Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Good morning, Yuya! Sun's out, guns out!"

The voice sounded nothing like his mother, but it was too much work to open his eyes and check who it could possibly be. It almost sounded like Yugo, but it couldn't be. "Just a minute..."

"Not a morning person? Interesting. I always woke at the crack of dawn, myself. There were people to Duel and skills to prove. No time for sleeping." Okay, that was definitely Yuri. He must still be dreaming. There was no other explanation for this shit. Still, with a stretch, he forced himself to sit up and open his eyes, only to find—

—absolutely nothing. No one. He was officially going mad. "Okay, then. We all knew it would happen someday. That much pressure could crack any nut. I'm sure Mom will know what to do about hallucinations. She knows about everything. Maybe I've gone mad from guilt. I—"

"We're not hallucinations." Although he couldn't see Yuto, not physically, the man appeared almost like a projection over the world around him, quietly regarding him. His expression was stern but kind, really as soft as Yuya had ever seen it. He'd been all sharp edges in their brief acquaintances, harsher even than Yuri. "I'm not sure why, but when the dimensions split, we didn't. Not entirely, anyways. We're definitely not Zarc anymore—"

"—thank Momentum—"

"—or whatever you thank around here, but only you got your body back. The rest of us are sharing with you."

"Didn't you hear us cheering you on yesterday? Even Yuri got into it! You're an awesome Duelist, man, way cooler than any of us. And we're pretty damn cool." Yugo laughed, and Yuya realized he could see him too, projected over by his Duel Disk, could see his brilliant smile.

"I did not get into it. I simply appreciated a talented Duelist doing his best work against an equally talented foe. Though it was a bit of a shame to see Dennis perform so poorly. He's a brilliant man at his best, but he hasn't been the same for quite some time." Yuri's voice was sharp, his tone luxurious. Listening to him talk was like running your hand along velvet until it felt painful instead of soft. Maybe that was a Yuya thing. Maybe other people didn't think too much of a good thing very suddenly became a bad thing. In any case, Yuri was similarly sumptuous.

"Wow. I've really cracked this time!" Yuya yawned and hopped out of bed. Now that he was awake, he could tell where Yuri was in the room too, staring at his posters. "Those are for the Duelist Associations my dad used to play for, back when Dueling was less centralized. They're pretty cool, aren't they? My dad is awesome." And now he was back. Downstairs. Probably talking to Mom. He couldn't quite get used to the idea, had so long been the loser with the coward dad who walked out on him.

And now he was the destroyer and the savior of four dimensions, and had a father once more. And had gone completely insane.

"You haven't cracked. Well, not any worse than you'd cracked before, anyways."

"Yuto, making a joke?" Yugo grinned. "You have changed! Although I guess you were mostly with Yuya before, right? He must've rubbed off on you."

"I suppose he has."

Yuya tuned them out as he hopped down to breakfast. His mom, as always, had put out a huge spread, far more food than the two of them could ever eat. Three of them. There were three of them now, and still far too much food. Some of it was Japanese, but there were also hash browns, bacon, toast. His mom sure did love her cooking shows, and sure didn't care if they led her to feeding her whole family until they popped. "Hey mom, hey dad!"

"Hey there, son." Yusho smiled. "It's good to have your mother's cooking again. When I was underground at Duel Academy, we were glad to have beef jelly cubes. No competition." His plate was piled high, higher than Yuya remembered from before. But for all he was still dressed finely, still wore a smile, he could tell his father had become slimmer, had places he needed to fill out. His time had been rough on him.

"It's good to see you, Yuya! Make sure to eat plenty. You've got a busy day at You Show Duel School! I'm sure with your big match yesterday that there'll be people lining up the blocks to learn their skills from you guys. You'll have the whole city Pendulum Summoning before you know!" His mother was as beautiful as ever, as kind as ever, but he couldn't quite parse her expression.

"Of course, Mom! I can't wait!" He could see Yugo's mouth watering, Yuto doing his best to look unaffected despite the delicious smells and sights that surrounded him. Yuri turning up his nose, as if he'd eaten better. No way cafeteria food could beat his mom's cooking. Of course, they were just figments of his imagination. There was no way they could actually be alive. But alive or not, they were a part of him, or he was a part of them, or whatever, and he knew how they would feel. It made perfect sense how real they seemed.

"Pile on the hash browns!" Yugo commanded, and Yuya was all too pleased to oblige. He couldn't talk to them, not without talking to himself and looking like a crazy person, but apparently they shared at least one favorite food. Potatoes, rice, toast — the delicious, delicious starches. Simple, easy to digest, and good for the body. Though his mother quirked an eyebrow at his entirely insane choice of meal, she didn't stop him. He was a boy, sure, but he was a Pro League Duelist, and not even part of the Youth Division. He was old enough to make his own bad decisions about what to eat in the morning. And his own bad decisions about how quickly to eat it.

"Slow down, you're going to choke," Yuto said. "No one's going to take your breakfast from you, Yuya."

"It's fine," he said through a mouthful of food.

"Only fine?" His mother shook her head. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

"No, not your cooking! It's amazing. The, uh..." He thought for a second. "The amount of salt I put on is fine. It's a bit too much, but I don't want to waste the food."

"Oh. Well, be careful. They say too much salt is bad for your heart."

"Of course, mom."

As soon as he was done shoveling food into his mouth, he was out the door. Yusho wasn't yet ready to return to You Show, so it would just be him, Zuzu, and her dad today. And the students, of course. It was only a quick run along the boulevard to the small, dingy building. They really needed a new location if they were going to take on anywhere near the number of potential students who had lined up outside, hoping for a peek at the strange and wonderful monsters Yuya used. Maybe Declan would have advice. After all, the gray-haired youth had helped run the Leo Academy for years. And it wasn't as if You Show was about to become real competition. Just a place where some kids could learn to have fun and duel their best.

He budged past the line to pop in the front door, barely avoiding letting anyone else in. "Yuya, you're late!"

Seeing Zuzu still felt like a miracle. Like he'd won, despite everything they'd lost. Like maybe the world would keep turning. His feelings for her were as intense as they were hard-to-describe — not quite romantic, not quite brotherly, more like knowing, intensely and always, that someone was your complement. Not so different from what he felt for Yugo and Yuto. From what he felt for Yuri, even.

"I'm sorry! I had a busy morning. So what's the plan for all the people outside? There's no way we can get them all in here. The fire marshal would throw a fit."

"Yeah, and so would my Dad. We're going to pass out an application form and have everyone fill it out, you know, see what kind of decks they use, what their Dueling style is, what they're passionate about. We're not necessarily looking for the highest grades or best skills here — those things, you can learn. But there's a spark for Dueltaining that you can't learn, at least not in a school. You've got it or you don't. So we're asking all these questions, and we're going to accept maybe a couple hundred students at first."

"A couple hundred?"

"Yeah, one day a week each. So thirty students a day. No weekends off for a while, but we'll manage, now won't we?" She winked. "We've been through worse. Of course, you won't have to be here on days you have Pro League business, but you'll be teaching the kids about what you do in them, what the Pro Leagues are like, and so on. We'll use the tuition money to build a bigger school, hire on some extra instructors. Sora, maybe Aura. Whoever we know who's willing and able. We've got inter-dimensional travel working already, so maybe someone from Synchro. Do you know anyone who might fit the bill?"

"Chojiro, maybe." He could hear Yugo agreeing, although he didn't say anything, could hear Yuri scoffing and saying no one needed Synchro Summoning when Fusion was so superior. Could hear them, and it sounded so much like them. "The Flower Cardian Duelist. He knew how to put on a show like no other. I mean, the King would be incredible, but I'm pretty sure he's too busy being the King for that."

At just the mention of the star who'd risen from the slums, Yugo's eyes lit up. They were so bright, so blue. How could his mind make something like that up? How could it create them from nothing, make him keep hearing them? But they couldn't be real — there was no way. It was just—

"Earth to Yuya!" Zuzu didn't bonk him with her fan, but it sure felt like she should've. Maybe she'd changed, too. "We've got a lot of forms to hand out. Get your head in the game."

"Of course, Zuzu." He took the stack from her, but as she headed out the door to announce what was about to happen, he couldn't help but linger.

"You guys... you're real, aren't you?"

"Now he gets it," Yuri said, and the sheer punchability of the expression on his face was proof enough. No way Yuya's brain could create something so annoying. They were real, they were back, and they were all in one body. And he had no clue how it worked or what to do about any of it.

Chapter Text

Somehow, despite the realization, he managed to get his forms passed out. He stumbled his way through the scripted Duel with Zuzu, impressing enough students to ensure that their roster would remain full and their plans to expand would succeed. He choked down lunch, once again irritating Yuto with his inhaling-the-whole-meal ways. He made it through. He kept the facade of being just one man in one skin up, and it was only a little uncomfortable. Sure, Yuto, Yugo, and Yuri were loud, but they were only whispers in his ears. Real or not — it hardly mattered. They were a peanut gallery to the shitshow that was his life.

And then, at the end of the day, Zuzu pulled him aside, leading him to a long-abandoned secondary classroom — hardly necessary for a school with three students and one teacher. "There's something off about you."

Yuya smiled; whether or not he meant it, any other expression felt foreign on his face. "It's been so chaotic recently! It's hard to get back into the swing of just being a teacher and a Duelist again."

"It is, but there's more to it than that, isn't there? You don't need to worry about lying to me, Yuya. I know it's hard to let people in, but you can trust me." She looked from side to side, uncharacteristically nervous, then sighed. "You can trust us."

So then — "You too, right? You hear them?"

"Rin, Lulu, and Celina," she confirmed, and he could feel Yuto and Yugo's eyes widen, could feel the excitement that pulsed through their spectral veins as if it pulsed through his own. But they didn't say anything, quiet. "When I came back — when I was here again — they were with me. I thought that your boys might be with you, too. I'm not complete without them. I don't think I realized just how incomplete I was before."

"Incomplete, huh?" Yuya had never liked to be alone with his thoughts, had never really pondered whether he was alone or not or what it would mean if he was. There was Dueltaining to do, students to help, people to entertain, and he liked to serve with a smile. There were more important things than a self-congratulatory sort of introspection. "Are you happy with them? Is it, like, okay?"

"Well, it's only been a day. We haven't exactly had time to work out a routine." She smiled. "But it's nice to have friends who like, get it. I feel sorry for them, though. It sounds like you and me, we got the long end of the sticks. Wouldn't have liked growing up in the slums of synchro."

"At least we had each other. Tell her that it was okay, that we had each other," Yugo said, and Yuya repeated the words for him. It was the least he could do.

"I know. Rin said the same thing. You two are really close, aren't you?" Yugo brightened at her words, at being actually addressed by someone who wasn't one of his other... quarters? "She speaks very highly of you. I'd be jealous, if I didn't have Yuya to bully."

"You're so mean. She's always mean to me, guys."

"You know, you can talk to them silently. You don't have to just say stuff out loud. Or at least, I assume you can — I guess you could be different from me, but I kind of doubt it."

"What, really?"

"Yeah. Just... think it at them, I guess. Loudly. It's not like Rin and Lulu and Celina are psychics, but they can hear me when I do that."

"They can read my thoughts?" He'd definitely had some less than charitable ones over the past few hours. "Guys, why didn't you tell me you could read my thoughts?"

"Listen to Zuzu better. We can't read your thoughts, at least, not unless you think them at us." Yuto's voice was, as always, stern and even.

"Like this?" he thought, "can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Yuto said.

"Not in the slightest," Yuri replied.

"Don't be an ass, Yuri," he said, this time out loud. Zuzu laughed, and — wow, was Yuto blushing from the spot his spirit had projected to? What a hopeless nerd. He probably wasn’t used to girls. "He's an ass, by the way. You're lucky you're not stuck with him."

"I'm sure I am." Zuzu smiled. "Celina complains about him constantly, but I'm sure he has some kind of hidden depths. They might just be really, really hidden. So have you guys worked out direct body sharing yet?"

"Uh, I have no clue what you mean."

"You know, letting someone else take control. Like this." She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she looked much the same as she had before, but her posture shifted, her expression harsher, her muscles more tense, ready to move, ready to strike at any time. She wasn't Zuzu, not anymore — maybe physically, but Yuya knew his friend. This was somebody else.

"Oh, uh, Celina, is that you?"

"In the flesh." She cocked her head. "Well, in Yuzu's flesh. We've been learning to share her body. It's a bit strange, but it's nice to feel air on my skin again. It's a disturbing feeling to be so separated from the real world. Have you guys figured it out yet? I would love to give Yuri a good, square punch on the jaw."

He glanced over to Yuri's projected image. The young man didn't even have the decency to look affronted — he looked uninterested, unaffected. Like Celina’s anger meant nothing to him. Like the weight of everything he had done meant nothing to him. And now they had to share a body. Sure, Yuri had to have good parts, but he sure buried them deep. And it was hard to get over how the man had insisted on them becoming one, on how badly he had wanted to form Zarc. Why had he wanted to form Zarc? Why would anyone want that?

He had bigger things to worry about, though. He looked at Celina. She really seemed to be squaring up. Crap. "Please don't punch me! We haven't worked it out yet! And even if we did, I don't think he'd want to come out just to get punched! And what if you broke my jaw? That would keep hurting even when Yuri made me the lead again?" Yuya waved his arms in front of him in what he hoped looked like a "don't punch me" gesture.

"That's fair. You've got to admit, he's totally earned one. Anyways," Celina said, "it's good to see that you four are doing well. And that you're together. I'll admit, we were a bit worried. You know, that maybe the other boys didn't show back up." She looked away, having trouble meeting his eyes. "It's not like I like Yuri, because I don't. But no one deserves to be erased from existence like that."

"Yeah. I'm glad — I'm glad no one had to suffer that fate. Not Yuri, not you guys, not Dennis, not anyone who was carded. But it all worked out in the end!" Yuya grinned. It felt so natural, to be happy, to focus on the good things, to not linger on the bad. "It was tough, but we pulled through, and that's what's important! Now we just get to enjoy it. I mean, look at all the students who have come to our Duel School. And you guys don't have to worry about anyone coming after you, either."

"No, I guess we don't. It's weird, isn't it? For so long, everything was put right in front of me. I had tasks and I did them, or I was running away and I knew what I needed to do to stay free. But now the whole world is my oyster. Now I can do whatever I'd like, as long as Zuzu's okay with it. I don't even know what I want to do."

Yuya laughed, a bit awkward. He hardly knew her, didn't know how to comfort her. He was good with kids, but not so much other teens. Kids, they responded well to a joke and a smile, a good intention, an offer for a game or a silly face. But Celina would probably be offended if he blew a raspberry. And beyond that, this was so weird. It was so weird. He knew it wasn't Zuzu, could see it in a dozen ways, how she held herself, how she spoke, the fierce expression on her face. But it was still Zuzu in front of her. "It's a big world. You're always welcome at You Show, but I'm sure Zuzu already told you that. Maybe it would be best to start small. Check out what our world is like. Watch Zuzu teach a couple classes. We're young, we have plenty of time to figure things out."

"I know. It's just weird. I asked Zuzu if she would mind taking me to Fusion, and she told me that once things calm down here she would be happy to. She misses Sora something fierce, you know, the two of them are really good friends."

"Of course. I hope it happens soon. Anyways—"

Celina blinked again, and suddenly her posture shifted, bright and bubbly. "Yuya! I thought you'd just say hi! No need to get in a big long drawn-out conversation! We have applications to go over tonight!"

"Seriously, can't it wait?" He groaned. "I don't want to..."

"Hey, could you tell Rin to come out?" Yugo asked. "I mean, tell Zuzu to let Rin out. I have an important message for her before you guys go and do boring stuff for hours again."

He passed the message along, and Zuzu nodded. With a blink, she was Rin. "Yuya! I hear you're sharing with my Yugo! You'd better figure out how to switch like we can pretty quick, alright, or you'll be in a world of hurt!"

"Geeze, I'm doing my best here! I only found out about this like ten minutes ago!" And he didn't want to learn, but he wasn't going to tell her that. The idea of one of the others — of Yuri, especially — just piloting him around like a meat suit while he watched helplessly onwards was disturbing. Too much like what had happened with Zarc, too much like being part of something bigger than him in exactly the wrong way. "But Yugo said he had a message to pass along. He says — he says that he loves you forever, and he'll get this figured out, and don't you worry about him even a tiny bit. You're lucky to have such a loving friend, you know."

"Friend. Yes," She glanced away. Yugo's projection was blushing.

Oh crap. They weren't friends at all! Well, they were probably friends, but they were something else, too, and that something else was boyfriend-girlfriend. Did Yugo seriously want control of his body so that he could kiss Yuzu's body? He resisted the urge to make a nasty face. The idea of his body and her body, uh, kissing together wasn't pleasant at all; Yuzu wasn't exactly like a sister to him, but whatever they had, it was decidedly unromantic. She had always been into edgier types.

Like Yuto. Like Yuto, who was determinedly looking away, expression awkward.

Ah, hell. One couple was bad enough.

Chapter Text

Home sweet home. Yuya loved You Show Duel School — loved it enough to teach there, when any school in the city would’ve gladly snapped him up at a premium price and all You Show could afford to pay him in was free food — but there was something about relaxing after a long day’s work.

Soon, the school year would be starting again. Smiley had talked him into accepting a tutor instead of regular classes, a decision he’d been iffy on when he had agreed to it (just yesterday, which already felt like a thousand years ago). Now, with three other boys in his head, it felt right. More privacy, more of a chance for them to shine. Did Yugo know algebra? Did Yuri? They’d have to learn it now, or at least sit through it and do their best not to learn anything.

And not just the school year. The Entertainment Duelist Pro League’s biggest tournament of the year was starting soon, and he wouldn’t be exempted just because he had to write a couple papers on the history of Maimai’s foundation — a history that everyone now knew was complete baloney, and yet a history they’d probably be teaching for decades to come. The world couldn’t change as quickly as it was being forced to.

“Something on your mind?” Yuto’s tone was as soft as it ever was, not that that was saying much. Clearly, he was still distracted by the time he’d spent with Zuzu.

”Just thinking about school. And the tournament that’s coming up.”

“Oh, a tournament?” Yuri’s ears seemed to perk up. “I’m sure it won’t compare to the Graduation Duels the Academy had every year, but it still sounds enticing. Will you be entering your usual deck?”

“As opposed to…?”

“Well, you have all of our cards, now, don’t you? Check your deck box.”

Sure enough, they were all there — Predaplants, Phantom Knights, and Speedroids sat pretty right next to his precious Performapals. “I wonder where they came from.”

“From us, of course, get with the program.” Yuri was smug as ever. “You’re welcome to use any of my cards, as long as you credit your victory to my amazing selection of ultra-powerful Spells.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He looked through. What a dilemma.

Yuri’s Predaplant deck was vicious, tightly themed. There were no chaff cards, none of the cards that Entertainment Duelists put in to entertain kids or help them move around the battlefield to collect Action Cards. It was a pure and efficient engine for choking out a brutal victory, completely inappropriate for the Maimai signature style. Of course, there could be entertainment in a villainous deck — no one would deny that — but even then, you needed a little camp, a little show. It couldn’t just be about winning. There was the Grand Prix series for that, and it was telling that while Entertainment Duels filled massive stadiums, GPs often had more players than audiences. No one wanted to watch a guy languish under Mystic Mine for thirty turns.

And then there were Yugo’s cards. Less aggressive, but still efficient, built to do the best with what was available — which often wasn’t much. His deck was a little more like Yuya’s, more chaff, more because he had it, but chances were he’d never had another option.

And that left Yuto’s cards. The Phantom Knights were a powerful deck, and he’d seen it firsthand what kind of destruction they could cause. Yuto had designed his Deck to take advantage of that power, that potential — he had no interest in losing, not anymore. Really his deck was most like Yuri’s. There was no room for indulgence on the field of war.

What a grim thought. It would be hard to combine all four themes into a coherent deck, although the four Dragons had done a fine job in that final Duel. But — outside of being the right levels and types — they didn’t have much to do with the decks they’d chosen. The dragons had been assigned to them by whatever force had pulled Zarc apart; their decks were entirely their own.

Paging through again, though, he saw four cards that were completely unfamiliar. “Have any of you guys ever heard of Double Iris Magician?”

“No. I’ve been all around the four Dimensions — well, more than the rest of you rubes, anyways — but the name doesn’t ring a bell.” Yuri shrugged, dramatic as ever. “I assume it’s either very rare or very weak.”

“I’ve never heard of it either. What’s it do?” Yugo’s eyes were wide, excited. Nothing could bring a smile to his face like Duel Monsters, nothing except perhaps Rin. “C’mon, don’t be a bummer! It’s obvious none of us know it, so tell us what it says! It’s hard to read tiny little text like this!”

He looked at Yuto, who gave him a nod. “Alright, then. It says that… as a Pendulum spell, it can double one of your monster’s damage for the turn, but it destroys itself to do it. As a monster, if it’s destroyed, it searches a Pendulumgraph card — and it’s treated as a Pendulum Dragon, like Odd-Eyes is?” He looked at the art more closely, at the odd mage’s red and green eyes, at his decorative sword. “It looks a lot like Odd-Eyes, if he was a human.”

“Then the other four—”

Yuya glanced at them. “Looks like it’s kind of the same. A Fusion Dragon, an Xyz Dragon, and a Synchro Dragon. There’s a couple other cards, too, those Pendulumgraphs that got mentioned. I wonder where they came from?”

“Hmph. I bet the Fusion Dragon’s the strongest.”

Yuya looked at it. Purple Poison Magician. It pretty obviously wasn't the strongest — getting a new card was usually stronger than destroying one of your opponent’s, at least it was if you got to choose the card from a decent list — but it did have the potential to create exciting turnarounds and interesting plays. It was very much a Dueltaining card, not just a competitive card. “It’s pretty good.”

“Oh, there’s no need to be modest, Yuya. My Starving Venom Fusion Dragon is in a league of her own.” He winked. “But I am a magnanimous and kind spirit, and I would be cruel not to permit you to continue to utilize her strength against your clownish opponents.”

“Hey, there’s nothing insulting about being a clown!” Yuya grinned. “You know, I thought about running away and joining the circus for a while.”

“And where would we be if you’d done that?”

Yuri presumably meant the words as a joke, but they were cutting anyways. It wasn’t as if Yuya expected him to be any different, but it was still cruel, still painful to think about. Where would they be? Would they be better off? Worse off? Would Yuri’s fellow soldiers have destroyed Standard? Would they be reunited? Would they have never formed Zarc?

Would they still be Zarc?

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room as he thought about it, really contemplated what the cost could’ve been, how different things could’ve gone if he hadn’t been there, maybe better, maybe worse. It wasn’t as if he thought he was the cause of all the problems in the world, no. He’d brought a lot of smiles to a lot of people, and that had to count for something. It was more the mystery of what it had cost, of whether it had been for the better or not.

It was hardheaded Yugo who managed to smash through the awkwardness, his face full of a cheer that Yuya could only barely recognize as false. “So, are you going to put them in your deck? My Speedroids are super powerful, you know.”

“We’re different people, aren’t we? We’re not — we’re not him anymore.” Using the name felt wrong. Even the thought made Yuya want to shudder. “We don’t all need to have one deck.”

“Why, are you planning to let us out to Duel?” Yugo said. “I’d love to show Rinrin my new skills!”

It was a joke, but not entirely, and Yuya knew it, knew he wasn’t ready to address that elephant yet. “I don’t think Smiley would approve of me letting you guys on the Pro Circuit, but that doesn’t mean building your own decks won’t be fun. C’mon, let’s see what we can do!”

“Mine’ll be the strongest,” Yuri bragged. Well, at least some things never changed. Yuri could be annoying — scratch that, Yuri was annoying — but there was something charming about the whole thing, in the sense that it was a distraction, and sometimes that was all you needed. “Predaplants are both beautiful and powerful. Nothing like your Performapals. No offense meant, of course, I simply mean that they’re a bit… pedestrian.

“They’re clowns,” Yuto said, blunt as ever. “Nothing wrong with that. You’ve shown us all how tough those clowns could be.”

“More than tough, they’re fun!” Yuya grinned, hoping that maybe a bit of him could rub off, that maybe they could see Duel Monsters as a game again, and not just a weapon. That maybe he could rub off on himself, that maybe he could see Duel Monsters as a game and not a weapon again. He’d brought that energy yesterday, sure, because he had to, because Yuya wasn’t the type to back down from a challenge. But it still burned in him, what he’d had to do, what he’d had to become. In Synchro. In Xyz. In Fusion. They’d lived in Synchro, in Xyz, in Fusion, for their whole lives. If it was hard for him, what chance did they have?

He shook his head. Dwelling on the dark had never done him any good. It just caused trouble, and there was no need for any of that, now was there? “So yeah. Separate decks. One with Purple Poison Magician, one with Double Iris Magician, one with White Wing Magician, and one with Black Fang Magician. One for Predaplants, one for Performapals, one for Speedroids, and one for Phantom Knights. But we can all share cards otherwise! I have a ton!”

Before anyone could say anything, he was already scrambling around the room, fetching tins and binders. He’d been collecting since he was a child, after all, picking up a booster pack on the way home from school instead of a candy bar like the other kids. Even then, he’d known Dueling was in his blood. “Let’s deckbuild!”

“Dibs on Twin Twisters!” Yuri called, joy in his voice. Yuya caught himself right before he groaned. This could be a long night.

(But at five past midnight, surrounded in cards, spells and traps and monsters and three boys with his face, he found that he didn’t regret it at all.)

Chapter Text

“Hey, Yuya. Can we talk?”

Yuto was always serious, so to think of him as uncharacteristically so seemed unnatural, but he was even more stern than usual, almost nervous. It was a weird thing to see. His gray-purple eyes could cut steel. And Yuya had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what this was about. Yuri and Yugo were nowhere to be seen, probably either not projecting themselves or projecting themselves outside. And if even Yuri was willing to give Yuto space, well…

It meant it was something he could benefit from, frankly. And that meant it was about his body. “Can it wait? Smiley’s tutor gave me a ton of homework. Apparently I’m behind on my understanding of math.” It was almost like he'd routinely slept and joked his way through class. It was almost like it was time to face the music. God, being him sucked sometimes.

“I would rather it didn’t.” Rather was spoken in a tone that was more like demand. After everything the man had been through, Yuya supposed it made sense how direct he was. And normally he liked it! But he really, really, really didn’t want to have this conversation. Would rather have literally any other conversation, in fact. Would almost rather discuss that cloying, crushing feeling of having once been one and now being separate, and the way that some part of him still yearned to be one, even when the past two nights he'd had nightmares of it. With Yugo he could’ve distracted him. With Yuri, he just wouldn’t have cared as much. But Yuto…

“Alright.” He backed his chair away from his desk, turning to face Yuto. God, he looked so much older than Yuya did. Than Yuya had, anyways. Yuya wasn't ignorant; he knew his friend(?) had been through a lot, that it had put stress on him. But seeing it so plainly was rough. “What’s the question?”

“Do you think we could try changing who controls the body? Like Zuzu and Selena.”

The body. Not his body, not Yuya’s body. The body. There it was, laid plain in all its glory: Yuto didn't even think of Yuya as owning himself. Yuya forced an exaggerated sigh, a drama to cover up the desire to scream at him. “Can’t it wait? I’ve barely had a chance to get back into the swing of things here.”

“I really don’t feel like it can. Yuya, I haven’t had a body for months. I haven’t been able to hug my best friend. I haven’t been able to eat food. The handful of times we moved together before everything went to hell, it was always in a Duel, and there’s more to life than Dueling." More to life than fighting for your life, Yuto had thought, and somehow Yuya knew it. They really were becoming closer. A terrifying proposition, really.

He needed to distract himself before he got too maudlin. “Is there, really?”

“Yes. And that you can even joke about that shows how little you understand of what me and the others are going through.” Yuto gave him a sharp look, those violet-gray eyes focused like a laser. “This situation even has me feeling sorry for Yuri, if you can believe it. Even someone like him doesn't deserve this. He's only had a couple days and he's already going mad; it's been much longer for me.”

“Wow, it must be bad, if you're feeling bad for Mr. Fusion.” Yuya laughed. “Seriously, though, like — it is my body. I’m glad you guys are here with me, I don’t want to lock you up forever or anything, but it’s mine. I get to decide when and how to share it, who does what. It's my choice. I'm in control.”

“Is it, really?” The look Yuto gave him made him feel like his soul was being laid bare. He didn’t like it. “Is it really your body, or is it just one more piece of his, the last one? Like it or not, all four of us are parts of a whole, permanently broken. We’re never going to have our own bodies again, and we’re never going to be just one mind again, either. You’re one person and four people at the same time, and if you can’t accept it, it’s going to become a problem.”

He sounded like he spoke from experience, but that couldn't be right. It wasn't as if he knew everything that had ever happened to Yuto, but he had a sense for the big events, now that they were together as one. He would've known if Yuto used to be a body-sharer. “How do you know so much about this, anyways?”

Yuto glanced off to the side. “It wasn’t unheard of, in the Xyz Dimension, that someone would have multiple minds, multiple senses of self. Some people thought it was a trick of the mind, others magic. A long, long time ago, we had a hero who had two minds, see, and there was a Duel School founded in his name that trained those kids. I Dueled a couple of them, before, well…” He glanced towards the door. So Yuri was projecting himself on the other side. Yuya almost wished he was there with him. “They were near the invasion point. None of them made it out. I heard their cards had multiple people on them, you know, but I never confirmed it.”

“That’s…” He hadn’t assumed there was anyone else out there like this. He had heard stories, of course, of legendary Duelists, of crazy people, but never of everyday people living everyday lives. And for all that people thought of him as a legend now, that was all that Yuya could see himself as. A great entertainer, yes, maybe even one of his generation's best, but still just an entertainer. In the end, it was Riley who had saved everyone. “Even so. That’s different, right? What we are isn’t, like, ambiguous, it’s totally magic. It’s magic that tied you three to me, and—”

“It’s not magic that tied us three to you. It’s magic that tied all four of us together. And would it really matter? The body is the body and the mind is the mind. Even if it was all in your head, well, your head is where you live. We'd still be stuck with you, and you'd still be stuck with us. It wouldn't be any different; it's not the kind of thing where you can pop pills and be like everyone else. You're part of something bigger, and you have to accept that. You’re just the lucky one who got to keep your looks. I’m going to look terrible in green and red.”

And there he went, presuming that everything would go his way, that it was all going to be Yuto’s body, that Yuya didn’t have any control over his own life. “Look. I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want to shut you down. But look at what happened last time you controlled my body!”

“You can hardly hold that against me! We were all under the influence of Zarc. That you happened to be a little more resistant doesn’t mean that you’re somehow innocent.”

“You almost killed someone, Yuto! How can I trust you to be nice to my mom and dad, to treat Zuzu right? How do I know you’re not a violent maniac? I saw what you did to Sylvio, and that wasn’t Zarc. That was you.”

“And I saw how you treated Yuri, in the end. You said it wasn’t vengeance, of course, but it was, wasn’t it? You wanted him to suffer for what he did to your father. There’s a violence in all of us, Yuya, a violence that we can lean into or lean away from. And we’ve all done both, even you, even Yuri. That’s a shard of who we were. Or maybe it’s human nature. Either way, neither of us are innocent. And as for Zuzu—” His expression hardened. “Don’t you think she gets to make that choice for herself? Don’t you think she’s tired of being coddled? If she wants nothing to do with me, that’s fine. I won’t like it, but I’ll respect it.”

“Will you respect it?”

“Shut up.” Yuya froze. The venom in his tone was un-Yuto-like, even un-Yuri-like. “You know I will be. You know me. You’re angry and scared and you’re taking it out on me. I get that. I’ve been there before. But I won’t consent to be your prisoner just because you’re frightened.”

“I’m not frightened!” He took a deep breath. In, out. “I’m not frightened. It’s just that, well, I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t need you to trust me, not completely. But I need you to understand that everything I’ve done, I’ve done it for my family. I’ve done it for my friends. I’ve done it because I had no other choice, because that’s what my upbringing offered. I’ve done it because it was do or die. And now you guys are my friends, you guys are my family, whether I like it or not. And I won’t let your jealousy and anger keep me from that.”

“Jealousy? Why would I be jealous of — of a ghost?”

“Because I like Zuzu. Because Zuzu likes me. Because we’re friends, and that makes you feel threatened. You’ve been close for so long that you don’t know what it’s like to have to share.”

“I’m not interested in her like that. Seriously.” The idea was, frankly, gross.

“And I’m not accusing you of that. We share a mind, at least a little bit. I can see where your predilections lie. I don’t mean that judgmentally, by the way, so don’t worry about it. You might drive me crazy, but I support you. The problem is that you don’t support me. The problem is that you think I'm here to steal your life, to steal your best friend, to take and never give.”

“And why should I? You guys ruined my life!” He was breathing heavy now, in, out. “I was a normal kid! I had big dreams, sure, but I was just a kid! I was having fun, Dueling for smiles! And now I can’t do that, not without thinking of everything it cost everyone! If you had never come to Standard, if you had never been in my life, maybe it could’ve been — maybe I could’ve kept that way!”

“We all have to grow up, Yuya. For the record, I’m sorry you had to so quickly, but regrets wouldn’t have kept Fusion from invading. They wouldn’t have protected you when the soldiers were at your doorstep.” He looked aside. “Look, I’m not here to fight with you. You’re clearly in an obstinate, pigheaded mood for some reason. Go talk to Zuzu, okay? Ask her what it’s like for her. Figure it out. But don’t expect my help on your math homework.”

“I wasn’t expecting it, you jerk.”

With that, Yuto disappeared. He stared down at the algebra problems, the letters and numbers dancing before his eyes.

Damnit. Yuto’s help would’ve been really nice.

Chapter Text

Freaking Yuto, acting like he owned Yuya, acting like he understood Yuya. It had been three days, and they still hadn’t reconciled. And it wasn’t like he expected them to, not right away, anyways, but Yuri and even Yugo had been avoiding him too. Not that they could actually avoid him, but they could just sit there, stare at him, give him the cold shoulder. Talk to each other but ignore his input. Treat him like he wasn't real.

They were offended. He’d hurt their feelings. Certainly he hadn't brought a smile to their faces like his dad would've told him to do. He hadn't even brought a smile to his own face, if he was being on it.But he hadn’t done anything wrong! He had just been defending his boundaries. They should’ve respected that from the start, instead of acting like this. And if Yugo was in on it, it must’ve really upset him. It wasn’t like him to hold a grudge.

Ugh. And he couldn’t even ask his Mom for advice, not without telling her what was going on. Embarrassing as it might’ve been, he’d always talked to her when he and Zuzu got in fights. But she didn’t know, couldn’t know about Yugo, about Yuto, about Yuri. What if she didn’t accept them? What if she thought there was something wrong with him? What if she tried to change him?What if she got him locked up at wherever they put crazy Duelists?

It wasn’t realistic, no; he knew his mother, knew in his heart of hearts that she would love having three bonus sons. But maybe that was even worse. Maybe he wanted to be her special boy, still one of a kind. Maybe he wanted something that was his, something that said that he was Yuya Sakaki, not just Yuya-from-Standard-Dimension like the others. Maybe he deserved that, in fact. Maybe he was entitled to it.

But he couldn’t talk to his mom. Couldn’t talk to Mr. Boyle, either. For so many years, the man had been the closest thing he had to a father. Now he had a dad again, and it was amazing and wonderful and healing and painfully, painfully awkward. Somewhere along the way he had changed, or maybe his Dad had. Maybe they both had. Even if he could've told his dad, he wasn't sure he would. And that was bad on its own.

Yuto had told him to talk to Zuzu. And annoyingly, Yuto was right on the money there. She would know what to say. She always did — even when she wasn’t in the same extremely unusual boat. She was just smart like that, just aware like that. Destined for something bigger, if she wanted to be. Not like him, who would only ever be a glorified clown.

They were going over more application forms, sorting them into no and maybe, when he finally found the courage to say something. “How have you and the other girls been?”

“You mean Rin and Lulu and Serena? They’ve been well. Rin keeps asking after Yugo, you know. I don’t think I realized how close they were before, but I guess I didn’t really have any reason to know? It just feels weird, now, realizing how little I knew about… well, my other halves. Quarters? It feels like I've known them my whole life, and at the same time like they're complete strangers. And I'm caught up in between.”

“Yeah. About that.” He resisted the urge to frown, to look miserable. Better to keep a smile on your face, even when things were tough. Fake it ‘til you make it. Deep breath. It would all be okay. “I’ve been worried about the other boys taking control of my body. I told Yuto to give me more time and now they’re all mad with me.”

“Well, they’ve been through a lot. Especially Yuto. I’m sure that he feels pretty desperate for some freedom. But I understand why you’re uncomfortable.” She spoke with the measured tone she used when he was definitely wrong about something but she didn't want to come right out and say it. Like when they did math homework together. Except this was a lot bigger than homework.

“Do you? I know we’re in the same shoes, but as far as I know, Lulu never tried to kill a man." Not without the influence of the Fusion Parasite, anyways. And that didn't count; that hadn't really been her.

“I mean, there’s more to her than meets the eye. But… Yuya, whatever’s in them, it’s in you too. You’re a good guy, I don’t mean that in a bad way, but you’re all parceled out from the same package, right?”

“But I’m not — I mean, Yuri probably spent his childhood torturing animals or something!” He hadn't asked, but the Duel Academy kids all seemed sixteen kinds of fucked up, and Yuri was the worst of them. He could imagine what his childhood was like, not that he wanted to.

But Yuzu just shook her head. “You used to pull the wings off flies, you know.”

He cringed; even the distant childhood memory hurt. He hadn’t liked them, had liked how the other boys laughed and smiled at the show of cruelty. And it had just been a bug. Nothing more. He wanted to make the other kids smile, and if they smiled at its dying twitches, it had seemed like a fair trade. And then Zuzu had told him off, told him to imagine some giant pulling off his arms and laughing while he died, and it had been a pretty horrifying metal image to have at his age, and also enough to convince him otherwise. The importance of being kind to animals, and not just his fellow man, had been a lesson that followed suit.

“Well, yes, but that’s a little different, isn’t it?”

Zuzu nodded. “Of course. But it all comes from the same place, doesn’t it? You can’t help who you are, and that’s okay! Because for all of the bad things that come with who you are, there are good things, too.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re a piece of the savior of the multiverse. I’m a piece of a homicidal maniac.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am, and you are. We can’t deny that, and it’d be pointless to try. When we deny our roots, we deny ourselves. But even — even Zarc had his good aspects. He just learned to lean into the bad ones instead.”

“It’s pretty hard to see the good in all of what happened.”

“He wanted to entertain people, just like you do. But he never learned that you can’t hurt people to make everyone else laugh. No one ever taught him that. You had me and my dad and your family to guide you better. And you learned to be a better person than he ever was.”

“So, what’s your point?”

“You’re not better at the core than Yuto or Yugo. You’re not even better at the core than Yuri.” She shushed him before he could protest. “Don’t make me hit you with the fan.”

“But Zuzu—”

Thwap! He cringed. Zuzu had a good hand with her fan, and she never let him forget it.

“Alright, pay attention. Everything that happened to you made you you, just like everything that happened to me made me me. So if who Yuto is scares you, try to help him be someone better. You can’t lock him up forever and hope he magically is okay with it. You’ll just make him bitter and angry, and eventually you won’t be able to keep him back.”

“What, so he’s my responsibility now?”

“Look. Either you let him be his own responsibility, or he becomes yours.” She shook her head. “Yuya, I know you’re smarter than this. You might be bad at math, but you understand people. What I don’t understand is why you’re so scared!”

“Because every time I’ve ever lost control something terrible has happened!” There it was, out in the open. Zuzu looked at him with a disgusting sort of pity, like she understood.

“Don’t be hard on her,” Yuto told him, silent to the rest of the world. He really did care about her, didn’t he? He hadn’t said shit when Yuya had been terrible to him, but now…

“Yuya,” Zuzu said, except it wasn’t Zuzu. He thought maybe it was Lulu, but he didn’t know her well enough to be sure. “Yuto’s not the problem. It’s okay that you’re scared. I’m scared too.”

“Why are you scared? You’re not part of a giant dragon.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just me. But I’ve lost control too. Those parasites…” She shuddered. “I have nightmares of bugs crawling out my mouth now. Every night, I feel it. Zuzu has to make sure she’s in control, because if I am I can’t stop screaming. I see them everywhere.” She shuddered. “And it’s terrifying. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, living like this. We’re in different shoes, sure, but we all need to heal.”

“Then why can’t Yuto wait until I’ve healed a little?”

“Because he needs to heal. Because I need to see him so I can heal. Because he can help you heal, too. You know I’m right, don’t you?”

“But—” He shook his head. He had to resist it, the urge to double down with a smile. “What if I can’t change back? What if I’m stuck?”

“You won’t be. If something happens, I’ll just Duel Yuto until he collapses, and then you can come in! Problem solved.” She smiled. “He’s never been able to beat my Lyriluscs.”

“Thanks for the reassurance,” he said, though he didn’t feel reassured. “You’re sure it’s safe?”

“Yes. But I need to see him. I need to know he’s okay. He’s like a brother to me, you know. And to Shay, too. If nothing else, think of it as the price you have to pay for your part in all of this.”

The price to pay. It was a different perspective, but somehow it felt right to think of it like that. He had become Zarc; now he was responsible for the rest of him.

“How do I do it?” he asked, and Lulu smiled.

Chapter Text

Apologizing was hard.

Nobody wanted to admit that it was hard, but there were few challenges that could compare, frankly. Yuya had braved some truly horrifying circumstances, and he wasn’t going to say apologizing to Yuto was worse, necessarily, but it certainly sucked.

But that was the next step. So he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let his thoughts come into focus. ”Yuto, we need to talk.”

“Is it about our arrangement?”

“Yes. I wanted to say that — that I’m sorry.” There it was, out in the open now. No longer weighing him down. It wasn’t such a bad feeling. “I shouldn’t have accused you of being a violent maniac. You’re a good guy, Yuto.”

“I appreciate the thought,” Yuto said, his tone cautious. Had Yuya frightened him that much? The guilt started to gnaw at him again. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I can’t keep you locked up. You’re not an animal, and animals don’t deserve that either. I was just scared.”

“I know. I’m scared too, Yuya.” Yuto shook his head. “I don’t think I realized it at first, but I’ve never had to depend on other people before. I mean, I depended on the other anti-Fusion rebels, but mostly they depended on me. There was an obvious hierarchy of Dueling skills, and I was the best of the best. And it’s terrifying, knowing that now, no matter what I do, I’ve got to depend on you. And on Yugo, and Yuri.”

“I’m glad you understand.” Yuya put on his smile, too distracted to remember to speak silently. It wasn't like anyone was listening in, anyways. “It’s good to have friends and people you can trust, but this feels pretty extreme!”

“You don’t need to smile when you’re not happy, you know!” This time, it was Yugo’s voice, as the young blond man seemed to materialize in the corner of Yuya’s bedroom. “Rin always told me that I should smile when I’m happy and frown when I’m sad! And it’s a real bummer when I’m sad, I’ll say that much, but it’s awful nice when someone else can see it and give me a hand. And lying’s bad, isn’t it?”

Yuya’s smile faltered. “I guess I just like to make people happy! Smiles are contagious. And if you smile long enough, you’ll feel better.”

“Well, you can think that way, I guess,” Yugo said, “but it still seems like lying to me. It’s better to be honest.”

“Look, I think we can agree to disagree on this one. I was trying to apologize to Yuto for what a — for what a dick I’ve been being.”

Yugo laughed. “Well, I’m just glad you’re apologizing! It’s been so lonely acting like you don’t exist. Yuto’s no fun and Yuri sucks eggs, so…”

“I guess it would be. Well, I’m sorry for putting you in that position, too, Yugo. I didn’t think.”

“You thought. You just only thought about you.” Yuto’s tone wasn’t accusing, just honest. “If it’s going to be just the four of us, we all need to communicate. Think like a unit.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Of course he was. Yuto was even-tempered and smart, serious and focused, nothing like Yuya. And it wasn’t that Yuya was jealous, no! He loved who he was, loved the joy he could bring everyone around him. But it was hard to argue with Yuto, hard to argue without looking like a stupid kid.

Yuto sighed. “I’m sorry too, Yuya. You didn’t choose this. You should be enjoying the fruits of your victory, not worrying about us. That doesn’t mean you can ignore us, but I don’t want to be too harsh with you.”

“My dad says you learn as much from losing as you learn from winning,” Yuya replied, “so don’t worry about that.”

“I know. But Yuya, it’s hard, and not just because I’m trapped. I’m scared of not being alone.”

“Why?”

“I’ve always had time to myself. I’ve had friends, sure, but I’ve been able to slip into the background and do as I please, at least when I need to. I’ve been able to run away Now I’m always responsible for you guys, and you’re always responsible for me. And I can’t have privacy, not ever again. Even if — even if I’m with her, even if she accepts me, there’ll always be six pairs of eyes on us.”

Zuzu. That was as good as confirmation as he needed; he didn’t know any other girls running around with three spirits in their heads. “You should tell her, you know. Zuzu’s a good girl, and I’m pretty sure she’s crazy about you.”

“Are you serious?” Yuto asked.

“Serious as a Duel! A Duel that you’re in, since you actually take games seriously.” Yuya laughed. “I’m scared, yeah, really scared. But I want all of us to be happy. I even want Yuri to be happy. So go for it.”

“You mean—”

“Using my body, yes. Our body. It’s hard for me, = but it’s not going to get easier if I don’t let you do it. I’m just going to worry about it until it’s bigger than a dragon. So I’m just going to rip the band-aid off now. Go for it.”

“Oh. Okay,” Yuto said, and though his smile was only faint, it could’ve lit up a star.

It wasn’t that difficult, in the end — not physically. It wasn’t just a blink-and-it’s-done affair, not like it was for Zuzu (even though she couldn’t have had more than a single evening to practice — but she had a way of figuring things out). But it wasn’t bad.

It went like this: close his eyes, breathe in and out. Let himself let go, let his focus shift, let the world blow around him. Expressing it in words was hard, but it wasn’t like becoming Zarc at all. That had been a sublimation, a not entirely uncomfortable slip into an abyss he had never expected to wake from.

This was more like letting go. It was almost the opposite sensation, moving out instead of moving deeper in. And then, with a breath, he was looking down on his own body, and Yuto was staring back at him.

Intellectually, he had known that his eyes wouldn’t change, that his hair would remain its obnoxious red and green. But it was just weird seeing Yuto with it.

“Hey, Yuto, can you hear me?”

”Loud and clear”, Yuto replied, though his lips didn’t move. Apparently silent speech wasn’t hard for him. ”Thank you, Yuya. I’ll take good care of your body. Let me know if it gets to be too much and you can take back control.”

“Don’t worry about it!” he said. In his spirit form, he could will his hands not to tremble with fear and they just didn’t. Neato. “I’ll take back over once you’ve had a chance to talk to Zuzu…”

”About that,” Yuto said. ”Are you really sure she likes me? For myself, and not just because I’m so much like you?”

“It’s not like you to be insecure, Yuto. Don’t worry about it! I’m pretty sure she’s into you. But if she’s not, she’s not, and that’s okay too. She still deserves to know how you feel, so that she can make her own choices.” Yuya looked off to the side. “Well, that’s what my mom would tell me anytime she thought I had a crush on someone. It sounds like good advice. Actually, she used to think I had a crush on Zuzu!”

”I’ll admit, I assumed you did too, at first.”

“I think…” They were parts of him. And they could hardly sell him out. And it was rare for anyone in Maimai to care about that kind of thing, anyways. But what the other dimensions thought about it was a mystery — and whether his other selves would be strange about how they clearly didn’t feel the same way, well, that was a mystery too. “I think I prefer men, personally.”

”Oh. Cool! You know, I think Shay might be too. He’s never told me, but he did say he wasn’t interested in women back when I tried to set him up with one of my classmates. Way back, before—” He clammed up.

“That’s cool.” He tried imagining kissing the brooding Duelist. No luck. It didn’t inspire anything in him, not like those strange things Yuri had said, and wasn’t that messed up?

He glanced over to his purple-haired other quarter. It was a good thing they couldn’t read one another’s thoughts. Yuri would never let him live it down. Even though really, it ought to have been Yuri who was ashamed, with the way he could make trying to fuse into a world-ending aberration sound flirtatious. You didn’t have to like someone to be into them, regrettably.

Ugh, but he was getting lost in thought again. Focusing was too hard. Like trying to catch a seagull at the beach. “I’m glad it’s not weird to you. Was it common in Xyz?”

”Common as anywhere, I guess? Nobody had a problem with it.” He finished poking through Yuya’s wardrobe, picking the most sedate outfit available — which was still a hundred times more colorful than anything in his own, if Yuya could guess by his dour expression. “Could you look away? I’d like to get changed.”

“I’ve seen myself naked a thousand times,” Yuya said, but he still looked away.

Yuto looked embarassed. It wasn’t as natural on his face, Yuya thought, the way he wore his expressions. They should’ve shuffled (switched? Swapped?) once they actually made it to Zuzu, because his mom would freak if she saw “him” like this.

“Hey, Yugo,” Yuto said, “can you show Yuya how to go in?”

“Go in? What does that—”

“Sure can!” Yugo grinned. “You’ll love it, Yuya! Here, it’s easier after the first time. Hold my hands!”

“What is it?”

“It’s like, a place in your head! It’s where we go when we’re not out in the world with you. You’ve noticed that sometimes we’re gone, right? It’s not as cool as being in the real world, but it beats floating around like a ghost. Seriously, grab my hands!”

He gingerly took Yugo’s hands. Somewhere else? Somewhere inside his mind? What if he got stuck? What if he couldn’t get out?

But then an odd sensation surrounded him, and when he could see once more, he was in what looked like a large auditorium.

“The inside of my head is a Duel Arena?”

Yuri scoffed. “Is it really a surprise?”

Chapter Text

The world — or rather, Duel Arena — inside his head was marvelous, the kind of place he'd dreamed about Dueling back when he was a child. Nowadays, he got to Duel in such arenas on the regular. It didn't make them any less wondrous. He still had to fight back a smile any time he was inside one. Yuri appeared just seconds after they did, looking nonplussed. Had Yuto yelled at him?

Oh well, he had bigger concerns. "Did this place seriously come from me?"

"That's what Yuto thinks! It doesn't look like anything from any of our Dimensions. There's nowhere for Duel Runners, so it's definitely not from me." Yugo laughed, infectious and bright. "He has a lot of theories, but I'm not really interested. Whatever we are now, we're pretty one-of-a-kind!"

"One-of-a-kind in how many of us are obnoxious," Yuri said, but even he was smiling. Yugo was just like that. His authenticity, his honesty, his joy was infectious.

"Maybe for you, but not for me!" Yugo laughed. "Ha! Reverse card!"

"For the love of—" Yuri rolled his eyes. "You see what I've had to put up with because of your stubbornness, Yuya? I can't survive too much more of this rube."

"Oh, you know you love me." Yugo waggled his eyebrows. "I'm so glad you came around! I knew you would, of course. Everyone always does. Anyways, basic tour — the Jumbotron up there shows what's going on in the real world. Yuto said he was getting dressed, so I turned it off. You can do that just by thinking about it. But don't try it now! I don't want to see Yuto naked!"

"Why not?" Yuri's tone was suggestive, but not really flirtatious; it was the kind of tone you used to mock someone by saying they had a crush on Zuzu, when Yuya did most certainly not have a crush on Zuzu. Not that he'd ever experienced that. "You'll get plenty of time to see it later."

"It's different if someone else is in control," Yugo said. Yuya wondered if he was willfully ignoring Yuri's teasing or if he was just too simple to understand it. With Yugo, it could go either way. "Like, if I see myself naked, that's totally different. But Yuto deserves his privacy."

"You're so boring," Yuri said. "You see what I've been dealing with here, Yuya? These two idiots having a chance at your body means me having a chance at some peace and quiet. I'm not sure about Yuto, but I certainly appreciate you over this idiot."

So Yuri didn't assume the offer applied to him. That was a relief, but why? Surely he knew what Yuya thought of him — at the very least that he made Yuya uncomfortable and a bit afraid — but it wasn't like him to take other's feelings into consideration. Well, it saved him a very awkward conversation, so he wouldn't complain.

"I'm not an idiot!" Yugo shouted. "Not all of us could go to some fancy-pants Duel School. But I was the best Duelist at the orphanage, you know."

"I'm sure that was quite the achievement."

"Thanks!"

Yuya choked back a laugh. "Man, you guys are funny. Is time like, one-to-one here?"

"Probably? I guess I don't know for sure, actually." Yugo put a hand to his face in an exaggerated thinking expression. "I'm pretty sure it does, but there's no clock in here, so that's just a guess based on watching you up there. I don't think this is magic. I mean, it's a little bit magic, but it's not like we can take anything inside back outside, or like anything we do in here affects anything out here. It's like a shared dream, and it's about as real as one. Yuto told me he was in a space like this when he was with you, except it was all dark and there was no way to see out. So this is a lot better!"

Understatement of the century. Well, Yugo wasn't the type to dwell on things he found too horribly unpleasant. "Sounds a lot better. Does this Duel Arena actually work?"

"Yeah! Yuto and I Dueled a little bit, but he's not a very casual guy. All you have to do is think about a Deck and it appears. You don't even have to own the cards! You have to know about them, of course, but you don't have to have them. Yuri says that we're not good enough to play against him, but I think that he's just scared he'll lose." He winked. "You know, it's okay if you're not excited."

"Are you kidding? This is way better than I assumed it would be. I thought that I'd be stuck following Yuto around like some kind of ghost."

"You didn't notice us disappearing?"

"I mean I did, but I figured it was like sleeping. I didn't realize you were actually going somewhere."

He expected Yuri to make a jab, but he didn't. Weird.

Yugo, on the other hand, just grinned. "Do you think Yuto's had enough time to get dressed?"

"Most likely," Yuri said.

The Jumbotron lit up as Yugo focused on it, showing a massive image of the world through Yuto's eyes. He did, indeed, appear to be dressed, busy on the phone with Zuzu, asking if she could meet up. He probably should've worked that out before switching minds with him. That would've been sensible, but, well, Yuya had never been the most sensible. He was a passionate young man, as they said.

Thankfully, it sounded like Zuzu wasn't busy. The sound of her voice rang clear through the speakers.

"Good," Yugo said. "You know, I'm glad it was you, Yuya. I know it would've been easier if we all could've been in our own bodies, but that's not what happened, and I think you're a great choice, if it had to be one of us. You're tough, that's for sure! But you're a good guy, too. Even though you annoy me sometimes, I trust you."

"Thanks. Hey, uh, why did you butt in on my conversation with Yuto? Does it really bother you that much?"

Yugo nodded. "Yeah! Look, I know I'm not the smartest. I didn't get a great education, and I don't think it would've made a huge difference if I did. I have a lot of natural Dueling talent, so that's what I focused on. In Commons, you couldn't really afford to be a generalist. You got good at whatever you were good at, and everyone worked together doing their thing that we could all live. I mean, it wasn't utopian, we fought all the time. But when you have to cooperate to survive, you learn to forgive the guy who stole your apple, you know?"

Yuya didn't know. He knew he didn't know, which was a step up, but he was well-aware. What could an apple mean to someone like Yugo? What did forgiving mean, in that context? He didn't get it. But he knew he didn't get it, and maybe that was enough, for now. He nodded, because what else could he do?

Yugo smiled. "And in that world, you've got to have some integrity. See, everyone lies, everyone cheats, everyone steals, but everyone gets along, too. So being someone who's honest, someone who you can trust, that's worth something. That's worth a lot. Rin always teased me, telling me I wore my heart on my sleeve, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Everyone knew where they stood with me, and isn't that worth something? Back there, someone trusting you was a big deal, something really special. And getting to be trusted, getting to be honest with people, that made them happy, but it made me happy too."

Yuya nodded, glanced over to Yuri. He wore a polite, cold expression.

"So yeah. It does bother me." Yugo frowned. "I care about you guys. I even care about Yuri, and he's a dick! And I want you to be happy, really happy, not fake happy. Rinrin says that crying is sadness leaving our body. Sometimes you've gotta cry. And even if you don't want to cry, if you can frown, people will trust you, and you'll trust yourself. And that you can't even frown around Yuto and I, well, it feels like you don't trust us."

Yuto and I. No Yuri. There was a gap between them, one that hadn't healed. It would take time, probably, but maybe it could. Someday. If they wanted it to. Yuya wasn't sure.

It wasn't like Yuri looked hurt. He looked cold and unaffected. But he hadn't been cold and unaffected before, not in Fusion when they'd been enemies, not during their brief alliance during his Duels with Declan and the other. He was hiding something, and it was unnatural.

Yuto was like Yuya. The two of them knew how to hide things. But until recently, Yuri had seemed as honest, as authentic as Yugo, in his own twisted, violent, cruel way. Like a beast uncaged. A beast that played with its prey, sure, that joked and played weak so that it could strike the off-guard. But there was an authenticity in him that seemed completely real. And now he was hiding that away.

I wanted to be like that Yuri, Yuya realized. Yuri had been in touch with whatever was real in them, whatever was Zarc in that, and even though he hadn't wanted that he had wanted it, too. An unnatural kind of bond, a natural kind of bond. Something that he couldn't quite articulate.

He would think more about this later. And, once again, be thankful that the others couldn't read his thoughts. Someone like Yugo would never feel like that, would never want to give into his inner darkness.

The Jumbotron was bringing them closer and closer to the boulevard where Yuto and Zuzu would meet. Bringing them closer and closer to Yuto's confession, to Zuzu's hopeful acceptance. Hopeful. At least consciously hopeful. It would suck. To think about his body and her body, together. It wasn't like they were brother and sister or anything, nothing so disgusting, but he wasn't interested in her, not like that. And he wanted to be her best friend. And what if she liked Yuto better than she liked him? What if she decided he was the better incarnation?

But he couldn't hold those feelings against Yuto's happiness.

She came into view, wearing a radiant smile. "It's good to see you, Yuto."

"It's good to see you, too." His voice wavered, just slightly. "I called you out here because I wanted to ask you about something."

"Of course!" She grinned. "What is it?"

"It's, well..." He took a deep breath. "Do you want to get coffee on Friday? I mean. As a date. With you. And me. Not with Yuya!"

She laughed, bright and brilliant, and for a moment Yuya could almost understand what Yuto saw in her. "Yes, Yuto, absolutely. I think I'd like to ask you about something, too, if that's okay."

"Of course. Anything."

"Can I kiss you?"

The screen abruptly turned off. Yugo was bright red.

"Hey, I was watching that!" Yuri complained.

"Give them some privacy, Yuri," Yugo said, looking embarrassed. "I don't want to see Yuto, uh, kiss Zuzu. And I bet kisses look super fucked up in first person."

"You're no fun." Yuri scoffed. "Well, since we're all stuck here for the next... three to thirty minutes, why don't we liven things up?"

There was only one thing that could mean. "A Duel?"

"Exactly. We've mostly had to Duel on the Crossover field. Which is all well and good, but it's a little dull, isn't it? It's perfectly utilitarian, but given another choice..." Yuri grinned. "I think you'll all enjoy my favorite: Predaplanting a Spring Garden!"

"Bring it on!" Yuya said, and for a moment, everything felt normal again.

Chapter Text

Letting Yuto control his body had been terrifying — at first. But it became like the beating of his heart in time, subconscious and comfortable. He was quiet, respectful, willing to obey Yuya's requests more than he really should've been. And Yugo, well, Yugo was a lot more like Yuya than anyone else he'd ever met. The differences were there — Yugo's absolute integrity, Yugo's, uh, generally uneducated nature — but he meshed well into Yuya's life, felt comfortable when he had to interact with Yuya's mother.

But Zuzu was always delighted to see them. Legitimately delighted to see them, even delighted to see Yugo, who she didn't know and who meant it was time for her to relinquish control to Rin, generally. Her love for Yuya had become a love for all four of them, for all eight of him, and he didn't understand. It was like they'd all known each other their whole lives, even though they, well, hadn't. Even as Zarc and Ray they hadn't — as far as he could remember, from those misty and strange memories, they'd been strangers. Yet Ray's incarnations felt natural to him.

It wasn't romantic, wasn't exactly platonic either. It just was, in a way that burned into his mind any time he was with them. A sense of being understood. A sense of being part of something bigger. A sense of rightness.

It was still a struggle. But he wasn't jealous. It didn't make him upset, not that Zuzu had mastered the art of living with three others so quickly, not that Zuzu was happy with her companions while he and Yuri still struggled in particular. It just... was what it was. It would be silly to be upset about that, and for all Yuya loved clowns, even he had his limits on silly. And Yuri had been polite. Cordial, but cold. Hadn't gone out of his way to antagonize Yugo, though he hadn't been especially kind, either. Well, a leopard couldn't change its spots overnight. Or something.

It had been so nice, so easy. Two whole weeks of Yuto and Zuzu hanging out, Rin and Yugo hanging out. After the first week, they expanded their circle to Shay, whose pure unadulterated joy at the return of his best friend and his sister looked strange and unnatural on his usually-grim face. It was a kind of restoration, a glimpse into who he might've been before everything had gone to hell, before he'd had to learn to fight for his life. Before he'd lost his family. But now things were better. Maybe even easy.

And now Yuri was in front of him, and Yugo and Yuto were gone — and he had a sinking feeling that it was about to get a little less easy.

"You've been letting Yugo and Yuto control your body."

"Yeah." So to Yuri it was still his body.

"You haven't been letting me."

"No, I haven't."

"Am I so different from the rest of you?" Yuya's blood ran cold.

"After everything you've done, how can I think of you as being like me?"

"Because we're the same. Same face, same blood, same genes, presumably. Same mind." He didn't sound upset, but Yuya didn't trust it. "I don't mind that you don't like me, but you treat me so differently than the other two."

"You hurt so many people. You're the reason we became Zarc. Why did you want to become one with me?"

"Because we're the same. Because I thought..." He was quiet for a moment. "I thought that maybe it would be fulfilling, you know. It's not like I've always been alone, I got on well enough with the Professor and with Celina, but I've always felt a certain... sense of incompletion. I spoke with Yuto on the subject, very briefly — for some reason he rather doesn't seem to like me! — and he reflected something of the same."

"Did he?" If anything was surprising, it was that Yuto and Yuri had had a conversation. But they must've been able to, because Yuri had participated in Yuto's little strike before. "I've never felt incomplete."

"Of course you have. You're just not very honest with yourself." Yuri shrugged. "It's understandable. You've been through a lot, Yuya. But think about it. Has there ever been a time in your life you didn't feel the need to pack yourself full of color and joy and everyone else's wants and needs? Have you ever been okay sitting in silence?"

Yuya flinched. "It's not like that. I just want people to be happy, you know? And if I can be a part of that happening, and I can make people happy, then—"

"—then you feel a little more complete. You know, wanting to make people happy was what started Zarc down his path." Yuri's words were made more cutting by his unreasonably neutral, even kind tone. He sounded nothing like himself. "It sounds like a good thing, at first. To listen to your superiors. Your father-figure, your peers. To entertain them. To do what you're meant to do, what you're trained to do. And over time, you become just a little more brutal, a little more cruel, and every time you're rewarded for it. People laugh more. People smile. Zuzu said you used to pull wings off flies. It was because the other boys liked it, wasn't it?"

"I already had this conversation with her. I don't need to have it with you."

"Because she's understanding? Because she's kind? Because you're friends?" Yuri laughed. "She coddles you a bit, you know. Treats you like she can't see who you are, even though she can. We're not good people, Yuya, not by out nature. And I just wanted to be what I really am. Even someone as genius and intellectual as I am can become bored with lying."

"Maybe we're bad people, but we're good people, too." He took a deep breath. "When we were Zarc, I wasn't me anymore. But I remember everything like I did it. And I wanted to destroy, but I had all these memories, wanting to make people happy. Working on making people happy. Deciding people only wanted destruction. And then leaning into the dragons instead, who weren't any different, who wanted to destroy just like people. I think everyone has bad and good in them."

"Look at Synchro. Look at Xyz. Look at Fusion. How can you see what people have done and not think that everyone is just awful?"

"Because even in Synchro, even in Xyz, even in Fusion, I met people who were trying to make it better. People who looked at the world and thought it could be better. People who loved the world, and wanted to make it more like it should be. Even Zarc wanted to make the world a better place, at first. And if we're all Zarc, if we've all inherited his love for violence, then we've all inherited his love for joy, too. You didn't need to be violent to be who you really are. You didn't need to fuse with us to be who you really are. Those are things you chose to do."

"It wasn't as if it was much of a choice!" Yuri snapped. Then the calm, cold persona he wore passed over his face once more, and whatever had possessed him vanished. "You haven't spoken to Celina much, have you?"

"A little bit. Not like, every time I go to visit Zuzu, but she doesn't seem to have many other friends to hang out with, and she's got to get out and move around sometimes, you know. Usually not about serious stuff. Just cards, dueling. Her Lunalight deck is something fierce."

"Ask her about the past. Ask her about Duel Academy. Ask her about what we were encouraged to become, what we weren't allowed to be." Yuri shrugged. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me, mind. I'm not saying I didn't choose to be especially brutal, to be particularly cruel. I'm not saying that I couldn't have fought back, because I could've." He sighed. "She and I, we were kind of friends. Not really friends, because there weren't a whole lot of real friends in Duel Academy. But we enjoyed a certain kind of privilege in that regard, being Leo Akaba's favored kids. It was only natural for us to get along. I think, for a time, I thought I might love her. Because she was so strong."

"Did you?"

"No. Like you, I'm gay." Yuri laughed. "Why, are you interested?"

"N-no! Don't tease me like that, Yuri."

Yuri winked. "Then don't be so easy to tease. Anyways, she and I, we used to sort of be friends. And you trust her, more than you trust me. So ask her about it. That way, you won't think I'm playing it up for your sympathy. Not that I would, but as much as you don't trust me, I don't trust you, either. So it's best to remove the temptation. You know, thinking about it, isn't it weird that two of us are straight and two of us are gay?"

"Well, maybe Zarc was—" He thought about it for a second, searched through his memories. "I don't think Zarc cared about romance at all. Or maybe he did, but... well, the dragons came first. Maybe the dragons were what he loved, I don't know. I don't want to fuck a giant lizard, no offense to Odd-Eyes. So I guess that's just something that we're different from him in. I don't think it's like, important. I mean, obviously it's important to me, and it's important to you, but I don't think it's something we've all got to share. Or like, that it's bad or it means some of us are lying that we're not what we say we are."

"I didn't mean it like that, more just a curiosity. How it works, for one person to become four, that's interesting to me. I'm sure if anyone had admitted to having multiple minds in Duel Academy, they would've been considered unfit to Duel, and you did not want to be considered unfit to Duel." Yuri shrugged. "There was never any risk of it for me, of course, I'm an expert Duelist, but even I felt it was a bit brutal. And let's be completely honest: if I think something's brutal, it's got to be awfully cruel."

"What did they do? What happened?"

"I told you — if you're interested in Duel Academy, ask Celina." Yuri sighed. "Look, you're not going to give me control, are you?"

"No. Not yet. I mean, obviously I will someday. I can't leave you imprisoned forever. But I'm not ready yet. That doesn't mean we can't talk, though."

"Talk, talk. All you want to do is talk and Duel. There's more to life than talking and Dueling."

"Hey, be fair. I like clowning, too."

"I know. But—" Yuri shook his head. "Look. There's nothing else I can do to convince you at this point, and I'm tired. So. Go talk to Celina, and if she makes you change your mind, let me know. I wouldn't mind hanging out with her, myself."

And with that, Yuri disappeared — presumably back to that strange space in her mind. Something had changed him, and Yuya didn't understand what.

Chapter Text

"Hey, Zuzu. I need to talk to Celina after work today."

"Of course," Zuzu said, "as long as you actually work! We have a lot of students, and they're all very excited to learn more about your Pendulum Summon. If you let them down again..."

"I didn't let anyone down! I really didn't feel good!" Probably because Yugo had fronted in the middle of the night and eaten half the fridge. And then he'd had to try to make an excuse to his mom about it. It wasn't that he didn't feel bad for Yugo, didn't empathize — he did! He felt terrible that the guy had never had the joy of an unlocked fridge of fresh food and tasty leftovers! But the resulting upset stomach had been horrid.

"Well, then, take better care of yourself! You Show Duel School needs you!" She flipped her fan in her hand, a reminder of the pain she could dole out. "Look, you know I'm a great Duelist. But I don't have a reputation like you. And when it comes to getting students, that's what really matters. Almost anymore can Duel, but not everyone can build a career out of it. Students want to know that someone from the school can go big league."

"They should respect you more. What's so special about me? You've beaten me a dozen times." He groaned. "I get it, I get it. I'll train the kids. What's the plan?"

"You're going to Duel a volunteer. And make as much of a show out of it as you can, too. Make them feel like they just barely had a chance of winning. Don't crush them!" She waved her fan menacingly. "This is a big deal. My dad's started work on the paperwork to get a proper Duel School set up, but until then..."

"...we have to work." Every day except Sunday — Mr. Boyle had balked at Zuzu's plan to have them teach their two-hour class every day. He also had to Duel. And study with Smiley's tutors — still an improvement over high school, probably. He had to be the busiest sixteen-year-old in the history of the world. "I get it. Should I bring out the Performapals?"

"What other decks do you have?"

"Well, I've got Yuto and Yugo and Yuri's decks, if we wanted to mix it up. I understand how to use them, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind me bothering them."

"No. We're not bringing out Predaplants; you'd traumatize the poor kids. Stick to the Performapals. If you want to mix it up, ask Celina for a Duel."

"You got it!" He made a thumbs-up. Mixing it up would be a pain anyways, but he'd do anything for You Show. This was his father's school, even if Mr. Boyle did most of the work nowadays. He would build it up into the splendid school he knew it could be. "So, who am I Dueling?"

"Well..."

He hadn't even realized the Sledgehammer had a daughter, let alone would've sent her to You Show of all places. But he did, and he did, and so it was only natural that Yuya would show her what You Show dueling was about. Entertainment! Excitement! There was no room for a generic strongman Duelist, not in You Show. You needed to have energy, pizazz, life, excitement, the works! You needed to burn with life and joy!

Unfortunately, she played fucking Guru Control.

He was dimly aware of the deck from its relative popularity on the traditional Dueling competitive circuit, but no one had ever broken into Dueltainment with it — it just wasn't that fun to watch someone set and unset and set and unset and set and unset ad infinitum, slowly chipping away your Life Points and building a critical mass of advantage.

It wasn't that he couldn't beat her — he could, and he did. For all she was a good Duelist with a good deck, she was immature and didn't yet know her own strength. It took time to develop as a Duelist, time and trials. And she'd make a great Duelist in the traditional circuit, potential championship material, really. But she didn't use a single Action Card, didn't focus on Yuya's cards, didn't interact with her own monsters, didn't move from the starting location, didn't seem to want to be there. She Dueled like entertainment was the last thing on her mind.

He won, of course. But it just wasn't much of a show.

"Good job!" he told her, as her Life Points hit zero. "Would you like some pointers?"

"I guess."

"You have a strong Deck, but it's not very well-suited to Entertainment Dueling, since we can't use Field Spells. If you'd like to keep using that one, you might benefit from looking into the Professional Traditional Circuit. Otherwise, I would tweak your deck to be more traditionally Entertainment-oriented. You know, something that's fun. It doesn't mean you can't run Subterrors, but focusing too much on Guru is going to lead you astray."

"I guess."

"Alright!" He smiled bright. "You're a great Duelist, and I suspect that you'll have a strong career if you make some little changes. Don't be afraid to use Action Cards, either. They can change the tides of a Duel with a snap! I wouldn't be here today to tell you the importance of them if I wasn't taking advantage of them. A lot of Entertainment Duelists will even use cards designed to help them get Action Cards more easily, like my Hip Hippo!"

"I guess."

"And try to have a positive attitude. It's not that control Decks can't be used in Entertainment Dueling. There's a really great True Draco player, Master Disaster, in my league. If you want to learn more about how to make that kind of deck entertaining to watch, I suggest checking out some of his matches. They're all on DuelTube, and they're a ton of fun. You'd really like them."

"I guess."

He wasn't getting to her, and he could tell. But what could he do? He groaned.

Yuya Sakaki was not an expert at communication. And neither, for that matter, were his other quarters.

"Alright!" Zuzu said, breaking through the glum with a grin on her face. "That's our example Duel for today! I'd like everyone to take Yuya's advice into mind this week and look over their Deck to see what cards could help them take advantage of the field and gain Action Cards. As always, feel free to message us teachers if you have any questions! And read the textbook, pages 19-43! Class dismissed!"

The students exited, one by one, a few hanging around to ask questions or chat. But within twenty minutes, it was just him and Zuzu and their six invisible companions once more.

"Please don't be mad! I did my best, but—"

"But she's a traditional Duelist trying to cut it as an Entertainment Duelist. Yeah, I noticed too. Well, either she'll make changes or she'll drop out, one of the two. All we can do is guide her towards whatever path makes the most sense for her." Zuzu sighed. "That's rough. I get it, too, because people want to watch Entertainment Duelists more. And her dad's famous, even though he's barely Dueled since you beat him... wow, it feels like years ago, but I suppose it's only been a few months. But that's irrelevant. The point of Entertainment Dueling is the enjoyment of the audience. It's even more important than winning, although of course the two are tightly entwined."

"Do you think that her dad's pushing her into it?"

"Hard to say. I can't imagine he's especially nurturing, but you know, maybe the tough guy thing is just an act. You never know. Anyways, you wanted to speak to Celina?"

"Yeah."

"Alrighty." She checked the door, making sure it was locked before letting Celina control her body. Her strong stance was a dead giveaway.

"You Dueled well, but you were holding back."

"Of course. Dueling is for the audience, not the Duelist. Especially when you're Dueling for a school. The students need to learn, not watch me mop the floor with one of their classmates. And I'm hardly going to bring out Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon for a casual school game. You've got to keep an ace up your sleeve. But I didn't want to talk to you about that."

"It's about Yuri, isn't it?"

"Yeah. He asked to take control of my — of our body, and I told him no, not for now. Not until I can trust him. So he told me to talk to you. About how he became who he is. About whether that means I should trust him now."

"Fucking Yuri. Always trying to get someone else to fight his battles for him." Celina sighed. "Well, there's nothing to be done about it. Yuri and I had a difficult childhood; there's no nice way to put it. I'm not going to go into insane detail, because first off it's not your businesss and second off it's not a very pleasant story. But, basically, Duel Academy was rough. We were encouraged to fight one another, to betray one another, to trust no one. Even teachers wouldn't hold back. If this had been a DA Duel, you would've mopped the floor with her and made sure it hurt, and then encouraged her classmates to pile on the pain while she was vulnerable. That's just how it was."

"That's terrible!"

"It was. Yuri and I were sheltered from it, to a certain extent. I never lost a Duel. Neither did he. And Leo wasn't interested in risking those reputations, so he never put us up against each other. As his favored kids, we could have a certain degree of trust in one another, more than anyone else could, anyways. I used to think—" She shook her head. "I never quite understood why Leo treated us like he did. I mean, we were brutally effective Duelists, no lie about it, but we had the benefit of very strong decks. There were other kids who, given the same opportunity, could've been just as strong. I mean, now I know it's because of what we are, who we are. But back then, it just seemed like a fluke. And I thought I could lose it at any minute. Yuri really thought that way."

"Why?"

"Leo was..." She sighed. "He treated me like a real dad would treat his real daughter, you know, kind and supporting. He treated Yuri weird. Like he wanted Yuri to depend on him, but he wanted him to suffer for it, too. It wasn't supportive or loving at all. Now I see it for what it was. He hated Yuri because Yuri was part of Zarc, but he needed Yuri, too, needed his strength and brutality and twisted sense of leadership and pride that he inspired in the other boys. And he needed Zarc's energy. So he made sure Yuri would trust him, Yuri would want his input, and then he treated Yuri like a dog."

"It wasn't that bad," Yuya heard, and he glanced to see Yuri, invisibly projected nearby. "She's exaggerating. And anyways, unlike her, I understood what was going on. That I was being manipulated. And I manipulated him right back. I'm not a child or anything. I made the best of the situation."

"He's talking to you, isn't he? Trying to play it down?" Celina's tone was heavy with... pity, maybe. Yuya wasn't quite sure, didn't understand the complex relationship the two of them clearly had.

"Yeah. He says it wasn't that bad, and he's not a child, he understood what he was getting into."

"Here's what I'll say to that: It started when we were children. Real children, you know, knee high to a grasshopper. And now we're not really kids anymore, but we're not anything else either, and with all that pressure that got put on us I don't really think anyone could say we were fully in our right minds. I still don't think that I'm in my right mind, so I can't imagine Yuri is." Celina sighed. "I wish I had understood what was happening to me back then. Maybe Yuri did. Maybe being from what you guys are from made him a little wiser about the devil we dealt with. But..."

"But you don't think so, do you?" It was strange to think of Yuri as a victim of anything. Or as having ever been a child. He was so boisterous, so bright, so destructive, so cruel. Everything Yuya liked about himself and everything Yuya hated about himself, both played up ten times stronger, a hundred times stronger. And directed by someone who saw the average person as an animal.

"It's not that I don't think so. I don't care if Yuri knew what he was getting into — we didn't have other choices. You've seen how fucked up the Obelisk Force kids are, and most of them only had three, maybe four years of Duel Academy. Yuri and I lived there even as infants. And I'm not saying all this so that you'll like Yuri, or think he was justified, or whatever. I don't care if you like Yuri, and I don't think he was justified. I'm saying this so that you get what I mean when I say that you would be the same in his boots."

It was an uncomfortable truth, one he didn't want to sit with. But he and Yuri were two sides of the same coin, and that suggested that whatever Yuri was, it wasn't inherently any worse than what he was. He didn't like that, but he couldn't deny it. "Do you think I should let Yuri out?"

"Maybe not unsupervised. Not yet. It'll take time for all of us to get used to being part of the regular world. I don't even like going out on my own, if I'm honest. But I think, if the two of us were together..."

"You'd make a pretty good team." He nodded. "You're right. I can't keep Yuri locked up and just assume he'll mellow out. No one mellows out in prison, and he's been through enough without being treated like a criminal. Even if he kind of was one. So I guess that just leaves one question, doesn't it?"

"And what would that be?"

"When do we start?"

Chapter Text

Yuya took a deep breath. One, two. It was going to be fine. Celina would be there. They'd stopped and chatted about the plans after You Show's Sunday afternoon session, and then he'd jumped back home to get ready. And he was as ready as he'd ever be.

So he closed his eyes and let Yuri overtake him.

It felt pretty much the same as it did with Yugo and Yuto. And Yuri wasn't trying to actively repel him or anything. He had half expected the man to attempt some kind of bodily mutiny, but while he still had plenty of time to get to it, he wasn't opening with it. Instead, the young man looked at his hands, practiced moving his fingers for a few seconds — and immediately began adjusting the button-up shirt that he'd picked with Yuya's help.

"I can't believe you buttoned the top button. You're supposed to leave that one loose. You look like a fucking dweeb."

"You're talking out loud to an invisible boy," Yuya replied, "so who's the dweeb now?"

"I'm still getting used to this, don't be an ass," Yuri replied, silent this time. "And there's no one around, now, isn't there?" Then, before Yuya could say more, he knocked on the door.

Mr. Boyle opened the door. "Yuya! Come on in! Zuzu is so excited to see you!"

"Thanks, Mr. Boyle!" His voice sounded hollow; his smile seemed plastered on. But Mr. Boyle didn't notice. He made a more authentic Yuya than Yugo, really. Yugo was too genuine. And he sure as hell didn't smile when he wasn't happy.

Mr. Boyle lead him up the stairs to Zuzu's bedroom, apparently completely unconcerned that they might get up to any kind of trouble, even though, technically speaking, their bodies had kissed. Well, he didn't know about it. But in any case, he was a good guy, and either didn't care if his daughter spent time in her bedroom with a boy, or really didn't believe Yuya could possibly be romantic.

"Zuzu! Yuya's here!"

"Come on in!" "Zuzu" replied. Celina spoke more roughly, and her tone was just not quite right, but if Mr. Boyle was concerned, he didn't say anything.

She was dressed in her usual clothes, which looked odd on her coiled, tense form. "Yuya! It's so good to see you!"

"You see me all the time," Yuri replied, "but it's good to see you too, Zuzu. I brought my Deck, if you'd like to Duel?"

"Oh, Dueling is all you kids ever think about!" Mr. Boyle laughed. "You have fun, alright? I'll go make dinner. Is macaroni okay?"

"Yuya, what the fuck is a macaroni."

But Yuya had disappeared into his head, leaving him alone. Damnit. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the privacy — he did — but he didn't really understand the world that he'd been dropped into, certainly not well enough to deal with this shit.

Celina grinned and nodded. "Macaroni sounds great!" She didn't quite pronounce the word right, but once more, Mr. Boyle ignored the inconsistencies.

"Alrighty, have fun!"

He departed, and a heavy silence draped over the room. But as soon as the sound of him descending the stairs rang out, Celina spoke. "Do you know what macaroni is?"

"No clue."

There was a silence for a moment as Zuzu explained the situation to Celina. "Zu says that it's a dish of noodles and cheddar cheese that's originally from America. Apparently it recently became popular in Maimai City because the Cooking Duelist made it. She's also surprised that we've never heard of it."

"At Duel Academy?" He scoffed. "That doesn't sound healthy enough for them. Wouldn't keep us in good fighting shape."

"That's what I'm thinking! I'm excited to try it, though. You didn't make any children cry on the way over, did you?"

"Yuya only let me swap when I was outside your door. Frankly, I'm not sure why he didn't just wait until it was you and I; interacting with your host's idiot father is not my idea of a good time." He sprawled himself out along her bed. "This is way more comfortable than anything I've slept on before. Did you know beds could be this comfortable? Completely insane."

"You won't find me disagreeing. Standard Dimension in general just seems... completely insane? Zuzu's been having me go out and about in the world a little, you know, talk to people, learn things. I'm not gonna be like, oh, everyone here is so nice, because there's definitely a lot of dicks, but it's not like, acceptable to fuck with people for no reason. It's a very, very different culture."

"How do you get used to it?" Yuri asked. Curiosity filled his voice. "There are so many rules Yuya follows, and I only sort of understand them. I don't want to get these three idiots in trouble, and I don't want to have to deal with consequences, which necessitates dealing with situations in at least a semi-culturally-appropriate way."

"I talk to Zuzu about it. About what happened, about what Fusion was like. About what I want this world to be like, and about what it's actually like. About my hopes and dreams. About all of it. And she guides me, tells me how to talk, how to think about things. I've never had a friend like her."

"I'm wounded," Yuri said, though he didn't sound offended in the slightest. "Are you suggesting I make friendly with Yuya? I suppose it would be better than playing nice with Yugo and Yuto, and I've done a bit of that already, but the boy is a complete idiot. It's like someone invented a way to remove the brain from the body, and thought he would be a nice trial run of it."

"Oh, don't be so harsh. I'm sure he's smarter than he seems; you've seen him Duel, after all. That kind of strategy requires some wit. Not that it particularly matters; if he's not smart, he's not smart, but he's still a part of you and you're still stuck with him, aren't you? Might as well make nice."

"Make nice." He scoffed. "As if. He's not my friend. I don't even like him. I'm tired of his sunny-side-up attitude, or glass half full, or whatever it is normal people say. I'm tired of how he thinks he knows best all the time. I'm tired of how forgiving he is. I mean, it's not like I didn't want to be able to see you, but you know how much I've done. He knows how much I've done. I mean, most of it is pretty obvious, anyways. Yet he trusts his body to me!"

"He trusts your guys' body to you. It's not just his. It's Yugo's and Yuto's and yours, too. Acting like Yuya's the boss is just going to make things messier for you in the long run. I mean, you've got to have some kind of leadership to make things work, generally, but you don't need an owner."

"Don't be naive, Celina. It's his hair, his eyes, his Dimension. He can play nice all he wants, can play nice his whole life, if he wants, but it's his, not ours. You sound like Yuto, talking like that."

"If I sound like Yuto, it's only because Yuto's right. You know, he's really not that bad. He makes Zuzu happy, and that makes me happy. I—"

The sound of footsteps up the stairs interrupted her. They couldn't risk getting caught out as being not Zuzu or not Yuya. And Yuya wasn't near, wasn't close enough to swap with him. He still hadn't figured out how to speak to them when they were inside. Damnit! The last thing he wanted to deal with was Mr. Boyle — but it seemed inevitable at this point.

"Hey, kids!" the joyful man said as he swung the door open, not bothering to knock. Not that he could've snuck up on them. He probably couldn't have even snuck up on Yuya. "Dinner's done, come and get it!"

Having dinner with Celina while pretending to be Yuya and Zuzu sounded terrible, but with Yuya nowhere to be seen, it didn't seem like there was much an option. Whether Celina wasn't switching because Zuzu was pulling the same with her, or whether she actually wanted to eat the food, remained to be seen. With a suppressed groan, he got to his feet to follow Mr. Boyle down to the kitchen to eat.

The noodles on their plates were suspiciously yellow. He had heard all sorts of things about Standard Dimension's foodstuffs — Yugo said that they were "way better" than whatever slop orphaned Commons ate in Synchro was; Yusho had loudly announced on multiple occasions that he was so glad to be back home with Yoko, eating her cooking, and not the gelatinous beef rations that had become common for the rebels; even Yuto, who was presumably used to decent food as a member of the prestigious Spade branch, seemed delighted by it. None of the reports had included that it glowed with a toxic radiance.

But he had eaten reasonably well. Leo wanted his students in good fighting shape, and that meant a diet with plenty of nutrition. Even losers ate — usually the same fortified gelatin rations Yusho was used to, but it was food. And for a winner like him, well, he'd enjoyed fine dining. It had simply been a health-oriented approach to fine dining. And that was fine with him.

"I'm glad Zuzu told me you were visiting! This stuff is the hot trend!" He grinned. "I'm not a great cook, compared to your mom, anyways, but even I can prep food from a box!"

"Oh, don't be silly, Dad!" Celina managed to avoid looking like she wanted to vomit. Impressive. He had always thought himself the better actor, but he could stand to learn from her. "You're a fine cook. Why, just last week you made the best gyudon!"

"Oh, you'll make me blush! My little girl, complementing my cooking!" He looked about ready to cry from joy. "Is your stomach upset, Yuya? Normally you'd have half the plate in your belly by now!"

"Oh! Sorry, I was just lost in thought!" He plastered on a fake grin. Mr. Boyle was obviously far too stupid to catch him on it. Then, with only a little trepidation, he took a bite of the macaroni.

He resisted the urge to spit it out on first contact — it was salty, in an artificial way, not the more natural taste of the sea of the salt-dried fish that he'd occasionally enjoyed in the past. And it was greasy, too, decadent in a way he didn't understand. Did the denizens of Maimai City really eat like this every day? Leo would've been furious if he knew that Yuri was enjoying it.

He liked the idea of Leo being furious. So he took another bite. And another. And it started to grow on him. There was nothing wrong with it, objectively; the flavors were just big, not the subtle fascinations he was used to. It was a bit like being hit in the face with a brick, but not in a bad way. Just in a very obvious way.

Still, he was surprised when he finished the plate. Time to say something polite. Even though it hadn’t been that good. But still. Say something nice. He had to sound excited, if he wanted to fake being Yuya. "Thank you, Mr. Boyle! It was delicious!" Thumbs-up. That was a Yuya-ish gesture, wasn't it?

"I'm glad you enjoyed it! Now, you kids get back upstairs before I serve you up some roasted vegetables!"

Roasted vegetables sounded delicious, but presumably Yuya hated them. He didn't seem like the type to eat his broccoli. Some of the more spoiled kids were like that, when they first came to Duel Academy. Not used to the strict diets prescribed by Akaba, they didn't do well. And some of them just... never did. It was a one-size-fits-all solution, and some kids would seem to waste away. Widespread ration stealing didn't help the matter.

It hadn't seemed fair, but it wasn't his business. If they'd been stronger, they could've taken the rest from someone else. Maybe that was the wrong attitude to have, but it had gotten him through those years relatively unscathed. And from what he'd heard of the efforts to get Duel Academy kids acting normal again, well, he was better off than most of them, frankly.

He hurried after Celina, up the stairs, back to her room. He had a lot to think about.

Chapter Text

"Okay, everyone. I think we need to talk while Mom and Dad are out." Yuya hoped he didn't sound as bad as he felt, but there wasn't too much of a point in trying to hide his feelings from the other fragments of Zarc. It wasn't as if they could read his mind, no, but they knew his face like they knew their own. Actually keeping a secret was all but impossible.

Yuto, Yugo, and Yuri materialized around him, posed around his bedroom. They looked almost natural like that. Like they really did belong here. He was starting to think that maybe they did.

"What's so important? Yuto and I were having an awesome Duel!" Yugo looked legitimately irritated, though a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. He never stayed upset for long.

"I wanted to say... I think I've been being unfair to all of you, expecting you to pretend to be me everywhere, even at home. And unfair to Mom and Dad and Mr. Boyle, too. I was watching Yuri at Zuzu's house a couple days ago, and wow, was that uncomfortable. You don't make a very good me! And I know my mom's getting worried that I've been acting funny, even if she tries to hide it. I'm sure she thinks it's just because of everything I had to go through, but I feel like I'm lying to her. And scaring her, too."

"It's unfair, but this whole situation is unfair." Yuto was even-toned as ever. "You didn't choose to be the one of us who got to keep our life. And if it had been a choice, you would've been the best one anyways. There's not nearly as much for the three of us to return to. It'll be years before the Spade Academy can be rebuilt, and I'm not sure I'd want to go back anyways. So you don't need to feel guilty."

"It's not that I feel guilty! I mean, I feel a little guilty, but even if I didn't, it wouldn't be fair. I think I want to tell my Mom about you guys. If that's okay."

"It's too risky," Yuri said. "She seems like a lovely woman, but how do you know she'll accept you? Even if she doesn't think you're insane — and there's no guarantee of that, no guarantee you aren't insane in general, to be fair — she'll have to know you'll pasted to a soldier of the Fusion dimension. I can't imagine she'd be too keen on accepting that, not after everything we did."

He didn't seem particularly guilty about it. Just pragmatic. Well, Yuya could work with that. "She knows me better than anyone. She won't think I'm crazy, or if she does, she'll be, I don't know, cool about it? I don't know what it's like in Fusion, but here in Standard, if someone is crazy or whatever, we treat them decent. We don't lock them up or anything. Unless they're dangerous or whatever, but like—"

"But I am dangerous, Yuya," Yuri purred, and he'd never heard someone sound so smug about being a complete and utter bastard. "Maybe you're not dangerous, but you'd be claiming to harbor a violent maniac who turned scores of people into cards for a goal I didn't even understand. How else can—"

"You didn't understand? You didn't know?" Yuto looked astonished. Horrified. "You didn't — you didn't even know why, and you still turned hundreds of us into cards. You kidnapped Shun's sister, my best friend. And you didn't know why?"

"Leo told us it was for the greater good. I suppose, dimly, that I understood he meant to fuse the dimensions, but I didn't understand the implications of that. If I'd realized that his world didn't have a place for me, I wouldn't have been so easily yoked." He shrugged. "Say what you'd like about me, but I'm not suicidal. Self-destructive, sure. But I enjoy being alive, if only so I can enjoy the fact that a handful of people are even more miserable than I am."

"All of those people, for nothing?"

"For Leo's plans. For Leo's glory. For Leo's future. I knew him from my earliest days, and he treated me well. It seemed right to repay him in kind, and anyways..." He shrugged. "As I said, I'm not suicidal, not like Dennis, but it didn't seem such a terrible fate. We were all cogs in his machine; I simply chose to be a willing one."

"Dennis is—?!"

"What, you didn't know, Yugo? He turned himself into a card, in the end. Had no clue that the carded would ever be freed; no one knew that, not even Leo, I don't think. That was pure luck, plain and simple."

"That's—"

"Oh, don't look so shocked. It was common enough in Synchro, wasn't it? The world is an awful place. Some people can't handle it." Yuri shrugged. "I can, of course — I can handle anything. But with everything that happened in Synchro, everything that happened in Xyz, everything that's happened here, would being unconscious really be such a bad thing?"

"Yes." Yuto's voice was strained with a barely-contained rage. "Yes. We all deserve freedom. To make our — choices. And we all deserve to live. That some people can't, that some people struggle so deeply that they don't remember how to cling to life, that doesn't change anything. There's no justification for what you did, for what all of you did."

"I'm not trying to justify it. I don't care if what I do is justified. I'll still do it." Yuri shrugged. "I just meant to explain why I'm concerned about Yuya's little plan. The world is full of awful people. I would know — I am one! And that means it's not safe. Not safe to stick out. Not safe to not conform. Not safe to be too obvious about what we are." He shrugged. "It's terrible, I know. I don't agree with it. But where I'm from, everyone sanded off their edges, and everything went fine."

"I don't think that what Fusion does is a good example for what we should do," Yugo said. "You guys were pretty messed up! But like, I understand your concerns. Back in Commons, it wasn't, like, unheard of, situations like ours. People thought they were crazy, but it didn't matter if you were crazy. None of us could put food on the table. If someone could help change that, that was what really mattered, you know? But it was still rough. Because being crazy was fine until it wasn't, until someone needed an excuse to drop you. Then even I was too crazy. Because I was weird. Because I'm not as smart. Because I talked to Clear Wing."

"Where are you actually going with this?"

"Be patient, Yuri. Yugo, keep going."

"Thanks, Yuya. I guess I'm not really going anywhere, it's just that, like, it's a tough choice, right? But Rinrin never dropped me or tried to get rid of me. Even though I was different from everyone else, she loved me. Even though I sometimes wasn't the best friend, she loved me. And I think that's what love is, right? Whether it's from a girlfriend or a mother or a best friend or the boys you share your head with. And Yuya's mother loves him. So it's okay to tell her, right? Like, I wouldn't tell anyone else. But I think we can tell her."

"She'll tell his father, and what do we know about him? A coward who would rather fight someone else's battle than stay with his family."

"Shut the fuck up, Yuri. You don't know shit about my Dad." Yuya would've thrown a punch, except you couldn't punch a ghost. He totally understood where Celina had been coming from now. "My dad is the greatest. He went to fight because of the petty war you and your Dimension went and made. And he left me all alone. And that sucked. But sometimes you have to be a man and put on a smile and do something you don't want to do."

Yuri looked stunned. Yuya kept going. "I know none of you have family. I mean, maybe you do, Yuto, but you sure don't talk about them much."

"I don't. That's why I was at a boarding school."

"Alright, so none of you have families. So you don't get it, what a family bond is like. What it's like to have a Mom and Dad who really love you, even if they're not your blood. Maybe not all families are like that, either. But my family's like that. Zuzu's family is like that. It's a kind of love that no one else in the whole world has, because your family is stuck with you. It's a forever bond. So they don't care if you're crazy, because you're their kind of crazy. And they don't care if you're ugly, because you're their kind of ugly. And my mom loves me, so she'll love all three of you, too. And what's so bad about that? What's so bad about having someone who loves you?"

"You never know. Family can safe and secure, until they're not." It was Yuto who spoke. "Xyz was a cotton-candy sweet dimension. So if you didn't love your kids, you couldn't make a fuss about it. But you sent them to boarding school to spend their days in serious study alongside all the other orphans and cast-offs. And it looked prestigious, it looked important. You were caring for them. But it wasn't caring. Not at all. Shay — Shay and Lulu, their parents are like that. They don't love them. They thought there was something wrong with Lulu, something wrong with Shay for always protecting her. They wanted them out of sight, out of mind. So they sent them to Spade."

"I know! I know some families suck!" Yuya pulled at his hair. "You're not listening to me! It's not about any other family, it's about mine! It's about how much I trust them, how much I love them!"

"It's not just about you, Yuya." Yuto's voice wasn't harsh. He didn't yell. That just made it worse. "It's about all of us. About our collective safety. You can always pretend we're not here, but we can't pretend not to exist. And we've got a delicate balance right now."

"If you're sick of pretending not to exist, why do you want me to pretend you don't exist?"

"Because at least this way, we get something. We get safety, and a few moments of peace, enough that it doesn't feel like sensory deprivation hell. And it'll get better. In a couple years, you'll move out. Maybe move in with Zuzu, maybe live on your own. And we'll have somewhere for ourselves."

"We already have somewhere for ourselves! I know my Mom and Dad wouldn't mind. And —" He almost said it, it's my body, it's my choice. They all knew it was what he was going to say. They all knew.

But he could remedy that. "And I know them better than any of you. I've lived with them my whole life. My mom gave me the Girls Talk; she's seen me at my worst." Yugo, at least, had the decency to laugh at the joke. "I'm not asking you to be out and about with them. I'm just asking you to give them a chance. If they're really negative, I'll pretend it was all one of my patented Yuya Pranks. They've been victim to enough of them to believe it."

"A prank. You would call us a prank."

"I mean, you would call us nothing at all." Yuya shrugged. "Let's put it to a vote. If it's a tie, we'll come back to it later, but we'll be done for now. Who's up for telling my parents?"

He raised a hand. Yugo raised a hand.

Yuri raised a hand.

Yuto's eyes bugged out. "Yuri?"

"It can't be worse. Or if it is, I'll grin and bear it. You've got to be flexible." He shrugged. "If it's good, it's good, and I deserve it because I'm so wonderful. If it's terrible, it's terrible, and I deserve it because I've done so much evil. Either way, it is what it is."

The logic was horrible. But Yuya let the pit in his stomach settle. "That's a wrap, then! We'll tell my mom."

Chapter Text

"Hey Mom? I need to talk to you about something." Don't sound guilty, don't sound contrite. He hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't want to make his mom think he was ashamed, because then she might think it was something she needed to be ashamed over. Deep breaths would be too obvious. Count. One, two, three.

"Of course, honey. Do you want me to get your dad?"

He shook his head. "I'll talk to him about it later, but I want to talk to you first." There had been a distance between him and his father since his return — not a painful one, just a space that had grown as they'd transformed from son and father to the people they needed to be. His mother, at least, had been there to witness most of it. "I've been keeping a secret from you, Mom."

"I thought you might be." She smiled. "You're not a very good secret-keeper. But you don't need to tel me until you're ready, okay And no matter what it is, I'll always love you. You're my precious boy, and nothing can change that."

What did she think it was, he wondered? He hadn't been subtle about his interest in men, but that hardly seemed like a secret he needed to keep from her. Admittedly he hadn't told her, but he'd done nothing to hide it. Would she mistake something like that for the truth?

It didn't matter. He was getting distracted, letting his wandering mind try to chicken him out. "Do you remember that boy with the same face as me? Yuto? And the other two I told you about?"

"Of course, Yuya. He was such a nice boy." Her face fell. Knowing someone so much like her son had disappeared into nothing must've been difficult for her. Yuya couldn't really relate, but he loved his mother intensely. Even if nice boy was a hell of a way to refer to Yuto.

"They were — you remember Zarc, right? And how I was a part of him? They were the other parts. We're four sides of the same coin. Shit, that doesn't make any sense. I—"

"Don't worry about it, Yuya, I understand what you mean." She wrapped him in a hug. "You must miss them a lot, don't you? Even if you didn't like them."

"No. No, Mom, that's the thing. They're not gone, not entirely. Everyone thinks they're gone, and I let them think that, to protect them. But they're still alive."

Her expression was... surprised, but not negative. Good first step. "Are they okay? Do they need somewhere to stay? You know, I would be happy to open this home to three more boys. I love you, you know. So much."

"No, no. Not... they're not alive like you are. They're part of me, now. I can hear them. They talk to me."

She looked disturbed, though not intensely. It could've been worse. She could've been horrified. As was, she seemed more worried. Well, Yuya would be worried if she said she heard the voices of the dead, too. "Let me clarify: it's not like they're ghosts. It's more like... one time, we were all one person. You know that, we were Zarc. And now we're one person again. But we're not quite as fused as we were before. We have a little more freedom."

"And — you're sure? That it's really them?"

"I'm positive. They can... they can take control of my body. Our body. Here. Let me show you. It's not magic, our hair doesn't change color, our eyes don't change color, but you know me. You'll know it's not me."

Then he closed his eyes and relinquished control to Yuto.

For all his fear it would go terribly, the stern young Duelist hadn't even considered having the others in this role. It had been obvious from the get-go that Yoko should meet him, not Yugo or Yuri, if only because she was already dimly familiar with him in a way the others weren't. And he could be trusted. He knew how to handle a bad situation without anyone getting hurt.

Yuto opened his eyes, aware once more of the world as a participant in it and not merely as a revenant. "Hi, Yoko."

"He wasn't pulling my leg." She looked stunned. Yuto stiffened. "The way you sit, the way you look at me — it's nothing like him. He could never. He doesn't have it in him to act like that. Oh, but don't be worried. It's not — if you boys are sharing with my Yuya, that makes you my family, too. I'm not quite sure what the relationship is, but we're all together, aren't we? I won't call myself your mother, I'm sure you have your own mothers to go back to, but—"

"None of us do." He said it quietly. No need to scream it to the world that he was an orphan. Or maybe he wasn't, really, since it was the reshaping of reality that had taken his parents — Zarc's parents — away from him, and not death. It wasn't as if having parents would've changed anything. Zarc's parents had loved him deeply, and it had done nothing. That memory, hazy as it was, had been like a warm fire in that near-death sublimated state of being a part of him.

"Oh. Oh, you poor things. Can I hug you?"

Yuto knew he was beet red. It wasn't that he'd never been hugged. You couldn't be friends with Lulu and never be hugged. But there was a difference between a hug from a friend and a hug from a woman who could've been your mother. It was foreign. Terrifying.

He felt Yugo push at him, and he knew there was nothing else that he could do. He let his mind grow hazy — and fled.

Yugo took his place, brightly joyous, seeming aglow. The good with the good and the bad with the bad! There was no point in fleeing from affection; what affection others would show you was a wonderful thing, a sign of their love. "Yes, sure!"

"Oh — you're a different one, aren't you! Goodness, I didn't mean to scare that poor boy."

"Yuto's super shy. He's a good guy, though. Big heart. But he didn't grow up with a lot of people being nice to him, I don't think. Where I'm from, if you like someone, you like them, and if you don't like them, you don't like them." And also people changed their minds, and betrayed you, and lied to you. But not as often as people from the other dimensions did, if what he understood of them was true. In Synchro, you had to depend on each other. There was no other option, and someone with too bad a reputation could only rely on their own strength. Eventually that would fail you. And then, well, there was no cafeteria in Synchro.

It wasn't as if he thought he had it worse than everyone else, though! They had all had their own struggles! And he had done well for himself, on the streets. People liked him. Hopefully Yuya's mom liked him? And wasn't mad that he had taken Yuto's place.

"That's a good attitude to have." She smiled. "So do you want a hug!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

She laughed and wrapped her arms around him. She was so warm. Is that what it would've been like to have a mother? Something like this every day. If so, well, he was feeling a little jealous! But it was what it was. He wasn't going to complain, not when he had had Rin, not when he had Clear Wing. Even though it was just a card.

When she pulled away, he knew he was beaming even more than he was before, which was really saying something. "Thank you, Yuya's Mom!"

"Oh, please, call me Yoko." She smiled. "And there's no need to thank me for a hug! Yuya is my most beloved son, and although I don't quite understand how you' three are related to him, it's obvious you are. That makes you family too. And just like any family member, it's good to meet you! There's three of you, Yuya said. Can I meet the third?"

"Yuri? Yuri, do you want to come out?" He didn't bother asking it silently. Talking quiet sucked. It was so much effort to focus his thoughts like a laser and beam them over, and he didn't enjoy it in the slightest. No fun at all. And Yoko knew, so who cared?

He looked over to where Yuri had been projecting himself to find that both he and Yuya had disappeared inside. Weird.

Well, if he wanted to come out, he'd come out. There was no stopping Yuri, really. Well, you could stop him by not letting him through, or stop him by distracting him, or whatever, but he had a strong personality. That was the nice way to say it, right? Yugo liked to be nice, as long as he liked someone well enough. And it wasn't that he really liked Yuri, who constantly made fun of him, but he did have some sympathy for the guy. Even if he'd never been hungry, he at least understood what it was like to have enemies.

Yugo liked Yuya. Yugo liked Yuya a lot. He was funny and nice and didn't see anyone for anything but who they were. Didn't care about Tops or Commons or what Duel School you went to or whether you were an Obelisk or how high your branch of Heartland Academy was in the standings. But when someone's context for childhood enemies was bullies who said your dad was a coward, well, you just couldn't empathize.

"Yoko?"

"Yes — er, I don't think you told me your name."

"Yugo, it's Yugo! I'm Yugo, and the boy before was Yuto, and the last one of us is Yuri. He's super prickly, and kind of an ass, but we love him anyways. Even if sometimes we don't like him."

"Alright. Well, Yugo, what did you want to ask?"

"Can you tell me about Standard Dimension? What it's like here? Yuya has said a little bit, and it sounds amazing. Where I'm from, things were... there wasn't always enough to go around. We did our best and pulled through, but being here seems so crazy. I ate some nikujaga at Mr. Boyle's house — oh, we haven't told him about us yet, we've just been playing pretend as Yuya, so don't worry, you got to know first — and it was like, to you guys that's nothing special, but something like that was such a rare treat where I'm from."

"You didn't—"

"I was never at risk of starving, not since I got old enough to care for myself. I was a good Duelist and a good mechanic, and there was always money to be found for either. I wasn't rich, nowhere near it, but Rin and I kept ourselves fed. But something like nikujaga — you know, there's beef in that. And beef's expensive, even stew cubes were expensive. Chicken was too expensive too. So we ate eggs, or tofu, or sometimes mackerel, or sometimes we just didn't have anything but potatoes and noodles. And for someone where I'm from, we were pretty well off, eating like that. Having three meals a day. When I was little, I didn't have that."

"That's... Yugo, that's so tragic. You never have to worry about that here, okay? Anything in the fridge, you can have. I fix Yuya dinner every night, and you're welcome to come out for it sometimes. In fact, you said you were taking care of yourself, right? Do you know about the basics of cooking?"

He nodded. "Rin and I — she's my girlfriend, she's really nice and cool and smart, you should meet her sometime — we shared all the work, all the cooking and cleaning. I heard that for Tops, usually if a servant didn't do the work, the woman did. But we didn't have time and money for a servant, and everyone put in everything, back in Commons. That was the only way to survive."

"Well then, how would you like to help me cook dinner? I have the ingredients for salmon ochazuke. I know it's nothing fancy, but Yuya's a big fan, so I bet you will be, too. Same taste buds, after all."

"Salmon?" His eyes lit up. Salmon was delicious, the handful of times he'd had it. And salmon ochazuke sounded really good. Pollution and overfishing had decimated the population back in Synchro, made them nothing but a treat for the wealthy Tops, but of course every now and then one would find an opportunity for something special, if they were willing to take a risk. (The risk was sifting through unlocked dumpsters, of course.) "Yes, please!"

Chapter Text

The Duel Arena in their brain was quiet. Yuya sat in silence next to Yuri, staring down into the empty playing field.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize that--"

"You have nothing to apologize for, and your simpering hardly brings a smile to my face, so don't even think about continuing it." Yuri gave him a sharp look. "I'm not pathetic, you know. That's what I can't stand about Celina. And the worst part of having her as my chaperone. She thinks that because I've had it tough, I'm worth looking down on. But of course I've had it tough. So did everyone else at Duel Academy. So did everyone in Synchro. So did everyone who made it through our original attack on Heartland. Which I'm not guilty about. It would've happened with or without me. At least I made things fast. I may take joy in other's suffering, but I'm efficient about it."

"I know you're not pathetic. Yuri, you could never be pathetic to me. I just... I should've thought about how it would make you feel, meeting my mother." When you didn't have one remained unspoken, but it was heavy in the air, the weight of everything that Yuri hadn't had. That Yugo and Yuto hadn't had. He'd been the lucky one.

"Well, I voted for it, didn't I?"

"But even so--"

"Don't beat yourself up. It's for the best. I'll get used to it, and look at how happy Yugo seemed." Before they had left, anyways -- Yuya hadn't bothered to turn on the Jumbotron that played whatever the current fronter was seeing. It had seemed somehow inappropriate. And Yuto, quiet, observant, Yuto, would fetch them if something went seriously wrong. "Not that I care how he feels, mind, but I know you do. I respect that about you. I suppose I was just startled. I've never really had a presence like that in my life."

"None of you three have, have you?"

"Not quite like me, I don't think." He frowned. "I'm glad it was me; I'm the toughest of us four, and for all I may be proud and self-centered, I would rather the strong man bear the burden. Yuto had Lulu and Shay. Yugo had Rin. I really didn't have anyone. I mean, Celina and I are friends, but we're not family. If I was injured, she would visit me, but only once she was done with everything else that needed to be done. Which, to be clear, wasn't rare in Duel Academy. Sora didn't have anyone either, I don't think, though I never knew him particularly well. But he was another child Duelist. And Dennis once told me, quite casually, that he was glad to get away from his parents and make it to Duel Academy, so I can't imagine they were particularly supportive."

"You said -- you said Dennis was suicidal, before. Is he okay now? Do you want to go see him?"

"It's not like we were particularly close. It was a bit stunning to hear that he'd turned himself into a card, but he was a strange man, and always closer to his Deck than other Duelists. That was common enough in Duel Academy, too. Not just in the traditional sense of trusting your cards, but... Have you ever gotten a feeling your monsters wanted you to do something, or had some kind of intelligence?"

"Leo talked about that, right? The monsters made by the system having heartbeats and minds. I've definitely felt it from Odd-Eyes before. And more, since we split from Zarc." It had sounded almost insane, but he'd also seen joy -- and fear -- in Hip Hippo's eyes. Odd-Eyes' lust for battle, his desire to destroy. All of it was strange. All of it was beautiful.

"Yes, exactly. In Duel Academy, it was almost common knowledge. We had a strange professor, an eccentric old woman, who taught us the supernatural elements of Dueling. How to trust our cards. How to listen to our Decks. New Duelists thought it was all a bunch of woo, of course. But those of us who listened, we got results. I learned of my Predaplants' hunger, their desire to destroy and consume and grow and bloom. And I learned a sense, for when I would draw the card I needed, for when they were responding to me. You have the same thing, though only instinctively. And Dennis was quite good at it. It was what made him adapt so well to your Dimension's Entertainment Dueling, what made him such a good spy."

"Because he trusted his cards?"

"Absolutely. He treated them like people, almost. I think he must've been very alone." Yuri shrugged. "But that's not my business. We got along well; he was a very important agent, after all, and I a very important Duelist. I wouldn't mind seeing him again, I suppose, though he's busy at work helping Xyz rebuild, and I don't know if I'd be welcome there."

"Why would you be any less welcome than he was?" Yuya shrugged. "They've suffered there, suffered an awful lot. But they need help. And the adults, at least, aren't going to blame a bunch of children for what happened. I mean, I'm sure some of them do, but--"

"Yuya, I wasn't like the others. I was a nightmare on the battlefield. I turned countless people into cards. Resistance leaders, sure, but civilians too. The ones doling out the soup. The ones searching for remnants of something to eat, something to wear, some way to get along in life. There are probably people who are actually dead because of me, because my job was to disrupt their supply chains. And if you don't have supplies, but you won't just lay down and be turned into a card, well..."

Yuya knew he had turned a ghastly white. "Yuri--"

"We all thought we were murderers, you know. None of us thought the carded people would turn back. So I'm not worse than the rest of them, if I'm honest." He shrugged. There was something almost vulnerable hiding behind his mask of disaffectedness. "We were willing to kill for Leo. To die for Leo. To pay any cost, if that was what it took. So don't think of us as victims, too."

"But you were victims, too. If a dog bites someone, you don't blame the dog, you blame the owner, right?"

"Are you calling me an animal?"

Yuya sighed. "Don't be an ass, Yuri. You know what I meant."

"Yeah. You meant that I couldn't make my own decisions. That I deserve forgiveness, but that I deserve it because I didn't really have control of myself. Yuya, you can make the argument that I was too young to understand. And I wouldn't do it all over again, if I could. But that's not because I'm older. It's because I fused with you. Not Yugo, not Yuto, you. Seeing your perspective has been like some kind of mind poison."

"So? It doesn't matter why. You did what you did, and what's done is done. They can't throw you in jail, not without throwing the rest of us in jail. They don't even know you're anyone but me. They've chosen not to punish the students of Duel Academy, only the teachers. And maybe that's right or maybe that's wrong, but in the end, that's the decision that Xyz and Fusion came to, together. So we respect it."

"The teachers didn't fight. They didn't see what their teaching meant. We're the ones who should be punished. We're the ones who saw people beg for their lives and ignored it, even laughed at them. We're the reason an entire dimension of people can't sleep right. Because of us, Yuto lost everything." He shrugged. Didn't raise his voice, didn't frown, didn't cry. He was completely matter-of-fact, even cavalier.

It was like he didn't care. But Yuya could tell he did. It wasn't anything in his posture or gesture, nothing about how he spoke or the words he chose. It was just a sense he got, looking at him, one he couldn't quite explore. Like their mental walls had a few bricks missing, and now light could peak through. "There's no going back, Yuri, only forward. It's your choice how you want to move forward, but..."

"Well, it's yours, too. You could tell me I'm not allowed out anymore. Or ban me from seeing your mother. Let me live my little life as Celina's pet yu." He laughed at his pun. "But you won't, will you?"

"No, I won't. I'm not going to say you're a good person and that's that, because I don't think you are." He sighed. "You've been destructive your whole life, and you don't know any other way to be. And spending a day talking to Celina and a few weeks hanging out in my head isn't going to change who you are fundamentally, as much as you seem to want me to think it could. You are who you are, Yuri, and I don't like it sometimes, but I accept it. The world is the way it is, too, and you don't really have the ability to change that, either. You just have to do your best with your little part, and not sweat anything else."

"So I should cross my eyes and accept a forgiveness I'm not deserved? My, Yuya, we're more alike than I thought."

"It's like Celina said. All four of us, we're the same person at the core. The same interests, desires, tendencies. Our personalities just got warped by our environments. Mine maybe a little less, because I had a pretty normal life. I'm not going to say perfect, because it wasn't, but I've gotten to enjoy a bit more normalcy than the rest of us. So I guess that makes me feel responsible."

"Responsible." Yuri looked at him, expression comically astonished. "You feel responsible. For me."

"I do. And I think the next thing that you should do is meet my mom. Get to know her. Get to learn what it's like to have someone you can depend on, someone who loves you even when you really don't deserve it. And maybe that won't change your mind. It's not like love makes us who we are, but it's nice to have someone you can depend on. And you've never had that before."

"And you're not scared I'll hurt her? I turned your dad into a card, you know. I thought I was killing him. I thought I murdered your father, and I laughed, and I felt good about it."

Yuya sighed. Yuri spoke to wound, but rising to his bait would only make the situation worse. He was talking this way because Yuya had him on the ropes. "You don't get it. It's not about me keeping them safe. My dad, he made his choices, and you made yours. It's not like you were right, but you were on two different sides of a war. And I avenged him in our Duel, anyways, for all I wanted to pretend it wasn't about vengeance. And look where that got us. Four little shards of a giant dragon."

"Not about keeping them safe. Are you suggesting that you could love someone, but not want to defend them? Isn't love pointless, then? A biological impulse to protect one's pack and bloodline?"

"The point of love isn't just protecting one another. It's..." He thought about it for a minute. "You know, I never thought about it. Some people love a lot, and some people don't, and either way's fine, right? And maybe love did come from that, really, that desire to have a future. But -- I don't think I'm going to have kids, Yuri. And if anyone's my pack, it's you, but we've hurt each other plenty. And I still love. I love my mom and dad. I love Zuzu, like a sister. I love you, like... like I don't know."

"Like an extremely sexy man on the cover of a romance novel?"

"Like you and Yuto and Yugo complete me." Hmm. "You're my other quarter, and I don't care if that sounds romantic. All three of you are, but I feel like you and I have something special. Maybe because we're so different. Maybe because we're similar in ways that are hard to understand. Maybe because we don't have girlfriends to confide in. Maybe any of it. Maybe all of it." He shrugged. "Meet my mother. Please. You don't have to stop thinking you're horrible, or decide to forgive yourself, or anything. All of that is your business, not mine. But I want you to meet her, when Yugo's done. I want you to know what it's like. It's not so you can understand you -- I want you to understand me."

"Perhaps," Yuri said.

As good as a yes in Yuya's book. With a grin, he pulled the man into a hug, one Yuri heartily protested to. "You won't regret it!"

Chapter Text

Yuri blinked. Blinked. Because he was in control of Yuya's body. He wouldn't need to blink as a spirit.

Then he blinked again, because in front of him was perhaps the strangest confection he'd ever seen.

It was a cake; that much, he could recognize. It was a sweet confection, and delicious, and very much not part of Leo's health diet. But it had been an occasional indulgence, permitted to top students. A little square, maybe two inches by two inches, with a thin layer of buttercream frosting on the top. It had never been the highlight of his day – a good Duel beat good food any day of the week – but it had been a delight, and rubbing it in the face of those who couldn't earn such a reward had been even sweeter.

This cake, however, did not have a thin layer of buttercream frosting. It was as globby as it was thick, and that was saying something. Projected on the landscape, he saw Yugo give two huge thumbs up. The idiot had probably tried to help and made it worse. He couldn't imagine that cake was a regular item for Commons, from what little he understood of the culture of the Synchro people. 

And that wasn't the worst of it. No, the decoration – if it could be called that – featured what he was fairly certain was supposed to be the four of them, Yuya, Yuto, Yugo, and himself, all holding hands with a tall blonde figure that cold only be Yoko. They were stick figures, of course, but the "artist" involved had done his best to distinguish them with their original haircuts. His own looked more like some sort of bright violet octopus than him. That had to be Yugo's work, because Yoko wouldn't have known. More evidence of his lack of talent in any matter except Dueling, then; at least Yuri was fashionable, and had a green thumb.

Also unrealistic were the beaming grins all five of them bore. Yuri had never smiled like that in his life, at least not when he wasn't dueling some knave into oblivion. Or, in those last few minutes of consciousness, thinking about fusing with Yuya. The thought had made his blood run hot, had burned in his mind. Why, he still didn't understand. Most people didn't crave oblivion. He certainly didn't. But he had understood, at some level, that that was what he was calling for, and yet he did it anyways. He didn't understand. And it wasn't as if he could ask anyone else their opinion; only the other three understood, and none of them had craved it like he had. He was alone.

But that was fine with him. There was something unique about him, something precious, and he wouldn't look away from it. He regarded the cake. "Did you bake this?"

"You sound so suspicious!" Yoko laughed. "Yes, I baked it. I promise it's not poison."

"I don't think you'd poison it. I was worried Yugo had done the baking. His decorating is abysmal, and the last thing I need is burnt food." He pasted on a grin. Though he felt no obligation to impress Yuya's mom, it would make his life easier if she liked him, and so he would do his best. Insulting Yugo, who she clearly liked, was probably not the right choice of topic. "But Yuya has spoken quite highly of your cooking, so I imagine it should be edible."

"Oh, you'll make me blush." Yoko smiled. "I'm not as much a baker as I am a cook, but I do my best. Hopefully it can live up to your high standards. Yuya's a nice boy, but he wolfs his meals down and barely tastes them! I know it's important for a growing boy to eat, and I'm glad he's still enthusiastic about my cooking, but he could stand to slow down and savor the moment a little more. He's going to choke someday."

"There's no need to worry. I'm starting to think Yuya may be so invincible that the world itself warps around his force of will." He laughed, though it wasn't a joke. There was something about Yuya which made you think that there must've been gods out there after all, and they must've been so taken with the boy's smile that they would warp reality itself to please him. "Not to impose, but would you cut me a slice?" He had no clue how much was normal to take around here, and the last thing he needed was to look like a glutton. The laws of Standard Dimension seemed strange and arcane to him.

"Of course." She took out a long, thin, wedge-shaped utensil that looked custom-made for cutting and serving cakes. His eyes nearly bugged out. Did the people of Standard really eat like that? Or were they so decadent that they had tools that were only used a handful of times each year? What a ludicrous thought, either way. It wasn't that Duel Academy hadn't had its excesses, of course. Things like the budget for uniforms. But they had been excesses that you never forgot about, excesses to be indulged in and shown off, excesses that served as a reminder, as a tool. This was excess for excess.

The slice she cut him was – well, there was no other way to put it. It was completely fucking gigantic. The cake itself was already three layers tall, and she'd cut nearly an eighth of it for him. Did Yuya eat like that? He had always been told you couldn't Duel on a stomach full of sweets, and though he hadn't really believed it, anyone would figure there was a grain of truth. Clearly not.

She handed it over to him, eyes searching. "If it's not enough, you can have a second slice! Yuya always complains that I cut the cake too small, but then if I cut the slices bigger, he eats too much and gets sick. There's no winning with that boy sometimes, I swear." Her expression was almost conspiratorial, like she and Yuri were in on this big secret that Yuya was a gluttonous idiot. Well, if it made her feel like they were bonding, he wouldn't complain. He had long learned that the world of adults – real adults, teachers and professors and the like, not seniors like Dennis who thought they were adults because they were about to graduate – were bizarre and capricious creatures. Yuri rather thought he was on the way to a similar maturity.

"It's plenty, thank you very much. I'm not used to such large slices. My previous guardian was very health-conscious." Polite, cold, vague, not dishonest but not honest either. A good, balanced approach. Nothing to upset Yuya too much. It wasn't as if he was fond of him – though he would admit he was as close as he'd ever been to being so – but he had a lot of power, a lot of control, in Yuri's life. Play with him, of course, let him know that Yuri wouldn't just be a dog, but at the same time, be a bit of a dog.

"Well, around here, we try to take care of ourselves, but we know to indulge when it's time to indulge. I mean, you've seen how active Yuya is. And a growing boy needs plenty of food to keep him energized, especially when he's in the Pro League." She shook her head, exasperated. "Now my little boy thinks that he's all grown up!"

"It's enough to make you wish it hadn't happened, huh?" Yuri said.

"A little. I'm glad he's chasing his dreams, of course, and I'm glad he's catching them. I just wish... I wish he had more time to be my little boy."

"I'm sorry." He wasn't. They'd all had to grow up fast, all but Yuya. This woman had spared him that fate. And now he was sitting in her kitchen, staring at her cake. Speaking any further seemed pointless – and he'd inevitably reveal to her his true colors, and endanger Yugo and Yuto's situation, which he didn't want to do, strange as it seemed – so he took a bite.

His hands shook. He nearly dropped the plate. The classic flavor of vanilla and strawberry filled his mouth, sweet and yet with a certain heady complexity he couldn't articulate. The texture was a light sponge, soft on the tongue, but with a slight bounce. The creamy frosting between the layers was thick and creamy, not too sugary. And he had taken just one bite of the hideously decorated and yet miraculously delicious dessert. He had an entire slice to go through.

"That bad, huh?"

"No, no, no. Yoko, this is the best thing I've ever eaten." He dropped all pretense of dishonesty. "I've never had such a rich-yet-delicate delight before. You must be the greatest baker of your dimension."

"Oh, there's no need to flatter me. I'm better than average, I know, but I'm not the best. Why, you should see Reed Pepper's baking show. The way that young man bakes a cake... it makes an old woman's heart flutter. Reminds me of Yusho when he was young."

"You're kidding."

"No, not at all." She looked at him oddly. "You're not trying to flatter me, are you? You've seriously never had a better cake."

"Yoko, I appreciate that you've been so kind to us, but I see no point in flattering you. I am, by and large, an honest young man." Sardonic, cruel, and petty, but he made no effort to hide that. Back at home, those hadn't been seen so badly. "How much has Yuya spoken about me?"

"Not much at all."

"Well, then, I suppose I'll give you the basic rundown. I'm from the Fusion Dimension; I grew up on cafeteria food. I've never gone hungry, but the quality was, well... there were a lot of mouths to feed, you know, and tuition only went so far. And we were meant to fight. Even on those rare occasions when we were offered a dessert, it was never decadent. Oh, don't look so horrified. Yugo went hungry as a child, you know; I never had to face that. There are really much worse things than how we were treated."

"Yugo – that poor boy went hungry?" Her face was stricken, pale. "I had thought something was strange about the way he looked at my sugar bin, but that's... Were all the other dimensions that cruel?"

"I imagine Heartland was fairly similar to Standard before it was invaded, but Yuto and I aren't on particularly good terms. We've only been at this body-sharing for a few weeks, you know."

"That's horrible." But her expression morphed – suddenly determined, suddenly proud. "We can move between Dimensions, right? I saw that on the television. I'll get together some of my friends. We'll have to start donating. Taking kids in. Doing what we can to enrich their lives. Even if it's just shipping out better food. Even if it's just hosting a free baking class. Even if it's just giving away some books."

"I won't tell you your help is pointless, or that no one appreciates it, but think about it, Yoko. The other dimensions have been hungry and starving since Leo split them. You can't fix them overnight."

"No, of course not. And I wouldn't presume to try. But what I can do is keep showing up. What I can do is my best. It's not about saving everybody, it's about helping anybody. Every single life is precious. Every single childhood is a joy that will never come back. I wasted mine getting in fights and riding motorcycles. But that was my choice. These kids, they don't even get that."

"Oh, you ride motorbikes? You should talk to Yugo. I think he's worked as a Duel Runner engineer for the past two or three years."

She seemed horrified. He was getting used to the expression. Odd to think that the lives they had all seen as normal enough were so ghastly to her. " Worked? For two or three years? He's not any older than Yuya, though, is he?"

"I suppose not. We all came into creation at the same date." What date was a bit of a mystery. Leo probably knew, which meant his wife (ex-wife?) might as well. But fuck if he was going to try to pursue that lead.

"Then – he's had a job since he was twelve or thirteen?"

"I'm told that's how it was. I know, it's absolutely ghastly to think of a preteen wrenching motorcycles. But that's just how it was."

She shook her head. "You poor boys."

"No." Yuri looked aside. "We're not poor, or pitiful. We're just reflections of how things are, how things were, for everyone. The cost paid to protect the world against Zarc, and later on, the cost paid to try to revive a single girl. The sooner you recognize that, the sooner you'll see us for who we are. For being barely human."

"It doesn't matter to me if you're barely human. It doesn't matter to me if you're evil. You're welcome here." Yoko looked right into his eyes, and he saw it then, her spine of iron. She was no pushover, no weakling. Not the type to flinch. Almost like one of his instructors, if his instructors had shared with him the best cake of his life, lovingly decorated with them holding hands, like some kind of real family. He couldn't wrap his head around it.

"I'm not sure I want to be welcome."

"Too bad. Look. Yusho and I always wanted kids. And we tried, and we tried, and they never came. And I'm not going to go and declare myself your mom or anything, any more than I call myself that poor boy Sora's mom. But I'm going to do my best to look out for you. Whether you want it or not, whether you appreciate it or not."

"Alright," Yuri said, and for the first time in his life, he felt cowed.

Chapter Text

"The world doesn't revolve around you, Yuya!"

"Well, I saved it, now didn't I, Yuto?"

"Only after you broke it!"

"After we broke it! Because of Leo!" Yuya glared. Yuto could be such a prick sometimes. "I know you think that you deserve more time at front. But you can't front while I'm studying with Smiley's tutors, and you can't front while I'm doing Pro League stuff, and you can't front while I'm teaching, and I need a little time to myself to relax after juggling that much work!"

"Yuya, if you have too many responsibilities, you need to tell someone! You can't fuck us over because you can't deal with the amount of work you signed up for."

"Yuto has a point," Yugo said. "You're doing too much!"

"Don't gang up on him." Yuri shook his head. "We've all had responsibilities in our lives, yes? These are Yuya's. You may not like it, but you have to respect it."

"I don't have to respect anything. Stealing a couple hours a week to talk with Lulu isn't enough. I want to live, Yuya. We would even be happy to help with your responsibilities. I spent years cramming at the Spade Academy – let me take over during your tutoring sessions sometimes."

"It'll be obvious you're not me, though!"

"So? What are they going to do about it? They're teachers, I don't think they're allowed to gossip about you. And even if they are, it doesn't matter. So you become a different person when you're studying. Lots of people do." Yuto shrugged. "Or let Yugo help your mom with her cooking. He likes that."

"They're my responsibilities! They're not yours!"

"So? We're all in the same boat now, Yuya. Keeping ourself fed and paid and educated is a collective responsibility. It doesn't just belong to us. It's not like we want to take over all your free time to play videogames, Yuya. We want to help you. I don't know why you can't understand that."

"I understand just fine, but they're not collective . These are the responsibilities I willingly took on, and they're my business. I mean, I guess I didn't really willingly take on the tutors, but I didn't have a choice. Beats high school." He sighed. "I know that you're not out to get me, Yuto, but it really feels like you're stepping on my toes."

"Stepping on your toes . Yuya, we're trapped inside your head, watching you fail at math problems for hours because you don't care and won't pay attention. Please don't make this about you."

"Why shouldn't he? I know, I know. Yuri, this isn't your business. Yuri, shut up . I don't care if it's my business and I won't shut up, so you can jot that down. Have some basic decency. Be glad for what Yuya's given you. You didn't even want him to tell his own mother, you know."

"And I was wrong. Are you going to hold it against me forever? We all know you have much bigger concerns for us to worry about."

"Enough!" Yuya shouted. He hoped his mother couldn't hear. "Do what you want, Yuto." And with that, he let himself disconnect, falling into that Duel Arena in his head.

A moment later, Yuri appeared, expression warped and sour. "That Yuto is so annoying."

"Tell me about it." Yuya rolled his eyes. "Keep the screen off, I don't want to know whatever Yugo and him are doing. I don't care at all. I don't understand how he could be so unreasonable. I've done so much to try to make you guys feel welcome. Mom has too. But it's never enough. Yuto wants it to be like it was before, and it's not going to be like that for any of us."

"I know. I think I'm glad for that."

"Really? You seemed happy before."

"I was. I like hurting people, and Duel Academy gave me plenty of chances. I enjoy destruction. I can't say it any other way, you know?" Yuri frowned. "I loved my job. I didn't love all of it. I didn't love when people begged. I didn't love thinking about consequences. But I did love hurting people."

"I think that's normal, for Duelists." Yuya cocked his head. "Not to your extent, maybe, but isn't that the fun of a Duel? Nobody wants to watch Mystic Mine or Border Stun. We want to see big, scary monsters ripping each other to shreds. Nobody cheers when I summon Block Spider. But when Odd-Eyes comes out, the crowd goes wild! They don't want to see silly cards, they want to see violent cards."

"A more brutal Duel, eh?" Yuri said. "That was what Zarc said. Do you think he was right, then?"

"About some things. Not everything. In the end, he prioritized entertaining the crowd over doing what was right, and that's how he lost his way. You don't do what the crowd wants. You do what you want the crowd to want, and if you do it with enough energy and excitement and strength, the world will warp around you and it'll work out. I think the problem you have is that you just accepted what was expected of you. You never though about who else you could be."

"I suppose I didn't. I've always been one to go with the flow, as strange as that might sound. Of course, the flow looks very different for me than it would for you." He shrugged. "But I've already told you, I'm not interested in making excuses, and I'm not interested in changing, either."

"Whether or not you're interested, you've already made changes. A lot of changes. It's – it's like night and day, seeing you now."

"How do you know I'm not just exploiting you? Taking advantage of your goodwill wrapping you around my fingers?" He grinned, showing perfect pearly teeth. Had Leo gotten him braces at some point? He choked back a laugh at the idea of the viciously cruel young man with a face full of metal. "You're awfully easy to play with, Yuya."

Yuya felt blood rush to his face. Fucking Yuri always knew how to get to him in exactly the way he didn't want him to. "If you were exploiting me, you wouldn't brag about the possibility. You'd fuck with me so deeply that I could never even consider it."

"I'm glad you think so highly of me. Yuri, the master puppeteer. Yuri, the genius manipulator." He laughed. Yuri laughed quite a lot, and Yuya always appreciated the sound, the way it merged what must've been Yuri's natural ugly laugh with the controlled, pompous mockery of a wealthy heir. He must've practiced it, to have it so perfect, so representative of who he was. Who practiced their laughing? "Yuya, I'm not joking around. I don't understand. You never would've trusted me before we became one. Why trust me now?"

"I knew you, Yuri. When we were all together, I knew all three of you, knew you like I know myself, even deeper than I know myself. You must've felt it too, right? The unity and oneness as we were submerged deeper and deeper into that endless void. It's not that I believe you wouldn't hurt anyone now, but I don't think you'd hurt me, not intentionally. Not after what we went through together. Me, Yugo, Yuto, you - we're all in everything together from now on. And we always will be, until the day this body kicks the dust. Maybe even longer than that. Maybe  we'll become stars in the night sky. That's what my dad told me the dead were."

"How ludicrous. The dead are dead, Yuya. There's no magic to bring them back."

"Magic brought Zuzu and Celina and Rin and Lulu back. Magic let Riley beat Zarc and save the world. It's a little less supernatural, but the magic of a child's smile is what eventually defeated Zarc. You can't deny that magic is real, that it influences the world. You told me you hear, you believe, that the cards are alive, that there's some spark of soul in them. I'm not saying we can bring the stars back to us, but that doesn't mean they're not in the sky, does it?"

"They're mostly hydrogen, Yuya. Honestly, even we learned that, and the Duel Academy education was not the most comprehensive."

He swatted at Yuri, innocent. "The star is a metaphor. Don't be obtuse."

"But, oh, Yuya, isn't it my obtuseness that you fell in love with?" He winked. "I suppose I just don't see what you see in me. And I don't quite understand where you got this idea that I'm guilty, that I can be redeemed. I'm just a man, Yuya."

"If you're just a man, I am too, and I've got a city full of people who could tell you that that's not the case. There's more to us than meets the eye, Yuri. And – I think I'm more like you than Yuto or Yugo."

"Really? More like me than fun-loving, joyful, entertaining Yugo?"

"Oh, you're way more of an Entertainment Duelist than Yugo's ever been. No offense to Yugo, but Entertainment Dueling only happens when the joy of the game comes before the result. He likes to have fun, sure, but you know he Duels to win above all else."

"Yugo does? And I don't?"

"Oh, come on. Don't act so surprised. We all know how you toyed with Alexis, the way you held back, like you didn't have Ultra Poly. You had all the tools to win, but you didn't. You drew it out."

"For my own sick pleasure, perhaps, but not for the benefit of the audience. Unless you count putting some fear into your pathetic lot."

"So? Fear and joy are practically the same thing. Why else would people watch horror movies?" Yuya laughed. "They've got movies in Fusion, right? Like, you know what they are? Man, I bet you missed out on a bunch of classics either way. We've got to get together for the Domino City Chainsaw Man sometime. Or maybe The Man With The Watches. That movie's so fucked up, man. You'd love it."

Yuri looked stunned. Well, Yuya's jumps in logic had a way of doing that to people. "Sorry, got distracted. But my point stands: when you Duel, it's with the audience in mind, with your own enjoyment in mind. Maybe you enjoy things you shouldn't, maybe you want to make people feel things a face wouldn't."

"A face?"

"You know, a good guy Duelist. In Entertainment Dueling, we can't all play the hero all the time. So you've got faces, like me, who play cute or heroic monsters and Duel for the cause of "good", and heels, who play scary or beastly monsters and Duel for the cause of "evil"." He made air quotes. "Obviously we're all on the side of the audience in the end. We don't have predetermined match results, but sometimes someone'll go easy on an opponent for the sake of building a good narrative. Smiley's really permissive about that, though. He says that Dad never needed a bullshit storyline to entertain the audience, and neither do I."

"You have Duelists who pretend to be evil? Who wants to see that?"

"Lots of people. I mean, you would make a pretty good heel. Smiley said he heard a couple agents actually tried to scout a couple Fusion Duelists, figured there'd be a market for the cackling Dimension Destroyers, you know, some kind of catharsis seeing them lose on the Show Duel circuit – that's like Entertainment Dueling, but the storylines are way more preplanned and sometimes they make people throw games, like that's written in their contracts, not just a pressure to keep ratings high. But none of them were up."

"Isn't that a disgusting pantomime?" Yuri laughed, near-hysterical. "Imagine that! The people of the Standard Dimension, so bloodthirsty over the costs of a war that barely affected them, that they want to see child soldiers feign death for their entertainment! How sick!"

"I agree. Smiley was disgusted, too, and he's not exactly the world's most ethical agent, even if he's not the worst, either. That's what I mean about brutality. They want to see people suffer. They want a world of punishment and brutality, where crimes like disappointing them or reminding them that others have it worse carry a heavy fee. I didn't understand that before. But now I can see Zarc's perspective, understand it. Empathize with it."

"You empathize with Zarc? "

"You do, too. You might not want to think it, might not want to say it, but we all do. We're part of him. That's why I forgive you, Yuri. It's not because I'm the bigger person. It's because I'm starting to realize that I'm really not."

"Hm." Yuri looked pensive. "Well, I suppose I can't stop you. Just don't expect me to be nice."

Chapter Text

Regrettably, there was a limit to how long Yuri and Yuya could chat before Yuya had to go about the unpleasant task of reconciling with Yuto once more. It wasn't that he thought he had been wrong in the first place, no, but... well, it would be awful rough only having an a few hours a week to be yourself. And Yuto was smart. Smart enough to help with his schooling. 

This wasn't a temporary arrangement. He needed to get that into his head. He'd be with them until they died. They needed to supplement each other's strengths. Needed to work as a team. Not because they wanted to, not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was the only thing to do. And Yuya wasn't the sort to run from a Duel, anyways. He needed to stop being such a coward and man up. 

The Duel Arena faded around him as he returned to the real world, to find Yuto lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, Yugo sitting in contemplation at his side. It wasn't weird to see Yuto brood, not at all, but Yugo joining him was weird.

"Hey, Yuto, Yugo."

"Hey, Yuya. Yugo, why don't you go check on Yuri?" 

That was a pretty dumb idea — Yugo and Yuri didn't get along well — but it beat having to try to explain himself to both of them at the same time, so Yuya didn't say anything. Hopefully they'd both be intact at the end of this conversation. Yugo nodded and disappeared, and then it was just the two of them. 

"So. Uh—"

"I'm sorry." Yuya said it as confidently as he could, like he knew what he was talking about. Like he really understood, even though he didn't. He just — he wanted to understand, wanted to know Yuto's feelings, wanted to know what to do with them. But that was hard. "I keep trying to dig in my heels instead of go with the flow. I'm just scared. I'm so, so scared, Yuto. I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore, and yet I have to share with you three, too. It's hard to explain what it feels like, but—"

"You don't have to. I get it. When I was in your body before, at first, I was barely conscious. But even then, there was this dawning horror that I could do nothing. So in those rare moments when I had some kind of control, I grabbed on as tight as I could. I doubled down. I treated your body like a thing for my advancement." He glanced over to the side, having a hard time meeting Yuya's eyes. "It's hard to think about. I'm glad that we told your mother, because I don't think I could bear to focus enough to send it as a message."

"It's difficult, isn't it? Trying to communicate like that. I'm glad that we've got this place, too. Somewhere where we can be us." Well, his Dad didn't know, not yet, but he was out and about all the time, anyways. A distance really had grown between them, hadn't it? They had been so close, closer than he and his Mom. His word had been everything. Then he had been gone, and it would take time for it to be like it used to be. Yuya didn't want it to take time. Yuya wanted his old dad back, his uncomplicated dad back. "But I don't want to derail. Yuto, I haven't been treating you right."

"No, you haven't. I haven't been treating you right, either." It was so weird seeing his own body refuse to make eye contact with him. Well, Yuto was like that. So quick to jump into physical conflict, but terrified of emotional ones. "I'm not afraid to admit that. It's just hard, Yuya. You talk about your fear of losing control, but imagine just not having control in the first place. There's no option to have it. There's no person you can Duel to give you what you need. You're just helpless, and you're going to be helpless until the day you die."

"You're not helpless, Yuto." 

"Really? Because I sure feel that way. What am I supposed to do, kick your spirit out of the body? I can only breathe when you want me to, Yuya. I can only talk to my best friend, can only kiss my girlfriend, can only hang out with Lulu, when all our stars align. That's so hard. I can't even articulate how bad it feels. And it makes me want to lash out. It makes me want to punish you. But this isn't your fault. So it's not fair. It's like, how do I even experience rage towards a giant dragon that I'm one-quarter of? What do I do with that?" 

"I don't know." Yuya wasn't angry at Zarc, couldn't be angry at him. It was like being angry at yourself — a fun game, maybe, at first, but nothing but a race to the bottom in the long term. There was no closure. So you forgave, and you moved on. He had learned that lesson young, when he had nearly driven himself to an early grave in his grief and rage, his belief that it was his fault his father had left. But Mom hadn't. He'd had her. That his other quarters had had no chance to know that comfort horrified him. 

"Of course you don't know. Nobody knows. It's a problem that's unique to us. Maybe even unique to me, because Yugo didn't get it, and you don't seem to either, and I can't imagine Yuri would." Yuto sighed. He just looked... defeated. Like he had finally found an enemy his Phantom Knights couldn't touch. Well, he had. No like about that. 

"I know. I know what it's like to have problems no one understands. There's no one I can talk to about us, you know. I did some research, after you told me there were people like us in Xyz. I thought that maybe they would get it. But... even though so much of it is the same, we all have the scar of Zarc on us. I don't think that it's the same thing. It's not, maybe, a different thing, but we all have this festering wound in us. This piece of who we are that we're so alike. They're all whole in a way that we aren't. We each got fifteen years to be separate, real people — but we're still not. We're just fragments."

"No." Yuto shook his head. "No, that's the problem. We're more than just fragments, Yuya. It feels like it, sometimes, but there's so much to each of us. Did you know Yuri hated the macaroni Mr. Boyle cooked for him? He acted nice for your sake, but he said it tasted like the cap fell off the salt shaker into a puddle of grease. You'd never say something like that. It's not that we're not all the same, but we're all different, too. You don't know my problems, and I don't know yours. And it's so, so hard to live like that, with four sets of problems and only twenty-four hours to handle them all, but we have to accept that. We have to do that. We can't all crunch into one person." 

"How can we not? You said it, we get the same days as anyone. And you can't exactly go out there and be yourself, even if we all wish you could. There's no place in the world for us anymore, it feels like. Like we belong somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't exist." 

"So you feel it too." Yuto sighed. "Yugo told me the same. And at first I thought it was just longing for the simple days of childhood. Which, I mean — I won't lie, I do miss it. I might not've had parents, but Heartland was a great place to be a kid. Before everything, it was the most joyous place on the globe. Like living in a theme park. Literally. We had mascots — well, I guess the trash bots were more than that, but they were mascots to us kids — and a Ferris wheel and all these other delights. And we didn't have to pay to live there! Because we were kids, yeah, but it just felt so simple, so free. It wasn't complicated. It wasn't hard. We lived there, and called it home."

"Your point being?"

"That it's more than that. It's more than wanting to return to my childhood. It's... I think we all remember something of the original Dimension, Yuya. Not consciously, but it's somewhere in our subconscious. Bits and pieces of Zarc. And we can't help but want to return to it. But that's not really what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I know. But we're just going to go in circles apologizing and arguing if we talk about the bodysharing agreement forever. So I guess I wanted to make a proposition: I can't give you all of my free time, but I can give you some of it. If you're willing to share in the responsibilities. Our responsibilities, not mine."

Yuto quirked an eyebrow. "Not that I'm complaining, but why the sudden change of heart?"

"I'm not sure. I talked about it with Yuri, and he took my side, but something about seeing him..." Yuya glanced around. Well, if Yuri was listening, he couldn't stop him. "Something about him makes me think about how lucky I've had it. You and Yugo too, but I guess he shows it more, even though he's trying harder to hide it. Like Yugo, he's so happy that you can forget he grew up not knowing where food would come from, that he's been working jobs since he wasn't even quite a teen. And you seem like you were probably pretty normal before, well, Fusion."

"I was. We all were. We had no clue what we were getting into. And then I couldn't run away, then I had to fight. There were people who did, people who left Heartland. The world outside is rough, but it's not, like, post-apocalyptic. If you were willing to rough it, you could carve something out. But I wouldn't. I couldn't. I had to fight back. I had to let them know that the people of Xyz would not simply roll over and become fuel for their war machine."

"I didn't realize. I thought—" 

"That there was nothing outside of Heartland? We have high walls, but we can leave. There's just nothing for us out there. Of course, when they attacked, most of us were trapped, and they locked down the main gates. But there were tunnels, places they didn't know about. It was dangerous, but my choice was worse. I just had to make it. I couldn't accept anything else. It was my duty." 

Yuya was pretty sure he understood duty. It was what he had felt when Zuzu was taken, what he had felt during his first Duel with Declan, what being a Lancer had meant to him. But when he looked in Yuto's eyes, it seemed a thousand times bigger than he could ever comprehend. 

There was a gap between them, and every attempt to bridge it felt like it fell through in the end. But they would have to. They just didn't have another option. Hopefully — and it was a faint hope — giving Yuto some control over Yuya's responsibilities would help. 

But Yuya wasn't holding his breath. 

Chapter Text

Being Yuya was easier said than done.

Well, Yuto mused, most things were easier said than done. But this was much, much harder than he'd thought. He had plenty of experience remaining stoic in the face of battle, never letting himself show weakness. But there was a difference between forcing a sharp smirk and wearing a grin passionate enough to seem legitimate. It felt like someone had poured plastic on his face. He took a deep breath, hoping that it would be mistaken for... something other than what it was.

He had faced down the threat of death. He had gone hungry for his comrades. He had turned men into cards, shown no mercy to his Fusion foes. He could overcome listening to Yuya's math tutor drone.

Even if the man was completely incompetent.

The thing was, Yuto liked math. He suspected that Yuya would, too, if he'd received a good education in it. After all, Dueling was a game of numbers, in the end. The chance you'd draw the card you needed. The chance your opponent could counter it. The Life Points ticking up and down, bringing each player nearer and nearer to the close of their fate. A Duelist who had no head for numbers was a Duelist who missed fatal and lost with their opponent at 50 Life Points. Embarrassing. And potentially deadly.

But this man seemed to care for none of the beauty of numbers, none of the fascination of their organization and properties. It was nothing but rote memorization, on and onwards. None of those delightful little tricks to make your mind run through problems more quickly, no deeper proofs or explorations of the way things came together. No math for Duelists, no explorations of probability and game theory and higher-order logic. Just: learn the quadratic formula. Apply the quadratic formula. For hours.

Yuto understood the goddamn quadratic formula.

And maybe he was unusually bright for a fifteen-year-old. But there had to be a better way. Did Yuya seriously struggle with this? He wasn't like Yugo, who had received maybe four or five years of public school tops, or Yuri, whose hyper-specialized Dueling education left him little room for the concerns of rabble-rousers. He had, allegedly, gone to a normal high school and gotten a normal education on normal topics. But "math with letters" was still a challenge for him.

They really were different people.

Yuto resisted the urge to browse Yuya's cell phone while the man looked over his answers. Yuya's mom had mentioned that it would be nice for each of them to have their own phones, even though they shared a body, so that they could have some privacy. But it had seemed silly at the time, like a waste of money. They couldn't all use them at the same time, after all, and privacy seemed like an awfully foreign concept in their unique living situation. But now he was regretting it.

It would be really nice to text Zuzu. Who was so smart, and so kind, and so pretty, but he would love her even if she was a brain in a jar. Because she could look past his shell and see him for who he was. A fun-loving boy, a silly boy, a boy who wanted to tell jokes and entertain the people around him. A boy who had learned that he couldn't be that boy anymore. A man , at fifteen; no time to be a boy anymore, not on the battlefield. It would be nice to know what she thought of Maimai City's public education program. Was she still in high school? She had finally told Mr. Boyle what she was, and he had responded like she had known he would: joyously. But he didn't want Yuya to be able to go through his messages, read them anytime. Even though he knew all of it. Even though he could well be watching right now, in that strange space they shared.

Was it easier for them? Yuya's mother was kind, but strange. Yugo had taken to her like a fish to water, but he didn't know how to navigate her. Yugo had once told him that he dreamed of someone like her coming and saying that she was his real mom, that he was a lost Tops kid but that she wanted him so, so badly, that she looked everyone for him. And she would take Rin with too, of course, because she would love the green-haired girl as much as Yugo did, because that was a given. And he had known it was a silly fantasy, but it had burned in him, kept him going.

Yuto had never fantasized about who his blood mother was. He had had some kind of instinctive knowledge that he didn't really have one, and besides, he had liked Heartland, and the wonder of it all. Even when he'd gotten older, well, the Spade Branch had been hyper-academic, had worked them hard, but there had been time to sit at the pier on a Sunday afternoon eating cotton candy and talking to Shay. It was moments like that that had made them a family, and now Shay knew but there was a distance between them, one that he couldn't--

"Excellent job, Yuya." The teacher sounded legitimately surprised. What kind of teacher was legitimately surprised he could get a student to succeed in one-on-one teaching? The quality of Standard Dimension's education was truly mind-boggling. "You've done a great job. You've been acting a bit strange lately, so I've been worried, but I'm glad you're applying yourself."

Strange? He must've meant the Yugo incident. Well, that had been strange, but that was Yuya's own fault for falling asleep during class. Whoever woke up at front was always a bit of a crapshoot. How did you make teaching so boring that your only student fell asleep listening to you, anyways?

"I've been studying at home. I guess it's made me more tired than usual." He faked a yawn. "I've got a lot on my plate, but I know this math is important to my future."

It was the objectively right answer. Regrettably, it was something Yuya would never say. The tutor arched an eyebrow. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head?"

"Hey, no need to be rude. You're a teacher, not my friend." Would Yuya say something that aggressive? Frankly, Yuto didn't particularly care. As far as he was concerned, Smiley could find them someone else. Maybe someone who could engage Yuya -- maybe even Yugo, who had an amazing head for numbers, enough to learn complex engineering on his own, even if traditional mathematics problems, devoid of all context, made his head spin. Hell, Duel math could probably even get Yuri involved. At least he would understand what was going on. Trying to explain algebra to him had been a hellish experience, made worse by the fact that, well. Yuri sucked.

It wasn't an insult. It was just an objective truth: There was nothing pleasant at all about being around the snarky purple-haired little asshole. Well, now they all had green hair, but the point was made.

He'd been so lost in thought he'd missed whatever the math tutor had to say, which was nothing new. The man looked irritated. Oh well. Yuto understood the material, had learned it years ago in the Spade Academy's gifted students program, back when he'd thought that someday he might be a Duel Mathematician. Maybe he still could be. If not an official one, at least one who studied on his own, who understood the material.

The future was a hard subject. Yuya wouldn't give up his place in the Duel League, not for anything, and Yuto wouldn't begrudge him that, at least not much. Maybe a little. Maybe it wasn't fair that Yuya got his dream, while the rest of them got to figure out how they could paste theirs into it. Maybe everything sucked, actually, and he was allowed to be mad about it, allowed to be furious about it, allowed to burn with a barely-contained splendor that threatened to grow out of control and--

Well, he was still a child, at least at some level. He was allowed to have his fantasies.

"Are you paying any attention to me?"

"You already told me I got the problems right. I understand the quadratic formula. I did my research." Yuto shrugged. "So I have an attitude. I'm the youngest Duelist ever admitted into the Pro League. I can make a crowd cheer with joy or tremble with rage or cry with sorrow. And you want me to listen to you drone about respect because you're mad I'm... good at math? I just don't get it. You're getting paid good money to be here. It's not like I'm a charity case." Not anymore, anyways.

The man looked about ready to explode. Just then, though, the timer rang. The session was over.

"Read chapter 10 and do problems 1-64. Even answers are in the back of the book, but I expect you to show your work."

"Of course," he said, even though it was only usually twenty problems each math session. There was nothing difficult about any of the material in the textbook. He would do his best to explain it to Yuya, and then--

"Well, that was a shitshow."

He looked over to see the man of the hour himself, green hair and all, projected into the empty room. " You know, I could've used your advice ."

"I figured you had it handled. And you were pretty adamant about taking on my responsibilities."

" The math part, that's easy. I could teach a thousand times better than this idiot. It's pretending to be you that's a challenge ."

"Yeah." Yuya looked -- contrite, actually. Well, that was a relief. "I think, maybe, that hiding what we are isn't going to work if you guys want to have a place outside my house."

Irritation made his hands tremble and his ears ring. Was that how Yuya experienced it? It had felt different, in his own body. Strange. " You told me I could take on some of your responsibilities. I didn't expect you to go back on it so quickly ."

"No, that's not how I meant it!" Yuya crossed his arms in front of himself, waving them up in down in an almost comical gesture. "I mean that, well, Mom took it well. And Dad took it well, when he found out. And Mr. Boyle took it well, didn't he? So maybe other people will take it well, too. Maybe we could expand it. Make it our thing . There have been weirder Duelists, right? Like there was that Duelist who pretended he was raised by wolves. Even though I'm pretty sure he was just from Southeast Maimai. At worst, people will think it's part of our keyfabe, right? Like, that's a defense."

His stomach sunk. " I don't think that's a good idea, Yuya. "

"What other choice do we have? We can't hide forever. You saw our math teacher, he thought we'd gone mad. He's going to complain to Smiley. Look, I'm not a PR expert. I don't know how to spin it. But maybe we should talk to someone who is. You know, suss out how people will really feel. How we can make this work, if not to our advantage, then not too intensely to our disadvantage."

" You mean Smiley ?"

"No. I know you don't trust him, and I don't, either. He's a good man, but his profits come first, and we both know that. No, I think we should talk to Declan."

" Go for it ," Yuto said, and he suppressed a smile. Declan would talk him out of it.

Chapter Text

"You wanted to see me?"

Declan was the same as ever — stern, sharply-dressed. But Yuya could detect the slightest hint of a smile on his face. The two of them had become something approaching friends over the past months, insofar as Declan was even capable of friendship. Yuya had grown up with an absent father too, but at least he'd had a hero to look up to in his absence. Mustering a fighting force against your own dad sounded like something out of his nightmares. It had made Declan tough and twisted, sometimes seeming barely human.

But he still liked Declan. Because Declan wanted to make people happy, too. In that way, they were the same, and they could relate to each other, understand each other's motives. He was just concerned with bigger things, scarier things. Yuya worked a crowd. Declan worked politicians, fighters, futures.

"I've been keeping a secret, the past few months. I wanted to discuss it with you." Yuya took a deep breath, willing his heart to calm itself. Declan wasn't the type to reject someone for being different, had so long loved his sibling despite their near-catatonia. Even if he thought Yuya was crazy, he wouldn't think being crazy was bad. "Do you remember the others? Yuto, Yuri, Yugo?"

"Yes. I was curious what had happened to them. By all accounts, either none of you should've come back or all of you should've. But we've been left with just you. It's very curious." He quirked an eyebrow. "Do you know something about what happened to them?"

"They didn't die. They're part of me now. Not like — not as a metaphor. I mean I literally hear them. And see them. Right now, I can see Yugo standing behind you, making a silly expression."

"And you're certain it's not a result of some kind of guilt?"

"You mean I'm sure I'm not crazy?" Yuya shrugged. "How can anyone know if they're crazy? I don't think I am, though. They can control my body when I don't, and I have no clue what they've done. I don't think my own brain could so perfectly emulate any of them, or how annoying they are. But even if I am crazy, well, it's still not changing, is it? I'm stuck this way from now on. We're all stuck this way from now on."

"Not necessarily crazy, but psychologically unusual. Although if what you're saying is true, well, it would answer a lot of questions about how the temporary Dimensional Fusion began to affect the world and the impacts of your time as Zarc." He raised an eyebrow. "But you're correct: ultimately, although the difference is of great academic interest to me, it doesn't mean anything about how you'll have to navigate the world from now on. I appreciate your honesty, but I do have a question, Yuya: why me? We may have made fine allies on the battlefield, but I will admit I don't think of us as friends in the traditional sense of the word."

"I trust your opinion. Regardless of how bad it hurt, you've been honest with me, and you ’ve been right. About a lot of things, really, things I didn't want to admit to myself. You forced me to confront the fact that I'm not my dad, that I wasn't that good of a Duelist." It had burned , finding out, worse than being three years old and sticking his hand on a hot burner to see what would happen. Worse than anything he'd experienced, save the loss of his father. But he had learned from it. "You taught me how to take my talent and turn it into skill."

"Don't give me too much credit. You're a fantastic Duelist, Yuya, and you understand how to work a crowd in ways that are far beyond me. The technical aspects I can master, but I'm not the sort who can make a child laugh. The theory of the human mind fascinates me, but I find myself woefully disconnected from my peers." The corner of his mouth tugged ever-so-slightly down. "The broad strokes I know, but the particulars are beyond me."

"It's hard, isn't it? Losing Riley." And Ray.

He lost control of his expression for just a moment, a grimace that was gone as soon as it had come. "It's not like she's gone. But... yes. Her transformation is difficult on me. My mother is not an especially supportive woman, and Leo is even less help. Mother is doing her best with who she is, but, well, a cheetah can't change its spots. I've been helping as much as possible, but we can't possibly support her as well as she deserves, hero that she is. But you didn't come to talk about my problems; you came to discuss yours."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up a touchy subject. But — may I make a suggestion?"

“Of course.”

“Maybe — if you did something in her name? Or in her… past name? Some kind of foundation for your lost sister. Sisters.”

“A foundation. Hmm.” He thought for a moment. “The Ray Foundation. With all the children hurt by this war, what could be better than to help them? I’ll think about it, I suppose. But here, let me trade advice for advice. Has everything been alright?”

"People are starting to notice that I let them control our body. I mean, they don't suspect the truth, but they know something's wrong. I can't keep this hidden forever — I can't keep them hidden forever. It's not fair."

"A challenging conundrum. You're a good man, Yuya." The piercing, searching look Declan gave him was almost enough to distract him from the irony of one teen calling another a man. But they weren't entirely boys anymore, either. Yuya knew it well: was he, in the end, the man he was on the battlefield or the man he was off of it? Maybe that was melodramatic, treating Duels like war, but they had had the consequences of one. The people of Synchro had known it well, sent to work their bodies into corpselike husks — or worse, corpses. But they had done it, not as children clinging to dreams but as adults clinging to the only hope they had left.

"Thank you. You are too, you know." He had nothing else to say.

"You've always had so much faith. You say all three returned — that includes the young man from Fusion, does it not?"

Yuya stiffened. "You can't expect me to lock him up inside. Just because—"

"I don't expect you to do any such thing. But if you mean to go public with what you are, you'll need to consider your brand image. Smiley would probably be more of an aid at that than I am. You'll want to be open and honest with him, but if he reacts poorly, know that you can always find another manager. You're far more valuable to him than he is to you. I would be happy to put you in contact with the managers some of our finest alumni have gone on to work with."

"He'll be fine, I think, but thanks for the offer." Smiley had, after all, seen his potential when even Yuya could barely see it. Had pushed him to win when he was sure he would lose. The man could be a bit slimy, but he was no charlatan, and definitely not a betrayer. "Do you really think people will be mad I'm sharing with Yuri?"

"How much do you know about our efforts to handle the situation with the Fusion Dimension?"

"Nothing. I heard that Leo was still alive, but I assumed that he'd been taken into custody?"

"He's on trial in the Xyz Dimension. It's hard to say what the result will be; there are people out there thirsting for his blood, people still missing, people dead. We will see what that means for his punishment. He's fortunate it was the people of Xyz Dimension and not the people of Synchro who managed to take him in; I'm told that New Domino City still practices barbaric punishments. Even executions." His expression remained impassive. "Heartland's penal system is more rehabilitation-oriented, although how one can rehabilitate a man such as him, I'll admit I don't quite know. But if that mind of his can be put to good use, perhaps we can make some kind of progress on the various issues surrounding dimensional technologies, at least."

"I'm sorry," Yuya said, because what else could he say?

"Don't be. He made his choices; he'll serve his time for them. There's nothing to be sorry for. Actions lead to consequences. But that's off-topic. Regrettably, the dimensional re-separation didn't save the children of Fusion. They know who they are. Who they became. And everyone else does, too. The other dimensions want them to suffer for what they did. And some of them do, too."

"Why would they want to punish themselves? It's not like they — I mean — they did the wrong things, right, but so did I! But everyone treats me nice! No one blames me for Zarc!"

"Yuya, people absolutely blame you for Zarc's actions. They're just afraid to do anything about it. And they watch you, scared of what you might do, and you change their minds. But no one's out there changing the minds of people about the Fusion kids. They're not charismatic and funny, just scared. And no one's scared of them. They're not a full quarter of a dragon the size of a skyscraper who could and would tear them to shreds."

"That's ridiculous. If people did blame me, why would watching me Duel change their minds?"

"Because we live in a world of entertainment. How many people even know Furio Sawatari's name?"

Yuya thought for a moment. "Sawatari ...Sylvio's dad?"

"The Ward 8 councilman. He has a great deal of political power; that's why we accepted Sylvio as a student." He said it cavalierly, as if it wasn ’t a scandalous matter. "Very few people in Maimai City participate in elections. It might be argued that this is because our candidates tend to be competent, and the people have no reason to be concerned about them — the roads are well-paved, for instance. But everyone watches Entertainment Duelists. Your father is far more influential in the public consciousness than our current mayor."

"But I'm a Pro League Duelist too."

"You are. That's why it matters so much how you handle this. People will judge Yuri, and they will judge you for harboring him, even though you have no control over it. Many of them will know how much pain he caused firsthand. But you can change the cultural perception around him — around the children of Fusion in general. Because, if you win, and you stay fun to watch, and you're not perceived as preachy or annoying, people will fall in line with what you say."

"But it's not just about what I say. It's about what they say, too."

"For now, at least, everyone will assume you have some degree of control over them. You will all be held accountable for each other. It may not be fair, but it's the way it is." Declan frowned, slightly. He was often impassive, but Yuya could tell it was a mask for a deeper hurt. "Make no mistake, this will be the moment that will make or break your career. The Leo Corporation will put out a public statement supporting you, but you'll need to play the public opinion to your advantage."

"How do you suggest I do that?"

"Hold a press release. Be very intentional. Draft your language; stack the crowd with supportive figures. A strong positive splash will help. And if you face opposition from your fellow Duelists, settle it in the ring. Not through a harsh duel, but a fun one. Let the people think the opposition is keyfabe."

"Do you really think I can manage it?"

"You have to. It's your only option." Declan sighed. "Well, that, or hide it forever. But you're too fair of a man to do that."

He was, and that was the part that stung so bad.

Chapter Text

"So you're four people?" Smiley kept his namesake smack-dab on his face. "As a gimmick, I'm not sure how well that'll work. Usually more extreme stories like that are a way washed-up Duelists try to get one or two more years of relevancy, not something for someone who hasn't even hit his prime yet."

"It's not a gimmick." Yuya kind of wished it was. "This is who I am. I had a counterpart in each Dimension — other parts of Zarc. When he was split up, the other parts of him stayed with me. They're named Yuto, Yuri, and Yugo.  We've been doing our best, but we literally can't hide it."

"That would explain why your math tutor said you suddenly became a bad-tempered numbers whiz. I assumed that you were just cheating, but I should've had more faith in your integrity!" He laughed, just a little bit hollow. Smiley's laughs were always a little hollow. Yuya often found himself wondering what the man was like when he wasn't around his talent. "You'd never cheat in a Duel, after all, and thank God for that. Cheating scandals have ruined many a career."

"No, and none of them would, either. Nor are they planning to take over for my Duels — it'll still be me laying down the cards and making the strategies, so you don't need to worry about that. Like I said, it's not a gimmick."

"Then why tell people, if it doesn't matter on the Dueling field?"

"Smiley, you're a smart promoter. A really smart promoter, best in the business."

"No need to flatter me."

"I'm not. I'm just being realistic — if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have a career. You have the connections that matter and the knowledge to use them. So you should understand that people care about me off the Duel field, too. People ask me for my autograph when I run to the corner store for my mom. And it's hard for the others, because they have to pretend to be me, but they don't really know how to do that. They grew up in the other Dimensions — they're not used to how we run things here in Maimai in general."

Smiley nodded. "That's true, but I don't know how much having three other people will help you with that."

"It's not about helping with that. I already have three other people, Smiley. It's about hoping people will be a little more understanding if I misspell my own name on an autograph. Again." That had been a really stupid controversy.

Smiley nodded. "Good point. Well, I can't say that it'll help your career, but I've seen weirder. Something about Entertainment Dueling doesn't exactly attract normal people. Turns out that a brutally hard, unreliable career that puts you in regular danger and rarely lasts more than ten years doesn't appeal to most."

"Hey! I like to think I'm pretty normal."

"Yuya, the fact that you apparently share your body with three other people is pretty normal by your standards. You're a delightfully strange figure, and I think that's half your appeal. People like that you zig when everyone else zags. It makes you fun to watch. You never know what approach you'll take, how you'll play it. We'll have to think about how to approach this, but I think we can make it work. You said that you've got one from each Dimension, right?"

"Yup. Yuri from Fusion, Yugo from Synchro, and Yuto from Xyz. I can have them come out to meet you, if you want. They're all Duelists, though not of the Entertainment variety." Yuri had potential, but there was no point in telling Smiley that. They wouldn't have both been able to be in the Pro League — not with one body between them. And Yuri probably wouldn't want to anyways.

"No need. We'll make introductions later. We'll finish your press release later — you work with a Duel School, don't you?"

"Yeah. My father's school, You Show. It belongs to Mr. Skip Boyle now. He's a great guy, really helped build the legacy. Lots of energy. Never made it into the major leagues, but pretty successful in the minor leagues before he retired."

"You'll want to coordinate with them. You don't have a ton of sponsors you have to worry about pissing off yet." His contract with the Pro League wouldn't allow it until he turned eighteen. "But keeping a good relationship with the school you work with is just as important. Duel Schools are your future — you won't Duel forever, although if you're anything like your father, you'll be a legend longer than you have any right to be. And You Show has a long way to go. Being able to take advantage of your popularity is about all they have."

"Don't talk about my father's school that way," Yuya said. Even though it was true. You Show had had its glory days, but they were far behind it. That it had survived so long on only a handful of students was admirable, but now it had to fight its way back up to the top.

And he could be making that harder, by the virtue of his sharing with Yuri, Yuto, and Yugo. He could be making things tougher for Zuzu, for Mr. Boyle, for the kids, without even trying to, without even really wanting to. It wasn't fair.

But it was what it was.

"My apologies," Smiley said, though his lack of contrition and bright smile said that it was only out of a sense of obligation. "I didn't mean to offend. You'll want to coordinate plans to release information with them, so that they can clear up any rumors that come your way. It may be that some students feel like they're being ripped off because of the chance of working with someone who isn't a Pro Duelist — that is, your other selves."

"Do you honestly think people will care? I assumed everyone would just think I was crazy and kind of... move on."

"You would be surprised. The people have become desensitized to strange things. One boy having three people in his head is hardly as unusual as a Dimension's worth of children recovering from lives of brutal violence." He shrugged. "Maimai City is changing, Yuya, and rapidly. If you go out there, if you're honest about this, you'll be part of that change, whether you like it or not. If you can't handle that, you can hide the truth, and I'll run interference to help you keep your secret. But if you do that, that's a commitment too."

"I wish I could just tell everyone and not have it matter. Like maybe a few people would gossip, but most people would be like yup, that checks out. Like if I told everyone I'm dating Zuzu. I'm not dating Zuzu, by the way, but Yuto is."

"Delightful, a conflict of interest with your primary Dueling School partner. That's exactly what this situation needed." Smiley sighed. "Well, there's no helping that. Lots of Duelists date people from their partnered Duel Schools. It's almost hard not to, when that's the people you spend your life around. Nobody's going to judge you for that, although some might assume that means you're dating her too. I doubt that the population has a nuanced view of people with multiple minds."

"And you do?"

"More than you might think. There's a promising young up-and-comer in the Youth League who told me the same thing. I was curious, so I did my research. Of course, there was nothing supernatural — or at least a lot less verifiably supernatural — about her case, but it's much the same, isn't it?"

"I'm surprised you cared enough to research."

"I care about all of the talent I take in. I know I might not show it, but my future is tied to every single one of you, and I have no interest in throwing away that future because I misunderstood a situation. And beyond that, well, what else am I supposed to do but care? What else am I supposed to do but know? I have a lot of students to worry about, a lot of kids with careers to manage. The better I understand them, the better it is for all of us."

"I suppose," Yuya said. He wasn't convinced. Smiley was a great manager, and he was glad to have him, but he had never shown much interest in Yuya's personal life before, except as it pertained to improving his career and getting more money. That was just his nature, not necessarily even a bad thing (or at least not a completely evil one.) "This up-and-comer — do you think she has much of a chance to break into the Pro League?"

"She's got the skills, but she's got no role model, and it'll be hard for her to break in as anything but a gimmick Duelist if there's no one else like her." His tone was matter-of-fact, not an inch of pity or compassion in it. "Her potential is astounding. One of the better Youth Duelists I've met, honestly; she makes her Qli deck fun to watch, and you know that's a rarity with such powerful, combo-oriented cards."

"That's impressive." She didn't have a role model, huh? He could be a role model. They could all be a role model. If there were other people like him, then this was bigger than he was — and as long as he could please a crowd (not a difficult task, not for him) he could make a change. Like he'd made a change in Synchro. People liked to have fun, liked to feel united. Didn't want to hate one another, just didn't know how not to. He could help.

Or he could crash and burn and ruin his whole career for the sake of the three boys who lived in his head. It could go either way. But he had to have confidence, had to have faith in himself. He would make it go his way, like he made Pendulum cards, ensured they would go his way. You couldn't keep the Duel Pendulum from swinging away, but you could make sure it came back to you. The ball would be in their court for a while, but he would get it back.

"It is impressive. Regardless, she Duels as she Duels and you Duel as you Duel. If you mean to be a top performer, you'll need to think about how you want to bring this across. And one other thing, too."

"What would that be?"

"The Fusion Duelist. I think you said his name was Yuri. Fusion... doesn't have a very good reputation right now. It's not entirely their fault, mind; they were children. But regardless of why, sharing your body with a warrior from the Fusion Dimension will not improve your reputation. Especially if he was part of Obelisk Force."

"He was — a leader, in the Fusion army. A person of importance."

"Well, that just makes matters worse. You'll have to consider if you want to immediately be open about him, or if you'd like to lead with the other two and be open about him once public opinion is a little more... favorable."

" Yuri, what do you think ?"

The projection of Yuri shrugged. " It doesn't bother me. It's not like I have friends I'd like to see, or family to return to. Depressing as it is to say, Yuya, you are the person I'm the most fond of, so I don't care much about seeing the rest of the world. And I'm a much better liar than Yugo, so it's not like pretending to be you weighs on me. If anything, I find it rather entertaining to get in touch with my idiotic side ."

He ignored the snide remark. Yuri was okay with it. So it had to be okay, right? Yuri would lie, but not when it went against his own best interest. He wasn't the type to prioritize others. But... "I can't do it, Smiley. I can't expect him to hide himself away. He's a part of us too, and he's every bit as important as the others."

Yuri looked stunned. Smiley looked stunned. Even Yugo and Yuto looked stunned. Did no one think Yuya had a basic conscience?

"Well. That will make things a little more complicated. But if anyone can pull it off, it's you, Yuya." Smiley smiled. "And don't think of that as flattery. It's just being realistic: there's something special about Yuya Sakaki."

Chapter Text

Press conferences weren't Yuya's favorite part of being an entertainment duelist -- more the opposite, really. Nobody liked them. Nobody really wanted to be at them. It was just circling vulture reporters, people who made Smiley look sensible.

Well, and Smiley's plants. He always had a handful in the audience. Not enough to be suspicious, and smart and savvy, but it was a relief.

Not as big of a relief as walking out those doors -- only to come face to face with one Sora sitting back in the waiting area.

He probably should have told him before the press conference, huh?

"You guys sure are idiots," he said, tossing and catching a candybar absentmindedly as he spoke.

Yuri pushed towards front, and Yuya let him take it, hovering protectively beside him. "They are. I'm not."

He didn't need to introduce himself. Sora was too smart for that, and they both knew it. "Then why let them? It's tough for guys like us out here, you know."

"Yuya wouldn't have it any other way. I tried, you know. I may be a sociopath, but I'm stuck with these fools until the day we die. Knowing my luck, we'll all go to Hell in the same body, too."

"Huh. Well, he always has been a softie. C'mon, let's blow this popsicle stand before anyone thinks to assault you with a microphone."

"And how do you propose we do that? I'm sure there are already reporters at every doorway."

"Through the window, idiot. Don't you remember anything?"

It was about a fifteen foot drop from the skylight, pattycakes for duelist-soldiers like them - just climb down a few windowsills and jump the last eight or so. Sora led him by the hand, ignoring his protests. He looked over to Yuya, eyes begging, but his friendly host just shrugged and laughed. "What can you do? Sora's just like that."

It was about a ten minute mad dash to the soda fountain and deli Sora frequented. No reporters had caught them, and so Sora took a seat on one of the old-fashioned stools and patted for Yuri. There were no TVs here to watch, just odd old advertisements and posters plastering the wall, strange music playing from a speaker system. "You and I have a lot to talk about, I think. Hey, Mr. B, could we get an egg soda for me and an egg cream for my friend?"

"Those both sound disgusting." Which was worse, he didn't know. Eggs did not belong in beverages, and his one experience with soda hadn't been so good either. It wasn't a thing back in Fusion, but Yuya loved the stuff -- though his mother claimed it would rot his teeth, she was always sneaking them to Yugo.

She was so sweet to Yugo. And she tried to be sweet to Yuri, too. It was strange -- he understood quite well that it was not a ruse, that it was her true nature, but he couldn't discern why.

"Oh, don't be so prickly. Sorry about my friend, Mr. B. He's had a long day."

"A customer's a customer!" The jovial old man grinned. "One egg cream and egg soda coming right up. And don't you worry, young man -- there are neither eggs nor cream in egg cream!"

"I thought you might like it because you're not so used to the foods of this place. It really is a bit like if the boss man invented a soda. Helped me ease into the way of things here, first time I visited."

He avoided the word dimension. Yuri wondered if he was just pretending to be an out-of-towner, some sad orphan from a faraway land who had never known a candy until he'd begged one off a stranger here in Maimai. Not so far from the truth, at least; the boy had no family, though unlike Yuri, it was because they had died, and the Fusion Dimension was as far as it got. Yuri thought about rubbing it in, just because he could, getting them both kicked out.

But he looked at Sora and he just couldn't. The boy had come and gotten him not out of the kindness of his own heart nor affection, but out of a memory of a past allegiance, a sense of duty between those who had suffered. How could he not reciprocate? "I appreciate your consideration. I am constantly surprised at the things Yugo will eat -- he's like a vacuum cleaner."

"Is it weird for all of you?"

"Have you lost all your sense? Of course it's strange." That was common sense. "Even now, I can tell Yuya's listening. He's sort of floating over your shoulder, like a specter. It's a bit disconcerting, though I'm adapting." He checked if the deli man was listening -- apparently not. "It is convenient not to have to physically adjust to living here."

"Obelisk above, the first time I came here I ate myself sick. Second and third time, too. It was embarrassing. It's a lot to adjust to, you know?" He leaned back against the table, overcasual in that way only he could ever pull off. Yuri had never been to pass for anything but a hunter. It was accurate, but there was still a bit of jealousy in seeing Sora so easily wear the false mantle of the hunted.

"It is." He ran a finger through his still-green hair. It was strange to see himself in a mirror like this, so close and so far. Yuya dressed like the clown he was, and that meant his whole wardrobe was obnoxious. Working under Smiley meant, mercifully, that he was never subjected to a high school uniform. Yuri would've hated that just as much. He belonged to nobody but himself, now, and wearing such a juvenile symbol of group identity would be embarrassing. Even at Duel Academy, he'd declined to dress as his lessers. "It seems you've done well for yourself, though."

"Zuzu has been helping me. That's why I'm not surprised." He shrugged. "I knew even before she told me that something was up with her. And if it's true of her, why not you? It just checks out. But I didn't want to get up in your space until you told me -- trying to learn all this stuff like boundaries is hard enough without a crazy asshole like me. Didn't expect you to tell the public first."

"It's not like you to talk about yourself that way."

"Zuzu convinced me to talk to someone. My situation's not as complicated as yours, you know, lots of other kids like me looking for help."

"A therapist?"

"Yeah. She wouldn't like me calling myself a crazy asshole either, but she did encourage me to be honest more often. And if I'm honest, I'm a crazy asshole."

"You are." Yuri was too. "I suppose this is the part where you tell me I need a therapist of my own?"

"Nah." Sora was quiet for a moment as the old man handed them their drinks; as soon as he'd taken a good swig of his, he continued. "You're Yuri. You'll do whatever you want, and what I say won't play any role in that, for better or for worse. That's what scared me the most when the four of you turned into a big lizard."

"Hm?"

"Don't you hm me. You know what I mean." Sora grinned. "That there's a big dragon or whatever, I mean, that's just the world we live in. If it saw the world like most Obelisks, it's give-and-take, tit-for-tat, right? But you don't live like that. You're a free man, and you do as you please."

"I suppose I never thought of it that way." Privately, he was pleased. It was true, but he didn't spend much time thinking on himself and his own nature, so he'd never realized it; now that Sora had brought it to his attention, he could turn it over in his mind and have some pride in it. He was often proud of his abilities; his personality left more to be desired, and he was aware of that, regardless of how he acted.

"Of course it's true. I might be full of shit, but folks like us have to stick together. You should try that egg cream, by the way."

He looked at the cloudy brown drink with distrust. "Are you certain this is--"

"Sure as sugar. It's a lot milder than classic sodas. Over a hundred years old, they say, the recipe is."

"Hm." And so, he took a sip.

It was strange - creamy, sweet, a bit chocolately, lightly effervescent. Not overwhelming, but pleasant. Like the perfect version of the cartons of chocolate milk that had accompanied lunches on Fridays for Duelists in the top two quintiles. "It's pleasant. What does it contain?"

"Ha! I like you, Yuri. You're a funny guy." Sora grinned. "Milk, chocolate syrup, and sparkling water."

"Interesting. Perhaps I will see if we can't occasionally enjoy one at home."

"Hey, either way, I'll take you here anytime."

Yuya grinned behind him, and Yuri rolled his eyes. Friendship wasn't something he craved. There was no reason for him to do so, not in the depths of Fusion; since he had come to live in Yuya's body, he had privately come to think of his host as a beloved companion of sorts, but it had never extended to desiring a common bond with anyone outside of his body.

But here he was, drinking egg cream with Fusion's biggest freakshow, the kid who not even Aster wanted to fuck with. He never could've seen it coming.

(And not only because the frothy dairy-based delight sounded disgusting on its face.)

Chapter Text

"Yuya, reports are saying that you suffer from some type of schizophrenia. Do you--"

"Yuya! Yuya! Rumors say that you're bringing a whole new style as the 'Multi-Faced Duelest' starting next season. Are you looking at a heel turn, or--"

"Yuya, it's been said that you're harboring a Fusion duelist. Do you have any plans for--"

Yuya blocked it out. The response could've been worse, at least. Mo one thought he was lying for attention. People didn't get what he was, or why he was that way, but at least he wouldn't be losing his contract from blowback. Not that he had expected that -- if Smiley had sensed that possibility, he never would've okayed it -- but it was going to be rough.

But -- there were other kids out there, kids who were at least kind of like him. And they needed to see him push through this. So he turned to the reporters with a goofy thumbs-up and a huge smile, and said:

"Nothing new with my Dueling! I'm here to have a good, fun, clean match with Master Disaster! He's a great Duelist and I'm looking forward to a fair game. I hope to put a smile on everyone's face!"

"Well-said." Smiley always managed to sneak up on him. "Yuya's unique situation hasn't changed his talents as a uniquely popular and skilled young Duelist. His match with Master Disaster is going to be good, clean fun."

"If he's the Master of Disaster, I'm the Master of Entertainment!" Yuya winked. "Hope all my fans know I'm here to put on a good show and prove that I'm still the one who can put a smile on any face!"

With that, Smiley led him to the prep room, away from the stream of reporters. They kept asking questions, of course -- was he sane, was he really part-Fusion, even one idiot who asked about Zarc -- but he blocked them out. There was no sense in rising to their bait.

Master Disaster was known for his serious-style Dueling and his bombastic True Draco and True King cards. Unlike the GP version of the deck, Master Disaster didn't bother with hardcore control cards; he was there to summon a bunch of Wyrms and look good doing it. He was serious, sure, but even after all the tragedy he had endured with finding out he had a sister in the Xyz Dimension, he always put a friendly smirk on his face.

That's why Yuya couldn't wait to Duel him!

That was the thing -- you could say what you wanted to a reporter, but if you Dueled good, you were good. If you Dueled bad, your career was on a lifeline. That was what it meant to be a pro, not a hobbyist. Dueling good didn't mean winning, but it meant everyone loving to see how you got to the end. Also, sometimes, winning.

The Action Field tonight was Card Factory. He'd hated it and its very niche Action Cards back in the day, but since his time in Crossover he had become less dependent on them anyways. Not that he'd complain if he got something useful.

He got close enough to the exit point that he could summon a monster, brought out Hip Hippo. Not the time to remind people of Odd-Eyes and the trouble that it could cause. Anyways, bounding out on a big fat pink hippo with a huge smile on his face would reassure his fanbase that he was the same old person. He slapped on a comedically oversized blue jersey and together they made their way out before cheering crowds and lights.

"Yuya!" some of them screamed; "Master Disaster!" others cried. It was a beautiful thing to stand in the stadium lights. On the other side emerged one Master Disaster, clad in a red, almost armor-like costume. His Dueling ace, Master Peace, floated at his side and showered everyone in its splendor.

"Let's have a fair and fun game!" Yuya shouted to him.

It looked like he grunted in response -- Yuya couldn't quite hear. That wasn't unusual for him, but something settled in his stomach. As they each dismissed their ride-in monsters, he took a moment to think about why. Nothing about Master Disaster seemed different from their previous couple matches, but --

But he just knew something was off. You didn't reach his level without some people skills -- he was a fool, not an idiot.

"Oooo-kay," he said, keeping his tone as silly and light as possible, "well, I'll have a fair and fun game, at least!"

"We'll see about that." There was a clear current of anger in his voice. Yuya could only assume it was because of his situation, but --

"Isn't it obvious? You're more of a dolt than I had assumed." Yuri shook his head. "He's had his troubles with my people. Bet he's pissed at me."

"How could you possibly know that just from one sentence?"

"Believe it or not, I'm quite familiar with being disliked." He shook his head. "Nothing to be done about it. Show him your Entertainment, and he'll come around. That's how it's gone for everyone else."

There was no bitterness in Yuri's tone. It was just a fact to him. Yuya wanted to be upset for him, but--

But the audience was watching. "We sure will!" he said with a laugh, and waited for the spinner to decide whether he would go first or second.

The spinner spun and spun... and came up Red. Master Disaster it was.

"My turn. I'll draw." He regarded his hand for just a moment. "I'll set one facedown card, then tribute it to summon Dinomight Knight!"

The masked wyrm-man appeared from the ether. It gave him an approving nod.

"Then I'll set two more cards and activate the Card of Demise. This permits me to draw until I have three cards - but I'll need to discard them at the end of my turn."

Long turn, for a first move. Yuya watched him cautiously.

"Two more facedowns. I'll end my turn, discarding my Majesty Maiden. Go."

"Sure thing! I'll draw!"

His hand was workable. But he wanted to show off a fun Duel, and that meant going for an Action Card.

"First things first, I'm going to set the scales - Timegazer, Stargazer, you're up!" They always felt a bit eerie to him now, but he still appreciated their aid. "Then I'll summon my Sword Fish! This radical fish lowers your monsters' attack points by 600!"

As it appeared, he grabbed it. This was going to be quite the gambit. He'd launch himself off one of the Foosball men, stick his blade into the ball of Action Cards as he landed, and grasp the card that would lead him to his first little victory.

But Master Disaster stared him down. "Why live by the blade, young man? It has been said: those who live by the sword shall die by it."

Hardball. Yup -- something was wrong. "So if I live by the fish, will I die by the fish? I'd better avoid cheap sushi!"

It wasn't a funny joke, but the look on Master Disaster's face -- affronted, confused, annoyed -- was totally worth it. And who could do better, anyways?

"I'll activate my trap card, now: Summon Limit." The Master of Disaster smiled. "Greed is unbecoming."

That wasn't part of his usual Dueltaining deck - it wasn't even legal! He could see Smiley up in the stands, arguing with the ref. No point. He would be punished after the Duel, but the people came for a game, and he would give them one. He made eye contact just long enough to shake his head. Smiley would understand. It hardly mattered -- for this turn, anyways -- but if he was bringing in the big guns, well, Yuya needed to be decisive.

Don't respond, unless it's fun. Smile on your face. "Good move! Now watch mine! I'll --"

"Now I'll activate True King's Return to bring Majesty Maiden back to the field." He smiled. "You're lucky I'm running low on cards."

True Dracos could draw quite quickly, if you let them use their search abilities by activating your own cards. Yuya knew Master Disaster usually played a bit softball, but he wasn't today. His best move might be to keep it simple. "I'll Pendulum Summon! Come on out, Odd-Eyes Arc Pendulum Dragon, Odd-Eyes Saber Dragon! And since a Pendulum Summon is a Special Summon, my Sword Fish lowers your points again!"

"Hm. That activates the effect of my Dinomight Knight, allowing me to search for a True Draco trap. I'll pick True Draco Apocalypse. I'll activate my trap card: There Can Be Only One." He shook his head. "There's no sense in such a flock. So long as my trap card remains, we can each control only one Monster of each Type. Majesty Maiden, thank you for your service."

She disappeared, but True King's Return could bring her right back if she was needed. Yuya was in a tougher predicament. "I'll keep Saber Dragon. Sorry, Arc Pend!"

"Hmph."

"Now, battle! Odd-Eyes Saber Dragon, attack his weakened Dinomight Knight!"

"Like pearls before swine. I'll activate another trap card: Life For Life. With this, we both pay 1000 LP, then I negate your attack; and furthermore, my monsters each gain 1000 Attack!"

"Dang!"

He might lose, but he'd see it through. Like a real Duelist.

"Man, what a blast! I'll pass it to you, Master Disaster -- you're as good as they say."

"Ah, but are you?" He cocked his head. "Harboring a Fusion Duelist within your own body."

"What, you mean the press release?" Maybe he should ask to take this up off the field. "I'm the one Dueling you, not him. Eyes on the prize, or you'll never win!"

"Hm. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept, boy."

"Your turn!" He looked through his hand. Nothing that could do a thing to the Duelist, and if he was playing his GP deck, Yuya really didn't stand a chance. There were lots of cards Dueltainers banned, for the sake of keeping the game fair and fun to watch. Master Disaster played both circuits, but he was always fair about it. Or at least, he had always been fair about it. "You're right about that! That's why I fight so that everyone can be happy in Maimai, no matter what realm they originate from. We can't change the past, but we can move forward with it!"

"We can't change the past, but we shouldn't be so quick to forget it, either." Master Disaster glanced at his hand. Two cards, and one was True Draco Apocalypse. "I'll activate Mystical Space Typhoon to remove There Can Be Only One, now that it's done its job, then activate the effect of True King's Return once more to summon Majesty Maiden. Then I'll tribute Majesty Maiden for another Dinomight Knight. Thank you for your service."

The monster gave him a brief nod as she appeared, only to disappear once more. Much like their owner, the Wyrms had a soldier's temperament. "Your turn."

There wasn't a good option here. If he used Sword Fish's effect to lower the Dinomight Knight's points, Dinomight Knight would search another trap card. And although Yuya wasn't an expert on the True Draco cards, he did know True Draco Apocalypse could lower his monster's attack points. Nothing in his hand could get him out of this situation, and --

"Just throw me under the bus." Yuri sighed. "It's not a big deal. I'm used to it."

"No," he replied, then turned to his fo"Master Disaster!"

"Yes?"

"You talk a lot about honor for someone playing unfair cards! But this --" and he dashed for an Action Spell -- "will even things out!"

"The war was not fair when it took my sister from me. She may have returned from her card prison, but she is not the same woman she once was. I will not be fair to its sympathizers." He shook his head. "Effect of True King's Return: my Majesty Maiden returns."

Hm. "I'm not a sympathizer! This audience isn't, either! We all suffered -- many of my friends were carded too! That's why we Lancers fought to change things!"

"If you're no sympathizer, why harbor the enemy within you?"

It would be so easy to say that he had no choice in the matter. And he didn't. But he wouldn't have removed Yuri even if he could, wouldn't have removed Yuri even if it wouldn't hurt Yuri either. He liked having Yuri around.

He really liked having Yuri around.

"Because I care about him! Like I care about everybody! And -- and I feel terrible for everyone who was hurt, including all the kids who were taken from their parents and forced to fight! And I want to save everyone!"

Something glowed in his heart. He glanced at the Action Spell: Editor's Note.

Then he glanced at his Extra Deck, and his heart almost stopped.

He had never seen a card quite like the one that appeared there. It was blue, a Predaplant, but he could tell Yuri hadn't seen it either. It said Two Effect Monsters - that, he could manage, since Master Disaster had left his Sword Fish alone - perhaps hoping to use its effects to search more traps. The strategy started to come together in his head.

"This Duel's just for show, but a good show can change the world! Now I'll use my monsters to show you that change! Arc Dragon, Sword Fish, give way to my newest monster -- everyone, meet Predaplant Verte Anaconda!"

The monster, oddly, seemed to float in front of his monster zones. Well, he'd worry about that later. The massive anaconda slithered onto the stage. "Then, I'll activate the effect of my Action Spell: Editor's Note! Next time I'd activate an effect that cares about the Attribute of monsters, I can treat all monsters on the field as the same Attribute - I'll pick Dark! Finally, I'll activate Verte's effect! This lets me activate a Polymerization Spell from my Deck! I'll pick Super Polymerization!"

Deep breaths. It didn't rule him.

"What? But--"

"I'll fuse your three True Dracos into my Predaplant Triphyoverutum! When we stand together, nothing can stop us -- set aside your allegiances and join me in this quest for fun for everyone!"

Not his best Summoning chant, but the massive Plant monster put a smile on his face. "And with that, I'll attack for game! It was a good time, Master Disaster, but remember - cheating doesn't pay!"

He knew Smiley was going to be furious. He knew this would result in an even bigger media circus. But he didn't care.

"Just so you know, Yuri, I'll never throw you under the bus. You deserve respect too."

Chapter Text

Yuya honestly didn't know what to expect when Smiley met him back in the prep room. He'd gone way off script, publicly gotten into politics, invented a whole new method of Fusion Summoning, won against a cheater...

"I suppose you wouldn't be you if you didn't get into this kind of mess." Smiley shook his head. "Master Disaster is being put on probation. We'll see if he returns -- he might just stay in the GP circuit. He's good enough for it."

"Poor guy. He sounded really upset."

"You'd feel bad for anyone, Yuya," Yuri said.

"It's a good thing you weren't born in Heartland. That kind of attitude got a lot of people carded." Yuto's tone was neutral.

"One sec, guys, let me finish this conversation." Now he'd completely missed whatever his manager had been saying. "Sorry, Smiley, could you repeat that?"

"I said that crowd reception was split. Watching someone win through a Summon Limit and There Can Be Only One is impressive, and you gave a good show. Master Disaster isn't a very popular Duelist, either, which helps. But people have very mixed feelings about the Fusion Dimension, and--"

"--and I couldn't take it sitting down. Not what he was saying about Yuri."

"I know you couldn't." Smiley sighed. "You're a hard Duelist to market sometimes, you know. You're a face, but people know too much about who you used to be, so they feel kind of weird about the whole thing. You're good enough that it doesn't matter, but..."

"But it would be easier if I was someone else."

"That's not what I mean. More that you have a way of bulldozing right past any issue instead of dancing around it. It's what makes you who you are, and you're the best Duelist I've ever represented, so I can't complain. But it's a lot. Your father--"

The rush of someone else fronting without warning took Yuya by surprise. "His father is an idiot."

"What are you--"

"And who are you?"

"I'm Yugo. I never got to have a Dad. Now Yuya's mom takes care of me. But his Dad let his son think he had ran out on his family. Why would people think that's better than someone like Yuya, who always fought honest and open? It's not like we can help that we're part of Zarc."

"No, you can't, can you?" Smiley wasn't wearing his signature smile anymore. "Yugo, I might as well ask - what do you think about all of the drama with... Yuri, was it?"

"It's stupid. Yuri isn't a good guy or anything, but he didn't get to choose his life either. I saw a lot of people on the streets of New Domino fall to their worse impulses, cuz that's how you survived. What matters is what you do when you're not in survival mode anymore. But most of the people in this city have never been in survival mode, so they don't know what it's like for people like us."

"So you relate to him?"

"We're all from Zarc, right? That makes us -- not brothers, lucky for Yuri, but it means we're kind of the same."

"What do you mean, lucky for Yuri?"

Yugo flushed. "Well, would you look at the time? You should keep talking to Yuya!"

With that, he retreated and Yuya was in control once more. "Sorry about that. I don't know what he meant either. The other three spend a lot of time talking when I'm managing, so..."

"Don't be sorry, especially since you aren't. If I couldn't handle it, I wouldn't be the city's happiest manager, now would I?" He laughed. "I got a message from Declan shortly before you came back; he's drafting a statement in your support. Talking about your time as a Lancer and the new rehabilitation efforts, that kind of thing. We can spin this. You're pentinent and want a more peaceful world. But try to keep politics off the Dueling field from now on, okay?"

"If no one brings it up, I won't. But I won't let them talk that way about Yuri. Or Yuto and Yugo, for that matter."

"Of course not. You wouldn't be Yuya if you would. Now for the good news -- you're in the Exhibition Duel this year."

"Really? I thought it was going to be Master Disaster vs. Snow Queen."

"Yup. You were third in line, and now Master Disaster's ineligible. It's a huge honor, especially for a Duelist in his first year as a full pro." The Exhibition Duel at the New Year's Ceremony might not have counted for tournament wins, but the excitement it brought was paramount. It was said that a good, fun Duel meant luck for everyone -- and a bad Duel was a bad omen for the whole year.

"I'll have to get ready. It's a month away, right? I'll have to make sure everyone has lots of fun!"

"Of course. This is a big moment for your career, but it's a big moment for you as yourself, too." His signature smile returned. "You'll do great, Yuya. Now go hit the showers, sit down, and drink some water, alright? That was a short Duel, but it's still important you build good habits."

Smiley didn't have to tell him twice. But as he was getting ready to wash himself off, he felt Yugo tug at his brain.

"I think you, Yuto, and Yuri should talk! I can handle this stuff."

Yuya nodded. He didn't want to, at least if Yuto was involved, but if sharing with Yuto had taught him anything, it was how easily bad feelings could fester if you didn't talk them over.

It wasn't even that he was more comfortable with Yuri than Yuto -- although privately, he had to admit that maybe he was. It was more that Yuto could be a lot. He'd been hurt so much, and now he had to cohabit a body with three idiots, one of whom was partially at fault. And Yuya felt like a kid around him.

Oh well. No way out but through. He let himself fall into the Duel Arena that was their mind, where Yuri and Yuto sat waiting for him.

"Yugo thought you should join in?" Yuto asked. "He could at least ask us if we wanted to see you, first."

"Now, now, Yuto. Speak for yourself, but I always want to see Yuya. He's by far the most sensible of your lot."

There was something strange in his tone, but Yuya couldn't quite place it. "What's up?"

"We were discussing what happened up there. I was surprised you decided to defend me. As I said, I don't mind if you throw me under the bus, so to speak. You've fought very hard for your career to be ruined by a ghost like me."

Yuto rolled his eyes. "It's mostly been like this. I think you really shocked him, standing up for him like that."

"I'm not shocked, just a bit surprised."

"Oh, you of little faith." Yuya sighed. "Look, we're all in this together. We all got this second chance. It's like Yuto said way back when - it's not my body, it's our body. We have to share it whether or not we want to. That means we should support each other."

"Ah." Yuri sounded almost - disappointed?

"I don't mean that's the only reason. Yuri, despite everything, I really do like you." Yuri gave him the strangest look, but he continued anyways. "You did some messed up stuff, and it's kind of not your fault and kind of your fault anyways, but all four of us are one monster in the end. We're all guilty."

"If we're monsters, why do you like me? Just because we're two heads of the same hydra?"

"No, it's -- you're sharp as a tack, and you're funny, even if it's a bit mean spirited sometimes. You Duel to put on a show, you always look to the audience. You're like me. Whatever happened to you, it never killed that part of your carnival spirit."

"Ah, well. I'm glad you think I'm a clown." There was a soft fondness in his voice, uncharacteristic.

He looked like he was about to say more when Yuto suddenly interjected. "I just remembered that I had something to tell Yugo." He smiled mysteriously. "But I'll leave you with this. The war was a nightmare, but the more I talk about it with Yuri, the more I blame every adult who would sacrifice their children to that megalomaniac. I hope he suffers. I hope they all suffer. But I don't want you to suffer. You should tell Yuya what you told me and Yugo."

With that he disappeared, and Yuri and Yuya were left alone. "I wasn't aware you two were getting along better, but I'm glad," Yuya said.

"Ah. Well. I had a bit of a reaction to you going to bat for me. I think Yuto saw something of himself in me, finally."

Yuya nodded. "I'm glad you're here with me. As I said, I like you guys. Scratch that, I love you guys."

"You do, don't you?" Yuri's smile was mysterious, a little sad. "I'll only say this once. I -- well, that is -- you see --"

"If you don't want to say it, you don't have to. Or you can say it with a Duel."

"I'd like to say it directly. It's just a challenge to find the words. You see, Yuya, you're hardheaded, but you've got a spine of iron. You're like a bull in a china shop sometimes, but I can't bring myself to think that that's a bad thing. I like watching you smash your way through conversations, coming out the other end into a world where people just say how they feel."

"Huh?"

"I like that you're stupid, too. I find it incredibly charming how instead of worrying about being right and perfect, you just charge in and let the overwhelming warmth of your star-shaped heart melt away the world. I thought I was immune, but I wasn't. I think that's why I was so desperate to fuse with you. To have some of your light."

"Yuri..." Something overcame him, and he wrapped his other part into a tight hug.

Yuri didn't struggle, just stilled, then leaned in. When he pulled away, he wore a troubled expression.

"Yuya, I care about you in a way I probably shouldn't."

"It's okay to care about people, Yuri. I--"

"Yuya, I'm not stupid, I know it's okay to care about people. I care about all three of you idiots. I care about your idiot mom. I care about your idiot manager!" He shook his head. "But - ugh, why did I even try to bring this up, stupid Yugo getting me to talk about it with him."

He looked like he might smash his head into one of the walls at this point, his frustration palpable in this strange and emotional realm. "Yuri, you can tell me anything. There's nothing you can do to me that I won't forgive."

Suddenly, Yuri had wrapped his arms around him. Suddenly, Yuri was kissing him.

Oh. Oh. Oh, he was in so much trouble. It felt nice.

When Yuri pulled away, he seemed disappointed. "I know you don't feel the same, but--"

"Give me a second. I think I like you, I just -- I didn't know it was allowed!" It was embarrassing to say it that way, but it was true. "Yuri, you're incredible. I think -- I think I'm more than okay with this. But it just never occurred to me that I could feel that way about you."

"Hm." He looked unconvinced.

"Man, I'm just putting my foot in my mouth, aren't I? Yuri, you make me smile. And kissing you felt really nice. And -- I just feel like, don't you worry about dating me? Wouldn't you feel more happy with someone you can actually touch?"

"Yuya, I've wanted you since we had separate bodies. Regardless of who approved. I just didn't know how to express it, beyond becoming Zarc with you. And - I don't know what our future holds. But I don't care about physical touch. I just want you."

"Then..." Yuya was struck, in that moment, by the immensity of it all. And by the memory of becoming Zarc, of feeling every bit of himself etch away against the bodies of his other selves.

It had been comforting, in a sense, even if he'd been terrified. And Yuri had been so alone. He didn't ever want Yuri to be alone. He was funny and charming and cruel and loved a show, and Yuya loved him completely.

Shit.

"I want you too, Yuri."

Yuri seemed stunned. Like he'd been expecting rejection. Like he'd had a whole little speech prepared, and now he didn't get to use it and knew nothing of what to say.

It was kind of cute to see him flounder.

"You know, I'm glad you were willing to be forward with me. I'm pretty stupid, I don't think I would've figured out my feelings on my own."

"You're not stupid." Yuri cocked his head. "Well, sometimes you're stupid, but stupid dogs are cuter anyways."

"Hey!" He laughed. "You're too funny, Yuri. I'm not sure how being together's going to work, since we share a body, but we'll make it work, alright?"

"Of course. I'm no fool - I can make anything work, if I set my mind to it." Yuri smiled, and the traces of vulnerability vanished from him. Yuya liked seeing him both ways. "You can thank Yugo for pestering me about it until I felt the need to tell him."

"Yugo? Really?"

"Oh, he's incredibly persistent. And much smarter than he seems, even if he's been denied a proper education on how to use that mind of him. Don't tell him I said that, though."

"I wouldn't dream of it. Hey. Can I kiss you again? Cuz I'd really like to do that."

"You can kiss me as often as you'd like."

It wasn't the same, kissing in that psychological space; the lack of physicality would definitely become annoying at some point. But the way Yuri's thoughts roiled against his made it all worth it.

Chapter Text

Yuya would've liked to spend the next few days doing nothing -- letting himself experience his newfound feelings, letting Yuto and Yugo get some much-needed front time away from him and his maybe a little-too-affectionate gestures towards Yuri.

Unfortunately, he had his contract with Yu-Show, and he wasn't about to break it.

He'd been trying to get through to Sledgehammer's daughter all month -- the idea that an Entertainment Duel was for the audience, the idea that there was more to it than winning. Her father understood that well, but she couldn't let go of Guru, couldn't let go of control.

"Have you considered the GP circuit?"

"It's not what I want to do. I want to show people that my Subterrors. No one watches GPs."

"They may not get primetime TV slots, but people still like them. It's a respectable career. There's even talk of an All Out League that uses Entertainment-legal cards to play a more serious game. Maybe you could get involved in that."

"But I don't understand why people don't think my cards are fun."

He sighed. "It's because they don't leave a lot of room for a turnaround."

"Of course they don't! Why would I want to lose?"

"It's not about winning or losing. Entertainment Duelists need to be on the top of our game, of course, but there's a reason the League sets limits on deck-building. We're ultimately all here to have fun. That's why the Exhibition match is the biggest match of the year."

"But then why not just play in the scripted leagues? I just don't get it! We're supposed to win, sponsors pay more for winners, but we can't use our full strength because it's boring?"

"The game is for everyone." He sighed. "Look, you saw the card I played in the match with Master Disaster, right? They're not allowing that card in future league duels. Of course I'm a little sad, because that card represents a dear -- friend. But I'm also glad, because it's a card that is so powerful and easy to use that it means all my games would look the same. I don't want that. I want every game to be different."

"You want more luck."

"You know, in the early days of Dueling, Duel Schools taught kids about drawing. Back then, it was well-understood that your deck responded to you. Nowadays, a lot of that magic has been lost. But in a sense -- yeah, it is about luck. You can't be afraid to lose."

"But my Dad will be mad if I lose!"

There it was.

"Did he tell you that?"

"No, but -- but he was so mad with himself after you beat him. Why wouldn't he feel the same way if I was a loser? If I can become a pro and show I'm the strongest, he'll be amazed. He'll think I'm the coolest."

"I'm sure he already thinks you're the coolest. He talks about you a lot to the other Duelists of the League, you know."

"Yes, but --" She clapped her hands together in frustration. "I want him to respect me as a Duelist, not just as his kid. And that means I need to be strong enough to beat even him. Like you are."

"Can your Guru cards beat him?"

"I know they can! I've even beaten him at table matches! But I want to beat him at his own game!'

"You don't have to beat him to prove anything. But if you'd really like to..." Yuya sighed. "With those Subterrors, you'll never really be beating him at his own game, because they're not for entertainment. You know, in the Pro Leagues, a lot of our income actually is determined by the joy we bring -- just look at Lucky Larry. He's got a less than impressive 42% win rate, but his merch sales are through the roof!"

"So?"

"So if you really want to impress him, show him your Fun Duel. Build a new deck. I'll even help you."

She thought for a moment. "Your last Duel, you told everyone you weren't happy with it because it it ended so fast, and no one had fun."

"I wasn't."

"But that wasn't your fault? So why are you unhappy?"

"Sometimes we can't have a fun Duel. Even if it's outside our control, it's disappointing. The important thing is that we remember to make our next Duel twice as fun."

"Hm." She didn't look convinced. "Did what he said anger you? I heard Rory and Ryou both stopped coming here because of what you said in response. Their parents were super mad."

"Yeah." He'd already gotten an earful. "But it was true. The hard part about Entertainment Dueling is finding the balance between what's true to you - your Deck, your power, your beliefs - and what's true to the audience. For a really great Entertainment Duelist, it's about finding what's true to everyone."

He hadn't realized it, not before the Duel. But now it was obvious to him. The ethos that had always underlined his Dueling, the ethos that was missing from Zarc's -- you couldn't just give the audience what they wanted, and you couldn't just do what you wanted. You fought hard and proved that there was something for everyone, something everyone wanted. Like peace, in the Synchro Dimension -- no one wanted to live there, even most of the wealthy struck with the constant fear of how precarious their wealth was and how far they had to fall from their hollow and rotten lives. Even most of the corrupt officers would've rather lived safe and peaceful lives. But they knew they'd fall even harder if they did anything.

Until everyone aligned. Until, for one key moment, everyone could lay down their swords and shields. Because they all shared the truth of peace and cooperation -- they just didn't know how to trust they did without a guiding light.

It was a simple realization, one he would share with the students -- and one that, if those students could really internalize it, would lead them far.

"I see. And Guru is true to me, but not to the audience."

"It's more that Guru, in the current state of your deck, can't tell that story to your audience. There's a lot to you -- you want to be strong, brave, respected. But Guru doesn't tell people that, so they don't understand your truth. You might be able to tweak the deck and get the message across, but--"

"No, I think a new deck. One that can tell everyone what I want to say -- that just like my Dad, I'm no coward." She  looked thoughtful. "Something with Reptiles. I love when I get to play Umastryx. I know he's not the best card, but he's cool. Like there's something we share. That's your 'truth,' right?"

"That's good. Try to hold that coolness in your heart -- because I'm sure the fans will love when you play your tough reptiles too." He thought for a moment. "And you like to take control of a fight... have you considered the Reptilianne cards?"

"I don't think so."

"We just got a shipment of sample decks from Synchro. Let me show you."

The cards were exactly what she was looking for - gnarly, tough-as-nails Reptiles with a few tricks up their sleeves. So he wasn't surprised when she took one look and fell in love.

"These cards are awesome! They're not as strong as Guru... But they sure look cool."

"That's part of what Entertainment Dueling is about. This is a little above your level, but these cards are great for branding -- my manager is always getting on my case about that. I'm sure you've seen lots of stuff with my Hip Hippo and I -- even with my Odd Eyes, Hip Hippo just catches the eye. You don't have a ton of mobility monsters, but I'm sure you could make it work. Of course, this is only a starter deck - you'll need to hunt down new cards and make it your own."

"You mean --"

"Yes, you can keep it." He smiled. "Keep Dueling brightly, okay? That's what matters most. Winning, losing... The show must go on."

She smiled. "You're right. Thank you, Yuya!"

"Of course. That's why I'm a teacher here - because I want to help newcomers like you get ready for the exciting world of Entertainment Dueling! Now, I've got an idea... why don't we distribute the rest of these Starter Decks and have a little tournament? Hey, Zuzu!"

The tournament was a smashing success. Whether it was using a search card to call up an unexpected ally or not reading their own cards and losing to too-high LP costs, learning a new deck always came with hurdles. By the time you hit the Pro Circuit, you were usually pretty set on a deck, but even pros made rotations and changes, sometimes for a stronger deck and sometimes for the personal arcs their managers were recommending.

(Or more-than-recommending. That was why Yuya had insisted on full control of his deck in his contract with Smiley. The man, true to his name, had smiled and said that he wouldn't dream of telling Yuya what cards belonged in his deck, but it was still good to get it in writing. He had been very glad for his Dad's help; as complicated as the situation was, it was good to have a former Pro on his side.)

The Sledgehammer's daughter, true to her father's moniker, smashed through the competition. The Reptilianne monsters were fierce competitors, and whether it was hiding behind the turtlelike Gardna to avoid the full blast of an attack and catch an Action Spell that went flying or tossing the tiny little Viper into the air to add some pizazz to a Syncho Summon, she was a natural. Gone was the girl who had shied away from the fun of a Duel -- once she got into it, she smiled like anyone.

"And you didn't even have to Duel her. You're an impressive conversationalist, Yuya, I'll give you that." Yuri's projection smiled.

"Oh, of course you think that. You're the one who's dating him!" Yugo laughed.

"Oh, are you saying Yuya isn't convincing?"

"Sure he is, but Rinrin is way more!"

The two began to squabble; Yuya tuned them out, glancing over to see Yuto doing the same. The Heartland Duelist's presence was always comforting, in a different way than Yugo or Yuri. He had been the first to fuse into Yuya, and that barely-realized emotional presence had been a rock in the chaos of the Synchro Dimension. So it was no surprise he was a rock against Yuri and Yugo's continuous bickering, too. Although Yuri was kind of cute when he was annoyed.

Thankfully, because he was annoyed more often than not.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The mood could best be described as awkward.

Yuya sat across from his father at the kitchen table. His mom had said that if they were going to talk, they needed to actually talk, without her constantly mediating. But it felt weird, seeing his Dad look uncomfortable at the prospect of a conversation with his son when he'd been perfectly at home on the battlefield.

Dimly, Yuya wondered if maybe Yugo was right and the guy was just an asshole. But he didn't really want to see his Dad that way -- would rather see him as conflicted, maybe complicated, but still his hero.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to leave?"

"I couldn't tell you where I was going, or why. I thought it would be easier for you if you didn't have to wonder why I couldn't."

"I still had to wonder, though! I still didn't know where you'd gone or why! Dad, I thought you had ran out on us! Not -- not just as a Duelist, but as a Dad! And I tried so hard to have faith, but it would've been so much easier if you had just told me you had something more important than Dueling but you'd always love me anyways!"

"I -- I will always love you, Yuya. Even with... everything going on in my life right now, you'll always be my son."

"Why couldn't you tell me that back then?"

"I didn't know how." He sighed. "I -- didn't expect to survive as long as I did, Yuya. I knew it was a suicide mission. I knew somebody had to do it, and I knew it had to be me because no one else was willing to do it. But leaving my family... That was the hardest thing I've ever done."

"Then why don't you act like you did before?" Doting, loving, present. Like a real father should act. "Why don't you treat me like you used to?"

"I don't know how!" His voice almost seemed to crack, and for the first time Yuya could see that his Dad was nothing more than a human -- flawed and loving, kind and brave and foolish, but a human. "I had to harden my heart. The soldiers I had to fight to survive, Yuya, they were your age. When I look at you -- knowing one of them is inside you -- I can only see what I did."

"I--" The sensation of Yuri tugging on his mind suddenly grew intense. "Yuri wants to talk to you. Is that okay?"

"Yes, of course."

Yuya took a deep breath, and then Yuri was in control.

"What do you think about the war?"

"I had no choice. I couldn't let the Dimensions be fused by the sacrifice of millions of lives. I did what was necessary."

"I was just following orders. I didn't have another option. I was raised in it; how could I imagine anything else?" Yuri smiled. The expression must've looked strange on Yuya's face, because Yusho flinched away. "We make the excuses we have to because we need to live with ourselves."

"Yeah. Yeah, we do. But you're Yuya's age and you've already been through so much darkness. At least I -- I could've run, if I wanted to."

"If you did, we'd be in the combined Dimension now, and most likely me and the other three would either be rampaging or dead still." He cocked his head. "That's the hard part. If I had denied Leo, it wouldn't have done anything. I would've suffered greatly and someone else would've taken my place. There's nothing so unique about me that what I did for him was actually special. At least, following him, I could be united with Yuya."

"You're fond of him, aren't you? You said some weird stuff when you wanted to fuse with him."

"I wasn't quite in my right mind." He hoped his expression was neutral. Yuri generally had a fairly good poker face, but Yusho had known this body since it was a baby. Quirks and all.

"I suppose you weren't." Yusho sighed. "Is Yuya listening?"

"No. He respects my privacy in discussing matters of the war."

"Good." Yusho sighed. "Yuri, soldier to soldier, I'm sorry about what happened to you. You didn't deserve to be raised to be a weapon."

"I appreciate the effort, but I'm not the one you need to apologize to." Yuri kept his tone light and even, almost teasing; it came naturally, to lie like that. "Yuya was deeply hurt by what you did. You fucked up."

"How can I reconnect with him, though? I always -- I always told him to smile, you know, grin and bear it, and he's grown into a wonderful young man but all I can think is that I was wrong. That I forgot that I can be a different person off the stage. That I guided him wrong, and--"

"It was definitely bad advice," Yuri interrupted, "but I think he's starting to realize that on his own. You didn't break him or anything, he's a person just like you, capable of learning and growing past some questionable fatherly guidance. His manager has been a positive influence in that regards."

"Smiley? I was glad to see Yuya ended up under his wing. He has a pragmatic approach, but he's not exploitative. Good business, good advice, and a rising tide that lifts every boat. Yuya needs someone in his life like that. But -- it's a bit embarrassing, as a father, when your son needs to go to his manager for advice because he can't trust you for it."

"I imagine it's difficult for you." Yuri shrugged, letting the gesture flow over him like a waterfall. Some part of him wanted to rage against the man before him, which was pretty uncharacteristic -- Yuri was not a raging sort of young man. Perhaps that was part of living someone. "You haven't ruined anything permanently, Yusho, but if you keep acting like the situation is unfixable, you'll make it unfixable. Yuya feels very hurt about what you did. You've made our Yugo quite furious."

"I see." He sighed. "I wish I'd been a better father."

"If wishes were fishes, you and I both would be set for life on sushi dinners."

Yusho laughed, though it was a bit strained. "You're too young to compare yourself to a washed-up has-been like me."

"If we count my memories as Zarc, I could say the same to you."

"I'm sorry." Yusho was awkward about it. Good to know. "I should've--"

"Should've, would've, could've. Face your eyes forward. You've got a son who needs you."

"You're right. Thank you, Yuri. Would you be willing to get Yuya? I--"

"Of course."

A few seconds of mental communication later, Yuya was back. "I'm back, Dad."

"I'm sorry, Yuya. I should've made sure you knew I wasn't leaving because I wanted to. I should've been more there for you since we were reunited. I've been avoiding you because I -- have my regrets, and I don't know how to deal with them. But I can't keep doing the wrong thing just because I'm mired in my emotions about having done the wrong thing."

Yuya didn't even know what to say. Whatever Dad and Yuri had discussed, it must've gotten through to him somehow.

"I'm just glad you're back. And I hope you can be a bigger part of my life. I spent so long missing you, and then you came back but it wasn't the same and I still missed you just as much."

"I know. I know, Yuya." His dad sighed. "You deserve a lot better than me, but now that I'm back, I promise I'll stay in your life. We can go back to family dinners, at least when your career doesn't interfere."

"It's not about deserves. You took me in, Dad, and you treated me like you'd treat your real son. I just don't want that to change."

"It won't change. I promise you, you'll always be my real son. Just because you're not my flesh and blood doesn't mean that I don't love you."

"Thanks, Dad." Something overcome him, then, and he rushed to hug his old man. "I've missed you so much!"

"I know. I know, son." He held him tight. "But I'm back. I'm back, and I won't abandon you."

He sat like that for a while, crying into his father's arms, letting the emotions wash over it. He could feel the other three hovering around him, protective but a bit confused. None of them had experienced something like this -- none of them had fathers. But their presence was comforting, just like his father's presence was comforting.

It was all going to be okay. People cared about him. And he'd finally, finally cleared the air. Everything was looking up.

After a while, he pulled away and returned to his seat. "Thanks, Dad. You're the best."

"I haven't been recently, but I'm going to try to change that."

"I wanted to tell you - I'm in the Exhibition Duel. They haven't officially announced it yet, I found out last week from Smiley."

"That's my boy!" His Dad grinned. "Win or lose, I'm sure you'll make sure everyone has a wonderful time. Spread some smiles!"

"Of course! But -- I was thinking I might invite the others on the stage with me, for a cross-dimensional kind of thing. Since it's not about win or lose, I'm not worried about cheating."

"It's a risky move... But you should follow your heart. If you'd like to do it, you should. A real Entertainment Duelist duels for their inner truth. Whether you frown or smile, it should come from the heart. I'm -- sorry if I ever made you feel differently."

Yuya nodded. "Thanks, Dad."

"You shouldn't thank me just for apologizing."

"I can tell you've really been thinking about this. I felt... I felt like you maybe didn't love me as much anymore. But I know that's not true."

"I'm so sorry I made you feel that way."

And then -- for the first time in years -- Yuya saw his father cry.

"It's been so hard. I missed you so much. And now I'm back and you're so grown up, so much older and so old for your age. I feel like I failed you as a father. I wish things had been different. I wish I'd been different."

"Don't blame yourself, Dad. The whole situation was unfair." For Yusho. For Yuya. For Yuri. For everyone, really, everyone who couldn't comfortably sit on the sidelines and ignore the problems.

"I know. It's just hard not to when -- when you haven't been there for your family. When you've failed them all."

"Even if you failed us, things are better now. And we're together." Yuya sighed. "I guess, while we're in confession mode, I have something to tell you."

"What's wrong, son?"

"I'm gay. I have a boyfriend."

Yusho smiled. "I'm proud of you, son, and that just makes me prouder. Is it that boy Shay?"

"What? No. It's Yuri. The one I share a body with."

"Ah. I guess that's why he was so protective." Yusho scratched his head, looking a little confused. "Well, I can't tell you you can't be alone with yourself. So just... behave? I guess?"

"Ha! You're funny, Dad." Yuya smiled.

That night, they all ate his Mom's legendary cinnamon roll bread after dinner. She hadn't made it since Yusho had disappeared. It tasted even sweeter than Yuya remembered.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

It was the big day. Yuya took a deep breath as he sat in the prep room. No costumes today -- he and the others couldn't agree on one, and it was apparently good marketing for him to have his usual uniform on for this anyways. Something about brand identity.

"Nervous?" Smiley asked.

"I mean, yeah. This is a big deal, isn't it? It's a pivotal moment for my career. I'm going to be going out there and saying my piece, and playing my A-game, but you never know how people will react."

"No, you don't." Smiley smiled. "But I've taught you well, and so has your father. I'm proud to call you my client, Yuya."

His tone was no more honest than usual, but Yuya could tell he meant it. "Thanks, Smiley."

"Now you boys get out there and knock 'em dead, you hear?" He grinned. "Show them your Entertainment Duel!"

He summoned Hip Hippo, popped on, and headed out to the field.

The New Year's Duel always used the same field, Festival Nights -- he'd never Dueled on it before, but he'd watched the old DVD of his Dad playing on it a thousand times. Glowing lanterns and stalls that sold Action Spells for Life Points surrounded the aisle in which he'd be fighting the Snow Queen. You could only get one Action Spell a turn, which made it more intense.

She rode in on Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier, beautiful in her strength and power (and her fluttering white gown). Her smile was brilliant, her eyes bright.

She was a mighty Duelist -- but they'd prove their worth and show that they could go toe-to-toe with the best of them.

"Let's have a fun Duel!" he shouted, as he dismissed Hip Hippo.

"I wouldn't have it any other way. Show me your famed Entertainment Duel, Yuya Sakaki and company!"

The announcer was shouting something, but he could barely hear it, so focused on the Duel before him. There was the cry of Duel!, and he fetched his hand.

"My move." The Snow Queen smiled. "I'll begin this Duel by activating Double Summon. I'll summon two Defenders of the Ice Barrier in Defense position. Your move!"

A strong defensive play -- with two Defenders, he couldn't attack with any monster strong enough to defeat them. It wasn't that different from his Block Spider combo. But he knew that he could break through.

"Let's kick things up! I'll start by setting the Pendulum Scales. White Wing Magician, Black Fang Magician, let's have some fun!"

The two monsters appeared behind him, White Wing Magician giving a flirty wink while Black Fang stoically stared at the battlefield. "I'll use these two to Pendulum Summon my Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, then activate Spiral Flame Strike to destroy one of your Defenders!"

The little fox disappeared in a spiraling flame strike as Odd-Eyes spat out a powered-up version of his regular attack. Yuya cheered. "Great job, Odd-Eyes! Now I'll take out your other Defender with an attack!"

Odd-Eyes charged in, but when the dust settled, instead of being down a Defender, Snow Queen was down 1000 LP. "Action Spell: Distraction Lantern will protect my Defender!"

"Good move!" Yuya grinned. "Well, I suppose I'll just have to pass the turn."

He felt Yugo push at his mind. "...and why doesn't the crowd give a cheer for my buddy Yugo?"

When Yugo woke up, it was to the sound of cheering, at least from the visitors from Synchro. There was a reason they'd decided he'd come out first -- some people, at least, knew and liked him. "Let's rev it up, all!"

"Nice to meet you, Yugo." The Snow Queen grinned. "I'm afraid you're about to find yourself in quite the pickle, though! You're not the only Synchro Monster user in this Duel!"

"Oh, crap!"

"Oh, there's no need for such coarse language -- though you're not wrong that you should be worried! I'll summon Judge of the Ice Barrier, then I'll use her and my Defender to create the great Sea Serpent, the first of the three Dragons of the Ice Barrier: Brionac!"

The enormous dragon appeared on the field, beautiful scales reflecting like prisms of pure ice. "Now for its effect! I'll discard a card, and in return, your Odd Eyes will return to your hand!"

Yugo scrambled for the stalls, but by the time he had made it to an Action Card, Odd-Eyes was gone. He scanned them, looking for something that could help.

"Brionac, attack!"

"Action Spell: Distracting Festival Lights!" 1000 damage was better than over half of his life being gone in one hit, after all.

"Smart move. You're a scrappy one, aren't you?"

"Every Duel can be won! You've just got to see the way the strategy comes together!" He grinned. "Anything else, ma'am?"

"Nope. Your move."

He glanced at his hand. Even if she spent life to negate his attack, she could only do it once per turn. His best move was to summon two Odd-Eyes.

"First, I'll use Black Fang Magician's effect, destroying him to halve your monster's attack! Then I'll replace him with Double Iris Magician and I'll Pendulum Summon again! This time, it'll be Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, the Black Fang Magician I just sent to the Extra Deck, and Odd-Eyes Persona Dragon!"

The two dragons roared onto the battlefield. He grinned. They might not have been his Clear Wing, but they were still basically all dragon family. "Then I'll activate Black Fang Magician's effect! This destroys him, but it cuts your Brionac's points in half!"

"Tch. You're a smart one!"

"Sure am! Now, Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon will attack!"

"I'll spend the life points to activate another Distracting Festival Lights!"

"Sure thing! But now Odd-Eyes Persona Dragon will attack!"

Brionac disappeared, but she took only 50 LP as damage. Oh well - it was still good progress.

"That'll be my turn! Up next, it's you and Yuto!"

When Yuto found himself before the cheering crowd -- amped by action, amped by fun -- he could only wonder what to do. But he had a mission. A mission to create fun. And he'd get it done.

(Plus, Zuzu had just blown him a kiss from her seat in the front row, and now her Dad was freaking out. So he had to win for her.)

It was Snow Queen up next, and he watched her careful as she went through her hand. "Hm. First, I'll activate my Magic Triangle of the Ice Barrier. This lets me reveal three of my Ice Barriers in my hand, and in return, destroy one of your cards and summon a new one from mine. I'll destroy your Pendulum Dragon, of course."

"Of course."

"From there, I'll summon my Numbing Grub in the Ice Barrier! Don't worry too much about its effect - it won't be around long enough for it to matter. Instead, I'll summon another Defender and Synchro out the second Dragon of the Ice Barrier - Gungnir!"

The enormous dragon seemed to glow with an inner fire, though its body was made of ice. "Then I'll discard my remaining two cards to activate his effect, destroying your Black Fang and Persona Dragons!"

"The effect of my White Wing Magician negates your effect, though she's destroyed in the process."

She flinched back. "Annoying, but Gungnir is still more powerful than your Black Fang Magician!"

Yuto didn't even flinch as the frozen air washed over him, destroying Black Fang Magician in the process. He was down another 800 LP, to 2200, but he'd taken two cards out of her hand and left her without strong options. He'd have to capitalize on his turn. 

"I'll set my last card. That's it for me." She smiled. "Show me what you can do, Xyz boy."

"Of course. I wouldn't dream of holding back."

Their own hand had seen better days, but he could at least replace White Wing with the Purple Poison Magician he'd drawn. Its effect to give 1200 points to a Dark Spellcaster would allow Black Fang to beat over her Gungnir. Well, if she didn't have a good option to stop him, he'd win this turn.

Privately, he hoped she did. Yuri would be so disappointed if this ended early, and so would the crowd. Four turns was considered a good Duel; three was pushing it.

"I'll set the scale with Purple Poison Magician, then attack Gungnir with Black Fang Magician."

"Hm? And what will that do for you?"

"I'll activate Purple Poison and Double Iris Magician's effects. By destroying both, my Black Fang Magician's attack points increase, and its damage is doubled."

"Smart move." As her life points ticked down to 1200, she remained completely still, not knocked back by the force of Black Fang's slash.

"Now, I'll attack with Odd Eyes Pendulum Dragon! Best hope you can stop it, or--"

"Trap card, activate! Ice Barrier Triangle Memory." Snow and ice poured forth from the card. "When I've got two Dragons of the Ice Barrier in my graveyard, I can Synchro Summon the third from my deck by using my Life Points as materials. I can't conduct my next Battle Phase, but it's a small price to pay."

Her life ticked down to 300, and from the snow appeared Trishula. "I'll activate her effect."

"I'll activate the effect of my Odd-Eyes Persona Dragon to negate her effect."

"Hm. Very well. She's still more powerful than your monsters, and your Purple Poison Magician is gone."

"Yup. But I'm confident our fourth piece will have an answer. I'll end my turn. Yuri, I leave this to you."

Yuri honestly expected jeering when he returned. But people were so amped by the Duel that most of them weren't even thinking it. Oh, there was a boo here and there -- there would always be a boo here and there -- but people loved the new Dragon Magician cards, people loved seeing the full Ice Barrier assemble.

The tension was palpable. He grinned. He'd show them all the strength that the four of them had formed together.

"My move. I may not be able to conduct my Battle Phase, but I can activate Spells, and that's all I need. I'll activate the card I just drew: Ice Barrier Age Memory Fusion. This lets my dragon on the field fuse with my dragons in the graveyard. Come on out, Tridentra, Hy-Dragon of the Ice Barrier!"

The enormous, hulking ice hydra was one of the most beautiful things Yuri had ever seen. It was hypnotizing to watch liquid fire flow through its frozen veins. With 4000 Attack, she was no coward, either. "She's immune to your card effects, so don't even try with your Persona Dragon. I may not be able to attack, but I'll activate its effect. Up to three times per turn, I can pay half my life points; then, you take 500 Damage, and I draw a card. I'll use this all three times, of course."

Her points counted down - a piddly 37 LP left at the end. The cold air that blasted Yuya and left him with only 700 was bad news. Even worse, her hand was full again.

"Then I'll activate her other effect - by discarding cards, I can destroy your monsters!"

"Hmph."

The Snow Queen smiled. "Little Fusion Duelist, I've left you on the ropes. Nothing on the field, just one card in hand. Now prove to us all why you're just as strong as Yuya!"

Yuri grinned. "Naturally! That guy got all his Dueling skills from me, you know." He drew -- and the answer sat in front of him.

"I'll set the scales with Timegazer Magician and Stargazer Magician! Then I'll Pendulum Summon! Come back, my four Magicians!"

Purple Poison. White Wing. Black Fang. Double Iris.

His Extra Deck glowed, like he knew it would. "I'll Fuse these four, using our newest monster's effect. He likes long walks on the beach, picnics, and dealing your Life Points! Overlap Magician, come forth!"

The new card seemed to glow as it hit the field, an almost heavenly light exuded from it. Its Attack and Defense might've been 0, but Yuri knew its hidden secrets almost instinctively.

"When Overlap Magician enters the field, I can bring back the material I used to Summon it, and it gains 1000 Attack for each of them!"

The five Magicians stared down her monster. He knew what he had to do.

"I'll activate Overlap Magician's effect to move a monster I control to the Pendulum Zone! I'll pick Black Fang Magician - then use his effect to double Overlap Magician's Attack!"

His points went down to 3000, then up to 6000. "When he attacks, neither of us can activate effects!"

Snow Queen smiled. "Well-fought. You've earned this win. A new monster for a new year."

Overlap Magician sent its beam of dark and light at the Dragon, and when the smoke cleared, Yuri -- and his three closest companions -- had won.

A new monster for a new year. And a new Yuri, too, maybe. One who could live for this kind of cheering, for this kind of excitement from the crowd.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to be an Entertainment Duelist.

Chapter Text

Like any good Duel, the Exhibition Match was followed up by a huge party. Pretty much every Pro Leaguer was there, even Master Disaster, though he avoided Yuya and co. like the plague.

"Can't win em all." Yuri's projection shrugged.

At the peak of the party, Declan stood up. "Earlier today, I announced the formation of the Ray Foundation, devoted to solving interdimensional issues and coordinating our efforts to make sure the children of all dimensions are safe, healthy, and educated. I think Yuya and Snow Queen's Duel showed just how much we can achieve when we combine our unique perspectives. Like his Overlap Magician, we must allow ourselves to overlap and combine, finding the strength we can only forge through diversity.

"We're all in this together. So many of us have been affected by these wars, across every dimension. But the war is over. My father, the mastermind of this horrible crusade, has been defeated and will never again bring lives to ruin. Now we must rebuild.

"I hope to see all of you helping in this effort. If you wish to donate time, money, or effort to the cause, please talk to me. Otherwise, keep that message of peace in your hearts as you approach this new season, and new year. Things can get better. We can make them better."

It was hard to remember Declan was barely older than Yuya when he talked like that. It reminded him a bit of Yuto -- someone who had fought so long and so hard that they could no longer see themselves as who they were.

Those two would make good friends. Yuya made a mental note to bring it up with Yuto later.

Declan sat, and the crowd cheered, and Yuya went back to the snack table. It was full of all sorts of edified, grown-up horse divorces, or however it was said; he had found that the little sticks with bright red tomato, pearly white cheese, and soft green basil were pretty delicious, but a lot of the snacks weren't really Yuya kind of food.

So he grabbed a bunch more of the skewers as Yuri's projection glanced over the table. "You should try the corn salad. I ate something quite similar growing up, and I remember thinking very highly of it."

"No offense, Yuri, but it being a childhood favorite of yours doesn't really give me a ton of confidence."

"C'mon... Do it for me?" He batted his eyelashes.

Yuya rolled his eyes, but took a big scoop of the corn salad, which had cheese and lime juice and smelled spicy. He liked spicy food -- his mom's curry phase had solidified that for him. He was less sure about corn, but it paid not to be too picky at these kinds of things.

When he returned to his table, he was surprised to see his parents and Smiley joined by the Sledgehammer. "Sledgy! Good to see you. Are you going to be more active this season?"

"Yes. I was just telling Smiley about that. My little... hissy fit has been a bad influence on my daughter." He smiled. "Whatever we might say in the ring, we should all be friends outside of it."

"True, true!" Smiley grinned. "We'll be glad to see you! I'll have to talk with your manager, maybe we can do a promotional Duel. Your rivalry is quite the popular subject!"

"That would be great. I'll tell Jessica it's got my approval." The Sledgehammer smiled. "Yu Show has been an excellent training ground for my daughter. I'm glad to see her having fun with those Synchro cards you gave her, the Reptiliannes. They seem like a good fit for her."

"She enjoys them. And they're fun to watch," Yuya said. "I'm glad to hear you're getting back in the game, though. I was pretty disappointed we didn't get to rematch all season."

"Yeah. I just got in my own head about it. But seeing my daughter cheerful again... well, it makes a difference to me. It reminds me why I got into this career -- to put a smile on kids' faces. I might be a heel, but that doesn't mean I want to wreck anyone's day. Except yours, of course."

"Ha! That's how it should be," Yuya said. Really, it was great to hear it. It was a tight-knit community, Entertainment Duelists, and the idea of one of their own being so cowardly as to run after a single loss... well, it wasn't so different to how people had treated his Dad, before the big reveal.

"It is." The Sledgehammer turned to Yusho. "How about you? Are you thinking about returning?"

"No. I'd like to spend more time with my family. I regret not being there for them."

"That's a good man I hear right there," the Sledgehammer said with a nod. "Too many Duelists are more concerned with winning or losing than the people we win or lose for."

"Speaking of that," Yusho said, "I noticed one of the Junior League Duelists, your friend Zuzu, blew that Yuto fellow a kiss. Is there something you've forgotten to tell us?"

"You know, this corn salad is really good! I think I'd better go get more!"

"You haven't even eaten any!" his Mom said.

"I can tell just from how it smells. Bye!"

And so he found himself standing out on the balcony, overlooking Maimai. He had never expected things to go this way, but he'd kind of always known they would, too -- that he belonged in front of a crowd, so he'd naturally find his way to one. But the joy he found in it -- well, he'd known it would be fun, but he hadn't known it could fulfill him like this, maybe hadn't understood what fulfillment was at all until he'd experienced it.

"It's a lovely night," Yuri said, and his tone said a million more things -- that he was glad to share it with Yuya, that he was glad that he had gotten to Duel with him, that he was glad that they had come together as Zarc and been torn apart as whatever they were now and were now together in a no less profound way once again.

"It is," he replied, and standing there with the projection of his boyfriend -- boyfriend! -- he couldn't imagine life being any better.