Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Revolver, I trust Ai.”

Those were the last words Yusaku had said about the one he simultaneously referred to as his hostage and his partner. After their self-proclaimed contract had been fulfilled and the lock on the duel disk was finally off, Ai was a free AI. He had watched Ai sink into his duel disk and hadn't resurfaced once since Mirror LINK VRAINS had disappeared and the defeat of Bohman had returned the consciousness of his allies and everyone else lost in the virtual world.

Yusaku had no problem with Ai going back to the Cyberse World. While it was tragic that the Ignis were not able to regain their own lives after the final duel, at least Ai would still be able to return with Linkuriboh, the lone remaining companion native to him. Yusaku wasn’t entirely sure about Roboppy’s apparent decision to follow Ai back to the Cyberse World, but if Ai wanted to keep her around as company as it was no secret that the two had grown incredibly close, then there really wasn’t much Yusaku could do about losing his personal roomba to an AI, either.

“That would be 500 yen in total,” he told the customer at Café Nagi. “Thank you for always stopping by.” He then handed them their hotdog, neatly placed inside in a paper bag, and his tone significantly less monotone than before. He knew that he had gotten much better at preparing and handling food, both of which were naturally a given now that there was not much else to do and improve on. Most of his time was spent tending to the business at Kusanagi’s hot dog van while he was away on personal errands, or it was spent casually chatting with Takeru about school, or casually surfing the VRAINS Web.

The seconds, minutes, and hours continued to tick away, but his own utterances from before had quickly found a way to cling onto his heart. No matter how many times he tried to reassure himself that it was his decision to let him go, with each passing day they sounded less and less complete to him. Ever since Ai had left his duel disk, Yusaku still unconsciously found himself looking down at his wrist, expecting something to pop up and blurt out something downright absurd.

Like complaining about when the next soap opera was going to begin. He and Roboppy used to watch them together every Monday evening and the way Ai’s laughter would resonate through the room whenever they’d turn up the volume at the “exciting parts” used to grate on Yusaku’s nerves to no end. Now, never seeing the TV on anymore had become such a foreign sight. He was starting to miss Roboppy’s mindless chattering as well, as the consistent humming that emitted from her while she worked used to be the only source of comfort at home, reminding him that he wasn’t alone in such a cramped room.

Soon enough, he even stopped going home anytime during the day at all as the increasingly deafening silence in that small apartment room repeatedly refused to leave him alone.

It took him awhile to adjust to life without Ai, and for some unexplicable reason, it felt significantly more sombre this time than when he had returned to the Cyberse World after they had finally toppled the former Tower of Hanoi together.

It probably had to do with one of Ai’s last wishes to him with his talk about how he should never trying to stop making friends and bringing people together with bonds, moments before he sacrificed himself to the Neuron Link. The knowledge that the rest of the Ignis had been fully absorbed and were never coming back that he had now may have had something to do with it as well, for Yusaku didn’t even know about the other Ignis at the time.

And even after all of that he still didn’t really talk to anyone that much. There was a dull ache in his heart where Ai had been and when the rest of the Ignis had fallen, but if he felt this pain to this degree, then how did that compare to Ai’s?

Ai was a hostage, Yusaku thought. When and why did his absence start to feel like… a void in his heart that he thought was incapable of emotional sentiment?

x

It was just another sunny cloudless day, just like it had been every other day since the Ignis war had ended. After everyone’s stolen conscious were successfully restored and Mirror LINK VRAINS disappearing forever, it seemed that the peace of Den City had been restored once again.

Life went on for everyone else, and it seemed as though the whole Mirror LINK VRAINS fiasco hadn’t even happened. The full-screen LED billboards in the city’s central plaza were flipping through new images and breaking news of SOL’s newest technology on the SOLtiS androids, day and night, basically at every chance they had. Everywhere he looked, people were ready to embrace these new changes without a second thought. Den City was rapidly progressing forward but Yusaku didn’t see this as wholly beneficial to the future of humankind.

But why was he jumping ahead? After all, he himself had yet to fully come to terms with what had happened to Ai and the Ignis.

Days had passed since Revolver had visited the Café Nagi, yet Yusaku couldn’t shake off the feeling that there may have been a possibility that he had been wrong about Ai and the Ignis all along. The way Revolver was glaring at him with those icy cold eyes, so piercing and determined to prove him wrong, that Yusaku didn’t want to admit his confidence had already been dissipating with each passing day. He wasn’t going to lie, he did not know nearly as much about the Ignis statistic-wise as Revolver did; he was not the one who had been studying and monitoring them for longer than half his lifetime.

He glanced over at Takeru, who had seemingly continued to live normally since that day. He no longer had Flame by his side, but he was chatting a lot more with Kusanagi now. He was also calling his childhood friend back home, a teenage girl named Kiku who was about the same age as them, several times a week. He came to mention Flame less by the end of every passing day, but when he did so he only had good memories of their time together to share. Like the time he almost crushed him with a briefcase, and coincidentally it happened on the same day they first met. Takeru said that Flame already had the intention to help him as his partner from that time on, despite never having seen his true form before and almost trying to flatten him with a briefcase.

But then, he always had a stronger relationship with Flame , Yusaku silently concluded. They had treated each other as equals from the day they met, from what he was told by Takeru and from when he had watched their last duel together. They had faith in each other and protected each other to the very end, while Yusaku even failed to convince Ai to not sacrifice himself to the Neuron Link.

If Ai hadn’t so recklessly gotten himself in such a do-or-die situation, perhaps we would have eventually found a way to save his comrades.

They could probably all still be here today.

Yusaku didn’t expect Ai to stay, as he had made it clear from their very first encounter that Ai was a hostage and that he was allowed to walk free.

Yet he still wished to know where he was, what he was doing. How was he faring after the death of his comrades? Yusaku wanted a certain closure not only for himself but also for Ai, that he wasn’t going to get in his current absence.

All of this which could only be described as ironic in retrospect, he concluded with a bitter sigh.

Ai was a hostage. That was, by definition, how their relationship had started out. Yusaku was the captor demanding answers from Ai, and any and all plans not relevant to their common goal were completely cut out and not heard.

For a long time, he wasn’t about to see a talking AI as a living sentient being, let alone as his equal. He’d mute Ai whenever he was interfering with his work, or simply tell him to shut up. But as they spent more and more time together, something changed. Yusaku felt himself opening up in a way he hadn’t been able to in at least ten years.

Since that incident, he came to trust an AI to a certain extent before he trusted a human to.

“I’m beginning to hate humans, too…”

And then, out of the blue, Yusaku suddenly realized that in all the emotional neglect that he had built up, involuntarily or not, that he... didn’t actually know that much about Ai to begin with.

What he had so seemingly so carelessly believed to be the truth all this time -- was it about to crumble away?

It may have been his usual pessimistic self speaking on his behalf again, but that possibility didn't sound too far off. 

x

He had that dream again that night.

For nearly every night the past ten years, he would have awoken in a blinding white room as his present-day self. The ceiling nowhere in sight and from what he could see, the room would be completely empty with nothing but a VR headgear at his foot. He slowly reached down to pick up the headgear and lift it up to his face. His movements were gruelling, lethargic, as if he had done this many times before and was becoming increasingly aware that this would never end.

The vision in front of him transformed itself into an endless, shapeless graveyard once again and it was eerily quiet, just as it always was. He would take several steps and incite shadowy figures to rise from their gravestones, drifting around precariously without a care or purpose in this world. The cards in his deck took form one by one, the holograms solidifying themselves within his arm’s reach. Unconsciously, Yusaku reached out to grasp at one of the cards he had somehow always recalled playing first in all the dreams before him.

Without warning, that very card shattered into a million pieces, startling the dazed and confused Yusaku. He looked down at the playing field and realized that another card, one that he had never seen before, had been played instead.

Nothing happened in the ensuing seconds. Nothing stirred and even the lurking shadows seemed to fade away on their own. His invisible virtual opponent didn’t seem to be in the progress of making a move, either, and--

“We meet again, Yusaku,” came a small voice from that mysterious card, yet it seemed to come from behind and around Yusaku as well. A shadow slowly rose from the card, towering over the other shadowy figures. The voice was vaguely familiar, yet Yusaku couldn’t put a finger on it as he was sure that he had never seen anyone resembling him in his life.

“Who are you?” Yusaku asked. “Show yourself!” The cloudy haze in his mind was already beginning to fade away and he was able to confirm that this was indeed another one of those nightmares.

“As a matter of fact, I’m actually you,” the voice said. It was low and barely audible, but its menacing tone somehow seemed to affect Yusaku’s mental state even in a dream.

“As if,” he breathed. “I have never even seen you before. Now hurry up and get out of my sight.” He was simultaneously becoming more frustrated and petrified with the manner that the shadow, the presumed owner of that voice, was inching closer to him.

The silhouette only snickered. “I am the embodiment of your failures.”

“I’ll give you three seconds.”

“You don’t realize it,” the voice continued, much to Yusaku’s dismay. “Or more accurately, you refuse to admit it. To yourself, above all.”

“What are you talking about? How would you know anything about me?”

Finally, the silhouette was beginning to retreat into the shadows.

“Answer me!” Yusaku shouted after him. The mysterious figure said nothing more and he disappeared into the abyss, his cape fluttering in the wind and vanishing as soon as he had come.

x

Yusaku jolted awake in his bed, short of breath and drenched in sweat. It was still dark out, but he had finally escaped another night of that series of nightmares as well as the new sinister figure for the time being.

“Roboppy,” he called out out of habit. Whenever he’d have a particularly horrible nightmare, she would stir from her sleep to, at his request, hand him a towel. However, there was no answer, and it was then that reality had really returned to him once again.

He threw aside the covers, finding solace in still darkness but it could not drown out the ringing in his ears in the silence of the night. Eventually he fell asleep and remained in that calm state until the first rays of sunlight reached him.

Yusaku immediately jumped out of bed and grabbed his duel disk off the desk. The very first person he called after that absolutely surreal dream was Kusanagi.

The man on the other end answered after three rings. “Yusaku? You’re up early today.” As Kusanagi greeted him, Yusaku could hear constant shuffling noise in the background and deduced that the ever diligent Kusanagi was already preparing on setting up shop as he was on the phone with him. It was a Sunday and Café Nagi was only going to be open for half the day, so he didn’t require Yusaku’s help that day.

“I had a strange dream last night.” Outside, the faint chirping of birds could be heard.

“Was it another one of your nightmares?”

“Kind of. I saw someone that I’ve never seen before, and because I was unable to get any answers, that itself is upsetting.”

“You’ve got a lot on your mind lately, Yusaku. Try not to worry about it too much.”

“It seemed real, Kusanagi. Like I wasn’t talking to someone from a dream.”

There was a temporary silence from the other end before the shuffling noise in the background resumed. “Did you want to talk about it?” his close acquaintance asked.

Yusaku thought about it. “Not really. Maybe you are right, that I’ve just been thinking a lot recently.”

“Let me know if you do want to talk about it, whether it be today or another day, alright?”

“Thanks, Kusanagi-san.”

There was a click on the other end. Yusaku fell back onto his bed as last night's dream replayed out in his mind. Just as he was pondering over what the mysterious voice meant when he called him "the embodiment of his failures", there was an abrupt knock at the door.

Takeru, the transfer student he had grown comfortable with and come to trust like he did with Ai, showed up uninvited at his run-down apartment room.

“Kusanagi told me where you live,” he explained himself quickly. “I just came to see Roboppy. Do you mind?”

“I don’t mind,” Yusaku said, stepping aside to let Takeru in. “However, she hasn’t been active once since we returned from Mirror LINK VRAINS.”

“Is that so?” his friend said as he crouched down to get a closer look at the empty husk that was Roboppy. “We didn’t really talk about this in detail the other day, but do you happen to know what the backup was about?”

“I only heard Ai mention it once, and I investigated it, but I’m still not entirely familiar with the Ignis algorithm.” He paused for a moment. “I’d been meaning to ask Revolver.”

Takeru’s eyebrows deeply furrowed, his teeth gritted at the mention of Revolver’s name. “Not Revolver,” he growled. “After what he said about the Ignis, why do you still trust him?”

Yusaku’s lips parted, slightly taken aback by this question, not because he didn’t think Takeru would never ask him but because he preferred to keep the truth about those involved in his childhood past under wraps. It’s because Revolver isn’t the kind of person you think he is. Considering how brash Takeru was in confronting Revolver in the past, Yusaku decided that they would all be better off if he didn't tell him.

Fortunately, Takeru didn’t press the matter on further.

“I miss Roboppy, too,” he said. “She was an adorable little robot. I wonder what she’s up to, with Ai.” He turned to look at Yusaku, his gaze firm. “I hope they come back to visit soon.”

Yusaku could only nod in agreement.

x

“We meet again, Yusaku,” came that voice that he already dreaded, and the all-too-familiar silhouette slowly emerged from the curtain of shadows like in his last dream.

“It’s you again,” Yusaku bemoaned. Was this Bohman’s new disguise? Dr. Kogami’s spirit reviving from the dead to haunt him? What did this person want from him? “Please leave me alone already.”

Instead of compiling to his wishes or even play along, the figure only closed in on his space. As he emerged from the shadows, Yusaku was able to see the figure behind the voice for the first time.

Out came, to his surprise, a young man slightly over his age, dressed in prim and proper regal clothing from head to toe. Yusaku didn't know what he was expecting, but he did not actually expect to see how much the person in front of him resembled himself, either.

Yet something else immediately caught Yusaku's eye. On his ears were a set of dangling earrings that resembled a familiar figure’s head...

Could it be--?  Yusaku felt his feet moving on their own accord, and while he had the intention of getting a closer look he set off in the other direction instead, taking several steps back before his back met the wall.

No, he calmly told himself. This is all just a dream.

This was his dream and he was supposedly in charge of what would happen next, yet he was somehow completely rendered powerless in the presence of this unfamiliar young man. There was nowhere to escape to and he was unable to look anywhere else. He was even trembling as fear paralyzed his whole body and apprehension soared through his mind; he hadn’t experienced anything near this claustrophobic since he had been forcibly caged in that white room ten years ago.

“We meet again,” the mysterious man repeated.

“I’ll give you three seconds to--”

“I’m honestly a bit sad to see that you don’t recognize me,” said the man. “You don’t recognize the one whom you call your partner.” He sneered in a mocking tone so like and unlike Ai’s own mannerisms that it only sent the coldest shivers up Yusaku’s spine. “You don’t remember your beloved hostage, whom you so affectionately named Ai.”

Yusaku glared at him. “Nice try, but there is no way you are going to convince me that you are Ai in my dream.”

Then he came to remember that he had yet to see Ai since he left. So why was he dreaming about this mysterious person? Was this dream a premonition of something yet to come? Was this person appearing to warn him about another approaching catastrophe?

“Who are you and what do you want from me?”

The mysterious man only grinned as he took one last step forward. “You’ll find out soon enough, Aibou.”

Yusaku opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.