Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter one: The midnight dancer

"- 2 weeks after Playmaker’s spectacular victory against the knights of Hanoi-"

Serena heard the voice from the TV say, as her dream started to drift out of her mind. She could feel a mild buzzing in her head and a sickening feeling in her stomach. She opened her eyes carefully, so she wouldn't be overwhelmed by the bright light of the TV in front of her.

She was lying on the small sofa in the living room of her and Yuri's Apartment. Everything was, as always, neatly organized, mostly on the insistence of her significant other. Every item had its proper place and, on the floor, she could not find a speck of dust.

On her left she could see a possible reason for her buzzing head. There was a half empty bottle of vodka lying on the floor and a glass on the table next to the sofa.

Merely looking at the bottle made her stomach protest, so she decided to try to get a look outside the apartment window from her position on the sofa.

The window was lined by three exotic looking plants each wilder and more colorful than the last. Judging by the soft rays of light coming through the window, she would say it was very early morning.

She took a deep breath and the pain in her head started to slow down, but then another loud noise, from the TV, brought it back in full force.

"SOL technology has shut down the network and it has yet to be announced-"

After the sharp sting of pain past, she made it her mission to find the TV Remote, but after a moment of searching the sofa she couldn't find it. She resigned herself to laying on the sofa with the TV on, as standing up now would surely be worse.

She then tried to remember why she felt like drinking way too much Last night in the first place.

Stupid Yuri.

It came back to her all at once. They had a fight again. The very same fight in fact they had for a long time. He had slipped out of the house in the middle of the night and came back with bloody knuckles a few hours later.

"You need to stop this. It's been years, you won't find anything" she didn't know what else to say anymore it felt like she used every argument there was.

"But I am so close. I can feel it." he said in deep thought, like he was completing a puzzle in his head, like he needed to only reach a little further and it would all snap into place somehow.

"You have been close for almost 10 years now." she said trying to stay calm, getting angry would get her nowhere, she knew.

He snapped out of his thoughts, now looking at her. He just stared at her for a moment surely thinking of a clever and sarcastic comeback like he always does.

"You have just given up." he muttered, almost too quiet to hear. Tears wear forming in his eyes, even if he did the best to hide it.

"You have given up!" he cried loudly, "If you would only help me!"

He was fighting tears hard now and it looked like he was losing.

She was taken completely by surprise. She could feel his sadness, how deep his scars went. She had all felt it too. Still feels it in fact.

But she also felt anger rising in her. How could he think that she would just forget? Forget all that pain?

"Yuri you won't find anything, we have been looking for years! You need to deal with your anger in a better way than letting it out every night by dueling and then beating up some criminal you think knows something!" She could not keep her voice down anymore either and tears where started to form in her eyes as well.

He stared at her for a moment his face going through emotions so fast she could not name them all.

Anger.

Surprise.

Doubt maybe?

Then he stormed off without another word.

She heard the door of the apartment slam shut behind her. She stood there for another moment in silence to regain her composure and then she started to drink.

And that is why She was currently lying on the sofa with her head threatening to explode.

They had this dance before and in one or two-days he would come back home and bring her the most wonderful flowers.

His pride would only allow a small apology to come along with it, but she could feel how much he suffered from disappointing her.

She could never be mad at him for too long, after all there was a time when she went out and did the same thing every night to try to find answers. But after last night she knew deep down they couldn't go on like this and that both of them really needed help.

She really does love him despite everything. She loves him when he is making the funniest sarcastic remarks about the other Yu-boy, she loves him when he criticized her and drove her to be a better duelist, she loves him when he fought with everything in his academia programming to do the right thing, later making up some excuse as to why it was all his plan and she especially loved him when she is lying awake at night and he is awake right beside her.

Him being the only one who could understand her and her being the only one who could understand him.

Her thoughts drifted further to Yuri, as another loud noise brought her back to reality.

"-and here we see the final duel between the infamous leader of the Hanoi Revolver and Playmaker the hero of the VRAINS."

Serene looked at the TV with passing interest. She hadn't really kept track of the innovations in dueling being made in places other than Miami city. Much preferring the classic form of dueling that her Lancer friends in Maiami City and most in the other dimensions still used.

She, like many of the lancers, was also suspicious of this new VR Network being run by SOL tech. What was it called again? LINK VRAINS?

Currently the man in the white jumpsuit was having his turn and his moves were quite impressive from what Serena could tell. He completed something called an "extra link" (what was that all about?) effortlessly and his Monsters were facing his opponent.

She examined this "Revolver" more closely. According to the program he was the one causing trouble for the network, so his victory would probably mean something undesirable.

He was standing tall, confident in his victory. She was reminded of the academia soldiers during her youth. They caused mayhem, not looking at its cost, and thinking they were never going to lose. She and Yuri where like that too once, she supposed.

Her thoughts would have drifted again to her youth and her road out of Academia's doctrine, but fate had other plans.

The camera panned over to Revolver's opponent, who was now taking a knee, having just barely survived a brutal attack.

She recognized him instantly.

Everything around her stopped.

All the pain in her head and stomach didn't matter anymore, as she jumped up from the sofa. Sure, his hair was different and he was wearing a black and green bodysuit, but as she looked into that bruised face with green eyes, she knew and tears rolled down her cheeks.

Chapter Text

Chapter two: The dreamless sleeper

“Master, by my calculations it is time for you to wake up and prepare for your classes.”

The high-pitched voice of Roboppy, Yusaku’s maid robot, advised. Yusaku opened his eyes, after a long and dreamless sleep. He got out of bed and changed into his school uniform.

Yusaku’s flat was almost completely empty, only his bed, computer desk, and a single cupboard filled the large empty space of the room. There also was a large window opposite of the bed overlooking the busy streets and other buildings of Den City. On the window ledge was a single flower blooming in Violet, however signs of neglect were showing and some of its blossoms had turned the same muted color as the rest of the room.

After putting on his school uniform, he stood for a moment in silence. In the back of his head he could feel a strange feeling, like he had forgotten something important. He took a deep breath and tried to think of the three things he needed to do before leaving the house like every morning.

First: He needed to go to the bath room to clean his teeth and wash his face.

Second: He needed to eat breakfast.

Third: He needed to boot up the computer and check for any activity from the knights of Hanoi.

He needed to follow the three steps and he would be fine, he knew.

So, he pushed the feeling to the back of his mind and headed for the bath room. Inside of the small room he leaned over the sink and splashed water in his face. Then he got his toothbrush and started to clean his teeth. This gave him time to once again ponder that strange feeling.

Was he getting sick?

His thoughts were cut short by the squeaky voice of Roboppy coming through the door.

“Master, by my calculations you need to double the current speed of your morning preparations in order to reach school in time.”

This surprised Yusaku. He was never late for school and come to think of it Roboppy never needed to wake him before.

He quickly finished cleaning his teeth and then made his way to the kitchen. The kitchen was also small and lacking anything needed to make proper meals, mainly because Yusaku always eats at Kusanagi’s. Almost without looking he made himself a bowl of cereals and sat down at the kitchen table.

While eating Yusaku noticed a few unopened boxes in the corner of the kitchen. They were still from when he first moved in and he had yet to unpack them. Normally Yusaku like to keep things clean in his flat and what few things there where had their proper place, but after a time the boxes just started to blend into the environment and he had never bothered unpacking them.

The amount of strange things this morning was starting to make him uneasy, but he kept to his plan.

With breakfast behind him he made his way to the last step, his computer. He moved to push the button to turn the computer on, when something suddenly made him stop.

He didn’t know if it was a deliberate choice to stop or if he acted on impulse, but he was still standing in front of his computer, not having activated it.

It was as if something in his mind objected to this step of his plan. Was there something he hadn’t thought of? No, this was definitely the third step. It had to be done, but why again?

The question over took his mind and he decided it would be best to leave now, so he grabbed his bag and moved to the front door of his flat, but when he put his hand on the door handle different thoughts kicked in.

He was leaving out something important. He needed to check his computer for Hanoi activity.

He took one step back, towards his computer, standing in the middle of the room in silence and then he turned around again and left his flat.

On his way to school his thoughts were running circles in his head. He couldn’t shake that strange feeling and he had no idea why. Normally Yusaku’s every day routine, Playmaker business excluded, was uneventful and he went through it without much thought, why was today so different?

He tried to order his thoughts and come up with three reasons why, but when he couldn’t find any, he settled for three things that went wrong this morning instead, so he could hopefully find some solutions.

First: He slept too long and didn’t wake up on his own.

Second: He noticed the boxes in the corner, despite not caring for them before.

Third: He, for some reason, didn’t feel like looking up Hanoi activity.

The three had to be connected, but how?

He made it to school just in time for the bell to call him to his first class, computer sciences. He waited for all the other students to make their way inside before entering and finding himself a place in the very back of the class, as the teacher started to speak.

“Today we will talk about how innovations from the other dimensions allowed SOL technology to rework the old Kaiba corporation VR system into the modern day- “

He knew his teacher had nothing to teach him in any computer related classes, since he hacked into large secretive corporations on a regular basis and helped Kusanagi develop the tools needed to stop the knights of Hanoi. He could get away with not paying attention and still ace every exam.

This would normally be the moment he would fall asleep, because his sleep that night was cut short by nightmares, but he didn’t feel like that today.

And then it dawned on him. The reason he felt off this morning. He had no nightmares that night, quite the opposite he slept through the night without interruption. He could not remember a single other night he had slept peacefully. He would usually have a nightmare about the lost incident and wake up drenched in sweat, or in better nights he would just be unable to stay asleep and wake up every few hours.

But why could he sleep last night?

Realization came to him for the second time that day and he felt stupid for not noticing sooner.

He defeated the knights of Hanoi.

For the first time in two weeks the full extent of it hit Yusaku, for 10 years he wanted nothing more than vengeance. He went from a scared little boy to an emissary of revenge, who defeated his enemy’s countless times and brought justice to all those responsible.

Now there were no knights of Hanoi and Dr. Kogami was dead. All his victims and their families could live knowing that the ones responsible payed.

His revenge was over, but what did that make him?

The question rang in his head as the bell signified the end of the lesson. He could not even begin to understand it.

Like most days, after school, he helped Kusanagi at the hot dog truck. He would usually spend a few hours there working and then a few more looking at his tablet or having the odd talk with Kusanagi. He wasn’t an official employee and Kusanagi couldn’t pay him much, but it had just slipped in as another part of his day that he was not uncomfortable with.

As he was making hot dogs his thoughts once again wandered.

All this time he was only focused on getting revenge and stopping the Hanoi. He always thought everything would fall into place after he was done, or maybe he didn’t think about it at all.

“Is everything ok?” Kusanagi asked with a worried look on his face.

Yusaku looked up from the hot dogs he had been turning for a few minutes without paying attention. Some of them had burned black spots on them.

“Everything is fine, Kusanagi-san” Yusaku answered, as he tried to quickly get some of the hot dogs off the grill.

Kusanagi frowned, obviously not believing him, but he decided not to push it any further.

After a moment Kusanagi started to look into the distance absent mindedly.

“I have gone to visit Jin in the hospital yesterday. He is getting better every time I visit now. This time he even said hello to me after the doctor left the room. For most of the visit he had a bit of a smile on his face. After lunch he proudly showed me a flower, he was taking care of in his room and a spot in the garden he liked to visit”

Kusanagi had a big smile on his face obviously being very fond of the memory.

“And that’s all thanks to you, Yusaku” Kusanagi turned to look at Yusaku proudly.

Yusaku didn’t really know what to say or do, so he turned back to his hot dogs. Still turning the questions over in his head.

It was getting late when Yusaku came back to his flat. Everything was precisely as he had left it and Roboppy was zipping out to greet him.

“Welcome back Master.”

Yusaku ignored the robot and started to think of the three things he needed to do every day after coming home.

First: He needed to boot up the computer and check for any activity from the knights of...

...

There were no knights of Hanoi.

Yusaku felt like he had run head first into a wall.

He let himself drop on his bed, feeling very exhausted.

Frustration was rising in him. He had no idea what to do. Why didn’t he feel better? Everything should be fine. He should be able to reconnect with his past and just pick up where he left off.

Think of three things, he told himself.

Three things to do now and then he would find what he needs to see things clearly.

He thought for a long moment. Three things new. Three things he never did before.

“House work always helps you get a clear head isn’t that right, honey?” he remembered that from somewhere, it came along with a sly grin and a voice saying: “what’s that supposed to mean!”, from the other room. He didn’t know where he heard that but it felt like good advice.

First: He would water the flower on his window ledge.

Second: He would unpack the boxes in the kitchen.

Third: He would carefully find a place for everything in the boxes and look for any other things he never noticed before in his flat.

He got the almost unused watering can from the kitchen and started watering the plant. It socked up the water greedily, clearly needing it. Yusaku also removed any of the unhealthy leaves from the plant and made sure the plant was standing in a good position to receive sun light.

While working on the plant Yusaku suddenly started thinking about Jin. He was doing a lot better than he used to, but why? If he could find the answer maybe it would help him with his problem.

Next Yusaku got the boxes from the kitchen and set them on his bed. They weren’t too heavy but by the noise coming from inside he would guess there were lots of loose parts inside.

He opened the first box. The first thing he saw was a huge plush dragon, about the size of the box itself. The dragon was red and white and it had one red and one green eye. Yusaku thought it looked odd, but he stared at it for a long moment trying to remember why he had this.

He founded a few more toys of varies colorful dual monsters, he knew he had seen before somewhere, but then something specially wrapped in paper caught his eyes. Yusaku unwrapped it carefully and saw that it was a silver frame. He turned it around to take a look at it.

The picture was clearly painted by a child with a lot of colored pencils. On the left there was a woman painted with indigo hair tied into a ponytail by a large yellow ribbon. She was wearing a red jacket and a bracelet around her arm. On the right there was a man with purple hair and a purple suit with a cape extending outwards. Between the two was a small boy with spiky blue and pink hair and a brown jacket.

All three of them were smiling.

Yusaku now knew what he needed to do, why Jin was making such good progress. He knew how he would reconnect with his past and forge a new future and he didn’t know if he could.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: the aftershock emissary

If Yuri would have punched him any harder, he wouldn’t be standing anymore.

The man was now bend over with his hands clinging to his stomach and a quite sound of pain escaping his mouth.

“I swear. I don’t know anything” he said in a huffing voice.

“Yes, I remember you saying that and I wouldn’t expect someone like you to know a whole lot anyway.”, he said in his usual sarcastic voice, but he could not keep a hint of anger from slipping in.

Yuri took a step back from the man and put his hands behind his back. He started walking a circle around him. Like a predator sizing up his pray, looking for the time to strike.

Moments before, Starving Venom Fusion Dragon had wiped out the man’s life points in a single devastating attack, crushing all defenses in its way. Yuri had found the person’s name during his investigation. He is a worker at the docks and a source for illegally getting high-tech equipment undetected.

Yuri had been stealthily following him all night. Using skills that were all too familiar and when the perfect moment came, he attacked.

“Now our duel was really fun, but I don’t have all night so what’s it going to be?” Yuri smiled at him dangerously.

The man looked at Yuri with blank fear in his eyes, Yuri tried not to enjoy it.

“ok, I will tell you.” He whimpered.

Yuri stopped and looked directly at him. Then, without warning, he dashed forward and forcefully grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt.

“Then why don’t you illuminate me?” He hissed.

“Ok…ok” he said quickly, “Ten years ago, I worked at den city docks. I never met them. I swear. They hacked into my computer and told me to get them gear you need for electrocutions. I never ask any questions. They paid well.”

For a moment there was blind rage and absolute madness in Yuri’s eyes. His hand instinctively went to the place on his dual disk were the button for turning people into cards used to be, but he could stop himself and put his hands back firmly around the man’s collar.

He took a deep breath, that wasn’t him anymore.

“We had such great fun together, didn’t we? Wouldn’t want to ruin it by telling anyone about it, right?” Yuri looked into the man’s eyes questioningly. He nodded quickly.

Then Yuri punched him again to satisfy that wild anger at least a little bit. The person fell to the ground.

Yuri turned around and as he heard noises of pain coming from behind him, he started to slowly walk away, his hands once again behind his back.

Yuri let out a sigh of frustration, as he tried to find the right key from his key chain in the dark. He was standing in front of the small storage room he had rented. He just couldn’t see anything in the dark and absentmindedly trying to find the key gave his mind time to wander and that was something he always tried to avoid.

This is actually the third storage room he used over the years.

He had rented the first shortly after Serena became disillusioned with looking for answers about 8 years ago. She made him promise to stop and he swore it to her, but he just couldn’t. So, he took everything his investigation had brought and moved it there.

She, of course, found out and they had a fight, not unlike the one they had yesterday. At the time he couldn’t understand why she had given up or maybe he just didn’t understand what drove him to keep going without looking back.

She screamed at Yuri that he needed to be there for them and not outside chasing shadows on the wall.

She was right of course. She was right most of the time. Maybe if he would have seen it back then things could have gone differently.

A shiver went down Yuri’s spine. He closed his eyes and stopped his search for a moment.

He took a deep breath. He would make it all up to them both. He would make the people who did this pay and then make it all up to them somehow.

He focused again and finally found the correct key. He opened the door to the tiny space of his lair.

He switched on the light, closed the door and immediately went to water the plant on the small table.

He chose it specifically. It did not need much water and the small artificial light next to it was enough to keep it healthy. They never failed to amaze him, to keep living despite all circumstances and still be so beautiful. Serena would often make fun of him for it, but for him a room, even if it was his small hideout, wasn’t complete without one.

He thought about Serena for a moment. He knew he would go back eventually and apologize to her. The perfect flower for it was already planned out.

He felt terrible for what he said to her. There was a time when he couldn’t understand her, but now he did. He knew she thought they would never find anything and maybe she was right.

But he had hurt so many people and now he couldn’t help the one time it mattered. He needed to do this, for his family.

He formed his hand into a fist to focus and took a look around the room, to find it as he had left it.

There was a small table with a chair, but the largest thing in the room was a huge web on the wall made out of newspaper articles, handwritten notes with names, single words or dates on them and pictures of people, places or devices. They were all connected by strings of different colors.

It was a huge tangled web that only Yuri could understand.

“The work of more or less a decade and nothing to show for it”, he mocked himself out loud.

Yuri let himself fall down on the chair. He knew he could not focus on it just yet; his mind would not allow it. He needed to finish his thoughts, live through all the pain and failings again before it would let him go.

After the first fight with Serena he stopped, for a time. Mainly because he didn’t want to disappoint her. He stopped going out every night and tried to help in other ways, but he just couldn’t stop his anger. The fact that these people where still out there somewhere poisoned every of his thoughts.

And so, the second storage room got going much like the first and it all started over again.

The thing that made him stop this time is a memory that scares him to his core and that he does not like looking back at. He needed to grab the table while it came over him.

The night before it happened Yuri had sat next to the bed, while small hands were gripping Yuri’s arm hard for any kind of support through the nightmare. Yuri will never forget the sharp pain in his arm and the helplessness he felt sitting there that night for hours.

The next time Yuri headed out to question someone he lost control. He could not remember much, except how familiar, almost easy, it all felt and how scared he was afterwards of almost having done something he couldn’t take back.

That was three years ago.

Whenever he would try to help in other ways, he would fail. He never knew what to say or do. There were too many things he left unsaid, too many things he should have tried. He remembers sleepless nights next to the bed and failed attempts at conversation. He remembers things getting worse instead of better, days without hearing his voice once.

Then without warning his last chance past in the blink of an eye.

About one and a half years ago he went off to study computer sciences in another city. It was the best school in the country for it, or so Yuri was told, and he said he wanted to.

After the incident he would often do programming or put together computer parts. Yuri never got the feeling that he enjoyed it very much, but something seamed to draw him to it.

One-night Serena had asked him how he knew what he was doing and he just shrugged and looked away from her. That too is something he should have cared about more.

It all happened so fast. It all felt like one day he was there and the other he wasn’t anymore. Yuri always thought he would have more time, that he would find just the right moment one day to say just the right thing.

Everything would fall into place they would talk and everyone would be happy again and just like that it slipped through his fingers and it felt like he lost his son for a second time.

All that lead him to the third dimly lit room that night.

He felt like he had no chance of ever healing through talking and the only other thing he knew how to do is fight.

Yuri finished his thoughts and took a deep breath. He slumped over in the chair feeling impossibly old in these moments. In truth he wasn’t, but it felt like so much life had slipped by him.

His bones hurt and he could feel the fatigue of having barely had any sleep for the last few days, but he knew he needed to keep going.

“What is it old man? Can’t handle a little action anymore?” he said, his trademark sarcasm once again targeting himself.

He got himself up and walked over to his web. He got a pen and crossed out the name of the person he questioned tonight.

That left his list under the word “Who?” with only one name.

Next, he underlined the words “electrocution?” under the Word “How?” and crossed out the question mark.

He tried to calm himself again, tried to think of who he is now and who he isn’t anymore, but his mind went blank with hatred. He punched the wall with all his strengths. A few of the notes flew of the wall and he could feel pain in his hand.

He didn’t think about what he would do when he found the people responsible often, but in that moment, he knew exactly.

In truth he knew that his investigation was at a dead-end. The people were careful and the size of the cover up was insane. At every turn he thought he could find something; mountains of possible evidence were nowhere to be found.

He concluded that only one entity was in the position to do this cover up considering so much evidence leads to Den city.

SOL Technology, it was the last name in his “Who?” list.

This did not bother him too much. He had already broken into a few of their complexes, but everything was locked up air tight digitally and he was quite frank with himself, he didn’t have the skills to deal with that.

He only knew two people who could help him with it and he dreaded asking both for different reasons.

The first was Akaba Reiji, his former enemy. To be honest Yuri didn’t think he had spoken a single word to him since being freed from Zarc and he always felt like he was suspicious of him. When Serena and the other Lancers would met, he would always be careful not to met Reiji’s stern and judging gaze.

He could imagine little worse than asking him for help in illegally invading another company on flimsy at best evidence, but that paled in comparison to the alternative.

The second person he knew with the skills he needed was Professor Akaba Leo, His old master. Yuri also hasn’t spoken with him since he decided to become a different person. It wasn’t him anymore, he didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.

He looked up at the word “electrocution“ on the wall.

He would go tomorrow; he would find the last bit of information no matter how and then he would find them.

He and Starving Venom would destroy everything in their path. No matter how many guns they would put in the way or what opponent he would have to face. He would bring justice to them.

Then he would come back home to Serena and apologize for all the years he wasn’t there for them, he would set everything right and they would have their son back, they would have their Yusaku back.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4:The sad clown

Every cheer felt like a punch in the guts and every smile felt like a sharp knife cutting his skin. Normally this was one of his favorite things in the world, everybody cheering and the children’s smiles radiating positivity through the room, but not today.

He made his last somersault of odd eyes pendulum dragon’s head and executed a perfect landing, keeping his best fake smile on his face.

His arms were stretched out as he took his bow to the audience. The cheers were at there loudest and he thought he was going to be sick.

He was still bowing when the curtains drew close in front of him. He stood there for a moment longer, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath finally dropping his smile. He knew he should be happy that the show made the kids smile. During his entire career of entertainment dueling and duel monster shows like this he never got tired of it, but today he just couldn’t do it.

He finally opened his eyes and saw Yuzu dashing over to him from behind the stage.

“You were fantastic” she exclaimed, patting him on the shoulder.

“Na, you were better” he told her, putting the smile back on his face and trying to sound cheerful.

He really did think that. Even if he wouldn’t have been distracted, he would have still thought that the coordinated musical and dance performance involving her Melodious monsters was clearly the high light of the grand opening of the new domino city You Show Duel School branch.

“Is everything ok?” she asked, with a concerned look on her face.

“Yes of course, of course.” he replied quickly, while rubbing his neck and smiling even harder.

“Yuya you know you can’t hide anything from me.” Yuzu declared, with a stern look on her face. It was true of course. He couldn’t hide the tiniest thing from her.

 “I’m just jealous that your show was so much better than mine.” he laughed weakly.

The look on her face told him that she didn’t buy a word of that, but also that she could not quite tell what was going on.

Someone called Yuzu from backstage. Yuya, knowing that this was a battle he couldn’t win, used that distraction to dash off the stage.

“I’m going to the dressing room. Your show was great. I will come back later.” He called to her as he was making his escape. He did not see it, but he felt her eyes in his back.

Once in the dressing room Yuya slumped himself down in the chair and once again took a deep breath.

He cursed himself once again for not enjoying the smiles he got during the show. That was always his dream, bringing smiles to people, bringing love and joy and having a perfect family to boot.

All the smiles he made today and all the kids who will learn to love dueling like he does here are important, he knew, but today he could only think about one smile he couldn’t bring and one kid who will never love duel monsters again.

His thoughts started to wonder.

What felt like a long time ago:

Yuya was lifting all the heavy chairs up and started moving them from the house into the garden.

He huffed and wondered why nobody was helping him with this difficult task.

The large Sakaki-Hiragi garden behind the house was decorated with balloons, garlands and confetti. It was flooding with bright colors. In the middle stood a long table that was already set with red, blue and green forks, knifes and plates.

After dropping the stack of chairs next to the table outside, he caught his breath and looked around. He saw that Yuzu was balancing on a chair trying to hang a large banner between the tree close to the house and the house wall.

They had been working all morning. Yuzu had decorated the house with great excitement , she was always good at that sort of thing.

Yuya stood there for a moment admiring her and just how perfect everything was.

Once the banner was secured she gracefully jumped off the chair and looked at Yuya.

“Why did that take so long?” she playfully mocked him. She was tapping her foot on the ground and put her hands on her hips.

“Yuzu…” he cried, defeated.

Then she started laughing and he couldn’t help but smile a little too. 

“What are you two laughing about?” Yuri asked, as he came out of the house.

Nowadays he had switched out his academia uniform for a violet casual suit. He was still very overdressed in most situations and Yuya felt like he liked sticking out with his choice of clothing.

“oh, it’s nothing” Yuya answered, still smiling “wait a second. Why didn’t you help me with the chairs?”

Yuri started to have a wicked smile on his face.

“I was… ahh… busy. Helping Serena in the kitchen” he answered his eyes looking up as if he was trying really hard to find an answer. “You know if you leave her alone in there for too long she would blow up the house.”

“What the hell, Yuri!” Serena yelled as she also walked out of the house and entered the garden. “Your food would poison us all with only one bite.”

They started a small argument. Yuya got the feeling they did that often and that it wasn’t too serious. They always tried to one up each other and to find any weakness in the others argument. Then five minutes later there were holding hands under the table and looked at each other like they were talking without words. Yuya didn’t understand it.

Yuya honestly didn’t understand what the two saws in each other at all, but he couldn’t deny that Yuri had gotten a lot better over the years and Serena also seemed to have gotten over everything well.

When he asked Yuzu about it she told him that it was something none of them could understand, but she also said that she could feel that the two were good for each other.

It still made him uncomfortable. He could not understand how someone could get joy out of a competitive discussion, even if it wasn’t serious.

“So, guys do you like the banner?” Yuya asked breaking the two out of their competition.

They looked at him for a moment in confusion before he pointed to the large banner Yuzu had hung up.

It said in bright colors: “Happy birthday Yusaku!”

The two stood there for a moment, but instead of looking excited, they were looking shocked.

“I made it for today. I hope he will like it.” Yuzu said proudly. Yuzu would always go all-out on the birthdays of their own kids, decorating the whole house, but something told him Serena and Yuri have not expected something like this.

“Ahh. It is very nice Yuzu and I am sure he will love it.” Serena muttered, getting her nerves back first. “Isn’t it, Yuri?”

Yuri was still looking at the banner slack-jawed. Serena elbowed her significant other in the ribs after a long and awarded moment.

He made a quite sound of pain before looking at Yuzu.

“Yeah it is great. Thank you” Yuri managed to say at last.

That confirmed a suspicion that Yuya had ever since the two asked Yuri and Serena to celebrate a big birthday party at their house. At first there were relucted to accept, but after days of Yuya telling them how great it would be and Yuzu telling them how much Yusaku would love it to celebrate with all the other kids they finally agreed.

Naturally it would involve inviting everyone they knew to a giant get together and now it was clear the two were, or at least Yuri was, not very comfortable with this, but Yuya didn’t know what they could do now so he went back to preparing the party.

They quietly went back to work and Yuya lost track of time. When he turned around he could not see anyone in the garden.

Yuya thought that they must have went back inside, so he went into the house to look for them.

He entered the living room which was also fully decorated with duel monster themed decoration, but he could still see nobody.

The kitchen door and the door to their bedroom were open.

He could hear voices for the inside the bedroom and he went closer to investigate.

As he was standing next to the door he could make out something that sounded like sobbing.

“What is wrong Yusaku?” He heard Yuri ask obviously being very concerned.

“I don’t know.” He heard the voice of Yusaku whisper quietly.

Yuya took a look inside and saw that Yusaku was sitting on the bed hugging his legs. Serena and Yuri were kneeling next to him on the ground and Serena had her hands on Yusaku’s. Yuya didn’t want to disturb them.

“It’s just everyone is coming over and uncle Yuya and aunt Yuza have prepared so much.” Yusaku said slowly.

This confused Yuya. Yusaku was usually a happy kid. Running all over the place and laughing. He would even get into trouble once or twice, from what he had heard.

 “You are nervous, aren’t you?” Serena asked him, understanding his trouble.

He looked at her before slowly nodding and looked down again.

“What if someone wants to duel me?” Yusaku asked, popping his head up a little.

“But you love playing Duel Monsters?” Yuri asked, confused.

Yusaku looked down again and hide his face behind his legs. Yuya didn’t quite understand either. Yuri had told him that Yusaku had started to love the game and had even made a new friend to duel with already. Serena even told Yuzu that she was glad the two could share this together and that they now talked about deck building every day.

“But what if I am bad at it? It’s different then when I play with you or with Ryoken. What if I lose in front of everyone?” Yusaku asked hastily.

That took Yuya off guard. He was shocked that the boy would think something like that.

Serena and Yuri also seemed surprised by the news. He and Serena quickly exchanged a look.

Yuri looked very confused clearly not really understanding the situation. Serena was also surprised, but she quickly caught herself and looked back at her son.

She took his hand again and waited until he looked at her.

“Duel Monsters isn’t really about winning or losing you know?” she whispered to him sweetly.

“I-t it isn’t?” he stammered, surprised and from the look on Yuri’s face he was also going to asked that question too. She now had both his and Yuri’s full attention.

“No matter if you win or lose in the end it is always about having fun and smiling.” she told him with fondness in her eyes. “Your dad and I had a lot of duels in the past that weren’t very fun and we had to get through them, but in the end when the situation was at its worst we got through it and we didn’t forget our smile or how much fun dueling is when you do it with your friends like everyone here.”

Yusaku listened to ever word carefully and was now thinking very hard, but Yuri seemed to be put utterly in a trance by them.

After making sure Yusaku was no longer sobbing she turned to Yuri.

“Isn’t that right?” she asked him. She smiled at him and he snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her expressionlessly.

Then he slowly started to smile back at her.

“Yes…. We got through everything and in the end, we can still duel and smile.” He answered confidently. 

“So, it’s not bad if I lose?” Yusaku asked carefully, looking at Yuri.

“No, it’s not.” Yuri answered quietly and Yuya thought he could see him wipe tears from his face.

“You know it’s bad to eavesdrop on people’s private conversations Yuya.” Yuzu’s voice called to Yuya from behind him.

She had just come out of the kitchen and was standing in the hall tapping her foot, looking angry.

He just went over and hugged her. He felt so very proud in that moment.

Yuya’s mind came back to present day and he cursed himself for nothing in particular.

He knew things were bad for them. He had felt terrible seeing his friends go through something like this.

They had always tried to get through things on their own and he also knew that things needed time. They never refused help outright, but he got the feeling that they never really knew what to say or do.

One time he had tried to help. He cursed himself for being so stupid.

All his life he knew that dueling could help in the most desperate situations. Now he isn’t so sure anymore. One day he tried to help with what he did best.

It ended horribly. He remembers manic screams and a flood of tears, then silence.  He looked him in the eyes and saw nothing. They were completely emotionless. He just sat in the corner hugging his lags and shaking violently. It reminded him of the kids he saw in the heartland city war zone and he will never forget it in his life.

Later Yuri was furious. He only remembers Yuri screaming at him and he was sure Yuri was about to start punching him. He had seen him in total madness, trying to resurrect Zarc, but he had never seen him like this.

Yuya never talked much about it after that. He could sometimes strangely feel Yuri’s anger. He always thought it was because they were one once. It was something that happened with the other Yu-boys sometimes. He had felt unending excitement when Yugo and Rin won the friendship cup and he felt the same pride Yuto had felt as he saw the heartland duel school fully reopen, but he had never felt it so intensely.

For the past years he had always thought that they somehow managed it. That he just never saw Yusaku because he was shy. He thought that there might be something wrong, but that overall things were improving.

Yuzu often talked to Serena and he knew she knew more from Serena, but he didn’t want information that only Yuzu was entrusted with.

This morning this faint illusion was shattered completely.

They had received a distressed call from Serena. She told them that Yuri wasn’t home and that if they should see him they should tell him to call her immediately.  She was also heading to Den city for something important now. Yuzu seamed to understand and wished her good luck.

It took Yuya embarrassingly long to put it all together, it was almost at the beginning of the show today, but all the evidence from the past years finally added up.

Nothing was ok or getting better.

He heard the door open and without looking he knew it was Yuzu.

He prepared his fake smile and turned around.

“Hey Yuzu! I don’t think you should go in the men’s dressing room.” He said cheerfully.

“Shut up.” She declared, quickly dashing next to him. “I know what is wrong now.”

Yuya tried to look confused, but he knew it was no use. He finally dropped his smile and let out a sigh.

She took a seat next to him and put her hand on his.

“This is something they need to work out themselves, you know?”  she said slowly. “We need to help them and support them, but in the end, they will need to get together and talk it out. There is nothing more we can do, except be there for them.”

Yuya didn’t know what to say, but he listened to her carefully. He supposed it was true, but he felt helpless seeing his friends going through something like this.

“But did we help enough? They still haven’t gotten better one bit?” he asked her desperately.

“I don’t know, but I can feel that something will change. that now is the time were all three of them can change. You know the way we can sometimes feel the others feelings? I feel that in Serena.” she explained to him in a soft and hopeful voice.

Yuya was, like so often amazed by her, she always seemed to know everything when it came to people. He could make their children laugh sure, but she always knew exactly when something was wrong with them and how to fix it.

He just dashed forward and enveloped her in a tight hug.

At the top of the tower of Hanoi

Playmaker just survived another devastating attack from Revolver. He was exhausted and his breathing was heavy. Meanwhile the AI on his duel disk was going crazy.

“The situation has gotten worse!” uttered the black ignis.

“Don’t complain it’s a miracle we’re still standing” Playmaker told it. His mouth slowly turning into a smile.

“But at this rate we will lose.” AI complaint now forming his hands into fists.

“You are right. We have to do something.” He said and laughed quietly. Something faint told him it was a good idea to smile now. 

“You’re laughing?” the ai on his arm asked in confusion.

“There is nothing to do but laugh in this situation.” Playmaker answered.

Dueling with a smile and not giving up, it felt familiar and save, like something that was shattered into a million pieces by a bolt of electricity in an empty white room.

It sounded like good advice and he could feel his fear and exhaustion stop for a moment.

“But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up.” He said defiantly and continued the duel.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: The stranger in a strange land

The bullet train was rushing along the tracks at an incredible speed. Almost like it was trying to catch up to the rising sun, as it was heading to its destination. The compartments were mostly empty, but the screens all over the wall where still displaying advertisement for the newest duel monster tournament or card set.

Inside Serena didn’t notice much of the flashy advertisement or the trains great speed, except for the blur of landscape dashing past the window. She had other things to worry about.

Keeping her eyes open was becoming increasingly difficult, because she was still tired from the night before. But she knew she could not fall asleep now, because today would be important, today she would start to set things right, she had to.

She fought off her urge to fall asleep and tried to formulate a plan.

She thought hard, trying to picture meeting Yusaku again. She pictured what she would say to him.

It was vague in her mind. Something about how much she loved him and about how sorry she felt. It would be the right thing and they would… she would …

Serena let out a frustrated sigh.

No matter how much she turned the words in her head, she could never get them the way she wanted them to be.

She was never good at this, finding the right words. She knew a lot of people who were and when they did it, it seemed to come so easily to them, but both Serena and Yuri were never good at putting emotions into word.

She slumped down in her seat and sighted again. It had all been such a rush, she had watched a few more minutes of the documentary and then she left the apartment heading straight for the train station.

She was on the first train that morning just as the first rays of sun were coming out.

Serena’s instinct was telling her that she needed to do something fast, that she had waited for far too long and that she could wait no longer, but now, sitting in that train heading to Den city, she realized for the first time that she didn’t have a clue what she actually needed to do.

What was even different now?  What could she do now when she had failed to do all these years?

The questions were spinning in her head and she couldn’t help smile just a little through all the frustration. If Yuri were here he would say something sarcastic about her heading in head first without a plan like always. 

Serena would try to sting right back, but this time it was true. She didn’t have the slightest clue about where to even start thinking about a plan and after an hour of sitting in the train spend thinking, she hasn’t gotten any further.

She supposed that a good start would be finding out why she had failed before.

It would be painful, but this was for her family so she did not hesitate.  

The thing she remembers most about the years was the silence.

She would try to start a conversation or an activity or get Yuri to start one and it always ended in failure. Yusaku would sit in silence or give only a short quite answer while staring into nothingness. There were days when he did not speak a single.

In Yuri she felt the helplessness turn into frustration. Serena had watched Yuri pull himself out of the deepest pit one can imagine and now it felt like she was losing him again.

The same dark path she saw him go down could have been hers too.

Except she made a different choice. One night when the silence and pain had ground her down completely, when her son had been trying to hide in a corner and cry all day, she had wanted nothing more than to seeking revenge.

She was about to head out when she went to see if Yusaku was still sleeping. She had seen him there suffering through a nightmare many times, but in that moment,  she couldn’t understand why she had ever thought about seeking revenge instead of helping him.

That evening, Yuri god knows where, she had called Yuzu and asked her to come over.

That evening now nearly eight years ago was the first time she had let her heart out fully.

She and Yuri had tried to talk before, but it always felt like there was nothing to say, when the other felt the same thing. It was comforting to Serena sometimes, but it did not lead her forward in anyway.

That evening after crying in Yuzu’s arms. She had helped Serena see a different path.

Serena decided that revenge could not help her and that she needed to focus on helping Yusaku get better.

That resolution was still standing to this day, but that does not mean anything became easier.

She still failed at getting him to talk or participate in anything a normal child would do.

There were still nights where he was fighting the nightmares even with her sitting next to the bed trying to comfort him.

It seemed like it was all for nothing now, there was still the silence that nothing seemed to be able to break, the invisible wall that separated him from everyone, even Serena and Yuri and it seemed to still grow every day.

Yuzu was a great help during that time. When ever the day had been hard she would be there for her. Yuzu often told her that things needed time and that the best thing to do was to provide comfort and make Yusaku know that she is there. Then a time would come when they would all be ready to change.

Was that time now?

The train was heading though a tunnel now and the compartment was dark for a moment.

She didn’t know.

A look at one of the screens in the train revealed to her that she would not have much time to answer the questions she had.

She could only slum tougher in frustration for what felt like the hundredths time that train ride, not being one step closer to what she needed to actually do.

Then the train came rushing out of the tunnel and the light of the red sun rise over the ocean was blinding her.

Even in her distracted state she had to be awed at the colors of the sun rise.

Then she saw the city her son had spend the last two years in for the first time.

Serena saw the sun rise disappear behind the skyscrapers, the busy streets with automated cars even at this hour and the massive screens allover displaying advertisement. 

The advertisement in her compartment also changed to something she thought was LINK VRAINS themed.

All of it was announcing a grand reopening.

The sun rise reminded her of a very specific sun set. Yuri, always one for clichéd romanticism, when he wasn’t making fun of it, had invited her to see it. That evening he had shyly asked her if she maybe, possibly, conceivably ever considered having children.

Her son was somewhere in that big city and she would try to help him. Whatever end.

Serena left the train at Den city central station. It was starting to get busy and she had to fight herself through the crowd.

Once she exited the station Serena took a look around and felt like she had run head first into a wall. 

Den city had millions of people and she had no idea of where her son even lived.

After the shock, frustration set in. How could she let it come to this?

She told herself to stay calm. She had just forgotten to look it up again before leaving. She had it somewhere.

For a few agonizing moments while Serena was looking franticly through the archive on her duel disk, she thought that her trip would just end with her having to go back home.

No. She would knock on every door in the city before giving up.

At last, she found it buried in the deepest corner of her archive. While looking at her duel disk she also noticed that Yuri hadn’t yet answered her message and that Yuzu had sent her a message asking her if she got there save.

She ignored both for now as she knew that she could not let herself get distracted.

“Manjome street”

That was the address. Now she only needed to get there.

As she had no idea where to go she thought that her best shot was to take a taxi. She quickly found one, but to her surprise there was no driver inside as she opened the door.

“This is an automated vehicle driven by an AI that has past all mandated safety tests. Please take a seat as AI driving is the safest and fasted way to travel.”, a robotic voice came from inside.

Serena would have been more skeptical, but this was pretty much her only option, so she got in.

The computer then asked her for a destination and she told it the address.

It felt very strange talking to an AI, let alone being driven by one. She came from a place were the primary transportation was boats on a canal after all.

“What a strange city.” Serena muttered out loud.

During the drive Serena tried to distract herself by looking out of the window. She saw the busy traffic on the streets as more of the cars without drivers were heading to their destinations and the great skyscrapers, some had pictures of what looked like duelist being projected onto the sides.

It all did little to distract her. Serena constantly took glances at her duel disk to see if she received a certain message. 

Yuri should really be here, she thought to herself.

Where was he? What was he doing?

She had her suspicions of what the answers to some of her questions were, but she could not let herself get distracted now.

Some part of her thought that maybe it would be easier without Yuri, at least at first. He would need to be here soon, but maybe it would be easier for her to lay the ground work.

Even while thinking that Serena remembered that she didn’t know how to do any of that in the first place and another part of her was saying that she would really need him. 

Which all brought her back to sighing in frustration and having no idea what to do while her drive continued.

This was insane absolutely insane, was the only thing Serena could think. How did it come to this?

Serena was sitting at a table in front of a hot dog truck on one of the central squares of den city.

When Serena tried to find her sons name on the doorbells she came up empty and after she asked the housekeeper she was informed that no Yusaku ever lived in the house. She then spend what felt like a long time looking at every doorbell of ever house in the street.

Serena felt like she should be shocked beyond believe. Her son had given her a false address.

But for some reason she wasn’t. It just felt like another in a long series of things that kept them apart in the year and a half after he left.

She had tried to write a letter or get Yuri to write one. It usually ended in her ripping her letter in half. Yuri would say that he finished his, but she doubted that. A few times she actually managed it, but she never received an answer.

Leaving voice messages was easier as she had less time to think about what to say. She could see that he received them, but she never got an answer either.

She should be concerned by this, but she knew he did not reply on purpose.

She could never claim that she understood him after what happened, but him never answering her letters and the fake address just felt like an extension of that wall that isolated him from everyone.

So, she didn’t feel anger or shock. She just asked herself again, how could she let it come to this?

“Here is your hotdog special.” A light voice came from behind her. As Serena turned around she saw a man wearing a white apron that covered a black jacket. The man with purple hair and a small goatee was smiling at her.

Serena had almost completely forgotten. She had ordered a hot dog from him a few minutes ago.

“I don’t know what is bothering you, but it’s never good to brood on an empty stomach.”, he told her, trying to sound cheerful.

Serena didn’t quite know how to respond so she just thanked the man and took the hotdog.

She really had been starving, having not eaten anything all-day. She didn’t notice before, but after she saw the hot dog truck, she could no longer ignore her hunger. Besides both Serena and Yuri had always liked hot dogs.

While eating, Serena’s attention was caught by a massive screen above a stage at the other end of the square. It was showing footage of a duel in what she presumed was LINK VRAINS. 

A girl dressed in a blue and pink dress with wings coming out of her back was surfing through the air.

Serena gave the scene a very confused look. That was the way people dueled around here?

The girl seemed to win triumphantly and smiled to the camera, blowing a kiss.

Then the screen transitioned to a still image. On the bottom it said “More action in the New LINK VRAINS coming soon!” in bold colorful letters. In the middle were three people, the girl from before, a muscular man in a golden wrestling outfit and in the very center there was… well…

Her son, or as he was called now Playmaker.

Serena almost choked on the final bite of her hot dog.

During all that thinking about her past and what she would do now she had almost forgotten the reason she came here.

After recomposing herself she looked at the image of Yusaku. He was wearing the same outfit he wore in the TV program. He was looking forward determinedly while holding a card in his hand.

Serena stared into his green eyes. He always had such bright green eyes. Serena remembered thinking that they were the most beautiful eyes she ever saw, after he was born and that she never wanted to see sadness in those eyes.

She didn’t know what else to think. What he did was dangerous and reckless and she needed to stop him, but why was he doing it in the first place. Serena didn’t know. Maybe he wanted to be a hero, maybe he needed to let out his anger or maybe it was something completely different.

She could only ask herself again, how could she let it come to this?

“He really is great, isn’t he?”, the voice of the hot dog truck owner startled her, she hadn’t realized how much she had been staring.

“He is a bit of a legend around here. People from all over town used to come here to watch him duel.”, the man said with a found smile.

“I… I don’t know him. I mean I wouldn’t know. I’m not from around here.” Serena answered, trying to get her composure back.

The man was now standing on the other side of the table looking at the screen, what Serena thought was very fondly, while she was looking at him.

“I can tell. You were just staring, so I thought you could use a local to give you an explanation.” He said giving her a smile.

Maybe Playmaker had brought him a lot of business, since the square was almost empty now.

“Anyway, can I bring you something else?” the man asked her kindly.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”, she told him, but as the man was going back to the truck she got an idea. “Could you tell me a bit more about him. I mean Playmaker. Just … you know the local perspective.”

She realized how little she actually knew about the situation so this might be helpful for her.

“Yes, of course.” The man smiled and sat down at the table. “Where to even begin…”

He talked to her for what felt like a long time. He told her about how Playmaker just appeared one day and swore to destroy the knights of Hanoi who had been harassing the network. He told her about many great duels her son had won.

Serena could tell that he was very invested in the story, as he told it with great enthusiasm. She even needed to hold herself back a few times as the story got dangerous for Yusaku.

“… and so, in the end Playmaker defeated the knights. The network is shut down now, but I’m sure it will be back up.” He finished his retelling. He then took a look back at the hot dog truck and excused himself for a moment, because another customer was impatiently waiting for his hotdog.

It was all a lot for Serena to process. Her son had been leading a one-man war on this group of villainous hackers, at who knows what risk to himself, and he actually won. But why?

Maybe he really just wanted to be a hero or maybe he wanted justice or maybe…

Serena’s thought went to Yuri. Maybe her son was doing the same thing. The world stopped around her for a second. She tried to convince herself that the idea was crazy and that she had no evidence, but she could feel that it was true.

There was a whirlwind inside her.

She still had so many questions, but her mind settled on one. Had he really defeated the ones who had hurt him? 

It was so reckless going out there fighting and she knew that thirsting for revenge wasn’t good for him, even so he really did beat them.

Serena didn’t know what to feel or if she liked what she would if she did know.

“This is really strange.”, the man muttered as he returned to her.

Serena was ripped out of her thoughts and looked at him confused.

“I’m sorry. I will have to stop the story here. I have to get back to the truck, I can’t seem to find my assistance anywhere.”, he explained to her, apologetically.

“No problem.” She told him, absentmindedly, and looked back at the screen, but the image of her son was now gone replaced by advertisement for new features of VRAINS.

“If you need a place to stay for the night, I would recommend the “King Fudo” hotel down the street.”, he recommended, as he was walking away.

Serena let herself fall onto her bed as the exhaustion of the day was catching up to her. She had achieved nothing as the day drew to a close and questions were still spinning in her head.

She still hadn’t gotten closer to finding out what to do when she found Yusaku even if she had any idea on how to find him now in the first place.

While she was lying on the bed trying to think of nothing and have her mind rest for a moment, her duel disk rang.

There were multiple missed messages on it. She slowly opened the phone application and decided that the first thing she needed to do was call Yuri again.

As predicted there was no answer and she left another message.

“Yuri… I don’t know where you are or what you are doing, but whatever it is … whatever we fought over … you just need to call ok … it’s about … it’s about our son.”, she left it at that feeling completely exhausted and not knowing what else to say.

They might have fought a lot during the years, but there was always comfort in having Yuri around it. made her stronger somehow and she could really use that right now.

Then she turned her attention to the rest of the messages. The first one was from Yuzu asking how she was doing and wishing her good luck for a second time.

She wrote a short message about what had happened that day and how she was doing.

The second message had been a missed call from Rin.

Serena had cringed earlier as the “King Fudo” hotel she had been recommended must have been renamed recently to the “Queen Rin and King Yugo” hotel.

Never the less, Serena had always liked Rin for her head strong attitude and she thought a distraction now wouldn’t be too bad so she decided that she would call her back.

“Hallo, Serena?”, Rin’s voice came out of the duel disk loudly. Her face was a little too close to the screen, Serena thought that Yugo and Rin weren’t to different after all.

“Yes, it’s me. I just wanted to call you back.”, Serena answer trying to sound normal.

“Ahh yes I called earlier I just wanted to … Listen are you ok because earlier I had this strange feeling and…”

“Yeah, I’m just… could we talk about something else … could use a little distraction, you know?”, Serena told her, quickly.

“Yes of course.” Rin answered, having understood the situation.

Serena knew that Yuzu would never tell anyone anything that was only between the two of them, but Serena had also talked to Rin and Ruri a couple of times, even if it wasn’t as intensely as with Yuzu, so Rin probably had an idea about what happened.

Rin started to talk openly about her day and the adventures she had with Yugo and their children.

Yugo had been posing for a new marketing campaign and had proudly shown her the pictures of him heroically posing, Rin thought they looked ridicules, but she had complemented him anyway. Rin had also visited the commons, as Yugo and Rin often did, and she had helped out at one of their charity organizations.

Serena could not say that she was jealous for there fame, it was never something that Serena and Yuri wanted, but she liked hearing the stories sometimes. She was starting to feel a bit better.

“… and then Yugo that idiot let our kids ride the D wheel all alone.”, Rin complaint.

“Didn’t you two ride a D wheel alone too when you were kids?” Serena objected. She knew that Rin wasn’t as angry as she let on and that she only pretended to because as a mother she sorts of had to.

“Yeah … that was totally different…”, Rin answered weakly. “When I confronted him, Yugo said it was “all part of the growing up experience”. Can you believe that? He and growing up. ridicules.”

Serena had to smile a little bit as she listens to her.

“Oh, Serena it’s just like that one time he let Yusaku and our kids ride with him when they were five.”

Rin was suddenly silent, having only noticed then what she was saying.

“I’m sorry Serena I wasn’t thinking.”, Rin apologized.

“No, it’s ok. It’s a happy memory, excepted for the part where Yuri tried to kill Yugo afterwards.” Serena said, trying to sound amused.

There was a small weak laugh from Rin too and then a long silence.

“I guess I should tell you what’s going on…”, Serena broke the silence.

“You don’t need to, if you don’t feel like it.” Rin said, carefully. 

“No, it’s ok.” and so Serena told Rin what had happened that day. It helped her go through it all again, but she left out the part were her son was a virtual vigilante. It just felt like something private to her son. She didn’t have the right to say it to someone.

Serena noticed that Rin wanted to give her some advice, but didn’t know what to say. She was tired so she decided she would make it easy for both of them.

“Rin. Thank you that I could talk to you, but I’m really tired and I need to get some sleep.”

“Yes of course. Have a good night and if you need anything you can always call me.”, Rin said, her expression worried while she hung up.

It really hadn’t bothered her too much, she had been thinking about Yusaku all day and Rin mentioning one of the many happy memories she had, even if they felt far away, lifted her up a little bit. 

It made her feel like there needed to be a way no matter what. She started thinking. Where would her son go, what kind of place would he visit in this city?

It felt strange. This city was completely different from him. Even in her hotel room she could see the flashy neon lights and hear the city’s sounds from outside. There was technology everywhere she had seen automated stairs, vending machines and even cars and the only person Serena talked to all day was that hotdog truck owner. Serena couldn’t understand it.

Maybe he liked how impersonal it all was.

As she turned it around in her head she had to sigh at how obvious it was. She would simply wait for him at his school tomorrow.

Feeling like anymore thinking in the dark would only make her head spin even more, she decided to try to sleep.

As Serena woke up from a short and restless sleep, she had almost forgotten why Yuri was not at her side and why she was lying in that small hotel room.

It dawned on her soon enough. She checked her duel disk again only to see that Yuri still hadn’t answered. She started to slightly worry that something might have happened.

Other then that she just felt exhausted and not much else as she prepared to head out.

There were still so many open questions for her to think about, but for a few minutes after waking up she could ignore them.

After getting into the taxi and telling it to drive to Yusaku’s school all the questions came crashing back down at her.

What was she going to do when she got there? How was she ever going to fix this mess? Where was Yuri?

She barely noticed anything from the car ride and as she exited the car, she tried to focus on the task at hand. Maybe what ever she needed to do would be clear once she actually saw him.

Den city high school was like any normal school with students flooding into it as the day was about to begin.

Serena always had a bad feeling about academic institutions, but that was only at the back of her mind as she carefully examined the crowd.

Serena had waited all morning at the school and found nothing. Later she went inside and started to look for someone who could give her information.

As she wondered through the now almost empty hall of the school she found a green haired chubby boy talking excitedly to a slim brown-haired girl, who seemed to be annoyed, and decided to ask them.

“Excuse me do you know were the computer science class is?”, she asked them, awkwardly braking up their talk.

The green haired boy started to look at her first.

“Computer science. That must have just started. It’s just down the hall.” The green haired boy said, pointing in the general direction.

He then looked at her intensely and came uncomfortably close with his face.

“Do I know you from somewhere?”, he asked boldly.

Serena tried not to sigh. This happened sometimes, sharing the face with so many celebrities and all, but it never ceased to annoy her.

“Isn’t computer science your class?”, the girl next to him asked.

The boy gave a surprised her look and then dashed off. Crying: “Yes, it is!” While running.

“I’m sorry.”, the girl said giving her a smile. “but your hair really does seem familiar.”

She probably noticed that her remark was inappropriate and looked down shyly.

“Anyway, can I help you with something else? You have that duel disk; do you want to come to our dueling club today?” She asked, straitening herself and smiling again.

Dueling club. Well Yusaku certainly wasn’t in that. Serene thought.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” She answered and quickly excused herself going down the same hall the boy had just run down.

After looking at the timetable in front of the room she decided to wait in front of the school for the class to end.

Sitting there on a bench in front of the school gave her more time to think, to her dismay.

Where any of the people here Yusaku’s friends?

She really wished she could believe it, but she knew that he was probably all alone in this big city. It made her sad to think that her son was here with no one to help him.

Serena also thought about Yusaku’s class. He had only really started to build computers and program after what happened. He never really cared about it before.

It was strange he seemed to be just as emotionless doing it as with everything else and they never taught him anything, as they didn’t know anything about it. He just sorts of did it one day and seemed to be good at it.

Serena sorted it as just another strange thing she didn’t understand and hoped it helped him cope somehow.

The class ended and she saw more students come out of the building.

She once again tried to look for her son, but she couldn’t find him in the sea of students. She waited there until she was left alone once again. 

For the second time Serena slummed down into the chair in front of the hot dog truck in frustration.

She tried to look at this optimistically. Maybe he was sick or she just didn’t see him. Tomorrow she would go there again and find him. Maybe it would even give Yuri, who still hadn’t called back, time to catch up to her.

The large Playmaker poster once again came up on the screen and caught her attention.

“Where are you?” she muttered under her breath, while looking in his deep green eyes.

“Once again, brooding on an empty stomach is always terrible, but eating it all up is even worse.” the voice of the friendly hot dog truck owner came from behind her.

She turned around meeting his full smile with a halfhearted one as she took her hot dog.

“It’s ok. thank you.”, she answered, trying to sound sincere.  

“If you say so.”, the man said, giving her another smile before he went back to the truck.

Her eyes went back to the large screen that now displayed some different LINK VRAINS advertisement she didn’t understand.

“I will find you. I promise. You and your idiot father both.” She promised to herself quietly, thinking it had more meanings then one.

“There you are. Where were you yesterday? I was worried.” Serena heard the voice of the hot dog truck owner say behind her. She was too focused on her thoughts to turn around.

Then she heard a foot step behind her.

“Is everything ok?” the man asked someone behind her, sounding worried.

Serena didn’t really pay attention to what was going on behind her. It was none of her business.   

A second slow and deliberate footstep.

“You have … You have been acting strangely these last few days. I know thinks can’t be easy for you. We should talk inside the truck.”, the man said with a caring voice.

A third step. It was close to her now and she could feel the weight behind it.

And then she turned around.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: The promise maker

It was clear to him what he needed to do.

He was standing over the opened box. He had arrayed all the content he had already taken out of it in a row on the floor.

The picture he was holding in his hands was like an ancient artifact, a mirror into the past. He held it carefully as if it could turn to dust any second.

Yusaku slowly examined everything about it. The bright colors and broad lines. The happy smiles on the people’s faces. The little sun in the right-hand corner. He didn’t really think, he just took it all in.

Yusaku felt like he knew this object, like it was all too familiar, but his mind was completely blank when he thought about what it was. This was something from his past, clearly. The past he had lost and couldn’t regain.

He had sworn to destroy the knights of Hanoi because of what they did to him and because of what they were doing in LINK VRAINS, but he also always gave another reason, to regain the years he had lost.

The knights of Hanoi had been like a barrier between him and his past, like a wall he could not cross and now they are gone.

The familiarity he felt while carefully examining every aspect of the picture made him forget that he couldn’t think clearly. Now he could go ahead and reclaim his past and everything would be fine again.

First: He needed to forget about the knights of Hanoi.

Second: He needed to reconnect with his past.

Third: He would go forward into a new future.

Yusaku had his plan laid out in front of him. He when over every step in his head.

He had already destroyed the knights of Hanoi, so step one was done. Now he needed to forget them and everything that happened. Like restarting a system to a state were it still functioned.

Step two would be straight forward, it would be like fixing a corrupted piece of data, the memories laid open to him now he simply needed to reinsert them into his mind and everything would be like it used to be.

The third step would then be ready for him and his new life would start.

Those were his three steps to get out of the situation. Three logical and computable steps he only needed to process.

Yusaku closed his eyes and tried to focus. There was no barrier between him and his past anymore. He tried to go back. He would restore everything back to a state where the system still worked.

He tried to let go of everything that haunted him and thought back to the memories buried deepest in his mind.

The first memories he thought of were his early fights against the Hanoi. The first few times Yusaku went into the network with Kusanagi as back up, giving Knight positions and other intelligence as he dashed form rooftop to rooftop.

But he needed to go further.

He remembers meeting Kusanagi for the first time. He pictured the time he had saved him from the knights of Hanoi and them discovering the secret of the Cyberse Deck together.

No, that was all still part of his fight against the Hanoi. There was something before that. There had to be.

Then he saw the memory of him holding his deck in a dark room after having just woken up from a terrible nightmare. He was still out of breath and shaking. Yusaku couldn’t remember when this memory took place or even where he was during it. All he saw was the dark room, himself and the deck.

Come on. He needed to find out more if he wanted to reconnect with his past. He concentrated and tried to feel what he felt back then.

The memory became clearer to him. Everything around him was shaking and sweat was running down his body. He remembers the fear and confusion he had felt before swearing his revenge. He looked around the room. Where was he?

The feeling was intense, like there was something unknown coming towards him in that dark room. What was happening?

Yusaku had to open his eyes. He was breathing heavily. He whipped his hand over his face. He could feel it was slightly wet. He was sweating.

Yusaku tried to calm his breathing and looked at his hand. That was the first time he had noticed his hands shaking violently. He quickly grabbed it with his other hand.

Yusaku shook his head and tried to calm down. He needed to move on, this memory wasn’t important anyway, it was still part of his fight and that fight was over now.

What happened before that day? Before his battles with the knights of Hanoi? He never really thought about it before, whenever he had time to think he thought about how he would destroy the knights of Hanoi or how he could improve his strategy or …

Nothing. Yusaku didn’t really know.

He had a frown on his face, of course he had to focus on the Knights of Hanoi in the past, but now he needed to stop being distracted and get his past reconnected.

What was there before that nightmare in the dark room? He closed his eyes again.

A foggy memory came into his mind. He couldn’t remember details, but there was a house and a garden behind it. Everything was decorated. There were balloons, garlands and a large banner.

And through it all he was running through a crowd of happy guests.

He looked up at them while running. They were all larger then him, big figures he could only remember the outlines of.

A smile formed on Yusaku’s lips as he remembered feeling happy and everything being warm, it had been summer.

The world around him was a bluer because he was running so fast. The colors were bright and he could hear laughter and cheers around him.

Yusaku then remembered where he was running too. He was searching for someone. He didn’t really know who, but he knew he wanted to tell them that he had just had a really fun duel.

He had lost, but he somehow didn’t feel like that was a problem, because it was a blast for everyone. Who his opponent was was a mystery to Yusaku, but he would let it play out, because it made him all feel strangely content.

In the memory he laughed loudly. He was out of breath from all the running.

His search was still fruitless and he stopped and looked around. It also gave him a moment to catch his breath.

As he was looking behind him the warm colors and bright lights were turning dark. It scared him and he dropped his smile. He suddenly felt like he needed to find whoever he was trying to find fast.

He started to run again, the people he passed were now more like large white walls he had to run between. A maze that he needed to find his way out of.

After turning a corner, he finally spotted his target. Two violet silhouettes sitting at a table. He started to make a final sprint towards them.

When he got there he grabbed one of the silhouette’s shoulders.

“YOU LOSE!”, he heard a familiar voice call out and for a second the he saw the game over screen come up in front of his eyes.

Yusaku ripped open his eyes and prepared for the shape pain that would run through his body. He was ready to cried out in pain.

He felt his body violently shaking.

No, this wasn’t real. He knew it. There was no real pain.

He tried to grabbed something nearby for support, but couldn’t find anything, so he let himself slide onto the ground and sat himself up against the wall for supported, dropping the picture.

After a moment he was still breathing heavily. He once again held his hands in front of his eyes to see that they were shaking.

This was never supposed to happen again. He defeated the Hanoi that was all he needed to do, right? Reconnecting with his past should be the next thing he does; his future should come to him.

He covered his face with his hands and felt wetness as he touched it. Tears were streaming down his face.

No, this was all wrong, it shouldn’t be like this.

There were no knights of Hanoi. There was no more lost incident.

His memories should be open to him.

Maybe his plan was wrong. Maybe his three steps were wrong. Maybe everything he did was for nothing.

The world was spinning around Yusaku, as he couldn’t stop shaking and crying.

There must be three steps that can get him out of this. There had to be.

But he could not go back there, to that place with the white walls. He couldn’t. Never again. Maybe his past could never be reconnected.

Think of three things.

What if there was nothing to regain for him?

Three things.

Maybe every memory he had from before and every piece of his past was so corrupted by the incident that he could not go back.

Three things.

In that moment Yusaku formulated a new plan, but it did not come in three steps.

He would not go back. His past was over, all of it, the lost incident, the Hanoi and everything before that. He would never go back and he would let his new future come to him.

Yusaku didn’t know how long he sat on the floor that night. He lost all sense of time as he sat there and told himself over and over again that his past was over. That all that happened before didn’t matter anymore.

At some point he fell asleep.

The rays of the early morning sun were creeping softly into Yusaku’s apartment. He could feel their warmth on his skin as he was waking up from the night of dreamless sleep.

His back was hurting from sleeping on the floor and as he opened his eyes. He was disorientated by the sun light for a moment.

He took a look around realizing that he was on the floor.

His room was as it always was. The large empty space filled with only his bed, his desk with the computer, the staircase leading to the door and the flowers on the windowsill. The only thing that was off was the open box and a few pieces of its content laid out on the floor.

Yusaku’s mind was empty for the first few moments. All the things from yesterday were still there, but he could not really grasp them.

He simply asked himself what he was going to do now. Not about the situation from yesterday, but about his morning.

The resolution rang in his head. He would move on and forget about everything, this was a new life now.

He slowly lifted himself of the floor and started to think.

What did he need to do now?

It was a school day so there were three clear things he needed to do.

Would he still do that? No that was Ryoken’s advice. He needed to let go of everything if he would ever be free of the pain.

“Master as I see you are already awake. I wish you a good morning.”, the robotic voice of Roboppy greeted him. “By my calculations you have plenty of time to complete your morning routine before leaving for school. Let me know if I can assist in any way.”

It took Yusaku out his thoughts. The robot was right, he still needed to get ready, just not with his three steps.

He tried to think hard about what to do, but came up empty.

His mind was completely blank on what to do. It was like trying to grab something in a pitch-black room. He just couldn’t concentrate properly.

He started to wander aimlessly around the apartment and after a moment instinctively entered the bathroom.

There was something he needed to do here, right?

Yes, brush his teeth. He went over to the sink and got out his toothbrush.

While cleaning his teeth he looked at himself in the mirror. Something about his face put him off. Was there something else he needed to do here before leaving?

He finished brushing his teeth and looked around the room, but he saw nothing else to do. His eyes once again turned to his reflection in the mirror. Without thinking he touched his cheeks with one of his hands. Something about it wasn’t right.

Yusaku couldn’t tell what it was even after staring for a moment longer. He took a deep breath and left the room.

Now he stood in the spacious main room again and didn’t know what else to do.

Then another thing popped into his mind. He needed to get dressed in his school uniform. He went to his closet to look for it, but he couldn’t find it there.

He looked all over the room, but there was nothing.

Yusaku started to feel himself getting nervous. He was looking around frantically now to find it. He looked under his bed, in the bathroom and in the kitchen.

When he still couldn’t find anything, he felt a weird feeling in his stomach like he was going to throw up and as he looked down he saw his hands shaking.

“Master, analyses of your behavior have led me to conclude that you are looking for something. May I help you find it?”, Roboppy asked in it’s squeaky voice.

The robot was looking up at him innocently. Yusaku looked at it for a moment unsure what to say.

“Yes, where is my school uniform?” Yusaku finally asked.

“Master I believe you are wearing your school uniform right now.”, the Robot replied happily.

Yusaku gave the robot a confused look. He processed what it said slowly and then looked down at his clothes.

It was true. He had never changed out of his school uniform the day before.

He stood in the large room without moving or thinking. He could only feel that his hands were shaking and that the strange feeling was climbing up from his stomach.

Right, he needed to do something. Was there anything else he needed to do?

Yusaku couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t find the answer in his head and the feeling wasn’t stopping. It was rising up in his chest now and his mind was completely empty while trying to find out what to do.

He decided that he needed to go. He grabbed his back and rushed out the door.

Yusaku was holding his stomach as it rumbled. The computer science class had just started a few minutes ago and the teacher was talking in front of the board, but Yusaku wasn’t listening.

His stomach now told him what he couldn’t think of this morning to save his life. He had forgotten any kind of breakfast.

He tried to drag his focus away from the pain in his stomach. He looked at the board and tried to make out what the teacher was talking about.

The diagrams and writings on the board were familiar to him. It was a simple problem he had even encountered once or twice while hacking with Kusanagi. He could solve it easily.

He went over the writing on the board again. To solve this problem all he needed to do was… He simply had to…

Yusaku had not idea. The diagrams on the board didn’t make sense to him anymore and every time he went through what the system would do he just lost the trail at some point.

There were three easy steps…No he can’t solve it that way.

The feeling was once again pounding in his chest and he was sure that if he would look down his hands would be shaking.

Yusaku grabbed the desk in front of him and started to slowly breath in and out.

Maybe this was a different problem he hadn’t seen yet or his lack of breakfast was getting to his mind.

Either way he simply needed a different distraction.

For the rest of the class Yusaku stared into the air and tried to think of nothing. He barely registered when the bell proclaimed the end of the lesson.

Most students were already gone by the time he started to leave.

Outside he struggled to think of what class he had next.

“Good morning Fujiki Yusaku.”, a light greeted said to him.

Yusaku turned around and saw Zaizen Aoi smile at him. In the last two weeks she seemed much more joyful then before her own battle with the Hanoi and she sometimes tried talking to Yusaku now.

“Your hair is different. Are you trying something new?” she asked him, looking at his hair and hiding a bit of laughter.

Yusaku gave her a look of confusion and reached up to feel his hair. It really was different and he suddenly knew why. He had completely forgotten to do any kind of other preparations in the bathroom other then brushing his teeth. His hair was a mess.

Aoi was still standing in front of him with a questioning look, so he gave her an uncertain nod to hopefully get out of the interaction quickly.

“It looks… well… interesting.” She said, taking her eyes of his hair.

“Anyway, are you coming to dueling club after school?”, she asked him, quickly changing the subject. Yusaku stood there and said nothing for an awarded moment. Duel club was only ever a means to an end, but that wasn’t what was bothering him.

“No, I’m not going anymore.” he answered, emotionlessly.

It was clear that Aoi was going to say something else, but Yusaku used the crowd flowing through the hallway to make a swift exit. He didn’t feel like there was much to gain from this conversation.

The rest of the school day was more or less normal. He had his classes and didn’t really pay attention in any of them.

During his last class, he began to think about the interaction with Aoi he had almost forgotten by this point.

She seemed different now. Yusaku usually didn’t notice anything like this and he still couldn’t really put his finger on what exactly was going on, but there was something. She seemed happier in some way.

She was another person who was doing a lot better after what happened. Sure, she couldn’t really compare to his situation, but Jin was also doing a lot better.

Why was he doing so much worse then all of them?

No, he should stop thinking like this, he wasn’t doing worse. He was getting better. He had his plan in place. It would be hard, but to achieve anything he needs to just stop thinking about it.

After school Yusaku made his way to Kusanagi’s Hot dog truck, like he always did. On his way the thought that bothered him before entered his head.

Aoi had asked him if he wanted to go to duel club which he declined, but that raised another question.

Was he ever going to duel again?

He let the question ring in his head. Dueling was always the way he battled the Hanoi, but he also felt a connection to it from before that.

He knew about its philosophy and what it meant to be a true duelist. It was something he had in his soul and Yusaku felt like someone must have taught him about it in the past.

If he would try to think about it, he could maybe find out who. Something felt right about that, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t let what happened yesterday happen again.

He would let go of dueling just like everything else, even if it left a strange feeling in his stomach.

He almost didn’t notice that he had reached the hot dog truck, because he was lost in his thoughts.

The truck was standing on the central square of den city as always. Before Yusaku entered the truck to dress in his work cloth, he noticed a large screen overlooking the square that was currently displaying an image of Go, Blue Angel and his own alter ego Playmaker.

The text underneath proclaimed: “More action in the New LINK VRAINS coming soon!”

No, he would not return. Never. Yusaku thought resolutely.

Kusanagi was just returning from talking to a customer, as Yusaku was getting ready.

“Good afternoon Yusaku.” Kusanagi greeted him softly.”, How was school?”

“It was fine, Kusanagi-san” Yusaku answered quickly, avoiding eye contact. If Kusanagi would look too closely he could see right through him and Yusaku didn’t want him to worry unnecessarily.

Yusaku doubted he was very successful because Kusanagi just stood there for a moment and looked at him.

Yusaku didn’t know how to resolve the situation so he moved towards the grill and started cooking.

“If anything is wrong you can talk to me, ok?”, Kusanagi finally said, breaking the silence.

Yusaku just nodded and continued to cook uncomfortably while Kusanagi lingered for another moment.

Then Yusaku heard Kusanagi slowly getting out of the truck and heading outside.

After struggling to turn around all the hotdogs on the grill, Yusaku was never a born cook, he saw Kusanagi walking in front of the truck and going towards one of the customers. He would usually try to do small talk with every one who visited the truck.

“It’s good for business and besides it is more fun that way.” Kusanagi would usually say with a smile.

Yusaku didn’t get it, but most customers seemed to like Kusanagi and he knew everyone of them by heart.

Having just finished another time of turning the hotdogs, he let his eyes wander around the square. Usually he never paid much attention to who was visiting the Café Nagi, but he didn’t want to give himself to wandering thoughts again.

It was pretty quiet for the most part, there was only the woman Kusanagi was talking to in front of the truck. This was one of the hours that was usually the least busy and the square didn’t receive any unexpected crowds anymore now that LINK VRAINS was down.

The large screen was still advertising the newest features of LINK VRAINS, not that Yusaku would have cared even if he was still Playmaker, but he still avoided looking at it.

Other than that, there wasn’t much to see. Yusaku briefly looked at the red horizon that would soon see a sundown. He had never really paid attention to it before. He couldn’t tell why but he found it somewhat relaxing looking at it.

He heard a hissing sound from the grill and quickly moved to turn the hot dogs once more.

After he was done he noticed that Kusanagi was still talking to the woman. He was telling her something with great enthusiasm.

Yusaku’s eyes continued to wander from Kusanagi to the woman.

She was listening to Kusanagi carefully. She wore a red jacket and her hair was indigo tied into a ponytail.

The setting sunlight was reflecting of a silver bracelet on her hand and Yusaku could just make out her green eyes.

There was the sound of steel hitting the ground. Yusaku had dropped the hot dog tong he was holding.

It was like in one of the memories he had yesterday, it seemed so familiar. He knew that hair, that bracelet and those eyes.

He started to blink quickly. He stood behind the grill frozen in place.

It was like the world was spinning around him. He felt that now very much familiar feeling rising in his stomach, that feeling of dread he had felt all day.

His heavy breathing and shaking hands also felt familiar by now.

He needed to do something. One part of him told him to go outside towards the woman, there was something familiar about her, something warm despite everything else he felt.

No, he couldn’t. It would be the same thing that happened yesterday and he wanted to never feel that again.

Fear. He felt utter fear. He should go, run away, if he waited any longer he would see that game over screen and that voice would ring in his ears again.

Yusaku started slowly. He got out of the work apron and opened the door of the truck with his shaking hands. He slowly walked away from the truck in the opposite direction of where Kusanagi was standing.

His slow steps turned into a walk and then into a run. He needed to be fast. He felt the world turn darker around him just like yesterday. If he wouldn’t run faster it would all happen again.

He didn’t know for how long he ran, but as he stopped he was completely exhausted. His breathing was heavy and he was bend over with his hands on his knees.

The only thing he felt was fear.

The night was a blur for Yusaku. His feet were carrying him without him knowing where they were going. He didn’t want to go home and be forced to think again, so he wandered the streets of Den city for what felt like a long time.

He had a mental map of the city: the docks, the three bridges and city center. All laid out in his head. That’s how he was able to solve the riddle for the Cyberse deck.

But despite that and living and going to school there he knew very little else about it. Any other details were a mystery to him.

He felt nothing when thinking about the city or it’s people.

So as his feet were carrying him around the city and he tried to avoided thinking at all cost, he took it all in for probably the first time.

The night in Den city or at least in the part where he was wandering, felt hardly like a night at all. There were neon lights shining from every building. Large screens that displaced all kinds of advertisement from duel monsters to ice cream.

There was noise everywhere the sound of automated cars driving the highway, the voices coming from the stores and the advertisement blasting the messages through the streets.

All of it overwhelmed Yusaku he felt like he could barely see through the neo light and the noise was disorienting him.

“Now say it with us! The fun is only getting started!” he heard two voices coming from one of the large screens proclaim.

It was one noise out of thousands, but he was somehow drawn to it.

On the left side of the screen was a woman with pink hair, a blue and white shirt and pink skirt. Around one of her arms was a silver bracelet.

On the right side of the screen, Yusaku could see a man with spiky red and green hair and a set of goggles on his head. He was wearing a red shirt and green pants. A pendulum was swinging from his neck.

The background was covered with golden music notes and duel monster cards and on the bottom, it said: “You Show Duel School! Coming to Den city soon!”

The image made Yusaku feel that same feeling of dread rising in his stomach. He wanted to start running again to get away, but something different happened.

It felt like his mind was no longer just in his body. He felt every piece of technology around him. How every message was dashing in the air. How the data was running into the screen, laptops and even some of the lights around him.

He felt were it all came from, through the wireless connection in the air or through cables in the ground. He felt what it was doing, what it was turning on and off, what messages were sent and all the backup saves being made.

It was all too much for him, like a million of thoughts running through his head all at once.

He could feel the systems when he worked with them sometimes. If he concentrated he could see the signals making up the LINK VRAINS network flying over Den city as green beams at night. He believed AI once called it “link sense”, but it had never been this extreme.

Yusaku could only vaguely tell what he was doing. At first, he tried to run away, but it wouldn’t stop.

He could feel himself sitting on the ground closing his eyes and ears to try to shut everything out, but he couldn’t. The noises wouldn’t stop.

At some point he started to run again.

When he regained control of his thoughts, he was completely lost. It felt like a long time had passed.

He slowly looked around to try to find out were he was.

The first thing he saw were the shimmering light blue lights coming from the wide dark blue ocean. The moon was shining just above the water adding to the lights. At first, he thought that it was another vision, but it was real and Yusaku was slowly realizing where he was.

Another look around revealed that he was sitting on a bench near the railing. If he would look to the side he could see the now vacant house of his rival.

Yusaku wonder why he had run here to “Stardust road”.

It was not a place that Yusaku had ever visited after what happened, but sitting there completely exhausted he could see why Kusanagi thought it was beautiful.

He could forget everything that happened the last few days for a few moments while sitting there and looking at the sea of blue shimmers and far away stars.

His final battle with Revolver came to his mind. At first, he wanted to fight it because of his new rules, but he was too exhausted and the blue light set him at ease.

Somehow Yusaku didn’t think about all the fighting that had happened. He thought about what he said to Revolver.

“You couldn’t just stand by, so you crossed the abyss. You’re able to save me and I’m able to save you.” Yusaku muttered out loud, the words feeling as if he had spoken to Revolver only moments ago.

A promise between two who’s pasts were ripped apart and who were now in limbo. Something absolute in meaning and resolve.

He sighs. How was he supposed to find a new path for both of them, if he can’t even see his own?

Yusaku knew in that moment that to keep the promise he would need to face what ever he couldn’t remember, what ever the abyss was still obscuring from his vision.

The thought scared him. He had never been afraid of going after the knights of Hanoi or hacking into SOL technology. Even when his life pointes were at the lowest point he never thought about fear just about how to continue, but in that moment, he was terrified.

His hands were shaking again. He tried to move from the bench, but couldn’t. He closed his eyes. How could he ever overcome this fear?

The quietness of the night gave way for his mind to wander.

Yusaku had just awoken from a nightmare with a tiny scream. He never had one before so he was very scared.

Uncle Yugo had told them all a scary story today. Yusaku had acted strong, making jokes about the story afterwards.

But what if the three gods of Egypt really were out at night to hunt souls to fuel their eternal lust for power?

The only way to be save was to hide underneath his blanket and protect himself with his flashlight against the darkness of his room. Even then there still was a chance that they would still try to snatch him so he would be extra careful and skip sleep tonight.

After a few moments of sitting in his protective fortress he heard voices from outside. They were quiet, so against all caution he opened a slit under the blanket.

“You go in. You can do this, I know.” A female voice said.

“Of course, I could … it’s just … I think it’s your turn.” A male voice protested, trying to hide a bit of nervousness.

“Are you scared or something?” the female voice replied, mocking him a bit.

There was a small pause.

“Hey.” The female voice started again, now calmly and quietly. “You are going to do great. I know it. just remember what we talked about. If you think about what you feel for him nothing will go wrong.”

There was another pause.

“Ok... If you insist.” The male voice said, trying to sound casual.

The next thing Yusaku heard was the door being opened. He quickly turned off the flashlight and laid down in his bed.

He heard a few steps coming closer to the bed. The small bedside light was turned on and he could feel someone sitting down on the bed next to him.

His eyes needed a moment to get used to the light, but he could make out the purple hair and outfit.

“Everything ok there?” his father asked him, carefully.

Yusaku saw him clearly now and tried to avoid his worried purple eyes.

“Yes …ahh … everything is just fine with me.” He answered, nervously rubbing his neck and giving a fake smile.

His father looked at him for a moment and Yusaku did his best to look normal.

“We just heard a noise and thought something happened.” His father said, slowly.

“Yes, that was just…ahh…nothing really. Everything good with me.” Yusaku stuttered weakly, rubbing his neck.

His father gave him an understanding look.

“You had a nightmare, didn’t you?” his father questioned, slowly. He put his hand on Yusaku’s shoulder a bit too carefully and gave him his best reassuring look.

“Yes … no … I mean… it was stupid. I should just get over it” Yusaku muttered.

There was a moment of silence between them and Yusaku felt awkward for having admitted his stupid nightmare.

“I have nightmares too, you know”.” His father said looking off into the distance. “So, I think I can understand.”

Yusaku was stunned for a second. That wasn’t possible. Father always seemed so resolute, untouchable even. Somebody like him would never even think about fear.

“That can’t be true.” Yusaku said in disbelieve.

“Yusaku.” He said softly and turned to him. He seemed to think very hard about what he was going to say next, “Everybody is afraid sometimes, uncle Yuto, aunt Rin, your mother and even me.”

He gave Yusaku a moment to think about that. Uncle Yuto was always so calm and aunt Rin could even scare uncle Yugo when he did something forbidden.

“Really?” he muttered, quietly.

His father answered his question with a firm nod.

“We are all afraid sometimes and that’s not a problem. Only if you let the fear consume you does it become one. You need to face what you fear and learn to overcome it. So that you can live without them.” He continued.

“So, you can beat your fears and the just not have them anymore?” Yusaku asked, excitedly.

His father had to smiled a bit at his excitement.

“It’s not that simple. One fear can be overcome, but you see fear is something that can happen to your whole life and you need to face it every time to be happy. Everybody needs to do that.” He explained, further.

Yusaku thought about that for a moment. He needed to have fears his whole life, beating one only to have the next!

Yusaku gave him a distressed look and his father seemed to notice because he seemed to panic a bit.

“But I don’t want to live my whole life having to fight fear. I can’t even fight it now.” He said, distressed.

His father tried to hide the panic in his face and thought hard about what he was going to say.

“Yusaku, some fears you can never beat fully, but you need to learn to overcome them and move on despite being afraid, if you do that, then fighting fear is not something you will need to do every day. There will just always be times when you will have to and the trick is that you use the help and support of others around you to get through it. You will see, if you have help it will be easier.” He finally advised.

Yusaku was in deep thought about what his father had said to him. So, it wasn’t really his whole life. He just needed to be ready. That didn’t sound too bad.

“Why don’t we try the using the support of others thing right now? What was your nightmare about?” his father asked him, while giving him a pad on the back.

Yusaku looked at him and he gave him a reassuring look.

“Well… today uncle Yugo told us about the three Egyptian gods who steal people’s souls.” Yusaku explained, feeling childish for saying it.

Yusaku saw a flash of anger on his father’s face at the mention of uncle Yugo, but he seemed to decide to settle that later. He gave Yusaku a warm smile and put his hands around his shoulders.

“That is just a story your uncle made up and even if that was true, you have the world’s best and second-best duelist right in the next room.” He tried to say it with a smile and enthusiasm.

Yusaku laugh together with his father. He was starting to feel better now and a lot safer. His parents really could beat everybody.

After enjoying a moment between the two of them, Yusaku’s father wished him a good night and started to leave the room.

Yusaku’s eyes were already half closed as he thought of another question.

“Father, what are you afraid of?” he innocently asked with a sleepy voice.

Yusaku thought he saw has father’s hand quickly move to his deck box on his belt. He seemed to be taken aback by the question and he took a long moment to compose himself and think of an answer.

“Just the big Level-eater bugs that always eat the plants in our garden, but your mother is really good at keeping them away. Now good night.” He answered, cheerfully.

He turned off the light. Yusaku smiled and wished him a good night too.

Then Yusaku could hear the sound of the door closing.

He now felt very content and save in his bed. He also felt very sleepy and he started to drift off to sleep.

Half asleep he thought he heard the same voices from before talking.

“You did it! I’m so proud of you!” the female voice cried, quietly and sounding a bit teary. Then Yusaku heard the sound of what he thought was a kiss.

“Of course, I did. Nothing easier than that.” He heard the male voice say, it sounded confident, but had a hint of relief that it could not hide.

Soon Yusaku fell asleep.

Yusaku opened his eyes again. The blue light was still shining into the quite night.

During the memory he was afraid that the pain would return, but the fear soon past and was replaced by a warm feeling.

He didn’t know how to understand what he just remembered. What had actually happened during the memory was foggy to him, he had seen it all, but comprehending it was another thing.

It felt more like a series of emotions. Firstly, the fear like the one he had felt all day, then secondly warmth all-around him and the feeling of being save and thirdly him sitting on the beach looking at the blue lights feeling a lot better than before.

His hands had settled again and he could breathe freely. A new Strength was flowing through his body. He didn’t fully know why it happened, but He could beat the fear with that strength the memory gave him, even if he didn’t fully understand.

First: He would use it to get up from the bench and go home.

Second: He would get through his day tomorrow and apologize to Kusanagi.

Third: He would stop running away, start changing the future to something better and keep his promise.

A bit of Fear was still there, but that evening he managed to get of the beach and he got back into his apartment.

Despite how much his world had shaken yesterday, the beginning of the next day had been strangely normal for Yusaku. There was no great incident or sudden flash memory. He went through his morning slower than usual. He listed the things he needed to do in groups of three carefully and did them slowly.

There was no fear, only a bit of uncertainty in the back of his mind, but he somehow thought he would be fine, he would only need to take this one step at a time.

School was also normal, not at all different from how the rest of all the long days he had spend at Den city high school had been, but today his mind was free to think about it for the first time.

Were the computer science classes exiting? Was this something he wanted to do for his whole life?

He was certainly good at it. The problem he had struggled with yesterday had been no problem on the test and he had scored another perfect score today.

Yusaku couldn’t really say if he was enjoying it, but he could also not say the he disliked it.

Yesterday it became clear that his past was open to him and that he needed to claim it, but on that early school morning with the sun slowly rising he realized that the same was true for his future too.

Zaizen Akira had said to him that he should have a normal life and that he should be able to excitedly talk to his friends about the future. Could he actually do that now?

He tried to picture it. It didn’t feel wrong.

“One day… One day we will. You will see…” Yusaku muttered under his breath without even realizing. It was filled with hope and determination even if the person it was for was probably hundreds of miles over the ocean.

For now, he would need to do small steps like his plan said. Starting with finishing his school day and apologizing to Kusanagi. It felt like it would all work out if he did it in small steps.

“Good morning Fujiki Yusaku.” just like yesterday the soft voice of Zaizen Aoi took him by surprise. “Your hair is back to normal.”

She looked at it for a moment. He didn’t really know what to say so he gave her a nod.

“Anyway, I was thinking … maybe … you could rethink quitting the dueling club.” Aoi asked him, slowly.

Yusaku was confused by the question at first, but then he remembered the conversation they had yesterday.

“It’s just… you’re actually a pretty good duelist and I think it could be fun.” She said, her hands gesturing to support her argument, “I know it’s probably hard with your part-time job and all, but maybe you could make time. I know Shima Naoki is always really annoying, but if you beat him once or twice I’m sure he will quit being so…”

“I will do it.” Yusaku muttered. Aoi almost didn’t notice his response and gave him a surprised look.

“I will be at the meeting later. See you then” Yusaku told her and started to move away.

Aoi was going to say something, but stopped herself and just smiled.

“See you later.” She called after him, cheerfully.

Yusaku was almost at the hot dog truck now.

The duel club had been fine. They mostly learned strategies he, and he was certain Aoi too, already knew. Still he couldn’t say he was bored or annoyed, even Shima’s loud mouthed comment about how he knew all the strategies already only bothered him a little bit.

Another student had asked him if he could help him with his deck and Yusaku did his best to help him even if he felt a little uncomfortable.

At the end of the class Aoi and he had a duel. It was close, even if both of them weren’t using their real decks. In the end they didn’t have enough time left to finish it, but they agreed to do another one tomorrow.

He wasn’t sure why he agreed to join the club again, but it felt like another small step he could do, something normal he could do even if he wasn’t fully comfortable.

The hot dog truck was close now and Yusaku decided to head to the front to apologize to Kusanagi immediately.

He saw him behind the counter cooking the hot dogs. As Yusaku came closer Kusanagi noticed him. At first, he looked worried as he saw Yusaku, but he quickly tried changed his expression to a comforting smile.

Yusaku was just about to open his mouth and start his apology when he saw the same indigo haired woman sitting in a chair in front of the truck as yesterday. She was observing the large screen overlooking the square carefully with her back turned to him.

Yusaku turned towards her and froze completely.

“There you are. Where were you yesterday? I was worried.” He heard Kusanagi say behind him.

Yusaku had almost forgotten what happened yesterday, but it came back to him now. His first instinct was to run away.

No. He would stop running, he had made a promise and he will do everything to keep it. He would move forward.

Three steps between him and her. Three steps he needs to take to his past. Only Three steps to the future.

First: to keep his promise to the person who saved him, who he would save.

He took his first step.

“Is everything ok?” Kusanagi asked, sounding worried. Yusaku barely noticed. He would still apologize later. Kusanagi would understand.

Second: to find out the truth about the past and learn to live with it.

He took a second step.

“You have … You have been acting strangely these last few days. I know things can’t be easy for you. We should talk inside the truck.” Kusanagi said in a caring voice.

He was close now and his hands were shaking, but it wouldn’t stop him.

Third: because the future doesn’t change. You change the future.

He took his third and final step towards her.

And then she turned around.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: The company man

The seat was very uncomfortable. It was too small and the back rest hurt his back. It was clearly mad to torture anyone who sat on it.

He shifted again, not sure how he should sit, before deciding to sit with his back straight, eyes looking forward at the door and hands to his sides.

Yuri just needed to stay like this for a few more moments. He doesn’t need to look at the clock above the door. It would only say that they had been sitting there for far too long, like the last few times he had looked at it.

Keeping his back and feet straight was slowly building a desire in him to kick that door in and ask why they let them wait for so long, but of course he would never do something like that now.

Years of military training taught him how to properly sit straight, but even back then he hated it and would use every opportunity to find a distraction. This whole situation was oddly familiar to him.

Sitting in front of a professor’s office, or in this case a principal’s office, waiting. There was always the waiting in the hallway before the professor would ask him in and give him his new…

No. He needed to stop thinking about that time. That was over. Even thinking about it made anger and disgust rise up his stomach and that wasn’t supposed to happen.

His stupid past, he needed to move on. It was usually easier to avoid thinking about. With the way his life was now, he should be able to be free, but sometimes he couldn’t help it.

If he could, then they would not be sitting there right now.

Yuri started to nervously shift in his seat again.

“What has bitten you?” Serena asked him, with a stern look on her face.

Yuri quickly looked over to her. She was sitting next to him in the same kind of uncomfortable chair, she didn’t show her annoyance as openly, but Yuri could tell it was there.

Her questioning face stared at him, waiting for an answer.

Yuri decided to look back at the door to avoid her gaze. If she would look him in the eyes, she would see that something was greatly bothering him, instantly.

“Nothing. The seat is just terrible and this teacher is taking forever. They sure give the kids here a great example.” He answered, trying to sound annoyed enough to make it believable.

Yuri continued to avoid Serena’s eyes. His eyes wandered around the hallway.

On the Door it simply said: “principal’s office”. On a bored next to the door were a few colorful notes about activities the school would host.

“School gardening competition” He and Yusaku would totally win that. He wasn’t supposed to help too much, but he could give advice and Yusaku isn’t too bad at it himself.

Yuri would have smiled, but in the moment even that did little to distract him. His eyes even wandered back to the clock and he cursed himself for it. Almost no time has past since the last time he had looked.

Yuri’s eyes had wandered over everything in this hallway enough to memorize it by now. It offered him no distraction anymore.

The way he saw it he had a good chance of Serena not noticing that something was wrong. Normally she was good at telling when something was wrong with him or Yusaku, but her impatience had her just as annoyed at the situation as he was. There was a good chance that she didn’t notice.

Charing his problems with Serena had always helped him, but he needed to learn to handle it himself and he knew that this whole raising an actual human being thing was hard for her too, even if she always acted strong. She couldn’t use the extra weight.

When they got home Yuri would make sure that she would have a nice evening and that everything else was taken care of. He would throw in a sarcastic comment about having to do all the work to save face, but they would both know it was fake.

Yuri felt Serena’s hand on his and immediately knew that she could tell that there was something wrong with him.

He gave a sigh. There was no going back now. He needed to tell her or she would get it out of him.

“It’s just…” Yuri muttered. He didn’t really know how to put it. He thought for a long moment.

“I wish he had more of you in him then of me.” Yuri finally admitted. “He has got being amazing, smart and strong from you … and from me he has … the amazing qualities that landed us here.”
After building up enough courage, he finally looked at her directly and gave her a weak smile. Yuri was really out of his comfort zone talking about this.

Serena looked like she was thinking very hard. An expression Yuri would usually find amusing and cute. In any other situation he would have probably even teased her a bit for it.

“You think that we are here because of things he got from you?” Serena finally asked him, looking into his eyes questioningly.

Yuri could only nod uncomfortably, looking away again. He was never sure if he was the best father for Yusaku. He tried with everything in his power, but sometimes it felt like, because of his past, his best was not good enough.

“Yuri?” she asked, waiting for him to look at her again. When he did he saw her give him a reassuring smile.

“He played duel monsters during class. That is not the end of the world. I bet if we would have gone to a normal school, like this, we would have done the same thing.” Serena told him, cheerfully.

Yuri, not quite giving in, gave her only a weak smile.

“That is not the only thing. He is wild sometimes and don’t try to hide itm even you struggle to keep up with him sometimes.” Yuri sighed. He wanted to look at the ground again, but something in Serena’s now determined look told him not to.

“Yuri, he is a kid of course he is going to be wild. He is lively, happy, confident and kind to everyone he meets. If he has got any of that from you, then I wouldn’t have him any other way, do you?” Serena questioned him with a confident expression.

Yuri thought about that for a moment. Sure, he was quite a bit to handle, but now that he thought about it he couldn’t count the amount of times he had made everyone smile. Was that, partially at least, because of him?

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t change a thing. He is great the way he is.” Yuri finally answered, confidently.

Yuri took Serena’s hand because he didn’t know how else to show how thankful and relieved he was. There was a moment were both of them were enjoying a comfortable silence.

“You know what? You are right. I take back what I said. All the best stuff he has got from me and not from you.” Yuri teased with a smile.

They both started to argue and laugh happily for the rest of there still long wait.

They were still laughing when the door finally opened.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fujiki.”

“Mr. Fujiki?” a soft voice called to him “Mr. Fujiki, sir?”

Yuri opened his eyes and was overwhelmed by the light of the room. His headache kicked back in and every bone in his body hurt.

After the first moments of confusion he tried to see who had called him.

He shifted himself so he was sitting straight in the chair he had fallen asleep in. A woman with long white hair and a blue hoody was standing in front of him.

Yuri couldn’t quite remember were he had seen the woman before, but he definitely recognized her.

She looked at him with a polite smile, waiting for him to collect himself. Yuri’s headache hurt too much for him to feel awkward for falling asleep here.

“Mr. Fujiki, my brother sends me to tell you that he will be ready for you in a few minutes.” She told him politely. “Can I offer you anything while you wait?”

Yuri’s memory slowly came back, he almost didn’t recognize her. She looked so different from when she was younger.

Her name was Reira and she was Akaba Reiji’s sister. She had decided to no longer hide her long white hair under a hood and cap and she was so much taller then Yuri remembered.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” He muttered after a moment.

Reira sat herself across from him in the large waiting room. Still smiling at him politely.

“I will lead you to him when he is ready.” She informed him before looking down and starting to type into her duel disk.

She really was different now. It must have been years since Yuri last saw her.

Yuri knew that Reira was one of the original Lancer’s and that she was the one to land the final hit on Zarc. She then took all his darkness inside herself and was born again.

Yuri shuddered. Such a young child needed to fight the darkness he created. Another person he had hurt.

No. He shouldn’t think like that. Serena always told him, that both of them were different now, that they both regretted the things they did and that they always tried to do everything to set things right.
Yuri took a deep breath. Serena always believed in him and he owed it to her to believe in himself.

His mind continued to wander during the waiting and an old memory came to mind.

Reira was only a few years older than Yusaku. She would always play with Yusaku and the other Lancer’s children when they were younger. She was like a big sister to all of them, someone they all looked up to and trusted.

After what happened, Yusaku didn’t want to play with the other children anymore, no matter how much they tried to convince him. He would always prefer to be alone, suffering silently to himself.

Yuri decided to end that train of thought before it began. He was here to fix it.

The next few moments he tried desperately not to think or to give into his headache.

After deciding last night that he would face Akaba Reiji, he didn’t get much sleep and he headed to the gigantic LDS tower as soon as it opened in the morning.

The choice between Akaba Reiji or Akaba Leo was clear to him. He might not like facing Reiji, but he swore to never return to Academia and he wouldn’t be so weak as to need Akaba Leo for anything ever again.

Still Yuri couldn’t help but feel something other than the pain of his headache and fatigue from not sleeping while sitting in that seat.

Yuri didn’t really fear Akaba Reiji, but he still would whether not talk to him. He just wasn’t sure that this would work and that made him uncomfortable. He hated to admit it, but maybe he was a bit nervous.

Whatever it was, he needed to ignore it. Yuri would simply state his case and convince Reiji that his plan was justified. It would work out, it needed to, for his family.

Instinctively Yuri checked his duel disk and saw that there was a message from Serena. He would come home later and apologize to her for making her worry. Yuri could understand why she felt the way she did, but he had to do this or things would never change.

“Mr. Fujiki, my brother is ready for you now.” Reira told him, releasing him from his wandering thoughts. He would check the message later.

Yuri followed her through the winding hallways of the LDS tower, past large action dueling fields and crowds of students.

The whole place made Yuri uncomfortable. Seeing the school uniforms and dueling lessons made him shiver and he was glad when he and Reira entered the elevator to Reiji’s office.

While the elevator was dashing up the large tower Reira started to throw nervous glances at Yuri, who noticed instantly.

After a while she took a heavy breath and seemed to have finally build up enough courage to say something.

“Mr. Fujiki, sir. How is Yusaku these days?” she asked trying to sound casual, but Yuri could see right through that. She still avoided his eyes while waiting for an answer.

Yuri was somewhat surprised by the question, but he supposed it was normal, they used to be friends after all.

“Just busy with school. He is … fine….” Yuri lied. He wasn’t asked about Yusaku very often and it didn’t feel right to talk about it now.

Before Reira could say anything else the elevator reached its destination.

Reiji’s office was gigantic, with a massive panorama window overlooking the whole city. The rays of morning sun were just about shining through and the window gave a perfect view of the large and colorful dueling school ally and the Miami city harbor.

Yuri took the long way from the entrance to the desk with quick and decisive steps, he wouldn’t be intimidated like some business partner coming here to talk to the great head of the Leo corporation.

As Yuri drew closer he saw that Reiji was sitting with his back turned towards him looking out over the bay.

“Good morning Yuri.” Reiji greeted him in a calm voice. “I trust Reira has led you here well? She is doing an internship at Leo corporation’s science division and I thought it would be best to send someone you knew.”

Yuri couldn’t read anything from his voice. It was completely neutral and calm, but Yuri was no amateur at reading people and he was sure that he would give something away eventually. This would be a fight.

“Good morning Reiji. Reira did great. Give her my thanks.” Yuri answered. His voice was polite and direct.

Reiji then turned his chair around to face Yuri. He had his hands folded in front of his face. His eyes were neutral, but Yuri knew he was sizing him up. Yuri thought he probably knew why he was here, or at least he had some idea.

Yuri couldn’t really blame him for being suspicious. He probably had some idea of how Yuri spends his nights, that alongside his past probably justified the leader of the Lancers having his guard up.

“Please take a seat.” He told him, pointing at a chair in front of the desk.

Yuri sat down and put his arms comfortably on the armrests. He would try to appear confident.

“Can I offer you anything to drink?” Reiji inquired. He was playing for time trying to see his reaction. Yuri wouldn’t fall for it.

“No.” Yuri answered, a bit too quickly, failing to fully hide his impactions. It was only a tiny mistake, but he was sure Reiji noticed.

Reiji leaned himself back into his chair, his hands were still folded and his look was sharp.

“You said you needed my help with something.” He noted. Strait to the point then. Yuri was pleased that they could skip the pleasantries.

Reiji then waited for Yuri to speak. Yuri knew that he was looking closely for any hints, but he wasn’t new to this kind of game so he would stay confident.

“I have uncovered information concerning one of your rivals. SOL technology has connections to illegal activities and to … what happened to my son.” Yuri finally explained. He cursed himself for stuttering at the end.

Reiji gave him a skeptical look. His red glasses obscuring his eyes. Yuri knew instantly that Reiji had doubts, but he couldn’t give up now.

There was a moment of tense waiting for Yuri while Reiji observed him.

“Do you have evidence for these accusations?” Reiji questioned, incisively.

Yuri knew he was going to ask that and was prepared.

“I have investigated the case for years now and everything seems to link back to them. They covered there tracks well, but it is clear that they are the only ones in the position to organize something like this. When all the evidence leads back to Den city it has to be them.” Yuri summarized, keeping his voice full of confidents.

Yuri saw the light reflect of Reiji’s glasses, not moving at all.

“Nothing concrete then?” Reiji noted, sharply.

Yuri had to swallow a bit of anger at the question, but quickly collected himself.

“They are the only ones capable of the kind of actions I have uncovered. Evidence doesn’t just vanish and I am sure you are not unfamiliar with large scale cover ups.” Yuri argued, sarcastically. He had heard a lot of stories about Akaba Reiji through the years.

For a moment a smile flashed on Reiji’s face before he stood up and went to stand near the edge of the desk.

“Yuri, I promise you that the Lancer organization, as the protectors of this dimension, and Leo corporation, as a competitor, will monitor any activity of SOL Technology closely. I also promise you that the investigation into what happened to your son is still ongoing. If you have evidence that could help us I will be glade to receive it.” Reiji finally stated.

Yuri should have known that this was useless. Reiji would always believe that he was clinging onto anything out of desperation. He should have never come here. Anger was rising in him, but he wouldn’t yell or strike out, that wasn’t him anymore and Reiji was Serena’s friend. He would just have to do this on his own.

Yuri stood up as well and calmed himself so he could leave. Reiji was still observing him closely.

“I must also repeat an offer I have made to your family before. If you need any kind of support, Leo corporation and I personally will support you in any way we can.” Reiji added, and even though anger still clouded his judgment Yuri could somehow tell that it was Reiji’s strange was of being genuine, Reiji was Serena’s friend after all.

Yuri thanked him and the two said goodbye. Yuri went back through the large office to the elevator. Away from the sunlight that was reaching through the window. It dawned on him what failure here meant and what he needed to do now. He didn’t know if he could.

Yuri was making his way through the busy seaside alley of Miami city. Even at this early hour the pier area was full of people.

Along the way Yuri came past countless dueling schools and dueling shops each was more colorful and had a different theme then the last. All the while he heard the sound of the soft ocean waves and the seagulls crying.

When Yuri moved here he was overwhelmed with it all, he would complain about how much he hated all of it. Now he knew that he had been just confused about his life and that he had let it out on everyone.

In hindsight he couldn’t express how lucky he was that Sakaki Yoko and Yusho had taken him in like he was family, treating him like their own child.

Even with the kind offer his road to accepting it was long. After what happened he had spent days in the ruins of Academia not knowing what to do.

After being free of Zarc something changed in him. He would try to act out his violent ways to gain some satisfaction, but something was holding him back.

In that time, it was Serena who thought him out. While surrounded by the rubble of the destroyed academia castle she told him about a different path that she had taken and that he could take too. That day he took the first step out of Academia with her by his side.

Even with that resolution he must have made life a bit of a hell for the whole Sakaki household for a while. Still they never gave up on him.

The road was long and every step was hard, but eventually he got better. Yoko, Yusho, Yuya, Yuzu and many more helped him. Serena of course most of all. Prideful as he was he didn’t show it often, but he was thankful that they helped him.

And so, in time he learned that Miami city wasn’t too bad.

He had often gone to the seaside with Yusaku and Serena here. Yusaku had loved to watch the ships go by and wanted to study at every one of the colorful dueling schools. Yuri couldn’t quite chare the enthusiasm even after all these years the idea of a dueling schools still made him shiver.

Yuri realized he had lost himself in memory. The thought would have been beautiful, but his son was no longer smiling at the world like he used to and he was on his way to break the vow he had taken so many years ago.

But he needed to, even if he would regret it.

While walking to the interdimensional train station Yuri thought he noticed a shadow dashing along the rooftops next to him.

He kept walking to avoid suspicion and between the next rooftops he saw it again. It was fast, anyone else would have missed it, but Yuri had keen eyes and experience. He hated how easy it felt.
Yuri made his way into a nearby alley and kept walking until he was in the darkness.

“You had your fun. Game is up. Come out or I will make you.” Yuri exclaims in a mockingly tired voice.

For a moment nothing happened and Yuri leaned himself against one of the alley’s walls.

“Your good, but you should have kept more distance. We could go through the whole process of me losing you or you could show yourself.” Yuri explained, starting to get impatient.

After another moment there was a hissing sound behind Yuri and as he turned around a man in a black and blue ninja outfit stood behind him.

“I have failed my master’s mission.” The ninja said, humbly.

“Well obviously.” Yuri deadpanned, moving over to him.

The man in front of him Yuri recognized to be Tsukikage, one of the Lancers and Reiji’s spy.

Anger started to rise in Yuri. First Reiji refuses to help him and now he spies on him. Reiji’s own investigation had found nothing and if Reiji thought he could stop Yuri from doing what ever it takes to save his son then he would soon find out that he is wrong.

Yuri grabbed Tsukikage by his collar. A part of Yuri wanted to do more to hurt him, but he could stop himself. He only needed to make sure that he could do what he needed to do without interruption.

“Tell your great master to mind his own business and never spy on me again.” Yuri threatened, calmly.

Tsukikage nodded, his face determent. He was only excepting because of his honor. If he wanted to he could have escaped from Yuri’s grip easily.

He pities him Yuri realized and it made a flash of anger run through his body.

He let his grip on the ninja go and started walking away. Behind him he heard the sound of Tsukikage leaving the alley as well.

On the street corner Yuri took a moment to calm his anger. He felt terrible for slipping and for how easy it had felt.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It would have disappointed Serena to see him like this and to see what he was about to do, but he needed to.

He would ask her to forgive him when they had their normal life back. He promised himself that he would.

The small dot on the horizon drew ever closer. The soothing sound of the wave and the crying of seagulls flying next to the cruise ship did little to calm Yuri. He could not tell if he wanted the voyage to finally end or if it should take forever.

During the rest of his walk to the station and during the fast dimension hopping train ride he managed to ignore his actual destination.

The walk from the station to the docks was short, but he hated how the streets were so familiar to him. In these white streets he had hunted students running from academia and on these rooftops, he had kept a lookout for his next target.

Even the salty ocean air he was breathing had an uncomfortable familiarity to it. It made him feel so sick that he thought he would throw up.

He looked away from the still growing dot on the horizon. A creeping feeling was crawling up his stomach.

In the city he had constantly pictured his mission to keep it together. He had pictured his son crying in a corner, hugging his legs and shaking. He remembered all the years he had failed him. It kept him going.

But now his hands were shaking and the sickening feeling was overwhelming. He needed a distraction.

His eyes wandered across the deck of the ship. It was all so different now. The ships used to bring students to their forced service in academia or entertain the Academia elite with a tour.

Now the daily cruise between the island surrounding the city was for parents with their children. Yuri saw them joyfully looking over the sea or eating at one of the tables.

He couldn’t quite get his head around the people here being happy. In his youth Academia used to be the school of iron discipline and unwavering devotion, all to let out his bloodlust. After he left Academia was all the suffering and pain he had caused keeping him up at night.

There was news about what happened here since then, but he never cared. He left it behind and it could all burn down for all he cared. Serena always told him that his anger was natural, but that it should never control him. In that too he had failed her, he supposed.

Now there were laughing children here. Like there never was a war. Like this place didn’t almost take everything away from him, Serena and everyone else.

As he watched the parents and children, he couldn’t stop himself from imagining Serena and himself standing next to one of those railings looking into the distance and pointing out all the islands to little Yusaku. Yusaku would be excited to visit all of them and would impatiently run around the deck. He would knock over a waiter while running or fall on his face while trying to catch a seagull that had landed. Serena and he would laugh together.

If only so many things would have been different.

Yuri didn’t even notice the tears in his eyes, but when he did he quickly wiped them away. Yuri did not cry. His family would be fine again soon.

After another moment of looking out over the horizon, Yuri heard one of the children playing close to him. As he turned around a woman quickly came over and took her child away, giving him an almost scared look.

Yuri quickly figured out what had happened and it send a hurting feeling through him.

His activities during the war were mostly unknown, but rarely something like this would happen. Yuri couldn’t say that he was angry at the woman. She probably used to be an Academia student and had all reason to fear him.

It was clear to him that some people could never forgive him. Serena and he had talked about this before. He never knew how to react, but they had worked out that they should reminded themselves about all the things they did to make up for the mistakes.

But did that really work with what he was doing now?

And the dot on the horizon came ever closer.

Yuri felt like he would throw up. With Every step he took in that great white hall something inside of him screamed that he should run away, that he should stop, that he shouldn’t be here.

But he did not turn back.

He hated how he knew every corner and every turn. How he made his way to the professor’s throne room without even thinking about it.

Every student in the large halls made him sicker and angrier. They had different uniforms now, but even they made Yuri want to rip them to pieces.

When he got a look inside the class rooms he saw the same boards, chairs and tables that were there when he was here.

The teacher stood in front talking to the class like they used to. That’s how during his time here, they were taught about how to hunt people, how to bring suffering to the dimensions and why Academia’s world would be the best thing for everyone.

On the main entrants were large signs declaring that the school was now a place where students learned how to help the four dimensions live together peacefully, but Yuri could only see all the suffering that had come from this place. The suffering that he had enjoyed in his youth.

It all continued the mix of sickness and anger rising up his stomach.

As he came close to the large door of the throne room, he could hear noises coming from inside. He was confused for a moment because this all too familiar gate was unguarded. He cursed himself for the stray thought.

With some effort he opened the massive door and was completely surprised by what he saw.

The room was not the threatening, dark room he remembered. It was festively decorated. Nothing reminded him of the old room and students were moving about decorating it even more.

Festive balloons, garland and posters of all colors were lining the hall. A large stage was placed were the throne used to be and tables were placed around the room.

Yuri stood there in complete confusion, like he had walked into a different world. One of the posters proclaimed that a massive festival celebrating the peace between the dimensions would be held here in a few days and that people of all dimensions are invited.

He had no idea how to feel about the situation. To him this place was darkness. He couldn’t see how it was anything else. How could they have a festival here?

He wished this place could have burned to the ground years ago. Clenching his fist in his anger, he didn’t notice a curly red-haired man walking over to him.

“Hey Yuri, awesome that you’re here, but the festival is only in a couple of days.” A familiar voice laughed towards him.

The second most famous entertainment duelist in the world Dennis Mackfield stood in front of him, greeting him with widely stretched out arms.

His orange-blue suit and bow tie made him stick out just as much as Yuri remembered. He seemed to have not aged a day.

Yuri was stunned by the surprise of seeing the fellow former Academia member here. Dennis quickly laid one arm around Yuri and gestured towards the stage. Yuri couldn’t think of anything to say in the moment.

“Or maybe you are here to help! We still need every hand we can get to preparing the festival.” Dennis rambled full of excitement, still pointing to varies parts of the room too quick for Yuri to see.

“Or maybe you can even be part of the show! I know you haven’t done any entertainment dueling before, but I can feel that you have the spirit for it. C’mon Yuri please. It’s going to be spectacular!” Dennis cried.

While talking he had let go off Yuri and took a step towards the stage. Dennis threw his arms into the sky dramatically, clearly already planning out what part Yuri would take in the show.

It gave Yuri a moment to compose himself. For the first time since coming here his troubles were only in the back of his mind.

He straitened his violet suit were Dennis grip had messed it up and waited till Dennis, who was still looking at the stage excitedly, returned his attention to him.

Dennis turned around and gave him a smile. Yuri shook his head.

“Mackerfield, I am sorry, but I have other thinks to do then taking part in your song and dance routine. I will leave that high art to the experts like yourself and Yuya.” Yuri answered, having gotten enough concentration back for sarcasm.

Dennis still smiled at him, which told him that he hasn’t given up yet. Yuri could only give him an annoyed look and sigh. He had no time for this nonsense.

“I know you have an entertainer inside of you. It could only be a small role if your nervous at first.” Dennis argued, giving him a playful smile. “We can even get Sora to come, we will call ourselves the Fusion trio and make a show no one will forget. We used to hang out together, but now we…”

Dennis trailed off and his look changed for a moment to uncertainty before it quickly changed back to a confident smile.

It was true. After he got out of Academia the three of them developed something even Yuri had to admit was like a friendship. They hung out together often to play duel monsters or do other things.

Yuri would always be sarcastic and complain, but the two countered with being cheerful. They both knew he enjoyed it even if he wouldn’t admit it.

Yuri grew comfortable with them around and Yusaku love them both. Sora would always bring him the newest toys. Yuri was never sure if they were safe or age appropriate considering Sora’s deck, but Yusaku played with them all day.

Dennis would show him magic tricks that fascinated Yusaku so much he got Dennis to teach him some. One-time Serena got very frustrated when she couldn’t figure out how one of them worked. Yuri found it cute, but that didn’t stop him from mocking her mercilessly for it. He of course had no idea how it worked either.

But that was all before what happened and before Yuri’s quest. Since then he tried to avoid them as best he can.

“Dennis, I’m here to see the prof…” Yuri stopped himself mid-sentence. “… Leo. I am here to see Akaba Leo. Can you tell me where to find him?”

Dennis gave him a confused look.

“The professor. Well, he is in his laboratory. I can bring you there If you want.” Dennis finally answered, unsurely.

“That would be great.” Yuri muttered, the weight of his mission returning to him and the voice inside him crying he should turn around again.

“…Anyway, I dueled this big and strong wrestler guy and it was awesome.” Dennis rambled while Yuri and him were walking through the halls of the school.

Yuri wasn’t really listening to him. He was completely focused on what he was about to do. Akaba Leo wasn’t worth his time. He would demand that he help him and nothing else.

Yuri felt the anger rising in him and he almost had to close his eyes. It was a white anger, lashing out at everything, directed at the man he was about to meet, at the halls he was walking through and the whole dimension celebrating peace after what happened here.

The hatred made him want to leave even more. Serena would be disappointed in him for letting it get out of hand. He would give his demand, get what he came here for and then leave.

“This LINK VRAINS thing is the future, no doubt about it. The Blue angel and the wrestler, I dueled, are great. I tell you they will one day do Yuya’s and my job. And then there is this Playmaker hero! There is nothing like a little mystery to spice up the show.” Dennis praised, dramatically holding his hand in front of his face to mimic a mask.

Yuri knew that Dennis could tell what was going on with him and that he was trying to distract him. He had always used his high energy when someone was feeling down. It did little to help Yuri in that moment.

“I have already got Sora to make himself an account. If you get yourself one, we will be the star trio of the network. It will be awesome.” Dennis explain, excitedly and using grand gestures. “When your ready just add me my account name is …”

“I will. When I got the time ok?” Yuri cut him off, trying not to sound to annoyed or nerves. “Is that the door?”

Yuri pointed to the end of the hall. It was a mechanical door and had two people standing in front of it.

One of them was wearing the white and golden LDS jacket and the other was dressed in a black jacket. Yuri’s first thought about the person in black was Xyz’s dimension, but why would someone of them be here.

As Dennis and Yuri got closer the two watched them closely.

“Visitor for the professor guys.” Dennis told them, seemingly the only one trying to be cheerful.

The two looked at Yuri closely before stepping aside. Yuri didn’t like how they observed him, but decided to ignore it.

“Here we are Yuri. Call me sometime or write me if you have the account. See you.” Dennis told him with a smile. Yuri nodded and whished him goodbye as well.

Now it was only a few steps.

As Yuri entered the dimly lit room the door snapped shut behind him. The lion’s den, Yuri thought to himself.

The only source of light was a tiny window and a lamp on a desk full of computers. Next to it Yuri could see multiple boards and what he thought were scientific machines.

Yuri slowly moved towards them looking around the dark laboratory for any trace of his target. The computers showed graphs and tables he didn’t understand. Next to the desk was a board with pictures and notes on it.

Above the board it said:” Research into other kinds of dimensional travel: leads” And Yuri could make out a picture of a brown-haired man with a red jacket standing on a faraway cliff, a picture of a fat brown cat and a painting of a strange red eye.

As he looked over the research a noise came from behind him.

“Yuri is that you?” a quite but still familiar voice called to him. Yuri straitened his back without thinking about it.

He turned around and saw the professor coming out of the shadows. But it was not the professor who had ruled here many years ago. The man Yuri saw now was old, skinny, even sickly looking. It looked like a person that could barley hold himself on his feet.

The most striking thing was a box like medical device Akaba Leo was dragging on wheels behind him. It had lots of blinking lights and all kinds of tubes were coming out of it and went into his body.
“Yes, it is me.” Yuri answered, not comprehending what he saw.

Leo made his way over to his seat and slumped into it, putting the device behind him on the table. Yuri was still looking at him in confusion.

“Don’t look at me like that Yuri. I’m old. This thing keeps me alive. Time gets us all in the end.” He said, almost with a laugh and patted the device.

Yuri composed himself. He needed to get this over with. The initial shock had worn off and the burning in his stomach returned. It gave him an odd satisfaction seeing Akaba Leo like this.

“I heard about what happened to your kid. I’m so sorry son.” Akaba Leo lamented.

The white anger, that was almost forgotten by the shook of seeing Akaba Leo like this, suddenly unleashed itself in Yuri. He launched himself forward at Leo. His hand ready to grip around his throat.

But he could stop himself before he reached him. Yuri was standing close to him now.

“Don’t ever talk about my child! And don’t call me that.” Yuri screamed at him with anger that made his body shake and his throat hurt form how loud he had screamed. The feeling was familiar to Yuri, but he was unable to think.

Leo seemed to be shocked at first, instinctively leaning himself into his seat to get away from Yuri, but he quickly sat back up strait and closed his eyes for a moment.

Yuri took a step back from Leo and took a deep breath. He could no longer look at Leo and walked towards one of the small windows. It overlooked the court yard and he could just about make out a few students.

They are sealed, Yuri noticed, the windows are sealed. A revelation came to him. He should have noticed earlier, but his anger had blinded him. This wasn’t a laboratory, this was a cell and to Akaba Leo this wasn’t a school, it was a prison.

Yuri didn’t follow the events, but he knew that there were still many people in every dimension who hated Akaba Leo with burning passion. People whose life was ruined by him, who lived for so long in fear of Academia.

Yuri couldn’t stop himself from forming his mouth into a wicked smile at the thought of Akaba Leo trapped here forever.

“Behold the great ruler of Academia.” Yuri mocked with great satisfaction, still looking out of the window. Yuri felt a feeling of power creep up in him. It was very much familiar, but with the person in front of him he could only think of the rush coming out of his anger.

Yuri turned away from the window to look at his target. Leo had recomposed himself, opened his eyes again and seemed almost unfaced by Yuri’s mockery. He looked like he had long excepted his fate and his body was strangely firm despite his failing health.

“I have an opportunity for you to distract yourself from your living arrangement for a few moments. I need you to do something for me…” Yuri demanded, softly.

He had power of this person, the person who had done so much harm to everyone. He explained the mission to Akaba Leo. It felt great to see his former master listening to him in complete silence and Yuri was sure that he would obey any of his demands.

Yuri finished his demands and paid only half attention as Leo gave him a weak nod.

“Yuri … I know nothing can make up for what I did to you, but if I can help you with this I will do it.” Akaba Leo acknowledged, weakly.

Yuri didn’t even hear it instead his eyes focused in on the medical device. Lights were blinking on and off and a faint beeping could be heard.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I must say it and hope that one day you will understand, even if you will never forgive me.” Leo told him, having managed to build up calm confidents in his words. “I am truly sorry for what I did and for what I made you do. Nothing I can do will ever make right what happened here … Yuri?”

While Leo was talking Yuri had moved over to the medical device on the table. His hands softly went over the cables.

A thought entered his head. It would be so easy. He would simply leave afterwards, no one would enter here for hours. Many people would be thanking him, people who felt like Leo hasn’t been punished enough, realistically there wouldn’t be any consequences.

“Yuri…?” he heard Leo mutter behind him.

To how many people did he do what these people did to his son? How many families did he rip apart?

Yuri grabbed a bundle of cables in his hand. It made sense to him, it should be easy, but his hands started to shake. He closed his eyes and focused, but found that he couldn’t.

He heard Leo sigh and as he opened his eyes again he saw that Leo looked away closing his eyes. His expression was one of resignation.

“That you were able to build something together, even after what I did makes me so proud. Serena and you, I loved you both with all my heart in another life. I am sorry I didn’t love you enough in this one.” Akaba Leo confessed, his voice full of honesty and acceptance.

Serena. What was he doing? Yuri almost jumped away from the table.

Standing now in front of Leo, Yuri saw that he still had his eyes closed.

“Don’t talk about Serena.” Yuri hissed, quietly. Yuri saw that Leo had opened his eyes again before Yuri started to walk away.

“If you have found something out, call me and then we will never see each other again.” Yuri called to him on the way to the door.

Then Yuri left him in that large and dark room.

After fiddling with the key in the dark again, Yuri slumped himself down into the chair of his secret storage room. The exhaustion of the day had caught up with him.

He didn’t have the bravery to return to Serena just yet. The mission needed to be finished first.

Yuri would tell her everything, he could not lie to her anymore. A beautiful flower would no longer serve as an apology.

He would tell her about all the years he had spent seeking revenge. He would tell her about the things he had done and all the times he had lost control. He would beg her to forgive him and accept it if she couldn’t.

She was always there for him and helped him to overcome his anger, but he had let her down so often. It hurt to thinking about it.

Yuri looked onto his duel disk and saw that he received a message from Serena a few minutes ago.

Over coming his fear and with the knowledge that he couldn’t delay this forever, he hit the play button. Serena’s exhausted voice came out of the duel disk.

“Yuri… I don’t know where you are or what you are doing, but whatever it is … whatever we fought over … you just need to call ok? … it’s about … it’s about our…”

A new message cut off Serena’s voice. It was Akaba Leo calling him.

Yuri answered the call, in disgust.

“Yuri, I have found something.” Leo stated, slowly.

“Then out with it, my time is a lot more valuable then yours.” Yuri urged, failing to hold in his anger.

“SOL’s system is currently under maintenance. Normally this data would need physical access, but I got it while it was being moved. It’s a long story and I will explain on the way, but I think I found what you are looking for. They aren’t SOL, but they hacked into their system and I think they are the people you are after. There access point could be only temporary, if you want then, you need to go now.” Leo explained.

“Just send me the location and any other information.” Yuri answered, not wanting the call to last another moment and hung up.

He looked at the half-played message from Serena again and closed his eyes. He would do another thing to disappoint her, another time he left her waiting, another of his failures.

“Serena…” was all Yuri managed to mutter before heading out the door.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: The unstoppable

It was an Instinctive motion that made her turn around to see who was walking behind her, she did it without even thinking about it, her mind was still filled with heavy thoughts about the past days and about her promise to Yuri and Yusaku, the promise that she would find both of them.

Only half focusing, Serena saw a young man wearing a white shirt underneath a black jacket and a blue tie, loosely hanging around his collar. His spiky hair was blue and pink, but the thing that caught Serena's eyes the most was a flash of his emerald eyes.

Serena almost fell out of her chair from the shock. She had to grip onto it so she wouldn't land on the ground.

After managing to hold on and steadying herself, she jumped out of the chair.

The green eyes, the same eyes she had seen on the large screen, the same eyes she never wanted to see sadness on, the eyes she had seen hiding tears so often. They completely absorbed her.

Her son was standing in front of her. Yusaku was standing in front of her. She had searched for him since coming here and now…

The realization hit her and her mind was blank, she could only look for a long moment into the green eyes.

She only stopped staring as Yusaku closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Immediately her mind started to race.

Her heart was suddenly beating so quickly, her chest hurt and her mind could barely form a coherent thought.

Yusaku…

Immediately Serena wanted to do something, anything. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, how sorry she was. A few times Serena opened her mouth to speak, but found that she didn't know what to say.

She cursed herself, why couldn't finding the right words to speak about things like this be easy for her, like it seemed to be for Yuzu? Why can't she think of something?

For almost eleven years she couldn't find the right words to reach him and now she stood there like every other time, an invisible abyss between Yusaku and her that she could not cross.

Her heart was aching and beating even faster, Serena was about to speak when Yusaku's eyes suddenly opened.

"Good afternoon, Serena-san." He said, quietly and without emotion. The coldness of his word immediately making her heart sting.

His voice was almost clear, almost calm, but Serena had looked into his suffering eyes too often not to see them ever so slightly tremble, struggling not to look away or blink. She knew that Yusaku was forming his hands into fists and forcefully holding his body strait to stop it from shaking.

Serena had often seen this fight, but Yusaku never won. It still sent a rush of pain through her body.

She felt how the tense silence was grinding on Yusaku, how hard it was for him. No more time for thinking.

"Hello Yusaku… It's good to see you again." Serena greeted, she wanted it to sound warm, to somehow tell him how she felt and to not be swallowed up by the abyss.

Seeing her son fight so hard, made a desire build up inside of her to rush over and hug Yusaku and to tell him that he needed to fear nothing. In the past she would have, but things just didn't work like that. Serena would still give everything to help him, but the years have told her that it isn't that simple.

Still she couldn't bear to see her son like that for any longer, she needed to do something.

"I…I'm here to visit you. We haven't seen each other in a while." Serena explained, quickly.

Silence. For a moment Serena wanted to believe that Yusaku had simply not heard her, but she saw her son fighting even harder now. His emerald eyes trembled even harder and Serena could almost feel how painfully he was forming his hands into fists.

No. Was the only thing Serena could think, she hadn't seen her son suffer like this for almost one and a half years, she always knew it wouldn't simply get better, but now, seeing him again, Serena felt a burning feeling inside her. She needed to say something, anything now.

But before she could, Yusaku turned towards the hot dog truck.

"I will ask Kusanagi-san if I can skip this shift, so we can go to my apartment." Yusaku suddenly told her in a matter-of-fact voice.

Yusaku walked towards the truck without looking back, Serena stood there in confusion. He was gone so fast she barely had time to process his words.

Serena saw Yusaku talking to the friendly hot dog truck owner. After the man had said something and took a quick look over to her, his face a mix of concern and confusion, he said something and Yusaku quickly returned back to her.

While they were walking, every step made Serena more uncomfortable. They made their way through the busy streets of Den city, the sun hanging low in the sky signaling the evening.

They didn't talk the whole way. Yusaku was walking in front of her, still having said nothing after telling her that they would go to his apartment. His steps were quick and she had trouble keeping up. He never looked back, Serena could feel the tension and urgency in his steps.

The loud sounds coming from the city's cars, advertisements and shops, made it hard for Serena to concentrated and to process what had happened and what she needed to do.

Everything happened so fast, Serena felt like there were still so many things to say, but she couldn't think of any of them.

The helplessness Serena felt after trying so hard to help all these years and failing was still with her and close in that moment, but she ignored it. There would be a chance to say everything.

She needed to stay calm, when they got to Yusaku's place she would figure something out, like Yuzu said.

After a short walk Yusaku suddenly stopped and walk towards one of the apartment buildings, Serena wordlessly followed him.

Yusaku got out his key and while he was opening the door Serena could see his unsteady hand shaking. He quickly grabbing his arm with his other hand to steady it.

They walked up the stairs to one of the upper apartments in silence. While walking next to him, she noticed that he was avoiding directly looking at her. At one apartment door Yusaku stopped and opened it.

Serena entered behind Yusaku and saw that stairs led down to the main room of the apartment.

She gasped at what she saw, before quickly steadying herself so Yusaku wouldn't notice, cursing herself a little for the slip up.

Yusaku's apartment was almost empty except for a bed and a desk with a computer. The wall looked rundown and she could even see a few cracks in them. The whole place immediately felt cold and lifeless to her. How could she let her son live like this?

Seemingly having not noticed Serena's shock, Yusaku quickly made his way down the stairs, not looking at her. After a moment Serena followed. She can't make her son uncertain now, she needed to act normal.

As Serena left the last step of the stairs, she noticed that Yusaku had stopped in the middle of the room with his back turned to her.

There was a long moment of silence. Serena didn't know what she should do or say again. They were in his apartment and now what?

A few times she opened her mouth, but couldn't find anything to say. As she stood there, it felt like the moment lasted forever.

During the years Serena had often imagined dueling Yusaku, both of them understanding each other and healing with the connection dueling brings. Then she would find the right words and they could be happy again.

She knew from seeing Yuya, Yuzu and so many more of the friends she made that dueling has that power, the power to open hearts like it had opened hers. But for Yusaku, dueling was the terror that kept him up at night, his greatest fear.

A painful lesson, the past had taught her, came to mind. Every time she would be too fast with her emotions, it would overwhelm Yusaku and he would shut down and if she was too careful, things would stay the same forever.

The years had taught her that, but still, Serena knew there was another way, there had to be, Like Yuzu had said. Her boy was not lost forever, no he was not.

No more standing around like an idiot, Serena thought. Deciding to break the silence, Serena slowly walked closer to Yusaku, into his view.

"It's getting late. Why don't I make us dinner?" Serena asked, carefully.

Yusaku's expression was still blank and he was staring into nothingness, like he wasn't really there, like Serena wasn't really there. She half expected that to be the moment he would shut everything out again, but then he slowly nodded.

Serena, now alone for the first time, leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. The look on her son's face had been too familiar, it had sent a stinging pain into her heart, but there was no stopping now, she needed to help him, no matter what.

The room was just as small and uncomfortable looking as the rest of the apartment, with cracks in the wall and only a micro wave to cook any food. Serena opened the small fridge and decided to make one of the warm-up meals in it.

In the back of her mind she imagined her son's life in this small and dark apartment, with no healthy food or anyone to talk to. It sent a shiver down Serena's body.

This could be fixed too. Tomorrow she would go shopping and, after things get better, she would help Yusaku make this place a little nicer, or maybe Yuri could, he would be better at that. It would work out, she told herself.

Honestly her offer of making dinner would have been a dangerous proposition, if it would have been anymore then warm-up food. Her skills at cooking were often a target of Yuri's merciless mockery. He was usually the one doing the cooking and Serena had to admit that he was pretty good.

Thinking about Yuri made her hand instinctively go to her duel disk.

No. Now was not the time for that, she would worry about Yuri later. She needed to focus on Yusaku now and chasing after Yuri wouldn't do her any good, even if a small voice told her that she really needed him right now.

After placing their dinner on the kitchen table, she left the kitchen to call Yusaku. Serena saw him sorting something into a box and then push it into a corner. Yusaku then looked into it for a long moment.

"Yusaku." Serena called him, unsurely. He didn't move and continued to look into the box. Serena couldn't quite see what was inside of it only that it looked colorful.

"Yusaku." Serena called again carefully. She didn't want to startle her son, who was clearly in deep thought. Yusaku quickly turned around to look at her, his face showing a little surprise.

"Dinner is ready." She told him, forcefully not to let any of her thoughts into her voice.

Yusaku wordlessly moved to the computer desk and got the chair. Moving past her into the kitchen with it, leaving her confused for a moment.

"There is only one chair here." Yusaku explained, putting the chair next to the kitchen table. Yusaku, still standing, looked at her with the neutral expression which Serena knew hid everything. She realized that he was waiting for her, so she sat down at the table.

The warm up food she had prepared was nothing special, but Serena was hungry from the long day. They started to eat and immediately Serena felt the dreaded silence settle in. Her thoughts were racing again trying to find something, anything to say.

"So how is school?" Serena finally asked, immediately remembering all the times she had asked the question in situations similar to this and receiving no answer. She thought it was a stupid question to ask now, but Serena couldn't think of anything else.

Slowly, a bit of talk to make him comfortable and then something more meaningful, she told herself, with a side of her still doubtful.

Yusaku looked into her eyes and Serena immediately recognized the fight within him to hold his head up.

"It is fine." He told her, quietly. She quickly nodded to relieve him, give him the chance to look away again.

She felt a sting of pain, it was still so hard for him. His pain was still there, nothing had changed. Doubt started to creep into her mind, so she looked around the room to give herself a small distraction.

Serena noticed that Yusaku had divided his food into three perfectly same sized parts, separated from one another on his plate. For a moment she watched him line up his food in confusion before a memory sprung to her mind.

It had taken Serena a long time to see. It had started with the toys from Sora and Yuya. Yusaku had stopped playing with them and they were all lined up on the shelve. One day Serena noticed that they were all grouped up into groups of three.

Serena wouldn't have thought anything of it, but then she noticed more things. His school books, his pencils, his shoes and his clothe were all in groups of three

When she changed any of the groups they would always be back together after a short while. It was a small thing, Serena hadn't been concerned, there had been too many other troubles on her mind. She always wanted to tell Yuri about it, but never got around to it.

Maybe she should have paid more attention to it, maybe she should have askes Yusaku about it. Serena felt a wave of disappointment in herself, another way she had failed to be there for Yusaku.

Noticing that Yusaku was looking at her, staring at the food, she quickly snapped out of her thoughts. It was stupid thinking like that, she told herself. She would try to understand it better now, like so many other things. Serena will work out it, there is no way she won't.

The silence between her and Yusaku suddenly seemed to be even more oppressing and she once again had her mind racing trying to find something to say.

"If you want to, you could show me the city tomorrow? I'm sure there are places you like here." Serena asked, carefully. Something small they could do together, something that could give her a chance to get closer. Yusaku froze up at her words.

"Only if you want to, of course." Serena added, quickly. After nothing happened for a few more moments her mind already thinking of the worst.

How could she be so stupid? Her son never liked going outside after what happened, what made her think that he would now? What made her think he was ready for something like this?

Yuri always teased her that she never thought before saying something, normally she would protest, but this was way too important.

Serena's thoughts ended when she saw Yusaku forcing himself to look at her and he nodded.

Feeling relieved, Serena couldn't help, but give him a smile. She didn't know if it was a good move, but it felt right, she would try to be positive and make him comfortable like Yuzu had advised her. Yusaku looked at her for another moment before turning to the food again.

He had not smiled back and there was still a part of her saying that nothing was happening, but maybe it was a step in the right direction. Was it really possible for something to change? Serena wanted to believe it.

After finishing their dinner Serena suddenly felt like voicing something, she had thought about saying since long before meeting her son again.

"Yusaku?" she asked, quietly, trying to get his attention.

It again took him a long moment before looking up at her with the completely neutral expression, that Serena knew all too well.

"I just wanted to say that I'm glad to see you again and that I hope we can…" Serena muttered, slowly. "That we can try to find a new future together."

Serena had to cringe at how that sounded. It was overly dramatic. She and Yuri would make fun of when Yuya and Yuzu would say something like it, but in that moment, Serena couldn't find any better words for what she honestly felt.

Yusaku's expression was unchanged, as if she hadn't said anything. Serena was about to curse herself for her stupidity again. Then Yusaku abruptly stood up. Serena, still focused on the moment, was startled.

"I will need to call Kusanagi-san." Yusaku stated, quickly. Why did he need to call his employer now?

"Why?" Serena muttered, shocked before realizing that her tone would probably make her son uncertain.

"There are three reasons why. First: You have no residents in the city and it would be a waste if you would book a hotel." Yusaku explain, showing the number with his finger.

"Second: This apartment only has one bed which is too small for two people, leaving me without a place to sleep." Yusaku continued, lifting a second finger into the air. "Third: Kusanagi owns a sleeping bag I can use."

His hand now had three fingers up. Serena was taken aback by Yusaku's quick words. Why was he thinking about this now?

Before Serena could say anything else Yusaku quickly move towards his duel disk on the computer desk, leaving her sitting at the table alone.

Serena also stood up, Yusaku was typing into his duel disk, his back turned towards. Then he stopped and stood completely still.

"Kusanagi-san will come over after he has closed up his hot dog truck and bring the sleeping bag. I must still do some homework for tomorrow." Yusaku stated. "There isn't a lot here, but I can get Roboppy to stream TV for you."

He still hadn't turned around and Serena felt that he was a lot further way then he was.

"No, I'm fine." Serena answered, quickly.

Yusaku placed the chair in front of the computer again and sat down. He started to meticulously place books and papers from his bag on the table.

"and… thank you…" Serena added, quietly. Yusaku froze for a moment before quickly moving on with his work.

Serena felt weird standing there in the emptiness of the apartment. She sat down on the bed, not really knowing what to do. She tried to gain a clear head again.

But she couldn't stop the questions building up in her head. Had anything she said reached him? Had she been to quick and forced him to shut down again?

In the back of her mind Serena had expected the uncertainty, the silence and the questions. She had faced them all before and didn't think things would be different immediately, but seeing Yusaku again, the future Yuzu had assured her would come seemed far away.

Serena had to sigh in frustration. There was a time when she could tell when something was wrong with Yusaku almost instantly.

When he had done something wrong and was overly nice so they wouldn't suspect it, she would easily see through him and when he felt down and tried to hide it, she always knew.

And after thinking about it, she could usually work out the right thing to say.

Raising him had always taken a lot of energy and it wasn't like she knew everything that was going on in his head or that she was especially good at giving advice, but with Yusaku she could always feel what he need. Serena couldn't really explain it.

That was all in the past. For over ten years now, an abyss had formed between her and Yusaku. Serena could never tell what her son was feeling now and she could never understand the horrible pain Yusaku had to suffer every day.

Everything she did to help him seemed to fail, all the love she could give him was drowned out by his pain, by the unending abyss between him and everyone.

This was all no use, Serena thought, all this questioning and doubting. Serena hated it.

…And if she was feeling this way, it couldn't exactly be easy for Yusaku. He probably needed time to process the day.

Something inside her already hated the silence and waiting that would come but maybe Yusaku needed time to think too, so she decided to let the events of the day settle on both their minds.

The only sounds in the apartment were Yusaku typing on his computer and the occasional sound of the city, like a car driving by or some far of voice out of a loudspeaker.

Only a short time after their dinner Yusaku went to the door and wordlessly returned with the sleeping bag he would use tonight before sitting back down at the table. The silence continued.

Serena promised herself she wouldn't let her mind wander too much, it would only lead her to a bad place.

She checked her duel disk for any message from Yuri. No reply had come.

Serena had to close her eyes as a deep pain hit her. She didn't really understand it yet, but it felt like something had changed between them. She already knew that this time an apology wouldn't be enough and that they would need to face the problem.

Serena still wanted to help Yuri. She saw him slowly struggle himself out of the darkest place. Together they had faced so much and they had grown with every obstacle. Serena couldn't see that person, the person she loved, fall back into the abyss he had fought against for so long.

But now Serena was sitting there, in silence, with their son still feeling faraway and everything she did coming with the concern that Yusaku would be lost forever.

She felt like she needed Yuri by her side, more than ever and his absence left a pain Serena wasn't sure would go away easily.

Serena slowly took another deep breath and exhale slowly. She would face it when Yuri returned, now Yusaku needed her and she would focus on helping him.

The exhaustion of the day had caught up to her, any more thinking would only lead to more frustration so she decided to go to bed.

She slowly walked over to the side of the computer desk, trying to get Yusaku's attention without startling him. Serena saw him tense up as he noticed her. It still took him a moment to prepare himself before he looked at her. Serena tried to ignore the familiar pain of her son's struggle.

"I'm going to bed, ok?" Serena asked, in the softest voice she could. It took him a long moment, but Yusaku managed to give her a small nod.

"Good night, Yusaku." Serena wished. Yusaku again only nodded and Serena painfully thought he was doing worse at hiding his struggle to look at her.

Serena waited for a moment hoping her son would say something before returning to the bed, cursing herself for being so stupid and hoping she hadn't made Yusaku uneasy.

"Good night, Serena-san." Yusaku muttered, quietly.

Serena stood still for a moment. Realistically it was nothing and it would be stupid to give into false hope, but maybe there was something?

Serena wanted his words to have some meaning, she wanted there to be a reason for him to have fought them out of himself, maybe he wanted to change to?

But he had still called her Serena-san, his voice still seemed so far away cross the abyss.

Was there something?

Serena just wanted them to be able to change so much, but she didn't know how. It was so overwhelming, like every part of her body wanted to burst. She was so exhausted it made it hard to think and all the feeling from her day came rushing back to her. Yusaku, Yuri, everything. Serena didn't remember falling asleep.

The next morning Serena woke up, after a not quite relaxing sleep, to the sound of Yusaku moving through the apartment and getting ready for school. She slowly sat herself up on the bed, seeing the early morning light shining through the windows and hearing only unusually quite sounds from the city outside.

It was a calm moment that felt strange after yesterday. Closing her eyes and replaying all the events of the previous day in her head. Serena tried not to think about what today might bring.

Standing up, she watched Yusaku for a moment as he loosely tied the tie of his school uniform around his neck. He hadn't noticed her yet, or he chose not to look at her. Yusaku got his bag and started to move up the stairs.

A part of her felt hurt at her son just leaving like that, but quickly accepted how hard this must be for him.

Then she noticed Yusaku gripping the railing hard and stopping half way up the stairs. Serena quickly realized he was giving her a chance to say something.

"Good morning." Serena greeted, she hoped in a reassuring voice. There was no reaction and she already felt stupid for not having anything better to say.

But Yusaku hadn't started to move again, she still had a chance.

"I hope you have a good day at school. Do you still want to show me the city later today?" Serena managed, confidently. Doing something with him was a good chance to get closer to him.

"There are three things I need to do today." Yusaku stated, raising his hand to show the numbers as he spoke. "First: I must go to school and dueling club. Second: Even though Kusanagi-san said that he will not need my help today, I must still return his sleeping bag and buy one for myself. Third…"

Yusaku stopped. Serena noticed the uncertainty as Yusaku trailed off. She was about to reassure him that he didn't need to show her the city if he was busy.

"Third: I must show you the city and the places I like." Yusaku finished, quietly letting out a breath of air. His hands were almost shaking and Serena saw the tension in his body, she had seen it often now, but she still wanted to do everything to ease it.

"That sounds like a great plan, Yusaku. I am sure you will manage the day just fine." Serena told him, in a reassuring voice and with the best smile she could give him.

Yusaku Stood there for another moment. Serena still couldn't see his face and his body still seemed tense. She wished she knew what was going on inside him.

Without another word Yusaku made his way up the stairs and left the apartment.

Serena was now standing alone in the small and bleak room, not knowing what to feel. Had she reached him even a little bit? Or had she made him even more uncertain, made his pain even worse?

Serena cursed herself for thinking that and refused to entertain the thought any further. She decided to start her day.

A few minutes later Serena sat in the kitchen mulled over what she would do today, making her way through a bowl of cereal as she did so.

"Master, may I ask why you have deactivated me yesterday? Was my service unsatisfactory?" Serena heard an unseen voice squeak. "By my calculations you will be later for school if you do not…"

Serena looked around but couldn't find anything.

"…More recent analyses suggest that you aren't master at all…" the voice continued. Serena looked down and saw that it came from a small thing next to her feet. A robot looked up to her with a confused look.

"Yeah… I'm not Yusaku… I'm just a guest…" Serena told it, not sure what to say. It looked at her closely and for a moment she was afraid that the robot would activate some sort of alarm.

Then suddenly its face turned into a happy smile and it started to quickly drive around her using its wheels. Serena was relieved.

"It's been so long since our last guest left and Roboppy was feeling so alone. Now Roboppy is happy." It proclaimed, loudly.

Serena remembered Yusaku saying that name yesterday and she quickly figured out that this must be his cleaning robot.

For a brief moment and without thinking, Serena smiled a little at the robot's dance, but that moment ended and Serena decided to get her day started.

Serena had just finished breakfast and left the kitchen when it caught her eye. It was a metal box placed on the only shelf in the apartment. It had a glass window she could see through and inside she saw a duel disk.

It looked different now, obviously it had been modified to the point she at first didn't recognize it, but the duel disk was unmistakable to her.

It made images of a crowded garden come to her head. A present that was carefully packaged, Yuri wanted it to look perfect and stick out from the other ones, it had taken him a long time.

She remembered seeing Yusaku ripping it open full of excitement and him hugging both of them hard after seeing it for the first time, back then it was the newest model with features even they didn't understand.

Serena remembered Yusaku looking at them hopefully and them telling him that he could run off and have fun dueling with the others. Yusaku came back sometime later to tell them all about the fun duel he had.

He had kept it all these years. Serena sat herself down on the bed. Why had he kept it?

Serena closed her eyes as she put it together. She had seen it before, on the screen above the square, but she hadn't recognized it.

Yusaku must have used it to fight the knights of Hanoi. Dueling was something that must constantly reminded him of his pain, he had hated dueling above all else. Yet he still faced the knights of Hanoi for so long.

Yusaku must have used when he was Playmaker. Dueling had become something he hated above all else for its association with his what happened, yet he'd faced it head-on for so long to fight the Knights of Hanoi.

Suddenly it was clear how much suffering her son had put himself through for the sake of revenge, and with that clarity came a soul-deep pain.

Yet for all it felt the pain was crippling her, she knew it was nothing compared to Yusaku's.

When she had let him go on that train one and a half years ago, after he had asked to go to Den city high school, she had hoped that maybe he would find something here to help him, it was a foolish hope to her, even back then.

Why did she let this happen? Why?

The knife lodged itself even deeper into her heart.

Serena always suspected things wouldn't be just perfect after defeating Zarc, but she had always hoped all her life that Yusaku would never have to fight like she had to and now she saw that he had to face something even worse.

Serena took a deep breath. She needed to be strong for Yusaku now. Seeing the duel disk Serena realized, she would need to tell him that she knew what he did.

In her mind stalling delivering bad news to people was always an exercise in stupid, Serena could never see a point in mess around, instead of just getting it over with. She was never one for backing down and she wouldn't start now.

To her things were best when there were direct, sometimes to the shock of Yuzu and Rui.

In that moment part of her understood that sentiment, but Serena would do it. It's like ripping of a bandage. Once they no longer have that thing between them, they could work on the future. Then maybe, with little step, they could get more comfortable with each other.

Still the thought wasn't very pleasant and Serena decided to distract herself by looking at her duel disk.

Deciding to ignore altogether that there still wasn't a message from Yuri, Serena instead focused on the message from Yuzu asking her how she was doing. She quickly wrote back that everything was fine. Yuzu had been there for her so long, Serena would use her advice and face this alone.

But it was still a long time until Yusaku would return. Serena didn't really know what to do for the rest of the day. She walks over to the window to look outside. The city was starting to come to life fully, People and cars were starting to fill up the streets.

Serena also noticed a flower on the window ledge. Its violet color seemed very out of place in the bleak apartment.

It seemed familiar to Serena, in the back of her mind she could remembered Yuri telling her what this particular kind was named during one of his lectures of how normal watering wouldn't do for them, after she did just that, but she couldn't even remember the name back then.

And Yusaku probably didn't care for it. She saw signs of neglect on it, the leaf was starting to grow brown and the blossom was hanging down.

She tried sitting on the bed for a time, but the silence of the apartment was getting to much and she started to walk up and down the length of the room.

She Found Roboppi happily at work, when it noticed her it gave her another exited dance. It amused Serena for a moment, but she quickly went back to walking.

She failed to fight the urge to check her duel disk again and found nothing. Then she paced some more before suddenly pausing.

She couldn't keep this up all day.

With one last look at the flower Serena decided to leave the apartment.

The hot dog tasted pretty good, but Serena was very aware that she had eaten here for three days in a row now and that wasn't too healthy. She was never overly concerned with what she ate, but Yuri always annoyed her and Yusaku to eat better.

Still it almost made her forget what she would soon do, so Yuri's protest fell silent.

The hot dog truck owner, Kusanagi, had given her a surprised look when she came here, but quickly smiled at her, as cheerful as ever.

Serena had walked around the city for a bit, but found it far too loud and busy for her liking and was drawn once again to the truck. She also knew that Yusaku was going to come by here after school so she decided to wait for him.

It was at least a place to waste some time at, even if her eyes were now avoiding looking at the screen that sometimes showed her son.

"How is my new favorite customer?" Kusanagi's kind voice came from behind her. He quickly moved next to her and gave her a smile.

"I'm all right, thank you." Serena muttered, quietly. She didn't want Yusaku's employer noticing anything strange with her.

"Can I ask you a question?" Kusanagi asked, softly. Serena looked at him and nodded quickly. Kusanagi sat himself into the seat next to her, still having a reassuring smile.

"You are Yusaku's mother, aren't you?" Kusanagi asked, knowingly and still giving her a reassuring smile.

At first Serena was surprised by the question, but then she remembered Yusaku and Kusanagi talking yesterday and him asking about his employee wasn't the strangest thing in the world.

"Yes, I am." Serena answered, quickly. After a moment of silence, she wasn't sure if this conversation was going anywhere and instinctively looked away towards the screen.

"The hair really gave it away." Kusanagi joked and Serena noticed him looking in the same direction. Serena's hands instinctively went to her hair.

Everybody always told Yuri and Serena that and it really was quite obvious.

Serena and Yuri used to have arguments about who's hair had more influence on their son. They got pretty fierce. Most told Serena that it was her, Yuri instantly dismissed that as clearly biased.

Despite their later competition, Serena clearly remembered that when Yusaku's hair first started to look like a mix between hers and Yuri's, Yuri hid tears from her.

"Yusaku is a real…a real… hero." Kusanagi muttered, almost too quiet for her to hear, while still looking at the screen, absentmindedly.

"What?" Serena blurted out, confused, now looking at Kusanagi, who looked a bit caught off guard.

"Ahh… I mean he is a really good employee." Kusanagi offered her with a nerves smile. "And a good friend too."

His last words surprised Serena so much that she forgot about him calling her son a hero. This man had just call Yusaku his friend.

"You're Yusaku's friend?" Serena could only ask, bluntly. For a moment there was a strange hope inside her. Maybe her son wasn't all alone anymore. There were many more questions, but the hope was so sudden.

Kusanagi looked surprised at first and didn't answer right away. He slowly looked over at the screen again and kept his eyes on it for a long moment.

Serena was about to curse herself for acting so weird in front of this person who calls Yusaku his friend, but the she noticed Kusanagi. Serena thought his smile looked slightly sad and his eyes seemed to look into the distance like he was in deep thought.

"Nah, I don't think he would call me that…" Kusanagi finally sighed, turning at her with a small laugh at his own words. "But I would gladly call him that…and he is a really fine one at that."

"How do you and Yusaku know each other?" Serena asked, feeling that there was clearly something she missed. Who was this guy?

"Ahh… Yes, we just met because Yusaku wanted a part-time job..." Kusanagi laughed, slowly, standing up and starting to move towards the hot dog truck.

"I have to get back. The best Hot dogs in the city don't make themselves." Kusanagi told her. "And…I think he will do a lot better now that you are here. No reason to sit here brooding."

Kusanagi was gone before Serena could ask him anything about what he had meant or how he seemed to know so much about Yusaku.

After a moment of confusion, Serena decided to jump up and go after Kusanagi.

When she turned around, she saw Kusanagi talking to Yusaku. Her son was just handing over the sleeping bag to Kusanagi.

They talked for a moment. Yusaku was as static as ever, his face showing nothing, but his body seemed just a bit easy around Kusanagi, Serena didn't really understand it. Kusanagi on the other hand was smiling at him and seemed to be giving him a few reassuring words.

After a moment of talking, Yusaku finally said something to Kusanagi and slowly turned towards her. Kusanagi nodded and went to his hot dog truck. Yusaku's body instantly becoming a bit straighter. As he slowly moved towards her, Serena felt his fight to keep going.

Serena couldn't keep watching her son struggle anymore and decided come towards him.

"Hello Yusaku." Serena greeted, hoping to offer him some reassurance.

"Good afternoon, Serena-san." Yusaku greeted, his look was empty as his voice.

Part of her cried out in frustration, but Serena defiantly decided not to let herself be discouraged and continued to give her son a smile.

"Do you still want to show me the city?" Serena asked, kindly.

After a moment Yusaku simply nodded and started walking, Serena took that as a sign that he wanted her to follow him.

It is better than him shutting down, Serena told herself, but maybe that would follow with what she was about to do.

Serena cursed herself at that thought. It won't and even if it did Serena would fight to bring the two of them out of it.

Serena was starting to wonder why Yusaku would ever want to live in a city like this.

They were walking along a path inside the Den city park and even here the loud sounds of the city weren't far away and technology was everywhere.

The way signs were holographic, cleaning robots were keeping the park trash free and automatic shop robots were driving along the path selling snacks and refreshments.

The one in Miami City was a quiet place were the colorful city seemed far away, it was never her favorite place, but it was much better than this.

Serena briefly thought what the point of this park was when it was just going to be as busy and technology filled as the rest of the city.

Maybe Yusaku was drawn to all of this, Serena thought, but when Yusaku had started to skillfully work with technology, after what happened, it was always just as joyless as anything else in his life.

Then Serena remembered, the knights of Hanoi had been here. He must have moved here because of them, or maybe he just wanted to get away from his childhood home that had too many painful memories for him and he had found the knights of Hanoi afterwards.

Serena didn't know and she cursed herself for it.

Yusaku hadn't changed. They hadn't spoken during the entire walk here and he was looking forward, forcefully keeping his eyes steady.

Serena wondered why he had taken them here as he clearly didn't enjoy this place. Painfully Serena thought that he probably didn't like anyplace in the city.

The silence had settled between them again. Serena was again cursing herself for not finding anything to say, a bit of small talk would have helped getting Yusaku more comfortable, but Serena couldn't figure anything out now.

Serena wanted to sigh, but didn't.

They had reached a more secluded part of the park near a railing overlooking all the large skyscrapers, massive bridges and highways of Den city. She knew that there was no use waiting anymore, she had thought about how she would do this during their way here, it would work… it would...

"Yusaku?" Serena said softly, getting his attention for the first time during their walk. He looked at her blankly and Serena gave Yusaku a look, she hoped was reassuring.

She had a plan, or at least something like it. That feeling that told her what Yusaku was feeling and what he needed might not be there anymore, but she had thought it through.

She couldn't tell if it was the right thing, but she would go with what her instinct told her, Serena would just need to handle the uncertainty.

"Do you remember when we told you about what happened in our youth?" Serena explained slowly. They had stopped, Yusaku didn't respond in anyway, Serena wondered if he remembered at all.

It had been one of the hardest discussions Yuri and her ever had, far too close to their hearts for any of their usually playful arguing and sarcastic remarks.

Serena had argued that they should tell Yusaku about their past. Yuri wanted to wait until he was older.

Serena still remembered the look in his eyes. Fear, it was one of the only times that Serena saw fear on his face. He said that Yusaku would be scared of the story, of all the evil the lancers had faced in the past.

But Serena thought she saw something different in his eyes. The fear that Yusaku would not look at him the same way again, the way that told both of them that they were Yusaku's heroes. Maybe he even thought that his view on Serena would change too.

It had been a struggle, but in the end, Serena had gotten through to him, they had told him.

Always in a carful way and slowly at first, the basic story and then more and more. She still remembers Yuri carefully explaining his role in what happened and how he had changed afterwards.

It had been a long talk, but after a time Yusaku seemed to understand, somewhat, slowly. They had wanted to tell him more, but that was before everything.

She still remembered Yuri only relaxing again after hours had past. It was one of the few evenings he didn't have anything sarcastic to say.

"Back then I fought because I knew it was right… and also because I was angry, because I couldn't believe how many lies, I had been told…" Serena explained, slowly. "Later I realized I had people who were counting on me, even if I didn't see that at first…"

It used to be hard for her to talk about this, but now she knew what to say, she had gained a lot of experience through the years, thanks to Yuri and Yuzu and Rin and Ruri and everyone.

"There were moments when I would charge head first into danger without thinking about it. I was angry instead of afraid most of the time." Serena continued, a part of her wanting to smile at the memory or curse herself for how reckless she had been. "Afterwards… after we won… For a short time, I thought I had nothing left, but that wasn't true. It took me a long time to figure everything out afterwards... but I had people there to help me, people there who loved me and who stood by my side."

Yusaku was still giving her a neutral look, but Serena had feeling that it was becoming harder for him.

Now it's time, this was all leading somewhere, no more use in waiting, Serena thought. There had been enough waiting because of uncertainty, Serena was a fighter, always has been. She would go on with this until the end.

"I'm telling you this because, I think to move forward into a new future you need to rely on others." Serena explained, confidently. Serena paused for a moment, she reminded herself that this was necessary, that things would never get better without it. "Yusaku, I know what you did in LINK VRAINS. I Know that you are Playmaker."

At first Yusaku's look didn't change at all, like he hadn't listened to anything Serena had told him, but she knew that he had. Serena wanted to shake from the uncertainty in that moment, waiting for him to respond.

Then Yusaku's look broke.

He was now staring at the ground and Serena could see the hurt in his eyes openly now. There was fear and pain in them, more emotion then Serena had seen him show for the last few days.

It felt like a knife plunged into her heart and a punch landed in her gut. It was worse than all the pain she had experienced during the war put together.

No matter how much she had expected that something like this would happen the world still stopped around her, nothing exited excepted Yusaku’s broken and trembling eyes staring at the ground and her entire body felt like it was drifting without weight, like nothing around her was real.

"There are three …I…" Yusaku stuttered, not able to form words, it reminded her so much of the boy who hid himself away from everyone, the boy she could never reach, no matter how hard she had tried.

Her heart was aching hard, there was only the feeling of desperately wanting to help him roaring out of her.

"I'm not angry.. You … You were really brave Yusaku and you saved everyone." Serena assured him, slowly. But she knew there was something more to it then saving people, she knew it from experience. "I can't fully understand why you did what you did, but I'm here for you Yusaku… I meant it when I said I wanted to find a new future for us."

Yusaku slowly steadied himself, his hands formed into fists, but that didn't stop his body from violently shaking. He forced himself to meet her eyes again, but they were now trembling even worse than all the other times.

Serena opened her mouth to say something to him, anything reassuring, but then Yusaku's look suddenly changed. He hid all the pain again and his eyes look was even more emotionless and detached, but his body was still shaking.

"I am sorry, but I will need to go. I still have to do some work for a school project, I will only return to the apartment late." Yusaku finally stated, starting to walk away from her.

"Yusaku, I can understand if you want to be alone now… just think about what I said, ok?" Serena told him, in what she hoped was a reassuring voice as he was leaving.

Seeing him unsteadily walk away, not looking back, made the knife twisted itself even further in her.

When Serena returned to the apartment, after wandering the busy neolith streets of Den city failing to form a coherent thought, it was starting to get late and Yusaku wasn't there.

Her head was spinning and she felt completely exhausted. For Serena thinking clearly was becoming difficult.

Had anything she said reached Yusaku?

Serena had known it was coming, or at least she had known that something like this could happen, but all the pain had still overwhelmed her.

If she closed her eyes, she could still see Yusaku looking away from her, looking like the child that hid himself away from everyone every day, the child who battled nightmares every night, the child she could never help.

Would they ever get closer, now that Yusaku knew what she knew?

It was getting late and the room was only lit by the setting sun. Serena's head was threatening to explode, as she made her way to sit on the bed.

Where even was Yusaku?

She wouldn't let herself get dragged down an endless spiral of uncertainty and doubt, Serena decided, fighting to regain some focus for even just a moment.

Whatever the answers to her questions are, she would not find them by thinking here, completely exhausted, in the darkness.

Now she would go to sleep, Yusaku needed time, he will come back, this was never going to be easy for either of them.

Tomorrow she would get up and start another day fighting to help her son… she would…

As Serena opened her eyes the room was completely dark. She wasn't sure what had awoken her, when she heard a noise coming from the darkness. Disorientated Serena sat herself up on the bed.

And then she saw it. Yusaku was lying on the other side of the small room in a Kuribo themed sleeping bag, he must have newly bought. His whole body was shaking violently, his arms sometimes lashing out into the darkness and his scared voice echoing through the apartment.

It was something Serena recognized instantly, Yusaku was having a nightmare. She didn't hesitate for a single moment, she got out of her bed and moved towards her son, it was instinct to her.

As she sat herself next to him, she saw tears swelling in his eyes. Serena felt her heart sting, she hadn't seen it in such a long time, but of course Yusaku still had them, nothing was better for him, if anything it was worse.

After his hand landed on the floor, from another lashing out against the terrors in his dream. Serena grabbed it softly with both of her hands. She started carefully caressing it, to stop it from shaking. It, were motions she knew by heart.

In that moment Serena was there again, by his bed side, like she had been so often. Every night after Yusaku had finally fought himself into sleep, because he was afraid of what awaited him, Serena sat by his bed side for hours.

Sometimes Yuri would sit by her side. Serena could see the anger and sadness in his eyes, it would often lead to him going out and looking for answers.

Every night the nightmares kept coming, sometimes easier and sometimes a lot worse. Almost every night Serena had to watch Yusaku suffer, failing to escape whatever terror was in his dream.

Serena would have given everything to help him in the past and in that moment, but in all the years she had never found something that could help him. She could only hold his hand and hope it gave him some relief.

A stray thought entered her mind, Serena wished she could sing him a lullaby. It was a thought she often had when sitting next to his bed in the past.

Serena thought it was a stupid wish with her son now old, it was only a foolish hope that it might help him through his nightmare.

Even back then Serena never knew any lullabies, they never sang one to her in academia and she never learned one since.

Ruri or even Yuzu could have probably taught her one, but even with her having opened up to them, she never felt like it was a good time to ask.

Another way she failed to help Yusaku, Serena thought bitterly.

In later Years Yusaku would try harder to hide his nightmares from her and Yuri and there were fewer times when she sat by his bed side, but Serena still knew they were there, she could still see him suffer.

Yusaku was still shaking violently and he let out another scream of pain, all of Serena's exhaustion, thoughts and questions from the past days were forgotten, her boy was suffering and she just needed to help him now.

It felt like forever as the shaking turned into a lighter trembling and his screams of pain to a quite whimpering. Serena had always remembered waiting and desperately hoping for Yusaku to get through the nightmare, she never remembered falling asleep.

When Serena woke up the next day, it was still dark, but Yusaku was already gone. She found herself back in the bed and couldn't remember when she had returned to it.

Not feeling like sleeping anymore Serena made her way through the dark apartment, seeing almost nothing. Her thoughts were quiet at the moment and Serena was very thankful for it.

As she was about to go to the kitchen the setting full moon in the sky caught her eye.

There was always something that had drawn her to it, a few of the only peaceful memories she had of academia was her sitting on the window sill of her room in one of the high towers, watching the moon shine over the water.

She slowly made her way towards the window as a thought entered her head. She didn't want to think anymore or at least not for another moment, but she couldn't stop it.

Was she making things worse for Yusaku? Was his nightmare so terrible this night because she was here? Had the abyss between him and everyone only growing worse because of her?

Serena wanted to violently banish that thought from her mind, attack it for the stupid worry induced by the uncertainty that it was, she wanted to tell herself that today she would take another step to Yusaku and things would get a little bit better, even if there were going to also be terrible times.

But the exhaustion of the last few days made that fight harder and harder. Serena continued walking towards the moon light.

Then she suddenly felt her feet hit something on the ground as she took a step and Serena couldn't stop herself from tripping and falling to the ground.

Now lying on the ground Serena looked out and saw Roboppy rushing over to her.

"Master's guest, routine analyses indicate that you have fallen. Do you require medical attention?" the robot asked her in its squeaky voice, it's face directly in front eyes as she was lying on the ground.

"No, I'm fine." Serena muttered as she got up. Roboppy gave her another worried look, tilting its head sideways, before doing a celebratory dance around her. Serena looked back at what had caused her to fall.

"Strange. This box is not in its normal place." Roboppy noted. "It's unlike master to move things around. Do You know why he moved it?"

Serena looked over to were Roboppy was standing. Next to it was a box in the middle of the room. It was on its side, she must have kicked it over when she had tripped on it

The Robot was starting to inspect the box and the things that had fallen out of it. Serena didn't want to look through Yusaku's personal stuff, but Roboppy started lifting things out of the strange box to inspect them and Serena couldn't help but see a few things.

It was a red and white dragon with one green and one red eye and a blue tiger with a few pointy looking ends that didn't look save for children at all.

Then she remembered, this box wasn't unknown to Serena at all. She had packed it herself. She had put all the things into it Yusaku used to play with and loved during his childhood. She had put it to the things he would take with him to Den city herself.

The thought had been a foolish one to her, back then. It was a faint hope that he would open it and be reminded of times their family had together that weren't all suffering for him, times she treasured over everything else. Serena had hoped he wouldn't forget about them completely and maybe it would help him reach something new someday.

Why had he kept it? Had her plan actually worked? Or had she only given him a constant reminder of the pain that he couldn't get rid of?

The questions were filling up her mind and a part of her thought she was stupid for all this wild speculation, but she just wanted to know what is going on in her son's mind again.

"Master's guest do you know what this item?" Roboppy asked her, with a curious look on its face, holding up a piece of paper between its little arms.

Serena looked at it and almost gasped. It was a child's drawing, drawn with pencils of all colors. It showed Her, Yuri and, standing between them, a young Yusaku. They all had a big single line smile painted on their faces. They looked happy.

Serena remembered Yusaku excitedly showing it to them. He had spent time on a secret surprise and had refused to tell them what it was. Yusaku had looked very proud of what he had made.

Serena could still remember the look of overwhelming joyful surprise on Yuri's face. He used to have that look often, Serena would sometimes tease him about when he would stop looking like the fact that he had a family now was a complete surprise for him.

Even though she would tease him later, that time Serena herself had been smiling a wide smile. It had gotten a proud place in their apartment … and now it was here…

No, Serena decided.

The answer to the questions she had asked herself was no.

He had kept it, it was the same box he had looked into the day they first met again, and he had kept it.

She wasn't making nothings worse, thinking that was stupid. Yusaku has always been struggling, when he was here alone, he went on a quest for revenge. He needs help to get better.

Serena remembered all the times Yusaku had fought himself these last few days, all the times he had fought not to look away from her, not to shut himself out again. He had been fighting. Maybe now they could both change?

No, not maybe, now was the time they could change, the moment Yuzu told her would come, he has kept the box for a reason.

Serena gave the picture another look and then took it from Roboppy's hands, holding it carefully.

She would no longer let Yusaku slip into darkness and despair. She has failed before and there were times when she couldn’t have succeeded, but now Serena knew Yusaku wasn’t beyond her reach, that abyss wasn’t too far to cross.

Of course, to cross it there was never going to be just one moment where she would get through to Yusaku. She needs her to stand by his side, to offer support after every nightmare and every painful conversation. Serena would make sure he knew that he wasn’t alone.

There were going to be hardships and she would still hate fighting uncertainty and doubt, there will still be times when nothing Serena does will make Yusaku suffer less, but Serena was nothing if not a fighter and if she was fighting for her family there was nothing that could stop her.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: The lost

“Zaizen! Watch this, I'm going to win!" Shima Naoki exclaimed triumphantly and carelessly slapped a card down on the table, resulting in a couple of other cards almost falling off.

"I don't think using that card now is a legal move Shima…"Aoi commented with a quiet sigh, having just watched Naoki's confused face as he had struggled to plan his move for a long time.

Aoi's explanation of why the move didn't work was only a distant and muffled noise to Yusaku, who was sitting across from Naoki, facing him in a dueling club training duel.

The cards in his hands felt like they had no weight, Yusaku needed to focus to keep them steady in his hand. It felt like floating, like everything around him was just rushing past him.

He just couldn't focus. It had all felt like that in the last few days, since…

"Of course, … I knew that was against the rules…"Naoki finally answered Aoi with an unsure smile pretending to be confident. "I just wanted to test you… dueling training and all…"

Trying to form a clear thought, Yusaku half registered that Aoi sighed and had an annoyed look on her face.

In the past there had been days similar to this, where he had glided through his day barely thinking about the people or places around him and using lists of three things he needed to do to get through.

But what had been happening in the last days was different. Yusaku tried to understand it by remembering three things that had happened in the past days, but he found he just couldn't get his mind to focus.

"There! If I do this and attack then I should win?" Naoki muttered, unsurely giving a sideways look to Aoi. She only weakly nodded, telling him that he could go ahead.

"Of course, I do! That was the plan all along!" Naoki cheered loudly, earning a few sideways looks from the people on the other tables in the dueling club.

Naoki slapped a different monster card on the table and equipped it with a simple equip spell. The monster was facing Yusaku's side of the field, that had no monster to oppose it.

"Now attack!" He almost screamed, closing his eyes. "The great Brave M… I mean… Naoki will win."

Yusaku registered his surroundings a bit more after the loud noise. The blur that had been the class room became a bit clearer and he saw Aoi giving him a concerned look. A quick observation of the board made him aware of the duel, he had been half-heartedly playing.

"I activate an effect from my graveyard…" Yusaku said emotionlessly, still not really thinking and only being able to half focus. Even though he wasn't playing his normal deck, he instinctively executed a series of moves that reversed the attack and caused his opponent’s life points to drop to zero.

Naoki's face was one of complete shock, clearly having not understood the sudden turn of events or how the moves Yusaku just used worked.

Yusaku didn't feel any satisfaction in winning and he stopped thinking about the duel the moment it ended as he dwelled on his thoughts again.

There was a small moment between the three of them, were the only thing that could be heard was Naoki whimpering in disbelief that he had lost.

Yusaku was staring at the table aimlessly, out of the corner of his eyes he thought he could see Aoi looking at him before his surrounding became a blur again.

He struggled to put together his list of three things that happened.

He went to the hot dog truck like he usually does and then there was a nightmare last night, but it was all different…

"Ahh! I only noticed it now, I obviously forgot to put some very important cards in my deck!" Naoki proclaimed with a confident smile, after having regained his composure. "Otherwise I, Brave M… ahh I mean I, Shima Naoki, would have won, of course!"

Finishing his loud explanation, Naoki quickly moved to another table, away from Yusaku and Aoi, and started to frantically reorder his deck.

"That was a great move Fujiki Yusaku. I told you it would be good if you joined the dueling club again. You can become a great duelist." Aoi stated, giving Yusaku a small smile. "Is everything okay?"

Yusaku was snapped out of his thoughts, but not by Aoi's question.

It was wrong to duel the way he just did.

He knew what dueling meant and he could feel a connection to it beyond all the pain it has caused him or his fight with the Knights of Hanoi. It was something deep within him.

He had felt nothing while dueling, he had even stopped focusing on it for most of the duel. That shouldn't happen during a duel, dueling was meant to build a connection between the players, the cards, and anyone watching. It can bring joy, smiles and even hope. It shouldn't be something you do halfheartedly.

He should not have dueled like this, Yusaku concluded.

After making that note to himself, Yusaku noticed that Aoi was looking at him with a worried expression, waiting for him to answer the question.

Yusaku, not understanding what Aoi was worried about, was about to answer. Something meaningless, just to say something to avoid a longer conversation, but before he could the Dueling Club President addressed the class.

"Students, please finish your duels. I have something to announce before the class ends." The student with big glasses announced.

A few annoyed huffs came from students that had to end their duel early and a few students started to whisper to each other about what the announcement might be.

Yusaku and Aoi both turned with their chairs towards the Dueling Club President wordlessly and Yusaku noticed Aoi still sometimes looking over to Yusaku with a suspecting look.

"Our club will be doing a project on an important topic in the world of dueling." He stated, with Yusaku barley listening.

The president earned a few annoyed huffs from a few students, others were whispering about what the topic might be.

Yusaku didn't notice any of it. There were three things… three things that happened… three things about the past…

He just couldn't reach it…

"We will be talking about the Lancers and the interdimensional war. I want you all to read the chapter in your books and prepare notes until next week." The club president finally announced.

Suddenly everything in Yusaku tensed up and whatever thought he just had left him.

The world around him seemed to slowly become even more blurry and his breath became shorter. He carefully moved his hands to grip the table and he felt the first signs that his body was shaking.

"Is everything okay Fujiki Yusaku? Should I call the nurse?" Aoi whispered with a worried voice, looking over to him.

Yusaku couldn't think clearly anymore. He was sitting still, but it was like the world was spinning around him and a strange feeling of dread came from deep within him.

This happened before…

Yusaku now remembered. The white room and the game over screen had flashed before his eyes and he had felt the pain again.

"Ohhh come on! Do we really have to talk about boring stuff a bunch of old people did?" Naoki loudly commented from the back of the room, all heads except Yusaku's turned towards him. "They must be what now? 30? 40? I want to duel here! Their cards are probably totally out of date, I bet Playmaker or I could totally beat them in a duel!"

The club president looked at Naoki in confusion, not sure what to say before slowly opening his mouth to give a response.

Then Yusaku jumped out of his seat and turned to look at Naoki, three fingers pointing up on his hand determinately, though his expression neutral.

The feeling of dread and all the confusion about the past days was somehow gone. He knew the three things to say immediately and he knew he had to say them. Yusaku didn't understand why, only that this mattered for dueling and for something more.

"There are three reasons why you should care about the interdimensional war and the Lancers." Yusaku stated, his voice still calm, but determined. "First: The interdimensional war was an important event and the bravery of the Lancers saved many people, leading to the world today."

Naoki had a very stunned expression on his face by now, even the club president was also a bit speechless and Aoi was looking up at Yusaku with astonishment.

"Second: The Lancer's innovations have contributed to the dueling world today." Yusaku continued, not really knowing were the words came from, only knowing that they were true. "Duelists of all skill levels should learn from them and any amateur duelist should study their techniques to improve."

"Am-am-amateur?" Naoki stuttered, still completely shocked by Yusaku's calm, but determined explanation.

"Third: Their lessons and there k-kindness are an inspiration and they mean a lot to …m…" Yusaku spoke, but then suddenly stopped not knowing why. It was his third point and it was as clear to him as any other point he made, but it somehow felt like the most important and different…

While speaking the dread, that was gone during his speech, crept back in. Yusaku tensed put again and he couldn't finish his third point, but why?

This never happened when he listed his three points…

"They still mean a lot to a lot of people…" He finished, changing his original point and trying to keep it as calm as before, but it coming out a bit quieter. It took a long moment of stunned silence before anyone started to speak again.

"Ahh…Yes…there you have it Shima that is why we will talk about the topic…" The club president muttered still a bit unsure about the situation.

Naoki looked around the room in confusion for another moment before sitting down at his desk, letting out an annoyed sigh.

Yusaku was still standing as he remembered the feeling of wanting to run, the fear that the game over screen will come, it had been there often.

A bit of it was there in that moment, but he had promised to never do that again.

There was a different way, a different future.

And yet It had overwhelmed him, Yusaku remembered now. He had run away again and failed to keep the promise.

She had known…

"Fujiki… thank you for your … contribution … if you could sit back down please?" The club president inquired carefully.

He had failed…

He couldn't think of three things to somehow get a hold of, or even to understand, the situation. There had been fear and Yusaku had used the advice from his past to face it, but in the end, he had failed again…

The bell rang ending the lesson. As the students around him slowly started to collect their stuff, Yusaku quickly got his bag and rushed out the door.

Yusaku's feet carried him up the stairs quickly, without him having to command them, while he was trying over and over again to think of three things to find a logical solution. Three things that could help him categorize what had happened, they came out feeling incomplete.

First: He had fought against the abyss, like he had promised

Second: Something happened that made him fail.

Third: He had a nightmare again.

Yusaku suddenly remembered the nightmare. As he closed his eyes and he saw the images of that night painfully flash before his eyes.

But it wasn't the white room or the duels that terrorized him, like the other nightmares.

It was him trying to reach out over the abyss…

…towards the two people at the party, who he wanted to tell about his fun duel.

…towards the shape of a ship sailing off into the horizon.

…towards a woman sitting next to the familiar hotdog truck.

He gave it everything he had, like the duels he had with the Knights of Hanoi where he had fought to get his revenge.

Yusaku wanted to change the future because it wouldn't change on its own, he wanted to cross the abyss, but it grew wider then he could reach and the darkness swallowed any screams or hope he

had.

Remembering made a rush of pain go through Yusaku, like the darkness from his dream was still around him. He tried to get further into the memory, but anything else was swallowed by the abyss.

Yusaku opened the door at the top of the stairs and a ray of sunlight hit him, making his eyes squint. For a moment he wondered where he was before remembering that he had made his way to the roof of the school.

It was empty at this hour, but Yusaku could hear the noises of the city coming from the streets and the countless sounds from students in the courtyard or in the school.

Yusaku slumped himself down on the ground against the fence of the roof overlooking the city.

His whole body ached and felt tired; he had barely slept last night.

Normally he would be used to ignoring pain, like he always did when he had fought the Knights of Hanoi, but his thoughts couldn't cling onto the Knights of Hanoi and his current thoughts led him nowhere.

Sitting there Yusaku closed his eyes and focused. There had to be a logical explanation for why he had this nightmare, what had happened in the last few days and why he still couldn't get a grasp on his past.

Finding out was part of his promise.

Yusaku tried to think. There had been the hotdog truck and then he had dinner with…with…

And then they had been in the park and she had said…

She had known…

Yusaku jerked his eyes open, suddenly feeling his heart pound in his chest and his body shake.

He still couldn't access that part of his mind, every time he would get close the abyss forced him to stop.

With a loud thud the door to the roof closed and Yusaku quickly looked up, snapping out of his thoughts.

"I'm sorry Fujiki Yusaku… I didn't want to startle you." Zaizen Aoi said, looking at Yusaku surprised because of his reaction. "I just wanted to give you your book…. You forgot it in the dueling club."

Aoi gave a small smile as she sat herself on the ground next to him and handing the book to Yusaku, who was a bit confused.

"Thank you..." Yusaku said, again giving Aoi a neutral expression.

Not thinking that he should say anything more, he begun inspecting the book as he had never actually read in it before.

On the cover there were pictures of all kinds of famous duel monsters from dragons to magicians and in bold letters at the bottom it said "A history of dueling. A text book about the greatest duels and duelist in history."

"You also missed the club president telling us about the assignment we have to do." Aoi explained to Yusaku, who was still looking at the book. "We have to do a project on the Lancers. We have to read the chapter about them in the book."

Yusaku froze up again at her words, despite trying not to. Without thinking, Yusaku started to slowly flick through the pages of the book.

The heading of the first chapter read "Mythological origins, archaeological discoveries and current theories." The picture on the page showed a stone tablet of three great monsters doing battle.

"I didn't know you liked to spend your breaks here on the roof, it is a nice place." Aoi commented trying to have a casual conversation like she often tried, now after her own battle with the Knights of Hanoi.

Yusaku didn't know what to say and his attention was on the book now anyway.

It all seemed so familiar to Yusaku. He had been afraid of those monsters once, long ago. It was a random thought and Yusaku didn't know where it had come from.

"I disagree with Shima too. I think what you said was very … important." Aoi said, looking over to Yusaku next to her, clearly meaning what she said.

Yusaku didn't hear Aoi, his mind was focused on the book, there was just something about it.

The second chapter was about the rediscovery of dueling and how it got popular in the modern day, which was still long ago. One picture showed a man in a pink suit, with white hair covering on of his eyes.

Another memory sprung to Yusaku's head and he almost flinched, expecting it to be a sting of pain, but it wasn't. When he was younger, he had once held a presentation on that man. It wasn't easy for him and he needed a lot of help from…

But in the end his teacher, a man with orange hair and a fiery red jump suit was very happy and excited about it.

It was a memory that Yusaku barely understood and couldn't place, as if it happened in another life. He didn't know how to feel about these flashes of memory. They weren't logical, he couldn't put them into three things…

Yusaku started to flip through the pages faster. There were a chapter about famous tournaments and the first ever dueling school… Yusaku somehow knew what some of it was about without reading the pages.

"When I was little, my brother used to tell me stories about duelists like the Lancers when he had the time…" Aoi commented, first looking over into the book and then turning away from Yusaku looking to the city. "I always loved those stories..."

The pages changed faster and faster. The invention of riding duels…more famous tournaments and people…A lot of speculation about what really happened during certain times… somehow Yusaku felt he was moving closer to something.

A chapter on the original dimension was now open and illustrations of what it might have looked like were covering the pages. A large white city with technology that wasn't even possible now.

Yusaku knew it was only one page more, he just couldn't turn it over. The determination he felt while rushing through the pages suddenly faded and he could feel his hand starting to shake as he tried to grip the page to turn it over.

A part of him was crying that behind the page was the white room, the dread and the abyss. He tried to keep his breathing steady, but failed.

He couldn't reach forward to cross the abyss…like in his dream…like the last few days…

"They were really brave and knew what they were fighting for…" Aoi muttered more to herself then anyone, still looking into the distance.

They were brave, Yusaku thought, Yes, they were. It had been one of his points earlier and had been clear in his mind.

A lesson about dealing with fear, came back to him. His hand suddenly a bit steadier, he flipped over the page.

It showed a massive colorful group photo in the center of the page, a mix of all kinds of different people.

Yusaku carefully examined everyone in the picture. There was a man with glasses and a red scarf in the center, a man larger than all the others with a red headband, a tall man wearing a long, dark blue jacket and many more.

It felt strange to Yusaku. A part of him wanted to close the book, to not risk anything happening again, but another part saw the faces, some serious some smiling and some annoyed and felt something different, he couldn't quite understand.

And then his eyes wandered just to the edge of the frame, where a pink haired woman, was almost dragging a woman with purple hair, who looked a bit annoyed at the whole situation, closer into the frame. Both of them wore matching Lancer uniforms, with a bracelet around one of their arms, and chaired the same face.

It was…

Yusaku couldn't finish that thought, but he remembered a calm voice telling him that one needs to learn how to fight and live with fear, he wouldn't think of the abyss now.

Yusaku studied the annoyed expression of the woman for a long moment. She didn't want to be in the picture, hating the attention and formality of it, but she tried her best for her teammates.

It was a strange calm that Yusaku felt, as he remembered the other part of his dream the darkness had obscured from him before.

For a long time, he had been in the darkness, but towards the end he had felt a warmth on his hand, a familiar voice that had told him so often not to be afraid, to keep going and to stay strong.

"I think we can do this." a voice had come, along with soft music from the darkness.

The darkness had been what Yusaku remembered, but towards the end he had a few quiet moments of dreamless sleep.

"Do you think Playmaker, Blue Angel and other heroes from Link Vrains will ever get a place in a book like this?" Aoi, who without Yusaku noticing had been lost in her own thoughts, asked him quietly and unsurely.

Yusaku looked up from the book at Aoi, almost having forgotten that she sat next to him.

"They saved the network from the Knights of Hanoi, but the Lancers…" Aoi explained with a contemplative look. "I know they must have had moments that were hard too, but in the end, they found their cause and fought for it until the end. They still do..."

Yusaku looked at Aoi not really understanding what she meant and continued to give her a neutral expression.

"I'm just asking myself if Blue Angel… and the others of course, will ever be like that. They fought hard against the Knights of Hanoi, but can they ever fight for something so absolutely?" Aoi finally contemplated, looking into the distance again.

Yusaku thought about that. Keep his promise, find the truth about his past and change the future. That had been the three steps to the future and with every one of them he had failed.

Next to Yusaku, Aoi abruptly stopped looking into the distance and jumped up, going a few steps towards the door back into the school, before turning around.

"I'm sorry, it was a silly question to ask." Aoi uttered, quickly, still uncertainty in her face that she tried to cover with a weak smile. "I will go back inside."

"I don't think it's a silly question." Yusaku spoke, in his normal neutral tone. They would tell him not to give up, to keep pushing forward until he reached his goal. "Not yet, but they could be."

Aoi looked at Yusaku in confusion for a moment, before her fake smile turned into a small real one.

"You're right. There is no reason to worry. The important thing for them is to not let a defeat or uncertainty let you down …and for us that is important too of course…" Aoi decided, in a light and relieved voice.

She gave Yusaku a firm nod, before heading towards the door. Yusaku had opened the book again, when she turned around one last time.

"We should compare our notes on the chapter sometime. Good day, Fujiki Yusaku." Aoi added, her voice calm, but happy.

She looked at Yusaku for another moment, who, not understanding the situation and his expression still bland, gave only a small nod as a response.

Yusaku stayed on the roof for a long time afterwards, looking at the book,only leaving when the last bell rang. All this time he looked at the pictures carefully, the thought of the darkness still in the back of his mind.

It was still distant, still unreal, still not three things he could understand, but it was a bit closer to the past he lost long ago.

It was already later in the day, the sky was a deep red from the beginning of the sunset. Only a few people visited the truck at this time, the square was nearly empty. The advertisement screens only a shimmering in the background and distant sounds of the city went unnoticed by him.

Kusanagi had greeted him in surprised, noting that he was both late and actually still didn't have to work for the time being. Yusaku had only neutrally greeted him like usual, not answering his questions.

His thoughts were on his next steps, his next encounter with…her…

With his…

With the woman from the picture, Yusaku decided.

She had known. Yusaku still felt uneasy thinking it. He never viewed it as a great secret, he had no one in his life he needed to keep it from anyway, but every time he thought about her knowing it made him feel sick and he didn't know why.

Despite that Yusaku knew that he would not give up trying to move forward.

The words he remembered at Stardust road, the words from the man in the purple clothing and the slogans of the Lancers never to give up ringing in his ear.

That was all clear to him, yet Yusaku still couldn't develop a plan on what to do, what to say when the time comes or how to access the past. Yusaku never did anything without a logical plan and it was clear to him that there had to be three things he needed to do.

That is the only way he could take a step to cross the abyss.

Yusaku hadn't noticed that Kusanagi had just come out of the truck to sit next to him. Kusanagi had been carefully observing Yusaku ever since he had come.

"So… how did things go for you in the last few days?" Kusanagi asked, carefully, but with a warm voice.

He didn't want to, Yusaku tried not to, but he flinched at the question. Kusanagi studied him with a long look, while Yusaku tried to order his thoughts.

"Anyway, I need to tell you about this new Hot dog recipe I have developed myself…" Kusanagi quickly changed the subject and starting to casually talk away about things happening at the truck.

Yusaku took that time to order his thoughts. Kusanagi was clearly wondering what was going on and Yusaku thought he should at least tell him something, but he somehow felt uneasy about it.

"You know something I noticed when I visited Jin recently?" Kusanagi said calmly, waiting until Yusaku gave him his attention. "Now that the Knights of Hanoi are finished, on some days I think I can see my brother getting back on his feet again. He is still a little shy, but he shows me things he likes around the hospital and whispers to me when we are alone."

Even Yusaku noticed that Kusanagi's eyes were filled with passion and complete honesty, that behind the words were heartfelt memories. Kusanagi's smile was very wide.

"Those kind of days used to be rare, but they happen just a bit more often all the time…" Kusanagi explained, closing his eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath before continuing. "But then there are days when he feels far away… where he won't even look at anyone or leave his room. During the worst days the doctor tells me that he isn't able to see me at all…"

Kusanagi's smile turned just a bit sad, but he wouldn't let it slip off his face completely. Yusaku was listening to Kusanagi's words intensely.

"And you know what I do on those days? It isn't easy, but I just think to myself that I will do whatever I had planned next time…that there will be another better day and eventually there always is." Kusanagi declared, his smile now back fully. "Our fight didn't end when Revolver was defeated, I know that now. Now every day is a little fight to make up for the time we lost, but I will never even think about giving up."

Yusaku jumped out of his seat, surprising Kusanagi.

"I have to go; I need to do something." Yusaku proclaimed, looking in the direction he needed to go, his voice steady, but determent.

Kusanagi observed him skeptically again, before an understanding look on his face appeared.

"Yeah, you do that Yusaku." Kusanagi called after him, smiling. "Oh, and one more thing. I don't just cook hot dogs you know? So, if you and… someone else want to come over for dinner sometime, I won't do a half bad job."

Yusaku was already walking as he heard that and he didn't understand what Kusanagi meant. Yusaku didn't stay to find out, he now had three steps for what he needed to do now.

There was one last blink from his duel disk, before Yusaku turned it back off. He let out a breath, before turning his eyes away from the duel disk and towards the open sea. Nothing but the soft waves from the ocean could be heard.

The railing felt cold in his hands and the light from the setting sun, made it hard to see. There would be no blue lights tonight, that was very rare anyway and his eyes didn't spot the boat they hoped to see.

His plan was in place now, he had three things he needed to say.

Calculating how long it would take, he concluded that it wouldn't be too long and decided to spend the time working on finding out more about his past and trying to remember new memories.

In the picture there had been a man, not far from the two women…

His hair had been a mess of spiky red and green and his clothing was also green and red, but his face was familiar. He had seen it in another memory, the one he had right here…

Yusaku knew that he could reach into the abyss that surrounded his past for more memories, if he only tried. He was more careful now then the last few times, letting the memory come back slowly, so he could control it.

That didn't mean he was less confident. No, this was what he had fought for, or like Kusanagi had said was still fighting for. Actually, reclaiming his past one memory at a time would be just as hard as any duel with the Knights of Hanoi, but Yusaku knew he would fight that fight till the end.

The words he had heard in his dream last night came to his mind and Yusaku closed his eyes. With the soft sounds and salty air of the sea around him, he remembered…

His steps were silent as he moved through the hallway of the house in the darkness and he kept reminding himself that they should stay that way.

Carefully, he moved past all kinds of colorful balloons, toys, garlands and confetti still lying all over the hallway.

As he was moving past an open door, Yusaku got a peek inside and could see that Uncle Yuya had fallen asleep on a couch.

Uncle Yuya's face was covered in a bit of confetti and he was wearing a party hat, in his arms was one of his children, also quietly asleep.

Yusaku had to keep himself from laughing and made sure to remember it, so he could use it to make fun of Yuya's child tomorrow.

Continuing, almost being to the living room, Yusaku froze as he heard voices coming from it.

"I think this might be my masterpiece, Serena." The voice of his father commented, pretending to be snobbish, but clearly amused.

Yusaku, realizing the origin of the voice, continued his stealthy walk, making sure not to trip over anything in the dark.

"You know that if he wakes up now, there will be a fight…" His mother's voice warned, sounding both annoyed and sarcastic.

Yusaku could see the light coming from the open living room door now. He stopped and leaned against the wall next to the door. That they were inside was a problem, as the goal of his nightly mission was also there.

"A fight I am likely to win, no doubt." Yusaku's father answered, with overplayed confidents. "But he won't wake up, if there is anything Fusion can do better than being a traffic hazard, it is sleeping."

With the words, Yusaku could hear a loud snoring. There was only one person, his father called that name and the snoring was unmistakable, this could only be Uncle Yugo, he concluded.

"Ok I give you that, but your lack of creativity really gives you away." His mother criticized.

Yusaku could no longer resist and carefully took a look around the corner.

What he saw was even better then what he had imagined. Uncle Yugo was slumped against the wall next to a sofa, clearly in a deep sleep. On the sofa itself was Aunt Rin, also asleep, her hand hanging over the edge entwined with Uncle Yugo's.

That however didn't stop his father from standing over Yugo, with a dozen markers in his hand, using the breaks between Yugo's snorting to paint on his face, to Yusaku's disappointment obscuring the view. His mother was standing a bit farther away, watching the whole thing very skeptically.

"There will be absolutely no evidence that I was the culprit…and besides I was with you the whole time, wasn't I?" Yuri noted, stopping his painting spree to give Serena the most fake innocent eyes Yusaku had ever seen.

"You really want to get into that kind of debt with me?" Serena answered, giving him a hard-no-nonsense look. Yusaku's father just casually shrugged like he often did and turned back to his work.

For a moment Yusaku thought how unfair it was that his father could get away with something like this while he never would.

"Are you done soon? Hurry up." his mother asked, in an annoyed tone.

"Perfection needs time, as I have often told you, but this should be it." His father answered, sounding quite satisfied. Serena sighed deeply.

"I know art isn't your forte, so you might not appreciate the depth I put into it, but is it to your liking?" Yuri asked, standing up and admiring his work from afar, next to Serena. "Anything I should add?"

Serena looked at the still sleeping uncle Yugo for a moment and Yusaku was also finally able to have a look at his uncle.

His face had a blue and orange spiral on it and the word "Fusion" was on his forehead in bold letters. Yusaku would have laughed, if it wouldn't have meant the failure of his mission.

"For how long that took and for how often you said that this is your masterpiece, I'm a little disappointed." Serena criticized, in a half mocking, half annoyed voice. The two exchanged a look, his father's eyes were mischievous, while his mother's eyes stayed hard, before she let out a sigh.

"Hand me the pencil." Yusaku's mother finally commanded, sounding quite annoyed that she let herself be convinced to do this. His father had a sly smile and handed her a pencil.

She added a few touches here and there and, in the end, Yusaku had to admit her parts also looked good.

"That isn't half bad, dear Serena." Yuri admired, sounding like the situation was very amusing for him.

His mother only went back into the center of the room and, with a frown, pushed the pencil flat against his father's chest, giving it back to him, but in the moment his father didn't look Yusaku could see a just the slightest hint of a smile on the edge of her annoyed look.

There was silence in the room for a moment, his mother going to a table to drink some water and his father making a few photos of Yugo with his duel disk and then starting to clean up the messy room a bit.

He stopped at one of Uncle Yuya's and Aunt Yuzu's flowers in the room, inspecting them, before frowning and muttering about how poorly they are kept. Yusaku thought that was quite typical.

This was his chance, Yusaku knew. In the darkness it was hard to see, but he thought the object he wanted was under a mess of opened wrapping paper and balloons on the floor.

It wasn't too close to his parents, if he was quick and quiet, he could get it and the dimly lit room was perfect cover.

Yusaku carefully took his first step in to the room.

"I Think Yusaku liked the party." Serena stated in a somewhat contemplative tone, still looking at the table away from Yuri. Yusaku immediately retreated back behind the door, only peeking into the room.

"You really think so?" Yuri said, surprised and quickly turning around, before noticing his excitement and steadying himself. "I mean…that is quite an obvious conclusion, Serena."

Serena also turned around and looked at Yuri for a long moment, who now had a completely neutral look on his face. Still Yusaku had the feeling that she was seeing something else, his father didn't want her to.

Serena then finished looking at him, turned around and put her duel disk on the table, wordlessly starting to type into it.

Yusaku watched Yuri, as he took a deep breath nodded and turned around, a contemplative look on his face.

Then he heard soft and slow music coming from Serena's duel disk and both he and Yuri immediately looked towards her.

"You want to try again after I was better than you last time?" Serena dared Yuri, holding one hand towards him, with a challenging smile. Yuri seemed confused by the sudden question.

"You…Last time…" Yuri said, with uncertainty in his voice, before he put on a sly smile. "That is disputable and last time we were doing one of your modern dances, you have no chance with something more elegant."

"We can dance whatever you want and I will still be better." Serena answered, confidently, moving towards him. "After losing against my Lunalights so many times you should know."

The two of them got into a position with Yuri giving Serena instructions on how to dance, which annoyed her very much. It took them a bit of time and Yusaku asked himself how long it would take before he gets another chance to move inside.

"From your many defeats against my deck you should know that you shouldn't underestimate me, dear Serena." Yuri commented, sarcastically. "Oh, and please try not to hurt me."

"Shut up, or I will and that will all be down to your distractions." Serena shot back, without missing a beat, like she always did and the two started to slowly move to the music.

In the dimly lit messy living room, Yusaku must have watched them for a long time that night, both of them close together, Yuri occasionally whispering advice in Serena's ear and Serena getting frustrated at that. Both of them were great, however Yuri maybe was a tiny bit better than her at classical dancing.

After a while the two got into a rhythm and danced quite comfortably. Yusaku saw another opportunity and tiptoed his way into the room.

He kept his eyes on his parents. It was only a few more steps, when Yusaku saw Yuri draw Serena close to him so that there dancing was more a swaying hug. The slow music and their footsteps the only sounds in the room.

"I think we can do this." Yuri, closing his eyes, whispered hopefully. Yusaku was shocked at how vulnerable he seemed.

"Yeah, I think we can." Serena answered, softly. "Everything will be fine."

Yusaku didn't know what they were talking about, but it felt like he had never seen them like this. A long moment passed between them in silence, it was as if time had frozen.

"And your footwork is still wrong." Yuri criticized, a wicked smile on his face, suddenly seeming a lot more like usual.

"That can't be right! It's not my fault if your foot is in the wrong place." Serena countered, the frustrated look she had at her previous mistakes back on her face.

Yusaku was afraid that they would stop and he would be caught, but they simply got back into the starting position and continued.

Now he only needed to find it inside this mess, Yusaku thought and carefully removed the pile of torn up wrapping paper. Yusaku constantly looked over his shoulders to make sure he was safe and searched faster and faster.

There! He found it, now he only needed to get back to the bed room.

"You shouldn't take so much inspiration from your father, you know?" His mother said, still slowly dancing.

Yusaku immediately turned around, hiding it behind his back. His parents stopped holding each other and turned towards him. His father almost as surprised as Yusaku that Serena had noticed him.

"Oh… hi, Mother. I just wanted… to… get something to drink." He lied, quickly, but his mother already gave the look that told him it was pointless. His father was smiling at Yusaku's vain attempt to get out of this.

"Ok maybe I was doing that, but I happened to also see my new duel disk…" Yusaku confessed with a big smile, hoping that it might seem like the most normal thing in the world.

"You do know that you have been doing nothing else, but duel with it all-day? Didn't we agree that you could duel again tomorrow?" Yuri questioned Yusaku with a knowing look.

"Yes… I guess we said that..." Yusaku answered, quietly, looking away and rubbing his neck nervously. He did duel a lot today and had a lot of fun with everybody at his birthday party, that was true.

"I just wanted to look over all the functions again, so I can show them all to Ryoken when he comes over tomorrow." Yusaku argued, thinking it was a perfectly good reason and besides just one more game shouldn't hurt too much.

His parents shared a quick look and clearly something was communicated between them, but Yusaku didn't know what. Yusaku anxiously waited for the response.

"You know that there is a reason for your bedtime?" Yuri questioned him, with an unsure look.

"I guess…" Yusaku muttered, weakly nodding, maybe that was true, but he was still too excited to sleep and it was just one game.

His father looked at the ground for a moment, thinking. His mother opened her mouth to say something, but before she could his father quickly looked up, now with a more confident expression.

"If you don't go to bed soon you will be too tired to duel with your friend tomorrow anyway." His father pointed out. "Or you will lose every time because you couldn't focus."

"Your father is right, dueling isn't something you should fall asleep by and tomorrow we can go through all the things your gift can do again, maybe we can even get Reiji to show you all the tricks." His mother continued without missing a beat. "But first you need to promise never to sneak out of bed again, or we might think that this new duel disk wasn't such a great idea after all."

Yusaku thought about that for a moment, they had their points. A duelist should be at full attention during a match.

Also, losing to any of the other children in his family or Ryoken tomorrow because he was tired was unthinkable and losing his new duel disk even more so.

"I won't anymore, promised." Yusaku concluded, standing up and looking straight at his parents so they knew he was serious.

"Great!" His father declared, giving him a comforting smile. "Then let's get you back to bed."

Yusaku nodded, putting the duel disk back on the floor and the three of them started to walk back to his room. On the way he noticed that his mother gave his father a quick reassuring smile, who shrugged like he didn't know why she smiled.

Back in the guest bedroom that Uncle Yuya and Aunt Yuzu had provided for him and the he shared with a few other children for the night, who were already asleep, his parents wished him a good night and Yusaku closed his eyes trying to fall asleep.

It felt like an eternity before his excitement allowed him to, but he dreamed about all the fun and duels he would have tomorrow.

When he opened his eyes again the sun had just disappeared behind the horizon. Yusaku felt the sea wind on his face and instinctively his eyes searched the open sea for a boat, that he knew wasn't there.

Yusaku couldn't quite categorize it, but after the memory he felt warm. It was another step to his past, but he hadn't even thought about how it might be unsafe, about how the abyss might overwhelm it.

And the memory was clearer than the ones before, he still couldn't place it and he could only vaguely say what it was about, but it felt a bit closer than the ones before.

Like there were three things he just couldn't name them yet, like the different life it had been from was his long ago.

It was another moment Yusaku thought about his dream in silence, before he heard the footsteps behind him. Yusaku straightened his body and got ready, he had a plan.

"Hello, Yusaku." She softly greeted him. "I got your message and it just marked this location on my duel disk…"

Yusaku slowly turned around and looked into her eyes, his face now completely neutral. For a moment his body tensed up, but he kept going, repeating the three steps in his head one last time.

"There are three reasons I wanted to meet you here." Yusaku explained, in a neutral voice and three fingers pointing up on his hand. At first, she looked surprised, but she quickly smiled and gave him a reassuring nod. "First: You asked me to show you a place I like in the city and this is one of my favorite places."

She had a quick look around and out towards the sea, before giving Yusaku another reassuring nod.

"Second: We should spend time together since you are visiting me." Yusaku said, calmly, having confidence in the words. "Third: You said that we could find a new future together and I wanted to say that I want to do that too."

Yusaku took a calm breath after finishing. The three points had been completely logical to him and his expression was still showing nothing, but it felt like he had taken this step in finding a new future and in keeping his promise well.

"That…That is great Yusaku. I hope we can do that together, find a new future." She answered; determent hope in her voice. She gave him another firm warm smile before standing herself next to him on the railing, still leaving a bit of space between them.

Silence set in and Yusaku could order his thoughts. He had made his three points exactly like he had planned them and it had been a good start.

He looked out at the sea and she was also looking into the distance, only occasionally giving Yusaku a quick reassuring look.

Yusaku hoped that he could one day explain three things to her about why he liked this place and what he irrationally hoped to see every time he is here.

She already knew that he was Playmaker, that she knew felt still strange, but not as bad as before.

One day he would tell her why he had fought, about AI and about the person who saved him and who he was trying to save now.

Not today, that day was still away and thinking about it made him feel both hopeful and sick at the same time, but Yusaku understood that it wasn't impossible.

"I think we can do this." The words from the memory repeated in his mind.

At the time he hadn't comprehended what the two people had meant and Yusaku still didn't know what they had talked about.

However now looking out onto the sea and being closer to his past and future then he ever was, the feeling the people had felt was something Yusaku thought he was close to understanding.