Aoi had just vacated.

“Seriously, what was that about?” Naoki said, nudging Yusaku as Spectre made his well-practiced introduction- without interruption, this time.

“He may have insulted her,” Yusaku said under his breath. That seemed like the simplest summation of things. Naoki hummed, too-loud in contemplative agreement. Luckily he didn’t have time to ask for details; Spectre came to sit at Yusaku’s other side, and the club moved about to its normal routine.

“Okay, today we’re going to start reviewing all the footage we've collected of those new duelists that've been showing up in LINK VRAINS since Playmaker dropped off the map. I’ve complied…”

Yusaku glanced over at Spectre; he could practically feel his gaze burning into his side.

Information gathering? Spectre asked in the lift of a brow, and Yusaku nodded.

“Surely,” said Spectre under his breath, “This is information you’ve already analyzed?”

Whether it would be or not wasn’t the question- it was the insight that mattered. He tried to convey that to Spectre with a muttered, “Outside perspective is important.”

“I hardly see how their opinions matter. Outsiders with no goals couldn’t possibly have insight into those who do.”

They have plenty of goals. Not everything has to be some glorious cause that ends in death, Yusaku almost wanted to reply, but he never got the chance to think up something more appropriate. The club president ended their whispered argument decisively-

“Quiet, you two. I’m going to start the first recording! Most of the data we’ve found points to the new duelists showing up at night, and the amount of sightings versus actual appearances makes it seem like they have a base somewhere in the network nobody knows about. But anyway, enough conspiracy theories, right? We’re all here for the dueling...”

And into silence they descended, watching one of the mysterious figures duel a rare passerby unfortunate enough to have gotten caught up in a duel.

Aoi ignored Yusaku for the rest of the week, too, and he supposed that he should have seen that one coming. At the time, he still didn’t realize quite how deep the wounds between them all ran- but he was no stranger to the slow heal of an exposed pain that refused to scab.

She didn’t show up to the next week’s meeting either, which was expected, if not a bit disappointing. After she’d learned of his identity, he’d hoped that perhaps the tentative understanding they’d had between them would grow into a proper friendship. But she didn’t spare him more than a passing glance. Yusaku wondered if the seeds of a relationship were things that could be so easily squashed.

In the present, the club president Hosoda was finishing up his explanation of the day’s activities. “Okay, we’re gonna play a round of Swiss. Whoever’s got the most wins at the end is our victor. Fujiki, you sure you don’t want to play? You could borrow my disk.”

“Absolutely,” he said, “I prefer watching.”

Hosoda looked him over, shrugged, then turned to Spectre- specifically, to the duel disk on his arm. “Kinda old fashioned, but yours can do simulation matches too, right?”

Spectre nodded. “Of course. Despite the model’s appearance, the operating system is current.”

“Huh,” said Hosoda, and wisely refrained from tapping the surface of the disk at Spectre’s withering glare. “No AI, though? That’s not very current.”

“Ah,” Spectre replied, a distant look on his face that was significant to no one but Yusaku, “I simply dislike them. I have a good memory, so I find the reminders rather distracting.”

“Huh. Just like Fujiki, then.” Spectre shot him a glance, and Yusaku shrugged. With Ai’s inability to resist making comments, it was much easier to tell Ai to run off somewhere than try and keep him quiet. The memory of how he’d almost been caught once before was more than enough- and that was before he’d had a bounty on his head.

Hosoda pulled away, headed over to his own seat opposite Naoki. “Okay then, let’s get this started! Learn well, because next time we’re taking this to NEW LINK VRAINS!”

Spectre then proceeded to methodically crush each and every member of the club. They more or less cowered before Spectre’s casual dismissal of them until Naoki, of all people, said straight to Spectre’s face- “You know… Your deck’s pretty good now, but wouldn’t it be pretty weak in a speed duel?”

“I assure you,” Spectre replied, posture tightening in his spine and shoulders the way it did when he was pretending not to be terribly offended, “I have a strategy prepared for that, too.”

“Have you ever done a speed duel?” Yusaku asked from the corner of the classroom, and Spectre’s eye twitched. No, then.

Yusaku continued, hopping down from his perch atop a desk, “Then let’s.”

Hosoda all but scrambled to give Yusaku his duel disk. Yusaku never dueled in club; the president likely thought he’d finally found his ambition. “Here, we’ll program your deck in-”

“You don’t need to,” Yusaku replied, taking it from Hosoda’s hands, “I more or less understand how your deck works.”

Swarm the field with special summons early, then gain hand advantage with monster effects that allow for draws and searching out other members of the same archetype. Simple enough.

“You, uh, well, if you’re sure,” said Hosoda, and stepped aside to let Yusaku sit down across from Spectre, probably realizing his deck was better than the barely functional dummy Yusaku carried around as cover.

Spectre gave him a look that was half arrogance, half amusement. The kind of look that just dared Yusaku to wipe it straight off. “You know not to underestimate me, Fujiki.”

Yusaku smiled- he was looking forward to this. “Oh, I know.”

They sat down together, the rest of the duel club gathered over their shoulders, and played out a mock speed duel with skills made up from Naoki’s random suggestions. Yusaku won decisively, and Spectre fumed about it for weeks, every time one of the members brought it up. The sight of it alone was enough to get back on Aoi’s good side within a few days.

He hadn’t intended to meet with Aoi after school, but they’d crossed paths outside the gates as they made their way back to their respective homes, and it had become a discussion of how to handle things moving forwards. Playmaker may have been a fugitive, but Blue Angel was beloved as ever for her attempt to save LINK VRAINS.

“I still don’t know how you can stand him,” she said, walking with Yusaku towards the public viewing plaza. Yusaku shrugged. Neither Aoi nor Spectre would fess up what the root of their feud was, though Yusaku could make more than a few guesses. But they were just that- guesses. He didn’t know, and neither of them seemed keen to tell him, content with keeping their secrets and their silence.

But perhaps that could change. Perhaps it should.

The thought was still on his mind when they arrived at the public viewing plaza, and as Kusanagi treated them to a snack more like a full meal.

“If we started working with Revolver, would you mind?” Yusaku asked Aoi over hot dogs and soda, the two of them seated at opposite ends of the table outside Cafe Nagi.

“I wouldn’t trust him,” Aoi replied, setting her drink back down on the table with a loud shift of the ice inside, “but I didn’t fight him personally. You’re the one who had the vendetta.”

“Spectre will come with him.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, the tentative but friendly mood turned frigid.

“I have no intentions of working with him,” Aoi said plainly, “Not after what he did.”

Nothing Yusaku wasn’t already aware of. He kept pressing. “Not even if he tried to make amends?”

“He didn’t just hurt me. He involved my brother. I’m not going to forgive him so easily.”

“But if your brother forgave him-“

“My brother would forgive anyone,” Aoi said with a frown, “and your conditionals are getting complicated. If you have an ulterior motive for this, you should just come out with it.”

“Yeah,” Ai chimed in, poking his head out from the duel disk in the center of the table, “like wanting to-“

“Don’t finish that sentence. And stop sticking your head out in public. You’re conspicuous,” Yusaku warned. Ai sank back down with a dismayed chirp of affirmation. To an unconvinced Aoi, Yusaku replied, “I don’t. I just think it’s a possibility now that we have a common enemy. One that we should all be prepared for.”

“If this is your way of asking if I can be civil, then I can. The question is, can he?” Aoi said with a tone sharp enough to end the conversation then and there.

Could he, Yusaku thought, and filed away the beginnings of a request.

Chapter Text

In the future, there was a dream.

No. It was a nightmare, and one to which Yusaku was no stranger. White walls. Electricity searing through his bones. The constant gnaw of hunger. Three things in order to go home.

Yusaku slept in class because he enjoyed the background noise- the quiet drone of the teacher’s lectures, the scratch of pencil against paper, the occasional whisper of someone to the person sitting at their side. The reminder of others present around him was usually enough to ward away the lonely sort of stress that brought on the nightmares. It was the same reason Kusanagi almost never tried to shuffle him back home when he fell asleep in Cafe Nagi.

But rarely- a very unlucky rarely- it wasn’t enough.

In his dream there was a timer, but not one that he could see. It ticked down with a crushing sense of urgency, but Yusaku didn’t know how much time he had left. He had to win this duel. He didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t. The clock was ticking. He couldn’t read his own cards. He had to win. If he could just attack, then-

He didn’t know his opponent’s cards, either. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t, he couldn’t, he had to but he was running out of time-

Think of three things. Three things to go home- but he couldn’t think of even one. Time was almost up, hands of the clock pinning down his shoulders, weighing him down until he couldn’t so much as lift a hand to draw a card-

“Fujiki?”

No, that wasn’t right. The voice- Ryoken- had never spoken his name. So if he was hearing it now, then it had to be someone else. Someone apart from the rooms, the world of his worst-

“Fujiki? Fujiki.”

Yusaku jolted awake, blinking away the white sparks behind his eyes. Memories.

The thing no one ever told him about the dreams, about the pain, about the harrowing certainty that one day he’d wake up to find the last decade all the dream of a child on the verge of death- was that they didn’t go away just because his captor was dead and he’d made amends with the face of his enemy. They eased, but they hadn’t vanished. Yusaku breathed deep and thought himself lucky the nightmares rarely made him thrash or yell out.

“Are you all right? You don’t require any medical assistance, do you?” Now that Yusaku’s pulse was slowing and the flight instinct was fading, Yusaku could tell just how awkwardly Spectre hovered. It seemed like there was something he wanted to do, given the way he kept fidgeting with his hands, but didn’t feel he was allowed to do it.

Yusaku twisted his neck to crack out the crick in it. Spectre frowned in disapproval at the noise. Yusaku said, nonchalant, “I’m fine. I’ve been dealing with this since I was six.”

That didn’t seem to satisfy Spectre; his gaze on Yusaku turned intently scrutinizing. “We all have nightmares. Yours are-”

“About that,” Yusaku finished, eyes darting around the classroom- even though they were alone, everyone having left for the day, it wouldn’t stop someone barging in through the doors and hearing just the wrong thing.

“Ah,” said Spectre, “of course.” His tone was odd- bizarrely flat, for him. There it was again, Yusaku thought. The fundamental difference between them, the contrasting feelings that had propelled their lives down direct opposite paths.

Yusaku had wanted nothing more desperately than to return home. Spectre had chosen not just to return, but to stay even at the cost of his life. The line couldn’t be drawn much clearer than that.

Yusaku said, finally- “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Ah, well. As I said. We all have nightmares.”

Spectre again seemed oddly unsure. It made him look his age, for once- but it also made Yusaku wonder if he hadn’t said something in his sleep after all. Tentative ally or not, there were things he’d rather reveal on his own terms. Spectre dropped his arms flatly to his sides. Yusaku regarded him a moment, but Spectre’s expression revealed nothing.

“If you don’t dream of that, then what do you dream of, anyway?” The ridiculous thought crossed Yusaku’s mind that Spectre didn’t seem the type to have dreams. At least, not to have dreams and remember them.

Spectre frowned. But before Yusaku could tell him he didn’t need to answer, the reply came. “Ryoken never coming to extend me a hand. Watching my tree be cut to the ground, and being unable to stop it. Or burning, when I can hear her voice.” A pause, then- “I haven’t necessarily forgiven you for that.”

Yusaku imagined he would have reacted about the same if even Kusanagi had been hurt in their final rush against Hanoi. And if he was being honest with himself? He probably would have been worse. His capacity for anger had never frightened him before- the way it welled up to consume him was more a weapon than a weakness- but the thought of that was more than Yusaku thought he could handle, now. “Fair enough. Do you want me to apologize?”

“I said that wasn’t necessary. I’ve accepted it was my own failure. If I had let you fall, there would have been no need for any of it.”

Spectre huffed. Yusaku squinted up at him. “Is that a lie?”

“I’m an incredibly honest person,” Spectre said in a biting tone that could have indicated anything from complete seriousness to a mocking sort of insult, just daring Yusaku to take his words at face value.

Figures, thought Yusaku. And here he’d just started believing he had Spectre figured out.

“Regardless,” said Spectre, judging that Yusaku was, in fact, as fine as he claimed, “Class is over for the day. I don’t intend to keep Ryoken waiting for any longer than I already have.”

“He comes to pick you up?” Not that Yusaku doubted Ryoken would. He’d just never seen Ryoken lurking around the school before, and with the way this school’s rumor mill spun perpetually out of control, he was sure he’d have heard about someone unknown lurking around the gates.

“We’ve made plans,” Spectre replied, nodding a polite farewell as he started off towards the door. Yusaku twisted in his seat to watch him go. Once Spectre vanished from sight, Yusaku picked up his bag and thought that he was lucky that Ai was out in the network somewhere for the day. He’d never have heard the end of it otherwise. He made his way slowly out towards the gates, but there was no sign of Spectre or Ryoken anywhere on the street- not that he thought they’d wait. Yusaku blinked, shrugged, then headed down the familiar road to the public viewing plaza.

If Yusaku expected that moment of involuntary weakness to change something between the two of them, he marveled at just how little it did. They went about their same routine in all the same ways- eating lunch, occasionally attending club, parting ways at the school gates. Spectre never brought up the nightmare, and Yusaku never brought up the tree.

And yet in the world that carried on unchanged, something about Spectre seemed just a little different. It wasn’t that he had altered his behavior at all- just that something in Yusaku’s perception had shifted and curled. He couldn’t identify what it was, either. All he knew was that it was important. Fundamental, even.

It was why he started to think about that difference again and again- because there had to be something more to it. Spectre’s words from the bridge echoed back to him- Then you must have led a happy life.

But Yusaku didn’t know. He remembered longing for home, wishing desperately for freedom, but nothing of that home itself. If he had parents, none came for him. If he had a home, even in an orphanage, then no one came to take him back to it. Neither revenge nor kindness had brought those memories back to him. He simply didn’t know.

(But he liked to think he’d been happy.)

In the future, there was a question. It was asked plainly, unceremoniously breaking the silence remaining after the two of them had finished their lunches, sequestered side by side on their corner of the roof. There was yet time before the bell, and Ai had been left to keep tabs on a particularly stubborn file they had been trying to decrypt the night before to no avail. If he was going to ask, there was no better time.

“Why did you go back?”

Spectre didn’t quite glare, but turned to Yusaku with a decidedly unimpressed look. “Haven’t I told you this before? I thought you were a bit more courteous of an opponent than that.”

He did. Yusaku couldn’t forget a single one of those words if he tried. It had been, after all, the very first moment he’d realized that scars could be seen as something other than wounds. “But why? It wasn’t just because you lost faith in adults, or their reasons. If it was just that, then you wouldn’t have needed to go back there in particular. Any fringe of society would have worked. But you went back. And you stayed.”

For a long while, they sat in silence. A rarity, really- Yusaku wouldn’t say Spectre was talkative so much as he enjoyed the sound of his own voice and showing others up with his words. It always gave them things to talk about, even if it was less a conversation and more a series of one-sided quips back and forth.

“Why do you want to know?” Intonation flat, not quite meeting Yusaku’s eyes. A rare show of defensiveness from someone not used to having things to hide.

“Because,” said Yusaku, thinking that Spectre wasn’t the only one who could use his past as a weapon to get what he wanted, “I still don’t understand. I remembered nothing when I finally could leave. They couldn’t find anyone. Family, or friends, or anyone who’d so much as heard of me. You at least had a place to go back to, didn’t you?”

“You don’t understand,” Spectre bit out in a flash of that anger from the time Yusaku had struck down his tree. Except this time they were closer, and the traces of pain that lingered inside it were so much clearer. “Ryoken, and Hanoi… The experiment, and the hand he extended to me... “

Spectre, for a moment, looked terribly frustrated with himself. He stopped, took a breath, and started over, considerably more composed. “True. When they pulled me out of the experiment, they found a place to return me to. Pathetic as a lost puppy. But everything there was hollow. Foolish children and adults alike. Purposeless, all of them. I couldn’t stand the sight of them acting so carefree. I assume you understand the feeling?”

Yusaku remembered elementary school. Watching his classmates invite each other to birthday parties and picnics, talking about this week’s manga and their after school plans. Sitting at the very edge of group circles, unsure of how to answer when addressed- when’s your birthday where are you from what do you want to be when you grow up? - unable to so much as look at the battered duel monsters cards that were the toy of choice- seriously it’s just a card game you don’t have to get all - not sure if he could reach out to take those extended to him until the others had already retracted their offers- don’t bother he just likes being alone.

He remembered watching on and burning with something that caught painful against one of the broken edges of him, wondering what exactly ached, unsure why his happiness was missing when everyone had told him it was over.

(Eventually, he’d decide it was something the incident had stolen from him. Something that he could regain. When a hand was extended to him by someone who promised they’d help him find happiness -take revenge- he learned to trust and to take it. And now they were past it all, and he looked through his memories of loneliness like a life lived by someone else and wondered just how he’d ever survived.)

The emotion that burned in tandem with the loneliness, marking the time up until Shima had gone and decided they were unspoken friends- now he recognized it as the envy it was. Not the same emotion, but close enough. Yusaku nodded.

“Then you must understand how it feels. I was already an outcast before the incident occurred. Being forced to return to those pitifully mundane days without being able to so much as tell another soul about the purpose I’d found there… It was a pointless existence. Once I found my mother tree was gone, nothing tethered me there. I left gladly.”

“And you were given a new reason to live,” Yusaku said. Spectre frowned at his wording.

“I joined Hanoi of my own volition,” Spectre said, “Make no mistake. I’m not so weak-willed they could have coerced me.”

“But even if it had been coercion, you wouldn't have cared, would you? Having something is better than nothing.”

Spectre gave him a strange look. A once-over, something that wasn’t quite judgement. Reassessment, perhaps. “I would have cared. False kindness and empty understanding is worse than having nothing at all. Ryoken understood that when he saved me. You should know that too.”

He did. It was the reason he was glad Aoi never pitied him, after she’d heard his story. The reason he’d shrugged off Akira’s attempts to take control of a situation he couldn’t possibly understand. He said, simply- “You’re right.”

“Of course I am. Any other questions?” Spectre said with a tone flat enough to end the conversation with most anyone else.

But there was one last thing he needed answered, so Yusaku continued, “Why are you being so honest with me?”

Spectre took a breath- it seemed he’d hoped Yusaku wouldn’t ask. “Ryoken told me that it might be beneficial to share. He has only high praise for you as a listener.”

Yusaku almost laughed. He certainly listened, but he’d say he dueled Ryoken out of his father’s self-righteous delusions rather than talked him out. His words of warning and persuasion both had never done much to influence others. The one capable of that had always been Ryoken himself.

“He never did give you three reasons, did he?”

“No,” replied Spectre, predictably. Where Yusaku had fallen into despair, Spectre had seized hope. Ryoken wouldn’t have risked speaking to a child visibly enjoying themselves, not when his guilt had been tearing him in two over speaking to a child about to give up.

Yusaku readied a reply- but Spectre wasn’t done. He said, plainly, “After I was found, I only needed the one.”

Is that still all you need?  Yusaku almost asked, but stopped himself at the last second. That wasn’t something he could answer, so asking it of Spectre wasn’t fair.

(And, if Yusaku was to be perfectly honest with himself- he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear that potential reply at all.)

Chapter Text

In the future there were midterms, come and gone before Yusaku could do so much as think of them. They’d all had more pressing problems, what with their new enemies deciding to start the next phase of whatever master plan they held- one that Yusaku had yet to entirely piece together, much to his dismay. They might, Yusaku thought, be aware that most of the people trying to stop them were students, with how they’d been appearing earlier and earlier in the day. And if they had that information, then… Yusaku made a mental note to check that his residual data had all been deleted. Just because Ryoken had his reasons to keep Yusaku’s identity secret didn’t mean that anyone else after him would.

There were only a few minute before the first bell when Yusaku arrived in the hallway, and was faced immediately by a dozen more people than he’d expected, blocking the way to his classroom. Figuring they’d disperse soon enough, Yusaku stood back from milling crowd clustered around the exam results taped neat to the wall, trying to think of a move he could make to force their enemy’s hand, rather than the other way around.

At the center of the restless circle were the would-be bullies, who Yusaku was now utterly convinced were finding themselves blackmailed in some way or another. Not exactly the best way to deal with problems, Yusaku thought wryly, but he doubted it was anything too serious, or whispers would have made their way back to him via the rumor mill.

Abruptly did the chatter stop- an uncanny silence. A glance down the hall was all Yusaku needed to tell why. They all parted smoothly as Spectre approached the posted results, back straight, head high- the posture of someone who knew full well what was about to happen, and relishing in the thought. Still Yusaku hung back- he’d already overheard the chatter and had little interest in his own rank, but he assumed it would give Spectre some sort of satisfaction to see his own name there- even if it wasn’t the one he preferred. Spectre traced a finger up from the bottom of the print- all a show, and one that the students gathered around him fell for immediately. He stopped, smiled, tapped the tip of his finger against his name. The crowd immediately burst back into hysterical whispers, as if they couldn’t hold themselves back even a polite second longer.

Spectre, after a moment to bask in the crowd’s attention that had all turned to him, noticed Yusaku hovering on the back wall. He made his way over, obviously waiting for Yusaku to comment. Yusaku only half indulged him. “Are you really top of our class?”

“Of course,” Spectre replied, because that was the kind of thing Spectre would take utterly for granted. “As I’ve told you. Our tutor allowed us to progress at our own pace. The things we’ve been learning are rather basic.”

“You didn’t get out much, did you?”

Spectre had the decency to look mildly offended. “Is there a problem with that? I don’t regret how I’ve spent my time until now.”

Besides ending up utterly unable to hold a proper conversation with someone without pissing them off, not really, Yusaku wanted to say, but refrained, because it wasn’t as if his social isolation had been any better- just a different route to near the same place. He shortened it rather significantly to a simple “No.”

Faced with a lack of resistance, Spectre plowed straight forwards. “On the other hand, your grades were much worse than expected.”

Yusaku shrugged. He’d never had much of an interest in school, before this. All his energy had been focused towards his revenge and trying to rip himself free of the chains of his past. School was a thing to skate by on the virtues of natural intuition. It was a safe place to sleep, at the very least.

Usually, he amended. Not that he’d been doing that much of late, anyway.

He said, nonchalant in a way he knew would end the conversation, “If you’re so concerned about it, then help me study for finals.”

“If that’s what you want,” Spectre replied, and the two of them turned to head into the classroom, leaving a gossiping mob in their wake.

(At the time, he didn’t take it seriously. He thought that Spectre would forget, or that it was another bit of his usual patronizing, words without intent. But he’d forgotten- Spectre never said things he didn’t mean. Not to Yusaku.)

Lunchtime came around with its usual commotion, as the few students who hadn’t been put off in one way or another tried to unravel the mystery that was Spectre.

“You’re really top of our class? That’s so amazing,” said the popular girl with the ribbon in her hair, “Do you think you could help me study sometime? I’ve always had trouble with literature.”

“I hardly think my help is necessary. You ranked in the top ten, did you not?”

How she hadn’t given up from a dozen different dismissals all to the same effect, Yusaku wouldn’t know. She’d given up on him entirely after their first semester. She twirled a finger around the ribbon, tugging gently on a frayed end. “Ah, well, I did, but…”

“Besides. I’m afraid I’ve already promised to help someone else. Then,” Spectre said, and started up the rows towards Yusaku, who didn’t bother hiding the fact he’d been listening.

He said, not caring if the girl heard as well- “You could at least humor her, you know.”

Spectre lifted an eyebrow. “Would you?”

No. Up until this point, he hadn’t. Maybe that was just another thing that needed to change. But before he could think to say any of that, Naoki turned in his seat and interrupted- “Hey, do you take notes?”

“Yes?” Spectre replied as if it was the most obvious thing on earth. Given how easy he claimed things were, Yusaku had no idea why he would. But if anyone was going to be that thorough, Yusaku supposed it would be Spectre.

“Can I borrow them sometime?”

Spectre seemed a bit taken aback by Naoki’s frank request. Unaware, Naoki continued, “I tried to borrow Fujiki’s once, but they were worse than mine! And I had to take them from the textbook because I was out sick that week!”

Spectre shot Yusaku a disapproving look. Yusaku returned it flatly, trying to compel Spectre to just hand over the notes.

Spectre huffed, then- “Fine. Speak to me after school.”

“Dude, thanks,” Naoki replied, then bolted off to the cafeteria as usual. Yusaku moved to follow, thinking that if he’d developed the ability to compel Spectre to go along with things with a glance the same way he could get Ai to settle down with a glare, then his life would probably be much easier from here on out. Spectre flashed him a strange look as he moved to head off the wrong direction- not so much asking for an answer as demanding one in the raise of a perplexed eyebrow.

“I need to grab lunch,” Yusaku explained. Today had been one of the rare mornings where Kusanagi had forgotten to set an alarm before they’d started work for the evening, meaning Yusaku had woken first (with a terrible ache in his neck and shoulders. Even if he tried to finish off the data analysis tonight, he suspected Kusanagi would all but force him to sleep in an actual bed). First, however, hadn’t meant early , or even just on time.

“What are you going to order?” Spectre asked with a disproportionate amount of trepidation.

Yusaku shrugged. He didn’t have anything particular in mind, just something from the school store he could take up to the roof, away from the cafeteria crowds. “Curry bread?”

Spectre’s face arched itself in an expression Yusaku hadn’t realized was possible to make in real life. A sort of distaste that pulled his features sharp, mixed with something not quite bewilderment that tried to soften him back out. It was kind of comical, actually, whereas on his avatar it had been almost fearsomely cruel.

“Here,” said Spectre, holding out his lunch with one hand, “Just eat this.”

“Then what are you going to eat?” Because Yusaku couldn’t imagine Spectre eating anything out of the cafeteria if that was his reaction to curry bread of all things. Spectre paused, clearly considering the two options and finding only one plausible.

Yeah, that was what Yusaku thought would happen. He started to turn away, thinking that there wouldn’t be anything good left if he didn’t hurry. But Spectre quickly said, not the words that Yusaku had expected at all- “Then, if you’re not opposed, we could-“

“Relax. I’m just going to get the bread. But thanks.”

Really, though, Yusaku thought as he parted ways with Spectre at the door, waving him up towards their usual spot, that was a side of Spectre he’d never expected to see, much less a side he’d thought existed in the first place. Maybe it was a sign of something. Or maybe he was just looking too hard, and Spectre just held strong opinions on otherwise harmless food. That would certainly suit him, Yusaku thought. Leave it to Spectre to become a gourmet when Yusaku had ended up happy to eat most anything, given it wouldn’t kill him.

When he returned with his bread, relegated to the other side of the bench than usual, he figured it wouldn't hurt to ask at least one of the questions he'd been saving. “You live with Kogami, right?”

“For all intents and purposes, yes,” Spectre replied, and Yusaku thought that answered a lot. “Why are you asking this?”

“No reason,” Yusaku said, then- “if you eat hot dogs, what makes school curry bread so bad?”

“The company, for the most part,” said Spectre, and hurried onto a complaint about something mundane, leaving Yusaku unsure if he’d just been insulted or not.

(He told himself it hardly mattered- meaningless words that had missed their target. But in the end, it was a thought he couldn’t quite convince himself of.)

It wasn’t two weeks later before Yusaku realized just how wrong he’d been to half-offer Spectre anything so much as resembling a challenge. Instead of flitting fast from the classroom once the day was over, Spectre made his way up the rows to Yusaku and said, “Shall we go, then?”

Yusaku tried to remember if he’d forgotten plans- not that he’d ever made any with Spectre in the first place. “To do what?”

“Study,” Spectre said with the lift on an eyebrow, “or have you forgotten? I’m supposed to help you raise that abysmal literature grade of yours.”

And now Spectre was just exaggerating again. He’d more than passed, and that was while averting a major network crisis the night before. But that was just Spectre, Yusaku supposed, filling up meaningless space with one more word than necessary. “I thought I asked about finals?”

“Don’t tell me you planned on doing something as foolish as trying to cram the material the weekend before the test?”

It was a strategy that had served him well enough in all the tests he’d taken since he’d returned to school proper, but with the look Spectre was giving him, Yusaku thought it better not to say anything of the sort. In his silence, Spectre continued, “Regardless, we have another literature test next Monday on the rest of the material that wasn’t on the midterm. Or have your forgotten?”

That he had forgotten, but Spectre hardly needed to know. “Right.”

“Shall we go to the library, then?”

Yusaku felt vaguely surprised that Spectre even knew where the library was , given the way he never seemed to explore the campus at all. Or perhaps he didn’t, and this was his exceedingly roundabout way of finally asking Yusaku to show him- but either way, Yusaku had no intention of agreeing. Too quiet. Too many prying eyes.

Yusaku shook his head and suggested- “Let’s go somewhere else.”

Spectre didn’t seem bothered by Yusaku’s refusal, only said mildly, “Very well. Do you have somewhere in mind?”

Yusaku nodded, but didn’t elaborate. Instead he pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his bag, and motioned Spectre after him with an easy nod of his head towards the door. Spectre followed, oddly compliant, and Yusaku wondered if Spectre wasn’t still more out of his element than he pretended to be. But asking would never get him an answer. Still, if Yusaku could pry the answer out of him eventually, he would; so he filed it away in the ever-fluctuating list of questions he needed to ask as they stepped out into the courtyard.

It was strange not to part ways with Spectre at the school gates. Stranger still for the two of them to head together into the heart of the city in a comfortable silence. And strangest of all to walk up to Cafe Nagi together, ordering for two.

“I’ll put it on Yusaku’s tab,” Kusanagi joked as Spectre tried to pull his wallet from his bag, though Yusaku knew full well that Kusanagi never intended on making him pay. How the man turned a profit Yusaku would never know.

“In that case,” Spectre said, hint of a smile in his voice, and slipped his wallet back into his bag as he made his order. Kusanagi just laughed and waved for them to sit down at the empty table, unofficially Yusaku’s with how much time he spent sitting there. It wasn’t long before they had two sets of food in front of them, set just to the side of their books- and it wasn’t long after that when Spectre decided to quiz him.

“Incorrect,” Spectre said, setting down his drink with a frown. It was an odd image, and despite the fact he’d invited it himself Yusaku almost missed Spectre’s next question in his fleeting fixation. “Have you… read the text?”

“The parts we’ve gone over in lecture,” Yusaku replied. The look of utter exasperation Spectre shot him was new- not quite as scathing as the other looks Yusaku had seen him put on, but not how Yusaku imagined it would look if it were entirely fond. He was saved from having to hear Spectre’s reply as the announcer’s voice suddenly poured from the hidden speakers around the plaza.

“Ohhh? Ladies and Gentlemen and Charisma Duelist enthusiasts of all ages, do we have a show for you! Out this afternoon is none other than the Idol of LINK VRAINS herself- Blue Angel!”

Blue Angel burst to life on the screens as she leapt off the side of a building to catch the winds of a data storm, trailing an opponent’s back. Yusaku recognized it immediately- and recognized too the figure lurking around in the shadows from which Blue Angel had jumped. Yusaku and Spectre exchanged a glance. Revolver.

He was an even rarer sight than Playmaker in LINK VRAINS these days, and for good reason- but if even he had risked it, that meant this was the real thing. Any sign of Spectre’s earlier exasperation vanished, honed down into a tightly controlled urgency, shoulders tense like a string drawn tight from both ends.

“Excuse me,” he said, and neatly but quickly shoved his books into his bag, doing a passable but really rather weak attempt at hiding what Yusaku judged to be worry.

“Blue Angel is there. They’ve only been coming in pairs, don’t you think-“

“I don’t trust her to be enough,” Spectre said plainly. He glanced up to meet Yusaku’s eyes, and there wasn’t so much as a trace of hesitation there. “She failed to defeat you, then failed to defeat me. Why should I trust she’s strong enough now?”

Not that either of them doubted Revolver’s ability to handle himself as a duelist. They’d both experienced it firsthand. But when their opponents weren’t above attacks that would tear an avatar- or a human being themselves- down to shreds, a bit of concern was inevitable. Yusaku had yet to experience having his consciousness stolen, and thought that he had no intention of letting that happen- not to him, and not to any ally of his. If things so much as seemed like they’d go south, he’d leap into LINK VRAINS in a heartbeat. He was sure that feeling gripped Spectre, too.

But Aoi had found her own resolve, won it from the depths of her despair. It was the will to protect others, and it was the reason Yusaku had trusted her with the whole of the truth. But before he could say any of that, Spectre rose from his seat without so much as a goodbye.

Spectre dashed off and Yusaku watched his back, left with nothing but the sharp pricks of frustration and a half-eaten meal. Everything and everyone were judged not by their merits but by their deficiencies, when it came to him. Yusaku had thought that it was a lingering mentality from the days of Hanoi, part of the past they hadn’t quite cast off. But perhaps it was just Spectre, constantly looking down on others as a way to justify his own existence.

I can be civil about it. The question is, can he?

While he was considering, Blue Angel won decisively. Yusaku hoped that Spectre was watching. The broadcast cut away, but not before Yusaku caught the telltale flutter of a data transfer- he’d have to speak to Aoi later about whatever she’d gathered. He sent her a quick message, then finally put all his own books away. He’d finished his food as he’d watched Aoi’s duel, various thoughts rattling around his head, but Spectre’s still sat half-eaten on the other side of the table. It was a needless waste, Yusaku thought, but gathered it up to throw in the trash set out beside Cafe Nagi anyway. It was the only thing he could do with it.

“So it really is Spectre, huh?” Kusanagi said as he approached, leaning on the counter of Cafe Nagi.

“Why are you saying that now?” The time for scepticism had long since passed. Yusaku separated out the trash, glancing over at Kusanagi with a curious gaze.

“No reason,” said Kusanagi, then immediately followed it up with, “He just seems different than the person you dueled, is all. A little more like a real human being.”

He couldn’t deny that. Spectre certainly seemed more like a real person to him too, rather than a twin shadow split by overhead lights. Rather than a distorted reflection in a mirror. Rather than a path he was glad his life hadn’t gone.

Yusaku shook his head- that last one wasn’t fair of him. He dropped the rest of the trash into its proper bin, then walked over to the counter and asked softly, not wanting to be overheard- “You watched his duel with Blue Angel, didn’t you?”

Kusanagi nodded and lowered his voice to match. “It wasn’t good. I saved the footage, in case you want to watch.”

Yusaku nodded. That would be his first step, then, since the both of them were intent on their festering secrets. But he couldn’t resist one more question, looking for an insight he didn’t possess- that he could only hope that someone did. “Do you think Aoi would forgive him if he apologized?

Kusanagi just sighed. “Yusaku… They’re your friends. You’d know better than I would.”

Yusaku had no immediate reply to that. He thought, then nodded, then shook his head. What he eventually said, was a simple, slow- “Right.”

Chapter Text

In the future, there was a request. It was one that Yusaku had intended to make, though not under these circumstances, and certainly not this early in the morning. But some things were simply meant to happen, Yusaku supposed- because on his way to school, he bumped into Spectre.

Not literally, thankfully- Ai called him out from the cross street at the intersection, and Yusaku waited a while for the signal to change. Spectre crossed the road, and the two of them waited side by side for the light to change again. The traffic moved briskly, impartial to the chill still hanging in the early air. Across the street, the red timer on the pedestrian signal slowly ticked down, box by box.

“I thought you came from the other direction?” Yusaku asked more than said. It was true his own apartment wasn’t far from the slope that ran down to the ocean, but it wasn’t close enough that he’d plausibly run into Spectre unless he’d made some sort of winding detour.

“I usually do,” said Spectre as the light changed and they started together towards the school. “My apartment is this way.”

“You have an apartment?” Yusaku supposed that shouldn’t have been so surprising- Kogami clearly had money to burn, and a care for how it was used. What better way than paying additional rent in an already expensive city?

“Rarely used. Even though I’d rather move in to the main house permanently, there are days where… some space is required.” Spectre’s brow furrowed in displeasure; when Spectre glanced over at him, Yusaku turned his head forward and pretended not to have looked at all.

Instead, Yusaku thought about the Kogami house, all but a manor on the seaside. About its vast expanses of emptiness, the quiet left by a heart monitor gone silent. About the person who had seemingly resolved themselves to living in the midst of it.

“Don’t give him too much,” Yusaku said, watching as the wind caught the leaves of tree whose branches spilled out overhead, pouring over a high brick fence and dancing shadows across their shoulders.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Spectre replied, and the two of them exchanged a brief, not-quite smile, finally finding the one thing they could agree on perfectly.

“And tell him to get out more,” Yusaku added, plunging on before he could think to stop himself, “It would be nice to see you two around for more than two minutes getting hot dogs.”

“And hey! If you’re telling him things, can you maybe put in a good word for me?” Ai chimed in before Spectre could reply.

“I believe I’ll take a page from Fujiki’s book and tell you to be quiet. There are others around, and I believe you’d much prefer the bounty hunters’ activities stay confined to LINK VRAINS,” Spectre said chidingly. A bit of hair fell out of its place as he leaned over to stare down Ai, who wilted even though the threat was weak. Yusaku supposed he should thank Ai later, and as indirectly as possible. If Spectre’s answer was going to be negative, then he didn’t particularly care to hear it. Which brings up that.

“Hey,” Yusaku said, “Could you apologize to Aoi?”

“I see no reason to,” was what Spectre replied, but by now Yusaku could tell when he was being serious and when he was just defensive over his pride. Spectre pushed back that stray bit of hair, and Yusaku brushed past him to step through the school gates, joining the small stream of early arrivals and leaving Spectre no choice but to follow down the tree-lined path.

“She won, you know.”

Spectre took a few long strides; in a moment he was back keeping pace at Yusaku’s side. “I’m well aware. That doesn’t change my opinion.”

“Did you even make it in time?”

“No. But Ryoken handled the situation. As I believed he would.” Their words were equally dry. In Spectre’s case, cold enough to stop Yusaku’s reply in its tracks.

Conversation carried towards them on the breeze, snips and snatches without context, and Yusaku entertained a brief moment of thought for what theirs must have sounded like to the dark-haired girl passing them with quick steps, to the pair of boys inexplicably heading the other direction down the path. Nothing good, he imagined.

The two of them made their way up to their classroom in a fragile silence, not so much an agreement to drop it as a precarious ceasefire.

Once inside, Yusaku followed Spectre down to his seat, ignoring the eyebrow Spectre raised at him. There was no one around, but he lowered his voice anyway, not wanting to add more fuel to whatever this week’s rumors were. “What exactly did you say to her, anyway?”

“Various things,” Spectre replied as he pulled a book from his bag, a sure sign that he had no desire to answer the question. When all was said and done, Yusaku was glad that the footage hadn’t picked up any of the audio from those final few duels- but that meant unless someone came out and told him, he’d never know.

“In the footage, you were crying.” He didn’t have to specify that it wasn’t of sadness- not in the traditional sense, at least.

“Ah, I programmed that myself,” replied Spectre, an answer that said nothing at all. He began arranging his desk as he liked it, putting on a deliberate precision that demanded he not be interrupted. But Yusaku hardly cared.

“You were holding a book, too.”

Spectre’s hand, fiddling with the bent corner of one of his notebooks, stopped. He finally glanced back up at Yusaku, deciding the conversation was worth his full attention. About time.

“Also my work. I used the edition I owned as a child as reference, though all embellishments were entirely mine,” Spectre replied, addressing his comment still without saying a word.

Fine. He’d get nowhere with pleasantries or attempts at subtlety; Yusaku asked the damning question. “The title was Blue Angel.”

“Ah. I was her fan, you see.”

And Yusaku frowned, because Spectre had put on a smile so patronizing that Yusaku couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. Just as Yusaku thought to press him more, the door at the front of the classroom opened, and in walked the person Yusaku least wanted to see- the popular girl and her gaggle of friends, chattering away too pleasantly for the brittle mood in the air.

“I believe that ends the conversation,” Spectre said briskly. Yusaku flashed him a frustrated look, which Spectre returned blankly- as if Yusaku was a waste of his time. As if everything up until now had been rendered pointless, a look that belonged more on the Spectre of their first duel than the person Yusaku thought he knew.

Yusaku turned his back and headed up the rows to his seat as a few more students filtered in. He stared down at the back of Spectre’s head, trying and likely failing not to let his irritation show, given the way Naoki got two syllables into good morning before promptly scooting one chair to the left than usual to afford Yusaku an unobstructed view.

It was impossible to shake the feeling that he’d just lost. Focusing on morning lessons was difficult, mind drawn to the restless alternatives- so he let his attention drift off towards his brewing plan. Someone who was hurt, and won’t show the scars. Someone who holds all the cards, and this time has no intention of sharing.

And perhaps there was nothing wrong with that. Perhaps some things were better left buried, unspoken, left to rot in the dark until the scars weren’t scars, anymore, but just faint lines drawn across the skin and blurry memories of a decades old fight.

Just because Yusaku couldn’t think of any didn’t mean it couldn’t be true. He’d never thought someone would willingly return to Hanoi- and yet. The proof of the inconceivable sat before him in the third row aisle seat, taking meticulous notes Yusaku might try and steal, assuming they were still on speaking terms by the end of it all. And if we’re not…

Well. It wouldn’t be any different than what came before. For all of them.

But , he thought, watching Spectre slip from the classroom soon as the lunch bell rang, composed as always but with a tension in his step, a tight energy he couldn’t quite hide, there should at least be a choice.

Spectre was gone, but today was the rare day Naoki finally seemed to remember to bring something from home (“Thank you, mom,” spoken in nothing less than utter reverence for the elaborate array of carefully prepared food inside) and stayed in the classroom to eat. Yusaku supposed he’d gotten lucky. He didn’t fancy the thought of tracking him down in some crowded corner of the cafeteria.

“Shima,” Yusaku said, and Naoki twisted in his seat to look back at Yusaku. “I need your help with something.”

Naoki perked up immediately at the request, and turned the chair fully to face him. “Yeah? What about? Club? Because-“

Yusaku cut him off with a shake of his head. Naoki shoved a clump of rice in his mouth as Yusaku replied, “No. After school, I need you to distract someone.”

“Who?” Naoki asked around his food.

“Who do you think?”

Naoki choked on his rice. After a horrible fit of coughing that had Yusaku slowly rising from his seat, half-convinced he might have actually murdered Naoki, followed by a huge swig of water, he managed to spit out an incredulous- “Seriously? What am I supposed to talk with him about? Every time I bring something up he finds a way to leave the conversation.”

Yusaku shrugged and sat back down. Naoki, apparently undeterred by near-death, started eating again. “Dueling? Isn’t there a speed duel tournament coming up soon? The club was going to enter as a team, right?”

Playmaker and Spectre and Blue Angel excluded, of course. Naoki didn’t point that out, though Yusaku could tell he kind of wanted to by the way he seemed to switch gears halfway through a thought. “Fujiki… Seriously? Every time I bring up speed dueling in the same room as him I feel like he’s gonna murder me.”

“He’s not going to murder you,” Yusaku said, wishing he felt as confident in that statement as he had a week ago.

“But it feels like he will,” Naoki replied, leaving Yusaku convinced the conversation was going nowhere. Maybe he should have tried a little harder to talk Spectre out of that fight when he’d first transferred. Of course, Yusaku had only found out about it in retrospect, and by then the damage had been done. Rumors like: ‘the new transfer student is a yakuza boss’ son’ or the far less plausible ‘the transfer student’s LINK VRAINS avatar came to life and joined Hanoi and beat a bunch of kids up’  Yusaku had thought rather amusing at the time; Spectre understandably less so. Either way, they hadn’t helped anyone’s impression of him.

Yusaku ran his thoughts in circles a moment, trying to figure out how he could convince Naoki to agree- he hadn’t expected it to be this hard in the first place. It hit him sudden, but he waited for Naoki to swallow his food first this time before saying- “Just…  I need you to distract him. Do what you did with me, except without accusing him of having no friends, first.”

Naoki groaned and hung his head, which wasn’t exactly the reaction Yusaku had been hoping for. But was better than choking, at least. “Come on, you still remember that?”

“That’s not really a first impression you forget,” Yusaku replied, thinking that it all felt so very long ago- clear as a memory of a different life. Still his, still important. Just growing distant in a way Yusaku thought might not be so bad.

“I should’ve said something cooler,” Naoki groaned into his food. Yusaku wanted to tell him that his impression had been fine enough- three good things, three bad. And not even bad, really- just a certain type of upfront earnestness and set of wrong assumptions Yusaku hadn’t known how to respond to. Not when he’d assumed that it too would vanish after Naoki’s curiosity had been sated. Across the desk Naoki groaned something mostly unintelligible into his food again, probably embarrassed. Yusaku thought that it was unfortunate he couldn’t praise Brave Max without giving away the fact he kept a closer eye on LINK VRAINS than he pretended to, because that was the one thing that he knew cheered Naoki up most.

But he didn’t quite have time to think up something to say, nor did it appear he had to. Naoki sighed, then, without prodding, grinned up at Yusaku and said- “Okay, I’ll think of something to hold him up with. I’ve got a few classes left to think of something, right? I’ll figure it out.”

“Thanks,” Yusaku said, then after a pause- “I’ll treat you to something, sometime.”

“Fujiki!” Naoki flashed him a look- all wide-eyed surprise before turning warmly to a beaming grin. Yusaku thought he’d never seen someone look at him so gratefully in all his life. And over returning a favor, of all things.

“But you have to make it out alive, first,” he added, and Naoki groaned again, resigning himself to his fate- but not before turning Yusaku’s vague promise into a very specific agreement to meet at the ramen shop a few blocks down on Friday after school so Naoki could show him the half-price special.

In retrospect, Yusaku thought, walking out of Aoi’s classroom next door with absolutely no clues as to where the girl herself had gone but with more sideways glances than he cared to count, he perhaps hadn’t given this plan quite enough thought. He glanced back into his classroom, where Naoki was blustering towards a vaguely amused Spectre- and Yusaku almost stopped in his tracks, because that was a different look- but he hadn’t the time to waste. If Aoi wasn’t in her classroom, then the chances were she’d already made to leave.

He headed towards the gates, hoping she hadn’t pulled Spectre’s usual vanishing act, or that someone hadn’t arrived early to pick her up for a promotional stunt in LINK VRAINS. But it seemed fortune was still on his side- he spotted her just as he started down the path towards the campus exit.

“Aoi,” he called, though she didn’t seem to hear given the distance and the wind working against him. Aoi stood at the gates, speaking to someone blocked by the brick wall in neutral tones, expression neither pleased nor displeased- meaning Yusaku could immediately discount her brother. Ghost Girl then, perhaps. But when Yusaku drew close enough, his steps almost faltered. It didn’t go unnoticed, but thankfully no one saw fit to comment.

“Kogami,” he acknowledged with a dip of his head.

“...Yusaku,” Ryoken returned, after a pause that was slightly too long. This wasn’t the first time they’d met since the Tower of Hanoi had fallen, but it was one of the few times it had happened in real life. Talking about things, rather than around them, was something Kogami still seemed to want to avoid- and Yusaku couldn’t force him if he didn’t want to, not really. Ryoken asked, deceptively casual- “How have you been?”

Yusaku blinked, then shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary I’ve had to deal with.”

Ryoken nodded, then glanced over at Aoi. “Blue Angel did a good job with the last batch of them, didn’t she?”

Aoi paused for a long moment, expression unreadable, then softly nodded. “...Right.”

Yusaku glanced between them- he’d thought they might have talked while they were in LINK VRAINS together, though he couldn’t possibly guess what about. He was having enough problems trying to pull the details of one conversation out of her; he thought it best not to add another. She’d said it herself, after all. She had nothing personal against Revolver, or at least not compared to the anger she felt towards Spectre.

“Anyway,” Yusaku said, breaking the awkward silence with the first thing that came to mind, “How are you?”

Ryoken glanced over at him, but couldn’t quite meet Yusaku’s eyes when he replied. He either hadn’t anticipated the question, or didn’t have an answer. “Fine.”

The latter, then . Yusaku wondered if Ryoken really thought himself a good liar. The distance between them might as well have been a canyon, for all the good trying to cross it would do. But still- “Things lately. They’ve been good?”

Ryoken looked him over, not bothering to hide his surprise at all by now. But he indulged the question asked a second time with a shrug. “As good as they can be, I guess. I’ve had a lot of work to do.”

Really?  Yusaku wanted to challenge, but it seemed that he’d wasted his opportunity- Ryoken’s attention had already slipped somewhere beyond him.

“I’ll let you two go,” Ryoken said, gaze set firmly over Yusaku and Aoi’s shoulders. Yusaku looked back- it wasn’t hard to track it to the path behind them, to Spectre walking up free of Naoki’s distraction. Yusaku frowned- he’d run out of time. He probably hadn’t had enough to begin with.

Ryoken lifted a hand in casual greeting, face lighting up in a smile still guarded, but much freer than the careful expression he’d used upon seeing Yusaku. Spectre picked up his pace a bit, slipping wordlessly past Yusaku and Aoi to walk away with Ryoken, who hesitated just a moment before following. He waved slowly over his shoulder as they left; Yusaku and Aoi returned it hesitantly. For a long while they just watched the two of them go- and then they turned out of sight and were gone. Yusaku was suddenly aware again of Aoi at his side, and the air between them turned thin, uneasy. The breeze blew them laughter and the tail end of a baseless rumor, for once gossip about someone he didn’t know. Yusaku thought to say something, then thought that the time to say something had passed quite a while ago- he shifted on his feet.

“You were looking for me?” Aoi said to break their awkward silence, taking pity on Yusaku’s plight. Yusaku thought that hadn’t gone exactly as planned- but perhaps this would be better, anyway.

“Right,” Yusaku said, “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“Go ahead,” Aoi said, dragging out the syllables just a fraction too long, intonation not quite a question.

“I wanted to borrow a book from you,” Yusaku started, and it seemed Aoi hadn’t quite caught on yet, because she blinked at him with obvious confusion.

“A textbook?”

Yusaku shook his head, glanced at the group of students passing through the gates behind them, then lowered his voice to elaborate- “It’s something a little more personal. I was told you might own it.”

Aoi let out a long breath. Yusaku knew that any attempt he could make at subtlety was gone the moment she asked- “And what’s the title?”

Yusaku hesitated. Once it was out, he couldn’t take it back. If Aoi decided that he was prying too far into this, into an incident and a past that didn’t concern him, then nothing he could do would make up for it. But he had to. He’d already decided; there was no going back. “Blue Angel.”

“Blue Angel?  Why would you want to read that?” Aoi asked, folding her arms and tilting up her chin in a pose more reminiscent of her persona than herself. Then again, thought Yusaku, just a realization flitting by in passing, the difference between the two had been getting smaller and smaller, as of late.

“I’m just interested.”

Aoi frowned. If Ryoken was a bad liar, then apparently Yusaku wasn’t much better. “Then can’t you just find a copy in the library?”

It was just a hunch- probably meaningless, at that- but Yusaku would risk it. He shook his head. “It needs to be the one you have. I’m not going to steal it. I just need to read it. That’s all.”

Aoi looked as if she was about to protest, but cut herself off with a sigh. She sent him a long, appraising look, one that came away too knowing for his liking. Yusaku shifted his weight back to his other foot- he wasn’t sure what she’d just understood. He wished she’d come out and accuse him with it, but instead the fight faded out of her in favor of acquiescence, however temporary. “Well, okay. I still owe you a favor, don’t I? I’ll bring it. Meet me at lunch tomorrow in the music room of the old building. The one on the second floor. That should be enough time, shouldn’t it? It’s just a picture book.”

“Okay,” Yusaku said. Aoi nodded, dropped her arms back to her sides, then turned away from the gates, heading towards home in the opposite direction of Yusaku. She took a step, but before she could take another, Yusaku called after her.

“Aoi?”

She paused, turning back to glance at him over her shoulder. “Hm?”

“Thanks.”

Aoi paused to think before replying, considering him carefully. “It’s just a favor.”

With that she turned away and didn’t look back, leaving Yusaku behind with three words left unsaid, the silence stretching on just a moment too long for him to say them- Still. Thank you.

The next morning came and went; Yusaku found himself too oddly anxious over the contents of the book to focus more than absolutely necessary, more concerned with the slow tick of the clock than anything else. He couldn’t even sleep- though given his last attempt, perhaps it was best he’d given up the habit.

But finally did lunch roll around, and Yusaku was almost as quick as Spectre to leave the room. It was a break from routine to slip down the stairs instead of up, to cross the back courtyard rather than look down on it. Yusaku spared a long look up and over his shoulder as he did,  squinting against the sun over the school roof- but he couldn’t see anyone atop it, not even a shadow. He shook his head, and returned his gaze to the path before him. Of course he couldn’t.

A few students were already heading out into the courtyard to eat; Yusaku hurried along the path, slipping behind a few trees that lined part of the way back to the old building, as if a bit of pretty landscaping could hide the slowly crumbling building behind.

Though Yusaku had never been inside before, he found that the back door was already open, ambivalent towards the prospect of intruders. He stepped over the threshold, and realized the air wasn’t as stale as he’d expected it to be, even in the stairwell or on the second floor- light still streamed in through the hall windows, albeit through a layer of grime, and though the place was dusty and crumbling, it was only about as bad as his apartment when he’d first moved in. Still livable, just neglected.

When he slid open the music room door with a small clatter, he found Aoi waiting inside, sitting on the bench of the abandoned piano near the windows with a thin book in her lap. It was the back cover, but Yusaku could tell just from the overwhelming blue and gold that it was what he’d asked for. Just as he’d suspected- the book that Spectre had created in the network and the book Aoi owned were one and the same.

Aoi glanced up as Yusaku entered, dropped her hand where she was tracing the sparks on the cover with a finger. It curled protectively around the spine, gentleness that belied something fierce. “Oh. You’re here.”

Yusaku nodded and crossed the room to her, dodging a few remaining desks that had been thrown around in a haphazard, broken circle. He pulled out the chair closest to her and sat down, holding a hand out for the book.

Aoi tentatively, carefully, passed it over to him- and then she lingered. Yusaku glanced from the illustration on the cover- Blue Angel, perfectly- then back up to her.

“I’m not letting you run off with it,” Aoi replied, crossing her arms and watching him sharply. If it really was as important to her as Spectre claimed, then Yusaku didn’t see any reason to protest the oversight.

But before he opened the book, he thought to ask- “Can I ask you a question?”

“You’re going to ask it anyway, aren’t you? If I don’t answer it, then you’re just going to go to him,” she said, and it was as much an accusation as it was a fact. Yusaku shifted. The book felt heavy in his hands. Aoi fixed him with a gaze that dared him- ask, or stay out of it.

So he asked. “What exactly happened in that duel between you and Spectre?”

“He led me on. I was dumb enough to believe it. And I wasn’t prepared enough to win. If the same thing happened again, I wouldn’t lose.” Aoi crossed her arms and stared Yusaku down, making it clear that was all she would say on the matter.

So Yusaku opened the book. It was richly illustrated; the words didn’t rest on the page so much as they floated up natural from the backgrounds, telling the story of a lonely angel drowning in blue.

Once upon a time there lived an angel. The angel had no name, but was known by all for her beauty and intelligence. But though she was a born the holiest of all beings, her heart was cold. With such a frozen soul, the angel was always alone. To others she said she preferred it. But when left by herself, all she could do was cry. Her tears were deep blue, just as the distant sea.

But one day, the angel was attacked by evil forces. They were strong. Much too strong for one angel alone.

But suddenly, fellow angels came to her rescue. They showered her in praises, and held out hands for the fallen angel to take, smiling down at her all the while. The angel wiped away her tears. She smiled too.

One by one she defeated the evils, and one by one did her friends grow. With every monster she fought, the kinder she became. The other angels called her a savior. But still, with every monster she defeated, she cried those blue tears again.

And so they called her: Blue Angel.

“Yusaku?” Aoi’s voice jolted him out of his thoughts. “You’ve been on that page for a while. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Yusaku quickly but carefully flipped through the last few pages, searching for the story’s conclusion- but what he found was strange.

“It doesn’t end,” he said, glancing down at the final page before gently closing the book and handing it back to Aoi. “The story just stops.”

Aoi hummed an affirmation and took the book back. “You’re right. Blue Angel is still crying at the end.” She paused, then- “That’s part of why I decided to make her my avatar, you know. To give her story a proper ending. To repay her for all the strength she gave me.”

“Did you manage to do it?” He asked, thinking about endings and epilogues and loose ends and characters named after their tears, “Give her story an ending, I mean.”

Aoi sighed and crossed her arms, clutching the book close to her chest. She stared out the dirty window, watching the flutter of activity in the courtyard below a while before her gaze slid up towards the sky. “No. Not yet. There’s a lot more I have to do before I even get close.”

Chapter Text

In the future, there was… Yusaku didn’t know what to call it. An argument seemed too petty- people argued over what color to paint the walls, or what to eat for lunch- but a dispute seemed too distant, like quiet shuffles of paper between two people who refused to speak. A fight, then, was what Yusaku settled on. Like a duel, using only carefully chosen words and blunt-force persuasion to whittle down each other’s life.

Spectre slipped immediately from the classroom once the day was done, and neither Naoki nor Yusaku could quite manage to catch him before he’d vanished out the door. By the time Yusaku made it into the hall, there wasn’t so much as a sight of him. It was no different than what he’d done the days before- though perhaps his steps were just that much faster, because Yusaku didn’t catch up until they were outside, Spectre already near the gates. With Ryoken again today, Yusaku noticed. That almost made him feel a moment’s regret for what he was about to do- but only almost.

He hardly cared if he was making a scene; Yusaku ran after Spectre and snatched his wrist, pulling him quite literally away from his conversation with Ryoken.

“I’m borrowing him,” was all Yusaku said as he tugged Spectre off down the street.

“Please make sure to bring him back,” Ryoken called lightly after them. Yusaku sensed Spectre’s huff more than heard it, but knew most of it was just for show. If Spectre really wanted to oppose him, then he was more than able. Yusaku kept himself in shape, but it wasn’t exactly as if he was in the habit of punching people like Spectre seemed to be.

Yusaku dragged them a ways down the street before turning halfway into an alley behind a shop whose windows were overflowing with flower boxes, shielded from the flow of students leaving school. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all they had time for.

“What is this about,” Spectre asked in the bored drone of someone who knew exactly what this was about.

“Blue Angel.”

“Are you really going to insist on discussing something so inane again?” Spectre asked, trying to pull his wrist back from Yusaku’s grip, to turn on the spot and leave. But Yusaku wouldn’t let go- Spectre wouldn’t escape so easily this time.

He didn’t bother answering the obvious bait, instead countering with a single, small sentence- “I read the book.”

“I’m glad to know you have the sensibilities of a six year old. It hardly has relevance,” Spectre said, voice curling around snobbish words with a poison meant to cut.

“It does,” Yusaku insisted. “Tell me what you said to Aoi.”

“You can’t possibly think-“

“Answer the question.” Yusaku wouldn’t give him the option not to. If Spectre had challenged everything Yusaku thought he knew that day on the bridge, then Yusaku would just have to drive him into a corner and do the same. A give and take, a back and forth. Proof that there was still some sort of future left for them after all.

“A pathetic girl, unable to become Blue Angel… Something to that effect, if I recall,” Spectre said, and the way he couldn’t quite meet Yusaku’s eyes betrayed the fact that he remembered exactly what he’d said and was simply choosing to paraphrase. “That was what set her over the edge, I believe.”

“You know what that story means to her.” There was no way he hadn’t. He couldn’t have researched Yusaku with his identity protected, but the same couldn’t be said of Aoi. He wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to dig into her life, not when he knew it would come to a fight- and not with the methods he tended to favor.

Spectre glared. “And I know what it means to me. I hardly think that she has a monopoly on it.”

Perhaps not- but that wasn’t the point. Yusaku shook his head. They’d never get anywhere like this. And besides. Spectre had revealed more than he’d thought, just then. “You tried to steal it out from under her. Her monsters, and her wings, and anything else you could manage. You wanted her to think everything she’d ever done meant nothing.”

“Very astute of you,” Spectre said dryly. Yusaku didn’t hesitate to let him say any more.

He pressed on- “That’s like me saying I wish Kogami had never gone back for you. That I wished you’d stayed in that orphanage. That you belonged there.”

If he was hoping to cut, he found himself barely landing a glancing blow. Spectre brushed back a bit of his hair in a way that felt to Yusaku as if he was trying not to laugh in his face. “A charming equivalency, but I hardly find it accurate. Nothing she holds has nearly as much value as how that incident changed my life.”

Spectre said the words with such certainty, Yusaku could almost believe them. But only almost. Someone hardly had to go through the suffering he had- they had- in order to feel alone.

“If you’d let her, she could have-” He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence; Spectre silenced him with a fearsome glare. It wasn’t that Yusaku hadn’t seen that expression on him, before- rather, it had been so long that Yusaku was startled into losing his train of thought by it.

Spectre didn’t waste any time filling his silence. Finally, the last of Spectre’s truths. “We aren’t the same as them, Fujiki. They’ll never understand.”

“Spectre.” That made Spectre pause- Yusaku rarely addressed him by name, and certainly not by that one. Not in the places where someone overhearing was good as a death sentence. He glanced towards the street, but the only traffic was on the other side.

“Spectre,” he said again, a little softer but with no less meaning, “It doesn’t matter anymore. The Incident is over. That noble cause of destroying the Cyberse won’t happen. The Tower didn’t destroy the network. You’re alive.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Spectre replied, “All of it.”

Yusaku could deliver a truth of his own, words imploring, cutting closer to his own bone than he would have dared speak before. He could- he had to. “Then act like it. Living in isolation isn’t worth it. Not knowing what to say isn’t an excuse for not trying.”

Spectre stared at him with vapidness. Yusaku felt his patience fraying like a string pulled across a blade. “I’m not isolated.”

Yusaku thought of empty houses. Lonely Sundays. Canyons they’d all yet to cross. “What about the days you are?”

“I’ve survived them before.”

“So have I. That doesn’t mean we should have to.” They’d all been lonely. All of them, each and every one- they’d all cried out to be saved. They’d all reached out desperate hands, all seized strength from what shards of compassion they could. When someone had found them wandering the dark, they’d taken hold tight and feared letting go. They still did.

But the moment he tried to convey that to Spectre, his expression crumpled into a sneer. “Is that why you insist on clinging to her? Because you have delusions that she’ll save you from the rest of your loneliness? What wonderful dreams.”

“She’s not saving anyone-“

“Indeed, she isn’t,” Spectre said, bitterly amused as he cut Yusaku off. Yusaku shook his head.

“You know what I mean.”

Spectre scoffed. His gaze on Yusaku was scathing, expression drawn haughty and disdainful, spilling off him in waves. “Please do forgive me, Fujiki. We can’t all indulge in such ridiculous fantasies. She can’t save me. Neither can you.”

“That’s not what I’m-“

“Isn’t it? Now that you’ve fixed yourself, you’ve moved on to your next pity project. Despite what you seem to think, I’m perfectly capable without you.”

Yusaku shook his head; met Spectre’s gaze and wondered why he refused to understand. “I’m not saying you aren’t.”

“Then enlighten me,” Spectre said, expression patronizing as Yusaku had ever seen, “If this isn’t about your misguided heroism, then what is it?”

Spectre’s words were needles, driven freezing into his chest. Like this he seemed to loom, a force more intimidating than he really was. Yet again Yusaku was left to try and gather his words, trying to figure out what would reach him. He’d done it before, and he’d do it again- all he needed to find was one sentence, one question, a cut to the heart of things-

It wasn’t fast enough for Spectre’s liking.

“Time and time again you disappoint me. First you think to chase that inconceivable desire for revenge, and now you take up the case of such a pathetic-“

“Stop,” Yusaku said, cutting him off with a sharpness that surprised himself in his own voice, “Stop. Before you say something you regret. You don’t have to carve scars into people to prove that you exist.”

Spectre’s expression curled back into a sneer. This time, behind the defensiveness, it was disappointed. “The question isn’t about me, Fujiki. It’s about you . I’m well aware of what I do. I’ve torn apart the way you saw the world once before, and I have no qualms about doing it again. If that involves tearing you apart in the process, I will have no regrets.”

“Don’t you?” Won’t you. Because if all of this meant nothing to you, then...

“Let me repeat. I don’t need your charity. Learn to stop meddling where you’re not wanted, Fujiki. Dragging others into the messes you create has never once turned out for the better, has it?”

“I told you, that’s not-“

“Then tell me, what else could it possibly be?” Spectre stared at him, challenging Yusaku to provide him an answer in the burn of his eyes- blue, clear as the sky over the ocean where the horizon line met.  

Why? Because they’d spent so long wasting away. Because they deserved better than tying themselves to the pasts that drove them apart just as easily as it had brought them together. Because Yusaku wanted them to be okay.

He met Spectre’s gaze and did not flinch away, asking wordless for this to be another one of the things Spectre understood about him. “Is it really that bad of me to want my friends to get along?

Spectre’s eyes went wide- Yusaku knew exactly what word they’d fixated on. For a long while, Spectre said nothing. His stare was scrutinizing- searching for the final nail to strike through him. This time there would be no interruptions, no hostages, no tricks of words to buy themselves time.

Let him look. Yusaku had no more secrets to hide.

He knew the moment Spectre found it, because he narrowed his eyes, then blinked long and slow. It gave Yusaku a chance to brace himself. Given the way Aoi acted around him, he’d probably need it. Spectre said, finally- “You’ve always wanted this, haven’t you?”

Yusaku didn’t think he needed bother with an answer. Spectre wouldn’t have said it if he hadn’t already known. He asked again- “Is that wrong?”

Spectre let out a long breath. His answer came in plain words, void of inflection. “It’s not.”

They were silent. It was not comfortable. The flames had died, but the coals were still burning, weighing down their shoulders and searing with unease. Perhaps too much had been said after all. Or perhaps it hadn’t been enough. Yusaku wouldn’t know how to tell.

“Who’s the person most important to you?”

Spectre cast him a sidelong glance. Yusaku felt drained, suddenly, in a different way than he was used to fighting through. But he couldn’t let things end here, not on another unfinished note. Not this time. He continued, not unkind- “Just answer the question.”

“Ryoken. Obviously,” Spectre said, acknowledging the wordless please. He punctuated his statement with a glance over his shoulder- though Yusaku hadn’t been keeping track of the time, he imagined they’d been fighting for a while. But Ryoken was out of sight from where Spectre stood, hidden by the wall and the potted plants stacked atop the overflowing shelves. Yusaku had made sure of it.

“Why?”

“Fujiki, please. You know why. Don’t make me repeat myself.” Spectre probably meant it as a threat. The words hardly came out so strong.

Yusaku thought about laying it out in the open before them, then thought that he’d always preferred to tell his own story. He asked, “Should I say it for you?”

“Would that make you feel better?” Spectre said, but it fell flat of anything mocking. From him, it was practically an honest question. Then, when Yusaku kept quiet, waiting him out- “You already know. Just say it.”

So Yusaku did.

“Kogami was the first person in the world who ever tried to understand you. Even though he was on the other side of the Incident, he told you that he’d make a place for you. And you told him that he hadn’t done wrong. Because you enjoyed it, but because you wanted a place with people that took the time to know you. That you could have a purpose with. Am I right?”

Spectre didn’t answer the question- just closed his eyes and heaved out a long sigh. As he did, it was as if everything he carried around with him- every level of pretense, every bit of entitlement, every bit of misery he clung to- finally fell.  

What he said was, softly, “I wouldn’t know what to say to her.”

Liar. “You always know what to say.”

“In this case, I truly don’t. It’s difficult to know what to say to someone who refuses to speak with you,” Spectre said, in that cutting tone he used when he thought Yusaku was being particularly inane about something he should have understood as fact. But there was no haughtiness to it, now. Just frustration and a tired sort of bewilderment that Yusaku had felt a hundred times over. Spectre had told him plenty of truths, since their first duel, but that might have been the most honest thing Yusaku had ever heard him say.

Yusaku glanced over Spectre’s shoulder, towards Ryoken leaning against the fence, staring down at his phone and awaiting their return. He knew. Knew it perfectly well.

“If she won’t reach out, then you have to,” he said, and continued before Spectre could protest, “Tomorrow, after school. Meet me in the music room of the old club building. If you still don’t know what to say, then I’ll tell you.”

“Fine.” Acquiescence- finally. Somehow, it didn’t feel like a victory. Neither had their duel, when the thought flashed unpleasant through Yusaku’s mind. Too many failures. Too many sacrifices. Back then, he hadn’t understood a single thing. Yusaku was left with only uneasiness, a terrible sort of shaking sense that something wasn’t right. The only difference was, this time there was no anger to burn it all away.

“Could you let me go?” Spectre asked, and Yusaku glanced down at his hand on Spectre’s wrist, startled- he’d forgotten that he’d been holding on at all, too caught up in their words. He dropped Spectre’s wrist, and Spectre quickly pulled it back- but not quite fast enough for Yusaku to avoid catching the way it had turned slightly pink. He didn’t remember squeezing, but he obviously must have, and rather hard, at that.

“Sorry,” he said as Spectre rubbed it with his free hand.

Spectre glanced away as he answered, looking for Ryoken. “It’s not a problem, Fujiki. We’ve done each other much worse before.”

So Spectre had been remembering it, too. He thought about telling Spectre now that first and foremost he should apologize for using Akira as a hostage- then considered, and thought that Spectre probably understood that much already.

“Still. Sorry.”

Spectre shook his head. “Why do you insist on making it seem so easy?”

But before Yusaku could ask what he meant, Spectre had turned away, walking briskly back towards Ryoken, who’d run out of things to do on his phone and had crossed the street to peruse the vending machine, instead. Yusaku watched them go- he’d have to head the same direction, and had no intention of dealing with even the slightest possibility of crossing their paths again today, not when something still sat wrong somewhere in his mind, in his chest.

But as they vanished out of sight, Yusaku hoped it meant something. If nothing else he’d ever said, if nothing else they’d ever done together had meant anything- then Yusaku hoped this would.

(When he arrived home- the very moment he swung open his door, for that matter- his phone buzzed in his pocket, alerting him to a new message. He pulled it out, trying to remember if he’d perhaps forgotten something in the back of Cafe Nagi, or if it was about something he’d promised Aoi or Naoki- but the message was from an unknown sender.

It said in plain words- I don’t find you a disappointment. Simply a surprise. One that often sees too much.

Yusaku stood in his doorway a while, considering it. He didn’t know how or when Spectre had gotten his contact information, and supposed that it didn’t really matter.

Did you figure out what to say? Yusaku messaged back. Though he waited for a reply, none came- but he still saved the number, just in case. It wasn’t as if he expected any more messages from it, though it would be nice if one came.

Yusaku shut the door behind him, slipped off his shoes, and felt a little bit lighter. The uneasiness, that terrible crawling feeling eased- not completely.

But it eased.)

In the future, there was a meeting- one that Yusaku really wasn’t invited to, despite being the one to organize it. But if things took a turn for the worse, then before insults any more unforgivable were said… Yusaku almost sighed at the thought. If things went bad here, he doubted that either of them would speak to him again, never mind each other. But he had to take the chance that they’d start a proper conversation. It had worked for him and Ryoken, after all. He saw no reason why it couldn’t work for Spectre and Aoi, a history shorter but no less complicated.

“You’re really going to spy on them, huh?” Ai said, too-loud as Yusaku slipped into the battered, freestanding supply cabinet in the back of the former music room. They probably wouldn’t have the greatest reactions if they found him spying in a closet, but it was leagues better than the worst alternatives. At least then, they might still work things out eventually. Probably through mutual hatred of him, but that was still better than nothing.

“Either leave, or don’t say a word. If you do, I’ll erase all your programs,” Yusaku threatened. Ai just laughed at him.

“It’s been so long since you’ve said that,” Ai said, wiping fake tears from his eyes. “I almost missed it.”

“I’m serious,” Yusaku said, wondering if it wasn’t too late to create a program that would lock Ai out of his duel disk on command. But before he could try and threaten Ai with that instead, his attention was stolen by the sound of the door sliding open. Yusaku shifted slightly, trying to get a better vantage point.

Spectre stepped inside. Through the cracked door, Yusaku watched as he made his way across the classroom floor, towards the dusty old piano sitting in the corner of the room. His steps echoed hollowly, and so did his breath, caught between a huff and a sigh. “He isn’t really late, is he?”

Spectre shook his head, then ran a finger over the keys of the piano, though he didn’t so much as sound a single note- which was just as well, Yusaku supposed. The piano likely hadn’t been tuned in years. He wondered if Spectre did play, though- what little he’d seen of the Kogami house had been marked by a startling lack of furniture, mostly. But that empty parlor seemed like it would suit a piano, played graceful at parties that filled with simple decadence. That, Yusaku thought, or something elegant and stringed- one of those rich instruments that took years of dedication to play. It would suit him. Liven up that empty house a little more. It was a nice thought, a good passing daydream- and it made Yusaku stumble into something else.

They’d spent so long discussing the past, as of late, it hardly seemed like he knew the Spectre of the present. And he wanted to. If everything went well (and perhaps even if it didn’t) he wanted to. The realization almost surprised him- but he’d spent so long letting life slip through his hands. In this, at least, he’d decided no more.

Yusaku stared out the crack of the cabinet door and thought, shifting ever so slightly on his feet, that this was taking too long. Perhaps Aoi wasn’t going to come. Perhaps it would slip away regardless of what he wanted.

Spectre turned towards the cabinet, and for a moment Yusaku held his breath, sure he’d been made- but then the door rattled open, and Spectre’s attention turned away. Yusaku angled himself in order to better see the door through the crack.

“I was expecting Fujiki,” said Spectre. Aoi frowned, but didn’t immediately shut the door and walk away, which Yusaku supposed was already the best outcome he could have asked for.

Aoi sighed. She didn’t sound surprised at all when she said- “So was I. It looks like he set us up.”

“Indeed.”

The silence that hung in the old music room was brittle enough to stab straight through him, if either of them were to notice him hiding. It stretched on uncomfortable, the soft brush of shifting fabric the only sign that anyone was in the room at all. For that long while, Yusaku thought that this might have failed before it had even begun.

But finally, thankfully, Aoi broke it with a single sigh. “Fine. I don’t know why, but he wants us to talk about this. So let’s talk.”

Spectre put on a very neutrally pleasant expression. “Shall we start with the pleasantries, then, or cut right to the heart of it?”

Aoi didn’t give him a chance to answer his own rhetorical question, instead stepping up with a challenge in her manner. “You said you wanted me to save you. Was that just another part of the lie? Or did you actually care about Blue Angel the way I do?”

“How much did Fujiki tell you?” Still bland. Better than patronizing, Yusaku supposed.

Aoi huffed, clearly unappreciative of having her questions answered with another. She crossed her arms. “Nothing, actually. I know that you were one of the children involved in the Lost Incident. And I know that you obviously joined Hanoi. Everything else, you’ll have to tell me yourself.”

“And if I refuse?” Not said as a challenge. Yusaku caught the nuance; it seemed that Aoi did too.

“Then I can’t force you. And I’m sure Yusaku will keep your secrets. He’s stubborn, when it comes to you.”

“And about you as well.”

“I don’t think it’s quite the same,” Aoi said, an odd note of resignation in her voice. Spectre paused, considering that, and in the cabinet Yusaku shifted on his feet again, half expecting something to creak and give him away then and there.

For a second- just a terrible second- Yusaku thought Spectre was going to ask Aoi for clarification. Yusaku hardly knew what she meant by that, and didn’t think he wanted to. Ai made an awful but otherwise quiet choking noise in his duel disk before sinking back down and vanishing- off to compose himself. Yusaku was grateful he’d learned that much tact, at least.

But the question that followed wasn’t about him at all. “Then what is it you want to know?”

“How much of it did you mean, mostly. And if you’re sorry for what you did to my brother.”

“I’ll remind you that he made the choice himself.” Spectre’s tone bordered on haughty; Aoi returned it with a note of irritation- the seeds of an argument without the follow through.

“That doesn’t change the fact you put him in that situation.”

“I mean this in complete and utter honest curiosity,” Spectre began, which Yusaku figured wasn’t a good sign for whatever was going to follow it, “but you hold no ill will towards Fujiki? I gave him every chance to forfeit the duel before it came to that decision. If he’d simply capitulated, your brother would have been spared your suffering.”

Aoi paused at his wording. Screaming out into the dark, she’d called it. Worse than a simple death, pain and isolation about which nothing could be done. You could only fight to stay alive, and hope that someone thought you dear enough to save. She said, words slow and precise, “You wouldn’t have let him go, even if you’d won. He would have been taken into the tower, just the same as everyone else. And then we’d all be dead.”

“In another world, then,” Spectre said, a meaningless proposal.

“But this is the world we’re living in,” Aoi countered, intending on seizing the advantage as early as she could. She was certainly doing a better job of it than Yusaku had managed, at least.

And in response, Spectre… chuckled. Not haughty, not pretentious, just… amused.

“What?” Aoi said, back on the defensive, even more bewildered than Yusaku, blinking at the scene, speechless even if he’d been in a position to speak.

Spectre shook his head. “Nothing. I just thought that was something very like what Fujiki would say to me. I see now why you two get along.”

“And I… No, I see why you two would be friends. Or at least why he would try, anyway.” Yusaku could practically hear the conditional at the end of Aoi’s sentence, plain as if she’d said it aloud. Whether you deserve that or not...

“We’ve gotten off topic, it seems,” Spectre said, no longer quite so guarded. Whatever had just happened, it had shattered the brittle atmosphere, left behind a spring breeze in its wake. It wasn’t warm, but they’d weathered the winter. If Yusaku had hoped before, now he believed.

“I became Blue Angel because I wanted to find hope,” Aoi said, staring Spectre down, “But when I was dueling you? I wasn’t just fighting as Blue Angel. I was fighting as myself, too.”

“If you still intend on saving me, I think you’ll find yourself about ten years too late.” Spectre replied. I’ve already been saved the words left unsaid. Aoi didn’t know that past- at least not yet. But even if she didn’t understand the depths of the implication, she continued on without doubt.

“What I’m trying to say is,” Aoi said, sounding more patient than Yusaku had expected of her, “that I’m fighting for everyone, now. Or at least I want to try. That everyone might be able to include you, too.”

“Is that really what you want?” Asked without sarcasm, but no less probing for it. “I understand Fujiki wants us to get along, but it’s hardly his right to string us along unwilling. I imagine you’ve had enough of dancing on wires.”

“I know what I want,” Aoi said, voice firm, unwilling to yield her points. “An apology, and a duel. Anything other than that, we can talk about.”

Spectre tilted his head, a concession to her terms. “Even if we don’t agree?”

“Even if we don’t agree. I’ll warn you in advance. I won’t forgive you so easily, no matter what Fujiki Yusaku wants.”

“Yet you’re asking for an apology?”

“Accepting an apology and forgiving someone are different things,” Aoi said quite simply, in a tone closer to what Spectre would usually use than Aoi herself.

“I’m well aware,” Spectre replied, slipping into something Yusaku thought he might be able to call genuinely thoughtful. He took an abrupt step forwards. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Whatever you want, I guess,” Aoi said, and let him slip past her, heading across the room and out into the hall. She turned on her heel and followed him, shutting the sliding door behind her. Their steps immediately became muffled, eventually going silent as they disappeared into the hall, presumably down the stairwell.

Yusaku couldn’t hear their conversation, tucked away inside the supply cabinet, but he supposed that was for the best. If he’d ever had a place in that conversation, it had well and truly passed. Yusaku sighed, and stepped out of the cabinet. He supposed he could only hope.

He only made it halfway out before Ai interrupted him, apparently back from composing himself. His tone, though, was anything but.

“Since when did you turn into a matchmaker, huh?”

“What?” Ai’s question was so ridiculous that all Yusaku could muster was a single bewildered word. He almost tripped over the cabinet edge, and hoped no one heard the way his shoe scuffed against the floor as he tried to catch his balance.

Ai beamed up at him with an expression so delighted it couldn’t mean anything but trouble. “That’s what you’re doing, right?”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” A flat denial. He had no idea what he’d done to give Ai the ammunition, but he certainly wasn’t going to give him any more.

Ai grinned up at him with pure, mischievous glee that meant Yusaku was probably going to be dealing with a headache for the next several hours. “So then you want to score a date, huh!”

“Be quiet.” Spectre and Aoi had gone, but it wasn’t as if they had the time to go far. Yusaku was beginning to think that Ai was borderline yelling on purpose. If he was caught now, nevermind the tentative line of moral truce they were walking with Ryoken and the former Knights, Yusaku really would would delete Ai with his own two hands.

“Which one? It is Aoi, isn’t it?”

“It’s not Aoi,” Yusaku hissed, in the tone Playmaker used to end conversations.

Unfortunately, Ai had long since grown immune to that and continued, “So then it’s Spectre! Which, wow-“

“I don’t want to date Spectre either. And I thought I told you to be quiet.” Judging it safe to leave, Yusaku pushed his way out of the supply cabinet and out of the old music room, heading towards the stairwell on the far end of the hall.

Ai made it a few silent seconds, then- “Both of them..?”

“Ai. Shut up.”

Chapter Text

In the future, Yusaku once again found himself running late. It wasn’t unforgivably so, but certainly a good ten minutes later than he’d usually arrive at school. The halls were more crowded than usual; Yusaku decided to head up the back staircase to avoid the press of people on the main one. But he hadn’t so much as turned the corner towards it before he stopped in his tracks at the sound of a familiar voice, sounding sweet with trouble.

“Oh, Shima? Can I ask you a question about something?” It was the popular girl- and really, he’d probably have to learn her name at some point soon, but that was a matter for a different day- waving Shima down with a pleasant smile painted calculated across her lips.

“Yeah,” Shima replied brightly- it wasn’t often that she talked to him, apparently, though Yusaku was probably the only person she’d taken out of her rotation entirely.

Yusaku pressed his back to the wall and listened, unwilling to reveal himself now. Not when it might potentially be another rumor about Spectre- as if there weren’t a dozen around already. But the ones that cut too close to the truth would do no one good if they were allowed to spread.

“So, what do you think is up with that guy who hangs out by the gates sometimes?” At Naoki’s blank look, she continued, “You know, the one who usually leaves with-“

“Oh!” Naoki said, hitting his fist against the flat of his palm, “Yeah! That guy! I heard the rumors about him!”

Yusaku watched them with vague irritation. It wasn’t Naoki’s fault that he’d gotten tangled up in her prying, but he was perhaps the only one who’d end up giving her any information. He readied himself to step in before things went too far. Naoki still didn’t know anything, and that was probably for the best. He’d already dragged enough people into a fight that wasn’t supposed to be theirs. Naoki had gotten involved once; best not again.

“You don’t know him?” She asked, her voice falling flat in disappointment. When Naoki shook his head, she continued, “He was even talking to Zaizen last time. And Fujiki, too. Isn’t that like, half the duel club?”

“Well, yeah,” Naoki replied, “but I don’t know him. Never seen him before, actually.”

“Oh,” said the girl, a split second of disappointment and a dark sort of annoyance at being denied flashing across her pleasant face before she hid it, “yeah, okay. I was just hoping someone would know, I guess. That whole friend group is kind of inexplicable. I thought maybe he might be dating one of them? But I guess the mysteries just keep piling up.”

She sighed at that, and Yusaku’s vague irritation slipped into something that was most definitely closer to anger at the baseless conjecture. He’d been able to avoid gossip about Playmaker easily enough by virtue of simply not caring if people thought him a hero or an outlaw. If he happened to be able to save someone, then good- he certainly wasn’t going to feel bad about that. It had held true then and held true still with a bounty on his head. But it wasn’t their praises he’d sought. A stray condemnation meant nothing in the face of what he’d accomplished for himself.

So why this of all things bothered him, Yusaku wished he knew.

The girl, unaware of him entirely, continued. “If you find anything out, you have to let me know, okay? I’d ask Fujiki or Zaizen, but you know how much they hate talking to people.”

“Uh, do they?” Naoki said, bewildered, “I mean, they talk to me? And there’s always-“

“Well, I know that,” the girl said sharply, twirling her hair ribbon around her finger with a certain weird intensity, “but, I mean…”

Yusaku didn’t hear the rest of her reply; his attention was stolen fast by a low voice from his side.

“You have a terrible habit,” Spectre said, which Yusaku supposed answered the question of if Spectre had realized he’d been eavesdropping or not. On the contrary, Yusaku hadn’t so much as heard Spectre approach, and had to hide the way he almost started by rolling it into a shrug.

“Most of the time I just happen to be there.”

The glare Spectre shot him was scathingly skeptical, which Yusaku supposed he kind of deserved. For once Spectre let his look speak for itself, giving Yusaku the chance to look him over. It wasn’t as if he’d changed overnight. But the feeling about him was softer- or perhaps Yusaku just wanted it to be. He supposed there was no way to tell just by looking.

“How did it go?” If he’d already been found out, there was no need to keep up the pretense of obliviousness. The two of them would see through it in an instant, anyway.

Spectre met his gaze even as his careful words. “If you want the answer to that, I believe you’ll have to ask Zaizen. The decisions are hers to make, after all.”

Fair enough, Yusaku thought. Spectre still seemed willing enough to speak to him, which was theoretically a good sign for Aoi, too. It hadn’t ended in disaster, at least. He wouldn’t put it past Spectre to show up to school the day after destroying any chance he had at a friendship looking utterly unruffled by the fallout- but he’d like to think he could tell it was a lie.

“Oi! Fujiki!” Naoki called, turning the corner and waving the two of them over. Already the popular girl was nowhere in sight, having vanished during their short conversation. Whatever he’d missed, he hoped it wasn’t anything important.

Spectre started over, and Yusaku followed, the three of them forming a circle for a moment as they exchanged pleasant good mornings, chatting a moment about finals, looming along the horizon. A normal conversation. A normal day. Together they started up the stairs, and went to class.

That afternoon he met Aoi at the gates, though she hadn’t been waiting- or at least hadn’t been waiting for him. She stared intently at her phone, slowly swiping out a message. He didn’t look over her shoulder, though he did stand at her side a while, waiting for her to look up.

She didn’t, but she acknowledged him with a quick- “Yes?”

This wasn’t particularly something that should be asked with divided attention- he hardly wanted her to feel like he’d prepared an ambush. Still he started, aiming for nonchalant and likely ending somewhere more around pleasantly awkward- “So, how did it go?”

“It went,” Aoi said, not looking up from her phone. Her expression had fallen into a small little frown- not, he thought, directed at him. But given the topic, it was hard to tell. Aoi sighed, then slipped her phone back into her bag.

“Are you free right now?” He asked before he could stop himself. Aoi glanced up, surprised but expression not entirely closed off.

She replied, a little strained, “My brother has to work late, so I have no plans.”

Perfect, Yusaku thought. “Do you want to go get something to eat? Ramen, specifically.”

“You eat things other than hot dogs?” Aoi said, and Yusaku couldn’t quite tell if it was meant to be a joke or not.

“I owe Shima,” Yusaku explained, and Aoi laughed, just a quiet thing as the pieces fell into place.

“Is this your treat?”

Yusaku shrugged. If it was half price, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt his wallet too badly to pay for three bowls instead of two. His food bills weren’t exactly cheap, but when half his meals came free courtesy of Kusanagi, he had more than enough to spare. “Sure.”

“Oh,” Aoi said, a little surprised- “I wasn’t serious. I can easily pay for it myself.”

“Still my treat.” He’d already offered. And besides- Shima would probably throw a fit over chivalry or something if Yusaku paid for his bowl but not hers.

“Well,” said Aoi, fiddling with the strap of her bag, “Then I won’t turn you down. I’ll repay you sometime, though.”

Yusaku didn’t quite have time to give her the reasons she didn’t have to before Naoki called out for them, jogging up the path with waving arm. Yusaku had a brief moment to wonder if Naoki would object to Aoi joining them, but he didn’t so much as bat an eye as he launched into an explanation of the menu with great enthusiasm- so much so that even Yusaku found himself weirdly looking forward to whatever they were about to eat. The three of them stepped off. Still, Yusaku managed to slip in a quiet- “ You don’t have to,”  to Aoi under his breath as they went.

“I will anyway,” Aoi replied, and that, Yusaku supposed, was all there was to be said.

The shop itself was small, a little place crammed in between two much larger, newer restaurants on either side. The blinds had been drawn low, giving a dim atmosphere to the counter seats already done in dark wood, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Calm despite the bustling clientele, even at this off-time in the day. The background noise was surprisingly soft- a snatch of conversation here, the clink of a bowl against the table there. Naoki ordered for them, begging their trust, and they chatted idly as waited. Mostly about dueling- apparently the upcoming tournament was going to be not just speed duels, but tag duels, meaning Naoki had missed out on a slot, this time.

The same as you two, Naoki said, gaze tracking towards the waitress bringing out their bowls. Yusaku cast Aoi a sidelong glance- isn’t Blue Angel doing promotion at that event? - and she returned it cooly- don’t you dare give me away.

Not that he was planning on it. Just because she was the only one of them with a secret identity that didn’t have a bounty on their head didn’t mean he would expose her any faster than he would the others, than himself. Of course I won’t.

Aoi just sighed, and started in on her bowl.

The food was good. Yusaku couldn’t deny that- leagues better than the instant or convenience store brands he usually bought for himself, not exactly picky about the quality. Not as good as Kusanagi’s, but then again, it wasn’t exactly as if he was unbiased when it came to his favorite restaurant. Though, he thought as they finished up, when it came to exacting standards, there were probably better judges than him.

Naoki had run off to the bathroom, having finished his bowl a decent five minutes before the rest, and as he’d been the main source of conversation- how he could keep talking under any circumstance, Yusaku still had no idea- he and Aoi had drifted off into silence. Yusaku tried to think of something to bring up, failed, figured the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, and let his mind wander off to different topics instead. He didn’t make much of a habit of going out to eat, but he found himself wondering how many other places there were in the area- and who would know any of them in the first place. He supposed he’d just have to ask and find out, eventually.

And if he did that- if he invited Spectre, he tried to imagine what Aoi’s reaction would be.

“Please don’t,” Aoi said, and Yusaku started, glancing over at her with a tilt of his head.

“I wasn’t going to do anything,” Yusaku replied. Aoi put down her napkin with a quiet little sigh. If the room was any louder, it would have been lost entirely under the white noise.

“I can tell. You’re actually easy to read, once someone gets to know you,” Aoi said, and Yusaku sent her a lowly bewildered glance. No one had told him that before- save maybe Ai, who had an unfair advantage as far as Yusaku was concerned. She elaborated, “You get a look in your eyes when you’re thinking about asking a question you think is going to be turned down.”

Yusaku blinked and tried to catch sight of himself in the laminated sheet of paper clipped to the side of the counter. He wasn’t aware he’d been making a look. He wondered how Aoi had noticed in the first place.

He said, still looking at his reflection faint over the text, “And you’re telling me-“

“Not to ask,” Aoi finished, “Because you’re going to be disappointed when I tell you ‘no’. And because if you don’t ask, then you’re going to try and surprise me, and I really don’t want to be mad at two people, right now.”

She was speaking vaguely, but it was easy enough to guess who she meant. “So you two didn’t…”

Aoi sighed. Yusaku didn’t finish his sentence. There was a moment of silence, and Yusaku half expected Naoki to return and break it- but he didn’t, so Aoi did instead.

“I need you to understand this,” Aoi said, “I haven’t forgiven him. I know he’s trying. And I’m trying, too. But I can’t just forget what he did to me or my brother. He took everything I thought I could stand for and threw it back in my face. You can’t be disappointed in me for still feeling hurt.”

“Okay,” Yusaku said, because he owed her that much. If she’d given in to his pleas to hear Spectre out, then he’d have to respect what she wanted, too. Perhaps that’s just what friendship was- Yusaku still didn’t really know. But it had taken him a decade to even take a step past his frozen time, and even then only after things had tied up their ends so cleanly- a dead man, a repentant son, and a group of people picking themselves up slowly from the aftermath.

If he tried to fault Aoi now for needing time, he’d be unforgivable.

“But if you want to do this again? With the three of us? I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Okay,” Yusaku said again, then glanced at her surprised as he fully processed her words.

Aoi flashed him a small smile. It wasn’t entirely pleased- traces of strain still lingered in her eyes- but it was kind. She meant it when she’d asked, and that was enough.

The days passed. They weren’t peaceful, exactly, but they were certainly far from chaotic. LINK VRAINS stayed quiet, for the most part, and school had yet to hit the sudden stress that the end of the semester would harken. In the usual spot in the public viewing plaza, there were two chairs set out around Yusaku’s table at Cafe Nagi. He’d lifted an eyebrow when the extra had appeared, but Kusanagi had played dumb, and in the end, the second chair saw more use than not- though for different people, depending on the day.

But the peace wasn’t meant to last forever. In the future, there was an emergency.

The alarm bells went off as they were sitting outside Cafe Nagi, conveyed to them by the yell of the announcer and the radiance on the screen- the flash of digital explosives and the white light of the impact radius, devouring greedy all it touched.

Yusaku stood with a scrape of his chair against the cement, loud and grating in stereo. Beside him Spectre was also on his feet, doubtless come to the same conclusion. He said, picking his bag up from the ground, “Then I’ll go straight to-“

“No time,” Yusaku said, all but dragging Spectre into the back of Cafe Nagi, “just help out here.”

Spectre seemed to want to protest, but by his own admission he’d been unable to make it in time during the last incident. They were firmly on the same side, this time; Yusaku refused to believe that Spectre or Ryoken would stab them in the back now.

Yusaku closed the doors behind them and grabbed the shutter; Spectre stood back and watched as the sunset faded into the blue glow of computer screens.

“You can’t go in,” Kusanagi said immediately, already bringing the consoles to life, “It's too dangerous to risk. Whatever they did, it wiped out all the data in the immediate vicinity.”

“Oh,” Ai buzzed from Yusaku’s arm, “Great. Another tower.”

“It’s not another tower,” Spectre corrected nonchalant, staring at the reeling LINK VRAINS displayed across the top screens, “This is localized data destruction. The tower was-“ Spectre stopped mid-sentence, glancing down at Ai, then around at the room gone silent. On the peaceful days, the long drag of early summer still spent in school, it was easy to forget just to what extent they’d been enemies. On a personal level, never. But...

Yusaku returned Spectre’s glance and thought- You really did try and destroy the network and cripple the world.

Spectre met it evenly, though Yusaku could tell he wanted to glance away. I did. If you have problems with that, I’d love to hear them.

Yusaku had nothing but problems with that. It was why- Yusaku stopped himself. No, that hadn’t been why, when he cut down to the bone of it. He’d gone for revenge, and then he’d gone to try and save the person who’d saved him. The world and the fallen had been a relieved addition to his drive- stoking the flame of that burning revenge.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t cared. He’d wanted to save those the tower had cast into the dark. He’d wanted to avert the disaster that would arise if the network fell. But if he’d saved everyone else, without saving himself, then-

If it had come down to it, if those two goals really had been in opposition, then-

Yusaku didn’t know. He still didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

But this was the world they were living in, wasn’t it?

“Regardless,” Spectre said, snapping Yusaku out of his thoughts, “We need to get started on this immediately.”

Kusanagi pulled him out a folding chair and sat it between them, slightly back from the screens. Yusaku took off his duel disk to let Ai sit directly before him, in a position where he could easily split his attention between them all- able to process data faster than any human eye. Isolating the data they needed was easy; trying to figure out what to do with it was another matter entirely.

Spectre looked between them as they talked, following the conversation seemingly well enough. In truth, Yusaku hadn’t really expected much. He’d pulled Spectre inside expecting to head straight off to LINK VRAINS, so whether Spectre would be any use or not, Yusaku had no idea, and didn’t really have the attention span left to care.

“Here,” Kusanagi said, stopping on a piece of code that Yusaku leaned over in his seat to see.

“Oh, nice catch,” Ai said, holding out a hand for the data. Kusanagi sent it over obligingly, and the three of them- four of them, Yusaku found, when Spectre tapped his shoulder and asked for his laptop- set to work.

Spectre wasn’t much of a coder- he could do it about as flawlessly as expected, but nowhere near the speed Yusaku and Kusanagi had gotten used to with the trouble they’d found themselves chasing ever since the day they’d made their plans to trap Ai. Spectre wasn’t much help in actually getting things done- but he was, Yusaku found, thorough at checking what they’d already finished.

He was also, surprisingly, less snide about pointing out their mistakes than Ai, though that probably said more about Ai than about Spectre. It became a rhythm- finish a chunk of code, pass it off to Spectre, then throw it off to Ai, who tore it all apart and made it better. Or at least, Ai said he did. Yusaku wouldn’t have time to check until they were well and done- and even then, Ai would probably insist on doing it himself, citing the fact AIs had no need for sleep.

They worked that way for a long while- Kusanagi occasionally standing to brew them a new pot of coffee to top off half-chilled mugs, one of them occasionally pausing to talk out a particularly nasty patch with Ai in a low mutter. Yusaku lost track of the world around him, for the most part- until Ai spoke up too-loud beside him, breaking his concentration with a single word.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Ai said, jabbing a finger towards Spectre, “next bit of code, now.”

Yusaku wondered if Ai had simply lost all fear for his life. Spectre leered at Ai murderous at the nickname, though the effect was undercut sharp by the way he’d clearly been just trying to stifle a yawn.

“When I’m done with it,” Spectre all but snapped, still trying not to yawn, which was both hilarious and kind of alarming given the way Ai crossed his arms and leaned forwards, clearly ready to provoke Spectre more.

“Ai,” he broke in, “let’s take a break.”

Ai turned that leer on Yusaku, then, rising up high as he could from the duel disk to squint at him, though he couldn’t quite hit eye level. “Yusaku. We’re almost done! Come on! Make him work.”

And wasn’t that unusual- an Ai who didn’t jump at the opportunity to shirk off his responsibilities- but they probably did need the break. Even Kusanagi was slumped over in his chair, trying to hide the way his blinks were getting perilously long.

“Go to sleep,” Yusaku said, glancing down at the clock in the corner of one of the screens. It displayed a cheery, uncaring- “2:14 A.M” up at him. A wave of tiredness suddenly threatened in over his head, and Yusaku thought he shouldn’t have looked at all.

“I’m not falling asleep while you’re still working,” Spectre protested, but he was doing a terrible job of masking the half-droop of his eyes and slump of his shoulders.

Yusaku just shrugged and blinked slowly a few times, hating how dry his eyes suddenly felt and how his back had begun to ache now that he was aware of the time.

Ai turned on him, triumphant. “See, he gets it.” Then back to Spectre- “You’re not so bad. I approve.”

Spectre just blinked at him. “What would I ever need your approval for?”

Ai crossed his arms. Yusaku absolutely didn’t need to know whatever Ai would say next. He bit out a sharp - then work- and Ai hummed a cheerful affirmation, oddly content to go silent.

They went back to their progress in fits and starts. At some point he was vaguely aware of Spectre dropping out of their rotation, then of Kusanagi resting his head in a hand that became arms atop the counter beside him, but Yusaku was almost done. If he could just finish this, they could implement it alongside the new support system Kusanagi was working on, and then- he yawned. Then again. Halfway through the third time he cut himself off, hissing and pushing himself abruptly to his feet. Yusaku staggered towards the coffee pot, thinking one more cup would do it- if he drained the dregs of it, he’d have their counter completed. Halfway there he realized he’d forgotten his mug, spent three whole seconds longer than he really should have debating whether or not to go back for it, then shrugged and pulled an extra from the shelf Kusanagi kept them on. He poured out the lukewarm coffee, drank half of it down with a grimace- he had nothing against the taste, usually, but he felt like he’d been saturated with it and the reminder was anything but pleasant- and started back towards the consoles. Just standing had woken him up; he’d be able to finish off the trap within the next hour, presuming Ai helped out.

Yusaku sat his second mug on the countertop, brushing past Spectre and back into his seat. If he’d had more energy, he could have chuckled at the way Spectre was sprawled out as inelegant as he’d ever been across the chair. If he moved in his sleep, he’d certainly fall straight off.

Yusaku shrugged off his jacket and draped it rather ineffective but at least semi-functional over the sleeping Spectre. The spring might have give way to early summer, but it was still unusually chill, for this time of year. Yusaku and Kusanagi were used to passing out in less than opportune locations, but Spectre would probably end up catching a cold.

And wouldn’t that be hilarious- Spectre running around with a stuffed-up nose and an attitude to match the intensity of it. No, Yusaku thought, he’d probably just be murderous and stay home. Probably for the best; even Yusaku recoiled at the thought of having to put up with that kind of Spectre. But he’d still do it. Whatever had been happening, the past few months, it meant they were on the same side. Allies. Friends.

(Something, Yusaku suddenly realized, that he could get used to with frightening ease.)

He thought about nightmares, and empty spaces, and a future that didn’t promise that they’d be filled- then glanced back at Spectre one more time, and decided there was nothing wrong with that fond sort of hope.

Yusaku rolled his neck, cracked his knuckles, and set back to work, ignoring the way that Ai watched him, holding back what might have become a low cackle- and thought that if Spectre really did fall off the chair in the middle of the night, then he wanted to be awake to laugh.

Yusaku woke to the sound of something sizzling pleasantly on the grill. As he lifted his head from his arms, his jacket shifted, falling down over the back of the chair from where it had been draped over his shoulders. He pulled it back up over them, blinking blearily into the light of the monitors, substitutes to the sun.

“Oh, you’re finally awake,” Ai chirped up at him, looking smug for reasons that Yusaku thought were probably better left unsaid- not that Ai ever seemed to know when to hold his tongue. He hadn’t remembered falling asleep, and spent a moment taking stock of where exactly he was.

“Where’s Spectre?”

“Already left.” The answer came not from Ai, but from Kusanagi, standing at the flattop where the service window would have been if it was open.

“Did you feed him, at least?”

Kusanagi grinned. “Who do you think I am? He got the best breakfast special not on the menu.”

Because Cafe Nagi didn’t have a breakfast menu in the first place. Yusaku didn’t get a chance to dryly point that out, because Kusanagi continued, “Hard customer to please, though.”

Yusaku already felt dead, and much like he’d rather just go back to sleep. Preferably in a bed, but sprawled across the floor of Cafe Nagi was looking to be an acceptable substitute. Dealing with anything Spectre might have said was just another reason to let sleep take him. But he didn’t, of course. He’d never given up so easily. “He told you he didn’t like it?”

Kusanagi glanced back at him, holding a plate and spatula frozen halfway to their destination. “Huh? No, he said he liked it. He just had some suggestions.”

Yusaku dropped his head- knowing Spectre, they’d less been suggestions and more been blunt criticisms. At least Kusanagi didn’t seem particularly offended.

“Here, try this,” Kusanagi said, and set a plate down before Yusaku. A steaming mug followed a moment later. Not coffee, thankfully- the smell that carried was some sort of tea. As for the food itself… Western style, eggs and bacon- things Kusanagi had sitting around, most likely. Yusaku took the proffered fork and dug in. It was good- even though Yusaku always woke hungry, he had even less doubt than usual that he’d finish it all.

“Good, right?” Kusanagi said, and Yusaku nodded. If Kusanagi was capable of making something terrible, then Yusaku had certainly never been subjected to it. But Kusanagi followed it up with- “His idea. There’s secret ingredients.”

Yusaku glanced around and wondered what in the rather sparse Cafe Nagi could possibly be considered a secret ingredient, then figured he wouldn’t protest good food and dug back in.

“Fixes your mistakes, fixes Kusanagi’s food… you should keep him around,” Ai said, in a weird sort of tone where Yusaku couldn’t tell if the intent was to give Spectre a compliment without actually praising him or just to tease them.

“Quiet,” he said, too tired to make proper sense of it, and avoided thinking about it altogether.

Ai popped back into his duel disk halfway through fourth period on Monday, waving a hand out from his school bag and fixing Yusaku with a worried look as he fiddled with his hands, clearly bursting at the seams trying not to blurt out the story. Yusaku stood, interrupting lecture without a care in the world for the heads that turned back to him. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling ill. Can I go to the nurse’s office?”

“Oh? Well, go ahead,” the teacher said, either unable to tell Yusaku was lying or simply not caring enough to protest the obvious excuse. Yusaku picked up his bag and made for the door, waiting until he was well out into the hall to break out into a jog, curling down the stairs and out the rear doors of the main building as fast as he could manage without drawing attention that would get him caught.

Ai spilled the story in frantic hyperbole, describing the way another section of LINK VRAINS had up and vanished without a trace, leaving a blast radius and uneasy sense of unreality behind. Yusaku slipped inside the old building and wove his way up towards the music room out of force of habit as the story reached its end.

“I thought you said you could tweak the program to keep this from happening,” Yusaku said, and Ai made a long noise of displeasure.

“Maybe it would’ve if you’d taken my suggestions,” Ai said, a little snidely.

“You’re the one who finished looking over the program,” Yusaku pointed out. “And implemented in key points around LINK VRAINS.”

“Yeaaaah,” Ai said, drawing out the word, presumably to buy himself some time to gather up a reply and failing to find one. “This might be kind of bad.”

Yusaku all but rolled his eyes and logged in.

They touched down at the edge of the blast radius, atop a small skyscraper whose structure had been saved, though its glass windows completely blown out. He had only a moment to survey the damage- a wider range than the past incident, which was worrying in and of itself- before he became acutely aware of the fact he wasn’t alone.

Yusaku turned slow, knowing instinctively that the person behind him meant no harm.

“Revolver,” he greeted, watching the avatar emerge measured from the shadows. Ryoken had tweaked his avatar slightly since the days of Hanoi’s crusade against the Ignis. It was still undeniably Revolver, but his mask was no longer set to be so opaque. A trace of his eyes filtered through- steel blue, tinted with gold, stardust in an ocean.

“Spectre isn’t with you?”

“I think faking illness only works once per class,” Yusaku replied. Then, as Ryoken considered that, he continued- “Why are you here?”

Ryoken’s expression curled into a frown. He bit out, oozing discontent- “I was attacked.”

Yusaku lifted an eyebrow at the phrasing. His avatar didn’t seem damaged, which meant he’d won handily in the shadows, or someone had come after him and left him no choice but to head here, close enough to the blast that most wouldn’t dare to tread. “In LINK VRAINS?”

“In the real world, believe it or not. I fought them off. The attacker fled into LINK VRAINS through the television set in the living room. I followed. Though in the traditional fashion.”

“What?” Yusaku wasn’t particularly well-versed, but he was fairly sure that shouldn’t be possible. Certainly data could be converted into cards, given the proper materials and machinery, but for something- or someone- to come out of a television set resembled magic more so than it did science. Even Ai wasn’t properly physical- more like an advanced hologram than a living creature with mass and weight.

Ryoken stared at him levelly. Every word he spoke here carried weight. “Believe me or not. It’s your choice. But I know what I experienced. The perpetrator should still be in this area somewhere.”

Ai very carefully didn’t say a word, though Yusaku could tell he wanted to. He was shrunk down to a single eye, but when Yusaku glanced at him he flicked it up and down, as if to nod in frantic agreement.

Yusaku met his gaze again and said, “I believe you. What else do you know?”

Nothing in the bits and pieces of data they’d steadily been winning from their enemies had indicated they could do anything on this scale. If things kept escalating at this rate, there would be no LINK VRAINS left to save, let alone so much as a way to save it.

Ryoken frowned, but held out his hand. In it materialized a small bit of data, a chip that floated out over towards Yusaku. Ai reached out quickly to snatch it, retreating quickly as Ryoken’s gaze flicked over to him. “All I know are the rumors. At this point, you may have more information than I do. Especially you, Ignis.”

Ai made a noise that Yusaku could only describe as a squeak. He followed it up with the no less dignified, “Well, uh, about that. There’s some things… I mean, you know how you were all about that whole, uh-“

But there was no time for anyone to demand a straight answer from Ai, his stalling finally having won him an excuse to stop. He pointed up as a shadow flew fast over their heads. “Enemy!”

“There,” Ryoken said, and raced forwards, towards the wind rushing through the virtual world. He leapt off the building, chasing the glowing back of an indistinct figure; it wasn’t a choice for Yusaku to follow him. His D-board fell under his feet, and he sped off after Ryoken, the third link in their makeshift chain.

He expected for things to turn fast into a duel, but their mysterious culprit seemed content to keep things a chase instead, defying the law of the land. Yusaku and Ryoken raced side by side, catching the wind in a way that wasn’t unfamiliar- watching each other’s backs, this time not as targets but as goals with which to keep pace. This felt a thousand times better than their last meetings, scattered things from which Ryoken had disappeared too quickly.

“They’re after someone,” Ryoken said, as they came close together after parting around an island of debris suspended in the middle of the path, “that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Meaning you,” Yusaku replied, thinking it quite unfortunate the attackers hadn’t realized that Ryoken was skilled in more fights than just a dueling- for them, of course. Yusaku glanced away from the strange figure up ahead towards Ryoken’s profile. He stared determinedly ahead, even as he replied.

“Unfortunately, I have no idea why.”

Yusaku had a few ideas. First- if the attacker was Sol, then it stood to reason that it could be some sort of development in their bounty hunters’ tactics. Second- if the attackers were a third party, then it was likely they had access to a technology neither publicized nor associated with existing network companies, meaning another mystery to solve. Third- if they’d gone after Ryoken, then it could be they had some sort of grudge against Hanoi, which meant knowledge of the Ignises, and presumably the Lost Incident.

Yusaku narrowed his eyes at the last one, but had no time to voice his concern. The wind picked up abruptly- not Ai’s doing, given the way he yelled as Yusaku struggled to keep his balance on the board as it soared over a wave, forcing him to fight to keep on course as the figure ahead of them gained ground.

Yusaku knew not where they were headed, but moved quickly forwards, dodging around a floating island and ignoring the stares of the crowd as they headed into a tight clump of buildings, all empty and looming, intimidating things that gave way to nothingness on the other side.

Well, thought Yusaku, not nothing. But SOL’s security systems offered no escape. Still, the figure barreled on and left Yusaku no choice but to chase them down towards the restricted area, Ryoken just behind- before they vanished. The figure was gone, slipped straight through all of SOL’s security systems without so much as a tool to get them through.

Yusaku pulled to a halt, stopping with a great gust of wind just short of the firewall. He felt the wind cease as Ryoken too pulled to a stop, hovering just above him.

“They’re gone.”

Yusaku turned, a question on his lips as to Ryoken’s next course of action- but he too had already disappeared, vanished back to reality. Yusaku stared at the empty space a moment.

“Didn’t even say goodbye, huh? Rude,” Ai said. Yusaku nodded, and he felt more than saw Ai’s shocked gaze as it brief up into him. “Playmaker! Did you just agree with me?”

Yusaku was sure he’d agreed with Ai before, and ignored the comment. “Ai. What do you know about all this?”

Ai made a disgruntled noise and crossed his arms. “It’s complicated. See, I’ve been running around trying to figure out where the rest of the Cyberse went.”

“Didn’t you hide it in the first place?” Yusaku asked, thinking that even Ai would never lose the location of something so important. Probably, at least.

Ai made a strained noise. “Yeah, but… It got… complicated.”

“Complicated?”

Ai waved his hands around in a wild, meaningless gesture towards the empty space around them. “Yeah, you know! Like, difficult to explain. The opposite of simple. Unable to be put in easy to understand words.”

Yusaku had more than had his fill of trying to pry things out of people who refused to talk, over the past few months, let alone the past few weeks. Luckily, Ai wasn’t nearly so stubborn- probably because he was stuck to Yusaku, even without a lock. “Ai. Tell me what’s going on.”

The alarm blared; Ai swiveled to point again at a new group of figures- bounty hunters, making for him with traps at the ready. Yusaku knew them; understood their arrival meant nothing good. He had no time to be dragged into a duel for their lives now. Before Ai had time to shout a warning, Yusaku logged out; he’d have to trust his records would be covered.

Ai let out a long breath as they landed back in the real world, Yusaku blinking back to the taste of dusty air in the old building- though it wasn’t as stale as before. He hadn’t noticed when he’d entered the first time, but someone had opened one of the classroom windows, letting the wind slip through and freshen up the place.

“That was close, Yusaku,” Ai huffed out, chiding, “You’ve gotta be more aware of this stuff!”

“Don’t waste time. I need the rest of those answers.” Yusaku said. Ai wilted, sinking back down into the duel disk a bit before pulling himself back up to explain.

“I know, I know… I went back to where I hid the Cyberse, right? It was there! But it was only one piece.” One finger, held up for emphasis.

“Just one piece?”

“Yeah. Just the piece I was in charge of managing. Not that there was much left of it in the first place. Someone attacked it. All my hard work! Mostly destroyed!”

Yusaku didn’t say he doubted that Ai had put that much work into it- no matter how much Ai liked to loaf about, Yusaku had proof he could put unreasonable amounts of effort into things when he set his mind to it. He asked instead- “Then where are the rest?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Far as I can tell, they’re not… anywhere. All the other Ignises and all the stuff we, uh, they, built is just… gone.”

“Gone?”

“Like, vanished. Disappeared. Kapoof,” Ai said, waving his hands about in a frenzy. “I can’t find a trace of any of it in the network anywhere. And I’ve been looking. A lot.”

That was worrying. More than worrying, actually. Anyone who had gotten their hands on that much Cyberse material, not to mention potentially holding the other Ignises, unrestrained- “You kept this from me?” Again?

Ai made a hum that was positively dripping with guilt. If Yusaku wasn’t two steps away from agreeing with Ryoken over the demerits of an AI that could lie, then he might have felt more pity.

“Sorry.”

Yusaku shook his head. “That’s why you came back.”

“Yeah. Does it help if I say I missed you?” Ai said, very hopefully contrite, eyes wavering at the edges in an approximation of AI tears. He didn’t reply. He worried if he said anything, he might kind of end up admitting that it did, and Ai would never let him live that down. Instead, Yusaku pulled out his phone and shot Spectre a message. It hadn’t been that long since he’d made his escape from the classroom- their chase had been a few minutes, at most- but it was long enough that returning now would seem strange. He’d wait out the last few minutes of class here, then leave at the bell to find Kusanagi and start processing any of what had happened- or rather, been happening over the past few months without his knowledge.

Yusaku swiped out a quick message, wondering if Spectre would even glance at his phone during school hours. Met Kogami in LV. He was attacked.

The response was immediate. Thank you. I’ll go home immediately.

Yusaku resisted the urge to message back that it probably wasn’t necessary- Ryoken had seemed fine within LINK VRAINS, but that meant little. Especially still behind a mask. He’d do good to have a familiar face around, right now.

He messaged back again- Let me know if there’s anything wrong.

From the main building came the sound of a bell- Yusaku supposed that would make perfect timing to slip away, out the gates in favor of consulting with Kusanagi and Ai, still in Yusaku’s duel disk and managing to look quite fretful as just an eye. It would be good timing for Spectre, too, Yusaku thought, then left the old classroom, winding his way down towards the courtyard. He slipped his phone back into his pocket, and, right before pushing the side door open, he said on impulse, as if to the air before him, “We’ll figure out something.”

He stepped outside before Ai could give a response. Almost immediately he slipped aside, into the shadow of tree branches and behind the shelter of its trunk. Two girls stood at the back of the old building gossiping, tucked beneath the shade of a tree, out of sight from the courtyard. They’d clearly been heading here. Yusaku had no idea why, and no right to talk, really.

There was, unfortunately, no way to make it back to the main building without attracting their attention when they stood between him and the path. As it was, Yusaku rested his back against a tree and tried not to eavesdrop, which proved impossible.

“I mean, he’s smart, he’s supposedly kinda athletic, actually? And he’s kinda cute, right?” said the girl with the ribbon in her hair, fiddling with the duel disk on her wrist. The long-haired girl she was speaking to didn’t seem particularly convinced.

“You think so? He has such a pretentious vibe around him. You deserve much better than that.”

Amazing. In less than five sentences, Yusaku could deduce they were talking about Spectre.

“Besides, I thought you were into the dark, pessimistic types?” said the long haired girl, clearly a dark, pessimistic type herself.

The popular girl shook her head. “First, if I have a chance, I’m going to take it. What if he transfers again or something? And second, I know you’ve heard the rumors. The ones that didn’t come from one of us. Especially the one those troublemakers were trying to spread when he first transferred. If there’s a chance, we need to investigate it, don’t we? I have a new idea all prepared. If he really was with the Knights of Hanoi, don’t you think there’s a chance-”

Yusaku was standing before them almost before he’d registered that he was pushing away from the shelter of the tree and straight into their field of vision.

“Don’t spread rumors. Especially not about people you don’t know the first thing about,” he said, and the girls looked briefly offended and embarrassed, expressions not sure exactly which one to be before they scuttled off, brushing past him to head back towards the main building, giving up whatever little excursion they’d had planned.

That, however, gave Ai the chance to reassert himself, buoyed back to his usual self.

“Hey…” Ai said, waving a hand out from his duel disk before poking out his entire head. “You aren’t seriously…”

He could feel Ai’s eyes burning holes into his side. Yusaku could have sighed- he’d really hoped Ai had forgotten about that entirely. But it was Ai, after all, so perhaps that was too much to ask. “Not really.”

“Suuuure,” Ai said, and for once decided to let the issue drop.

Chapter Text

In the future, there was a kiss.

Unplanned, action thought and action done. They sat together on the rooftop, lunches pushed to the far sides of the bench. Spectre was speaking about something inconsequential; Yusaku admitted that he’d long since lost the thread of what. Mostly he just stared at Spectre and let his thoughts roam, humming distractedly here and there- just enough to keep him talking a while longer. Yusaku wasn’t a fool. He knew what Ai was implying, and he’d realized why rumors of the most harmless kind bothered him more than anything but the truest of the others.

Friendship and interest, satisfaction and pride. Wanting to stay with someone, to see them overcome their struggles. Caring about someone. Saving someone, protecting someone, awaiting their return after you’d said farewell.

Yusaku considered them all. There had to be a boundary line somewhere, Yusaku knew- or at least thought he did. But where it was- what separated understanding from friendship from something else, Yusaku had no idea.

Perhaps it was something that was better seen from the outside, by someone whose perception of the world hadn’t been filtered through such a long lens of isolation. Yusaku wouldn’t know. A year ago, the concept of a stable presence in his life had basically been a dream. The idea of friends had been a crumpled up paper thrown next to the trash, for all the priority he’d given it.

He couldn’t reach out. There wasn’t a person in the world whose hand he could take. If he told the truth, no one would believe him. Nor would he want them to. Some cruelties were better kept secrets- or so he’d thought. But when he lied, then no one understood.

Don’t bother. He just likes being alone.

He hadn’t even possessed the strength to raise his voice loud enough to tell them that they were wrong. Now, he was around people that he didn’t have to. They simply understood, as best they could.

A place to belong. People to belong with. A future to seize.

No, Yusaku wouldn’t give them up for anything.

But where the line was- what separated his feelings towards Naoki, towards Ryoken, towards Spectre, towards Aoi- he wouldn’t know unless there was some sort of test.

He glanced over towards his side- at Spectre, still speaking about something or the other despite the fact Yusaku had stopped responding. At the person everyone kept insinuating he liked. At his friend.

Lingering thoughts. Messages sent to soothe uneasy feelings. Words easier said that had been stopped in their tracks. I want to get to know you better.

And he was struck by the thought that he could. It probably wasn’t the best decision of his life- but he did it. Just to test it. Just to try.

“I don’t love you,” Spectre said, flatly once Yusaku pulled away.

“I’m pretty sure I don’t love you either,” Yusaku replied- and that, rather than the kiss, was the thing that had Spectre regarding him with surprise.

Almost childishly indignant, the words slipped from him- “Then what was the purpose of that?”

Yusaku shrugged, and thought it the realization of just how much of their lives the two of them had blindly wasted away, despite the differing directions. He thought of regrets that he’d always called by other names. An emotion too early to call love but too optimistic to call a connection that would fade with their crumbling pasts, distant over their shoulders on the horizon line.

“I don’t understand you,” Spectre said with a shake of his head that sent a stray hair falling before his face.

Yusaku resisted the urge to push it away as Spectre brushed it back himself. He replied instead, “You do. You did from the beginning.”

Spectre didn’t deny that. He didn’t acknowledge it, either. What he did say, finally, was- “I understood Playmaker. The Playmaker that fought me with a single-minded determination for revenge and a kindness that was too easily exploitable. You, Fujiki… You I don’t understand at all.”

Liar.

“Have you tried?”

The look Spectre shot him was almost funny- equal parts surprised at the question and frustrated at the realization that he’d been beaten before he could even begin. Yusaku thought, amused- One-turn kill. You can’t stage an attack if you’ve already lost the duel.

Spectre huffed, clearly trying his damndest not to look defeated and hardly succeeding. He amended- “I do, perhaps, understand you a bit. But not about this.”

The little admission felt more like a victory than anything concerning Spectre had before. Yusaku couldn’t help it- he smiled. Not arrogant, just pleased. “Thanks.”

Spectre, probably bordering on bewildered by this point (though he’d never admit it), shook his head. “If you ever kiss someone again, please make sure to learn how to do it properly first.”

Yusaku blinked, then lifted an eyebrow. Of all the people he’d expected to have experience, Spectre wasn’t exactly high on that list. Not that he was one to talk. “You’ve kissed someone before?”

“You.. No, I suppose you wouldn’t have.”

Yusaku almost felt like complaining at that one, but figured he’d never considered kissing anyone else before, so it was accurate at least. As with so many other things about Spectre, he simply ignored it instead.

“Who?”

The fact that Spectre paused for a moment before he looked away revealed the answer. Huh, Yusaku thought- for once those prying rumors might have been right after all. “Are you two dating?”

“No,” Spectre replied, and Yusaku hummed, noncommittal. “The timing was rather…”

Ah, thought Yusaku, knowing exactly what time frame Spectre was referring to. He said, less out of genuine interest and more because it seemed the proper thing to say, “You should.”

“I’ll keep that under consideration,” Spectre replied, still not looking at him. Yusaku hoped he would. It seemed they were there for each other regardless, but Yusaku got the sense that the way things progressed, neither of them had known how to approach it again. Well. He’d known that none of them were particularly good at communicating from the start. This hardly should have been surprising.

“And bring him around to Cafe Nagi, sometime. We’re there often enough. And I know he eats the food,” Yusaku added, thinking idly of the time Ryoken had blithely shown up not five minutes after they’d finished discussing if the network abnormalities could be attributed to Hanoi. If only they’d known- how much less hardship there might have been.

Spectre blinked. “You were serious?”

“Did you think I wasn’t?”

Spectre paused, as if he wasn’t sure what he’d thought. What he gave was an answer, but only to the original question. “I’ll make sure he comes along, next time.”

“Good,” Yusaku said, and let the silence envelop them a breath. His own thoughts settled; the wind blew gentle over the rooftop. The bell didn’t ring, no emergency arose. The world continued on at its pleasant pace, carrying them along with it.

“So,” Yusaku said, “What were you saying?”

“...Right,” Spectre replied, and continued their conversation from before, backtracking a fair bit to where he’d doubtless realized Yusaku had gotten distracted.

The day weathered on, and Yusaku could practically taste the promise of humid summer on his lips.

In the future, there were four chairs set out around the table set out beside Cafe Nagi for Yusaku to use. Not all of them were always occupied, and more often than not one or two of them would be stolen away by a passing group of customers in need of a chair. But there were four of them, like a promise of a day to look forward to.

Today there were two of them, Spectre and Yusaku- supposedly to study, but really more just to linger. Finals were looming but they weren’t yet urgent, and it wasn’t as if either of them were particularly worried about failing. The day to worry, Yusaku thought, would perhaps be tomorrow. It was a Tuesday afternoon, warm in the sun as the days stretched longer, and together they idled away the time. Inside Cafe Nagi, Kusanagi waved the last of the line that had accumulated off with a smile and a casual plea to come again.

Once they’d wandered off towards a table near the very front of the plaza screens, Kusanagi leaned over the counter and sighed, drawing Yusaku’s attention in the form of a raised eyebrow.

“If it gets any busier than this, I’m going to have to hire some help,” Kusanagi explained, and Yusaku’s gaze went immediately to Spectre seated next to him. Though, Yusaku thought, it really wasn’t much busier than usual.

“I know that you can cook.”

“And it’s a travesty that you can’t,” Spectre replied, casting him a long, quietly exasperated look.

“I can,” Yusaku replied, “Kusanagi has let me look after the shop before.”

“Warming sausage on a flat top isn’t cooking,” Spectre retorted, then glanced over at Kusanagi, then at Yusaku, then back at Kusanagi. He added, tentatively- “No offense intended.”

It came too late to actually do the damage control Spectre had probably intended by it, but it was a nice sentiment.

Luckily enough, Kusanagi wasn’t offended in the first place. He’d taken up this job for Jin’s sake, and everyone present knew it. “None taken. I’m pretty handy with a full kitchen, too.”

They went back to their respective tasks, but not before Yusaku said, “You should think about it.”

Spectre shot him a dull look, but didn’t protest- or more likely didn’t think it worthy of comment. But not ten minutes after they parted ways for the evening, a message arrived on Yusaku’s phone, the latest in a long string of them- Absolutely not.

“That sounds like a challenge,” Ai buzzed from his duel disk, and Yusaku nodded, tucking his phone away without replying. A challenge indeed- and how kind of Spectre to give him the time to prepare his ammunition.

A few weeks later, Yusaku found it was a thousand times easier to take exams when he’d actually read the material, even though Spectre still had to nudge him to keep up. Usually- or at least more times than he’d ever admit to- that ended with Spectre summarizing the material for him with a resigned sort of sigh. Kusanagi had held him responsible before, but it was a very different thing when the one who was most concerned was, for some reason, both acutely aware of how to explain things to him and, in a roundabout way, made Yusaku want to keep up with him.

But before that:

It was a rather humid day when Aoi found him in the hallway, intercepting him halfway out the classroom door.

“We have finals,” Aoi said, an opening to a conversation that was doubtless going a very specific direction. Unexpected, but far from unwelcome.

“I was going to study with Spectre,” Yusaku admitted. Then, tentatively when Aoi seemed ready to back out of the conversation entirely- “His physics notes are pretty good.”

“Are you bribing me?” Aoi asked. Yusaku shrugged, because the alternative was admitting that was exactly what he was doing. Aoi frowned, then continued, “In that case, can’t I just borrow yours?”

“I don’t take any.”

Aoi frowned at him, but he nonchalantly brushed her expression off. It was the truth, after all. Maths and sciences had always come naturally to him, a set of logical laws and numbers, where the beginning traced a clear line to the end. Literature and words were messier things- in which Spectre excelled, naturally. But little by little Yusaku was starting to close the gap. Spectre might still get the last word whenever they spoke, but it wasn’t for Yusaku’s lack of trying.

“He’s not going to try and… explain it to me, is he?” Aoi said with visceral distaste for the thought. Yusaku resisted the urge to tell her that was the point of studying in a group in the first place, because that wasn’t what she meant. He shook his head.

“Probably not.”

Aoi frowned, but apparently the threat of her grades was more hefty than the thought of dealing with Spectre in close quarters. “Okay.”

He told her the details, passing on their rather simple, never properly solidified plan. She listened carefully,  nodded, and promised to wait for them at the gates. If he was being honest with himself, he half didn’t expect Aoi to show up- but at the end of the day she was there, standing with a restlessness about her. She nodded to him in lieu of greeting, then curtly at Spectre; the two of them returned it with equally low levels of enthusiasm. They stood in an awkward sort of circle a moment, then-

“Should we go?”

Yusaku’s question was met with equally short nods. He let out a very small breath, and hoped that they’d be able to get anything done. They set off, and Yusaku walked with someone on either side- Aoi to his left, Spectre to his right, the three of them taking up the whole of the sidewalk. Yusaku hoped they wouldn’t run into anyone coming the opposite direction, because Aoi and Spectre would probably just keep walking, leaving Yusaku to duck back awkwardly from the middle.

They didn’t talk, nor did anyone go out of their way to try and break the silence. It wasn’t comfortable, exactly, but it was leagues better than forced small talk for everyone involved, considering Yusaku didn’t think any of them were any good at it. The walk down to the public viewing plaza was short, but it gave time for the tense atmosphere to fade, lost in the rhythm of steps naturally falling in time.

Today there were four chairs, and three of them were used.

It wasn’t the most pleasant table Yusaku had ever sat at, but it wasn’t frigid. Aoi had said she’d be civil, and she certainly was. Across from her, Spectre was going out of his way to match- more restrained than usual, words not quite clipped but certainly considered thrice-over. Kusanagi brought out their food personally, apparently picking up on the fact Yusaku didn’t want to leave the table, and that helped smooth the way, too.

It was oddly hard to picture someone after your blood when they were casually eating a fry and scowling down at a half-erased answer to a math problem. Yusaku had figured that out a while ago. Judging by the complicated expression on Aoi’s face as she sipped at her soda, she was trying to figure out how she felt about that, too. While they were lost in consideration, Spectre leaned back in his chair and slid his notebook over to Yusaku. “This should be right.”

Yusaku glanced it over, then nodded. Spectre’s look of relief was palpable- Yusaku had ended up correcting him on that problem twice already. A third time, and Yusaku feared that the notebook might have been thrown out with their hot dog wrappers.

Aoi glanced over at the notebook too, squinting down at it with obvious apprehension. “Is that physics?”

“Unfortunately,” Spectre replied as Yusaku nodded. The two of them glanced up at him- that was the first time that he’d seemed irritated at something quite so mundane.

“Unfortunately,” Aoi echoed in agreement, and reached towards the notebook before stopping, looking quite determinedly at Yusaku. Spectre mirrored her, forcing Yusaku to glance between them, wondering how in the world he’d ever gotten himself into this situation. He slipped the notebook over towards Aoi, who flipped back a few pages, away from the scratch work and towards the actual notes. He shoved his textbook towards Spectre instead- it wasn’t as if he’d been reading it.

“This was the part,” he muttered, helpfully omitting that you were having trouble with.

He’d stuck a small note over the empty spaces, trying to summarize what he could in a way that would click better with how Spectre tended to parse things. Yusaku glanced back over at Aoi, and wondered if there was a way he could figure out a way to ease things for her, too- but she was caught up in Spectre’s notes, staring down at them with an intense concentration that Yusaku thought best not to break. He went back to his own work instead- or at least he tried to, before realizing that all he’d been doing was summarizing things for others anyway.

He reached for his literature book instead- better that or history than wasting time running over things he already knew. He still checked Spectre’s answers when he finished though, and carefully refrained from mentioning that all the answers were printed in the back of the book. They studied that way for a long, long while, letting the world pass them by- but eventually the sun began to set, and their legs began their restless tapping. Wordlessly they began to pack up their things, but no one missed the fact Spectre’s notes were still in Aoi’s hands.

“Can I… borrow these?” Aoi asked, looking very much as if she didn’t want to but knew better than to try and be prideful now.

“Of course,” Spectre said, then added like an afterthought, “but I’ll need them back. I haven’t looked over that portion yet.”

“I thought you didn’t need to study?” Yusaku asked dryly, and Spectre froze, caught in his lie.

“It’s material from before I transferred,” Spectre bit out perfectly pleasant, and everyone at the table collectively decided to let him have that one. The day he’d first made his claim already felt like a lifetime away, time filled down to a gentle flow, white noise in its steady trickle past.

Another good thought. As the three of them went their separate ways, waving brief partings over their shoulders, Yusaku decided to hold on to that one, too.

In the future, Spectre found himself with somewhat of a part-time job. It wasn’t a job, necessarily- considering that Spectre obviously didn’t need the money, and Kusanagi paid only in food, which he’d been giving out to Spectre freely anyways under the pretense of Yusaku’s nonexistent tab.

But Cafe Nagi was, for some reason, starting to get around double the amount of daily traffic it usually did, which was lovely in theory but mildly inconvenient in case some sort of emergency did arise again. Somehow, Yusaku didn’t think a line would take very kindly to finding the window closed in their faces. Maybe he’d do better to stay in his apartment more- but if the thought had been unappealing before, he certainly didn’t like the thought of it now.

“I think we got recommended by a food blogger,” Kusanagi said, during a break after the last girl in line had all but shoved her phone in his face, asking if this was the same Cafe Nagi in the picture. If there was another Cafe Nagi out there somewhere, Yusaku liked to think it wouldn’t be half as good as this.

He said, idly, glancing up from his laptop, where he’d been working with a copy of the data Aoi had picked up a few months back that had yet to lead anywhere- “There are food bloggers?”

Spectre and Ai regarded him with twin looks of scratching disbelief, which was something that Yusaku had never experienced and never again wanted, leaving temporarily convinced he’d been thrown into a different plane of reality. Spectre said- “You didn’t realize there are food bloggers? Given what sense you have for the network, I’d assumed you’d have a better sense for what’s actually on it.”

“Yeah,” Ai added, “what he said.”

Yusaku wasn’t particularly superstitious about this kind of thing, but if anything was a sign of the end times, it was probably Spectre and Ai wholeheartedly agreeing on something. Even if said something happened to be casually insulting him for something he held no interest towards in the first place.

“Go help,” he said, inclining his head towards the line starting to form in front of Cafe Nagi again instead of answering the jab.

Spectre blinked at him. He couldn’t quite seem to take Yusaku seriously. So he continued, dryly- “If it gets busier, he said he’d need help. So go help.”

Spectre rose to the challenge as always, even if it was just to be contrary at this point. Yusaku didn’t mind- any other Spectre wouldn’t be Spectre  at all. “I think you’re more suited to that than I am. You said you’d been put in charge before, haven’t you?”

“I can’t cook.”

“As I’ve said, it’s hardly cooking.”

“His scowl scares away all the customers,” Ai chimed in, poking just the tip of his head out from the duel disk. And then, before Yusaku could tell him to be quiet- “You know it’s true.”

It was. Aoi had all but told him that to his face, the one time she’d come along with him on a day Kusanagi had gone up to visit Jin. Not that she’d offered to help, any.

Yusaku wasn’t about to admit that, though, so he just shrugged. “I already help out. If you’re on my tab, you should help pay it off.”

“Yeah,” Ai snickered, immediately leaping to the winning side, “I want to see this.”

Spectre glared, but Yusaku hadn’t forgotten that Spectre had been a paying customer before this. Apparently he hadn’t either. Spectre stood with a huff and hopped up into the back of Cafe Nagi with a very dignified sort of lack of enthusiasm that Yusaku could have rolled his eyes at.

Really, better Spectre than him. All the patient explanations from Kusanagi in the world wasn’t going to make Yusaku any better at judging when things were sufficiently prepared.

“Oh, Yusaku, thanks,” Kusanagi said, shoveling fries into a container without looking up, voice carrying as he turned- “Oh?”

For a moment they exchanged soft words, then Kusanagi glanced out the service window at Yusaku. He nodded. Kusanagi shrugged, then turned back to the out of sight Spectre and said, “Thanks for the help. Grab an apron and I’ll show you how things work.”

Spectre did, presumably, because not a minute later Kusanagi looked up and very nearly laughed. “Here, come on.”

“This is… rather…” Spectre trailed off as Kusanagi shepherded him towards the back door, opening it again and all but shuffling Spectre out for Yusaku and Ai’s approval.

Yusaku tried not to laugh. Ai, on the other hand, had no such restraint at all, and outright cackled at the mismatched sight Spectre made. No, it didn’t suit him at all. Spectre only sighed and glared at Ai, the message clear- keep your head down.

Ai sank back down, then vanished from his duel disk entirely, doubtless to laugh off the image somewhere deep in the network. Still, Yusaku hoped he hadn’t gone too far. The quiet world meant nothing when their enemies attacked seemingly at random.

That was today’s worry too- but not the moment’s. Kusanagi quickly went back to work, Spectre following close behind, shadowing Kusanagi as he gave quick explanations.

This, Yusaku thought, was fun to watch. Two people who had no idea how to navigate around each other put in close quarters with no warning, trying to figure out things like prices and sets and customer service on the fly. To Yusaku’s almost-dismay, Spectre was more adept at the latter than he would have thought. Turned out that he could, in fact, speak with perfect politeness to someone other than Ryoken.

He didn’t know how long he watched for- he lost track of time, watching the two of them figure out their rhythm. But eventually the afternoon weathered on towards evening, and the crowds vanished, stuck in moratorium between a late lunch and early dinner.

Kusanagi began to close up for a short break, but there was one final thing that had to be done. “Here, do something special for the last one.” Spectre lifted a brow; Kusanagi elaborated- “It’s been sitting out too long to throw back in the fridge, and I’m not throwing it away. That’s just a waste of food.”

“Ah,” Spectre said, and that was that. Yusaku had never asked, and probably never would, but Spectre gave the impression that he’d rarely gone to sleep hungry- not in those six months, and not any time after. Still, Yusaku had never seen him fail to finish a meal.

“Yusaku can be our judge,” Kusanagi said. Spectre glanced over at him with a tentative expression, clearly considering something, then set to work. True to Kusanagi’s word about breakfast, Spectre rummaged through the cabinet spaces a while, looking into what was likely Kusanagi’s personal food supplies- for a secret ingredient, most likely. Yusaku sat and waited with anticipation. He’d missed out on his chance to eat Spectre’s food quite a while ago, but, it seemed he’d finally have the chance he never realized he’d regret giving up. Yusaku glanced down at the hot dog Spectre passed him. Certainly it didn’t look much different than usual- more lettuce, maybe, and definitely less onion- but the smell was a little different. When he took a bite, he almost laughed- Spectre had put curry powder on it. Cooked it with it on, probably- it wasn’t grainy, and it wasn’t overpowering. In all honesty, it kind of reminded him of curry bread without the curry.

Spectre hovered conspicuously, pretending that he wasn’t waiting for Yusaku to say something. Turned out, he thought, that Spectre had remembered that day better than he had.

“Not bad. I like Kusanagi’s better, though.”

He half expected Spectre to get angry with him, or make some sort of comment about his childish tastes. Instead, he seemed a bit… put-out. Yusaku blinked. He hadn’t expected that at all.

“Hey,” Yusaku said, “It really was good. You should see if you can get Kusanagi to put it on the menu.”

“I won’t do something so ridiculous.”

But he could tell that Spectre glowed slightly with the praise.

He made sure to steal bits and pieces of Spectre’s lunches from then on, and though Spectre protested, he never made a move to stop him. He wondered why he hadn’t taken Spectre up on any of his earlier offers- but considered it making up for opportunities lost. There was always time, after all. Though the semester was crawling to a close, now that he knew Spectre would allow his occasional stealing, he’d make sure to make a habit of it. Next semester. An unspoken promise.

(And if, one day, Yusaku did decide to learn how to cook, he’d find he had excellent teachers.)

They didn’t become a unit- not any more than they already were, at least, and Spectre still went off with Ryoken most days- but he made time, when he could, the same way Aoi did when she hadn’t plans with her brother or stunts in LINK VRAINS to handle. It was a pleasant sort of arrangement, and at some point Yusaku had to admit that could get used to it had turned completely and utterly into expectation.

If any of them were to vanish, then he wasn’t sure what he’d do. It was a future that he’d rather not think about, and if nothing else he knew just how to avoid that. At the very least, he wanted to believe that that kind of future wouldn’t come to pass. Like another disaster averted, a tragedy cast away.

Ryoken came down to Cafe Nagi the days the three of them ended up on Stardust Road, and that was just another ten years of history to unravel.

“Hello,” he said, nodding politely to Yusaku, then turned towards Cafe Nagi, where Spectre was manning the counter- formerly staring out with the mildly annoyed frown that meant he was rather bored on the empty walk- now standing back straight, attentive as he’d ever been.

The two of them spoke softly for a while. Not whispers, but just quiet enough that Yusaku couldn’t hear without actively trying to over the sound of his own fingers on his laptop keyboard. Yusaku wouldn’t let a presumed bad habit turn into a real one. Not unless he had to- unless it involved someone’s life, or unless it furthered their goals-

Huh, Yusaku thought, and paused his fingers, tapping gently on the keys without pressing the buttons. Maybe he really did have a bad habit.

“The owner isn’t around?” Ryoken asked, slightly louder than before as he glanced around the inside of Cafe Nagi.

“He stepped out to take a call,” Spectre replied, and Ryoken cast a long glance over him- specifically, Yusaku realized as a grin spread over Ryoken’s face, at the apron Spectre had put on when Kusanagi had asked him to take over, making fast for some privacy down the empty walk.

“Then,” Ryoken said, and for the first time Yusaku was able to place Ryoken’s tone as mischievous, “You’ll have to make my order, instead. The usual. Have you eaten yet?”

“No,” Spectre said with a subtle shake of his head.

“Then the usual for two,” Ryoken amended, and leaned against the counter as Spectre went to work.

The first time Spectre burned something while overly-focused on trying to get it perfect, Yusaku found it hilarious- admittedly probably mostly because his food had come out just fine, and he got to sit back and eat a hot dog while Spectre spluttered apologies to Ryoken, then summarily got caught up in their conversation and burned another one.

That was a side of him Yusaku imagined few others had seen. And more endearing than it had any right to be, really. He caught Kusanagi’s glance out of the corner of his eye as he returned, probably summoned back in a panic by the scent of smoke on the breeze- more and more like an actual person.

He never quite let Spectre forget about it either, which Spectre very much did protest.

(Though Spectre never burned a single thing again, so far as Yusaku could tell, so he’d take the scraps of material he could get. Harmless teasing- towards the teased, at least- was always more of Ai’s motive than Yusaku’s. His cooking might have been abysmal, but at least Yusaku had never burned a hot dog.)

“You should work down here more often,” Yusaku said, once the smoke had cleared and the three of them were squeezed around the small table- should’ve set out the larger one today, Yusaku thought as he was forced to shut his laptop to make room.

Ryoken glanced from Yusaku to Spectre then back to Yusaku, with the lowly alarmed airs of someone that thought they’d just been set up. Spectre put on a soft expression that begged innocence- which was true, so Yusaku couldn’t begrudge him. He could only continue- “We’re chasing the same leads, and you’re in LINK VRAINS less. Might as well work together when we get the chance.”

He didn’t add that it was nice, the time they’d caught the wind together, even if it had been cut short and ended with no new leads.

“That… would be good,” Ryoken replied, tentative but seemingly honest. It wasn’t exactly what Yusaku had been hoping for, but he’d take it.

“I imagine it would also make data analysis easier,” Spectre replied, “From what I’ve been told, it seems they’re having a rather hard time with some of the data you gave them.”

“It wasn’t really hard,” Yusaku retorted. It was simply dense, and the bigger picture its patterns were weaving rather hard to grasp. Certainly it was pointing towards Ryoken- or rather, towards what remained of Hanoi. The fine details were beyond them, but given that Ryoken’s data had been incomplete, he likely wasn’t any better off than they were. Which brought him back to what he’d meant in the first place- cooperation. “But an extra perspective wouldn’t hurt.”

“Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything else,” Ryoken said, a hint of frustration in his voice. It was one thing, Yusaku thought, to be hunted. Another thing entirely to be attacked without knowing the reasons or methods.

“I’m sure we’ll make progress soon,” Spectre said, encouraging, and Ryoken nodded. Yusaku got the sense that Spectre had said this a dozen times before. Still, some of Ryoken’s tensions relaxed. He sipped his drink with a rattle of ice, and the table took a collective breath.

“Hey, if-“

“Spectre! Could you help me a second?” Kusanagi’s call from the truck cut Yusaku off in his tracks. Spectre looked loathe to be removed from the conversation, but stood obligingly to go help Kusanagi in the back of the truck.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” he said, just as another clatter echoed. He frowned, then amended, “Or a few. Please don’t wait for me to finish your food.”

And then he was gone, vanished fast into the back of Cafe Nagi- which left Yusaku and Ryoken alone together. The cramped little table might as well have been an ocean, without Spectre there to bridge the stream. They sunk back down into silence. Ryoken stared at him, clearly waiting for him to break it.

Yusaku, for just a moment, wished that they were in LINK VRAINS again. Mask or not, the words always seemed to come easier for the both of them there. But still. There was one safe topic of conversation- just as there’d been a certain easy topic with Spectre, both now and especially in the early days.

“Why did you insist he go, anyway?” Yusaku asked, waving a hand towards Spectre, referring vaguely towards school- though he’d already figured it out a while ago.

“There were… various reasons,” Ryoken said, and Yusaku could have laughed. Leave it to them to be cryptic in the very same words.

Yusaku dropped his voice to rest below the clatter from inside Cafe Nagi. “You didn’t want him to be alone.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Ryoken’s expression quirked into surprise. Yusaku thought he should’ve known better- even back then, at the pinnacle of their battle as enemies, and the start of their relationship- the question had always been why.

Why do you hold yourself so responsible? Why did you reach out to me then? Why won’t you now?

“Because he needs it, obviously. We have people like family to us, but that’s not… It would be difficult to live the rest of our lives that way, even if we used their contacts. We rarely planned for things outside of the scope of our mission,” Ryoken said, not quite an admission- still a little too proud. A trace of something lingering he still hadn’t quite managed to shake off. It was nothing good, but for now, at least, it wasn’t guilt.

“Then stop isolating yourself,” Yusaku said. Blunt force persuasion tended to do little with Spectre- at least coming from him. He could bludgeon Spectre with it all he liked and never see a change, but at least Ryoken he knew would listen. Even if it was hard to accept. Even if listen was all he could do.

“Easier said than done,” Ryoken said. He glanced brief over at Cafe Nagi, then- “I dream, sometimes, that the tower activated while we were both outside. I couldn’t stop it in time. We survived. There were too many ghosts to carry.”

We all have nightmares, Yusaku thought, wondering just how many ghosts he’d have on his back then, regrets that burdened him for the rest of his life. Even now, Ryoken still shouldered far too many of them, one more literal than the rest. Ryoken’s hand resting on the table curled into a tight fist, crumpling his napkin into messy little folds.

I can save you, Yusaku had said back then, determined to reach out to the first person he could, the person whose words he’d been chasing a decade. And he’d been so sure that he could do it. That the truths they’d exchanged through the duel, in the silence of the parlor afterwards- about revenge, about failure, about reasons to live- had been enough that Ryoken, too, could take steps towards a different sort of future. And yet despite the fact Ryoken sat straight before him, Yusaku got the sense that to see him, he’d have to turn his head back over his shoulder. Yusaku curled one of his hands into a fist to match and thought, simply- No.

Saving someone. It wasn’t about pity, or heroism, or licking the salt from each other’s wounds. It was seeing a hand extended and reaching down even towards the depths of hell to take it. He’d been saved once before. This time, it was his turn to pull.

“There’s only one ghost. We saved the rest,” he said. He felt no charity towards Kogami Kiyoshi, nor was there was a fact in the world that could change his opinion. But a boy had still lost his father, and that called out to the part of Yusaku still six years old, still sitting in the sterile hospital room that reminded him too much of six months of emptiness just to be told there would be no one coming for him. No home for him to return to. Hollow memories, hollow friends, a hollow head floating through a lonely existence.

Kogami Kiyoshi deserved whatever hell awaited him. But Ryoken didn’t.

“But there were plenty of people hurt,” Ryoken said, and Yusaku couldn’t tell to what he was referring. Not for the first time, Yusaku realized what a life he’d made on hurting people- on sacrificing and being told that it was for the greater good. If Yusaku had spent a decade frozen, then Ryoken had spent it wandering lost on the open sea, told that his destination was just beyond the horizon. Yusaku couldn’t say he understood it entirely, but he knew exactly why Ryoken clung to it- no matter whether he called it guilt or called regret.  

“You never did a single thing to hurt me,” Yusaku said. It wasn’t exactly true- there had been words spoken between them that Yusaku could have gone the entirety of his life without hearing. But he was willing to risk that Ryoken wouldn’t try and call him out on the lie.

“You say what you think very frankly, don’t you,” Ryoken said. It wasn’t a question. Yusaku just shrugged. If the alternative was to avoid facing things the way everyone else seemed so fond of, then he thought this was the far better option.

“You’re also lying.”

Yusaku couldn’t quite shrug that one off so easily. He had, but not about the part that mattered most. The part that Ryoken held himself most accountable for, no matter which way he tried to reconcile it. He insisted- “You weren’t responsible for hurting me.”

“Not being responsible doesn’t make me innocent. Everything I decided to do was of my own will. If things had gone differently, I wouldn’t have hesitated,” Ryoken said coldly, speaking now of a duel he’d had no choice but to win.

No, Yusaku thought, he wouldn’t have.

Determination, a timeline of events, an action to be taken regardless of whether Yusaku had followed him then. A fleeting thought slipped through his mind- a brief wondering, a question he couldn’t ask. Is that a regret to you?

The back of Cafe Nagi swung open again; they had only moments before their time ran out. This wasn’t particularly a conversation meant for others to hear. He said, trying to convey with warmth what he couldn’t yet put into words, “Come around more often. And if something comes up, Spectre has my phone number.”

Ryoken nodded; it was all they got the chance for before Spectre returned to the table, looking slightly ruffled for a reason that Yusaku couldn’t hope to want to understand. “Well then,” he huffed, and Yusaku decided that he really didn’t want to know- “Where were we?”

Yusaku shrugged. “Nowhere, really.”

And so the conversation began anew. Beside them the sun glimmered out over the ocean, waves glinting with white like the imitation of stardust. And Yusaku thought, quietly, unwilling to acknowledge it- What’s the last thing you’d do before-

In the future, there was a confession.

It was a Thursday evening, the two of them stepping out from the school doors, leaving a small commotion of duel club members behind. Aoi had already gone home for the evening, picked up by her brother about ten minutes earlier.

Nothing in particular preceded it.

“Fujiki.”

Yusaku turned his head, Spectre stared straight ahead as they made their way slowly towards the gates. “I forgive you.”

It took him a moment- if he’d insulted Spectre in some way, slighted him on accident, Yusaku had assumed that he’d know. Given the way he’d acted when he thought Yusaku was taking Aoi’s side over his, Yusaku was painfully sure of it. But that was the answer.

“You don’t have to. I didn’t... I didn’t do anything.”

Spectre’s answer came slowly, still not spoken at him. “And yet I already have.”

Yusaku didn’t ask why- he wouldn’t even know how to start to go about with how. He said nothing, and listened to the silences between their steps, slow down the path. Waiting. Not expectantly, but certain that something would come nonetheless.

Breaths, quiet. The space between their shoulders. Awareness now that no one would overhear. Then, much more hesitantly, words that likely had never been meant to be spoken- “Do you forgive me?”

Yusaku didn’t ask for what. He didn’t have to. “I don’t think I ever held most of it against you.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Yusaku blinked, and thought he was getting rather tired of people accusing him of being a liar, even if it was true. He couldn’t resist; he looked back over at Spectre, who still seemed determined not to return his gaze. Yusaku turned his head forwards, and promised himself he wouldn’t look again. “I’m not. The one thing I hated you for, you’re trying to improve. You have been for a while.”

“Ah,” Spectre said, “So you did hate me.”

“I was angry. And you were making yourself an easy target,” Yusaku said, not so much an excuse or accusation as an explanation. His back had been thrown against the wall, but Yusaku had pushed right back. Cutting words. Flames burning up a symbol of belonging. At the time, he hadn’t cared enough to be sorry, never mind look back.

Spectre huffed; the slow draw of breath was rather fond. Yusaku wasn’t sure how or when that became something he could tell; without his noticing, it simply had. “I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again. You’re foolishly kind, Fujiki. Someone is going to take advantage of that, one day.”

As if Spectre hadn’t already- on a day that hadn’t yet faded, but no longer had reason to be brought up with resentment. Not from either side.

“You know, anyone else would think that was a threat,” Yusaku said, lowly amused by the way even Spectre’s warnings came out like he’d one day use it to start a fight.

Spectre made a soft noise, one that had Yusaku turning his head quick to try and see if he could catch his expression.

“Then let them,” Spectre said, staring off into the distance, a quietly satisfied expression across his face, “The people who matter will know.”

Chapter Text

In the future, there was a phone call. It came from an unknown number with a local area code, and Yusaku hesitated for a moment before picking it up- which he only did at Aoi’s insistence, in the end. She sat across from him at the table, urging him on with a pointed look, and there wasn’t much he could do to refuse her.

But before he could give so much as a suspicious greeting, he was interrupted by the person on the other end- one that he wouldn’t have expected.

“Yusaku.” His name was oddly unsteady in Ryoken’s voice. He didn’t ask why Ryoken was calling; on the other side of the line he sensed that Ryoken was taking a steadying breath, readying his explanations. On his end, Aoi leaned forwards in her chair, clearly curious at his lack of response. She tapped her ear, a tentative request for speaker, but Yusaku shook his head. This conversation wasn’t one that they could risk being overheard. Aoi frowned, but leaned back in her seat and took a sip of soda, accepting Yusaku’s judgement.

A breath, a voice stronger than before- “We were attacked again.”

Contact me if anything happens.

We.

The thoughts jumped through Yusaku’s mind in parallel, and across the table Aoi’s expression dropped into a small, pinched frown as she watched him.

“Where are you?”

“I’ll send you the location,” Ryoken said, and not a moment later did Yusaku’s phone ping with a message notification from that same unknown number. He pushed himself to his feet immediately and started towards the back of Cafe Nagi.

“I’ll be there soon,” he said, and the line went dead. He wasn’t sure if Ryoken had heard him or not; for everyone’s sake, Yusaku hoped he had. Yusaku leapt up into the back of the food truck, vaguely aware of Aoi following behind, though she stayed lingering at the entrance. He’d explain to her in a moment. For now moving was most important.

His expression really must have been grave. Kusanagi didn’t hesitate a second before turning away business with an apologetic smile and a fast-flying excuse as he closed the service window in their faces. When he turned to Yusaku, his smile had fallen too, the worry in his frown clear. “What is it?”

Yusaku all but shoved his phone at Kusanagi. “We need to go here. Now.”

“Trouble?” Kusanagi asked, shaking his head and casting off his apron, throwing it over a chair and quickly turning off the flattop. His tone of voice hadn’t demanded an answer. “Come on, let’s go. I can get us there soon.”

Aoi was blocking their way out, glancing between them. He hadn’t yet explained the situation, but it was clear she understood enough.

“I’m coming with you,” Aoi said, head lifted, unwilling to be denied. Yusaku nodded- the front of the van would only seat two, but if she sat on the floor of the back, she’d probably be fine. He ushered her in as he dragged Kusanagi out, tossing his phone over with a soft insistence to hurry.

And Kusanagi, to his credit, did. There wasn’t much to worry about by way of the law when everything could be arranged to their liking later- traffic camera footage, traffic violation payment status- the legality was questionable, but in the face of situations like this, neither of them were the type to prioritize the ethics.

They could only charge on, and believe they weren’t too late.

The location that Ryoken sent them wasn’t nearly as isolated as Yusaku had imagined it would be, mind drifting back towards lonely seaside mansions and empty warehouses and fancy apartment complexes that were clean and neat but devoid of all the quirks that would indicate a life in progress.

Instead, it was a small, outdoor shopping center. More storefronts were boarded up and closed than not, but despite that there was still a steady stream of people pouring out from the covered street nearby, children running along the pavement with ice cream from the corner store in hand, parents trailing behind. Students flit about in small groups, enjoying their first taste of summer freedom.

But amongst them all there was no sign of Spectre and Ryoken. Yusaku didn’t know whether to assume the best or the worst. He tapped redial on his phone and lifted it to his ear as he scanned the crowd; the moment he heard the telltale click of someone picking up on the other end, he said, skipping the pleasantries, “Where are you?”

“Not over in the main area. Turn the corner after the convenience store and head into the first back alley you see. I moved us there.”

That didn’t sound promising- not the words nor the strained sort of coldness Ryoken delivered them with. He relayed the directions to Kusanagi as he drove them around the corner- though he waited for the click of the line cutting on the other end, it never came. Still, only silence filtered through.

Kusanagi pulled the van close to the sidewalk and slowed to a stop in an area that very definitely wasn’t meant for parking- but still. The small infractions were of no importance.

“We’re here,” Yusaku said into the phone, fumbling with his seatbelt and leaping out the door to land on the street, curling his way around the front of the truck and into the alley. Halfway there the line went dead; Yusaku doubled his pace, jogging into the alleyway with a concern that bubbled away at the edges of him, ready to boil over at what he might find.

Behind the convenience store there were a selection of cardboard cutouts and boxes, stacked haphazardly atop each other and likely set out a while too early for the next morning’s trash. From behind them came the rustle of someone standing, and in a single step did Ryoken emerge with eyes shaded, not so much as a moment’s relief flashing through them to see Yusaku then.

And Yusaku understood immediately why. Ryoken, standing before him an answer. Spectre, dead weight in his arms.

Ah, Yusaku thought, more emotion than words. He’d forgotten what it had felt like to burn.

“This way,” he said, and ushered Ryoken into the open back of Cafe Nagi. Kusanagi helped Ryoken up, and Yusaku shut the doors behind them, closing them in, safe from the prying eyes of the passersby.

“Here, help me set this out,” said Kusanagi, a voice of much-needed calm in a room full of teenagers not half a step from handling a crisis very badly. Aoi quickly rose to help him, and the cot was set up sturdy within seconds.

Ryoken set Spectre down gently. Yusaku didn’t miss how stiff his movements were- still full of obvious care, softer than Yusaku was used to seeing him- but not right.

And it was obvious why.

Laid out across a cot in the back of Cafe Nagi, Spectre looked very little like himself. Yusaku thought something about it distinctly uncomfortable. In sleep, Spectre had been bared of his usual pretenses, his carefully controlled words and mannerisms. But he’d still been Spectre.

This was little more than a shell, a body alive but with no life. If he wasn’t still breathing peacefully, Yusaku might have thought him dead. A thread of fury flashed through him at the thought- someone would answer for this. Yusaku forced himself to look over at Ryoken, whose gaze hadn’t seemed to leave Spectre since they brought him in. “What happened?”

“We were attacked,” Ryoken said, voice tight and precise. The undercurrent was dark. And not just in his words- in the clench of his fists, in the tightness of his shoulders, too. Yusaku let out a breath, and realized that they were thinking the same thought.

He forced himself to take a step back, to think clearly. Again? And this time in public. Something about that seemed strange, as if there was a certain level of desperation behind the attack.

Ryoken continued, “They stole his consciousness. I assume there was data conversion involved, similar to uploading and re-creating consciousness data in the network. The attacker vanished into LINK VRAINS. There should still be time to pursue them.”

“So it’s a rescue mission,” Kusanagi said, and started up the support monitors. Ryoken glanced at him, then at Yusaku, then nodded- silent thanks.

But there was still one person left in the room, staring down at Spectre with a complicated expression. Not quite distaste, certainly not pity. But it wasn’t cold.

“Will you go?” Yusaku asked, turning his head towards Aoi, perched on a stool in the far corner of the van.

She sighed. “If we don’t resolve this soon, then the problem will only get worse, right? And it wouldn’t be so bad to have him owe me one.”

At her too did Ryoken nod. “Thank you.”

For a moment Aoi seemed unsure how to respond, then- “I told him that one day, I might be able to fight for him, too. It’s more literal than I meant it, but… I can’t leave someone suffering in the dark.”

No, Yusaku thought, that wasn’t the kind of person she was. That wasn’t the kind of person any of them wanted to be.

So together they went.

They landed in LINK VRAINS, three of them side by side catching the winds of a data storm- tightly controlled, clearly not Ignis-made, but functional enough for them to soar. The delay meant they’d already lost sight of whoever the attacker had been, but they weren’t flying blind for long.

“Transmission from Kusanagi,” Ai said, and pointed off towards a distant point on the horizon line. Certainly there was a speck there; what it was Yusaku could only trust was their target. Kusanagi likely had a better grasp of the situation than they did. As always, Yusaku would trust in him.

“We’re not going to catch up at this rate,” Ryoken bit out, pushing forwards on the wind and leaving them to chase his trail.

Ai grinned, poking his head out of Yusaku’s duel disk for the first time since the phone call had arrived. “I’ll speed things up for you.”

The winds of the true data storms always blew swift around LINK VRAINS when summoned; this time they moved with a ferocity that couldn’t be tamed. Blue Angel, two fugitives flanking her on either side- Yusaku couldn't imagine what sort of picture they made to anyone who might have seen. Thankfully, this seemed to be a rare occasion he didn’t have to worry. The outskirts of LINK VRAINS were deserted in favor of the speed duel courses and terminals placed near to the center. Again they were approaching the restricted area, and unless Aoi had somehow managed to get them data clearance, they’d have to stop that figure before they passed through.

Ryoken pushed forwards, but they were losing ground- they’d only have one chance at this. They couldn’t lose it now. Ryoken called back at them- “Ignis!”

Ai snickered rather proudly. “You don’t have to ask me twice!”

The data storm howled, and the wind at their back drove them forwards on cresting waves that never dared throw them off balance. They caught up quick; the figure racing forth solidified itself into a small avatar- a boy dressed brightly in yellow. The boy clicked his tongue as he glanced over his shoulder. He hadn’t meant it, but his words carried- “More of them than I thought there’d be.”

That was only motivation for the three of them to catch up. Ryoken soared ahead, first to catch up to the boy’s side. His duel disk flashed to life, a challenge demanding to be answered, but the boy paid it no mind. Yusaku wasn’t sure if their strategy was cowardly or brilliant. He simply knew he couldn’t allow it to continue.

“Ai,” he said, and Ai grinned.

“Got it,” he said, and pulled at the last bit of the programs they’d prepared that long night in the back of Cafe Nagi. Something shot through Yusaku at the thought of it, but now was hardly the time to reminisce.

The trap deployed smoothly. The boy, watching them over his shoulder and obviously ready to be pulled into a duel, noticed just a moment too late to avoid the net that draped over him, clinging to his avatar and stopping him dead in place against the flow of the wind. He stumbled backwards but righted himself quickly, crossing his arms to stare down at the three of them unimpressed. Yusaku returned it sharply.

The boy seemed irritated, but not worried. That in itself was a sign of nothing good. He looked the three of them over and said, gaze settling almost amused on Ryoken- “So you caught me. What do you want?”

Yusaku knew what Ryoken would propose the moment before he said it. Even if his relationship with the Ignises and Cyberse stood on unstable ground, there would be no more towers. There would be no more sacrifices.

And yet a tendency remained.

“Let’s trade. You’re after my data, aren’t you? You don’t have to take hostages. I’ll face you here and now.” He proposed it nobly, his head held high. There wasn’t a single shred of hesitation left in the turn of his voice, not a plea but a demand. And yet the boy wasn’t so much as swayed.

“You?” he said, looking over Ryoken blithely, “Why would we be after you?”

“What?” Ryoken said, trying and failing not to look taken aback. Even behind his mask it was easy to tell that his eyes had gone wide a moment before he’d squinted up at the boy suspicious. “This wasn’t bait?”

The boy all but laughed, gaze swinging over them, cattishly amused. “Sure it was. Two birds with one stone.” He leaned forwards, then- “But you weren’t the one we were trying to bait back into LINK VRAINS properly.”

If they weren’t standing on their D-boards, Ryoken might have taken a step back. As it was, all he could do- all any of them could do- was look up at the boy who looked all too pleased at the turn of events for someone trapped in a cage.

“What do you mean?” Aoi demanded, the only one of them still ignorant to the full story. The thought flit through Yusaku’s mind, though he knew Aoi would be loathe to know of it- Thankfully.

“Let me spell it out for you,” said the boy as he straightened up and pointed down at Ryoken with a finger. “You? You’re useless to us. You were on the wrong side of things.”

“You mean-“

“Yeah,” said the boy, crossing his arms and cutting Ryoken off sharply, “we’re after the victims.”

“Why?” Ryoken asked, trying so nobly to hide the part of him that was pained- that had been cut through even before he’d made the call.

“Does it matter?” the kid said, leering down at them with something too close to amusement for Yusaku’s taste. “We have our reasons for doing what we’re doing, and you don’t actually care. We’re doing what we have to, and you’re trying to stop us. That’s how it’s going to be, right? Just know that either way you’re irrelevant. If you’d actually managed to do anything with the Cyberse or the Ignises, then maybe we might have had some sort of use for you. We could have been proper enemies. But you failed, and so you’re irrelevant.”

Ryoken all but snarled; on his other side Aoi bristled. Yusaku said, before either of them could snap and escalate the situation beyond the point of all return- “Then what about a duel? If you’re after me, then let’s make that the wager.”

Ryoken’s gaze flicked over to him sharp; Yusaku knew without being told that it was a warning. A reminder that he had no obligation to go so far, despite the fact it would be another battle Yusaku had no choice but to win.

But a warning would never be enough to stop him from doing it.

“Tempting, tempting,” said the boy, playing at considering the offer. “But I’m really not up for dueling, right now. Not when I can tell most of you aren’t going to play fair.”

“As if you were,” Aoi accused, to which the boy only shrugged.

“We still have you,” said Ryoken, in the scheming sort of tone that Yusaku hadn’t heard from him since before the truth. No, thought Yusaku, that wasn’t right. He’d heard it after that- in their final duel, every time Ryoken had tried to deny him.

“Do you?” said the boy, raising a flippant hand, speaking over Aoi and Ryoken’s protests, “Oh, and I’ll tell you this- I’m not holding any consciousness data, anyway. Congratulations on wasting your trap. You’re not going to get to pull that again.”

And the boy, in a flash of light like the aftereffect of a magic spell, vanished from inside their net. The trio’s gazes all flashed in different directions, surveying the skyline, the seemingly endless drop below, the thin clouds above their head- but there was nothing. Gone without a trace, like all their leads to Spectre now.

The silence didn’t have time to sit as their net burst into pieces, useless without a captive.

“So,” Ai said, looking reluctant to be the first to speak but words spilling out of him all the same, “what exactly’s the plan of attack now? Bust through the barrier? Find one of those other pawns to duel?”

“Well,” Aoi said, “We figure out where he went. If we do that, we find Spectre. And then? We get to fight our way through.”

It was a simple plan- easy in words, likely to be much harder in execution. But it was all they needed. They would not fail.

Yusaku nodded; Ryoken’s gaze stayed fixed firmly on the space where the boy had disappeared. Another lead fallen straight through their fingers. Or, Yusaku thought, no. Perhaps not lost, not just yet.

“Kusanagi,” he said, glancing down at Ai, but Ai just shook his head.

“Sorry, out of luck. That kid vanished without a trace. At least, any traces that aren’t heavily encrypted,” Ai relayed, choosing his words a bit more carefully than usual, “It’ll take some time to try and figure out what happened.”

“Then there’s nothing we can do from here,” Ryoken said, and summarily logged out- Yusaku and Aoi exchanged a quick, tense glance before following suit.

They picked themselves up off the floor of Cafe Nagi not a second later- Ryoken and Yusaku leaning back against the legs of the cot, and Aoi straightening up in her chair in the corner of the room. Kusanagi turned back from the consoles to survey them quickly as he said, “I’ve got the traces we need to track them down, but it’ll take a while to figure out where this data matches. It’s not correlated to anywhere in LINK VRAINS.”

“How is that possible?” Aoi asked, lips curled into a small frown.

Kusanagi leaned back in his chair, running a hand back through his hair and looking rather troubled. “Overlaying another world’s data on top of LINK VRAINS. Or creating another world inside. There’s a few ways they could do it. We just have to figure out which one.”

Aoi nodded and bit her lip. She wasn’t particularly versed on the technical side of things, Yusaku knew, but a basic understanding was better than nothing.

“I’m going home,” Ryoken said suddenly, then stopped, glanced over at Spectre, and said with slightly less demand in his voice as he turned towards Kusanagi- “Could you drive us there? You know where to go.”

“Not the hospital?”

Ryoken made a rather pinched, unpleasant expression. “I’d rather not deal with the paperwork or waste time on explanations they won’t find. I’ve had practice with this.”

No one wanted to say anything to that. Kusanagi let out a long, almost whistling breath, and Yusaku was struck with the sudden thought that he had practice, too.

Jin.

But he didn’t have time to voice any of the thoughts flashing like lightning through his mind.

“I’m going home, too,” Aoi said, standing from her chair and giving them all a final glance. “I’ll see what I can uncover from SOL’s side.” Ryoken glanced over at her, and she amended, “Not officially, of course. You can trust my brother to keep our business in LINK VRAINS a secret. His input is better than no support at all.”

Ryoken narrowed his eyes, but didn’t press the issue. In the end, Yusaku thought, their common goal could surpass that level of distrust. Zaizen Akira, after all, hadn’t been the man who had silenced his father.

“Here,” Kusanagi said, looking over at Ryoken, “I'll drop all of you off, starting with you two.”

“I can walk,” Aoi insisted, but Kusanagi shook his head. He could likely feel the discontent rolling off them in waves. None of them dealt well with powerlessness. The last thing any of them needed was to be left alone- and Yusaku felt a sudden wave of relief rush over him at the thought. None of them would be. The era for that had long since come and gone.

One by one Kusanagi drove them back to their respective destinations- Ryoken to his home, Aoi to SOL to drag her brother away from his work. It left Kusanagi and Yusaku in the back of the van, sitting side by side as usual, running new information over an old routine.

He was used to this, even from the days before- and yet he couldn’t shake the idea that it was wrong. Kusanagi shouldn’t be here. Not now. Not with the danger lurking fast around the corner for all of them. Not when everyone else had already returned to the places that needed them most.

“Go to your brother,” Yusaku said suddenly, turning to Kusanagi. It wasn’t a request. He knew nothing of the other children- not where they were or how they were living, but they were in danger now. At the very least, if they could do something for Jin- or rather, even if they couldn’t, Yusaku wouldn’t be the person who kept Kusanagi from him now.

Kusanagi didn’t look up from the screens. His words were pleasant, but his measured pace betrayed him. “By the time I get there, visiting hours are going to be over. I’ll wait until morning to head out.”

No, Yusaku thought. He could see the way Kusanagi was on edge, fingers restless on the keyboard, shoulders tight with tension. “Aren’t you worried? Just go. We’ll handle this.”

“Of course I’m worried about him,” Kusanagi said, finally glancing away from the screens to reach over to ruffle through Yusaku’s hair. His smile then was more strained than he probably wanted it to be. That didn’t make it any less genuine, Yusaku realized. Kusanagi continued- “But there were months between when Ryoken was first attacked and this, right? That means Jin will be safe for the night.”

“But-“ Yusaku tried to protest, realizing very rapidly that it was difficult to give serious statements while someone was ruffling through your hair, but was cut off by Kusanagi.

“Yusaku. Listen. The best way to make sure Jin is safe right now is to be here, working on this. I’ll go first thing in the morning, but wasting time driving to a building we can’t get into isn’t going to help either of them, yeah?”

Yusaku nodded. He understood, even if he didn’t entirely believe it. But Kusanagi was strong- he always had been. Yusaku had known that since the moment they’d met, so denying now it would be an insult of the worst calibre. In the beginning, they’d worked together because their goal had been shared- because it was simple math. Two were stronger than one. Because their strengths complimented each other. Back then their purpose had only been temporary, a way for them to claw back even a fraction of the time stolen from them. But now, as the second hand ticked forwards-

Yusaku let out a breath as Kusanagi pulled back his hand. “Thank you.”

Kusanagi just grinned. “Hey, your friends are my friends, right? And besides. I’m getting used to having part-timers around.”

Yusaku still didn’t know if they could be called part-timers if they only got paid in meals- but that was already more than enough, he thought. He huffed out a hollow laugh and turned back to the screens, and beside him Kusanagi did the same. The tension wasn’t gone, but again that hope was back, that fragment of what he’d felt so clearly the day that they’d gone to trap Ai a year and a lifetime ago- together, we can do it.

As the two of them went back to work, Yusaku pulled out his phone. On it was a brief message from Aoi, confirming that she’d managed to get her brother off of work for the rest of the day and promising to call the moment she’d found something. And beneath that, another number, an empty message log. Yusaku filled it.

Kogami.

He waited a few hours- he knew how he was when caught up in his work, and figured that Ryoken was probably the same. They took half a break for dinner, Yusaku glancing down at his phone every once and a while, waiting for a notification that never arrived.

Before they started again, Yusaku messaged again- Kogami.

Though he left his phone out beside the keyboard, no answer came. That wasn’t unexpected. When things were urgent as this, he hated distractions- it was one of the few times he’d gladly shut himself away from even Ai and Kusanagi, if he thought even their help would do nothing but slow him down. It also meant he knew just how easy it was to forget to sleep, to eat- until the hunger pangs made him lightheaded and the drag of sleep made him remember things far too unpleasant.

He messaged a final time- Ryoken. Answer your phone.

He didn’t expect anything- but not a moment later his phone began to buzz, the display helpfully flashing Ryoken’s name. Yusaku picked up immediately. He hadn’t had time to so much as lift it all the way to his ear before he heard, snapped at him quite briskly- “What is it, Yusaku?”

“So you are alive,” Yusaku replied, to which he was met only with silence. He pressed on quickly, determined not to let Ryoken hang up the phone on him- “Do you have any new leads? I thought we should exchange information.”

Not that they had found anything new. But Ryoken didn’t need to know that, right now.

“I’m onto something,” Ryoken said, words biting even as they sounded distracted, most of his attention doubtless on his work before him. “I can’t leave now. If you want to help, then come here.”

Well, Yusaku thought, that too was a way of bridging the gap. He glanced over at Kusanagi, who was half-watching him, following his side of the conversation with obvious interest. “Okay. We’ll head over now.”

“You already know how to open the door,” Ryoken said, then summarily hung up the phone.

It didn’t take them long to make the trip back to the Kogami residence, nor did it take them long to hack back through the security system- though, they soon found out, that wasn’t necessary at all. Halfway through the door opened, swinging inwards to reveal an unexpected man.

Yusaku froze.

Unexpected, but not unfamiliar- not a person he associated with anything good, and not someone he had ever intended on seeing again.

Faust looked equally wary to see Yusaku here now on the doorstep. He hesitated for a long while, waiting for something that never arrived, then stepped aside, ushering the two of them in. His pleasantries were stilted; Yusaku and Kusanagi made little effort to be warmer. Without any more preamble Faust showed them towards the room where Ryoken was working, further in than they’d had the opportunity to go during their first intrusion. They didn’t pass through the seaside parlor, and for that, at least, Yusaku was glad. Even in his hazy imagination something about the image was wrong. Spectre wasn’t a person meant to look so small.

The room Faust led them to was lined with computers and various terminals on one wall and lab equipment on the other, things spread about it like curiosities, personal projects left unfinished. There were three others in the room, two of them looking up at their entrance- one Taki Kyoko, a familiar face- which meant the other sitting beside her must have been Genome. Kusanagi stayed at the door, watching with a wary eye for their first wrong move.

Yusaku eyed them with equal suspicion as he skirted around to reach Ryoken sitting before a cluster of monitors on an isolated desk. There were textbooks stacked along its very edge, shoved rather carelessly there to give Ryoken room to work.

Finally did Ryoken lift his head at Yusaku’s approach. Yusaku nodded in greeting. Ryoken looked him over before doing the same, obviously catching the uneasiness in his posture he’d never quite figured out to hide- not in the real world, at least. Not without his anger to wash it all away.

“You can-“

Trust them, Yusaku was sure he was about to say. But Ryoken and Spectre being able to trust them was a very different thing from Yusaku being able to. The Knights had lost, and in the aftermath at least one of them had tried to make things right.

They hadn’t made any more trouble than they already had in the months since it had all ended, since they’d opened their eyes again. They hadn’t, to Yusaku’s knowledge, so much as been back to LINK VRAINS since the days of the Anothers Incident.

But ten years ago, they’d been passive too. A child shouldn’t have been left to fix the mistakes of adults gone astray, shouldn’t have had the weight of guilt placed so heavy on his shoulders he’d had to call it destiny to try and ease that burden.

Ryoken began again. “They’re here to help. When I took Spectre in, all of us did. No one is turning their backs on one of our own now. For now, you’ll either have to believe that or leave.”

It was an ultimatum; neither of them had time now to hash out another gulf left by ten year old wounds, not when they’d only just begun to scab. Yusaku pulled out a chair and sat down beside him, brandishing a flash drive of their admittedly little progress.

“Here,” he said, dropping it into Ryoken’s palm. “What’ve you found so far?”

Ryoken nodded and began to fill him in.

No, the past wasn’t done with them yet. But it was a worry for tomorrow, for another day where a threat so immediate didn’t loom over their heads. For now, Yusaku thought- for the sake of someone he cared about- he could cast aside this level of distrust, too.

They worked late into the night; neither of them glanced at the time and neither of them dared speak about the situation at hand except to run data and theories back and forth- new things to check, to confirm, possibilities that would push them forwards.

But the avenues weren’t infinite. That was a good thing- if they were, then their chances of finding Spectre would be far too low for Yusaku to want to imagine- but it also meant that they were running out of options. It went without saying that neither of them wanted to know what would happen if they lost them all.

Kusanagi had gone to snatch a few hours of sleep before he’d have to leave in the morning- or, more accurately, Yusaku had forced him to. Ryoken had insisted the same of the Knights, though given the fact they’d taken several laptops with them and Ryoken had clearly seen but not protested, Yusaku had the sense they were still lingering somewhere, chasing leads in whatever way they could.

And, thought Yusaku, as the last of their searches finally came to an end, for perhaps the first time he’d wish for their success.

Ryoken leaned forwards in his chair, staring intently at their results. Or no, thought Yusaku, not intently.

“It’s a dead end.”

Darkly. Words hollow. Yusaku was struck cold by the sense this wasn’t right. He said, still pulled by that persistent hope he’d never forgotten how to give up on- “We have other paths. We’ll save him. I understand. I-”

“How could you understand?” Ryoken said, not quite vicious but burning with something that Yusaku doubted he’d ever shown another soul, “You have no idea what it’s like. Everything I’ve ever been entrusted with I’ve failed at. Why would this have been any different?”

“But if they weren’t the right path-“

“It doesn’t matter if it was the right path or not,” Ryoken snapped, and the blunt edges of his frustration drained out of him all at once. He rested his elbows on the desk and leaned forwards to rest his head in his hands, fingers curling tight into his hair. “I’ve never once succeeded. No matter how much I devote myself to something, people like you insist on standing in my way.”

“But-”

“I needed to succeed there,” Ryoken said, not pausing to hear Yusaku’s protest, “I had no choice but to win. I threw everything else away in order to fulfill my father’s last wishes, and… I didn’t even think about protecting the people I care about. They just fall for my mistakes, over and over again. That’s not-“

He stopped.

If it wasn’t three in the morning- if the stakes weren’t so high, if Ryoken wasn’t so viscerally tired- he wouldn’t be saying this, and the both of them knew it. He hadn’t spent so many months keeping a careful distance from the world only to cross it all in one leap- or at least he had no intention to.

“I don’t deserve that. I’m not a good enough person to deserve the people who’ve died for me.”

Unspoken, the fear- And here they are, doing it all again.

No, Yusaku thought. Not months. Here was a decade’s worth of remorse from a boy whose guilt had told him he wasn’t allowed to feel it. Who had refused to feel it, lest it distract him from his goal, his repentance for a decision he never could have won.

And in the end it had all become regrets, same as the rest.

This wasn’t something that Yusaku would normally do. Affection was hardly something he was versed in receiving, let alone giving. But still, he had the faint image of Spectre doing it- gently Yusaku seized the closer of Ryoken’s wrists and unthreaded his fingers from his hair. He only had a moment to do it- just after he had, Ryoken looked up at him, startled, his fingers coming free. Yusaku let his wrist go, but Ryoken’s hand hovered frozen in the air a moment.

“You saved my life,” Yusaku said, “And you probably saved his, too.”

Ryoken’s gaze was heavy and his answer immediate. He lowered his hands, curled them into fists atop the desk. “And I would have killed you both again. Without hesitation.”

Yusaku didn’t want to say this. He wanted nothing less than to smooth over that part of their past, too. To pretend that they’d all been better than they had. But this had to be said, the same way that he’d always had to admit that the Incident had broken something in him. That he could say now with pride that he was piecing back together with a mosaic of new pieces, mismatched but striking in their own way. This time, he wouldn’t lie.

“And you were going to kill yourself right after.”

Ryoken flinched. He’d said it himself- admitted it at their first meeting, standing in the sunset heralding the end. My friends are waiting. But he still flinched.

“It didn’t happen. And it’s not happening again,” Yusaku said, because it was the only reassurance that felt like enough.

“But my father is still dead.”

And what was Yusaku to say to that?

He knew that when Go and Aoi had leapt back into LINK VRAINS alongside him, they’d gone prepared for the possibility of facing their own deaths. It hadn’t been the future they’d hoped for, nor the one they’d ultimately found, but some part of them had measured the risk and gone in prepared. Yusaku too had felt that- to win is to eat, to eat is to have the strength to stand up and duel, to duel is to win . Or else-

The phantom pain of his arm ripped from his body by passing debris. The soft certainty of the end. Disappointment. Not a hesitation, but a regret. A lost revenge. A voice he’d never reach. Is this really as far as I go?

I have no regrets, Spectre had said as he’d picked himself up from the crumbling ground, knowing that the last thing he’d done before his looming death was fail. He’d let himself be goaded. He’d fallen because he’d underestimated a brother’s want to repent, even if it meant casting himself into the dark.

He hadn’t been able to protect the places he’d belonged.

Neither had Ryoken.

I want to save you.

“If,” Yusaku said, then shook his head. He knew what would have happened. The both of them did. He said instead, “If I wake Kusanagi up to take over, will you go to sleep for a while?”

Ryoken nodded once, slowly, then amended- “I don’t know if I can, though.”

“Just try,” Yusaku insisted. He knew well enough what Ryoken meant- not wanting to sleep while the goal was still so elusive, wanting to burn until there was nothing left but results and the certainty of victory left before him. Fearing what he’d see if he did manage to close his eyes and let sleep take him.

“What about you?”

Yusaku glanced over at the computer, at the lack of progress taunting them from the screen. It wasn’t actually a plea for him to sleep. If it meant no one would be awake to continue the search, then Ryoken wouldn’t be that kind. But Yusaku understood. “I’m going to stay up for a little while longer. I’m not tired yet.”

Ryoken stood, chair scraping against the floor soft, but he lingered a long moment. Yusaku glanced up at him just as he said- “Thank you, Yusaku. For all of it.”

“He’s my friend,” Yusaku said, realizing he’d never meant it more. And then, said after the matter but far from an afterthought, “And so are you.”

“I don’t deserve that.”

“It doesn’t matter if you deserve it or not. That’s what I decided,” Yusaku said. That was his own simple truth. They’d all been walking towards a new future- stumbling, more often than not, picking themselves up off scraped knees and bloody palms- but they’d been moving. He wouldn’t leave Ryoken behind. He’d decided that the moment they’d woken up in that starlit parlor and seized Ryoken’s wrist as he tried to run, to rush into the horizon to drown himself in ten years all come to naught.

Enough of it all. Enough.

Ryoken said nothing- only stared at Yusaku a moment, as if to test his will- but about this Yusaku wouldn’t waver.

“Go to sleep,” Yusaku repeated, “when I figure things out, I’ll come wake you up.”

Ryoken let out a long breath, then- “Okay.”

He left the room in long strides, trying to hide the way he slumped slightly, the way he was obviously unsteady on his feet- Yusaku could only wonder how many hours it had been since he’d last stood. But before he could let go of the door, Yusaku called out again- “Ryoken?”

Ryoken turned his head over his shoulder, eyes catching the same color as the blue light of the monitors. His answer was more hum than word.

“Spectre told me one time that you had high praise for me as a listener. So let me do it some time.” He might not know what to say- but that, at least, he could do.

“When things are less urgent, I’ll think about it,” Ryoken said, and stepped out into the hall. As the door swung shut behind him, Yusaku pulled out his phone to message Kusanagi to come in. As expected, he received a reply immediately. This wasn’t the kind of situation where anyone would be sleeping easy.

As he waited for Kusanagi to arrive, Yusaku took a short break, a breath to clear his head and rest his eyes from the harsh glare of the screens. He glanced at the clock- it really was three am. He stretched, letting his gaze wander a little more until it landed on what had been Ryoken’s half of the desk, the entrance exam prep books shoved to their very corners. He opened one of them, and its spine cracked slightly with the motion. Unopened. Still wandering lost.

There were still words he had to say. A hand he still had to take, to drag with them into the future. The map didn’t have to have a destination. This time, it would be about the journey, the new road they’d all created- that was what Yusaku truly and honestly believed.

Their work was interrupted by a phone call, a quick buzzing of his phone that startled Yusaku and Kusanagi briefly as it shattered their concentration. Yusaku leaned over in his seat, pulling his phone away from the charger in the wall as he checked the number. When he picked it up, there was no need for greeting.

“Yusaku?” Aoi asked, her voice a whisper through the phone but urgent in its clipped tone, “I’m sending you some data now, courtesy of my brother. I didn’t tell him the specifics, don’t worry. But do you remember that data I won a few months ago?”

“It’s a match?”

He could practically sense Aoi’s nod. “It’s like a part of a map. I don’t know what it’s pointing to, but it should be useful to us. My brother says he can make us a backdoor, but we’ll have to act fast. Once he deploys it, chances are the enemy will realize and either come after us or move locations.”

“And we can’t lose them again,” Yusaku finished. He paused for a moment, checking as Ai nodded at him frantically from his duel disk set atop the desk, then- “All the data is here. It matches what we have, too.”

“I’m heading in now. How soon can you meet me at those coordinates?” Aoi asked, and on her side of the line Yusaku heard the shutting of a door, the shifting of fabric.

“Soon,” Yusaku said, “a few minutes. Don’t do anything dangerous.”

Aoi huffed. “Not without you. If anything comes up in the meantime, though, I'll take care of myself.”

“Be careful,” he said, and Aoi huffed but agreed.

“I’ve made some preparations of my own, you know,” she added, hanging up the phone before Yusaku could so much as promise to see her soon. But he supposed the sentiment had gotten across- or at least he hoped it had, beyond the urgency of it all.

Yusaku pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the ache in his knees and the stiffness in his back from too many hours of sitting. He refused to check the clock a second time, though he knew it must have been nearing daybreak.

“You’re going?” Kusanagi asked, and Yusaku nodded. He continued- “Then I’ll stay here and-“

Yusaku shook his head, sharp. “Go to your brother.”

“Yusaku, I’m not leaving all of you to go off without support-“

“We have support.”

“You trust them?” Kusanagi asked with obvious skepticism. He’d never asked- they’d never discussed in concrete terms what they wanted to be done with the perpetrators of the Incident, and after Kogami had died, much of the choice had seemed taken out of their hands. But Yusaku had decided- his revenge was already over. It had never been a place to belong. But perhaps to someone else, those three were.

“They took care of Spectre. Ryoken trusts them. For now, that has to be enough.” Not forgiveness- not yet, not entirely. The wounds were closing but the scars still remained. But for now, it could be enough. One mission. A mutual goal. The truce was allowed to be uneasy, so long as it eventually fell into peaceful resolution.

Kusanagi let out a long breath. “I’ll be on to support you as soon as I get there. Stay safe, Yusaku.”

“I will,” he replied, and together they stepped out into the hall. They spared one last glance- an unspoken promise, and then parted ways. A course of action, a timer with no numbers ticking down.

He’d have to find Ryoken, but he’d no time to waste wandering the halls blindly for his room. Luckily he didn’t have to- from the neighboring room again emerged that familiar woman.

Without preamble, Yusaku asked, “Where’s Ryoken’s bedroom?”

“His bedroom is at the far end of the hall. But I think you’ll find him sleeping in the parlor chair,” Kyoko said, her expression briefly troubled. Yusaku knew it well- the face of someone who’d worried over this very same thing a hundred times before.

Of course, Yusaku thought, of course.

He nodded his thanks and turned his back, weaving his way towards where the parlor must have been. The moment he pushed open the door he knew he was right- the steady beep of the heart monitor was both chilling and reassuring as it ticked away the seconds Yusaku wasted crossing the room- just halfway, just to the chair stuck in the long shadows cast by the moonlight.

He almost hated to wake Ryoken- even in sleep his expression was troubled. But there wasn’t a choice. Ryoken would never forgive him if he found out Yusaku delayed Spectre’s rescue- and Yusaku would never forgive himself, either. There would be no rest. Not tonight.

“Ryoken,” Yusaku said, reaching out to shake his shoulder, wary of the possibility he might end up with a twisted wrist if he moved too quickly. Ryoken woke almost immediately at the touch, eyes narrowed at Yusaku as he quickly drew back his hand. Before they could waste a moment on meaningless things, Yusaku held out his phone for Ryoken to take.

“Here,” Yusaku said, and pointed down at the coordinates written across the screen. Ryoken blinked blearily at it a moment, then shot up, reaching for his duel disk sitting at the side of his chair.

“You found him,” he said, not a question as he slipped it on.

Yusaku nodded. “Let’s go.”

And how different it was, Yusaku thought, from the last time they’d faced each other here. Then, a parlor lit by the fading sunset. Now it was illuminated by the strength of the moon, no sight of Stardust Road below. Fighting stances. Gathered around a lounge chair, together blinking away the last of their fatigue. The steady beep of a heart monitor. This time, all was not yet lost.

Together they went.

Aoi was waiting for them at the coordinates she’d sent, eyes sharp for any sign of enemies as she stood before the incongruous structure behind her. The castle was something out of a different world; its aesthetic jarring against the modern, gleaming white structures of the reconstructed LINK VRAINS. And so too was Aoi different from before. Her hair was short, and her wings had lost their feathers, cut down to a white scar across her back. If she hadn’t been waiting at the coordinates exactly, Yusaku might not have recognized her- or perhaps he would have. She looked much more like Aoi, now.

“You changed your avatar,” he noted as they approached, still wary of the castle but confident enough it wouldn’t launch any surprises at them if Aoi had been waiting there.

To that Aoi only shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. A new chapter of my life… or something like that. And this is a mission that needs stealth and cover, isn’t it? I can’t go in with my usual avatar, or SOL might find out. I know I’ve been careless so far. I won’t be from now on.”

Yusaku wondered if that meant the story of Blue Angel had come to an end or not. He wasn’t sure. But perhaps he didn’t have to be. As long as it meant something to Aoi, he thought, that was what mattered. Instead he turned his gaze back to the castle, to the small portal of white and blue carved into the locked doors.

“Which, speaking of… Our backdoor isn’t very back,” Ai said, and Aoi shook her head.

“It wasn’t supposed to look like this. My brother said it was supposed to be subtle. This castle doesn’t exist in any official channels.” She was clearly on the defensive. Yusaku nodded at her- he had no reason to believe Zaizen would come after them now, not when his sister was working at their sides.

“Then it means this is a trap,” Ryoken said summarily.

“But we don’t have another choice,” Yusaku replied, and took the first step inside, slipping easily through Zaizen’s portal. At his back the others followed into the lavish reception hall, draped all in purple and gold and velvet red. It reminded Yusaku of the lavish stylings of some fairy tale about foreign countries more fantasy than fact.

The castle was vast, and the answer was obvious. Two halls on either side, a grand staircase leading up to a second floor placed right at the center, suspicious and inviting. Their gazes flashed different directions, then met again at the center.

“I vote we stay together!” Ai said, waving his hand high in the air, dragging everyone’s attention from their chosen routes down to him.

The air around them was heavy, data pressing hard into their shoulders and casting shadows in their peripherals. Before someone could open their mouth to protest, Yusaku said- “I agree.”

Aoi frowned. “Wouldn’t it be better to split up? We can all handle ourselves.”

“No,” said Yusaku, “it didn’t do us any good before. And the enemy has only been showing up in pairs. Two against one is an easy way to pick us off. Three against two means one of us can make progress if the other two get caught up in a duel.”

“Playmaker is right,” Ryoken said, “We also run less risk of finding ourselves surrounded. And if someone doesn’t make it… this way we’re at least there to witness it.”

Aoi let out a long breath- she’d fallen too early to see the sacrifice her brother had made. Yusaku thought of Spectre, stepping blindly into the flames. He hadn’t turned around to see it. A final moment that would have no witness.

If, just perhaps, you had fallen and failed-

“Then where do we start?” Aoi asked, unwilling as the rest of them to dawdle needlessly.

Ryoken led them into the first of the halls without a word, and she followed briskly. Yusaku brought up their rear, alert for any sign of the enemy that wasn’t above ambushing them from behind. The halls were a maze; clearly the castle had been designed with the idea to try and frustrate them- rats trapped in a cage, fighting against a time limit they didn’t know if they really had.

Still, Ryoken led them as if they did, moving fast down the center of halls, turning his back with a flourish at every dead end to brush past Yusaku and Aoi, usually without so much as a word.

But they all knew.

This was a game, and they were being toyed with. They had to keep calm- if the three of them knew nothing else, they knew that. Behind every closed door could be a trap, ready to rip them to shreds. If they couldn’t take things in stride now, then they’d lost before they’d even begun.

Somehow, all of that had been easier before someone they cared about had been on the line. When they’d been fighting solely for themselves- to absolve themselves of some tremendous burden. To fill the holes a darkness had eaten through them. To make things right where they’d gone wrong somewhere along the way.

But it was hard when all they were doing was wasting time.

They were halfway down another hall, crossing out from an empty banquet hall when abruptly did something begin to shine over Ryoken’s duel disk. He lifted his arm to check it without so much as a falter in his step.

“Is that-?” Aoi began, jogging forwards to see. Yusaku followed her close behind, coming up on Ryoken’s other side.

“A map,” Ryoken finished. He ran through it briefly- a blinking red mark marked their location, stranded in a far corner of the manor. A small blue target blinked at them in parallel rhythm, near the manor’s center. “Let’s go.”

Ryoken made for it at haste, but as he started off, Yusaku swore he heard under his breath Ryoken mutter the quietest word of thanks to familiar names. So, Yusaku thought, that passing hope of his had reached someone after all.

Ryoken took the lead at the end of a long hall, pushing the door at the end open with a foolish sort of haste, and Yusaku and Aoi followed him close behind, their steps set to match. This chamber was different from the dead ends that had come before, lavish and beautiful but dead and stale. It glistened with life, stardust raining down from the high arch of the ceiling like a cathedral dome, golden and dancing around their shoulders as the door swung shut behind them.

“Hey, Playmaker…” Ai whispered, and Yusaku raised his duel disk to accommodate Ai’s suddenly acquired sense of subtlety. “Can you sense that, too?”

“Yeah.” Since the moment they’d stepped into the chamber- an odd sort of feeling, cutting sharp through his consciousness and forcing all other thought away. Traces of the Cyberse, or at least something that resembled it.

Hidden in plain sight, perhaps. Yusaku glanced down at Ai, and thought that too might be some sort of lead for a problem not as unrelated as it first seemed.

Meanwhile Aoi stepped further into the chamber, staring up at something gleaming near the roof, a small spark around which the stardust seemed to swirl. “Is that-“

“Databanks,” Ai finished.

Which meant, Yusaku thought, they needed to get up there immediately. But before they could take the first guess as to how, the doors slammed open again behind them. Yusaku and Ryoken turned fast towards the intruders- two strange-looking creatures, vaguely humanoid but clearly created with the data of something other- chimeras, curling at their edges with something vicious. They reminded him briefly of the monster that had chased him through the sewers of LINK VRAINS, stray bits of data that had gained a beastly sort of instinct- but these lifted their arms to duel.

“Pathway incoming,” Ai said, and Yusaku only had a moment to follow the point of his finger over his shoulder, still processing what he’d said as red steps began to appear one by one, spiraling upwards towards the databanks suspended from the ceiling.

Their enemies advanced in sync; Yusaku stepped up to meet them. The odds were bad, but he’d overcome much worse. The creatures advanced again; Yusaku braced himself.

And yet.

Ryoken glanced over his shoulder at those red stairs, to Aoi standing at their base, and said, more command than request- “Go.”

She didn’t hesitate. With a nod she began to race upwards, leaping up the patches of light with a grace that befit urgency. Ryoken stepped up to stand beside Yusaku, boots clicking against stone, the two of them a united front as Ryoken’s duel disk flashed to life.

“I can handle them,” Yusaku said, but Ryoken only smirked, seizing the first turn from his opponent with a wave of his hand.

“And if more come? I respect your resolve, but don’t act like a fool.” And with that, Ryoken’s duel began.

Yusaku turned towards his own, thinking that this would be the first with stakes in a very long time. But no longer did it feel quite the same. Under his breath Yusaku murmured a quiet word of thanks- to Kusanagi, to Aoi, to Ryoken, to everyone. He braced himself again, certain in his victory and began the duel.

But they didn’t get the chance to progress far before a cry from above interrupted them.

“There’s nothing here!” Aoi called down, her voice tinged with worry. Not panic- not yet. But there was an urgency. A deep determination to see things through, and the looming realization that the ability to do that might be out of her control entirely.

Ryoken tensed at Yusaku’s side. Whatever card he’d been about to play stayed firmly in his virtual hand, words turned up to Aoi in the middle of his sentence. “There must be. Look harder!”

Yusaku couldn’t tell what was on the screens that surrounded her, but instinct told him it was nothing good.

“Ai,” Yusaku said, “please.”

Ai grinned. “Don’t have to ask twice, partner.”

And with that Ai vanished, slipping up to help Aoi and leaving Yusaku and Ryoken to resume their duels, fighting stiffer than before. There was no denying now that they’d walked straight into a trap. But Yusaku refused to believe that all their efforts were in vain. A trap had no meaning if they could walk out the other side unscathed.

“Yeah, there’s nothing here,” Ai said, poking his head black out of Yusaku’s duel disk just in time for Yusaku to lift it, shielding himself instinctive from a blow that lashed through him, sparking unpleasant in his lungs and stirring up memories he’d rather stay buried.

“Hey, hey, watch it!” Ai yelled. Yusaku spared him a single moment’s sympathy before glancing back out at the field. This wasn’t the kind of duel where he could afford to be distracted during the enemy’s turn.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s nothing there! If you’re looking for consciousness data, there’s nothing on those databanks.” Ai looked a bit distressed, gazing around the room as if something was going to bleed from the walls and consume them all. A shiver worked its way up Yusaku’s spine as his gaze followed Ai’s. Certainly he felt it too. The wrongness. The time limit they didn’t know, counting down with each moment they wasted.

But it was then that he realized, a thought cutting through the unease clearer than anything.

The stardust in the room- it reminded him of something. Dust fluttering the air as a finger trailed over old piano keys. A road out over the ocean, fleeting and untouchable. Soft petals of a blooming tree, pale as they danced in the wind, daring not to be caught in the flames.

Yusaku raised his palm to collect the falling stardust. The first time, on that bridge, he’d caught a flash- and there it was again. He didn’t need the hint of a familiar face to sense the presence of a familiar person.

“The stardust!” He yelled up to Aoi, and he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard her gasp- perhaps she’d seen a flash too, then.

“Okay!” She yelled down, and a few moments later the stardust began to pull against gravity, dancing upwards from the palm of Yusaku’s hand, blown towards the ceiling by the start of a storm.

He glanced over at Ryoken- we didn’t fail.

But Ryoken wasn’t looking at him. He’d only thrown himself into the last turn of his duel with a passion that Yusaku thought had been missing from him for far too long.

“Let’s finish this,” Ai said, and Yusaku nodded. That was an example he’d be happy to follow.

Their enemies didn’t last long- but neither did their relief, dissolving the moment the data floating about the room gathered up, swirling around Aoi and condensing down into a small ray of light in the palm of her hand.

Everything collapsed. The light in the room was lost, and Kusanagi's glowing stairs vanished all at once, consumed by the dark.

Aoi shrieked as she slipped abrupt into freefall, clutching the data close to her chest. Ryoken and Yusaku rushed forwards, racing to catch her- but Aoi lift her left wrist, and a small blue wire shot out of her duel disk to hook high around the suspended databank. For a second it sagged and Yusaku panicked, worried it would dislodge and send it crashing down on them- but it held true, and Aoi’s freefall broke into a soft, swinging descent.

It was a trick that Yusaku swore he’d seen Ghost Girl use, and the pieces all slotted into place. Another person who’d become a part of someone else’s story. He couldn’t say for sure, but he hoped it was for the better.

Aoi descended gently to her feet, cutting the wire and landing just as graceful as she’d ascended. She let out a long breath, the rush of the fall and the victory of defying death bright in her eyes, then held out the data in her right hand- a small blue chip, like the memory of Spectre holding out Aoi’s a lifetime ago.

“Wait,” Ryoken said, and took the data careful from Aoi’s fingertips. He fiddled with a panel on his duel disk a moment, then let the data float forth into the air. It danced in sparks of blue, expanding and overlapping in an inverse of the red that had eaten away at them before, that dripped from the edges of their wounds. Growing, expanding, blooming forth- a familiar figure before them with eyes closed, chest unmoving. For a moment he stood there, a doll strung up more lifeless than even his body in the real world, then-

Yusaku couldn’t stop the breath of relief that left him when Spectre’s eyes fluttered open, even if it was only an avatar. Anything was better than the all but lifeless boy laid out in the back of Cafe Nagi.

Almost immediately Spectre started, turning a fearsome gaze on them and shifting fluid on his feet before he seemed to take in who stood before him- and in what forms. His expression evened out into something much more neutrally pleasant, but still Yusaku couldn’t forget. That had been the face of someone who’d realized just a moment too late that they were about to be attacked. At his side, Yusaku’s hands curled into fists, a testament to an anger whose strength he’d begun to forget.

“Welcome back,” Yusaku said, forcing himself to shove it away, “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve just woken from a very unpleasant dream,” Spectre replied, rolling back his shoulders and shifting back on his feet, as if getting used to his own body again. “Was I unconscious for long?”

“A little over half a day,” Yusaku replied. A troubled look flashed over Spectre’s face for a moment as he processed that, and Yusaku tried to flash him a reassuring one in return- Don’t worry. I made sure he rested.

But he didn’t have time to see if Spectre understood before their attention was stolen away.

“I’m sorry,” Ryoken said, and everyone in the room turned to look at him, startled.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Spectre said, voice too calm for the expression he’d just been making, for the lingering traces of unease that came from waking in an unfamiliar place shrouded in darkness and deepening shadows. “That enemy was rather formidable in their own right. I should have been more vigilant.”

“For that, too,” Ryoken said. His voice filled the empty space, echoing high up into the arched roof of the inner chamber. This wasn’t the time or place for this conversation- someone would doubtless be after them soon, knowing exactly where they had gone. But, Yusaku thought, let them come. They would be stronger now. Four wouldn’t lose against two.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Spectre said rationally, “you were eight years old.”

“But if I had stopped it earlier,” Ryoken said, gaze swinging from Yusaku to Spectre, “If I had moved faster, if I had realized that my father was-“ the next word seemed difficult for him to bite out, and he almost stumbled over it- “wrong, then things might have been easier. For the both of you.”

If the Lost Incident had lasted five, three, two months instead of six, would things have been easier? Or would it still have been an interminable eternity where white haunted his dreams? Would there still have been someone waiting to come and find him, or would he still have been thrown out into the world on his own for almost a decade?

If it had never happened at all… There was no way for Yusaku to know. He liked to think time would never have stopped for him.

Spectre’s answer was measured and calm, words filled with sincerity. “I don’t think I need to remind you that the Lost Incident and Hanoi gave me most everything I have. Perhaps Fujiki might be grateful, but I have no such sentiments.”

“But you wouldn't have been attacked now. If I had stopped it from the first time I had misgivings, perhaps the Ignises would never have been created.”

You could have been spared pain now, at least, they all knew he meant.

“If I may?” Spectre asked, and Ryoken nodded. He did not hesitate when he said- “I’m proud of of the path the Lost Incident put me on. I won’t let them steal that from me.”

Yusaku took a long breath. Scars, not wounds but marks of pride for a battle fought- and for Spectre, a battle won.

Their pasts-

Yusaku would jump at the chance to change his. Spectre would stand in his way to protect it. That would never change; if they stumbled one day upon a time machine, then they’d be enemies again.

Yusaku turned his gaze from Spectre to Ryoken and said, simply- “I told you. My revenge is over. I’m living with it. And that’s enough. This is the new path we made.”

“You...” said Ryoken, looking between them. It was a statement all its own; not for the first time Yusaku thought that Ryoken might do better to simply believe what they’d been trying to tell him for months, now. What Yusaku had been convinced of since their first meeting. What Spectre likely tried to remind him of most every chance he had.

You’re not as bad a person as you think you are. You don’t have to burn to justify your reasons to live after ‘destiny’ is unraveled. And you don’t have to carry the burdens of what you’ve done by yourself.

But just before he could say the words, something in the air shifted dangerously. A sharpness. Ozone on their lips, ice cracked between their teeth in the humid air heralding a thunderstorm. There was a rumble, a crack, and the sight of something grand falling from the sky with a beautiful light- and then there was nothing but searing blue, so pale it might as well have been white.

Yusaku and Ryoken had just a moment, a thought flashing through their eyes conveyed as the world slowed in their perception- a glance, an agreement. They pivoted fast and leapt towards the person nearest towards them, Ryoken moving to shelter Aoi at his side and Yusaku racing to cover Spectre- and then the world was lost.

Chapter Text

In the future, there was nothing.

It was a softly enveloping void, eroding away at him with a strange sort of distance he’d felt only once before. It wasn’t a satisfied haze, not the kind of peace that came from returning home after a day of school to find a text on his phone, that came from sitting outside Cafe Nagi and eating good food as the world carried them off in its flow.

It was resigned. An exhale of a held breath whose anticipation hadn’t paid off. The brief moments of quiet before sleep dragged him down, where he hoped the nightmares would be kind. One way or another, he’d stood before the storm, and one way or another-

He realized, with a sudden clarity that surpassed even himself, that he’d decided.

“Playmaker. Playmaker.”

A voice, calling for him distant like a dream. The horizon line, burning blue. He didn’t know where he was going- had no map, no compass, no chart to read the fading stars. If he turned he’d find only the expanse of the world stretched out before him, unyielding and unending.

But he wasn’t scared.

Not even as the world shook to pieces at his feet, not even as pain seared its way through him again. He’d stood before the storm and made it all his own. The wind blew at his battered back. And beside him-

“Yusaku. Please wake up.”

Yusaku opened his eyes. Everything ached- not a sharp pain, but certainly a bone-deep one. Slowly was it easing, though its traces would linger a long while. But Yusaku would survive. He always had.

Spectre removed his hand from Yusaku’s shoulder where he’d shaken him awake, then promptly leaned forwards to set it on his back as Yusaku tried to push himself to a sitting position only to falter halfway there, something along his spine twinging with a searing pain.

“Hold on, hold on!” chirped a too-familiar voice, “I’m still trying to fix that!”

Yusaku took a steadying breath, trying to clear the ringing in his ears, steadying the world still blurred at the edges. He wasn’t going to have a pleasant time logging out- but that was a problem for then. For now-

“We made it out.”

Not a question; on his wrist Ai grinned and answered it regardless, beaming with pride. “Turns out that program of ours works just fine. In close quarters. And over small areas. But anyway! Thankfully you had me around, huh?”

But that didn’t mean everyone. The words fell from him, clipped and worried- “What about-“

Ai’s grin only got bigger. If he’d had a proper mouth, then Yusaku would have feared the expression he was making. “Don’t worry. I synced it up to Revolver, too. He’s going to owe me big time.”

Yusaku didn’t have the mental strength to try and imagine what chaos Ai holding a favor over Ryoken’s head might cause. He said instead, still catching his breath, “Good.”

“Hey, come on. You can at least praise me a little bit, right? Right?” Ai said, tapping his wrist in the world’s least subtle hint.

“Thank you.”

Ai positively glowed. “I wouldn’t let my partner down!”

Yusaku nodded, and Ai set back to work repairing the damage done to Yusaku’s avatar. He turned his head towards Spectre, still crouching next to him concerned, hand still steadying on his back. Yusaku asked- “You weren’t hurt?”

Spectre shook his head, and Yusaku let out a breath of relief. The last thing Spectre needed after these dark sort of days was more pain. Yusaku wasn’t going to ask, but he couldn’t imagine any of it had been pleasant- not the attack, or anything after.

“I’m fine. But I’ve been doing a rather terrible job of protecting the place I belong, as of late. Haven’t I?” Spectre asked, in a way that begged Yusaku to agree. His eye contact was unflinching as his disparaging tone.

“No,” Yusaku replied, staring him down and daring Spectre’s refutation- “I think we’re both doing fine. I think we’re all doing fine.”

Spectre’s hand still resting on his back was warm- Yusaku wondered if LINK VRAINS had always been that way, or if they’d only added in that feature when they reconstructed it. In the end, the answer didn’t matter- just that it was here, now.

His new place, created from what had been left in the hollows of revenge.

“Reassuring,” Spectre said dryly- but it wasn’t unconvinced. If nothing else, Yusaku could tell that he’d eased Spectre's worry, no matter how little.

“We can’t log out from here,” Ai said, poking his head back out from Yusaku’s disk, looking smaller than usual as the deep wounds across Yusaku’s back finally stitched themselves closed.

“I wouldn’t so much as think of it until we find Revolver and Blue...” Spectre began, then hesitated. It wouldn’t be right to call Aoi an angel, not when she’d clipped her own wings.

“Girl?” Yusaku suggested, going for the obvious.

Spectre nodded, but couldn’t seem to resist comment. “A little presumptuous of you to give her a name when she’s perfectly capable of deciding on one herself, isn’t it?”

“She reminds me of Ghost Girl,” was all Yusaku said in return, though he accented it with a shrug. He figured that Aoi would forgive him the nickname, at least for now.

“We aren’t acquainted,” Spectre replied idly, “though given the name, perhaps we could get along.”

Yusaku attempted to imagine their meeting for all of two seconds before giving up on that disaster. He shook his head slightly too fast, sending sparks flying through his sights. He said, speaking through the sharp note coursing through his thoughts, “Let’s just start looking for them.”

Spectre’s hand trailed slightly down Yusaku’s arm, lingering before he pulled away, standing smoothly, with his usual grace. Without hesitation he reached a hand back down to Yusaku, who was still testing out limbs that didn’t seem to want to respond entirely to his control. After he’d judged everything was in working order, running through a routine so instinctive he couldn’t remember just when he learned it, he took the offered hand and let Spectre pull him to his feet with a little hiss of sparking pain- dispersing, but lingering.

Spectre glanced at him, but Yusaku shook his head and took a step forwards on his own power, their hands falling apart once it was clear that Yusaku would be as fine as he claimed.

The world really had been lost, Yusaku thought, staring out at the toppled buildings and floating fortresses struck down from their perch between the vanished storm winds. But that hardly meant it was dead. Together they stared out across the shattered landscape, searching for signs of life amongst the rubble and seeing only wisps of data like the failed corpses of beasts forming and dispersing, trying to drag themselves a while across the craters and debris before fizzling out.

It was anything but a pretty sight. Yet still.

“Let’s go find them,” Yusaku said, ignoring the way something in his head still caught unpleasantly against the edges of his perception and his avatar ached with the pains of phantom bruises.

At his side, Spectre nodded. “Let’s.”

In the future they had each other’s backs, fighting their way fast towards Ryoken and Aoi stranded on the other side of the raging digital sea.  

Tag duels- Yusaku was no stranger to the idea of them, but this would be the first. And Yusaku had an immediate concern- Spectre’s deck all but required a full field for his strategies. Yusaku had spent enough time prying them apart to know, over the months.

“I assure you,” Spectre said from Yusaku’s side, gaze slipping from their enemies over towards him, “I have a strategy prepared for this. I’d planned around Revolver’s deck, but adapting to yours won’t be a challenge.”

“That’s what you said last time,” Yusaku bit out, tracking the chimera’s advance as they pulled themselves together from stray bits of data still lingering in the air.

“And we all know how that turned out,” Ai chimed in, which earned him a glare from Spectre.

“I assure you,” he repeated, “I’m prepared for this.”

And then the chimera were upon them, and Yusaku had no choice but to trust in Spectre's word.

(Not that it was asking much, at this point. They’d learned the ways to move about each other, where to press and where to leave openings for the other to slide seamlessly in to cover. It was a good arrangement- a comfortable sort of partnership in the face of adversity. A grand, blooming tree stood behind them, roots gentle and healing, all traces of her earlier rot vanished as her petals danced sweetly through the air. A warrior with sword in hand carved their way forwards, sight cast firmly on victory ahead. In that duel, their certainty was absolute.)

There was a closer call than Yusaku would have liked, a shockwave hurtling towards them even as the chimeras’ life points all drained down to zero. He hadn’t accounted for a trap activated not to win the duel, but simply to whittle away their life with the death knell. Pain inflicted simply to cause pain.

It raced towards the both of them, but there was no reason for that- for the second time that day Yusaku leapt to shelter Spectre, ducking his head and gritting his teeth as it sizzled through just-healed wounds, ripping them open again. Ai yelled, an indistinct thing as he looked up at Yusaku, then ducked back inside his disk to avoid the brunt of it, vulnerable after using so much of his data to heal Yusaku the first time.

“That was unnecessary,” Spectre said, once the light had faded and the end of the duel caused the chimeras to collapse in on themselves. Effective but cruel- no longer a need for broken data that couldn’t win.

Yusaku frowned, then brushed off the burn of the trap’s effect as he rolled back his shoulders, bracing for pain that didn’t come. “My fault in the first place. Should’ve set a counter-trap.”

Spectre huffed, pretending to chide him- “You’ve always been too kind. That does nothing good for your tendencies towards heroism.”

Was it still heroism, Yusaku thought, if it was just something as instinctive as protecting a friend? He shrugged- let Spectre call it what he wanted. Yusaku would rather take a thousand scars than let someone he cared about suffer. And they would do the same- and someday, somehow, they’d reach a world where no one had to be wounded at all.

“Honestly,” Spectre said with a shake of his head, a brush of his hair, “I don’t understand how I ended up fighting alongside reckless fools like you.”

Yusaku resisted the urge to point out that Ryoken had done his share of reckless things, too- plenty of them, he realized with sudden dissonance, Spectre hadn’t been around to witness. He said instead, lighter- “Too bad. You’re stuck with us.”

“As I’m well aware,” Spectre replied, and finally did the mock severity he was holding his expression to crumble. “You really aren’t hurt?”

Yusaku shook his head, and Spectre let out a breath. “Then good.”

Meanwhile, Ai looked between them. “Hey, Playmaker… Did you do something while I was out one time? Is there something going on I should know about? Because-“

“Absolutely nothing,” Yusaku replied. Ai regarded him with blatant skepticism; Yusaku returned it blankly. Ai turned to Spectre, and Yusaku shot him a look behind Ai’s back. What he’d done to come to his own conclusions were meant for them, and them alone.

“Absolutely nothing,” Spectre echoed with a tone that implied the mere thought was nonsense. Ai swung his head between them wildly, clearly unconvinced, but eventually shrugged when neither of them cracked.

It was the truth.

(And yet, as Spectre stepped away with a mutter of ‘foolish,’  Yusaku knew he only half-meant, why-)

“Anyway,” said Ai, “at least that trap wasn’t strong enough to damage anything, this time.”

Yusaku frowned down at Ai- he’d felt that trap rip gaps into his back. He reached a hand around to his back, glanced over his shoulder in vain- there were no signs of what he’d felt. “You didn’t fix it?”

“Noooo?” said Ai, squinting up at Yusaku as if he was about to ask if he’d damaged his memory data in the blast, too- “I didn’t do anything. I was kinda busy trying to make sure that shockwave didn’t delete me. It was just the normal recovery program.”

Yusaku supposed it must have been- and then a petal floated before his eyes, pink that faded to a pale, gentle white around its edges. Quickly he looked upwards, towards the tree that had lingered far after the rest of the battlefield had disappeared back down into card data- then down at Spectre, staring up into her branches and holding a hand out to collect falling blossoms.

And Yusaku didn’t know- Spectre’s cards weren’t Cyberse, certainly- but…

“Thank you,” he said quietly, without giving himself the time to feel foolish. Not a moment later did the tree disappear in flecks of gold. There came no response, no emotions washing over him that weren’t his own. But he stepped up to Spectre’s side, watching the last of the petals disappear from his hand-

And on a road of fading sparks, they pressed on.

In the future, there was a small opportunity for rest- or, to put it at its most truthful: a demand that they both collapse a while from the strain they’d fought off finally catching up with them.

“How long have we been logged in for?” Spectre asked. An avatar could take damage, but wouldn’t show usual signs of fatigue unless they were programmed to look tired from the start. Still, Spectre seemed exhausted. Yusaku couldn't imagine the mental strain of forcibly being parted from one’s body, let alone adding that to the weariness from fighting the wind that hindered them just as often as it chased their backs in this crumbling world.

“It’s better if you don’t ask,” Yusaku replied, thinking of the clock and all the time he’d spent fighting off fatigue he hadn’t realized he’d felt in the first place. One in particular was fondest in his mind, recent and comfortable.

He never did find out if Spectre had fallen off his chair or not. Probably the latter, if Yusaku had to take a guess. He didn’t seem the type to move around in his sleep, much.

“Let’s rest here for a little bit. Mental strain is still strain. There’s no point if we don’t wake up when we log out,” Yusaku said. Spectre seemed to want to argue with him- but he blinked, and it was clear that logic had won out. They’d get nowhere if they continued to run themselves ragged like this.

They’d stopped beside what must have been one of the shops closer to the central plaza, reduced now into indistinct rubble. The area wasn’t exactly covered, but it would have to do. If they had no way to run when they were cornered, a hiding place would be nothing but a trap that would get them killed like rats in a cage. If he never felt that way again, Yusaku thought, it would be too soon.

But Yusaku found them an overhang, a place where a few large chunks of data from what must have been a wall had fallen to make a small, sheltered crevice, covered but wide enough to make a quick escape if necessary. He tilted his head towards it, searching for Spectre’s approval; Spectre nodded and began towards it.

Together they sat beneath the makeshift overhang and watched as the sea raged on, monsters trying to claw their way from its rapids, dragged back down to its depths by the grip of the current. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, but it was all they had.

Or, Yusaku thought, turning towards Spectre, no. There was one other direction to look. “Are you really okay?”

“I am. Why the sudden concern?” Spectre didn’t seem surprised at his question, exactly, but it was clear that wasn’t what he had expected. If pride being thrown in his face had hurt, then Yusaku figured that the reverse might have been true. But if it wasn’t, he thought, then good.

“Just wanted to make sure,” he said. A pause, then- “And thanks for waiting around for me.”

Spectre glanced over at him, minor offense written clear across the quirk of his brow and tiny frown. “I wouldn’t have abandoned you.”

“You could have. I wouldn’t have been mad,” Yusaku said, thinking about Spectre’s comment from before. To Yusaku, Spectre had become a place to belong same as anyone else.

But Spectre, perhaps, didn’t attach quite such lofty words to it. Not love, not home, not belonging. But friendship was still more than he could have thought possible, so many months ago. He wasn’t going to try and quantify it, not when he’d tried once before and come up still without answers- just fondness that only grew stronger with each day that passed.

“Surely you don’t think I would have left you there alone?” Spectre asked, and Yusaku lifted his duel disk, where Ai was hiding as he repaired the rest of his programs.

“I wasn’t alone.”

Spectre made a pinched sort of face that meant he was likely about to say that Ai didn’t properly qualify as a person, but held it back at the last moment. “Believe me. If I’m stuck with you now, I have no intentions of leaving you behind.”

Their times may have started ticking forwards at different points, but it seems they’d now aligned- steps in time, second hands no longer advancing on opposite counts. “Thanks.”

“You hardly have to thank me,” Spectre said, “it’s only common courtesy.”

But Yusaku wondered about that. If this had happened six months ago, he got the feeling Spectre would have left him well and far behind. He wouldn’t overestimate his own importance, not knowing what he knew now.

“Hey,” he said, changing the topic with a questionable attempt at sounding casual, “did you ever talk to Revolver about-“

“No,” Spectre replied, no longer returning his gaze.r Instead he stared firmly over at some point in the distant sea. If he tried, Yusaku wondered if he could find the same one, like counting stars in the night sky.

“Do you ever talk about any of it?” Yusaku asked. In the occasions it was possible, he’d never lied about it. He’d never skirted around the truth because he felt he had to- whether for responsibility, for hesitation, for guilt. Not that he was particularly familiar with that last one.

“Rarely. He isn’t as cold-hearted as he tries to make himself, but that means it’s hard for him to face what lengths he led us to. I know that better than anyone.” Spectre glanced over at him a fleeting moment, then, to the sea- “And perhaps you know that, too.”

Yusaku let out a breath- of course he did. Ryoken had chased atonement for a crime that was never his, taken up a burden that would have better been left to the ones who had never so much as lifted a finger to avert a tragedy. And in doing it all, he’d chased his mistakes until they’d all but ruined him.

He’d hurt people. He’d left his praises for the dead. He’d planned to repay their loyalty with a death for a death, an escape from the villain his crimes would make him. Not all of it would be forgivable, to the ones who’d been hurt.

But he wasn’t the kind of person who couldn’t be saved.

Not to them, at least.

“If the Lost Incident never happened,” he asked, “What do you think you would’ve done?”

Spectre glared at him; for the first time in quite a while Yusaku immediately regretted saying what was on his mind. “This is a very heavy topic at a very inconvenient time.”

Yusaku shrugged and immediately regretted the way it pulled at his shoulders, an ache that was more mental than physical but not quite possible to cast so easily away. “I know. But I think about it, sometimes.”

Spectre sighed. He stared out nothing, shoulders hunched forwards as he rested his arms on his legs, and admitted, “Nothing good, I imagine. I’d already had it set in my mind that I couldn’t interact with my peers. By all accounts, I would have ended up as you did.”

It wasn’t meant as an insult, but still- “Spectre.”

“Sorry. It was the easiest example. I don’t think about it often. Some things aren’t worth dwelling on.”

He knew.

He wouldn’t ask any more- about this, he’d heard enough.

For a long while they stayed silent, listening to the distant crashing of waves and the faraway howls of beasts that couldn’t quite manage to win their struggle for existence.

“You know,” Ai said, breaking the silence with a tone too oddly contemplative to possibly be coming from Ai, “You’re talking about a world where I wouldn’t exist.”

“And wouldn’t that have been better for all of us,” Spectre replied dryly.

Ai rose up to eye him with a probing expression Yusaku was glad he mostly couldn’t see. “You know, when you meet your Ignis, you’ve gotta promise not to delete them. Those are my friends, you know. My missing friends! But still my friends.”

“If they’re as infernally annoying as you are, then I make no promises,” Spectre replied, leaning down to leer at Ai. But it wasn’t serious. Yusaku could tell.

“Since they’re coming from you, I think we should be worried.” And so, apparently, could Ai. Come to think of it, Yusaku thought, reminiscing back on when Ai’s comments towards Spectre had started, he might have learned how to tell much faster than Yusaku himself had.

Spectre huffed, then darted out a hand and flicked Ai on the head. For a few shocked seconds Ai stared at him, and Yusaku did too, unsure of what exactly had just happened- and then Ai began to yell, eyes watering in what was probably mock offense. Probably. As far as Yusaku was concerned, Ai deserved what he got for that one.

“We should keep going,” Spectre said above Ai’s protests, glancing around their cover at the distant sound of whipping winds- not a data storm, at least not in the form they knew. These winds were the herald of nothing good, nothing living. He continued after a short pause, “When you feel like you can move on.”

Yusaku pushed himself back to his feet, thinking that it was probably still Spectre who needed rest the most. But drive bit at them both, demanding their progress. “I’m fine. But I have one more question.”

“Yes?” Spectre said the word not quite with dread, not quite with irritation. Certainly not anticipation. Instead it was that particular brand of indulgent exasperation he’d grown to show for Yusaku and his inconvenient questions.

“Do you play piano? Or violin? Or any instrument, really.”

Spectre blinked up at him. “No. Why?”

Yusaku shrugged. “No reason. You just seem like the kind of person who should.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” A little bit of bewilderment, written in the way Spectre puffed up defensive as he stood, trying to put himself on level ground. Yusaku had forgotten just how much space Spectre took up in this world. He relished in it.

Yusaku shrugged again. The meaning of a meaningless question was that he’d guessed and been wrong, mostly. But also that he still wanted to know more about Spectre. What he said instead of explanation was- “Nothing bad.”

“Reassuring,” Spectre again said dryly- but this time with a touch of humor that had Yusaku just short of a chuckle. He inclined his head back towards the shoreline, letting Spectre take the first step, and off they went, searching for a way across the sea they couldn’t swim.

It took them time, in the world where the storm winds refused to blow, but eventually they came across a bridge where the sea was narrow and calm, where not even the dying beasts dared tread.

It wasn’t the same bridge, of course- SOL hadn’t reconstructed that one, after it had crumbled- but it was reminiscent. Neither of them dared make so much as a mention of it, instead gazes fixed firmly on the figure waving at them from the other side. She was small in their sights but unmistakable; Yusaku and Spectre dashed across the bridge towards her, fear and relief crashing over them in turns. She shouldn’t have been alone.

Yusaku called, the moment they stepped off the bridge- “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Aoi replied, clutching an arm that would be cut down to the bone in the real world. There were cuts on her cheeks healing slowly, burning with a red energy. But despite the grimace on her face, she stood steady on her feet. “I’m more worried about-“

“Revolver.” A name breathed out like the start and end of a world.

Spectre went to him quickly as he could manage, climbing over the virtual rubble of what must have been some sort of monument with a haste almost careless, all instinct with little regard for his usual manner. A single look was enough to know why- was enough to want to make Yusaku do the same.

“Oh, that looks bad,” said Ai, to which Yusaku slapped a hand over his duel disk to muffle the sound, ignoring Ai’s soft protests.

“Not the time.” He was no stranger to seeing Ryoken without an arm, but this was something more akin to without limbs.

“He protected me,” Aoi said, worrying her lip a moment before continuing, “and I’m not sure why. But I got the sense he thought he owed me for something.”

But Yusaku hardly heard. His sights were set on Ryoken, on Spectre, on what must have been desperate words and uneasy reassurances, unsure in which direction to fly.

It was difficult to watch. Yusaku forced himself to turn his head away. He’d never relished in the pain of others. To dwell on it now would snap something in him that had just settled after a decade of turbulent unease. He wasn’t able to hear what the two of them said to each other, as he and Aoi stood as makeshift guards against enemies that might try to creep out of the broken bits of data- and for once, though he wanted to, he knew it was for the better he couldn’t. It was a moment he didn’t belong in.

“You know,” Aoi said, not quite whispering but not quite conversational, either- “I heard the full story. The other side of it.”

“He told you?” Yusaku couldn’t quite hide his surprise- even tired, even battered, Ryoken hardly seemed the type to spill something that personal to someone still only an acquaintance.

“Probably not all of it,” Aoi amended, “but enough of it. About why he thought all of that was necessary. His father, and the way humanity would war with the Ignises.”

More than Yusaku would have expected Ryoken to tell. It wasn’t an unpleasant realization. “What did you tell him?”

Aoi’s pace was slightly too brisk when she answered- “That he was chasing a self-fulfilling prophecy and that his father could have been a much better person, from what I understand.”

“That’s very blunt,” Yusaku said, because it was the nicest of his options.

“I’m very tired,” Aoi countered, and there was nothing Yusaku could say to deny that. They all were. Yusaku let out a breath and thought that it still wasn’t over for them- not yet, not until they’d logged out. And even then, not until they’d found their enemies and ensured they couldn’t steal away someone’s life again.

He- they- wouldn’t allow it.

“But I think,” Aoi continued, looking not at him, and not back at Spectre and Ryoken, but rather down at her hands, turning them over as if she was only just now recognizing them as her own, “That I understand him, just a little bit.”

And how strange, Yusaku thought, that this was the way they’d been brought together. Two people who could have gone all their lives without meeting- better suited, perhaps, to being enemies on a battlefield- here like this, now.

Then again, Yusaku amended, he couldn’t say it was so unusual.

“Good,” Yusaku said, and meant it. But there was no time left to dwell- breaking through the stormy skies up above, clogged with debris like ash, came a cluster of spheres floating down. Yusaku didn’t recognize them, but there was little time to be picky.

“These programs…” Aoi said, letting the small orbs float down into her upturned palms.

“Logout programs! We’re saved!” Ai said, wiping fake tears from his eyes. Yusaku reached his hands out for the other two, and they rested warm bits of light easy in his palms. Different than the touch of a human, but Yusaku supposed there wasn’t a substitute for that, not even here. The two of them turned back towards Ryoken and Spectre, huddled together in the rubble as Ryoken’s avatar slowly stitched itself back together.

It likely wouldn’t be safe to log out like that- Yusaku glanced down at Ai, who shook his head at full speed. “Nope! No way. Spreading the program we made is one thing, but-“

“Ai,” Yusaku interrupted, “we need to get out of here as soon as possible. Unless you want to get attacked again?”

“You’re strong,” Ai said, “even if we find some enemies you can just show them-“

“Ai,” Yusaku interrupted again, “Go make friends.”

Ai let out a terrible, strangled noise followed by something that didn’t seem to register as any sort of language at all, then ducked his head down into Yusaku’s duel disk with a childishly snapped out- “Fine! But you owe me for this one, Playmaker.”

Fine, Yusaku echoed as Ai reappeared hesitantly in Ryoken’s duel disk, exchanging some nervous words with them before he kicked the regeneration programs into high gear. That would be a price Yusaku was more than willing to pay.

Whatever Ai did, it didn’t take long- he reappeared in Yusaku’s duel disk not a half a minute later, Ryoken’s limbs regenerating fast as a monster summon. It gave them just enough time to cross the distance between them, Aoi just a step ahead. She didn’t hesitate a moment when she reached down to Spectre, holding out the two orbs that pulsed between them in quiet blue. They exchanged a long look, a conversation without words whose contents Yusaku, even for all his eavesdropping, couldn’t hope to understand. But he was sure of one thing- what passed between them then couldn’t possibly have been bad.

And then Spectre took the programs from her in gentle hands, handing one off to Ryoken before crushing the second himself- and then they were gone, vanished cleanly back to reality.

Yusaku and Aoi watched the empty space a moment, making sure that no sort of error had occurred- neither of them would leave someone here alone, after all- but when everything seemed normal, they turned towards each other.

Yusaku handed one of the programs off to Aoi, these in glowing red. “Good job, today. And thank you.”

Aoi flashed him a complicated expression that leveled out into something like a wistful smile. “Like I said before. It’s more literal than I meant it, but… I’m glad I came to help.”

They exchanged a brief glance in that last moment, knowing this was likely the last they’d see of each other for at least the next day or so as they rested and salvaged what they could from this fading world- and then they crushed the programs beneath their fingers and logged out.

Yusaku blinked back to reality half-slumped over the lounge chair in an awkward position that he already regretted, feeling the ways it aggravated the flashback and phantom pains still running up his spine. He straightened up, picking himself up from the ground as Ryoken pushed himself up off the lounge chair, eyes set on something- on someone. Yusaku turned to glance over his shoulder, already knowing what he’d see but pleased to see it all the same.

It was unspeakably good to see Spectre standing again- not in LINK VRAINS, but here in the real world. He took up a little less space, seemed a little more tired than he had before, but the way Yusaku felt his remaining tension drain away from him as Spectre nodded at them was real.

Ryoken crossed the floor to Spectre in quick, long strides before stopping just short, hands hovering. He seemed unsure of what to say, of what he was allowed to do- Yusaku had seen that once before, written across Spectre’s face, and wondered which one of them had picked it up from the other.

Yusaku picked himself up from the floor slowly, determined to shove one of them if that was what it came to. At the motion Spectre’s gaze flashed towards him; Yusaku inclined his head towards Ryoken. But before either of them could make a move, Ryoken broke the gentle silence.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Ryoken said, words leaving him in a rush.

Spectre turned a small smile on him and said, “I’m glad you saved me.”

A little pain ran through Yusaku then- just a tiny thing, a twinge of a world that hadn’t been. He was glad for all of it- the fight and the food and the conversations and even the petty little things he’d grown so accustomed to over the course of just a single semester.

He was glad they’d saved him.

He was glad for Spectre.

“I have something,” Spectre said, “long overdue to tell you.”

But he didn’t quite get the chance to say it. Just as he finished his sentence the parlor door opened and three others tumbled in. The relief written across their faces was obvious as Yusaku’s own must have been. They didn’t quite make a clamor, but certainly did the room grow noisier, too many people trying to speak different words with the same meaning all at once.

It wasn’t a piano, and it wasn’t a party, but it was life. Time, dancing forwards in joy and relief across a backing of patchwork stained glass.

This too wasn’t a moment meant for him to intrude on. Yusaku excused himself quietly, slipping out on unsteady legs towards the front door. Family, friends, a place to belong- it didn’t matter if they were things deserved or not. It just mattered that one day they were found.

Yusaku pushed his way out the front door, headed for home on a walk too reminiscent of one he’d taken months before bathed under the starlight alone, coming to terms slowly with the faint idea of the rest of his life.

Today, he wandered down the long slope towards the sea beneath the warmth of the summer sun just beginning to cast his shadow thin and short in the early afternoon, and thought quietly about what he’d have to do tomorrow.

“Hey, looks like things turned out okay after all, huh?” Aoi chirped up at him- a reminder that this time, he wasn’t taking the walk alone.

He lifted his arm, glanced down at Ai, and said, simply- “Yeah.”

He wouldn’t see Spectre again for a few days- chaos had the courtesy to erupt on a Saturday afternoon, and they spent all Sunday sleeping off the strain and the flashbacks. Spectre disappearing without a word all of Monday was practically expected, with the state they found Ryoken in. Tuesday, too, Yusaku could write off with a message left unread and unreplied to.

By the time Wednesday morning rolled around, Yusaku had to give in to the uneasy feeling in his gut and admit that something wasn’t right.

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” Aoi asked him over lunch, sitting outside of Cafe Nagi and taking a rare few hours off from searching again for the traces of the vanished castle. He went to shake his head instinctively, but Aoi waved a fry at him. “No, don’t deny it. That might work on someone else, but not me. You’ve been weirdly attached to him from the start.”

He had been. He still was- now even more so, strongly enough that he had no plans on letting go. The first time he met Spectre, he couldn’t have imagined that things would turn out like this. Now, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You’re not that hostile towards him anymore, either,” Yusaku said, to which Aoi crossed her arms in an echo of her defensive posture when she’d still been set on keeping secrets. This time it was lessened, somewhat, by the fact she was still holding the fry.

“I tolerate him.”

“And steal his physics notes.”

“As far as I’m concerned, he still owes me for what he said. Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you get him to do it?” Aoi asked, leaning forwards and setting the fry back down to pick up her drink, instead. Yusaku tilted his head in silent question. “Apologize to me, I mean. And genuinely, at that. Not the overly-polite condescension thing he usually does.”

Yusaku shrugged. “I just told him the truth. Put it in words he could understand. He’s not exactly great at that whole empathy thing.”

“That’s an understatement,” Aoi replied, setting down her drink with a clink slightly more aggressive than it perhaps had to be.

“He’s been getting better. We all have.”

“I know. It’s just…” Aoi trailed off a moment, and Yusaku waited for her to collect her words. She sighed. “Sometimes, when I think about the things I realized because of that? About how I tried to rush in all by myself, and then caught my brother up in something he shouldn’t have been? Sometimes I start thinking that it was fine that I lost, if it means that I could make it here. And sometimes I realize I’m not as angry as I used to be. And I just… I don’t ever want to be grateful for how he treated me back then. Just because I learned from it doesn’t mean it hurt me any less.”

Yusaku still wasn’t a model for perfect forgiveness. If he had to do it all again, he knew full well that he’d chase revenge with the same passion that had driven him blindly forwards the first time. That he could so easily forget just how many innocent people Ryoken and Spectre had caught up in Kogami’s plans and yet still hold wariness towards the Knights that had wronged him personally only proved that.

And their enemies now- the boy and the assailant and whoever it was backing them- they’d pay for hurting Spectre.

If he was kind as Spectre seemed to think, Yusaku thought, it certainly wasn’t unconditional.

“I know what you mean,” he said, and meant it entirely. Aoi huffed but flashed him a small grin, the two of them commiserating a moment before they set the conversation back on track.

“I don’t care, so I wasn’t going to ask, but it seems kind of timely, so-”

“No,” said Yusaku, “the answer is no.”

Aoi blinked at him, reading something into his expression that even he himself wasn’t aware of. Then she shrugged, and the moment was gone. “Okay. I guess that answers that. But you should still go if you’re worried. That’s what friends do, right?”

So Yusaku went to the manor by the sea. He walked his way over after lunch, leaving Kusanagi and a quiet but alert Jin together in the lull of the late afternoon crowds with a promise to be back to help out and keep Jin company before the dinner rush.

It took him a while to work his way over, gave him time to think on things. To wonder if anything had changed, from the time he’d quietly excused himself in the parlor until now.

(To wonder why he felt slightly melancholy at the thought that something must have.)

Yusaku rang the doorbell, this time, assuming that they’d still be in, and figuring he could sit on the step if they were out. He shuffled for a few awkward seconds as he waited, unsure if the lack of response from the intercom meant that no one was in or simply meant they were closer to the door then the intercom panels- but his worries abated at the sound of the lock clicking.

Spectre was the one that opened the door. He looked better than he had after waking up, much less disheveled and much more alert- the way Yusaku liked to see him.

He realized, abruptly, that he hadn’t decided what he was going to say- he’d spent the entire trip over worrying about things that seemed irrelevant, in retrospect. In a rare moment, his words deserted him entirely. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say- but that he couldn’t think of anything at all.

“Hello,” Spectre said quite simply.

“Hello,” Yusaku returned, still unable to think of anything more, unable to give the reason for his visit that Spectre was so clearly waiting for. Then, spilling out of him before he could collect himself enough for anything else- “How is Ryoken?”

“He’s fine. Still has a fever, but-“

“I’m fine,” called out a passing Ryoken, waving at Yusaku from over Spectre’s shoulder. Spectre turned, and though Yusaku couldn’t see his expression, he knew it was a chiding little frown.

“Please go back to resting.”

“I have a fever. I’m not dying.” Ryoken protested, but let Spectre shuffle him off somewhere unseen all the same.

Spectre called a brief apology over his shoulder as the two of them disappeared around the corner, leaving Yusaku waiting at the door. Today probably wasn’t the day to invite himself in. But still, before Spectre had so much as made his way back to the door, his phone lit up with a text notification.

From Ryoken, written out in plain words- I thought about it. Let’s talk sometime.

Yusaku let out a long breath and returned- When?

I don’t know. In a few days. Once Spectre deems me appropriate for human interaction.

Yusaku could practically feel Ryoken rolling his eyes through the phone screen. Unconsciously, he smiled down at it as he typed back- Okay. Let me know.

I will.

When he glanced back up, Spectre was again standing before him. He seemed to think he’d surprised Yusaku from the way he shoved his phone back into his pocket after he sent his reply; Yusaku let him think that. He’d gotten used to Spectre's quiet comings and goings a long time ago. Spectre’s presence was too familiar to surprise him anymore.

Spectre was fine, and clearly Ryoken was too; there was no need for Yusaku to stand in their open door and fret. But he couldn’t quite leave, not yet. He wasn’t sure which one of their conversations he was picking up, what thread was tugging at him now- but it didn’t matter. It simply had to be said, and that was all.

“I’m glad,” Yusaku confessed, “that you came down to Cafe Nagi that day.”

Spectre lifted an eyebrow. “The first time, I presume?”

“All the times.”

Spectre sighed. “As am I. Did you know you’re the first friend I’ve ever made outside of Hanoi?”

“I could have guessed,” Yusaku said, not quite teasingly but not quite seriously, either.

“You’re insufferable,” Spectre replied, glaring at him with no bite.

“So are you. That must be why we manage to get along.”

“Perhaps you’re onto something there.”

Yusaku surprised himself with something that was almost a laugh- no, he thought, unable to stifle the sound. It was laughter. Just a quick burst of it, a last little bit of incredulity that they’d come so far. A good thing. A new flow of time.

Beside him, Spectre chuckled. When Yusaku looked up at him he was smiling, and Yusaku’s heart did something a little strange at the sight, a half-flutter that he couldn’t dare to quite call a skip-

And standing there in the future, Yusaku thought:

Perhaps it wasn’t an emotion too early to call ‘love’. Perhaps Yusaku had been fooling himself for a while, now, not knowing the boundary of one feeling and another. But it wasn’t like the drive of his old revenge. It didn’t demand to be acted on, nor reciprocated. It simply was, something warm in his chest and hopeful in his mind and softly disappointed in the hollows of his heart that the realization hadn’t come a few months earlier.

He’d always been wary of bonds- always passed them over when they were offered, always felt unsure what to call his relationship with anyone who didn’t label it for themselves first. And yet, with Spectre now twice-

He was a little too late to reach out for this one in the way a part of him longed to, but that didn’t change anything they had. Not a single thing they still would.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?”

The invitation surprised him, startled him out of his thoughts; Yusaku blinked at Spectre a moment before shaking his head. “Sorry, I can’t. I promised to help Kusanagi and Jin out with the dinner crowd.” A pause, then, not quite an afterthought- “Kusanagi is missing you at the shop, you know.”

Spectre flashed him a look not-quite guilty.

“Apologies. I’ve been a bit occupied lately.” He actually seemed genuine, which hadn’t been what Yusaku was going for at all. He had enough to worry about without Yusaku adding more to the pile.

“Spectre. It’s fine. Just come around when you have some time, got it?” Yusaku made gentle eye contact, trying to convey that it wasn’t urgent. Spectre’s look was soft in return, his nod slow but contemplative.

“If you stop here for an afternoon, then I think we could come down for a while,” Spectre replied, and to Yusaku, that sounded like the start of a promise.

“I’ll make sure we do.”

Yusaku took a step back from the door, then said with a small smile he couldn’t quite stop- that he didn’t want to stop- “See you tomorrow?”

Spectre regarded him a long moment, his gaze searching but not scrutinizing, then returned that smile with a hint of something like realization flitting through his eyes.

An invitation. A promise. The desire to see someone again, a reassurance that they would. Something that they’d never done before.

And Spectre, finally, returned- “See you tomorrow.”