Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I was going to include this in the beginning author’s note in chapter 1, but figure some readers will skip over it. I just want to clarify a few thing that will definitely appear, or won’t appear in my fic, and I want my readers to be on the same page as I am, so you guys won’t be disappointed or misled going into my fic.

Point 1: The fic will include duels with real TCG/OCG cards, with a few exceptions when I have my characters use anime-only cards, I may tweak the card’s name or effect a little, but I will not make up a single card. That’s too much for my small brain. The duels will follow Master Rule 5.

Point 2: The characters will treat their cards as if they’ve always had their TCG/OCG effect, anime-only effects will not be used, and that’s including all the God cards. This is mostly because I’ve no brain to write a side plot about how my characters get surprised at seeing their card effect changed.

Point 3: This fic is, as you can see, obviously a cross-over Yu-Gi-Oh! Fic, but I’ve made a conscious choice NOT to include Vrain characters into it, and by proxy won’t include any Link Summon either. There are mainly 3 reasons for this choice:

• I haven’t watched Vrain yet. That really kills any motivation to write fics about them when I don’t even know who they are.
• The plot has mostly been fully thought out before I have the chance to watch Vrain, so I don’t know if I can squeeze them into my plot. 
• The biggest reason: Link monsters are a poor poor poor fit for written duels on papers without any visual cues. Like holy shit it’s hard enough to keep up with all the card effects, counters and every other million things in a Yugioh duel. Trying to include all the strategic placement and link arrows would be a nightmare.

Point 4: THE MOST CRUCIAL ONE

I don’t tag couples because I want it to be a surprise reveal, but my fic will include at least one M/M couple. Of course the rating will not go past T, but whoever is not comfortable with this can click back.

Chapter Text

The advantage of being the General Director was that Kaiba didn’t have to supervise every daily activity in his companies anymore. At the age of 35, he had left most of those menial tasks to Mokuba, who he made the Executive Director several years ago so that Kaiba could be free to focus on improving their already super-advanced technology, or doing what he loved most: dueling.

Kaiba stood inside the Virtual Reality Room inside his company's headquarter, cards in one hand and duel disk in another. On his side of the field, his Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon hovering proudly, her metallic silver scales gleaming under the artificial light.

On the other side of the field, was a Magician of Black Chaos, floating in front of the shape of his lifelong rival and obsession: Yugi.

“Blue-Eyes, attack Black Chaos,” he commanded.

The dragon opened their mouth, and shoot out three deathly beams of light at the purple monster. Unable to withstand the attack, Dark Magician’s form got drowned by the stream of light and broke out into million pieces.

Yugi: 1300 LP -> 0 LP

Kaiba pulled the VR glass from his eye as the field slowly disintegrated, his card’s form and his rival’s figure disappeared along with it. He signed deeply, feeling already exhausted despite the win.

Another day, another duel with the poor imitation of the Pharaoh, the AI couldn’t measure up to a fraction of Yugi’s power no matter how much time he spent tweaking it.

Kaiba walked into the empty control room and threw himself to the chair. It had been 18 years, 18 years since Atem’s passing, and 17 years since his brief glimpse of him in the afterlife world, yet his thirst, his yearning for the King of Game has not been quenched in the slightest.

Kaiba took out something in his pocket. He had kept this thing close to his person for more than 15 years, something that had both frustrated him and fascinated him in equal measure.

The long, tear-shaped earring with a ruby gemstone rested innocently in his palm. He rolled it around carefully, admiring the blood red color that hadn’t dulled in the slightest ever since he acquired it.

‘Should I make use of this, or should I not?’ The question that had been plaguing him all this time flared up again.

His phone suddenly went off, the loud alarm in the otherwise quiet room triggered his temper.

“I told you not to bother me when I’m here, you’d better have a really good reason!” Kaiba shouted into his phone.

“I’m sorry, sir,” his secretary said in a panic, “but there is an intruder inside the building, he said he wanted to meet you and when we denied him entrance he just charged in. He-he  has some kind of strange power, we couldn’t stop him!”

Kaiba frowned, his security couldn’t stop someone? With how generous Kaiba spent on his company’s security system, that should be nigh impossible.

“Give me a visual of the intruder,” he demanded.

When the camera flashed on and the image of a young man with shaggy brown hair, wearing a red jacket appeared, Kaiba snorted. So that little brat managed to find a way to come here after all. No wonder his security couldn’t do jack shit.

“Sir, what should we do?” The secretary asked.

“You don’t need to worry about that, I know what he’s here for. Let him in,” Kaiba ordered as he made himself comfortable to receive this uninvited, but not unexpected guest.

About 5 minutes later, Yuki Judai burst through the door.

“Give me one good reason why a brat like you decided to break into my company, or I promise you’d wish you were in hell,” Kaiba leered at the brown-haired man and demanded.

The young man in front of him only gave him a shrug. “Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ve been in hell. And I can guarantee nothing you do to me will be worse than that,” he said, and sit down on a chair opposite him nonchalantly.

“Naive brats who think they know all are set on the path toward self-destruction,” he smirked, rolling the earring absentmindedly in his palm.

The younger man didn’t say anything for a few seconds, his face was carefully blank, but Kaiba knew he was having a separate conversation in his head. Cheeky brat!

“Ah, I’m sorry, where is my manner? My name is Yuki Judai, a graduate of Duel Academy. Nice to meet you, Mr. Kaiba,” He grinned and bowed down to him, feigning politeness.

He sneered. “Changing tactics now wouldn’t get you on my good side. And I don’t need an introduction to know who you are, the messes you constantly created at my Academy were enough for me to want to expel you and ban you from competing permanently.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t ever participate in any tournament then,” Yuki Judai grinned back. 

Kaiba signed, if he was a bit younger he would be offended by this brat’s audacity and one-up him with his obvious superior stance. But now, these things just didn’t feel worthy of his time anymore.

“I don’t have all day, say what you want to say and get the hell out of my building,” he said.

“Oh, you bet I will,” Yuki Judai still said cheerily. He pulled his phone out and showed him a photo of a young duelist whom Kaiba knew very well. “My friend is missing, and a trusted source told me the last person he met was you.”

Kaiba would have to fire his entire IT security team. What were they doing to let an amateur hacker get into their system and get information out of them? He thought, knowing full well who was the trusted source the younger man mentioned.

“The last important person he met, you mean,” he corrected him. “I’m sure after he left my mansion he ran into people too. Domino city wasn’t exactly an empty house.”

Yuki Judai gulped, seemingly holding back his emotion, a smile still etched on his lips. “I don’t care how many random people he comes across. That guy, he dropped from every tournament he was scheduled for, he refused to meet anyone, he didn’t even come home. The last time somebody saw him in public was at the Europe Open Championship two months ago. And yet, he came all the way here to meet you, someone he’d never met before. Something is fishy and I need to know what you two talked about, and if you know where he is.” He stopped and after a few seconds, added. “Please tell me, he is a very important friend of mine.” 

Kaiba couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. Friend? This kid insisted they were friends? No wonder the previous kid had such an expression whenever he mentioned Yuki Judai. What an idiot!

“What’s so funny?” The younger man gritted his teeth, his fake smile disappeared.

“You really don’t know anything about your ‘friend’, do you? Despite claiming your friendship so boldly,” Kaiba resumed rolling the earring between his fingers, contemplating how much to tell him.

“So you do know something,” Yuki Judai gasped. “Please, tell me!” He bowed deeply.

Kaiba replied in a cold tone, “I don’t know anything. That kid came uninvited, just like you. He barged into my house and demanded several of my items, after that he disappeared into thin air. My security went through the entire city’s CCTV several times, but they still couldn’t pinpoint where he might’ve run off to. You should be thanking me we didn’t press charges for trespassing and robbery.”

Though, considering where that kid probably was right now, pressing any charge against him would be pointless.

This time, the younger man visibly stopped himself from lunging at Kaiba.

“Don’t accuse him of a crime!”

“I wasn’t accusing, I was there witnessing as he committed the deed,” Kaiba replied.

Yuki Judai looked at him with narrowed eyes. “The items he took, what are those?”

“I have no obligation to tell you that.”

They stared at each other, neither willingly backing down.

“Mr. Kaiba, I know him. He would never take someone’s possession without a justified reason. Unless those items were harmful, or,” he openly glared at him, “wasn’t yours in the first place.”

“Hm, good point,” Kaiba mused.

The younger man looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped short. He widened his eyes and frantically looked around.

“Mr. Kaiba, do you hear that?” He gasped.

“Hear what?” Kaiba asked. He didn’t move an inch from where he was seated while the young man stood up and grabbed his head with both hands.

“Someone is- talking to me, who-” he groaned.

The floor beneath them rumbled and then started glowing up, multicolored rays of lights shot up from underneath them, transforming the ceramic floor into crystal glass. 

Those rays of light converged around Yuki Judai, and the young duelist only had enough time to cry out once as he was drowned by the light.

“Have fun on your journey,” Kaiba bid him farewell.

When the light dimmed and the room was returned to its original state, there was no sign of Yuki Judai anywhere.

Good riddance, he thought.

Kaiba would honestly freak out if this was the first time it happened, but as he himself had gone through the same event 15 years ago, the only thing he did was put the earring back into his pocket, and returned to his work.

- 15 years ago -

Kaiba Seto had accomplished more at 20 than most people during their entire lives. He was the president of his multinational corporation, he monopolized an entire industry and invented a whole new technology that completely changed the course of history forever.

Yet, there was a single objective that he wasn’t able to achieve no matter what he did. His Superspeed Transportation Device had done the impossible ever since its conception and transform the transportation industry forever, but no matter how many times he modified it, it couldn’t bring him to the Afterlife.

To be precise, it did bring him to the Afterlife, only once.

He remembered it as clear as day. He was at his space station, entrusting everything to Mokuba as he used the newly invented technology to shoot himself to another dimension. He had seen him with his own eyes, the passed Pharaoh sitting on his throne. He thought he had finally done it, finally had a chance to have his fated duel with his fated rival again.

And then… he was back before he could do anything.

The machine broke down as soon as he opened his eyes inside the space station. Mokuba was screaming hoarsely. He told Kaiba he was being a self-centered bastard who couldn’t think of anything but his own thirst, he accused him of dumping every responsibility on him and abandoning him once again. Then he locked himself in his room and refused to talk to him for nearly two months.

Kaiba hadn’t attempted to re-build the Transdimensional Teleportation Device ever since then.

Instead, he focused his research elsewhere. The Puzzle was no longer in this world, but other Items were, graverobbers scattered them all over the world after the Kul Ena collapsed, and Kaiba spent the better part of the last two years, squeezing out every hour of free time he had in between his work searching for them.

The moment he gathered them all in the same place and put them deep inside his company’s secret vault, Kaiba metaphorically breathed a sigh of relief he didn’t realize he was holding. The last thing he needed to do was to obtain their power for himself.

That’s why he sent for the person who used to be the vessel of his old rival: Mutou Yugi.

At 20, the young King of Game had rubbed off most of the baby fat still presented in his teenage years, he had grown somewhat taller and more confident in himself, though compared to Kaiba, he’s still nothing impressive. Yugi let out a gasp when he entered the highly protected vault and saw the Millennium Stone filled with Millenium Items sans the Puzzle.

“Kaiba, what is this?” Yugi asked in bewilderment.

Eyes didn’t leave the Stone, he replied. “It’s exactly as you see, I’ve gathered all 6 remaining Millenium Items.”

“You- how? They are supposed to be buried under that shrine! No, if it’s you, I’m certain that you have a way to find all of them. But you know more than anyone how dangerous they are. So why?” Yugi cautiously asked.

“...You once have all of them in your possession, don’t you desire their powers at all, Yugi?” He asked him back instead of answering.

Yugi replied instantly. “Not at all, their powers were born out of the sacrifice of so many people. They were used to conduct evil practices and made my friends suffer, I would sooner die than think about it.”

“If so,” Kaiba murmured, he approached the table and grabbed the Millenium Rod, “then right now, right here, relinquished their possession to me!” He declared.

Kaiba didn’t know anything about magic or ancient occult, but his guts told him if the true master of all the Millenium Items hasn’t forfeited his rights over them, he might never be able to utilize their power to their best.

“What?” Yugi widened his eyes. “That’s absurd, what would you even use them for?”

“These Items are connected to each other and to the underworld, if I have my free reign with all of them, I might be able to force open that door once more.”

Yugi’s already big eyes widened even more, he took several steps back. “It can’t be, you still… thinking about bringing him back?!” He shouted.

“That’s right! There must be a way, and even if I have to spend my whole life searching for a way to duel him again, then so be it!”

“You… you are sick! How many times do I have to tell you Atem is gone?!”

“Give it up, Mutou Yugi, you can never change my mind, no one can.” 

The person in front of him might be the legitimate Duel King, recognized by the whole world, he might be the only other person than the Pharaoh that has beaten him, but he is not the Yugi he acknowledged as his fated rival.

He pointed the Millennium Rod toward Yugi. “Now, go on and say it! Say you forfeit your rights over them to me!”

All the gentleness in Yugi’s eyes disappear, replaced with a fierce stare he rarely saw on that kind face. “Kaiba, you’ve gone insane! My other self is gone! He’s gone forever and will never come back! It’s time you accept this fact!”

“Fortunately, I’m not a spineless wimp like you, Mutou Yugi. I don’t shrivel up like a freaking coward at the first obstacle presented to me. My bond with him was forced by the countless battles we’ve gone through, and turned into steel by our desire to fight each other, unlike the superficial ‘friendship’ you like to touted around but never intend to keep once he’s out of your sign.”

Yugi’s eyes burned with rage, and Kaiba suddenly realized he looked much more similar to the Pharaoh with this intense stare.

“Don’t you dare disrespect our bond!”

“But that’s all it is, right? You guys happily wander around carrying a big Friendship banner, yet none of you attempt to persuade him to stay in this world, right?”

Yugi seemed to be lost for words for a second. “He- he was meant to-”

“To die?! No, you utter moron! No one was meant to die! He was revived, maybe not in body but in spirit. He was given a second chance to experience life all over again, without the burden of a king weighing on his shoulder and a death battle he was forced to take part in. And yet the moment he was relieved of that burden, he had to die again just because it was destined for him?”

Judging from Yugi’s shocked face, Kaiba was sure this line of thinking hadn’t even crossed this little idiot’s mind, he might’ve just torn his entire worldview apart. He continued, “no, destiny is what you choose for yourself, not what some god assigned to you. I will go against fate and even death itself to bring him back. After that, he’s free to choose whether or not he wants to continue living in this world.”

He approached a petrified Yugi and pressed the Rod on his chest. “Now, Yugi, say it!”

“I- I,” Yugi stuttered, his face looked as if he was punched.

Suddenly, the Millenium Rod lit up.

“Huh?” Yugi and Kaiba exclaimed in unison.

On the Stone, all the Millenium Items began to glow up as well, their light got so bright that Kaiba had to cover his eyes to avoid blinding himself.

“Kaiba, what did you do?” Yugi cried.

“I didn’t do anything, they are doing this on their own.”

The light spread out like wildfire, beyond his squinted eyelids, Kaiba saw the Millennium Stone turned into a block of pure white, the whole floor transformed into a mixture of colored lights, rays of light shooting up from below them, caging them in their blinding embrace.

Kaiba heard music, disjointed, inharmonious notes echoed in the room until it grew so loud he couldn’t hear Yugi’s obnoxious cry anymore. And then, a voice called out.

“Help me! Please! Help!”

Kaiba couldn’t ask who that was before unconsciousness claimed him.

He woke up with a start to see dense foliage above him. The sound of birds chirping, leaves rustling, and the earthy smell all around him informed him that he was indeed in a forest.

In his hand, still feeling chilled by the regulated temperature in the vault, was the Millenium Rod.

Kaiba slowly sat up, feeling disoriented. He looked around while clutching his head, trying to make head and tail of this strange place. How did he get here from his ultra-protected vault?

His first conclusion was that he was abducted, and his kidnappers had dumped him here to rot away. But that’s not likely, since his vault might be the second most protected place in Japan, save for the Imperial Palace. If he could be kidnapped from there, he might as well fire all of his security team. Plus, dumping him here made no sense if they could lock him up somewhere  and demand ransom.

So, where was he? And where was Mutou Yugi?

Kaiba checked his deck and duel disk to see that they both looked alright, which was good, since if whoever took him here took a single card from him, there’d be hell to pay later. The Millenium Rod didn’t look damaged, which didn’t surprise him, so he put it in the inner pocket of his jacket.

Other than that, he didn’t have anything else on him, save for his phone, which was out of range. Kaiba get up and called out for Yugi several times, but after a few minutes, he had to give up and conclude that the smaller duelist wasn’t here with him.

Was he not brought here? Or was he dropped somewhere far away? Kaiba wasn’t sure what he would do if it was the latter.

At any rate, he had to get out of this place.

Kaiba didn’t exactly ace biology back in high school, but he had enough natural knowledge to know that this forest with countless gigantic trees couldn’t be Japan, every plant was foreign and the occasion bugs jumping out in front of him were completely unrecognizable.

“Don’t tell me, this is another world,” he wondered, but it couldn’t be, something in him told him this wasn’t like the time when he traveled through reality itself to get to the barren desert of the Afterlife. Yet, something in his guts told him he was right, that this was indeed an alternate dimension, separated from his own.

Kaiba woke up on a steep hill, so he decided to make his way downward, to the direction he realized the moss on the tree bark favored. Dense moisture meant he could find a stream or a river, and a water source also meant food sources.

He didn’t bother shouting for help, if his guts were correct, then there’d be no rescue team out there trying to find him, and he couldn’t be sure that there’d be no predators here.

While walking, he was reminded of the voice calling out for help earlier. The voice belonged to a stranger, and obviously was that of a man.

“If you think you can forcefully ask for my help by abducting me, you are sorely mistaken,” Kaiba gritted his teeth, deciding that if he ever met whoever it was that pulled him here, he’d give that punk a punch to the face.

Before long, the foliage grew thinner, letting streams of bright sunlight shine down the forest floor, and Kaiba soon heard the sound of running water.

The trees gave way to a fast-running river, the turquoise-blue stream glinting with sparkles in the golden sunshine. He made his way down the muddy riverbanks, walking carefully so as not to get his expensive boots wet while chanting his self-promise to skin, boil, and dump whoever brought him here into the bottom of Tokyo bay.

He was thinking about what to do next when a sound from behind alerted him, Kaiba quickly shifted back, hands raised in a defense Karate position.

What, or better yet, who greeted him was another human.

A teenage boy, judging from his appearance. He was wearing a red vest with a sleeveless blue undershirt and white pants, his hair was an ominous mixture of red and black, styled into two upward spikes on each side of his head. Yugi and this kid could compete over the title of the world’s freakiest hairstyle.

The kid was also openly staring at him with a haughty expression.

“Who are you?” Kaiba asked, noticing the slouchy posture from the boy, how he was soaking wet and panting like a dog, as if he was just spending his day swimming in the river.

The other boy didn’t reply, just continued staring at Kaiba.

“Didn’t your mother tell you you must greet your elder, impolite brat?” He mocked, still keeping his hands raised. Even though this kid appeared to be harmless, Kaiba couldn’t afford to be careless.

Again, silent.

“Hey, cat got you toug-”

“The most important thing…,” the kid suddenly spoke and started approaching him.

Kaiba frowned. “Huh?”

“The most important thing,” he raised his voice, “you took it, the most important thing, my most important thing, you took, you took it!” He yelled.

“What?” Kaiba asked. Something was strange, the other boy’s eyes were red-rimmed and lifeless, and he was mumbling “you took it”, and “the most important thing” over and over as he made his way toward him.

“I don’t remember taking any worthless shit from you. I don’t even know who you are.” Kaiba said.

“Liar! You took it!” He screamed. With one swift movement, he pulled something from his pocket that had Kaiba startled, expecting a weapon, but it was only a strange device which the kid quickly strapped onto his left wrist. The device immediately unfolded and a duel board sprung from it, then he put on another device, this one resembled a mono glasses, on his eye. 

“Duel!” He declared.

“You wanna duel me?” Kaiba snorted incredulously. “What a cocky move, but alright, I never turn down a challenge.”

Kaiba turned his duel disk on, and let it automatically shuffle his deck for him.

“Duel!” He said.

Weird brat: 4000LP Vs Kaiba: 4000LP

Turn 1: Weird brat

“I’ll take the first turn. Dr-”

The kid’s duel disk flashed red with an error message. Kaiba quickly looked at his own disk, which was displaying the same message: First turn’s player isn’t allowed to draw.

“A new rule? Interesting.” Kaiba mused. It seemed like he needed to be careful then, this world certainly was much more troublesome than he thought.

On the other side of the field, the kid only looked momentarily troubled. He quickly put a card on his duel disk.

“I summon Gogogo Golem in attack mode.”

A humanoid blue rock appeared on the kid’s field, it did several performative punches with its two huge rock arms.

   Gogogo Golem (Rock/Earth/Level 4): 1800/1500

“And then I special summon Kagetokage, this card can be special summoned from my hand if I just normal summoned a Level 4 monster.”

This time, a literal shadow in the shape of a lizard crawled onto the field, its two red eyes hovered above the surface of the field, creating an eerie image.

    Kagetokage (Reptile/Dark/Level 4): 1100/1500

“Two monsters on the first turn? Not bad, kid.”

“Then, I overlay my level 4 Gogogo Golem and Kagetokage. With these two monsters I build an overlay network. Xyz summon, join the fight, Gagaga Cowboy!”

“You what?!” Kaiba blurted out. In front of his eyes, the two monsters the kid controlled turned into two balls of light, they twirled around each other and flew into a black hole that appeared on the field. And from there, a cowboy monster wearing a purple coat emerged, two tiny blue balls revolved around him.

    Gagaga Cowboy (Warrior/Xyz/Earth/Rank 4): 1500/2400

“I’ve never seen this summoning method before, where the hell do you come from, brat?” He growled. Could it be that that bastard Pegasus went behind his back and create yet another absurd mechanics? No, that’s unlikely. He got no reason to do that when both of their company’s livelihood more or less entirely depended on each other now.

Something wacky was at play here, and Kaiba swear he’d uncover it.

“I use an Overlay Unit from Gagaga Cowboy to activate its effect. When this card is in defense mode, I can inflict 800 damage to your LP!” The kid announced.

One of the blue balls flying around the monster changed its trajectory and flew into the cowboy’s gun. The monster pointed the gun at him and shoot Kaiba clear through the heart.

“Arghhhhhh!” Kaiba screamed. What he expected as a slight push from the hologram’s programming pierced through him with a strength of a bullet instead. For a second, his lung seized up with pain and he lost his vision completely.

Kaiba: 4000LP -> 3200LP

Kaiba came up with a gasp. When did he fall backward? He put a hand on his chest to confirm that yes, his heart was still intact. But that shock… It felt as if he was shot for real.

On the other side of the field, his opponent was still babbling with his insane voice. “Serve you right, for taking, taking, my most, most important thing.”

“I’m gonna kill you, brat,” Kaiba struggled to get up, “for falsely accusing me and for daring to injure my body.”

The kid swayed and for a second Kaiba thought he was about to collapse, but he righted his posture at the last minute. “I set a card. Turn end!” He announced.

Something’s seriously wrong here. The lifeless looks on that kid’s eyes, the unnatural, subdued way he moved, it’s like…

Kaiba had a sudden dejá vu about Marik’s possessed dolls.

He put his hand into his jacket, searching for the Millenium Rod. The moment he touched it, a spark of electricity ran through him, and his vision was bombarded with new shades of color. Kaiba narrowed his eyes, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him. But no, there indeed was a thick layer of black miasma, which for some reason he could only see after his hand touched the Rod, radiated from the kid’s body.

Upon closer inspection, it was coming from his left hand, when he appeared to be clutching something in his palm.

“So that’s it. You are so much of a coward to take me on yourself that you have to take over a brat’s body to do it, huh?” He smirked. The other kid didn’t respond, and Kaiba didn’t expect he would. “Fine by me, I’ll destroy the brat right here, right now and pull you out from wherever you were hiding. My turn, draw!”

Turn 2: Kaiba/3200 LP

“I activate The Melody of Awakening Dragon. By discarding a card, I can add 2 dragon monsters with 3000 or more ATK and 2500 or less DEF from my deck to my hand. I add two Blue-Eyes White Dragons to my hand.” Kaiba announced as he took two of his beloved dragons out of his deck.

Holding out a card, he smirked. “Prepare to witness the terror I’m about to deliver you, spell card Polymerization: I fuse the two Blue-Eyes on my hand to call out Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon!”

The figures of two white dragon briefly appeared above him, and then with the effect of the fusion card, they merged together to gave birth to a massive two-headed silver dragon. She spread her white wings and let out two identical roars with both heads.

    Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon (Dragon/Fusion/Light/Level 10): 3000/2500

“Next, I summon Lord of D.”

A humanoid monster wearing a dark robe with a bony mask appeared on the field.

    Lord of D. (Spellcaster/Dark/Level 4): 1200/1100

“From my hand, I activate the spell card Enemy Controller. By tributing a monster on my field, I can take control of one of your monsters. I tribute Lord of D. to take control of Gagaga Cowboy. Now let’s see what’s good about this so-called Xyz monster of yours.”

A game controller materialized and pointed toward the Cowboy monster, and its buttons started pressing wildly. Gagaga Cowboy’s eyes lit up, then he leaped to Kaiba’s field, despite his opponent’s shocked protesting.

Once the strange monster was in his control, Kaiba started examining his stats. 

“I see, so this is its summoning condition? Any level 4 would do? How convenient, it's a simpler type of fusion summon then. However, there seems to be a limit to how many times it can activate its effect.” Kaiba mused, he read the card text again. Detach, it said? His duel disk informed him that the card now only had 1 “material”. 

“So this card used the monsters it used for its summoning to activate its effect. Clever, very clever,” he mused.

“Give it back,” a cry made him look up, “give it back to me, you thief!” The kid’s eyes were red-rimmed and wet with tears. The miasma around him pulsed upward, half-drowning him in hazy darkness.

“Oh, I’ll give it back,” Kaiba clicked his tongue, “after I beat you senselessly with it.” He pressed a button on his duel disk and declared, “I detach a material from Gagaga Cowboy to activate its effect. When in defense position, I can deal 800 points of damage to you.”

Just like earlier, the Cowboy sucked a revolving ball inside its gun and aimed it at his former owner, then shoot.

“This is for injuring me earlier, enjoy the taste of your medicine, insolent brat!”

The kid cried out, “Trap card activate, Damage Diet, any damage I take in this turn will be halved.”

A transparent barrier formed around him as the bullet slammed into it, but it pushed through and pierce his chest. The kid screamed out and fell backward, landed on his back and laid there trembling, his ragged moans filled the air.

Weird brat: 4000 LP -> 3600 LP

Kaiba observed him, the miasma seemed to shrink into his hand a little, but it sprung back, and the kid forced his body to raise and faced him again. His eyes were even more dead this time around.

He cringed, this kid reminded him of the zombies in those movies Mokuba loved so much and often robbed Kaiba into watching with him.

“Look like you need a firmer hand in order to come to your senses then. Fine, I’ll slowly teach you how to respect your elder. I switch Gagaga Cowboy to attack position.”

    Gagaga Cowboy: 1500/2400 -> 1500/2400

“Gagaga Cowboy, direct attack.” He pointed to his opponent.

The monster twirled both his guns in his hands in an exaggerated manner and then aimed them at the kid. With a twin “bang”, two bullets shot toward his opponent, pierce through his torso again.

This time, his cry was even more guttural, and he took a long time to stop trembling and gathered his strength to stand up again.

Weird brat: 3600 LP -> 2850 LP

Kaiba couldn’t say he sympathized with him.

“I haven’t done yet. Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon, direct attack! Burn him down!”

His beautiful two-headed dragon spread her wings white, both heads opened their mouths to each shoot an energy ball toward his opponent. The bright light and the sound of the explosion as the attack met its target prevented Kaiba from hearing any sound the kid made.

Weird brat: 2850 LP -> 1350 LP

When the dust cleared from the battlefield, the kid was lying a bit further away, half emerged in the river water. His clothes were soaked and tattered, and there were bruises and little cuts all over his skin.

Kaiba almost felt bad, almost. He wasn’t that much of a sadist to torture a kid he didn’t have any grudge against in a death game, not to mention when said kid was mind controlled. But oh well, he came onto him first, and a duel was a duel.

Besides, if he was right, then the only thing that could free him from whatever was controlling him would be to defeat him in a duel.

“I set a card face down and end my turn.”

The Cowboy, now freed from the influence of Enemy Controller, jumped back to his owner’s field.

Kaiba watched his opponent raise his battered body up once more, the miasma now was so thin and mostly concentrated on his hand, but it still didn’t completely disperse.

“My turn, draw,” the kid mumbled, his trembling hand barely able to hold onto the newly drawn card.

Turn 3: Half-beaten kid/1350 LP

“I summon Gogogo Giant.”

A huge red gundam-like monster appeared with a huff on the kid’s field.

    Gogogo Giant (Rock/Earth/Level 4): 2000/0

“When I normal summon Gogogo Giant, I can special summon another Gogogo monster from my grave. Revive, Gogogo Golem!” He declared.

The rock monster with huge hands from the previous turn punched its way out of the dirt and climb out once more to stand next to its comrade.

    Gogogo Golem (Rock/Earth/Level 4): 1800/1500

“Two Level 4s again, is there any other strategy in your little dumb head, kid?” Kaiba mocked.

“Shut up!” He looked at Kaiba with hooded eyes, “I will not stop, until I get it back, get my most important thing back. I use my Level 4 Gogogo Giant and Level 4 Gogogo Golem to build an overlay network. The most noble of knights is clad in light! Xyz summon! Appear, Heroic Champion - Excalibur!”

A lightning bolt struck across the battlefield and emerged from the black hole was another gundam-ish monster encased in red armor, a cross attached to its helmet and a huge sword on its hand.

    Heroic Champion - Excalibur (Warrior/Xyz/Light/Rank 4): 2000/2000

“I detach both Excalibur’s Overlay Units to activate its effect, until your next End Phase, this card’s ATK will be doubled.” The kid announced.

    Heroic Champion - Excalibur: 2000/2000 -> 4000/2000.

“I take back my words, you really got lots of dirty tricks,” Kaiba growled.

“Battle! Excalibur, attack Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon! Shock Sword Slash!”

The armored warrior rushed to his dragon, sword swinging down as he cut through Blue-Eyes’s beautiful scales. His monster screamed out in pain as the shock from the battle made its way toward Kaiba.

    Heroic Champion - Excalibur: 4000 ATK Vs Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon: 3000 ATK

Kaiba was prepared this time, but his breath still got knocked out of him as the pain slammed into his body. At least he didn’t scream, that would’ve been a disgrace to the pain Blue-Eyes just withstood.

Kaiba: 3200 LP ->2200 LP

When he managed to open his eyes, it was to the sign of his two-headed dragon still standing tall and proud on the field, her white scales glistening like molten mercury under the sunlight.

“Why…?” He heard the kid mumble.

Kaiba laughed, his opponent really had to try harder if he wanted to defeat him. “Too bad for you, my Blue-Eyes cannot be destroyed by battle.”

“But you still take the damage,” he hissed.

“So I did. And the next turn I’ll give you triple of what you did to me.”

The kid ignored him again. “I switch Gagaga Cowboy to defense again and then set a card, turn end.”

Turn 4: Kaiba/2200 LP

“My turn, draw.”

He looked at his hand, at the field, then a smile showed on his lips. This was easier than he expected, and here he thought this strange kid with an unfamiliar summoning method would pose more of a challenge to him.

To be clear, Kaiba thought his dueling was solid, but the cards he played were all over the place. After the Gagaga Cowboy used up his materials, he just left it there on the field to summon another boss monster. And he could even call out Excalibur, the stronger monster, on the first turn, so why opened with Cowboy at the first place? It’s almost like both times, he wanted to play something else but had to settle to weaker cards instead.

I see, Kaiba thought. The kid’s ace monster must’ve been missing from his deck, so he was forced to make use of the remaining card he still had. How boring.

He wasn’t interested in dueling someone who wasn’t at their maximum strength. So he decided to end it quickly.

“I activate my spell Stop Defense, I’ll have your Gagaga Cowboy there switching to attack position.”

    Gagaga Cowboy: 1500/2400 -> 1500/2400

“Then I activate another spell: Shrink, this card will halve one of your monster’s original ATK until the end of this turn. Excalibur, take that!”

A round mirror appeared in front of Excalibur, the monster’s image reflected on its clear surface. Then the mirror shrunk,  causing the monster’s body to shrink with it.

    Heroic Champion - Excalibur: 4000/2000 -> 2000/2000

“Battle!” He announced, “Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon, attack Excalibur. Burn everything down!”

“I don’t think so,” the kid yelled. “Trap card activates, Impenetrable Attack. I won’t be taking any damage this turn.”

“Unfortunately, I’m already two steps ahead of you. You triggered my counter trap card, Trap Jammer. When you activate a trap card during the Battle Phase, I can negate and destroy that trap card,” Kaiba shouted in triumph.

The kid grunted when his trap card exploded.

“Continue the battle, Blue-Eyes, annihilate that monster!” He ordered.

Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon: 3000 ATK Vs Heroic Champion - Excalibur: 2000 ATK.

The warrior raised his sword up in a brave attempt to retaliate, but Blue-Eyes’s powerful ball of energy burned through it easily before incinerating his torso. The monster exploded, causing the kid to fly back several meters when he cried out in pain.

Yuma: 1350 LP -> 350 LP

Kaiba thought maybe the kid was down for good this time when he remained still on the ground for nearly a minute, but by the force of some wicked power, he pushed his beaten body up again.  

“The next turn, I’ll get you the next turn,” the kid chanted.

“Your mental fortitude is admirable, but too bad, there won’t be a next turn for you. My Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon can make up to 2 attacks on monsters during each battle phase.”

“Huh?” The kid startled when he saw his dragon gearging up for another attack.

“Blue-Eyes, attack Gagaga Cowboy!”

Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon: 3000 ATK Vs Gagaga Cowboy: 1500 ATK.

His dragon’s energy swept through the battlefield, enveloped the kid’s thin body in its blinding embrace, while Kaiba silently prayed for the accuracy of his judgment. Despite common belief, he didn’t fancy becoming a murderer. 

Defeated brat: 350 LP -> 0 LP

When the light faded out and natural sunlight was all that still shone on them, Kaiba carefully made his way to the boy’s side. He was lying next to the water’s edge, eyes closed, his cracked mono glasses hanging loosely on the side of his head, blood dribbled from a cut on his cheek, but the wound didn’t seem to be serious.

Most curiously, the miasma poured out from his body had completely shriveled into a tiny black dot in his palm.

Kaiba crouched down and carefully checked the kid’s pulses. It's weak, but he’s alive.

If Yugi and his horde of friends were here, they’d be cheering in joy, Kaiba thought. But he wasn’t Yugi, so Kaiba only let out a relieving puff.

This freaking brat put him through enough trouble to last an entire month.

He pried the boy’s fingers open to see what the heck he was keeping in his palm, and saw a broken string connected to a pointy, slightly crashed pendant, the dot of darkness shimmered inside the pendant’s glossy surface.

Something told Kaiba touching that pendant with bare hands would be a huge mistake so he used the head of the Millenium Rod to poke at it.

…And he was immediately enveloped by darkness.

Kaiba tensed up, he saw nothing but inky black all around him. A chilly sensation from behind made the hair on his nape stand up, and Kaiba whipped around.

What greeted him was a pair of gigantic golden eyeballs, looming above him and gazing at him with their split pupils.

Those eyes floated closer to him, their gaze zeroed on him as if staring into his very soul.

“Pppathetic. What a pathetic man.” A voice echoed in the dark space.

“Hah, surely you don’t mean me?” Kaiba moved the Millenium Rod in front of him in defense, only to find the speed of his movement had been greatly reduced as if he was half paralyzed. Great, another one of this thing’s trick then.

“You spend yearssss chasing the shadow of somebody who is dead, neglecting your present, your family, your legacy and future for a hopeless wish. Allll because your ego cannottttttt fathom the fact that you got completely and utterly defeated.”

He gritted his teeth in anger. How did this thing know so much about him, did it pry into his mind or what? Kaiba stood his ground and didn’t back down.

“You are a weakkkk man who always needs to knock others down in order to feel superior, you lust after an absolute triumph to fill in the voiddddd in your heart. But nnnno matter what you do, the void is still therreeeee, eating you aliveeee.”

The eyes had gotten so close that they nearly touched his face with their gross slimy surface, but Kaiba still didn’t step back.

“Your ridiculous interpretation makes me nauseous, for a pair of tiny eyes who doesn’t even have the courage to face me yourself, you certainly got a lot to say.” He sneered.

“Right at the time when you thought you found someone who you deeeeemed an equal, someone who could spark life back into your hollow soul, he went and accepted his death, leaving you behind. O little orphaned boy who couldn’t take it and chase after his back again and again, just like how you chased after your father’s back yearsss ago. You are just a losssst little ki-”

Kaiba managed to wrench his hand out of the eyes’s influence and swung the Rod up with all his might. Its two spikes sank into the eyeball with a satisfied slush sound.

The eyes screamed, despite having no mouth attached to its existence. Kaiba didn’t relent, he used his whole body to push Rod deeper into the eyeball. It made a final screech before fading away.

Suddenly, the space around him brightened and Kaiba was bombarded with a barrage of sounds, sights, and sensations. He saw a colorful city, humans, friends, fractured families, then he saw aliens, comrades, traitors, enemies, a war that spanned three worlds and millenniums of fighting and suffering. He saw a power, enormous power, capable of rewriting the universe itself. He saw laughter, cry, hope, despair, despair, despair, despair, despair, so much despair. Where is he, where is his other half, he promised him that he wouldn’t let him go, no more, no more, bring him back, bring him back, his most important thing, bring him back!

Astral!!!

Kaiba awoke with a gasp. He was still sitting next to the boy’s side, his Millennium Rod slightly touching the boy’s pendant, the black dot was barely visible now. His legs trembled and he had to slump to the ground to calm his nerves.

So that was the memory of this kid? Did the Rod show him that? Kaiba looked at the kid with newfound awe, if the vision he just experience was the truth, then this kid, no, the power this kid held would be the exact solution to the question that had been haunting him for the last few years.

The Numeron Code, the power to bring back the dead and rewrite reality.

He couldn’t believe in his luck. Here he was, getting lost in another world because of someone’s whim, and then randomly coming across the very answer he’d been searching for so long?

Kaiba snorted, and snorted, then his snorts turned into a full-blown laugh, he raised his face and laughed, looking at the blue sky and laughed. He laughed like a maniac, laughed like he had lost his mind, like he had never laughed before, laughed for a long time until his voice grew hoarse.

‘Take that, heaven. Even if you try to squash me, humiliate me and hinder me at every turn, eventually I’ll be the one to come out on top.’ This encounter couldn’t be anything but destiny , destiny had brought this kid here and served him to Kaiba on a silver plate. Destiny itself wanted to see Atem and he dueled again. There’s no way he would let this precious chance slip by.

But there was a little problem, the Numeron Code was no longer present in the kid’s soul. Somebody had stolen the kid’s “most important thing”, and by proxy the Code with it. Losing them put him in such physical and emotional distress that it made him vulnerable to manipulation, allowing whoever did this to use him as its slave to get rid of its enemy.

So now what Kaiba had to do was find the entity that controlled the kid, beat it down and take the Numeron Code back.

Fortunately, Kaiba got such a nice minion he could use to aid him in this new mission. He smirked and let the head of the Rod touch the kid’s forehead, it glowed up slightly and the kid let out a weak whine. Don’t hate me, little brat. If you’re gonna be controlled either way, then better be under my control rather than that thing.

Then he picked the necklace up by its broken string, and put it into his pocket.

It took nearly an hour for his young opponent to stir, and when he did, it was with a lot of painful whines and mindless jerking of his body. He finally woke up when Kaiba deliberately sprayed some water on his face.

“Hmm, Akari, five more minutes.”

“If you don’t open your eyes right this second, not just for five minutes, I’ll make you sleep for five thousand years.”

That had the kid sprung up, though he let out a yelp of pain at the sudden movement. He open his big crimson eyes and looked around wildly before settling on Kaiba.

“Hi, uhm, m-mister.” He said.

“Took you long enough,” Kaiba glared at him, “you’d better stand up and make yourself ready, because no one’s gonna be babying your ass out here.”

The kid frowned, he pulled at his face, then pulled some more. “Okay, okay, I’m definitely not dreaming,” he mumbled to himself, “that means I’m really in the middle of wildness, with an uncle dressed like an edgy rock star. My body hurt like I just took a 20-meter freefall so that’s probably why I lost my memory of coming here, but I don’t have my backpack with me so it’s not one of our hiking trips either, which means WHERE THE HECK AM I?!” He jumped up.

“Be quiet, you insolent brat,” Kaiba hissed, “and I’m only 20!”

“What do you mean be quiet? We are in deep trouble!” The kid cried, totally ignoring his remark about his age.

Kaiba glared at him. “If you didn’t shut your mouth right now, I’ll give you the taste of real trouble.”

That seemed to be enough to shut the kid up, he stood there fidgeting with his hands.

“You and I were kidnapped and brought here against our wills,” he said, “as for who did it, I’m currently getting on that.”

The kid’s eyes widened in horror, “Oh, oh god. Then I really can’t get back, oh my god, Akari will kill me. I get into enough trouble already, and Kotori too. The last time I made a mess, she gave me the silent treatment for weeks. What do I do now?”

“Now then,” Kaiba ignored his whining, “what was the last thing you remembered?”

During his little trip into the kid’s mind, Kaiba couldn’t see the part when he got sucked into this world, or what happened after that, a barrier had blocked it from him.

“Eh,” he started, “uhm, I don’t know, I think was at Shark’s, ah, Shark is my friend, we were having a party, and then the next thing I know I woke up here.” He scratched his head.

“And then?” He egged him on.

“And then, then I-” his eyes glazed over and he stopped talking.

The pendant suddenly vibrated in his pocket, its dark aura seeped out from his jacket and made a beeline for the kid. But Kaiba was faster than that, he pushed his power into the Millennium Rod and swing at the aura. It dissipated, and Kaiba swore he could hear a tiny shrek in the air.

The kid gazed at the little scene with his soulless eyes, but his consciousness snapped back a second later. “Uhm, sorry, what were you asking?”

So that’s it, huh. If he probed at his memory, the entity from before would try to take over the kid’s mind again. It seemed he had to tread carefully then.

“...Nevermind, you’re really useless.”

“That’s rude, I already said I don’t remember,” he pouted.

Oh, you don’t even know how much you don’t remember. Kaiba thought to himself. 

At the moment, there were two powers battling for control over this kid's mind, one was him, and the other was the eyes from back then. Whatever that thing was clearly made use of the kid's vulnerable emotional state to evade and corrupt his mind. And Kaiba had to suppress a large part of his memory, including the memories of his “most important thing”, in order to erase his distress and prevent him from falling prey to that thing again. The kid probably couldn’t recall half of his friends if he was to meet them now.

But Kaiba really couldn’t care about this kid’s wellbeing, he had his own things to worry about. 

Thinking he had nothing more to ask him, Kaiba turned to walk away, subtly nudging the kid to follow him with his power.

“Where are we going? This is the wrong way. We should travel downstream, people normally live downstream, we may come across a village or something.”

“No, this is the right way,” Kaiba saw a little bit of black miasma rising over the treeline up ahead. If he was right then the eyes must be up there.

“But…”

“Shut up and follow me.”

The kid’s body jerked as he was forced to obey him. And Kaiba had a few minutes of blissfully silent as the controlled duelist trailed after him like a mindless drone.

But it didn’t last long, soon enough his control faded and the kid was back to his own self again.

“Ah, I forgot I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Tsukumo Yuma, nice to meet you,” the kid grinned as he was walking next to him and held out his hand.

“Kaiba Seto.” Kaiba didn’t took his offering hand.

“Kaiba?” Tsukumo chucked, “Kaiba as in seahorse? Is that really your name?”

“I suggest you shut up if you still care about you life,” Kaiba stretch his mouth into a smile, which made Tsukumo gulp and took a step back.

“H-hey, I wasn’t making fun of you, mister. Look, the ‘ma’ in my name is also written with the Kanji for horse as well. We are both horses. Isn’t that amazing, for two horses to randomly meet each other in this place? Hey hey mister, you’re a duelist, right? Is that your duel disk? I haven’t seen this model before, where did you come from? I’m from Heartland. Do you know Heartland? It’s a very big ci-”

This time, Kaiba skipped the mind controlling and went directing to bonking Tsukumo’s head with his Rod. Good god, he must hurry up to beat the eyes and took the Numeron Code back as soon as possible.

He literally couldn’t stand this kid for another second.

Besides, he needed to find Yugi too.

Chapter Text

It’s a bright, sunny day in Neo Domino City. Golden rays flooded their penthouse’s living room when Ruka opened the curtain.

Such a nice day was for playing outside, but Ruka didn’t feel up to it. She was meant to have an online studying session in the morning, but a dizzy episode last night had their caretaker bot deciding to opt her out of the class.

So now she’s half-sitting, half-lying in a low reclining chair just behind their glass wall, watching Rua have a remote duel with Yusei through their bot’s screen in the garden. Even from so far away, Ruka could catch the glimpse of Yusei's warm encouraging smile toward her twin. Watching the duel unfold, Ruka couldn’t help but feel slightly jealous of her brother’s endless energy, in construct to her meek and quiet personality. Ruka’s body had been weak since she was young, so she had been homeschooled her entire life, and by natural extension, Rua as well. Sometimes, Ruka wondered if Rua ever resented her, for robbing him of a normal life full of normal childhood joy. 

During the Dark Signer ordeal, Mr. Yanagi speculated that it was her innate power that made her ill, but alas, even when the whole thing was over and the Claw Mark had become a permanent addition on her skin, her health showed no sign of getting better.

Two months had passed after said event, yet she was still sitting here being a parasite to her brother, a tag-along in the relationship between Rua and Yusei and the others, never mind the fact that it was her who was a Signer, not Rua.

Ruka let out a sign. Not good, she shook her head. Staying inside all day had filled her head with unnecessary thoughts, she needed a distraction. Thankfully, she could always count on his brother to provide her with that much-needed distraction.

“Ruka,” Rua ran inside with all the excitement of a 3-year-old. “What are you doing hiding yourself inside all day? Come on out, Yusei said he wanted to check on you.”

“I’m coming,” she smiled and hopped down the chair.

“How’s your body? Rua said you were sick last night,” Yusei asked once they approached the mobile screen still situated in the garden after the duel.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It was just a dizzy spell, I’m used to it by now. Rua just likes to make a fuss,” Ruka waved Yusei’s worry away with a laugh. 

“It wasn’t just a dizzy spell,” Rua retorted. “You were sobbing in your sleep, it took me nearly 10 minutes just to wake you up.”

Yusei frowned. “That sounds concerning. You sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”

Ruka waved her hands quickly. “There’s no need to, it’s not like this is the first time it happened. We’re used to it by now. Even Rua here forgot all about it this morning, if even he isn’t worried then there is no need for you to be, Yusei.”

“Hey,” the boy behind her flustered, “don’t make it sound like I don’t care about you. I care about you a ton, Ruka.”

“You really did seem to care about me when you ditched me to have fun out here with Yusei, aren’t you?”

“Ruka,” Rua pouted.

Yusei laughed. “Well, I’m glad to see that you are all better now.”

Ruka smiled and reassured Yusei again that she was feeling alright right now. After that, Rua remobilized Yusei’s time to talk about dueling, and Ruka found herself on the sideline for a second time that morning.

Just a normal Tuesday then.

She re-settled on the bench behind Rua, watching him relaying and analyzing the earlier duel against the older turbo duelist. Both of them seemed to have forgotten about her.

That’s for the best, Ruka thought, there’s no need to worry them over what was probably nothing.

Truthfully, what happened last night wasn’t one of her usual episodes. Last night, she had had a weird, dreadful nightmare in which she was chased by something big in a dark, eerie forest. A forest that looked nothing like the ancient forest of fairy she was once brought to. She was utterly alone, and no matter how many times she screamed for help, there’s no one coming. Thinking about it still gave her a full-body chill, as if she wasn’t just dreaming it, she was genuinely experiencing the dream herself.

When Rua woke her up, she was crying and sweating like she had been running for hours, and her head erupted with intense pain almost as if she was broken in two.

Ruka shivered. She hugged herself with her tiny arms, dreading the meaning of that dream. Could it be one of the dreams of the past like the one about the Crimson Dragon and its five servants she had had? No, something about it felt drastically different, Ruka couldn’t put her hand on it, but she didn’t think it was a dream of the past.

A prophecy dream? Ruka paled.

'Worry not, my beloved Signer,' a gentle voice rang aloud in her head.

Ruka startled, “Ancient Fairy Dragon, is that you?” 

'It is indeed me,' the voice continued.

“Ancient Fairy, did you read my thoughts?”

'Your uneasiness has seeped into my mind, waking me up from my slumber.'

Ruka sent a quick thought of apologizing to her dragon, and she quickly sent a reassurance thought back.

“Ancient Fairy, what do you think about my dream?”

'I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t let something like that worry you too much. Ruka, your power is strong, much stronger than I anticipated, but it is still in its developing stage. For all we know, the dream you had might just be a common nightmare. And if it was real, there is still a possibility that your mind conjured up some of it, to make up for details that your power failed to grab.'

Ruka pouted, “So you think I made up some parts of my dream.”

'I didn’t imply that you were lying, but dreams often reflect one’s inner feelings. The reason the yellow dragon you saw in your dream about my Lord Crimson looked so much like your brother’s card might be due to your own desire to keep your brother close to you. Since if he was also a Signer, he’d be able to stay close and support you during your distress.'

Ruka rubbed her forearm where the dragon’s birthmark lay, feeling slightly ill.

“That can’t be, I never wanted to push Rua in danger. T-then, what about this dream, what kind of desire did I want to express through it?”

'That I’m afraid I do not know, and if-' the dragon’s voice suddenly grew fainter in her head.

“Ancient Fairy?” Ruka frowned, but a joist of pain on her forearm distracted her.

The birthmark was getting hotter and started glowing brightly. Ruka let out a cry when the pain grew more intense.

“Guh-” 

From the other side of the garden, Ruka heard a similar cry and looked up. On the duel screen, Yusei was clutching his forearm, which was also glowing brightly red, the shape of the Head Mark burned through his sleeves. 

“Wha- what is happening, Yusei?” Rua gasped. He turned to Ruka and widened his eyes when he saw his sister in a similar state.

“Ancient Fairy, what is this?” Ruka groaned, the heat had grown to be too hot to handle. She silently dropped to her knees, feeling more than hearing his brother’s voice calling out to her and his arms catching her before she could fall to the ground.

'I don’t know,' the dragon spirit said in panic, 'something is happening and the Crimson Dragon’s power is responding to it.'

Oh god, what is it this time? Ruka thought, through the marks’ bond, she could feel it, all the other Signers were experiencing the same phenomenon. Then suddenly, she heard music, jumbled, disoriented notes that grew louder and louder, until the sound drowned out everything and surrounded the twins with its deafening volume.

“What the hell is this sound? It’s so loud!” Rua yelped while cradling her body in his arms.

Below them, the floor transformed. The grassy ground of their garden was no more, replaced by a glass surface that shone blindingly, multi-colored rays of light shot up from under the glass, obstructing everything around the two of them under its bright light.

“Rua, Ruka!” She heard Yusei’s faraway voice calling for them. But then, another voice appeared, so low that she could’ve sworn she imagined that.

“Did you hear that, Ruka? Someone’s talking!” Rua asked with his shaky voice.

“Yeah, I- I do.” She nodded.

The voice felt like it came from deep within her own heart, yet it also felt like it came from so, so far away, syllabuses repeating like a chant. It was so weak, so weary and sad. The hushed, croaking tone of the voice carried with it such a distressing undertone that made her wanna go there and cradle the voice’s owner in her arms. 

“Help me, please! Help!”

The last thing she heard was a desperate cry of a beast before the pain in her forearm grew so intense and she blacked out. 

Someone was calling her.

Ruka groaned and opened her eyes just a tiny little bit. Rua’s face greeted her, relief flooded his expression at seeing her opening her eyes.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” she mumbled, letting her twin grab her arms and pulled her into a seating position. 

One glance at her surroundings told her immediately that they were no longer at home. Big trees surrounded them in every direction, the size of each one could easily rival Neo Domino Bridge’s main pillar in size. Sunlight filtered through their foliages, casting a short shadow over the mossy ground.

“Where… is this, Rua?!” 

“I don’t know, when I open my eyes we’re already here,” Rua shook his head. “It- it doesn’t look like we are in Neo Domino City anymore.”

“What should we do now?” Ruka asked.

At that, her brother could only answer her with his equally distressed expression.

“At-at any rate,” Ruka stuttered, trying to remember the content of a survival show she’d watched before, “we must calm down first, panicking w-would be bad in this situation,” she said, holding on to her brother’s shaken arms.

“R-right!” Rua nodded, Ruka could see that he was trying really hard to keep himself from coming apart. 

They had never set foot out of their extremely high-class neighborhood before the accident with the Dark Signers, and even the time when they went to Satellite, it was with Yusei and everyone else. They didn’t know how to deal with this situation.

“We should check ourselves first, to see what we have in our person, it may come in handy,” Ruka suggested and Rua nodded in agreement.

It was at this time that she noticed something strange.

‘Eh, do I have my Duel Disk with me before I come here?’ She looked at the device clad neatly on her left wrist. A glance at Rua confirmed that yes, his Duel Disk was still attached to his arm.

Wait, that’s meant my deck… Ruka’s eyes widened at the sign of her beloved deck resting on its deck holder.

“Everybody,” she pulled the cards out of the deck holder and spread them out. Triggered by her voice, her monsters’ spirits appear one by one around her, their incorporeal voices rushed on in a concerned unison, and Kuribon jumped on her shoulder while chirping.

“Guys,” Ruka teared up. Seeing her monsters again calmed her nerve down immensely. Thank goodness that she and Rua didn’t have to wander this scary place alone.

'Ruka, Rua, I’m so glad you both are alright,' said Ancient Fairy Dragon.

“Me too, thank god nothing happened to all of you,” she nodded, then nodded again to Rua, indicating that she’s communicating with her invisible monsters.

“Do you know what’s happening, where are we?” She asked.

'Ruka, I,' the giant dragon looked around, taking in the unfamiliar scenery, before turning back to her duelist, 'I don’t think we’re in your universe anymore.'

“What do you mean by that?!” Ruka asked in confusion.

'I sense it the moment you and your brother were pulled into that portal of light, there was a strong displacement force in the time-space continuum. The place we’re in no longer belongs to the same universe in which we resided. Who, or whatever got us here, must be an entity of higher rank than what us Signer dragons can comprehend, and I don’t think this is good news.'

Ruka’s face paled at the information. She gulped and patted her chest a few times to calm her rapid beating heart.

Rua didn’t take it well after Ruka told him what her dragon said to her.

“Then we can’t go home?! No way, I already made a plan with Tenpei to go to the arcade tomorrow, what would he say when he come over and can’t find me?!”

Typical Rua, we’re in a different world and the first thing he can think about is a playdate tomorrow.

Ruka pouted, “shouldn’t you be worried about, like, who bring us here, for what purpose, how can we get back, or how can we at least find food and water at this place?”

As if on cue, Rua’s stomach made a gurgling sound as he blushed.

“You are right, I’m sorry,” he scratched his head.

“Ancient Fairy, are we the only ones brought here?” She asked her dragon, recalling Yusei’s mark growing at the same time as hers.

'I don’t believe so, it’s really faint, but I can feel my flightmates’ presence, which means it’s very likely that the other Signers are here too.'

Ruka brightened up. “Really?! Can you tell me where they are?”

The dragon shook her massive head. 'Another source of power is interfering with my senses, for the time being, I am afraid that I can’t confirm the others’ location, my apologies.'

“No no,” she said quickly, “you’ve been a huge help, I’m just so glad we weren’t stuck here clueless. The ‘source of power’ you mentioned, do you have any idea what it is, is it harmful to us?”

'I don’t think so, it’s more like,' Ancient Fairy cocked her head as if she’s trying to hear something, 'an insistent pull, and it might not be sentient.'

“Thank you,” Ruka considered her options. She and her brother might get stuck here for however long, without any means to survive unless they could find the way to get back. They could try to find the other Signers but they had no clue where Yusei and others were dropped, and she didn't wanna wander around in this big forest without a clear destination.

The only hint they had now was the ‘source of power’ Ancient Fairy mentioned, but if it was malicious…

“Ruka, what’s wrong?” Noticing her long silence, Rua asked.

“What do we do now, Rua?” She told him all the things her dragon told her, chewing her lips as she wordlessly asked for his opinion.

Her brother crossed his arms and closed his eyes as if he was seriously thinking about their problem at hand, which Ruka really appreciated because she might’ve whacked his head if he insisted on being his usual air-headed self in this situation.

“Got it,” Rua opened his eyes and decided, “let’s just head to wherever this power source is.”

“What if it’s something that will hurt us?” She asked.

“Then I’ll protect you, they will have to step over my dead body first if they want to get to you,” Rua pushed his chest out.

“Don’t say something that scary,” Ruka giggled, but it felt like a weight that had been lifted off her shoulder. She really didn’t know what she would do without her twin brother.

Decision made, they followed Ancient Dragon’s lead deeper into the forest, hand in hand. The forest ground was easy to navigate for the most part, dried leaves softened the hard soil and there weren’t any stiff hills or cliffs.

“Say,” Rua said after a long stretch of silence, “where do you think Yusei and the others are?”

“I don’t know, but,” she panted, “I hope that they’re also heading to the same place we are.”

“You reckon so?”

“Yeah, they’re all Signers, so they probably also sense this power source,” Ruka wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, she had never walked for so long back at home, and she could feel her energy leaving her fast.

“I hope so,” Rua huffed and raised his head to look above, checking for something over the foliage.

They had to stop after a while so that Ruka could sit down and catch her breath. Ancient Fairy had gone back to her deck a while ago so Ruka could conserve her energy. They had shared the last two candies Rua found in his pocket, and it had been hours since they both had something to eat or drink.

“We will not get there at this rate,” Rua worried.

“Just,” Ruka insisted, “give me a minute, I’ll be alright in a moment.”

Her vision was swaying dangerously, but she tried to smile so that her brother would lift his frown. According to Ancient Fairy Dragon, their destination was just about four of five walking hours away. How long had they been walking? One hour? Two hours? They didn’t have a clock with them and it’s really hard to tell the sun’s position with so many trees blocking the sky.

At least it didn’t get dark yet, Ruka wasn't sure what would happen if they had to camp out here. After all, this forest might have predators.

“Just take it easy, I can carry you if-” Rua stopped mid-sentence: they heard growlings.

Quicker than she could think, her twin dragged her into a large bush and pushed her head down so they wouldn’t be seen.

They sat there, clutching each other’s hands as the growling and thumping sound got louder and louder. And then, from the dark woods, out came a bizarre parade that made her think she was definitely hallucinating. Beasts, gigantic white beasts that looked like wolves led the pack, except that there was something distinctly different in their behavior that told Ruka those absolutely weren’t wolves. For once, wolves didn’t have glowing red eyes, and she was pretty sure wolves wouldn’t wear dark armor with capes.

There’s a person riding comfortably amongst the beasts, as if he’s commanding them, and it made Ruka’s alarm went ablaze. He was wearing white knight armor with black cape like the beasts, a giant red-purple sword held in one hand and a huge shield in the other. And the beastly creatures he was riding on couldn’t be described by anything other than a monster. Black fur-feathers covered its massive lion-like body,  long swaying whiskers on its snout which eerily reminded her of a dragon’s snout, on its back, sprouting a pair of black wings.

Something about them felt kinda familiar, like she had seen them before. But how could that be, if she saw something as otherworldly as these ones she would’ve definitely remembered.

“Rua, do you thin-,” she shut up quickly when one of the beasts suddenly stopped and slowly turned toward their hiding place. It gave a warning growl, and the other beasts and the knight stopped as well. Then they began to approach them.

Both twins held their breath, their hands unconsciously gripping each other’s tight.

Closer, closer, and closer.

Ruka could see the knight’s scarred face and his red eyes now.

“Run!” With a cry from Rua, they both set off in the opposite direction.

Ruka ran like her life depended on it (which it was, a misplaced humorous thought flashed by her mind), while the abrupt howling behind her signaled that the beasts had started the chase. Her brother ran ahead, still clutching her hand tightly in his.

They didn’t get very far, Ruka could feel her lungs screaming in protest just after a few minutes, her legs felt like they were made of lead. Her brother had to half-running, half-dragging her along with him, but it’s no use, her body reaching its limit.

She tripped, and fell over, Rua’s hand slipping out of hers was the last thing she felt before darkness took her.

Rua tried to grab hold of his twin’s hand again, but he failed.

Before he could do anything, a massive dark and white blur knocked into him and he crashed into a nearby tree. 

His scream was guttural. Oh god, it hurts!

Rua gritted his teeth, trying to bite back his tears to stand up again but a heavy weight pushed against his torso and a warning growl made him freeze in place.

It’s one of the wolves! Rua opened his eyes to a mouth full of teeth grazing dangerously close to his face. He stranded his head and saw Ruka a few feet away, also pressed on the ground by a wolf. She wasn’t moving.

“Ruka!” He tried to reach for her but the wolf pushed him back again.

What did this stupid thing eat to be so heavy?! Rua growled at it but the wolf only stared back in boredom.

Behind them, he saw the dark knight jog his horse/lion/dragon closer with a smug look, as if he was so sure that he had them in his pocket already, which was probably true, considering his pack of wolves had managed to circle both of them. Even if Rua could somehow throw the wolf above him back and make a beeline for it, it would mean abandoning Ruka here, and Rua would never do that.

“Well well well, what do we have here? Two little rats that sneak into our hunting ground?” The knight climbed down when he reached their place, his voice sultry smooth as if he was talking with a pair of unruly pets.

Rua decided that he hated him.

“Who are you, and what do you want to do with us?” He tried to make his voice sound tough, but it probably had no effect when he was still confined to the ground.

“That should be my question, where did you two brats come from, considering that all humans in this world should be dead?” He leered at them with a curious glint.

Rua felt the blood leaving his face.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me, brat. We performed thorough cleansing over the entire civilian population, there’s no way our Lord could oversee something as obvious as you two,” asked the knight.

Rua paled. Oh god, they ran into a group of killers. What did Yusei say they should do at times like these? Right, first you must stay calm, and then, and then, what then?

The knight looked at Rua’s petrified form and seemed to decide that he wouldn’t get any answers out of him. Then he turned to his sister and it was as if a switch had been flicked on. He gasped, seemingly not believing his eyes. Rushing to Ruka's side, the knight yanked her right arm up roughly and pulled her shirt sleeves up, exposing her forearm, ignoring her pebbled struggle.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” Rua screamed bloody murder. Despite the wolf still pressing on his chest, he struggled to dash over to Ruka only for the wolf to double down on its force.

“Release Ruka! You smelly fucking kidnapper, I’m gonna kill you, I’m seriously gonna kill you!” He kept trying to get up to no avail.

The smelly knight ignored him, he focused on examining Ruka’s forearm, where Rua knew the Crimson Dragon’s mark resided, then he began laughing in earnest.

“Amazing, how marvelous, I’ve never seen something like this before. A servant dedicated to a completely unfamiliar god?! How marvelous, how curious. Hmm, hey little brat, did you come here from another world?” He shouted to him.

Rua was stunned, “how did you know tha- ah!” He stopped before he could blurt out the whole sentence, but it was too late.

“I see, this morning patrol yielded a much better result than I thought,” he grinned.

Raising a hand in front of Ruka’s slumber form, he murmured something and Rua gasped as a translucent ball began to appear around her body, raising her up a few feet above the ground. Ruka immediately tried to punched the ball to no avail.

Rua shouted at him, “what are you doing, let her go!”

“Let her go? This absolutely rare specimen?” The knight scoffed, “no, I must bring her back to our Lord so she could be examined. I’m sure he’d be delighted.”

Rua froze hearing such words from him, he wanted to take Ruka away?! No, that couldn’t be! He won’t allow that!

“Wait!” He yelled.

“What, brat?” The knight turned to him, slightly annoyed.

“You, you’re a duelist, right?” Rua asked, noticing the device clad on his left wrist, if that was a duel disk like he thought, then…

“And so are you,” he looked at Rua’s duel disk.

“When I first saw you, I thought you guys were familiar, both you and these guys,” Rua gestured to the wolves, he wasn’t sure if he was right or not, but for Ruka, he had to take this risk, “you guys are the Lightsworns, the dueling monsters, right?” 

The knight studied him, as if contemplating whether or not he should answer his question, but then he snorted.

“Lightsworn, what a nostalgic name, you’re quite knowledgeable to know it, boy. But you are slightly incorrect, we shed that old name a long time ago when we decided to cast away our old God. Now with the reign of our current Lord, we call ourselves the Twilightsworns,” the knight declared.

Rua gulped, he wasn’t interested in the least about what their name was or who was the Lord and what not, knowing that they were dueling monsters were enough. 

“Then I-I wanna challenge you in a duel, if you win, you can kill me and take Ruka away, but if I win, you’ll have to release both of us.”

If what Ruka told him about the duel spirits world was right, then they placed dueling above everything else and would never turn down a duel.

“You? Challenge me? Brat, I would kill you in a heartbeat!” The knight laughed.

“You don’t know about that, maybe I’ll beat you fair and square, or perhaps you're scared to fight me?” He rebuked.

At that, the knight frowned. With a gesture from him, the wolf above him stepped down, allowing him to stand up.

“Cheeky brat, my principle is to never turn down a challenger from anyone. I would’ve killed you regardless, but sure, let’s see if you can entertain me during the last few moments of your life."

Rua would throw his hands up in triumph if he dared, but now all he did was to silently step a few feet back to create an open field between them, preparing for their duel.

“Just so you know,” the knight said while activating his duel disk, which looked like an extension of his armor, “whoever loses this duel-”

“Die, I know,” he said solemnly. 

“RUA!” A scream startled him.

Inside the translucent ball protected by the wolves, Ruka was pounding desperately on the ball.

“Rua, what are you doing?!” She cried.

Rua just smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Ruka. I’ll definitely protect you.”

“NO!” She screamed, tears streaming down her face, but the two duelists had already turned toward each other.

A dark smoke began to sprout from the knight’s body and quickly spread out to enclose the whole area.

“Now we begin our shadow duel,” the knight’s words chilled him to the bone, but there’s no turning back now.

 “DUEL!!”

Rua: 4000 LP Vs The dark knight: 4000 LP.

“Since you’re the challenger, I’ll be generous and let you go first,” said the knight.

“Hah, don’t mind if I take it, then. My turn, dra- eh?”

Rua’s duel disk flashed red with an error message. He looked confused and peered at the small lines.

“Eh, what is this? The player can’t draw on turn 1?! What? But this is not the rule!” He exclaimed.

 “Oh, not even know the correct rule? Seems like it’d be an easy win for me then,” the knight snickered.

“I freaking know the rules, okay! Just earlier I was dueling with someone and there’s no such weird rule, maybe my duel disk’s broke-”

“I don’t care whatever shitty rule you play at your place. This is the rule here. Either you play by our rule, or you lose before you can even play your first card. Take your pick, brat.”

Rua was about to say that that was so freaking unfair, but then caught himself at the last second. Arguing with him wouldn’t do them any good right now. Righting his posture and taking a deep breath, he suppressed himself and placed a card on his duel disk.

Turn 1: Rua/4000LP

“I summon Morphtronic Radion in attack mode.”

A golden radio appeared in his field with a red flash. It quickly transformed itself into a robot.

       Morphtronic Radion (Machine/Effect/Earth/Level 4): 1000/900

“Radion’s effect activates, when in attack mode, the ATK of my Morphtronic monsters will be raised by 800 points.”

       Morphtronic Radion: 1000 /900 -> 1800/900.

“Then from my hand, I activate my continuous spell Gadget Box, once per turn, this card allows me to special summon a Gadget Token onto my field in defense mode.”

A green toolbox appeared on his spell/trap card zone, it quickly opened up to let a small sphere-shaped bot with six gadget arms jump out. The small monster hopped to the front row and curled its arms around itself.

       Gadget Token (Machine/Token/Earth/Level 1): 0/0.

“I set a card face down and then end my turn.”

Rua breathed out a shaking sign. Wasn’t a bad play for a turn 1 at all, if he could say so himself.

He knew there weren't many low-level monsters that could exceed Radion’s 1800 ATK points, not to mention the extra protection coming from his defense Token. In the worst case scenario, if that hunky knight could somehow summon a high-leveled monster, then his set card, “Morphtronic Bind”, would prevent all level 4 or higher monsters from attacking or changing their battle position at all.

Good good, he was safe for the time bein-

“That’s it? How disappointing, I was hoping you would be more competent than this, since you made such a bold declaration of defeating me and all,” the knight interrupted his train of thought.

“S-shut up, I know I’m playing well, I will not fall for your taunt,” Rua stuttered.

“Too bad, but it seems like our duel wouldn’t last long then. My turn, draw.”

Turn 2: The dark knight/4000LP.

“From my hand, I activated the field spell Realm of Darkness.”

In an instant, the scenery around them changed and Rua had to jump back with an ‘eck’ to make way for a massive pillar that rose from the ground. A blood moon bloomed onto the darkened sky as a rock castle solidified behind them.

“This card, each time a card, or cards, gets sent from the deck straight to the graveyard, let me place a Shadow counter on it,” the knight smirked at Rua’s dumbstruck face.

“And then I activate one more spell, Lunar Recharge!” He held out another spell card.

The blood moon in the sky suddenly glowed brightly, a ray of red light shone on the knight, making his whole figure shine with a sinister gleam.

“By discarding a Twilightsworn monster, I can draw 2 cards, and then send 2 cards from the top of my deck to my graveyard.”

' What the hell is he trying to do?!' Rua thought.

“At this moment, Realm of Darkness gained a Shadow counter,” the knight declared.

A huge black orb appeared and floated above their head, its shadow fell onto the knight's field.

“I activate the effect of my monster, Wulf, Twilightsworn Barbarian, this card can be special summoned if it gets sent from my deck to my graveyard.”

“What? Special summon from the graveyard?!” Rua gasped.

The ground cracked and with a howl, a white humanoid beast with the head of a wolf jumped out. It carried a massive axe on his back and donned the same kind of armor with a black cape just like the knight.

       Wulf, Twilightsworn Barbarian (Beast-Warrior/Effect/Dark/Level 4): 2100/300

“An ATK of 2100?!” Rua cried. How could there be a level 4 monster with such high ATK?! Shouldn’t their ATK be below 2000?!

“Realm of Darkness’s effect activates, for each Shadow counter on this card, my Twilightsworn monster gains 100 ATK,” he added rather pleasing.

       Wulf, Twilightsworn Barbarian: 2100/300 -> 2200/300.

“No way, it gets even stronger?” 

“Don’t pass out, kid, this is just the beginning, I haven’t even normal summon yet,” the knight sneered and put a card on his duel disk, “I summon Jain, Twilightsworn General.”

With a flash of light, a monster that looked identical to the dark knight himself showed up on the opposing field.

“You summon yourself,” said Rua in disbelief.

“There’s no rule said I couldn’t, but that’s not all, I active Jain’s effect, once per turn I can banish a Twilightsworn monster from my hand or graveyard, and the one I choose is,” he pulled a card out of his graveyard slot and showed it to Rua, “ level 4 Raiden, Aide of the Twilightsworn, and for each of Raiden’s level, brat, one of your monster will lose 300 ATK and DEF points,” his mouth widened into a grin as he pointed to Rua’s monster.

“Say what?!”

The shadow of a monster rose from the earth and cut over Radion’s form, causing its ATK to lower from 1800 to 600.

        Morphtronic Radion: 1800/900 -> 600/0.

“Now I have two level 4 monsters in my field, you’re about to witness the true strength of my deck. Try not to pee yourself or faint, kid. I still want to have my entertainment. I overlay my level 4 Wulf with my level 4 Jain, with these two monsters I build an overlay network! Xyz summon! Descend! Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn!”

The two monsters turned into two tiny balls of black light, a dark galaxy appeared on the ground in front of Jain and the two balls swirled into it, disappearing into the center. And then, with a blinding light, a new monster emerged.

It was a beautiful woman with long red hair, dressed in a white dress coupled with a black hood. She was carrying a staff in her right hand, on her left shoulder, resting an owl with feathers as dark as the night. Two tiny balls of light circle around her, as if she was their sun.

       Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn (Fairy/Xyz/Dark/Rank 4): 2000/800 -> 2100/800

“Ex-eh, what? Exceed monster?”

“Minerva’s effect activates, I can detach a material from it, send the top 3 cards of my deck to my graveyard, and draw cards equal to the number of Twilightsworn monsters sent to the graveyard by this effect.”

“D-detach? Material?” Rua felt dizzy at all the weird terminology, he didn’t remember hearing them before. What the hell was that monster?

He saw Minerva raise her staff, and a little ball of light flew straight into it, she then pointed the staff at her duelist and shot him with a beam of light, Jain then put 3 cards in his graveyard, and his deck automatically pulled out a card for him.

At this moment, the field spell produced another black ball, and Rua saw Minerva’s ATK raise by another 100 points due to its effect.

       Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 2100/800 -> 2200/800.

“One monsters out of 3 cards, eh. Not bad, anyway, my objective has been fulfilled,” Jain grinned after looking at the cards he drew.

Rua tentatively asked, “objective?”

“That’s right, my object to obliviate you! I activate Twilightsworn Rapier’s effect from the graveyard, when this equip spell card is sent from the deck to the graveyard, I can choose a Twilightsworn monster on my field and equip it with this card, and I choose Minerva.”

A long and thin sword materialized on the monster’s right hand as she grabbed it, the blade shone with a purplish, ominous light.

“This one spell will raise Minerva’s ATK by 700 points.”

       Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 2200/800 -> 2900/800

“That’s not all, I actually have another Twilightsworn Rapier on my hand, and I also equip it to Minerva.”

“What?!” Rua began to feel tired of yelling at this point, but he couldn’t help it.

Another sword appeared on the monster’s left hand.

       Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 2900/800 -> 3600/800

“Minerva, attack that puny machine! Double Rapier Strike!”

Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 3600/800 -> Morphtronic Radion: 600/0

The monster charged toward his machine. With bloodthirst in her eyes, she raised the twin swords upward and prepared to strike down.

“Tr-trap card activates! Morphtronic Bind! This card negates an attack from a level 4 or higher monster,” Rua trembled and activated his card almost automatically. He had no idea if this card would work against that weird monster, but he had to try.

…Only to be met with a hysterical laugh from his opponent. “Sorry about this, kiddo, but an Xyz monster doesn’t have levels. That card won’t work on her.”

‘How can there be a monster without levels?!’ Rua was nearly in tears.

Unaffected by the trap card, Minerva struck down, her swords making a clear X shape on the Radion’s machine body. It couldn’t do anything but screech a high-pitched sound and explode in a burst of light. The pressure from the explosion swept Rua clean off of his feet and sent him back a good few feet away. He crashed on his back, screaming as the breath got knocked out of him.

       Rua: 4000 LP -> 1000 LP

“Ah.. urg…” he stayed on the ground and curled on himself. It hurts, it really hurts, it’s like the shock from the two duel monster’s clash was real and it struck right into him with the power of a running truck.

Figured, this is real damage, eh?

Distantly, he could hear his sister calling out to him between sobs and cursed himself for his incompetence. Had he done a better job, Ruka would never have to cry for him. Not for the first time today, he wished for Yusei to be here. Yusei would know what to do with that monster, he would never let Ruka be caught nor let himself be beaten to this point. 

“Down so soon, brat? The duel isn’t over yet, you know,” even the Jain’s taunt barely got a rise out of him. Yet he still stood up, panting like a dog and ignoring his trembling legs. It wasn’t time for daydreaming, Yusei wasn’t here, and he’s the only one who could protect his sister now.

“Great, make sure you don’t die before I can kill you,” Jain grinned, “I set two cards face down. Turn end.”

Turn 3: Rua/1000 LP

“It’s my turn,” Rua panted while drawing his card.

 First of all, he had to find out what’s the deal with that monster, he had a feeling that if he could do that he could turn this duel around. Unfortunately, his duel disk didn’t tell him anything about it other than name, ATK points, attribute, type and… rank?

“Rank 4, an Xyz rank 4 monster,” he mumbled. That’s right, Jain did summon this card by, uhmm, ‘overlay’ two level 4 monsters. So that meant, that meant…

Ruka’s cry for him got his attention and he turned toward her. She’s yelling.

“Rua, I saw his duel disk, he put the two monsters on top of each other and put the Minerva card on top of them. When he said he ‘detach a material’, he sent one of the cards under it to the grave-.”

That’s all he could hear before Jain swung his arm toward the ball and Ruka’s sound muffled, “no cheating, girl.”

But that was enough, even if he’s the certified ‘the dumbest duelist of the Top’, he could still figure the rest out by himself.

“I see, so that’s Xyz summon? You just stack two cards with the same levels over each other to call out a monster with the same rank as those monsters from the extra deck. And every time you want to use its effect, you have to sent a monster used as material for the summon into the graveyard. So that means Minerva can only use her effect one more time, right? You smelly ugly knight?” The more he talked, the more confidence Rua gained until the last few words when he almost shouted in triumph. 

At that, Jain laughed, a genuine laugh unlike the mocking taunts and crazy cackles before. Rua started when he suddenly clapped.

“Bingo, bingo! For a brat that didn’t even know the rules a few minutes ago, you’re better than I think. However,” his face morphed back into a cruel expression, “just by knowing how Minerva works isn't enough to defeat her, you know that?”

“No! Knowing how it works makes me not afraid of it, or of you, anymore. Not being in fear of your opponent is halfway to the win, the rest rely on my strategy!”

At least, that’s what Yusei always told him.

Puffing up his chest, he shouted, “Here I go, I summon Morphtronic Lantron in attack mode.”

A huge flashlight appeared on Rua field and quickly transformed into a bot in a manner not unlike that of Radion earlier.

       Morphtronic Lantron (Machine/Tuner/Earth/Level 1): 200/200

“Then I activate the spell Junk Box, this card let me special summon a Morphtronic monster from my grave. Come back, Morphtronic Radion!”

A flash of light, and then Radion reappeared on the field.

       Morphtronic Radion: 1000/900 -> 1800/900

“Next, I activate the effect of Gadget Box again to special summon another Token on my field.”

The green toolbox opened up once more and another ball-shaped monster jumped out to curl up behind another token on the field.

       Gadget Token (Machine/Token/Earth/Level 1): 0/0

“I tune my level 1 Lantron with my level 4 Radion and my two level 1 Gadget Tokens!”

Lantron’s body quickly turned into a green ring in which Radion and the two Token jumped and turned into stars and self-aligned themselves along the ring.

1 + 4 + 1 + 1 = 7

"Docking strength with courage to protect world peace! Synchro Summon! Envoy of love and justice, Power Tool Dragon!" .

A column of light shot down from the sky, and with a mighty screech, Rua’s ace monster appeared in all of its glory. Its red eyes burned bright with power and its mechanical yellow body gleamed under the moonlight.

       Power Tool Dragon (Machine/Synchro/Earth/Level 7): 2300/2500

“When Power Tool is summoned, I can show you three equip spell cards from my deck,” he pulled his deck out and picked up three cards from it, letting Jain take a peek at them then cover them with his hands again, “and you must choose one of them. Now pick one!”

‘Please let him choose the only one card that let me beat him, please,’ Rua silently prayed.

“The card in the middle,” Jain said.

Rua immediately brightened up, “you just chose Megamorph, and now I’ll equip it to my Power Tool.”

A rusty circle engraved with ancient symbols appeared beneath the yellow dragon, shining a light up on him.

“This card doubles my Power Tool’s ATK, your Minerva’s ATK is small change compared to it now,” Rua shouted in glee. 

       Power Tool Dragon: 2300/2500 -> 4600/2500

“Oh,” Jain exclaimed seeing Power Tool’s ATK shooting up to surpass his monster.

“There is no way I’m gonna lose when it comes to equip spell war. Now I’ll learn from you and equip another spell from my hand to Power Tool: Break! Draw!” Rua put the last card in his hand into his duel disk.

“Battle!” He declared, “Power Tool Dragon, attack Minerva! Crafty Break!”

With a metallic screech, the dragon charged forward and swung his excavator bucket arm down on Minerva, who couldn’t do anything and exploded into tiny million particles of golden light.

Power Tool Dragon: 4600 -> Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 3600

Jain: 4000 LP -> 3000 LP

Jain didn’t look phased at the slightest seeing his ace monster disappear, “I activate Minerva’s second effect, when this card gets destroyed, I can send the top three cards on my deck to the graveyard, and for every Twilightsworn monster among them, I’m allowed to destroy a card on the field.”

“That freaking card has a floating effect as well?!” Rua shouted, “That is so not fair!”

“There’s so much you have to learn, boy,” Jain smirked while sending his cards to the grave, “there is a monster among the cards I just sent to the graveyard, therefore I can destroy one card, now begone, Power Tool Dragon!” He pointed to his ace monster.

“Not so fast, don’t think your monster is the only one with a second effect: when my Power Tool is destroyed, I can destroy one of his equip cards instead,” he looked at the two cards he equipped to his ace monster. Which one should he choose? The obvious answer would be Break! Draw! so Megamorph could keep Power Tool’s ATK buffed, but…

Rua suddenly remembered a conversation with Yusei from before.

–

“Rua, Megamorph is a good card, but it’s a huge gamble as well,” said Yusei.

“Eh? How so?” 

“Because in exchange to have your monster’s ATK doubled, your LP must be lower than your opponent’s, or else it’ll get halved instead. Your opponent can purposely lower their LP and counterattack on their next turn. I mean, if it was me I’ll do so. So you should use it very carefully.”

“Thanks, Yusei. I’ll keep it in mind!”

–

“I sent Megamorph to the grave to keep Power Tool on the field.” That’s right, this was a better choice, he trusted Yusei with his judgment.

       Power Tool Dragon: 4600/2500 -> 2300/2500

“Break! Draw! allows me to draw a card when Power Tool destroys a monster,” he drew a card then immediately set it down, “I set a card face down then end my turn.”

Jain's field spell produced yet another black ball due to him sending cards to the grave, and Rua grimaced knowing his opponent's monsters would get further buffed the next turn.

Turn 4: Jain the Knight/3000 LP

“My turn. Draw. I summon Lyla, Twilightsworn Sorceress.”

A new monster appeared on Jain’s field. This one is a long dark-haired girl wearing an all-black dress and cape with golden trim, carrying a staff in one hand. With Realm of Darkness on the field, its ATK instantly raised by 300 points.

       Lyla, Twilightsworn Sorceress (Spellcaster/Dark/Level 4): 1700/200 -> 2000/200

“Lyla’s effect activates, by switching her into defense position, I can target a spell/trap card you control, and destroy it. I’ll have your Break! Draw! disappear from my sight.”

       Lyla, Twilightsworn Sorceress: 2000/200 -> 2000/200

Rua could only muster a helpless grunt when his card get destroyed, Power Tool now lost its extra protection…

“Now I activate my trap card: Wretched Hallucination, this card will special summon a monster from my graveyard. Come back to me, Minerva.”

“That thing’s back again?” Rua gritted his teeth, after he went through so much on his last turn just to destroy it, now he could revive it just like that?

A dark portal with rune symbols appeared on the ground and the dreaded Xyz monster shot up from it to take its previous position on the field.

       Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 2000/800 -> 2300/800

“Next I activate my second trap card Twilight Cloth, I target Minerva, and banish any number of Twilightsworn monsters from my graveyard to have her gain 200 ATK for each monster banished. I banish all 4 Twilightsworn monsters currently in my graveyard.”

       Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 2300/800 -> 3100/800

“Not goddamn again, how many times are you going to buff it up?” Rua groaned.

“As many times as I can, brat. Now all the preparation is complete, it’s time for you to witness my ace card in action!”

“Say what, Minerva’s not your ace?!” Rua gasped.

“One should keep more than a trump card up his sleeves,” the knight smirked.

“From my hand, I special summon Punishment Dragon, this card cannot be summoned unless I have 4 or more Twilightsworn monsters banished,” he slapped the card on his Duel Disk.

…And the gigantic monster which Jain rode on earlier and had been lying lazily watching their duel let out a mighty roar, then jumped right into the field. The sheer weight of it rumbled the ground, sweeping the dirt all over the area, making Rua cover his face and cough.

       Punishment Dragon (Dragon/Dark/Level 8): 3000/2600 -> 3300/2600.

“Another monster with ATK exceeding 3000?!” Rua exclaimed, widening his eyes in disbelief.

“Let’s see if you can make it through this turn. Now battle! Punishment Dragon, my faithful servant, attack that hideous machine!”

The dark dragon spread its black wing wide following its owner’s command, pushing its chest up and opening its mouth, converging all the darkness lingering in the air into a huge ball of black energy. 

And blast it at Power Tool.

Ruka screamed a muffled cry, dark clouds surrounded the entire battlefield, and Jain’s laughter echoed through the air at seeing his opponent’s demise.

But then the dragon let out a painful scream, his body cracked open and exploded into particles. Before Jain could even cry out, the force of blast slammed into him and sent him down on his knees.

Jain the Knight: 3000 LP -> 1500 LP

“Huh?” He exclaimed, “why is my LP lowered?”

“Because I just activated my trap card,” Rua panted when the smoke settled after the battle, his Power Tool still stood tall on the battlefield without a crack. Behind him, glow an activated trap card.

“Synchro Big Tornado, this card decreases one of your monster’s ATK by the DEF of one of my Synchro monsters, I just lower Punishment Dragon's ATK by Power Tool Dragon's DEF, therefore Power Tool didn’t get destroyed and you took the damage from the battle instead.”

       Punishment Dragon: 3300/2600 -> 800/2600.

 Punishment Dragon: 800 -> Power Tool Dragon: 2300.

Rua allowed himself to breathe a shaky sigh of relief, that was soooo close. Next was…

Jain stood back up, keeping his silence. But then, a dark miasma emanated from his body, swirling around him and spreading all over the area.

When it reached the wolves still sat behind Jain to guard Ruka, they all perked up and turned to Rua with their sharp red eyes to let out agitated growls, as if they want to pounce on him right then and there.

“Kid, your stubbornness is starting to annoy me,” Jain glared at him from behind his bangs, “I’ll make sure to deliver you a sweep and painful death.”

Rua gulped, he really made him angry this time.

“Minerva, attack! That machine no longer has any protection, no way in hell he’s gonna survive this time!” Jain screamed at the top of his lungs.

The Xyz monster raised her staff and shot a black beam toward his dragon.

Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 3100 -> Power Tool Dragon: 2300.

Rua was prepared and gritted his teeth, still, the power from that blast knocked him off his feet cleanly as pain tore him apart. He was glad he didn’t scream this time.

His Power Tool look back at him with a sad glance before it broke off with a huge bang and disappear.

Rua: 1000 LP -> 200 LP.

“You are lucky my Lyla is in defense position, or else I’d kill you right now. I set a card face down. At this point, Wretched Hallucination’s effect will have me sending the top 2 cards in my deck to the graveyard and Realm of Darkness’s counters raised by 1. Turn end!”

       Realm of Darkness: 3 Shadow counters -> 4 Shadow counters

       Minerva, the Noble Twilightsworn: 3300/800 -> 3400/800

       Lyla, Twilightsworn Sorceress: 2000/200 -> 2100/200

Rua struggled to stand up, it felt like there was not an inch of his body that wasn’t in pain. He had a mere 200 LP left, no card in his hand, no monster on his field saved for a token-producing spell. If he couldn’t draw a card that could turn the tide of the duel the next turn. He’s as good as dead.

Did such a card even exist in his deck?

Rua looked at his twin sister, she was still trapped in a hover ball behind his opponent, helplessly crying for him. If he couldn’t win, then Ruka would…, his sister would…

His fingers placed on the top of his deck trembled. ‘Please, Crimson Dragon,’ he pleaded, ‘I may not be a Signer, but please give me the power to protect one’.

“My turn. Draw!”

Turn 5: Rua/200 LP

Making a silent prayer in his head, Rua flipped his card up: Morphtronic Scopen.

He dropped to his knees.

A useless card.

Rua couldn’t breathe, the scenery around him flashed in and out of his vision while he tried so desperately not to break down. No, this wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to lose here. No, no, no, no. At this rate, Ruka would be… she would be…

Jain was saying something, but he couldn’t hear anything other than his ragged breath. What should he do? Should he throw the duel and charge on the knight? Should he dash for his sister and hope that his collision with the ball would break it? No, he doubted that both options would work and even if he could somehow free Ruka, they wouldn’t make it far before the wolves caught up to them again.

How he wished Yusei and the others were here.

“...pathetic brat who can’t even protect what he loves most. Are you even trying at all? Oh, I forgot, you did try, you did fight to the best of your ability. It’s just that you practically have no ability to begin with.”

He wanted to drill a hole into that freaking monster’s face. He wanted to kick him, punch him, kill him, but he couldn’t do any of that. That knight was right, Rua was weak, so fucking weak. He had been nothing but a nuisance to his sister, a piece of baggage, a good-for-nothing twin who couldn’t protect her.

But maybe… maybe he could…

“Please,” pressing his head into the dirt, Rua began with a hoarse voice, “please spare my sister, I’ll do anything, please let her go.”

A moment of silence and Rua feared that Jain had ignored him, but then he heard a burst of laughter. Laughter so cold and cruel it chilled him to the bone.

“Finally reduced to begging? But too bad, brat. There’s nothing you can use as a bargaining chip here, you’re gonna die the next turn regardless and I’m gonna take your sister back to my Lord, and you can’t do anything about it.”

“No, please, take me,” Rua pointed at himself, “take me instead. I’ll be good, I’m… I’m healthier than her, she is weak, she can’t do house chores, she gets sick all the time. I’ll be more useful, handier, please take me.”

Ruka’s horrified cry, somehow bypassing the knight’s silencing spell, reached Rua’s ears in short bursts. Rua heard the bastard laugh again, probably enjoying their suffering. He didn’t care, he could kiss his boots right now if Jain released his sister. Without warning, his forehead got smashed into the ground by a hard and heavy object. It’s the knight’s boot, Rua realized as he winched.

“Brat, don’t sell yourself so highly. Your sister is a servant of a god, she’s brimming with power, the kind of power that can even change multiverses. Whereas you, are, just, dirt, below, dirt,” he punctured every word with a slam on Rua’s head, “you’re not, even worthy to, lie on the road, we walk on. And then you think, you can bargain with-”

“My my, what do we have here~?” A sing-song voice interrupted Jain’s monologue.

Jain froze and the weight of his boot left Rua’s head. He turned to the source of the voice, to see a boy leaning on a tree a few meters away.

He seemed to be several years older than them, but younger than Yusei. Dressed in a purple waistcoat with a red cape, which matched his purple-red hair, the newcomer looked like a royal about to attend a ballgown. On his wrist strapped a strange device which Rua assumed was a duel disk. What’s stranger was his manner, he was standing in front of what should be a dreadful scene, yet his relaxed posture and pleasant smile showed no sign of fear nor distress. 

“And who might you be?” Jain asked cautiously, hands moving to rest on the big sword on his waist.

“I’m the master of the kid you’re about to trample to death, and that caged girl too,” Mr. Newcomer stated nonchalantly.

“Mas-what?! We’ve got no mas-” Rua stuttered, but a harsh glare from Newcomer shut him up.

“Their master? In what sense?”

“In the sense that they’re my property and I see that you are trying to destroy one while stealing the other from me,” the stranger replied, matching Jain with his own sinister smirk.

“Now listen here, little boy,” Jain turned toward Newcomer, “I don’t know why I can’t sense your presence, nor who the hell you are, but I know for the fact that you’re not their master. And even if you were, your servant just pleaded to serve me in exchange for the sister’s life. Isn’t it about time you discard such ungrateful useless pair of slaves,” Jain kicked him a couple of times for good measure.

“Funny, I just heard you talk about how my girl is totally invaluable to your Lord and now you want me to believe she’s useless?” Newcomer started to approach them, steps easy as if he was taking a walk in a park.

“Stay right there,” Jain placed his boot back on Rua’s head, “whatever your motive is, I’ll deal with you after I kill this brat.”

Newcomer raised his voice, “didn’t you hear what I said? Those kids are mine, and anyone who wants to mess with my things will have to go through me first. How about this, I take over this duel in his place. If I win, you die, and if I lose, I’ll die and you’ll have my permission to do whatever you want with them.”

“Huh?” Both the knight and Rua gasped. What the hell was this lunatic talking about?

“You’re aware that bratty only got 200 LP left, right?” 

“Oh, very clearly, he’s all but dead, what a lousy duelist, and after all the resources I pour into him trying to stuff some sense into that stupid head. He sure disgraced me.”  

Rua nearly choked on his breath, what the heck was this total stranger talking about? But he knew better than to open his mouth and ruin whatever scenario Newcomer was faking.

Jain narrowed his eyes, as if he’s re-evaluating his earlier assessment about their non-relationship.

“So, what do you think about my proposal?” said Newcomer again.

“You want to take up his spot just to die, yet you expect me to think that you have no underhanded tactics?”

“Obviously I got my own condition. Because his deck contains nothing but garbage, I propose using my deck to continue our duel. Of course, my starting LP would still be 200, and you get to keep your current board. How about that?”

Jain went silent, it seemed like he was seriously considering the idea. 

Rua used this opportunity to ask Newcomer, “b-but, he has two super strong monsters on his field, there's no way you can-”

“Be quiet!” Newcomer’s cold tone shut him up, “I’ll punish you later for embarrassing me, stay out of my way and watch how real duelists duel.”

“Awfully confident in your ability, aren’t we? Fine, I accept your offer,” Jain announced.

Rua widened his eyes. It worked! Now maybe his sister and he could really have a chance!

“I permit you to draw from your deck until you have 5 cards in your hand, however,” Jain continued, “that’s including the card bratty had drawn earlier, and for each card you draw, I gain 500 LP.”

“My, aren’t you being careful? You regain 2000 LP in exchange for just 4 cards? Doesn’t seem fair for me,” Newcomer giggled as if this whole thing was so funny to him.

“Shut up, you’re the one who comes to me with your deal and these are my conditions, you either accept them or say bye-bye to your cute servants.”

Jain dug his boot under Rua and kicked him, “You, stand up and get out of the way!”

Rua struggled to get up only for Newcomer to be in his face immediately and yank the card he drew from his hand. He stepped back on wobbly legs and eventually fell on his butt.

“Let's resume the duel with your conditions, then,” Newcomer turned his back on him without a word. The strange device on his wrist flared up and a black surface solidified into a duel board.

Newcomer: 200 LP Vs Jain the Knight: 1500 LP -> 3500 LP.

“First I draw my 4 cards,” Newcomer put the cards he drew from his deck to his hand, and smirk, “Hey, I wanna confirm something, suppose you lose the duel and die, what would happen to that ball?”

“You talk as if you’re so sure you’ll win this duel.”

“Oh come on, that’s a real possibility, right? If after you die you wolves would just run off dragging that ball with them, all the effort I put into reclaiming these two would be all for nothing,” he shrugged.

“You don’t have to worry about that, Capturing Sphere was created with my magic, it’ll disappear if their source of magic gets cut off. As for my Rykos, well, they follow my order so they won’t bother you. Of course, that’s on the off chance that you actually win this duel.”

“Is that so, then there’ll be no problem, because I think I've already won,” Newcomer stated.

“Say what?” Jain frowned.

“I’m telling you, you’ve already lost the moment I draw my cards. This duel is mine,” Newcomer widened his grin.

Rua looked at him incredulously, there’s no way he would be able to win while Jain’s controlling two high ATK monsters, he didn’t even have a monster in his field right now. But Newcomer still looked perfectly confident. In fact, he looked like he was pitying his opponent for not believing in him.

“Let begin, shall we?” Newcomer’s smile turned thin, “I discard a card to activate this spell from my hand,” he was grinning like a madman when he announced the name of his card, “Super Polymerization.”

Suddenly, a rumble pulsed through the field, and every object in the field, including the monsters, shook dangerously. From the darkened sky, bolts of lightning darted to the ground and fried whatever spots they touched with huge sounds of thunder. Rua yelped and had to scoot further back to avoid becoming a target. On the other side of the field, he saw the wolves drop their ears and tails, and fell back as well.

“I use your Lyla and Minerva as material to fusion summon,” Newcomer announced.

“Using my monsters as material?! That’s impossible!” Jain gasped in disbelief.

“Oh, but it is very possible with my Super Polymerization. Now, two fallen angels with wicked beauty will become one. From the darkness of your corrupted soul. Give birth to another terror! Fusion Summon! Appear, poisonous dragon with hungering fangs! Level 8, Starving Venom Fusion Dragon!”

The two powerful monsters on Jain’s field disappeared, swept up into the sky, and when their distorted bodies completely merged, appeared a malicious-looking dragon. The thing is massive , with a pair of huge fangs on either side of its mouth. A thin body led to a long tail with a pointy hooked stinger just like a scorpion. Along its body were red orbs shining with translucent light.

       Starving Venom Fusion Dragon (Dragon/Fusion/Dark/Level 8): 2800/2000

Everyone went speechless.

“No way,” Rua grabbed his head, “just with one spell, he gets rid of both the opponent’s monster and summons his own monster onto his field? Impossible!”

Jain seemed to have the same opinion. “That’s fucking cheating! A spell like yours didn’t exist, and neither does that freaking monster!”

“Oh, but they totally do. The fact that I can activate and summon both of them under this world’s duel rules should be evidence enough that they are legitimate. Either accept the rules or concede, you said that, remember?” Newcomer’s voice was still silky smooth.

“You bastard, you’ve been stalking us from the beginning! Fine, I’ll accept it, but don’t think just because you got rid of my monster that you have won. Trap card activate! Wretched Hallucination! I revive one of my Twilightsworn monsters in attack position! Return, Punishment Dragon!”

The same dark portal with rune symbols from before re-appeared to let the monstrous black dragon out, and it let out an excited howl.

       Punishment Dragon: 3000/2600 -> 3400/2600.

“Your ugly dragon only has 2800 ATK, it doesn’t match up to mine at all.”

But Newcomer only cocked his head, “who said I was done?”

“Let’s see what else you can do then,” Jain smirked.

“Here I go then, I summon Morphtronic Scopen in attack position.”

       Morphtronic Scopen (Machine/Tuner/Light/Level 3): 800/1400

Rua’s scope robot appeared with a flash on the field.

“Then I activate Gadget Box's effect and summon a Gadget Token on my field. After using this effect, Gadget Box destroys itself.” 

The token jumped out of the box just before it explode. Rua looked on with interest, it’s clear that the stranger wanted to utilize his monster for something.

       Gadget Token: 0/0

“From my hand, I activate my spell card Predaponics, I special summon a level 4 or lower Predaplant monster from my hand. Appear! Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra!”

A weird plant monster with one root but two branches that ended in two flowers showed up, hissing like a snake.

       Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra (Plant/Dark/Level 3): 1000/1500

Newcomer had used up his entire hand, Rua gulped realizing this fact.

“There’s a tuner on the field,” Jain gritted his teeth, “don’t tell me you’re going to…”

“Yes, I’m gonna do exactly what you think. I tune level 3 Scopen with my level 3 Darlingtonia Cobra and level 1 Gadget Token!”

3 + 3 + 1 = 7

“Spread those wondrous and beautiful wings. Strike down our enemies at light speed! Synchro Summon! Come forth! Level 7, Clear Wing Synchro Dragon!’

The monsters turned into stars and realigned, the light solidified and yet another dragon appeared on Newcomer’s side of the field. This one was mechanical looking, with a body surrounded in white, blue and black exoskeleton. It had a teal pair of wings on its back, and yet another two pairs on its waist.

       Clear Wing Synchro Dragon (Dragon/Synchro/Wind/Level 7): 2500/2000

Standing side by side, the two dragons let out two synchronized roars, making the whole field rumble.

“So, what good will those monsters do, my Punishment Dragon’s ATK is still higher than both,” Jain mocked.

“I advise you to say your prayers right now, because you’re about to die,” Newcomer smiled sweetly, “I activate Starving Venom’s effect, by targeting Punishment Dragon, I can make this card’s name become Punishment's name, and also gaining its effect.”

“Huh?” Jain looked perplexed, “what do you do that for? Punishment’s ATK is still higher.”

“Of course, that’s not all, at this moment I activate Clear Wing’s effect, when there is a level 5 or higher monster on the field activating its effect, I can negate its effect and destroy that card. Clear Wing! Destroy Starving Venom! Dichroic Mirror!”

The white dragon turned to his comrade, all of his six wings shone brightly and their ray reflected on Starving Venom. Without a sound, the purple dragon burst apart, then many thorny tentacles shoot out from inside it to the other side of the field, binding Punishment Dragon up.

“What the hell is going on?” Jain looked at his bound dragon in shock.

“That would be Starving Venom’s second effect. When he was destroyed, I can destroy all of your special summoned monsters,” Newcomer patiently explained.

“What?!”

The thorny tentacles’ binding kept getting stricter until Punishment Dragon screamed in agony and exploded.

In just one moment, Jain’s entire field had been wiped clean, leaving the poor knight standing there in shock.

“Clear Wing’s second effect activates! When her effect destroys a monster, she gains ATK equal to that monster’s original ATK until the end of this turn. Clear Wing! Absorb Starving Venom’s power! Reverse Revenge!”

The many light pieces from Starving Venom’s destroyed body imbue into Clear Wing’s skin, raising its ATK.

       Clear Wing Synchro Dragon: 2500/2000 -> 5300/2000.

“A monster with 5300 ATK?!” Rua gasped.

On the opposite side of the field, Jain stood there looking as pale as a sheet. His mouth opened so comically wide and his gaze stuck on the dragon in front of him.

“Clear Wing! Direct attack!”

The dragon hollered, its whole body lit up with bright white light as the six pairs of wings spread out, charging for power. It aimed for Jain and burst forward.

“Spinstorm Sky Strike!!”

Jain was screaming something, but what he said got drowned out by the sound of the explosion. 

In his desperation, Rua saw him unsheathe his sword and throw it at Newcomer, but it missed its mark, only grazing him by the shoulder and slamming into a tree. Then everything got so bright for him to see. The dragon charged ahead, evaporating everything in its path, tearing the field spell into pieces and returning daytime’s light to the forest.

Jain the Knight: 3400 LP -> 0 LP

The wolves howled when the Clear Wing’s attack touched them, but none of them could escape its power.

“Annihilate all of them, don’t let a single one escape,” Newcomer gave the dragon a command.

Rua watched in horror as the dragon killed the escaping wolves, he knew their painful howls as they’re fried would haunt his dreams forever. But then he realized something.

“Stop,” he grabbed Newcome’s arm. “Stop, Ruka, my sister is still over there. You’re gonna hurt her!”

“If you’re talking about that girl, she’s fine. Clear Wing’s aim is very accurate,” he pointed over. 

Before Rua could take a step through the smoke-filled battlefield, a figure dashed over and Rua had an arm full of Ruka when she tackled him to the ground and hugged him so tight he couldn’t breathe.

Then she started bawling.

“Rua! You idiot! You utter idiot! Horrible! Stupid! Dumbass!” She called him names between sobbing and punching his chest, then her speech got slurrier and slurrier until he could hear nothing but desperate crying.

Rua was speechless. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that everything was alright and hey look, they made it out alive after all, but something stuck at his throat, preventing him from forming any words at all.

“Ruka, I-” Rua's throat seized up. Now that it was over, the weight of the entire situation began to dawn on him. They had just barely escaped death. If the stranger didn’t come, or if he was late for just a moment, Rua would’ve been killed for sure, and Ruka would be taken away to suffer whatever horrible fate those monsters decided for her.

“I’m sowwryyy” was the last thing he could say before he started bawling too.

 Rua didn’t know how long they stay on the ground and cried their hearts out. But a light cough from above made him look up. Newcomer was standing a few feet away from them, rubbing his shoulder when the sword grazed him. He watched them with an unreadable expression.

“Done being cheesy? If you still value your lives we must start moving now,” he leered at them.

“Ah, uh, yes sir, I’m sorry,” Ruka hastily wiped her face and then his, they must look like a mess right now with all the crying. When she pulled Rua up, a headache made him stumble but he gritted his teeth and braved through it. 

His sister bowed deeply to their benefactor.

“Thank you for saving us.  We’ll never, ever forget this, I promise that when we get out from this place, we’ll repay you in any way we ca-”

“Oh my, so you really think I rescue you two out of the goodness of my heart? So amusing,” the stranger chuckled.

“Eh?” Ruka raised her head.

“That knight was right, you do have some really interesting power,” he zeroed his attention on Ruka and gave her a thorough look-over. His gaze was so cold and calculating it made Rua cautiously step in front of her.

“Relax, I won’t do anything to you two, well, for the time being anyway,” his lips curled up into a smile.

“What do you mean by that?” Rua asked.

“Well, let’s see,” he regarded both of them through narrow eyes, “since I just save your asses, how about you two becoming my servants for real?”

“What?” They both said in unison.

“What I said, kids. I want you two to follow me, cater to everything I need, and obey my commands. How does that sound?”

The twins looked at each other, then Rua tentatively asked, “what if we refuse?”

“Easy, we part ways. You two come across something else again and die on the spot because there’ll be no me coming in to save you the second time, or, you two don’t come across anything and anyone and starve to death in this forest.”

They looked at each other again in silence, then Rua dragged Ruka a bit further away.

“What do we do, do we follow him?” Rua asked in a hushed tone.

“I-I don’t know. We aren’t supposed to follow a stranger.”  

Considering the current situation, Rua didn’t know if they could afford a second option. “What does Ancient Fairy say?”

Ruka shook her heart, “I can’t hear her, for some reason she’s been really quiet. I begged for her to come out when I was in that ball but she didn’t answer me.”

“Wait, then what about the place she said we should go?! How can we reach it if she isn't here?”

“I- think right now I can sort of sense it, we’re closer to it now,” Ruka whispered. Then she closed her eyes in concentration and pointed to a direction.

“Excellent, Ruka, that means we know where to go now,” Rua beamed, then became sullen again, “but that person…” he sneaked a glance at the stranger.

“Let’s give him our direction,” Ruka decided.

“But-”

“We don’t have any choice, both you and I aren’t strong enough to protect ourselves, and we still don’t know where the others are,” she explained. “He may be shady, but he did risk his life to save us, I think we can trust him for the time being.”

“Fine, but you should keep silent about your Signer power, I don’t like how he looks at you,” Rua grimaced.

“Don’t worry, onii-chan, I have you here to protect me after all. Let’s not tell him anything other than our names, okay?”

A twinge of pain pierced Rua’s heart, shame washed over him as he realize he failed as Ruka’s protector, yet she still saw him as one anyway. They made their way back to the older boy after that.

“Done being secrecy? So, what’s your choice?”

“We’ll follow you, but the moment I think Ruka’s in danger, we’ll bolt right away.”

“Good, then let’s go.”

Looking at the older boy’s scriptic smirk, Rua sincerely hoped that they didn’t just jump out of a frying pan into the fire.

Ruka told Newcomer about their supposed direction, and he took it in stride, demanding them to lead the way while he got their ride ready for their travel.

“What do you mean by ‘ride’, you have a bike here?” asked Rua.

“Fufufu, no wonder both of you look half-death, well, I can’t expect a pair of stupid kids to figure it out, can I? Don’t tell me you two walked all the way here?”

“It’s not like we have vehicles,” Rua fumed.

“What a waste of the duel disks strapped on your arms,” he put a card in his Duel Disk and called out. “Come, Clear Wing!”

The white dragon appeared again with a whip of wind, it crooked its head, letting its duelist rest his hand on its gigantic snout.

Wait, rest?

Ruka gasped, “It’s real! The duel monsters, they’re solid!”

“What, really?” Rua reacted out by reflex and put his hand on the white monster, it grumbled under his skin and the tremor traveled throughout his body. He beamed, it really was real! He couldn’t believe he could experience this.

“If you two don’t hop on, I’m gonna leave you behind. There is no guarantee that another pack of monsters won’t show up,” their benefactor’s voice pulled him out of his daydreaming. He was sitting on the dragon’s back already and gesturing them to climb on. After a moment of hesitation, the twins helped each other onto Clear Wing’s back.

The moment Clear Wing was airborne, Ruka let out a sign she didn’t notice he’d been withholding. They had left the dangerous ground and finally had a moment of safety.

When they finally made it out on top of the treeline. The twins were treated to a sight they never seen before. Below them, the forest spread out in all directions, Ruka couldn’t even see the edge of it. Over the horizon, a large range of mountains with frosty tops spread far and high.

Seeing this view, it was clearer than ever to her, that they had really been spirited into another world.

“Ruka, Ruka, look!” Rua pulled at her shirt, seemingly awestruck.

Ruka turned around, and gasped.

Further beyond the horizon, right at the end of their flying path, was a gigantic tree, towering over the forest. Its branches and treetop reached so far above the cloud, that he couldn’t see the top.

“Is that the source of power Ancient Fairy talked about?” He whispered to her so the stranger boy couldn’t hear them.

Ruka wordlessly nodded. That tree was practically pulsing with power, waves after waves of energy swirled around the trunk, covering the tree with an aura of invincibility.  

She heard an amusing whistle in front of her. The older boy didn’t look back, but she could imagine he’s just as amazed as she was.

“Sure glad you two don't walk, huh? You would’ve been dead before you could make it there,” he shouted, voice slightly muffled because of the wind.

“Say,” Rua shouted back, “are you also from another world just like us?”

“What gives you such an idea?” He laughed.

“The knight from earlier said all humans in this world died, so I figured you have to come from another world.”

He didn’t say anything, but that was good enough an answer to Ruka.

“Hey big bro, I’m Rua, Seijouin Rua, this is my sister Ruka. What’s your name?” Asked Rua again.

The older boy fell silent again, and just when they thought they would also get no answer to this question, they heard his reply, “Yuri, Sakaki Yuri.”

Chapter Text

The sun shone brightly down the river running on the edge of a forest, making the surface water glitter like millions of precious jewels. However, this heavenly atmosphere was ruined by the barrack of loud noises, the sound of beasts’ footfall stamping on the ground, the sound of soldiers yelling, and of metal clanking against each other tore through the air like countless pairs of sharp scissors.

In the forest next to the river, just barely far enough that the sounds didn’t manage to reach, a dark-haired young man, dressing in a button-down with a waistcoat and a pair of leather pants, was running down a hill, a pair of dueling monsters faithful following him.

“How far are we, Dark Magician?” Mutou Yugi asked.

“We’ll encounter them any second now, master,” the black-robed spellcaster replied, eyes straining ahead.

“But are you sure about this?” Asked the monster girl behind him, her bare-shoulder robe and short skirt gave her a much more youthful look than her teacher, “Rushing straight into an unfamiliar force like this is a really bad move.”

Yugi stopped and bent down, his breaths coming in short gasps, “It’s too precious of a chance to let passed by, we’ve been walking around in a circle for two days and haven’t encountered a single intelligent being. I don’t care if the presence Dark Magician sensed were friendly or not, we must make contact with it if we want to have a chance at figuring out what is going on.”

“And on the occasion that it was unfriendly,” Dark Magician raised his staff above his chest, “we would be here to protect master, so be ready to fight, Dark Magician Girl.”

The monster girl huffed and drew her staff above her chest with resolution.

Yugi smiled at his monster’s determination and loyalty, he would never have thought that someday he could speak to them so freely like this. He knew his other self had a deep relationship with duel monster spirits, but that’s an area he could admit he got no talent for, so the entire experience with them for the past couple of days felt like a dream.

Scratch that, if he was being honest, this whole thing was the start of a nightmare.

The day before yesterday, he was still having fun helping his grandpa set up the new inferior to their game shop. With the new, more modern layout, his grandpa was hoping they could pull more young customers in and stay in the business longer, despite Yugi telling him countless times that it’s alright for him to step down and let Yugi take over. And then, after a brief, sudden invitation to the Kaiba Corp headquarter and an even more brief, sudden exchange with Kaiba, Yugi found himself here.

At first, Yugi still didn’t know what to make of this strange dimension. During the first hours, all he did was run around in confusion, trying to call for Kaiba in vain, and then he began to call out for whoever it was that asked him for help, whom he sure was suffering somewhere. Only when his monsters burst from his deck and told him this was an alternative dimension where monster spirits reside, that his rapid beating heart began to slow down.

Spirit world, he could handle that, this wasn’t the first time he had been in another world after all. Plus, he even got his faithful monsters with him, even though he could swear he didn’t have his deck, nor his duel disk with him when going to Kaiba Corp.

And yet, after nearly two days of walking around aimlessly in this endless forest, he was forced to admit that he was lost. Whatever this strange dimension was wasn’t the same one his other self and he stumbled upon years ago. No sighting of an animal bigger than a critter, no duel monster spirit in sight, and of course, no human either.

He was beginning to think it was already too late for whoever asked him for help.

That’s when Dark Magician said he sensed a massive number of spirits up ahead, and Yugi had told him to lead him there.

Which brought them to the present situation, when Yugi doubled down leaning on a tree stump and letting out harsh breaths, Dark Magician Girl awkwardly support his side. Had he known that someday he’d stumbled upon another world with a rescue mission again, he would’ve trained his physical body harder. But alas, he put too much effort on Int that his Stre stat was basically nonexistent.

“Is it really, hah hah, just up ahead? Because I don’t know if I can take another step.”

“Yes, master,” Dark Magician frowned, “Huh?”

“Is something the matter?”

The spellcaster pulled up his staff, its head lit up as he activated his magic. Next to him, his pupil also tensed up and she hurriedly put Yugi behind her while straightened up in a fighting stance.

“Hey? What’s happening?”

“Human,” Dark Magician growled, “Children, two of them in fact, and the aura they gave off are not ones of this world.”

Yugi’s first thought was a relieving one, he finally found his fellow human beings at last. Then he stifled a laugh, “You two do not care about a horde of monster spirits with inherent malice coming toward us, but a pair of kids scare you?”

“You don’t understand,” Dark Magician Girl said with urgency, “one of those kids, he-”

She didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence, because at that moment a series of screams tore open the quiet air. The two magicians quickly cast a spell, then an opaque shield appeared and enclosed all three of them.

They all held their breath.

The trees in front of them got blasted aside by a huge beam, and flying straight at them was a blue dragon with massive bat wings and a red orb emblemed within a huge crash hole in its chest. Riding on its back were two boys, both dressed in black gakuran.

They slammed into Yugi’s invisible but very solid shield and the kids were thrown off the dragon, as soon as they left its body, the dragon’s form crashed and disappeared, leaving only a red orb hovering in the air.

“Dragias!” One of the boys shouted.

Yugi was about to run to the boys’ side, but Dark Magician raised a hand to block him.

“Are they unable to see us?” He asked.

“It would be due to our spell, yes.”

“Why did you do that? Please cancel it, I need to check on them.” He was about to step out of the barrier but Dark Magician Girl grabbed the rim of his shirt and held him back.

Before he had the time to scold her for such unusual behavior, the taller kid with blue hair had pulled the other, a smaller, redhead boy with golden bangs up and they dashed into the forest, but it was too late. From all around them Yugi heard beasts’ screaming and growling, and the loud rumble of an army approached them in every direction. The kids pressed close to each other, the taller kid put the smaller one behind him in a protective manner.

“Yuga, I’ll distract them, you go on ahead,” said the taller kid.

“I’d take on your offer if I knew how to fly, Luke,” the smaller boy laughed bitterly, “but they have us completely surrounded.”

From behind the trees, their army of pursuers came out, and Yugi had to wince. He knew this archetype of monster, they’re very popular across the player community, for their lore was full of bloodlust and atrocity.

Wings as black as the night, accompanied by sleek armors with the same color of darkness, the Darklord monsters stepped out from the shadow one by one, encircled the two boys, and unknowingly, Yugi and his two monsters inside their barrier as well.

The army of monsters pointed their weapon at the two kids, signaling them to stand down.

“The game of cat and mouse is over, boys,” a young lady wearing a revealing dark short skirt with three pairs of bat wings on her back, who Yugi quickly recognized as the Darklord Ixchel, stepped up, “if you go with us willingly, I promise no harm will come to your companion.”

“I refuse!” Both the kids said in unison.

The taller kid raised his left hand and shouted a scream, which for some reason had all the monsters flinched and stepped back, even Yugi’s monsters tensed up at the sound.

A spark of electricity fizzled from his palm and died down under everyone’s tense gaze. The boy widened his eyes and grabbed his wrist.

“No, no, no, no way, not now!”

Upon seeing the panic in the kid’s eyes, Ixchel grinned, her eyes lit up in malice. “Hoh, it seems like your little trick is unusable now. Seize them!”

On her order, the army of monsters let out a uniformed battle cry and rushed forward, their weapons aimed at the two boys.

Yugi couldn’t watch this anymore, he pulled his shirt out of Dark Magician Girl’s hands, shoved Dark Magician out of the way in a surprising burst of physical strength, and rushed over to the kids’ side to grab both of them and pulled them under his body.

The Darklords were startled when a human appeared seemingly out of nowhere, but they couldn’t cease their advance, the circle of monsters closed in under the two spellcasters’ panicked eyes. They couldn’t respond in time!

But they didn’t need to, because when all the weapons were supposed to meet their marks, a glass dome suddenly manifested around Yugi and enveloped them just in time for the weapons to touch the dome’s surface.

Immediately, a light burst out and every monster was knocked back with a violent force. Some of them slammed into the dirt or trees with deafening screams, some were sent flying until their figure disappeared over the top of the foliage.

The whole thing took less than a second.

Darklord Ixchel, the only one who didn’t participate in the attack, looked on in shock.

“Who- what happened? Where the hell did you come from?” She hissed at the sudden appearance of Yugi.

Yugi raised his head, and on his duel disk was a card that he managed to pull out at the last moment.

“Mirror Force, when the opponent declares an attack, destroys all attacking monsters,” he said.

The two kids under him tried to turn back to see who had rescued them, but he tucked them under him and kept his eyes on the monster girl in front of them. Dark Magician and his pupil rushed to Yugi’s side, providing yet another layer of defense. Around them, the other Darklord monsters disappeared in fractal lights one by one, and Yugi sincerely hoped they just went back to whatever deck they came from instead of the alternative.

Ixchel only took a moment to overcome her shock, she smirked at him, “Yet another dimensional traveler? You lots sure just appeared one after another like cockroaches.”

“I don’t know what is going on here, but using an entire army to gang up on two helpless children isn’t very cool, is it?” He bargained, frowning internally at her words. So that meant these boys also came from another world?

“Helpless? Please spare me the laugh,” Ixchel covered her mouth and chucked, “these two incapacitated half of our force in one move. I must bring them back to our Lord so that he could punish them for the brutality they committed against my comrades. Now if you can kindly step aside-”

“That’s because you fuckers attacked us first!” One of the kids cried.

“That’s right,” the other chimed in, “we didn’t do anything that’s not out of self-protection, we couldn’t even duel you.”

Duel? Yugi looked down at their wrists, the taller kid had a strange duel disk, a model he had never seen before, strapped on his wrist, but the other one’s was bare. He wondered what’s happened that led these children here, but resolved to ask them later.

“Let them go,” he told Ixchel, only for her to snicker at him.

“No can do, I’ve been ordered to dispose of all intruders like you lots,” she raised her wrist and revealed a slick metal duel disk, and Yugi instinctively straightened up, the reflex of a seasoned duelist snapped into him.

“May I know your names?” He asked the two kids he just protected with a gentle smile.

“Uhm, I’m Kamijou Tatsuhisa, but everybody calls me Luke,” the taller kid said, a little abashed.

“I’m Yuga, Ohdo Yuga,” the smaller one replied warily.

“Okay, Luke, Yuga. My name is Mutou Yugi, can I ask you two to stand back? Let me take it from here.” He got up and patted both of them on their heads, much to Luke’s annoyance. Then he gently nudged them behind him.

“Absolutely not, she is after us, we can’t have you involved,” Yuga cried.

Yugi shoved both kids back a little more forcefully, “I’m the one who should be saying that, you two are too young to have to fight for your life, just let the adult handle it.”

The red orb still hovering above Luke’s head suddenly gave off tiny sparks, and Luke looked like he was ready to charge into the army all by himself. Yugi sensed a disaster ahead so he turned to his monster.

“Dark Magician, take care of them.”

Dutifully, his ace monster landed next to the two kids and pulled up his shield, trapping Yuga and Luke inside. After making sure that they couldn’t break out and interrupt the upcoming duel, or did anything stupider than that, Yugi turned back to the dark monster who still patiently waited for him.

“So, you want to resolve everything with a duel, is this how the residents of this world operate?” Yugi activated his duel disk, and Dark Magician Girl disappeared into his deck.

“That’s right. To us, dueling is everything. It’s the act of laying bare our souls to the Lord above and to each other, it’s the solidification of our will and determination, where we bet our own lives for a chance of victory.”

“I see,” Yugi internally cursed, the deeper meaning of those words wasn’t lost to him, so the duels in this world really were shadow games, and losing meant dying, for real.

“That aside, will you be alright having your ace card not participating in the duel? I don’t like my prey dying too soon, it makes the hunt less fun, you know?” She smirked, activating her duel disk.

Yugi raised his wrist with his own disk up as well, “Thanks for your concern, but I’ll be alright.”

“Duel!” They shouted in unison.

Yugi: 4000 LP Vs Darklord Ixchel: 4000 LP.

“The challenger takes the first turn, so it’s my turn,” Ixchel smiled sweetly and announced.

Turn 1: Darklord Ixchel/4000 LP

Yugi noticed Ixchel didn’t attempt to reach for her deck to draw more cards, so it seemed like the foreign duel rules that his disk showed him when he inspected it earlier were genuine. He thanked his instinct as a duelist to check his disk and deck right after he arrived in this world, or else he’d be taken aback by all the unfamiliar rules added to this duel.

“First of all, I activate the special effect of myself, Darklord Ixchel,” Ixchel revealed her own card to Yugi, “by discarding myself and another Darklord card, I can draw two more cards from my deck.” She followed her sentence by drawing 2 cards.

“And then I summon Capricious Darklord from my hand.”

A monster girl wearing a dark skirt with a singly dark wing materialized on the field.

     Capricious Darklord (Fairy/Dark/Level 4): 0/1600

“Capricious’s effect activates: I can tribute summon a fairy monster from my hand. The card I want to call out to the field is…”

She took a card from her hand and flip it so Yugi could see, and Yugi cursed internally as soon as he caught a glimpse of it.

“...Darklord Desire! Even though it’s a level 10, if I use a fairy type as a tribute then it needs only one tribute.”

Capricious curled up into a light ball when her body was used as a tribute to call out a higher level monster, then a dark knight donning sleek armors with a pair of darkish red wings appeared in her place.

     Darklord Desire (Fairy/Dark/Level 10): 3000/2800

Only the first turn, and his opponent already summoned a 3000 ATK cannon. Yugi gulped in nervousness.

“I haven’t finished yet,” Ixchel smirked seeing the look on his face, “From my hand, I activate the spell card Darklord Contact, it special summons a Darklord card from my graveyard in defense position. Revive! Darklord Superbia!”

From the ground, a dark portal appeared and a strange monster flew out. It resembled a black vase with a red crow’s head and feet, with a pair of dark wings in the back.

     Darklord Superbia (Fairy/Dark/Level 8): 2900/2400

“That’s not all, by being special summoned from the graveyard, Superbia can revive another Darklord alongside it. You should rejoice, because not many people can see me in all of my glory on the very first turn of my duel. I special summon myself, Darklord Ixchel!”

Instead of a monster materializing from the air, Ixchel stepped directly into the field. A dark purple aura emitted from her body, raising her slightly above the ground. And in an instant, she transformed from a duelist to a direct participant on the field.

     Darklord Ixchel (Fairy/Dark/Level 8): 2500/2900.

“I set a card and end my turn.”

Turn 2: Yugi/4000 LP

Yugi drew his card while his eyes didn’t leave his opponent. In the first turn, Ixchel already brought out 3 strong monsters on the field, and in contrast, Yugi didn’t even have his ace card with him. He was at a severe disadvantage here.

“Master,” Dark Magician called out, and Yugi offered him a reassuring smile.

“I’m okay, just focusing on protecting those kids.”

His monster nodded reluctantly.

He looked at the cards he had in his hand and began calculating his strategy. His situation didn’t look too bright without his ace monster, and by looking at Ixchel’s play, he knew he couldn’t hope to win without making some sacrifice.

And losing means death. He reminded himself.

Making up his mind, Yugi placed the first card into his disk.

“I special summon Jester Confit, this card can be special summoned from my hand in attack mode.”

A clown with two oversized arms standing on a little ball materialized on the field.

     Jester Confit (Spellcaster/Dark/Level 1): 0/0

“Next, I summon Berry Magician Girl, also in attack mode.”

From the card in Yugi’s hand, a baby girl wearing a fairy costume with wings, sucking on a pacifier flew out.

     Berry Magician Girl (Spellcaster/Earth/Level 1): 400/400

The little monster girl turned back and grinned cheekily at him, which he returned with his own soft smile.

“I activate Berry’s effect, when this card is summoned, I can add a Magician Girl from my deck to my hand, I choose Dark Magician Girl,” he announced.

Berry made a little ‘eh’ noise and looked at him, Yugi knew it wasn’t his usual strategy, but considering his hand, he’d have to make do with this now.

Retrieving Dark Magician Girl’s card from the deck, he continued, “Then, I activate the spell card Magical Dimension from my hand, if there is a spellcaster on my field, I can tribute a monster I control to special summon another monster from my hand.”

He pointed at the small clown, “I tribute Jester Confit to special summon Dark Magician Girl.”

Jester did a somersault on his ball before a light ball swallowed him, and from that ball, his cheeky monster girl jumped out and gave Ixchel a confident smirk.

     Dark Magician Girl (Spellcaster/Dark/Level 6): 2000/1700

“You go through all that trouble, just to summon a monster with 2000 ATK?” Ixchel snorted, “Do you know the meaning of wasted resources, little boy ?” She purposefully stretched out the y syllabus.

Dark Magician Girl pumped up, “Shut up, don’t you dare badmouth my master. Master wouldn’t do anything without a reason. Show her, Yugi-chan!”

Yugi smiled weakly toward her, the way his monsters talked up to him like he’s some kind of invulnerable god still weirded him out sometimes.

“Eh, right, so I activate the second effect of Magical Dimension, when I successfully summon a monster, I can destroy a monster on the field, the one I choose is,” he pointed at the dark knight, “Darklord Desire!”

Dark Magician Girl raised her staff and shot a light beam across the field toward the Desire. The beam met its target straight on and the dark fairy burst apart without a sound. Ixchel simply floated a little to the left to avoid the particle from sticking to her clothes, still smirking without caring about the destruction of her monster.

“Next, I activate another spell card, Magician Unite. When there are two or more spellcasters on my field, I can target one of them and raise its ATK to 3000, however, the other monsters can’t attack this turn. Dark Magician Girl!”

Berry swiftly jumped to Dark Magician Girl and the two girls playfully share a hug before they let the head of their staves touch and Dark Magician Girl’s ATK slowly raised to 3000.

     Dark Magician Girl: 2000/1700 -> 3000/1700

“Dark Magician Girl, attack Darklord Ixchel!” He declared.

His monster pointed her staff at Ixchel, its head glowed when she prepared to shoot her energy beam toward the enemy’s monster.

“At this moment, I activate my trap card Darklord Enchantment: I send a face-up monster from my field to my graveyard to take control of Dark Magician Girl until the end of this turn!”

“What?!” Yugi exclaimed.

The winged vase disappeared in a burst of light and from the trap card, numerous chains flung out, wrapping around Dark Magician Girl like a fish net and pulling her over to Ixchel’s field.

“Whoa, whoa,” the monster girl struggled in vain, “let me out, you bitch!”

“Dark Magician Girl…” Yugi looked on helplessly, he missed the chance to deal some damage to Ixchel. Not only that, Superbia being in the graveyard meant the next turn, it could potentially drag something alongside it when it’s revived.

Seeing that there was nothing he could do anymore, Yugi set a card face-down and declared his turn ended.

     Dark Magician Girl: 3000/1700 -> 2000/1700.

At this moment, the chain around Dark Magician Girl disintegrated, and she immediately jumped back to his side after sticking out her tongue at Ixchel.

“Already?” Ixchel smirked, “And here I thought you’d be better than this. The next turn won’t be this vanilla, my boy.”

“Thanks, but I happen to like vanilla.”

Ixchel burst out laughing, and Yugi instantly regretted his choice of words.

“I see, I see. So you like vanilla, huh,” she hummed, “Hey, how old are you?”

“Uh, twenty?”

“Ah, just a wee boy. I almost regret challenging you,” the she-monster sighed.

Yugi gulped, and an uncomfortable feeling began to rise in his stomach, but he forced it down to focus on the duel. 

Turn 3: Ixchel/4000 LP

“Draw.”

Ixchel’s motion was completely sensual when she put the card in her hand, making Yugi avert his eyes with a blush.

“What’s wrong? Are you so afraid of me that you can’t even look me in the eyes?”

“I- I’m not afraid of you, just th-that kind of action is not something you should pull off in front of children.”

“Hm?” Ixchel raised her eyebrow and gave him a cocky smile.

She’s messing with me. Yugi belatedly realized and mentally cursed himself for falling for it. In a death battle like this, players would willingly employ underhanded tactics to sway and dispirited their opponent, and Yugi had always been weak against these kinds of psychological warfare.

His other self would never waver like this, if only he was here…

Yugi swallowed. Focus, focus.

“Using the second effect of myself, I pay 1000 LP to apply the effect of a spell card in the graveyard, and then shuffle the card back to the deck.”

Ixchel: 4000 LP -> 3000 LP

“The spell card I choose is Darklord Contact. I hereby apply its effect and special summon Darklord Superbia in defense position. Revive, my trusted servant!”

Yugi cringed, it’s that card again.

The winged vase with a bird head sprung up with a trill, its dark wings spread wide, sending a wave of wind across the field.

     Darklord Superbia: 2900/2400

“By now you should know Superbia’s effect, when it’s special summoned from the graveyard, it can pull another monster out of the grave with it. So revive, Darklord Desire!”

     Darklord Desire: 3000/2800

The dark knight re-materialized, and Ixchel’s field once again returned to the exact same state as her last turn. Yugi forced off a shiver, it’s been a while since he encountered such an intimidating opponent, and if this wasn’t a death game, he’d be bursting with excitement at being able to play against such a strong duelist.

“Doesn’t seem to be afraid, are we?” Ixchel smirked at him.

“Just carry on, ma’am,” he sighed.

“As you wish, I activate Darklord Desire’s effect. By lowering his ATK by 1000, I send a monster from your field to the graveyard! Begone, Dark Magician Girl!”

     Darklord Desire: 3000/2800 -> 2000/2800

Desire roared and let the darkness contained in his body out. The stream of darkness shot through the field toward Dark Magician Girl, enveloping her so fast that the girl didn’t have time to cry out. When the darkness dissipated from his field, Dark Magician Girl was nowhere to be found.

Yugi gulped, he has lost the protection from his current strongest monster.

“Battle!” Ixchel declared and pointed to Berry Magician Girl, “I’ll make a prey out of that puny toddler!”

She raised one of her hands, and in her palm, an icy spear with the color of darkness crystallized. Then Ixchel grinned and threw it straight toward Berry.

“Berry’s effect activates!” Yugi immediately announced, “When she’s the target of an attack, I can change her battle position and special summon a Magician Girl from my deck!”

“Not happening! I’m not letting you interrupt my play with your pathetic tactics. Trap card activates, The Sanctified Darklord! I send a Darklord card from my hand to the graveyard to negate a monster’s effect on the field and add that monster’s ATK to my LP! I send Darklord Superbia to the grave to negate Berry Magician Girl’s effect.”

The activated trap card sent a burst of lightning toward Berry, and the little monster yelped as she was shocked back into the attacking position. 

Ixchel: 3000 LP -> 3400 LP

Not a second later, the dark spear met her body and Berry disappear with a desperate cry.

Darklord Ixchel: 2500 ATK Vs Berry Magician Girl: 400 ATK

The spear didn’t stop there, it whopped past the field and pierced his chest in one smooth movement. And despite how much Yugi psyched himself, he still couldn’t prepare for a force equal to a car slamming into him.

Yugi screamed as he was violently thrown back by that force, the world whited out as his vision disappeared.

Yugi: 4000 LP -> 1900 LP

It felt like it lasted for an eternity, but at last, he found himself on the ground, his throat had gone hoarse from screaming. He lay there and tried to breathe again in short gasps, his whole body trembled in shock.

It might’ve taken a full minute until Yugi gained back control of his limbs and slowly got up. He caught the eyes of Dark Magician while he did so, his ace monster was gripping his staff so tight his knuckles turned white, but he remained dutifully still inside the barrier, doing what his master commanded him to. The two kids had a look of horror etched on their faces, and Yugi just wished they didn’t have to witness this brutality.

While bracing on his knees in order to steady his breath, Yugi heard Ixchel’s ‘tch, tch’ as if she was taking pity on him.

“My baby, it doesn’t look like you can last much longer. How about I make you an offer, so you don’t have to die?”

“Offer?” Yugi asked warily.

“You give me those boys and yourself, and apart from that one boy we must absolutely kill, I’d spare you and the other boy. How about that?”

“What happens to that ‘honor duel’ philosophy of yours?” He frowned.

Ixchel chuckled, eyeing Yugi up and down, making him shiver, “Well, you look fine enough to serve by my side. The last human servant I had died of old age a long time ago, and apart from those hunky beasts I’ve got nobody to boss around. It’s honestly getting so boring lately.”

Bile rose in Yugi’s throat and he fought hard not to gag, “No, thank you! I’d rather die than sell out people to save myself. Trap card activates, Dark Horizon!”

The face-down card flipped up and a dark fireball rose from the card, pulsing and burning like a mini sun.

“When I take damage, this card allows me to special summon a dark spellcaster from my deck with ATK equal to or less than the damage I took. Since I took 2100 points of damage just now, I can summon Magician of Dark Illusion from my deck!”

The dark fireball burst open, and a dark monster wearing a robe eerie similar to Dark Magician jumped out, landing on a monster slot on Yugi’s side.

     Magician of Dark Illusion -> Dark Magician (Spellcaster/Dark/Level 7): 2100/2500

“Magician of Dark Illusion’s name becomes Dark Magician while it’s on the field,” Yugi stated.

Ixchel looked surprised for a second, maybe she’d never expected Yugi to summon such a high-level monster during her turn when she seemingly just wiped his board clean, but she recovered quickly, and smirked at him.

“Well done with your counter move, boy, but what can you do with that sole monster? Don’t forget I have two monsters stronger than yours on my field. The next turn, you’ll be dead meat.”

“I don’t think so, a duel won’t be decided until the duelist has played his last card,” Yugi replied firmly.

“Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that. My turn ends here.”

Turn 4: Yugi/1900 LP

Yugi surveyed the field. On Ixchel’s side, there were Darklord Desire and Darklord Ixchel. Even if Magician of Dark Illusion could destroy Darklord Desire, whose ATK had been lowered to 2000, it’s still not enough to cut Ixchel’s LP to zero. In the next turn, she could easily wipe his board and win the duel. 

And if he lost…

Yugi slowly turned back, looking at the two kids he had sworn to protect. If he lost this fight, not only he, but two innocent kids would lose their life together with him.

He couldn’t let that happen.

Was this heavy burden what his other self had to deal with every time he dueled? The knowledge that if he made just a wrong move, everything that had been put on his shoulder would fall and crumble to pieces.

God, there were so many things Yugi didn’t ask him. Didn’t have a chance to, didn’t think that there would not be enough time to ask.

Placing a hand on his deck, he prayed to his other self, to the spirit of the Pharaoh he missed dearly like missing the air itself, and drew.

The card felt like it glowed in front of him.

“From my hand I activate the spell card Bond between teacher and student. If I have a Dark Magician on my field, I can special summon Dark Magician Girl from my hand, deck, or graveyard. Even though Magician of Dark Illusion technically isn’t Dark Magician, since his name has become Dark Magician on the field, this card’s effect can still be activated! Dark Magician, call out your discipline from the graveyard.”

Ixchel growled when the monster girl she successfully killed off the last turn was revived and came to stand next to her pseudo teacher.

    Dark Magician Girl: 2000/1700

“Good job on bringing her back, but that monster’s ATK still can’t compare to mine.”

“Who said I was done? Bond between teacher and student’s effect doesn’t stop there. Per this card’s effect, I can set one of the four specific spells that were mentioned in this card straight from my deck. The spell card I choose is Dark Burning Attack.”

Yugi’s deck spit a card out for him, and he set it down on the field. Then, he immediately flipped it up, “I activate Dark Burning Attack. When I control Dark Magician Girl, I can destroy every monster on your field!”

“Huh?” Ixchel startled.

Dark Magician Girl grinned and raised her staff, a glowing light began to emit from its coiling head, “Time to pay back everything you did to me, old hag.”

Ixchel’s face contorted with rage at the impending doom of her monsters, she yelled from the top of her lungs, “NOT YET! You haven’t defeated me yet! I activate the quick effect of myself, by paying 1000 LP, I can apply the effect of a trap card in my graveyard!”

Ixchel: 3400 LP -> 2400 LP.

Yugi stiffened.

“The card I choose is Darklord Enchantment. By sending Darklord Desire to the grave, I take control of one of your monsters until the end of this turn, my target of choice is, of course, that bratty Dark Magician Girl!”

Yugi had been anticipating this move!

“From my hand, I activate the quick-play spell card Dark Magic Expanded,” he slapped the last card on his hand onto the duel disk, the card he saved for this exact situation, “When I have ‘Dark Magician’ and ‘Dark Magician Girl’ on my field, one of them will gain 1000 ATK, and you can’t activate any effect in response to my spell activation.”

Pointing to Ixchel, he announced, “Therefore, your effect is negated!”

In front of a stupefied Ixchel, Yugi watched a magic circle expand under the feet of Dark Illusion and Dark Magician Girl, protecting them from any outside magic, and also preventing the spell Dark Magician Girl was casting from being responded to as well.

“Dark Magician Girl will also be the monster that will gain the additional ATK,” he added the final word.

     Dark Magician Girl: 2000/1700 -> 3000/1700.

Clear of interruption, Dark Magician Girl raised her staff once more, from it, light beams shot out, slamming onto the only monster on Ixchel's field, Darklord Ixchel herself. The light beam pierced through Ixchel’s chest cleanly, and with a guttural scream, she was pushed back outside of the field and onto the ground.

Ixchel slumped, her breath seemed to be knocked out of her, causing her to remain frozen on her knees. She didn’t say anything, just openly stared at her board that had just been wiped clean.  

Yugi’s monsters were the only thing on the field now, and Dark Magician Girl and Magician of Dark Illusion’s combination ATK was 5100, more than enough to reduce Ixchel’s LP to zero.

Yugi won, all that’s left was to deal the finishing blow.

Somehow, on the verge of winning, the consequence of this duel dawned on him. And he suddenly realized that he’d have to, have to… her if he wanted this duel to end.

“We can still… cancel this duel, if you want,” Yugi offered, looking down.

Ixchel, for her part, regained her composure at record speed. She stood up and dusted off the dirt that clung to her skirt.

“That would be unnecessary, I’ve lost, fair and square. Your mockery of kindness only serves to humiliate me further. Just finish this duel, you’re an honorable warrior. You deserve this win.”

“Do you… have any last words?” He asked.

Ixchel burst out laughing, a laugh unlike all the sneers and smirks she gave him before. She actually, genuinely laughed.

“Why? Do you intend to fulfill my last wish or something?”

“It’s the least that I could do…”

“I see, then,” she removed one of her earrings, then tossed it over to Yugi, “if you do meet our Lord, tell him I fought bravely, but I was simply outclassed.”

Catching the earring in his palm, he solemnly swore, “If I ever come across him someday, I will pass on your words.” 

Which, hopefully, wouldn’t come anytime soon, he thought.

“And so, the game is over,” Ixchel straightened up and looked straight at him, “Do it!”

Yugi took a deep breath, his hand shook uncontrollably. This was it, this was the final line he must cross if he wanted to protect himself and the two kids behind him.

I’m gonna be having dreams about this forever. Raising his hand, he said the final word toward his opponent, “I’m sorry.”

“Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl, direct attack!” His scream felt like a sob.

The two monsters jumped forward, staff in hand pointing to the dark she-monster. The beams shooting from them were so bright Yugi had to cover his face.

Ixchel stood in silence, and as Yugi shielded his eyes, he could still see a glimpse of a content smile on her face.

When the light faded, there was no sight of the monster girl anywhere. Yugi dropped to the ground, his whole body trembled like a leaf in the wind, newfound exhaustion crept into his limbs, and the dizziness manifested tenfold, making him double over.

Before he could collapse, a pair of arms wrapped around his shoulder. Yugi looked up, and saw Dark Magician looking at him with concern.

“You purposely took too much damage in your duel, you need to rest.”

He smiled and brushed the spellcaster’s arms off him, “I’m fine, I’m fine. This much isn’t going to kill me. If you haven’t forgotten, I’ve been through many duels much more dangerous than this.”

Yugi looked at the earring, the only thing left of the woman he just robbed the life of. Its golden, glossy surface reflected his face, as if silently telling him the identity of its owner’s murderer. Suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore, Yugi hastily put it into his pocket.

Standing up, Yugi made his way to the two kids still standing rooted in place, both of their faces paled as a sheet.

“Did she- did she just, disappear?!” Yuga stuttered.

“It can’t be, how can a duel do that? Th-that impossible!” Luke hugged Yuga a little tighter, both of them were trembling.

Yugi glanced warily at the red orb still hovering above Luke’s head. The air around the kids felt strangely electrified, and the orb was letting out tiny sparks every now and then.

“Are you two okay? You don’t have any injuries, do you?” He extended a hand toward them, but despite his soft gesture, the two still cowered from him. Yugi shifted himself back a little, feeling like a filthy murderer.

He mentally wondered if this was what his other self felt like whenever he beat a player at his shadow games, and a sharp pain stabbed him when he suddenly realized he never asked the other Yugi about this sort of thing.

“We’re alright, no injury. We managed to run away before they could do anything to us,” Yuga replied with a little hesitation.

“Hey, Yuga!” Luke hissed quietly next to him.

“It’s okay,” Yuga placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder, “he just saved our lives, I think he’s safe. Besides, if he doesn’t do that, she’ll ki-beat him, he only did it to defend himself and us.”

Upon hearing his companion’s words, Luke whipped his heart toward Yugi, his eyes bore into him, shaft like a panther’s.

Yugi, for his part, just kept smiling softly and didn’t move, his hand still reached out. Even though the dizziness was threatening to topple him to the ground.

Finally, reluctantly, the boy backed down, seemingly trusting his friend’s judgment. And Yugi felt, strangely, a shift in the atmosphere as the tension in the air vanished. Next to them, Dark Magician’s posture relaxed slightly.

Yuga accepted Yugi’s hand and allowed him to shift closer, and that spelled the end to their initial animosity.

“You two are duelists, right? This might be a bit much to ask, but can any of you call out your monsters like you did earlier?”

Luke and Yuga looked at each other, then Yuga hesitantly said, “Uhm, I think our monsters are a bit, different from yours.”

“What do you mean?”

Yuga handed him his deck, which was contained in a metal deck case he’d never seen before. And the moment he spread those cards out for inspection, he knew immediately what the kid was talking about.

First of all, the design of those cards was totally different from his, the artwork box was bigger, and the monster’s level was written with a Latin number instead of stars. But the biggest difference was the effect, which was divided into [Requirement] and [Effect] instead of the PSCT method like he’s used to.

“These are Rush Duel cards, which was the format we play back in our place,” Yuga explained, “but everyone here seems to be dueling with Master Duel only. When, uh, when we realize duel monsters have solid form here, we tried to summon our monsters, but they didn’t come out at all, except Dragias. And he could only raise his body about a meter above the ground.”

“Rush Duel?” His interest piqued.

Yuga nodded. “A new format of dueling, its rule are much more simple and aim toward children, and…”

“How is this play? What are the rules? I notice that there are many normal monsters, how can this deck have a consistent strategy? This card here is called [Maximum], what is it? Can you maybe teach me this kind of duel?” Yugi asked.

Yuga looked a little taken aback at his sudden eagerness, but then he grinned at him, “Of course, I always welcome more people to play Rush Duel.”

“Aren’t we have a more pressing matter right now?” Luke interrupted him, his voice strained.

Yugi snapped out of his gamer otaku mode, smiling a little abashed at Luke. “Ah, sorry. I’m always like that when it comes to a new game. So, where were we?”

“You are asking if we can summon our monster. Both of us tried to, but for some reason, only one of my dragons was able to come out, and we’ve been using it to run from those monsters. But he disappeared as soon as we reached this place, and somehow turned into this ball, I don’t even understand why.” He pointed at the red orb still hovering over his head, chewing on his lips.

Yugi observed the orb. It didn’t seem so agitated now, just floating peacefully about 30 cm above Luke’s head. If it wasn’t literally hovering unsupported, Yugi would believe it to be a regular decorating glass ball.

“The monster from earlier talked about one of you destroying half their army. May I ask which one of you did it?” Yugi phrased it as a gentle question, even though he already had an idea as to who was responsible for the act.

When the two kids looked at each other in hesitation, Yugi smiled and added, “It’s fine, you don’t need to tell me. I just want to remind you that those monsters seemed really determined to capture whoever hurt their comrades, so you two should keep your guard up.”

Both Yuga and Luke tensed up, they traded a silent gaze then nodded at him.

Yugi felt bad, he shouldn’t make these kids more scared than they already were. But in this unfamiliar world, the more hypervigilant they were, the better their chance for survival. He still had many questions he wanted to ask them, but for now, their main concern should be getting away from this place and finding a safe shelter. Kaiba and the strange voice asking him for help could wait, right now he got two kids right in front of him he needed to help.

“Yuga and Luke, I know we just met, but can you two trust me?” He asked them once more.

They looked at each other again, then Yuga shrugged, “it’s not like we got another choice, beside, you did save our life.”

Yugi smiled, he wished they could meet in a better circumstance.

“Good, then I want you two to keep your decks on your person and don’t try to summon anything again. If you ever encounter an enemy, don’t engage them, if you two can’t duel then you’ll just be the perfect prey for them. Run away immediately and don’t look back until you’ve lost them, understood?”

Both of them nodded.

“Good boys. Okay, we’ve lingered here long enough. Let’s go find somewhere safe to hide, we can talk more on our way there.”

He offered them a hand, and after a moment of hesitation, Luke beat Yuga to grab it, and held Yuga’s hands with his other protectively.

Looking at these two kids somehow reminded him of his other self and himself. The other Yugi had also always placed himself between him and dangers like this. He knew these kids didn’t completely trust him yet, but considering he had just committed an act of atrocity in front of them, he couldn’t ask for anything more.

“Where should we go now, master?” Dark Magician asked.

Yugi quickly skimmed over all the information he gathered over the last two days. Ixchel’s appearance and the kids’ tale told him enough that monsters were alive and abundant in this world, not only that, they had formed armies and had a very clear rank structure with an individual, dubbed ‘Lord’ by Ixchel, sitting on top. Yet, despite running around the forest for two days, he hadn’t encountered a single one of them. So either Yugi was extremely lucky, or the forest itself was something special.

“Let’s go back to the forest, it’d be safer in there,” he decided.

His ace monster nodded and led the way ahead, and together, they made their way deeper into the thick shade of green.

‘Hey other me, I’m doing everything right, right?’ He asked, squeezing the cold earring in his pocket, but there was no second voice in his head to reply.

—----------------

As the gigantic tree drew closer and closer, Ruka suddenly felt a bit nervous. She was indeed the one that pointed out the destination of their trip, but the impending power that the tree possessed was starting to unnerve her the closer they got. Not to mention Rua was still injured after the brutal duel earlier, he might put up a brave front, but from his slouched posture and hitched breaths, Ruka knew his twin was still in pain, and they didn’t have medication in this world.

Nor anything edible, apparently.

Both twins’ stomachs were rumbling, but Ruka bit her lips and held it in. Yuri was still seated in front of them, after revealing his name to them, he focused on flying his dragon and remained silent. Ruka didn’t expect that he’d notice their predicament, but she hoped that after they landed, he’d at least let Rua rest. And maybe, Ruka could start searching for something for her brother to eat.

The white-teal dragon slowed its speed as they approached the tree. Now closer to the gargantic wooden plant, they spot a line of white, translucent spikes, forming a circle about 1 km radius around the tree and pushing all the normal-sized trees back, creating a clearing with that tree standing in the middle, almost like…

“A barrier, huh? Guess this is not that easy after all,” Yuri ‘tch in front of them, “Clear Wing, don’t approach carelessly, lower your altitude and fly outside the border of those crystals.”

“We are not going in there?” Rua asked.

“Obviously not, are your eyes only for crying like a bab-”, Yuri snickered at Rua’s question then stopped himself at the last second, “ah, forget you’re as useless as a spare token card. Girl, how about filling on your brother for me?”

Ruka groaned while Rua yelled something to protest Yuri’s unnecessary jab. She had to hold his brother down less he tried to attack Yuri for real and risk falling out of the dragon.

“We can’t, Rua. There’s some kind of energy pulses coming from those crystals, forming a barrier, I think, it… they are there to protect the tree. I don’t know if they won’t attack us if we try to breach into the inner area.”

The dragon tilted its body and they had to gripe on its scales as it glided outside the energy barrier, making a round around the tree. And Crimson Dragon, was this tree magnificent! In addition to being the most gigantic structure Ruka had ever seen, with the top extended far above and disappearing into the cloud, now that they were closer, Ruka could make out spikes and spikes of crystal that filled every crevice and crash in the tree’s bark and branches. All of them glowed faintly and emitted the same kind of energy pulse as the ones on the ground. The energy streams pulled and flow into each other, creating flows of energy that spiraled upward, until they follow the tree trunk to disappear above the cloud.

Words couldn’t describe the extravagance of this scene, so Ruka just shut her mouth and tried to take everything in with her eyes.

“Ah, finally we see civilization,” Yuri’s remark made her whip her head down.

And there, far down, Ruka saw a little village that leaned upon the massive roots that sprawled out across the soil. White, small house hustled together, looking perfectly tiny next to their gigantic woody neighbor.

Before she could take a second look, something flicked from the village’s direction and Clear Wing Dragon violently jerked back, just in time for something big and pointy to shoot past them, barely missing the dragon’s waist wings.

“Whoahhh!” Both Rua and Ruka screamed in shock.

“We’re under attack!” Yuri yelled, several long projectiles shot toward them after his words.

“Clear Wing, dodge!”

The wind dragon shot upward with a swish of its tail, skillfully dodging one projectile after another. The twins could do nothing but hold onto each other tight and prayed that this mad dash through the sky won’t toss them from the dragon’s back.

“Those two chibis over there, you’d better not fall!”

“Yeah, kinda- hard to follow through that in here!” Rua yelled back after a projectile forced Clear Wing to make a sharp turn mid-air.

Another projectile, and Ruka’s blood froze when it came straight to them, but Clear Wing opened its mouth and shot out a beam, meeting the projectile in the middle of its path and destroying the thing immediately.

When the dust cleared, Ruka caught the first glimpse of something she hadn’t seen before. A duel monster she didn’t know the name of was floating in the air a good distance away from them, a blue, feminine humanoid monster with armor and wings made of ice, on her hand a scyther with a golden straight blade. Her positioning was blocking their way to the tree.

But that’s not what shocked her the most. No, what shocked her was the much smaller figure riding on the monster’s back, a figure that resembled a woman, but clearly wasn’t even human or a duel monster.

She was wearing a long white skirt, with blue hair flowing down her back. Her skin was chalk-white and there were red marks on her face. A face that had nothing besides a pair of eyes, no mouth or nose!

“Leave at once, trespassers!” A voice rumbled in the air around them, the pressure it brandished shook Ruka to her core, and she cowered next to her twin.

Yuri only smirked, raising his duel disk.

“Well, and here I’m beginning to think this flight is too peaceful.”

“Ice Princess Zereort, continue your attack,” the not-human woman coldly commanded.

Just like that, the assault started anew.

Chapter Text

Aki liked to think everything she did was all in the past.

In the past, she was an unfeeling, inhumane Black Rose Witch who destroyed people for her own amusement. Armed by Arcadia Movement’s teaching and Divine’s sweet poisoned words, she walked across Neo Domino City as if it was a warzone and she had to attack before being attacked. Her psychic power left wreck after wreck at her wake, and she reveled in it, took joy at the fact that they feared her, terrified of her sight and her dragon.

She liked to think it didn’t affect her, not anymore.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

Two months after the incident with the Dark Signers, Aki was working actively with the Security to get rid of the last remnants of the Arcadia Movement. Divine was behind bars, and so was the majority of the cult, but it didn’t mean there weren’t solidarity followers of them acting up around town, trying to sidestep the security and bring their leaders back.

“Aki, she goes into that alleyway,” Jack Altas shouted.

“Understood, I’ll block this exit, you should go to the other side,” Replied Aki.

Unexpectedly, the former King had volunteered to be her partner in catching these ‘terrorists’, he referred to them as such. Aki daresay he had shown even more enthusiasm than her in this little business of theirs.

With a solid Rose Tentacles on her heels and duel disk at ready, Aki stepped into the dark alley, letting her boots make hollow sounds on the asphalt. She cautiously peered at every shadow hidden behind trash bins and little slots, commanding her monsters to do the same.

Suddenly, she heard a crack from above, and before she could look up, a massive weight dropped on her. Rose Tentacles reacted faster than Aki could blink, it extended its thorny tentacles to either side of the alley to create a web and stop the weight from crashing on Aki at a hair’s breadth.

“Rose Tentacles!” Aki yelled. The rose monster’s main branch strained and dipped dangerously close to her, forcing Aki to crouch down to avoid the bulky weight, then with a burst of strength, it sprung back and fling the weight off its body.

“Urghh,” a yelp.

Aki looked up to see a solid Worm Tentacles bouncing off the asphalt, a roped woman carefully cradled on its chubby tentacles.

“Please surrender, woman from Arcadia Movement,” She gestured for Rose Tentacles to stand in front of her, ready for the confrontation.

The woman hissed at her, her eyes bored into Aki full of unrestrained fire, “You worthless traitor, how dare you betray our cause?!”

“I didn’t betray anyone,” she shook her head, “rather, the cause has been wrong in the first place. Divine was planning to use us psychic duelists for world domination, do you know that?”

“So what?!” The woman yelled, “He is the only one to accept us, to see people like us as people, I’d be glad to lay down my life for him and raze this cruel world to the ground if it’s his command!”

“No, you’re wrong!” Aki yelled back, “He doesn’t care about any of us at all! All he did was spew some sweet words to make us believe in him and follow him. Once we’ve run out of our usefulness, he’d just abandon us like garbage!”

Aki saw her old self in this beautiful woman. Just like her from back then, this woman was alone and full of resentment, so much so that she clung to the first one who was nice to her like a lifeline. At that time, Divine’s words of empathy, his willingness to accept her as a person, not as a monster, had felt like salvation. If it was not for Yusei, maybe she would still be stuck being Divine’s little puppet.

“Shut up! How dare a traitor like you talk about Sir Divine like that?!” The woman shouted to her monster, “Worm Tentacles, attack her!”

Rose Tentacles shot out her thorny tentacles to block the other monster’s attack with ease, its ATK was much higher than Worm Tentacles, so Aki wasn’t worried.

“Please stop this,” she tried to reason with her, “if you go with me willingly, they will consider letting you go free.”

The woman laughed, “Me? A monster like me going free? After everything I did, after everything we did? Oh, little girl, you are delusional.”

“It’s true,” Aki said, trying to make her see reason, “they even let me walk free, despite many things I did. If you can leave your past behind you, I’m sure…”

This time, the woman let out a hysterical laugh, “Oh my god, oh my fucking god!! Black Rose Witch, I know you’re just a stupid little girl, but I never pick you out to be this naive. They’re letting you go free?! No, no, you aren’t, you’re being used again, used to hunt down your own comrade! After all of us are caught, after you’ve run out of your usefulness again, they’d be the ones to dump you like garbage!”

Aki was taken aback, she didn’t expect her to use her words against her like that, “T-that’s not true! I did this out of my own volition, once Arcadia is completely disbanded, I can-”

“You can go back to be your papa and mama’s baby princess and live happily as if nothing ever happen?! Are you FREAKING STUPID?!” She screamed.

The octopus-like monster, as if receiving the madness from its duelist, wrenched free from Rose Tentacles’ hold. It grabbed every piece of scrap and junk in the alley its tentacles could reach and started throwing them at Aki.

Bewildered, Aki had to duck behind her monster while commanding Rose to defect all the flying makeshift projectiles.

“No, no you dumb bitch! You can never erase your sins, even if you want to, no one around you will ever let you forget what you’ve done. They’ll remind you, again and again, about how scary and disgusting you are, about how they despise you and resent you. Little girl, a monster putting on a fake human skin is still a monster!!”

Those words knocked the breath out of her like a violent slam. She stood there in a stupor, feeling the world around her moving slowly.

“What are you doing?! Arrest her!” A voice shook Aki out of her shock. From the other end of the alley, Jack plunged at them on his D-Wheel. He crashed right into the worm monster, causing it to let out a huge shriek.

The woman screamed when her monster got hurt, and Aki used this chance to order Rose Tentacles to snatch her away and wrap her neatly in Rose’s tentacles.

As soon as the woman was separated from her monster, it vanished, and all the objects it’d been holding dropped on them like rain.

Aki grunted, ducking beneath Rose for cover.

After things went still, Jack stood up from his bike and kicked a random piece of junk aside to make his way over to Aki.

“Are you out of your mind? Why were you just standing there like that?” He asked.

“S-sorry, I was just…” Aki stuttered to answer, but before she could say the last of her sentence, a commotion from outside the alley interrupted them.

Both of them stopped to look at the alley entrance, where they could spot a crowd forming a half-circle, someone was crying and someone else was shouting something inconceivable.

When they stepped outside, Aki gasped. The pieces of junk the woman’s monster flung at her had made their way out to the main street, destroying parts of the pavement, and a piece seemed to have hit a young boy in his head. Blood flowed out freely from the wound and his friend was crouching beside him, sobbing and clutching at him.

“Somebody call an ambulance!”

“Hey! Let him lie down.”

“Girl, you gotta lay him down.”

Aki watched the entire scene in horror. She completely forgot that there were people around them and neglected to tell her monster to catch the flying junk.

A man caught a glimpse of them and the moment his eyes saw the monster behind her, he screamed.

“The witch! The witch! Black Rose Witch!!”

As if an earthquake had occurred, people only took a glance at Aki and then screamed and scurried back. Even the injured boy yelped in fear as his friend grabbed and dragged him away from her. Aki realized with a jostle that they were wearing her school’s uniform.

“No!” She panicked, “No, this is a misunderstanding, I didn’t do this, I didn’t…” but no one heard her, they all ran away in horror.

“Ufufufufu! See what I tell you? You’ll be seen as a witch forever,” still bound tightly, the woman cackled.

After giving the woman over to Security, Jack offered to drive Aki home, much to her surprise.

Sitting on the cramped backseat of Wheel of Fortune, Aki let the afternoon sunshine above Neo Domino City’s skyline fill her eyes, allowing her mind to wander to dark places.

“Hey Jack, why are you doing this? Why are you helping me get rid of Arcadia Movement?” She found herself asking.

“…I’m not helping you,” Jack said after a beat of silence, “I have my reason to throw all of them into jail as well.”

“Hmm,” she mumbled. 

Aki wanted to ask if that reason happened to involve a dark-haired reporter who lost her life to Arcadia Movement and was forcefully brought back as a Dark Signer, but figured that might be too invasive a question. After all, Jack and she were barely more than strangers, bound to each other only by their vague sense of comrade as fellow Signers.

She suddenly missed Yusei, and wondered if she called him now, would he answer, and what excuse should she use to call him in the first place.

“What about you? What do you get out of this?” Jack asked her back.

“I honestly don’t know, maybe I just want to atone for what I did.”

“From my point of view, you did nothing wrong.”

Aki laughed, “You’re much nicer than your public impression dictates, King Atlas.”

Jack turned frigid and Aki was afraid that she might’ve said something wrong, but then he replied, “I’m just telling the truth, your actions are based on self-interest without the intention of hurting anyone. There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve your livelihood, anyone who says you should put others above yourself is a hypocritical bastard. Don’t dwell on the past, look to the future, Aki.”

Aki went silent. She knew she shouldn’t torture herself over things she couldn’t change, but every time she closed her eyes, she still saw her victims’ faces when she hurt and terrorized them, her parents’ horrified expressions on that distant day when she sent her father to the hospital and tore a rift between them forever. Even if her father forgave her, she still bore a pang of deep-seated guilt that didn’t allow her to meet their eyes with confidence.

Aki knew she was pathetic, and this pursuit was just an excuse for her to get out of home and run away from her problems.

After Jack dropped her off at the gate of her mansion, she waved her hand awkwardly when he took off with his D-Wheel. They both pretended they didn’t see the graffiti on the walls, which was full of curse words and death threats.

Aki wanted to slip inside quietly but her mother standing in front of the door snubbed that plan out. 

“I’m home, mom,” she didn’t meet her eyes.

“Welcome home, dear. Dinner’s ready, would you eat with me today?” She smiled gently at her.

“I- I’m not hungry, and it’s far too early for dinner, I’ll be in my room,” Aki said quickly and slipped past her to go upstairs, avoiding her gaze entirely.

Finally safe behind her closed door, Aki let out a long sigh and flopped on her bed. She wondered what made it so difficult to reconnect with her mother, who had been nothing but understanding toward her.

Perhaps, the problem was Aki herself.

She thought back to what the Arcadia woman told her, and couldn’t help curling onto herself a little. 

What she said… was true.

She won’t ever be seen as anything but a monster with a witched power who hurts people for her own enjoyment. After all, didn’t she admit so herself during her duel with Yusei in the Fortune Cup? And there were so many spectacles there to witness her declaration.  

Yusei told her everything was over and she could go back to being a normal girl now, but she started to feel like it’s just a lie to make her feel better. It had been months since her identity was out in the open, and there wasn’t a single day her house wasn’t vandalized with filthy words, her mother had to hide inside all day, and her father’s job got into a slump because of it.

Aki was hoping that playing her part in saving the Neo Domino City and helping get rid of Arcadia Movement would lessen her sins, but she couldn’t be more wrong. The people who actually hold the power to forgive her, citizens of Neo Domino City, had cast their vote, so why was even bother trying?

Aki thought about her parents who had to endure all of this for her. She thought about Yusei, who promised her that everything would be alright, she thought about the other Signers whom she was unable to connect with. She thought about her injured schoolmate and his friend, who no doubt would spread this afternoon’s tales to their friends at school as well.

Would this ever going to end?

Aki buried her head in her knees and let out a sob.

From the corner of her mind, Black Rose Dragon tentatively poked at her, and with a sudden burst of anger, she screamed at it.

SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! It’s your fault, it’s all your fault! If it wasn’t for you and the Crimson Dragon’s power, I would be a normal girl, living a normal life. Of all people, why would you choose me for this power?! Why?! I hate you!!

The dragon whined pitifully and retreated, leaving Aki alone.

Her Dragon Mark tingled and Aki rubbed at it between sobbing. She hated this mark, hated how it always acted up at the most inconvenient times. The first time she awakened her power, it also tingled like this.

The mark suddenly burned up, making Aki cry out. In front of her eyes, the shape of the dragon’s claw lit up brightly in the dark room, filling Aki’s vision with red lights.

“W-what is this?!”

Aki jumped down from the bed, but even the floor had been transformed. The flush carpet gave way to transparent crystal, which shone from beneath with brilliant, multicolored light rays.

Loud, distinct music notes echoed around the room, Aki had to cover her ears with both hands and when she did it, a flash of vision crossed her mind: the other Signers, all crouching down and experiencing the same thing she did.

Black Rose shrieked, and along with her increasingly louder cry was a voice Aki had never heard before, chanting something repeatedly in clear desperation.

“Help me! Please! Help!”

Aki cried out “mommy” one last time before the light engulfed her and she got blown away.

Stars, so many stars.

When Aki managed to open her eyes next. She found herself flying in a tunnel just like she did when Yusei and Jack dueled each other in the final of the Fortune Cup. But the tunnel she was flying in this time was a little bit different, there was no bright road and no duelist beneath her, instead, the walls surrounding the tunnel were transparent, and through them, Aki could see countless stars, dotting the black canvas of space, millions and millions of galaxy spread out around her and moving backward at an astonishing speed.

It’s like Aki was traveling through the universe itself, and the scale of it stunned her into silence. Black Rose reached for her, asking for comfort, but Aki brushed the monster aside.

On the far side of the tunnel, she could see a bright entrance to where she was flying, and she braced herself for the landing.

It hurt more than she thought.

The tunnel more or less spitted her directly into the dirt, thankfully she already shielded her head with her arm so she didn’t have a concussion (most likely), and the ground below her was made of soft, moist soil and covered in grass. 

Before she could raise her head, she found a weight pressed on her. Aki hitched a breath. No, not a weight, but a feeling of weightiness descended on her limbs, threatening to crush her body. Aki saw black for a second, and in a corner of her mind, Black Rose roared a distressed sound, but that also got drowned by the numbness.

And the next second, the feeling’s gone. 

Aki gaped at the sudden change, her body did an involuntary jerk as the strange weight disappeared.

What was that, she wondered.

She finally lifted her heap, only to be shocked at her surroundings.

She was sitting in the middle of a vast meadow, lush grass and wildflowers spread out everywhere. In front of her, an imposing mountain range filled the horizon, with countless frosty snowy peaks. Far, far away by her right, Aki could make out some kind of gigantic structure that looked eerie like a tree that reached far above the sky, but the obstructing mist prevented her from seeing it clearly. Over the horizon, the sky was blue with no clouds, allowing warm sunlight to flood the meadow. 

Aki was awestruck at the grandiose picturesque scenery she had never seen before. For the first few seconds, the only thing she could do was sit there and stare ahead like a dumbstruck fool. Then she stood up on shaky legs and just kept spinning around in place, trying to take everything in. Where exactly was this place?

While she was still trying to make head and tail of the situation, a roar from above made her look up, and immediately gasped out loud in disbelief.

Dragons! A battalion of dragons was flying high in the sky. They were so far up that all she could see were silhouettes of those broad wings and tails, yet their litany of roar and growl could be heard all the way down here.

Black Rose’s presence pushed forward, and she too let out a deafening howl in response to the dragons above. Aki winced and pulled Black Rose’s card out to shush her.

Keep quiet, you idiot. Do you want them to spot us?

But her dragon didn’t listen to her, instead, she kept directing her aggressiveness above with more howls and roars, it’s like she didn’t even hear her master. 

What’s wrong, Black Rose? Listen to me.

Foreign thoughts and feelings rushed through Aki’s mind, feeling of fear, of panic, of must attack must attack bombarded her, making her stagger back and hold her head in pain.

“Black Rose, what happened to you?” She panted, but her dragon didn’t hear her. The barrack of aggressive intention kept spearing into her, threatening to drown out her own voice.

There was something up there, Aki realized. Something frightening enough to make her monster go insane with bloodlust.

“Black Rose, stop that, ” she ordered in vain as the feeling rose in intensity. It wrapped around her brain, tendrils of anger poked into her consciousness and drove away any other emotions.

Aki used the last bit of her own thought to send a plea to Black Rose, before the anger consumed her.

.

.

.

Snapping her eyes open, Aki slammed Black Rose’s card to the Duel Disk, calling out her ace dragon into the physical realm.

“Come! Black Rose Dragon!”

Crimson petals bloomed into existence, a gorgeous but not any less sinister black head rose from the middle of the flower, thorny tentacles shoot out and the dragon spread its gorgeous wings wide and let out a battle-ready roar.

Aki jumped onto her dragon’s back, and with a powerful flap of wings, Black Rose was airborne and made a beeline to the flock of dragons above.

As she got closer, she realized those dragons were battling something. They shrieked and roared while flying in a circle around a single object in the sky, an object that oozed out a dark aura as it desperately parried each dragon’s attack, a very human-looking object with a pair of bat wings on its back as dark as the night sky. The moment Aki locked eyes with the humanoid figure, anger flared up inside her, as if someone had dropped a hot metal ball in her stomach.

She roared in tune with her dragon.

“Rawwgghhhh!!!”

The winged man startled at the sound of their roar and almost got mauled by the flock of dragons, but he persisted and duck below to try to get rid of all of his pursuers.

“You’re not going to get away!” She screamed and directed Black Rose to shoot her thorny tentacle out, chasing after the lone figure.

One tentacle managed to grab onto his ankle but with a powerful thwart, a blade of air shot out from his hand and cut the tentacle in two, then her target continued his descent.

Blood boiling, she and Black Rose dunked after him.

They performed several dangerous aerial acrobatics movements in an equal attempt to shake off/catch up with the other, the flock of dragons left behind when they couldn’t match up to their speed.

Aki, her dragon, and the target crashed down on a small hill, the force of their crash blew up the surrounding grass and made several critters squeak in fear as they ran from them.

“Wait, time out, time out!” The winged man waved his arm in surrender. Looking closer, he was on the young side of adulthood, his saggy brown hair framed his face and a tattered red jacket was worn loosely on his body. But the most striking feature was his mismatched eyes, one blue, one yellow, and glowed brighter than the full moon.

“Quit your deceptive words, I’ll make you pay for your crime,” Aki hissed out and went into stance, Black Rose looming menacingly behind her.

“Er, lady, pretty sure this is the first time we’ve met so I couldn’t have done anything to you. How about we calm down first and explain our situations, I don’t think fighting would be-”

“Shut up, filthy intruder,” the voice coming from Aki’s mouth felt like it didn’t belong to her anymore, “you’ll pay for daring to break into my realm! Prepare to battle, or die!” She activated her duel disk and forcefully initiated a duel between them. Black Rose let out a road and disintegrated, sucked back into her deck to prepare for battle. 

The man flinched at her aggressiveness, his wings wrapped around his body and disappeared, but then he signed and said, “Fine, you’re on!”

“Duel!”

Aki: 4000 LP/ The unknown man: 4000 LP

Turn 1: Aki/4000 LP

“My turn,” she announced and didn’t react for her deck to draw her first card. For some reason, that decision came very naturally to her. Instead, she looked at the 5 cards in her hand and began to play.

“First of all, I summon Twilight Rose Knight.”

A black armored knight with the appearance of a child materialized in her field. She brandished her sword and sliced the air in front of her, the wind from her slice blasted toward her opponent, and he shielded his face with a grunt.

       Twilight Rose Knight (Warrior/Tuner/Dark/Level 3): 1000/1000.

“Then I activate Rose Knight’s effect, when this card is summoned, I can special summon a level 4 or lower Plant monster from my hand. Join the battle, Revival Rose!”

From the dirt, a small plant sprouted, which quickly branched and bloomed into three beautiful roses. In the place of their pistils, three eyes opened up and gazed upon the field.

       Revival Rose (Plant/Dark/Level 4): 1300/1300.

The preparation was ready, time to deliver the sweet, sweet pain onto that filthy creature, Aki grinned, black surrounding her vision.

“I tune my level 3 Twilight Rose Knight and my level 4 Revival Rose together.” 

Rose Knight’s body broke down into four green rings, and Revival Rose was sucked into the tunnel made by them, also broken down to mere stars.

3 + 4 = 7

“A cold flame envelops the world! Black flower, bloom! Synchro Summon! Come forth, Black Rose Dragon!”

Her prideful dragon roared into existence once more, and numerous tentacles sprouted from under her wings, spreading and wiggling around her, painting an imposing vision. On her forearm, she could tell her mark burning up, red light carved a dragon claw’s tattoo into her sleeve. 

       Black Rose Dragon (Dragon/Synchro/Fire/Level 7): 2400/1800

Her opponent visibly shook at the sight of Black Rose, which made Aki cackle in a burst of cruel triumph.

“Don’t tell me you got cold feet just by seeing my dragon, I haven’t done with my turn yet. From my hand, I activate the field spell: Black Garden!”

Thorny vines sprouted under them and sprawled all over the field, black roses bloomed alongside them. They woven and spread out past both opponents and reached upward, creating an enclosed dome, caging both duelists in its withered, gloomy space. 

“This card,” Aki explained, “halves the ATK of any monster that will be summoned from now on. Furthermore, for every monster summoned, a Rose Token will be summoned to the opponent’s side of the field.”

“Sounds like a very troublesome card, then,” her opponent sweatdropped.

“I set two cards face down and end my turn.”

Turn 2: The unknown man/4000 LP

Aki’s opponent drew his card and then kept looking back and forth between the field and his hand as if deeply troubled.

“What’s wrong? You wanna surrender already?”

“...Heck no,” he let out a huff and after a beat, mumbled, “You be quiet too, I can handle this.”

Aki frowned, “Who are you talking to?”

“No one. Right, I’ll take the liberty to place my own field spell then: Skyscraper.”

The light suddenly dimmed and skyscrapers sprouted up around them, neon lights and signboards materialized in the air, giving the field the imitation of a busy city at night. Despite all that, the thorny garden around them still stood tall, in total contrast with the urban scenery.

The man seemed to be perplexed at this situation, he frowned at the garden as if expecting it to crumble away.

“What the hell, why is this field spell not destroyed?!”

“Who told you that setting a new field spell will destroy the one set by your opponent?” Aki raised her eyebrows at him.

“Who tell- that’s the rul- ah!” He exclaimed and slap his hand over his forehead. “I see, I see, so this is it, huh? This world operates on a different set of rules, and we were forced to follow them. Arghh, so troublesome!”

He grabbed his head and threw it back in exaggeration. “Urgh, this is destroying all of my strategies. That’s not fair, that’s so not fair at all.”

Aki snickered looking at her opponent beating himself up. Yes, continued to suffer, the darkness in her head told her. She’d beat that intruder up and fed him to her cute pack of dragons.

He recovered only seconds later to her dismay. With a huff, the man choose another card in his hand and placed it on his duel disk.

“I summon Elemental Hero Stratos from my hand.”

A masked warrior donning blue armor, and spotting two ridiculous metal wings appeared on the field.

       Elemental Hero Stratos (Warrior/Wind/Level 4): 1800/300 -> 900/300

He cringed a bit when tentacles shot out from the ground to bind the legs of the newly summoned monster, halving its ATK.

“At this time, a Rose Token will be summoned into my field, courtesy of Black Garden’s effect,” Aki said as a rose sprouted into her side of the battlefield.

       Rose Token (Plant/Dark/Level 2): 800/800.

Her opponent looked at the token with resignation in his eyes, probably figuring that he couldn’t stop it from appearing without being able to summon his own monster.

“I activate one of Stratos’s effects,” he continued. “When this card is summoned, I can add an Elemental Hero from my deck to my hand, and the card I choose is,” he looked at his deck which automatically pushed out a card for him, “my ace, Elemental Hero Neos!”

After showing a card depicting an alien-looking white monster, Aki’s opponent quickly added the card into his hand and pulled out another card.

“The spell card Polymerization: I fuse Neos in my hand with Stratos on the field to call out the honorable warrior, Elemental Hero Neos Knight.”

From the sky, a spiral showed up, sucking the warrior monster from the field and the white one from his hand into it, and from the center of the whirlwind, out came another alien-looking white monster adorning a complete set of white and blue armor.

“Neos Knight gains ATK equal to half of the original ATK of its warrior monster material. Since Stratos’s original ATK is 1800, Neos Knight gains 900 ATK.”

       Elemental Hero Neos Knight (Warrior/Fusion/Light/Level 7): 2500/1000 -> 3400/1000.

“Impressive, calling out such a strong monster on your first turn, but it’s useless, no monster is free from my garden’s curse.”

Just as before, rose tentacles sprouted from the ground and bound Neos Knight’s feet up.

       Elemental Hero Neos Knight: 3400/1000 -> 1700/1000.

As per Black Garden’s effect, another Rose Token sprouted on Aki’s field.

“Lady, it’s not wise to underestimate me, I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve,” he winked at her, “now battle, Neos Knight attacks Black Rose Dragon!”

He used his monster, which had the lower ATK, to attack Black Rose? Aki frowned, not comprehending the move, but suddenly from the skyscrapers, light beams shone down on Neos Knight, giving the monster’s armor an additional shine.

“Skyscraper’s field effect activates: when my Elemental Hero battles a monster with higher ATK, it will gain 1000 ATK.”

       Elemental Hero Neos Knight: 1700/1000 -> 2700/1000.

Elemental Hero Neos Knight: 2700/1000 vs Black Rose Dragon: 2400/1800

Aki widened her eyes as Neos Knight suddenly became more powerful than her Black Rose. Acting on reflex, she pushed a button on her duel disk.

“Trap card activates, Rose Blizzard, when a monster I control is selected as an attack target, I can switch the attacking monster to defense position.”

A gust of wind full of black rose petals billowed across the field and the warrior monster, which was in the middle of jumping across the field, was forced to drop on its knee and cross its arm in front of its face for protection.

       Elemental Hero Neos Knight: 2700/1000 -> 1700/1000.

Aki’s opponent gulped, “Well, should’ve expected that. Nothing is ever that easy.”

He chose 2 cards out of his hand and slotted them into his duel disk. 

“I’m setting 2 cards. Turn end.”

Turn 3: Aki/4000 LP

Aki drew her next card and upon giving it a look, smirked under her bangs.

The god of luck was smiling upon her, now she could teach this degenerate a lesson about breaking into this haven and wrecking chaos upon his her loyal subjects.

“I start my turn by activating the continuous trap card I set earlier, Rose Flame. Now, whenever a plant monster is summoned onto your field, this card will deal you 500 points of damage.”

With a flash, the trap card raised upright in the field, ready to be activated whenever its condition applied.

Aki smirked while putting the card she drew earlier onto the duel disk. Finally, it’s time to bring some real pain into this fight, oh how she longed for this.

“By tributing a Rose Token, I call out Rose Tentacles!”

The Tokens disappeared and from where it once stood, sprouted a beautiful, huge red rose accompanied by many thorny tentacles, which wiggled freely in the air once they appeared.

       Rose Tentacles (Plant/Earth/Level 6): 2200/1200 -> 1100/1200

Her enemy flinched when Black Garden summons a Rose Token on his field. Immediately, Rose Flame’s effect activates and a burst of flaming rose petals burst across the field, engulfing him in a ball of fiery petals.

The man let out a painful hiss and dropped to his knee, even though he didn’t scream at all. Aki had to give him a bit of respect, there weren’t many men who could endure the brunt of her power like that. 

The unknown man: 4000 LP -> 3500 LP

But as soon as he went down, something else inside him went up.

“You bitch!!!” An angry feminine voice shouted out and a sinister aura that manifested from nowhere suddenly flared out, then condensed into a humanoid figure behind him.

Black bat wings spread out, the same wings that were on the man’s back earlier, clawed hands and feets materialized in the air, and appeared in front of Aki, a sinister monster with a body made up of one-half of a man and one-half of a woman.

They growled at Aki, heterochromatic eyes burned with hatred.

“How dare you?? How dare you hurt my beloved Judai?!”

The monster was about to jump across the field when her opponent, who now she knew was named Judai, raised an arm to stop them.

“Don’t be hasty, Yubel. I’m fine.”

“But Judai,” they turned to their human partner, “she- that bitch injured you! I have to teach her a lesson!”

“Getting hurt in a duel is normal ,” he said rather exasperatedly, “stop being such a mother hen and let me handle it.”

They threw Aki a glare but still groaned and took a step back. “Fine, but if things went too far, don’t blame me if I jump in and rip that bitch’s throat to shred.”

“Deal,” the brown-haired duelist grinned.

Aki looked at them with a cold gaze, the hatred in her was boiling tenfold over. How dare this cursed lovey-dovey couple insult the sacred act of dueling like that? Getting hurt in a duel should be seen as an honor, by what absurd reason that they thought they could get mad over it?

“For this act of insult, I’ll kill both of you,” she grinned with unconcealed malice.

Looking at her dragonic servant, Aki commanded, “Black Rose Dragon’s effect activates, once per turn I can banish a Plant monster from my graveyard to switch a monster into attack position and lower its ATK to 0.”

“Hiiiii?!” Judai shrieked.

The ghostly image of Revival Rose appeared in Black Rose’s beaks and she clammed them close, destroying the monster as Neos Knight was forced into attack mode.

       Elemental Hero Neos Knight: 1700/1000 -> 0/1000.

“Battle!” Aki’s mouth widened into a grin. Finally, it’s time. “Black Rose Dragon, attack Neos Knight!”

The dragon let out a roar, and countless thorny tentacles spread from under her and shot toward the other monster.

“Trap card activates: Hero Barrier! I negate an attack from one of my opponent’s monsters with this card!” Judai yelled.

An invisible barrier materialized in between Black Rose and Neos Knight, and her tentacles all get deflected when they touched it and bounced back harmlessly.

Aki clicked her tongue in annoyance, “Good job, but it isn’t over. Now it’s your turn, Rose Tentacle, attack Neos Knight!”

The rose plant churned its flower into a large ball and shoot an energy ball toward Judai’s monster

Rose Tentacles: 1100/1200 vs Elemental Hero Neos Knight: 0/1000.

“Not so fast, I activate my quick play spell De-fusion. It returns Neos Knight to the Extra Deck and special summon Neos and Stratos onto my field.”

In an instant, the armor-clad monster vanished and in its place now stood two different monsters with ATK restored to half their original ATK.

       Elemental Hero Neos: 2500/2000 -> 1250/2000

       Elemental Hero Stratos: 1800/300 -> 900/300

Aki saw a flash of red, why was everything getting in her way just when she was on the verge of delivering pain to the one who deserved it? She gritted his teeth and barked out her next order to her monster, “Fine, then Rose Tentacles, attack Stratos!”

Rose Tentacles: 1100/1200 Vs Elemental Hero Stratos: 900/300.

The ball of energy connected with its new target, blew it out before Judai could do anything. He groaned in pain when his LP was lowered.

Judai: 3500 LP -> 3300 LP.

“And I’m not done yet, Rose Tentacles’ effect allows me to attack once again for each Plant monster on your field. Right now, you have one Rose Token, therefore Rose Tentacles are allowed to attack once more. Rose Tentacles, rip that token to shred!”

Once again the rose monster churned out a big ball of energy and shot it toward Rose Token on Judai’s field. 

Rose Tentacles: 1100/1200 Vs Rose Token: 800/800

The weak token couldn’t take the attack and quickly broke into pieces. Delivering yet another wave of pain toward her opponent, who only grunted a little while his monster partner growled at her.

Judai: 3300 LP -> 3000 LP

“That’s not all,” she yelled, if this mufon didn’t want to die quickly, then she’d make it real nice slowly for him, “when Rose Tentacles destroyed a plant monster by battle, you receive 300 points of damage!” 

Rose Tentacles’s thorny vine dashed out once more and whipped Judai across the torso, causing him to finally collapse to his knee, face scrunched up in pain.

Judai: 3000 LP -> 2700 LP.

The bastard still didn’t let out a sound. Aki’s anger sprung up a notch, how far must she go to finally hear those delicious screams that she loved loved loved so much?

“Turn end,” she announced, malice seeping into her voice.

Turn 4: Judai/2700 LP

Judai stood up with aching legs, feeling his muscles screaming with every movement. That certainly hurts. Even though he’d been through many duels that deal real damage, there was still something about this fight and about this young girl that set it apart from all other duels he’d fought.

Was it because of the innate power he could see inside her? Or was it because of the dark aura that he’s sure was not her own but was consuming her with every move she took? Or was it because of this world’s abnormality itself?

Yubel is flapping their wings impatiently behind him, and he decided to forgo those thoughts until after he finished dealing with her.

Drawing his card, he considered his moves carefully. He didn’t want to hurt her. As he saw it, she was just like him, a lost innocent bystander dragged into this world by some holy power and taken advantage of by this world’s darkness.

If so, then the safest option would be…

“I summon Neos-Spacian Glow Moss in attack position,” he announced as a humanoid glob of shiny slime materialized on his field.

       Neos-Spacian Glow Moss (Plant/Light/Level 3): 300/900

The girl’s continuous trap card, Rose Flame, jumped to life in response to his summoning of a Plant monster, its dreadful wind full of razor-sharp rose petals burst across the battlefield once more and swept over him.

Judai hissed when the petals scraped over his body, cutting through his already battered clothes and leaving shallow gashes over his skin. Shit, it burned!

Judai: 2700 LP -> 2200 LP

“Judai!” Yubel exclaimed. They pulled even closer to him now, clawed hands hovering over him as if he was some fragile glass that would break at a single touch.

“I’m okay, stop fussing over me,” he assured them, “Plus, look here, these petals sure are doing a piss poor job at sashimi-ing me!” He flashed a grin at his beloved partner, but from their pointed look, it didn’t seem like they appreciated the joke very much.

“Summoning a plant monster yourself, are you that much of a masochist or are you just that dumb?” The girl’s question made him raise his head. Across from the battlefield, his opponent was smirking to herself, her pupils were almost completely blown wide and black.

Oops, it didn’t seem like he had time to daily-diddly about now.

“A little sacrifice is needed if you want to achieve a goal, after all,” he grinned, “using Elemental Hero Neos and Neos-Spacian Glow Moss as materials, I can perform fusion summon without using Polymerization. Now Neos and Glow Moss, Contact Fusion!”

The two monsters jumped into the air, and a flash of light radiated from where they made contact as their silhouettes fused together. When the light ceased, a single monster landed back on the field, its body still was that of Neos, but with shiny skin and braided hair signature to Glow Moss.

       Elemental Hero Glow Neos (Warrior/Fusion/Light/Level 7): 2500/2000 -> 1250/2000

“That’s my Judai,” Yubei grinned in triumph, “with Glow Neos, our victory is secure. His effect allows him to destroy a spell card and then attack directly. You can get rid of that annoying Black Garden and bypass that bitch’s monster at the same time.”

Yeah, that’s true, Judai thought. Not to mention he had the equip spell Assault Armor on his hand, if he sent this card while it was equipped to a monster to the graveyard, the equipped monster would be able to attack twice.

Twice the damage of 2500, applying directly to the redhead’s LP, that meant he had this duel, but…

The black aura was still swirling around the young girl like a storm, but the source of that darkness didn’t come from the girl, she was merely a medium over whom all that rage and hatred was transferred.

He made his decision at that moment.

“I activate Glow Neos’s effect: Once per turn, I can destroy a card on the field and apply different effects based on the type of card chosen. The card I choose is,” he gulped, silently sending an apology to Yubel, “Black Rose Dragon! Since I choose a monster card, Glow Neos can’t attack this turn.”

“Say WHAT?” Yubel yelled in shock.

Glow Neos’s body began to shine, the light spread out across the field toward the rose dragon standing on the other side.

The rose dragon raised her head and let out an agonizing scream, her body was quickly enveloped by the blinding light and Judai could see the blackened core inside her shiver before the light wrapped around it until it disappeared completely, bringing the dragon’s body along with it.

“No!” The girl screamed, her eyes nearly bulging out of their socket as her whole body suddenly went rigid. From her eyes, nose strides, and open mouth, Judai could make out black smoke rising in streams, condensing into an eerie distorted face before breaking apart with a ‘pop’.

The redhead slumped down with a grunt once it was over. She shakily brought a hand to clutch her head, her eyes widened while she took on her surroundings.

“This is, where? I- what have I been doing?”

Judai let out a breath he’d been holding and flopped on the grass. “Oh thank goodness. I was right.”

Duel canceled.

Aki’s head hurt like crazy, everything that happened in the past hours came back so slowly as if she was waking up from a deep sleep. With trembling fingers, she deactivated the duel disk, her monsters’ forms disappearing following the duel’s cancellation. She caught the gaze of the other duelist when she lifted her head, who was sitting a bit further away and looking at her curiously.

“I’m- sorry, I don’t know what comes over me, why do I-” she struggled to stand up only to fail and drop down again. The brown-haired man quickly strode to her with his long legs and crouched down, hovering a hand over her shoulder.

“Don’t push yourself, your body has been through quite an ordeal. Just relax and try to breathe after me.” 

Aki shakily nodded and followed the surprisingly patient stranger’s advice to breathe in and out, slowly bringing her heart rate down to a normal level.

“Thanks, uhm-” 

“I’m Judai, Yuki Judai, you?” he extended a hand to her and she accepted it as he hauled her to her feet.

“I’m Izayoi Aki,” she bowed a little. That’s strange, this man didn’t seem to know her, despite her real identity having been revealed to the public at the Fortune Cup. Did he not come from Neo Domino City?

“Are you alright? Those cuts don't hurt much, do they? I’m really sorry, I-” she asked hesitantly, shame swelling up in her chest.

“You’re sorry?!” A high-pitched voice screeched through the air and both of them cringed, “After all you did to my darling you have the gait to say you’re sorry?! You’re a violent wretched monster who doesn't deserve to live! You-”

Aki flinched.

“Yubel!” Judai hissed. “That’s quite enough!”

The monster, by then had turned incorporeal, crossed their arms and turned away with a huff.

After giving them a disapproved look, Judai turned back to Aki and flashed her a bright grin. “No worry, no worry, ain’t nothing some bandages can’t fix? They barely grazed me at all, see?”

He pointed at a gash on his arms and true to his word, there was no scratch on his skin, just a thin red line that was fading rapidly before her eyes.

Aki frowned, she was sure she saw blood dripping out of him earlier. A normal person should never heal this fast.

“Anyway, do you know what just happened to you?” Judai asked urgently.

Aki bit her lips and nodded, the event of the duel started to flow back to her in a severe headache.

“I think, I was smothered by a strange weight right after coming here. And then, my thought began to become twisted, like I was influenced by a foreign force,” she shivered at recalling the wave of anger she felt at that time. It’s like she wasn’t even herself.

Judai nodded. “I suspected so. Miss Izayoi, what you’ve experienced is what I often call Darkness.”
“Darkness?”

“Just think of it as a disease, it made use of your emotional turmoil to invade your brain and amplify every negative thought you had, twisting your mind until you crumbled and surrender yourself over to it, and become its loyal slave. I happen to, uhm,” he scratched his head while looking away awkwardly, “had a few unfortunate run-ins with this bastard. I didn’t know even getting dropped in this dimension wouldn’t rid me of it.” He laughed bitterly.

“Dark force that made use of my weakness,” she mused over that for a moment, finding the words familiars, Divine and Arcadia Movement’s teaching words flashed by her mind.

“Though in your case, I think you’re more or less very well-guarded. So the one being controlled might not be you,” Judai mused and directed his gaze toward her hand.

Aki followed his gaze and landed on her own forearm, where her mark had stopped glowing visibly a while ago. She placed her other hand on it, glancing at Judai uneasily, but the man didn’t seem to want to mention her Signer power, instead, he kept looking at her with meaningful eyes.

Aki suddenly realized. “You mean, through my card?”

Judai nodded.

Black Rose’s cry of panic flashed through her mind as she took the card out for inspection. Even muffled, Aki could make out the dragon’s small whine of shame and remorse. So Black Dragon had been the one to be afflicted by this dark force, and she was influenced as a result due to their connection.

SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! It’s your fault, it’s all your fault! If it wasn’t for you and the Crimson Dragon’s power, I would be a normal girl, living a normal life. Of all people, why would you choose me?! Why?! I hate you!!

Aki’s chest constricted in a sudden bout of pain. She didn’t know an almighty, mystic creature like a Signer dragon could even be affected by something as trivial as a few of her accusing words. 

But at the same time, she kind of… reveled in it? A sense of cruel empowerment arose in her as the instinct from her Black Witch made a comeback. She wanted to berate herself for having such a horrible thought, then again, why did she have to suffer alone, while the cause of her suffering walked away with no dilemma?

Her feeling must’ve seeped into Black Rose, because the dragon answered her with a weak whine.

“Sorry, Black Rose,” she whispered to the dragon, “I’m not really blaming you, girl. I’m just very confused right now. Go get some sleep, you’ve been through a lot.”

The monster purred in return, and her presence retreated.

Aki let out a sigh, then turned around just to see Judai looking at her with a slight smile and curious eyes.

“Uhm, what?” 

“Ah, nothing,” he’s quick to wave his hands away, “I just thought you’re so close to your monster, that’s all.”

“You can hear her?” Aki asked with caution. The various powers this young man had been brandishing instantly put her on edge. She wondered who exactly was this person and how much did he know.

“I can sort of talk to dueling spirits, like some of my friends,” he grinned. “Anyway, for your monster to be able to affect you so greatly, you two must have a really close relationship.”

“I wonder about that, it seems like ever since I met her, every day has been a new disaster,” Aki laughed hoarsely.

Judai stopped smiling, he tilted his head to the side and observed her with a new kind of look now. “So, you think your monster is to blame for your misfortune?”

She didn’t expect this question, “That’s not what I’m- that isn’t what- I’m not sure.” She turned away.

Judai hummed, he went silent for a few seconds. When Aki thought their conversation was over, he started talking, “Ever since I was young, I’ve been partnered with this incredibly grumpy spirit, you see.”

Aki blinked at the sudden turn of topic, while Judai continued.

“They were possessive, insane, refused to let other people near me, and were being overly insufferable. No, don’t stop me, you know it’s true.” The last sentence was directed to an invisible presence Aki couldn’t see.

“Anyway, anyway,” Judai turned back to Aki, “I made the worst mistake of my life.”

“What mistake?” She found herself intrigued by the tales.

“I sent them away, thinking if they disappeared, all my problems would go away too,” he chucked bitterly.

Aki sucked a breath, this option had never appeared in her mind, but…

“Did your problem… disappear?” 

“Oh, it did, for a while at least. But they eventually made their way back, in a horrible, butchered shape that I couldn’t recognize anymore. I had hurt them so much that they came back with vengeance, taking it out on my friends, and destroying everything around me in a twisted version of love.”

Aki was breathless, “And then?”

“I accepted their love, and took them back,” Judai smiled.

“The heck?!" She blurted out, then covered her mouth. She just cursed!

"Yeah, that's what my friends said when they found out too," he laughed.

Aki leered at him with a newfound kind of emotion, “You can accept something that hurt your friends?”

“They were controlled, too. A sinister force latched onto their anguish and molded it into something so unrecognizably demonic, something that would never exist, had I not cast them away in the first place.”

“...Oh.” 

“It’s not about accepting or not accepting, it’s the fact that we’re bound to each other. Instead of working together to get through our problems, I foolishly thought pushing all the pains on them would help me escape my own. I didn’t even think they were capable of feeling, you see, because they were this kind of imposing, mystic monster, while I’m just a human,” he chuckled. “I was wrong. Compared to me who has a lot of people in my life, they only have me to rely on, and it doesn’t matter if you are an ancient all-powerful being or not, getting rejected by your most beloved one would hurt.”

Aki looked down, knitting her hands together as the feeling of shame rose within her.

“It might not be my place to say this, and it’s not like I can understand your situation,” he scratched his head, “but resentment, especially toward those underserve of it, will sooner drive you into a grave than resolving anything. Plus, this world doesn’t seem like it would be forgiving to someone who walks alone, after all.”

Judai mumbled something else, then look down the valley at the mound of the hill. Aki followed his gaze to see a river, which from their elevated position looked like a tiny stream curved next to a big forest, a great stretch of green expanded toward the horizon. The reality of their situation instantly dawned on her, temporarily driving away her other emotions.

“That’s right. I suddenly got pulled into this world,” she exclaimed.

“So do I, I’ve been trying to find my way out but then I found myself getting chased by a flock of monster spirits instead,” Judai complained while looking around with a serious expression.

“Those are monster spirits? As in, dueling monster spirits?”

“You haven’t heard about a world inhabited by dueling monsters? 

She recounted Ruka’s tales about rescuing her Signer dragon who was trapped in another world, but the world her fellow Signer described to her didn’t sound anything like this at all.

“I thought it just, like a non-physical world, I have no idea we can get here ourselves.”

“Well, apparently we can, and this isn’t the first time I’ve stumbled into another world like this,” Judai cursed under his breath, “I’m in the middle of something so urgent too. Urgh, this is so freaking annoying.”

“So you don’t know how to come back?” Aki’s anxiety skyrocketed.

“If I knew I’d bolted the moment those dragons descended onto me,” he laughed bitterly.
“Okay…,” she said disappointedly and began raking her head. 

Now what? She didn’t know where to even begin. She could sense that her Signer friends were here, but their presences had turned so faint she couldn’t detect them anymore. And she didn’t entertain the idea of flying around to look for them either, courtesy of the flock of dragons earlier. However, the existence of a dark force, with its own personality, and strong enough to take over Aki’s mind, the desperate cry for help she heard when the portal appeared, all of that unnerved her to no end and she wanted nothing but to hurry up and reunite with everybody.

Oh god, she remembered, Ruka was here too! And since Rua was just a normal, powerless boy, she didn’t think he’d be pulled here alongside his twin, which meant the girl right now was utterly alone in this primitive world. Aki paled thinking of all the possibilities.

She turned around and made her way down the hill with assured steps. Judai looked a bit started seeing her just walking away so he called after her.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“My friends are estranged in this world too and I need to find them. I thank you for rescuing me, but if you follow me you could also be in danger too, so I’m afraid we have to part here.”

Judai looked shocked, then with an irritated click of tongue, he got to her in just three big steps.

“Did you not listen to anything I say? This world will chew you alive if you dare to go alone. In situations like these what we need to do right isn’t split up, but stick together, and I’m planning to do that with you.”

Aki took a step back hesitantly, “But…”

“Oh for goodness’ sake, just trust me. I may look and act a little suspicious but I promise I mean no harm. I’ve been in this situation before and was severely punished for doing the exact thing you’re doing right now. Miss Izayoi, we must stick together!”

Aki sucked in a breath, as Judai said the sentence, his eyes had changed back into the mismatched colors he brandished during their duel. Those eyes now bore into her, bright and powerful, and strangely pure and alluring.

She didn’t feel like he was deceiving her.

“Those eyes of yours,” she began, “can you help me find my friends with them?”

Judai brightened up immediately, “Of course, my eyes are sharp, I’ll help you find them, and then we’ll find a way to go home together, okay?”

It didn’t sit very well with her to be dependent on a stranger, but she thought about how this man risked his life to protect her, how he didn’t know who she was, then nodded. Judai looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulder, he sighed in relief and grinned at her.

Then his stomach grumbled.

Judai turned into a tomato quickly, “Urg, I’m sorry, I haven’t had anything to eat since the morning.”

“Do you bring any food with you?” Come to think of it, she hadn’t had dinner either.

“Nothing at all. My bag wasn’t with me when I was transported here,” he held his stomach and look down at the river once more.

“For now, our priority should be food and drink. Come, I know how to catch fish.”

Judai pointed her to a fairly flat route that led down the hill. The moment he turned away, a sharp sense made her look up just in time to see the bat-winged monster insulting her earlier fade away, and she reminded herself, painfully, that even in this barren world, she still couldn’t be free from her demonic label.

Unbeknownst to them, from downstream and rapidly approaching their direction, was another pair of duelists that were also traveling by the river, Kaiba Seto and Tsukumo Yuma.

Chapter Text

Heaven must be in punishing mode with me today. Yuri gritted his teeth as he instructed Clear Wing to dodge another wave of icy missiles.

They had been engaging in this airborne battle for a while, the other monster skillfully parrying each of Clear Wing’s energy beams with her own. He had tried riling the curious alien woman with no mouth up, hoping to make her lose her calm demeanor in order to gain an upper hand, but she refused to budge.

“Clear Wing, pull back!” Yugo’s dragon turned around to put more distance between him and the other monster. It didn’t seem keen on following them, instead kept a strategic position between them and the tree.

Yuri got up, told Rua and Ruka to stay there, and jumped off Clear Wing.

The twin’s cries got lost in the wind as Yuri fell through the air. Putting Starving Vemon’s card in his duel disk, he felt the smooth skin of his dragon materialize beneath his back, several vines reached out to hold him, and his dragon catapulted upward from his falling position.

Ice Princess Zereof didn’t seem to be expecting this, she jerked back in surprise. Starving Venom used this opportunity to strike back, the orbs on his body shone and purple beams shot out, closing on the ice monster, several of them grazed her side and only missed her vital region because the monster maneuvered her way out of the attack.

Quickly approaching the ice monster while she was distracted, Starving Venom pulled out his tentacles to wrap around the other monster, rendering her temporarily incapacitated.

“Can you stop now? We’re not here on aggressive intent,” he offered the alien girl a sweet smile.

“As if I can believe you,” she replied coldly. At the same time, Ice Princess struggled uncontrollably in Starving Venom’s hold, threatening to break out of the bonds.

“Now, now, now, fellow stranded like us should be grouping together, not turning onto each other like this. A lone dragon doesn’t make a frightening flight after all,” Yuri gripped Starving’s horn tighter.

“Never heard of that phrase before.”

Ice Princess’s scyther raised above Starving’s throat, and the only things keeping her from swinging down were several of Starving’s vines. The dragon growled low in his throat, struggling to keep Ice Princess contained.

“Please! We’re not here to harm anything, just please let us land. My brother need help!”

Both of them snapped back, Ruka was shouting, and Rua had slid dangerously low on Clear Wing’s back.

Yuri cursed in irritation. As if he hadn’t gotten his hands full already. He was about to shout at them to move back and out of the way, when the female alien suddenly jumped off from the dragon.

And deliberately flew up.

What the heck?! 

Yuri yelled at Starving to capture her with her remaining vines, but the alien’s speed was lightning fast and she approached Clear Wing in a blink.

He’s not gonna make it at this rate!

In a terrifying second, Yuri thought the alien was about to lift her hand to strike Clear Wing and shove the twins off of her. To his surprise, she only gently hovered it over Rua’s slumped form. Ruka hastily pulled her twin back as Clear Wing used this opportunity to fly back and far away from her.

Yuri was forced to detach Starving Venom’s vines from Ice Princess, his dragon quickly flew back to block the alien’s passage to Yugo’s beloved dragon.

“Now that was a bit of an underhanded move, lady. You really shouldn’t go behind people’s backs like that,” he smiled, tightening his fists.

The alien cocked her head at him, her eyes studying all three of them with a sharp gaze. Yuri had always prided himself on being able to read his opponent with ease, but that featureless face really did test his ability this time. They hold their gaze until the alien girl finally asks. 

“Are they your siblings?”

He probably shouldn’t lie. “Not quite, but I’m responsible for them for the time being.”

“You said we’re ‘fellow stranded’, what does it mean?”

Oh hoh, are we skipping straight to the interrogating phase now? “Why should I tell you that?”

“Because that kid is injured and without my permission to land, he’d be clinging on that dragon’s back for a while, and who knows what’ll happen to him in that timeframe. You’d best listen to my demand right now.”

Yuri swallowed a curse back into his throat. Just perfect, after he was forced to save two useless little brats, now he had to give up control of the situation to a stranger in order to secure their safety. This was not the time to be doing any of this. He didn’t want to be doing any of this shit right now!

“Because we came from another world too! You’re also from another world, right?” Ruka took the decision to answer from him.

Yuri internally cursed again.

“Why do you think I come from another world?”

Yuri wondered how could someone with no mouth babbled so much, this woman was worse than Yugo on a good day.

“Really, lady? You don’t look like anything I’ve seen in this world,” Yuri faked a chuckle, “and, no offense, but we’ve made acquaintance with the local residents, the way they fought was certainly much more honorable than you.”

If this female was local, then she’d be challenging him to duel, not ambushing them in the sky. Yuri would love it if she did that, actually. He was so cranky right now he would’ve welcomed any chance to crush somebody under his boots.

“...After me,” she flew away without another word.

He blinked in surprise and stayed still for a moment, until the female alien stopped and turned back to look at him briefly before flying down again. 

Yuri cautiously gestured to Clear Wing to follow the alien as she made a smooth glide through the air, her monster right behind her. They slowly descended to the ground just outside the tree’s barrier, where crystal lattices lined up to create a natural wall. When they landed, her monster faded away as she turned toward them.

“Dematerize your duel monsters, they can’t get through the barrier.”

“I’ll do that when you walk through it first,” he replied without a beat.

Ruka was helping Rua, who looked to be seconds away from falling over, down Clear Wing’s back, Yuri kept those two in his perpetual vision while still holding gaze with the female alien. She signed, then the gem on her forehead lit up. Yuri immediately raised his disk up in preparation, but when the light faded, in front of them was an alien no more, but a human girl.

She seemed to be around his age, with waist-length darkish blue hair and pale blue bang. Her white and blue one-piece mini jupe draped around her thin figure, as opposed to the rather voluptuous body of a full-grown woman before. The duel disk on her left arm was the only thing that remained unchanged.

Yuri whistled, “So you do have a human form.”

The girl didn’t reply, she flipped her long hair back and walked away from them, approaching the barrier with assured steps.

He rolled his eyes at this girl’s overconfidence, it was as if she was certain that she could counter him with ease should he try to sneak up on her. Or maybe he’s just not that threatening to her, he thought bitterly. What a step down from his Academia soldier days.

The girl reached the line of spiked crystals, which came up to her waist, placed a hand on a crystal for support then leaped over the barrier. The energy streams pulsed for a second, then returned to their original state. 

She turned back to look at them, and after a moment of hesitation, Yuri deactivated his duel disk and the two dragons disappeared.

The energy streams, which were released by the crystal and continued to pulse upward, seemed to change color subtlety when they approached, with Ruka supporting Rua. Ruka touched the tip of a crystal spike with reverence in her movement, breathing a little quicker.

“This would not… hurt us, right?” She whispered almost inaudibly.

“Only one way to find out,” Yuri said, and thrust his hand into the barrier.

Nothing happened.
“Well, how dramatic!” Yuri huffed and hauled himself over the same way the alien girl did earlier.

A cold sensation suddenly ran through him when his body slid through the energy stream, as if somebody had doused ice water over him. Yuri flinched, his vision whited out for a fraction of a second, and then the sensation disappeared as if it never happened.

“Yuri?” Ruka asked.

Yuri dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Maybe he’s just tired.

After Yuri helped the twins to jump over, their little party of three continued to follow the alien girl. The inside of the barrier was so vast, wild grass and flowers covered the soft soil several shades paler than the soil outside in the forest, crystal lattices of varying sizes and shapes sprouting from the earth everywhere. The afternoon sunlight refracted through each crystal prism, creating pools and lines of tiny rainbows scattered around the space. The show of light rendered Ruka speechless whenever they passed a tall lattice. A column of purple crystal sprouted on their far left, seemingly foreign in this pure white picture. But that’s not what Ruka was focusing on, on the far side in front of them, she could spot a little village with small, white block-like houses covered in half-fallen roofs made of tree bark, nestling between two humongous tree roots that spread on the ground. 

“Earth to Rua, we made it to safety,” Ruka nudged Rua, who still slumped on her shoulder. Her twin’s dazed eyes snapped into focus with a whine.

“Oh, that place’s still sore, Ruka.”

Ruka chucked, she could recognize Rua’s fake whine from a mile away. Yuri was looking at them with that unreadable expression again, it was like their interaction bothered him or something, and Ruka instinctively shifted toward Rua, letting his body shield her from that gaze.

Yuri’s frown deepened at that small gesture, and Ruka’s sucked in a breath.

“Do you need help?” 

Yuri broke the gaze between them to turn to the stranger girl, who was standing a bit far away.

“Well, first of all, why don’t we introduce ourselves? Or does resident rock girl not have a name?”

A twitch appeared on the girl’s forehead, “I’m Kamishiro Rio, not ‘rock girl’. You’d best keep that mouth of yours shut or I can still throw all three of you out of here!”

“Oopsie, Rio-chan’s a scary one, isn’t she?” 

“It’s Miss Kamishiro for you, you little-”

“M-my name is Seijouin Ruka, my brother is Rua, and he’s Sakaki Yuri,” Ruka quickly interrupted before this greeting session had a chance to turn into a bloodbath.

Both of them stopped, Kamishiro’s eyes softened when she glanced at them. Ignoring Yuri, she turned to them and asked.

“So, Ruka and Rua, right? Where are you hurt?” She directed the question at Rua.

“Eh, ah, uh, I’m kinda hurt all over?” Rua blushed at the older girl’s sudden attention.

She nodded thoughtfully, “What happened?”

“What happened to him is none of your business. If you’re done asking then excuse us, we’ll be on our way.” Yuri interrupted and ushered them away, despite both of their shocked noises.

Kamishiro frowned, but she didn’t make a move to stop or question them. When they got far enough for her not to hear them anymore, Yuri grabbed both of their collars and bend down so that he could whisper into their ear.

“You guys sure love to babble about everything without even being prompted, huh? Tell me, how did you survive up until now with these birdbrains of yours?”

“But we didn’t tell her anything,” Ruka protested, “I just told her our names.”

“And before that, you told her we came from another world and then your brother’s injury. Did you forget she was literally trying to kill us? Had she not had a moment of mercy back then, both of you would be plummeting to death right now, and that’d be on you and your big mouth.” 

Ruka paled at Yuri’s accusation, the scene from earlier flashed through her mind. That girl had approached them as soon as she heard about Rua’s condition. At that time, it’d be too easy for her to give them a light push, and then Rua would…

“It’s not Ruka’s fault, she didn’t know that big sis was going toward us!” Rua hissed at Yuri.

“Well then both of you’d better learn to be aware of your surroundings, and be quick, because if you keep behaving like lost little ducklings, then none of you will make it out of this world alive.”

By this time, tears were running down Ruka’s cheek. It’s not like she didn’t understand their predicament, and it’s not like this was the first time they had a brush with danger at all. She understood it all, she truly understood it, so then why did Yuri have to say all those cruel things to her?

“Don’t you bully Ruka!” Rua pushed at Yuri but he didn’t let go of either of them.

“You as well, little boy,” Yuri smiled at him, “if you don’t have power, step back and let others handle things for you. Willingly throwing yourself out like a sacrifice doesn’t accomplish anything but give your enemy a good laugh. Your sweet naive sister is still 10 times more likely to survive this world than you, do you know that?”

“What I know is we’ll find Yusei and others and we’ll all escape from here!” Rua cried and shove Yuri back. This time, the older boy let them go easily. Ruka and Rua went to hug each other tightly, both of their faces were wet with tears.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about, you guys just revealed to me that you still have companions wandering out there.”

Rua glared at Yuri, “So what if we let you know, you just saved us. We’ve decided to trust you.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t trust me that much,” Yuri sighed. 

“Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t trust anyone?”

“It took this long for the two of you to realize that?” Yuri snickered, then turned their back to them and began walking away.

The twins looked at each other with confusion and hurt in their eyes, then began to follow him. As Ruka linked her hand with her brother’s and adjust her speed so Rua could hobble alongside her, she silently vowed to protect her powerless twin.

“Where are we going, anyway?” She asked.

“Are your eyes just for decoration? We’re getting food,” Yuri pointed over.

Only now that Ruka realized they were walking toward the village they saw earlier. Upon closer looks, Ruka realized the village must have been abandoned ages ago. Some roofs collapsed into the houses and vines crawled all over the dirty walls. Most of the wooden fences had fallen over and what was still standing was either rotten or drowned in weed. 

They walked deeper into the village, following the older boy until they reached a tall structure. Once, it ought to be a mighty building, standing at least 7 meters tall and constructed in stark white stones, each stone was covered in intricated decorations, but now, almost all decoration had faded, and its front had completely fallen out to reveal a spacious interior of a hall, with white tile on an elevated floor. Deeper into the hall, they could see the floor ended in a stair leading up to a peculiarly scabrous, mossy woody wall that curved outward.

“That’s not a wall,” Yuri observed and looked around the structure, “this hall doesn’t have a back wall. It was built next to a tree root and they used it as the wall.”

Indeed, right in front of them, behind the hall was the behemoth tree root that Ruka spotted earlier, its shadow cast over everything around them, creating a big shade.

“So this place was a church, I guess. These people must’ve worshipped this tree then,” Yuri mused, seemingly very interested in finding out more.   

But Ruka couldn’t concentrate on anything he said, what caught her attention was an area of overgrown greenery next to the building, most likely the church’s garden. Tiny berry-looking things dotted the bushes, and she even saw some small trees with what looked like apples.

“Fruit! Rua, that’s fruits and berries! We found food!” She beamed and shook her twin, to which Rua responded with a series of whines.

“Oh, oh, that hurts me, Ruka!”

Ruka laughed a little and they half walk, half run into the garden, but Yuri suddenly pulled the twins back by the collar.

“Not so fast, kids. Remember what I told you guys before?”

“W-what did you tell us?” Rua asked, she could hear his stomach grumbling, and hers was the same. 

“I’m your master, and you guys are to listen to my order and obey my every whim. I hope you haven’t forgotten that.”

The twins looked at each other, then Rua asked dejectedly, “What do you want us to do, call you ‘master’ or something?”

Yuri laughed, “That would be amusing, but no. As long as you listen to me, I don’t care what you two call me. ” 

“T-then…”

“I want you kids not to put anything in your mouth unless I’ve eaten my fill. If you find anything that seems edible, you bring it to me first, and if I forbid you not to eat something, then you better keep these sweet little mouths shut as tight as a sealed bag, understood?” He mimicked a zip tie sealing shut.

“Wha-but…”

“No but, it’s time you two learned your place and come to truly understand that I’m the boss around here,” Yuri pulled his cape off and gathered it in his hand. “Stay there, don’t go into the church, if I see either of you setting a foot in the garden, you’ll be seeing your dear late great-grandpapa faster than a blink of an eye. Don’t say I haven’t warned you.”

The twins could do nothing but stay there dumbfounded when Yuri dove inside the overgrown garden, having to tear some vines and push the dense weed aside.

Rua flopped down on the ground the moment Yuri disappear from sight. 

“What the hell is his problem?! Does he really need to be that harsh?!” He grunted and placed a hand on his stomach.

Ruka shook her head and sat down beside him, “I dunno, maybe he just likes controlling people?”

“So like another Rex Godwin?” Rua grinned.

Ruka smiled and didn’t answer. Now that the excitement at spotting food had worn off, she suddenly felt a wave of fatigue washing over her. Her body had been trembling for some time from overexertion and hunger and Rua wasn’t in a better state, he was leaning close to her and putting most of his weight on her body.

Ruka made a decision, she got up.

“What are you doing, Ruka?”

“I’m not about to let you starve just because of Yuri’s ridiculous rules. Wait here for me, okay? I think I can get a few berries for you without being caught.”

Without turning back, she walked into the garden following Yuri’s footsteps.

The weeds were so overgrown they obstructed her vision, Ruka could make out Yuri’s silhouette ahead but she doubt he saw her small figure. She reached the first berry bush and pick a few dozen small, pinky clusters of berries that looked like mulberries and hurriedly turn back to his brother before Yuri could see her.

“Rua, I got some berries for you,” crouching down on Rua’s side, Ruka opened her hands to reveal the berries she just picked, “go on and try some.”

“You really don’t need to do this for me,” Rua said, a little awestruck, but he automatically picked a berry up. 

Before the sweet little fruit could touch Rua’s tongue, a hand suddenly materialized from somewhere and delivered a harsh slap to Rua’s face. Rua let out a scream and fell over, the berry slipped out of his hand and disappeared into the grass.

“Rua!!” Ruka cried and rushed over to help him up. Rua was clutching his reddened cheek, his face scrunched up in pain.  

Standing next to them, Yuri was smiling thinly, but the gaze full of rage betrayed his otherwise calm mask. One of his hands was still raising.

“What. did. I. just. tell. you?” He growled.

 “I just- I was just-,” Ruka stuttered, she pulled Rua to her with shaking hands, then in a burst of rage, she screamed, “Rua is hungry!! I can just starve out here, but I can’t let Rua suffer for me. He- he's done enough to protect me, you have no right to hit him!”

Ruka’s signer mark lit up, burning through her sleeve and painted the air red. A massive dragon manifested behind Ruka, with a lither body of a snake, and a pair of sparkling fairy wings, letting out a high-pitched roar in induced anger.

“Ancient Fairy Dragon, get him!”

Yuri let out a curse and jumped back. Ancient Fairy drove down, her mouth outstretched as she bit down on his figure.

“Ruka, what are you doing?!” 

“He hit you,” was all she said, her mind still wiring.

Obscured by her dragon’s body, Ruka couldn’t see what happened, so when vines suddenly sprouted from where Yuri was and rapidly coiled around Ancient Fairy’s body, she yelped.

Ancient Fairy roared and threw her big body around, trying to dislodge the vines with little success. Ruka and Rua, who were standing under her, got tackled and they both cried in pain.

Ancient Fairy abruptly stopped her struggle, she growled low and spread her wings to shield them from Yuri’s view.

“Are you trying to kill me, Ruka?” She heard Yuri from the other side. Despite nearly getting crushed, his voice’s still surprisingly calm.

“You hit Rua!” She stubbornly retorted.

“I wouldn’t have done it if you guys listened to me.”

“You were trying to starve him, he was about to collapse!”

Rua grimaced next to her, he pulled on her shirt and whispered, “Ruka, actually, I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt that much, it’s okay.”

“It’s not, he hurt you!”

Rua scratched his head and bit his lips as if he were trying to find his words. He glanced at Yuri’s silhouette through the Ancient Fairy’s translucent wings, and then at Ruka’s still glowing mark.

“Hey, Yuri. If, earlier, if we wait for a few more minutes, would you let us eat?”

“Of course, what benefit would I have let the two of you die? I’m not that cruel, unless you actively went against my words.”

“Hey, you hear that, Ruka? He’s not going to starve us. It’s okay, so- calm down and call Ancient Fairy Dragon back, okay?”

Rua gently wrapped a hand around her shoulder, and only now that Ruka realized she was trembling from head to toe, tears of rage still streaming down her face. She choked out a sob when Rua hugged her and buried her head on his shoulder.

“No one has ever hit us, not even our parents, and yet he- Why are you defending him?”

Rua rubbed Ruka’s back in circles, “I don’t, but- I- I can’t do it alone.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Protect you. Ruka, I can’t protect you with my current strength. What if another monster like earlier comes back to take you away? I can’t- I’m not a Signer, I’m not Yusei, I’ll let you be taken from me again, and even if I bet my own life away, I can’t stop them. But he can, so we need to stick with him. If that Yuri can protect us, protect you, then I’ll kiss his boots if I have to.”

“Rua…,” she cried. This was wrong, she was stronger, she had power, she was supposed to be the one to protect her twin, and yet, why was Rua so insisting on protecting her?

‘My beloved Signer,’ a voice rang in her head, making her snap back.

‘Ancient Fairy, is that you?’

‘My beloved Ruka, please calm your heart. Your power is going out of control, and it’ll take a toll on your body. Please revoke your command, for I’m unable to resist it,’ the dragon jerked a little inside the viny bond, but it held fast.

“You heard her, Ruka. Calm yourself down.” Yuri’s voice sounded from the other side.

Ruka tightened her fist, the rage inside her was still boiling and it told her to order her dragon to crush the older boy, but then Rua picked her hands up, and then gently, began to pry her fingers open one by one.

“It’s okay, Ruka, you can let it go. I’m okay, so let it go.”

His brother’s uncharacteristic gesture made her widen her eyes in surprise, then she laughed a little, “Since when did you become such a gentleman?”

“Well, even I am capable of tact, don’t you know?”

Ruka turned to Ancient Fairy, and after a whisper ‘retreat’, her dragon slowly pulled back, away from Yuri. When the dragon got up, Ruka could see Yuri, standing inside a loose cocoon made of vines, the head of his plant dragon sticking out from the mass. Some vines spread from the cocoon to wrap around her dragon, immobilizing her.

“Apologize to Rua!” She demanded, ignoring her brother’s discreet pull on her shirt.

“You want me to say sorry to him?” Yuri pointed at himself as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“If you hit somebody you apologize for it, did no one teach you that? Tell him you’re sorry, or else I’ll never forgive you!”

Yuri rolled his eyes, then when Ruka was about to yell at him again, he place a hand on his chest and bowed down.

“I’m sorry for my previous action. It isn’t my intention to hurt you and I deeply regret it. Will you forgive me, Rua?” He looked at Rua, then smile.

Both the twins were taken aback by that overtly polite attitude change, Rua was speechless for a moment, then stuttered, “Ah, it’s- fine, really. It’s because I didn’t listen to you.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Yuri beamed at them and Ruka grimaced, that smile was so fake even she could see through it, but as Rua was still looking at her, she decided that was that and eventually dematerialized her dragon. She almost doubled over when a new wave of exhaustion swept over her when Ancient Fairy disappeared. Rua had to support her and lowered her gently to sit on the grass.

Yuri approached them not a second later, and put a huge bag in their hand. “Take it, you have my permission to eat everything inside, however,” he raised his voice, and purposely stepped onto one of the berries Ruka picked and dropped on the ground, squishing it under his boot, “repeat your actions again and I swear I won’t say sorry when I beat you the next time.” 

His voice was sweet, but Ruka knew he was telling the truth.

The huge bag turned out to be Yuri’s cape which he bunched up, and there were all kinds of berries and fruits inside. There weren’t any pink berries like the ones Ruka picked though, but they weren’t about to complain after being denied food for so long. Yuri led them to a patch of clear grass next to the huge tree root, and the twin began to shove berries after berries into their mouth.

Everything tasted like heaven, and Ruka felt like she was revived after each bite. For some reason, she couldn’t stop her tears from streaming down, and neither her brother. They sat there next to each other, shoving berry after berry into their mouth between muffled sobbing and hiccup.

Yuri, in contrast to them, picked an apple-like fruit and munched on it while watching them eat.

“Are you not that hungry?” Rua took a large bite out of the fruit in his hands.

“I’m not a glutton like you,” he replied and trailed his gaze far away.

Ruka pulled Rua back down when he tried to argue, she just wanted to finish this meal in peace.

When all the berries and fruits were gone, and Yuri clasped his cape back on again, the twins’ belly was full and they were getting drowsy. Ruka fought against her falling eyelids in futility, next to Rua who had the same problem.

They had run, fought for their life, got injured and then run again the whole day. Now in the temporal safety, after all the adrenaline had run out, their brain refused to continue to function.

“Go to sleep, I’m not about to eat you,” Yuri sighed looking at them.

“Maybe you will,” Rua said, “maybe you’re a cannibal and you’re waiting until we sleep to kill us and then roast us over a fire. We gotta be, hmmm, really delicious, hmmm,” his voice trailed into a mumble as he eventually fell asleep on the soft grass.

“Rua,” Ruka murmured, but she found herself lying next to him and slipping deeper into unconsciousness. A sheet covered both of them and when she looked up, it was to Yuri tugging his detached cape over their form.

“Yuri, earlier, when Ancient Fairy talked to me, you could hear her, right?”

“What about it?”

Ruka bit her lips, “That should be impossible, she talks to me via telepathy. No one should be able to hear us, not even the other Sig- people. And back in the forest, you also realized I have power after only a glance. Who exactly are you, Yuri?”

“...I’m not somebody that wants to harm you, you can at least believe that.”

Ruka still had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she was so tired. She fell into a fitful sleep, while wondering why did any of this happen to them.

The twins had no idea a shadow was watching them from behind a house a safe distance away.

Chapter Text

“Ryoga, where’s Yuma? He just said he wanted a second serving, but he’s not here when I come out,” Rio asked her twin brother, hands carrying a large plate of creamy baked chicken.

“He’s outside, trying to pull Kaito back in to join the party,” Ryoga signed tiredly. From this position, she could see two thin figures standing next to each other in their garden, the shorter one flailing his arms very actively, while the taller, bigger one was carefully stepping out of their reach.

Rio chucked and settled next to Ryoga on the couch, placing the food plate down on the table. Around them, the loud music was still blasting, Yuma’s Number Club and the other Barian Lords were still dancing madly, and goofily, to the music. In another corner, Vector and Cathy were engaging in a pierce racing game on the twins’ console system and grinning all the way to Sunday.

Yet in contrast to this heated atmosphere, Ryoga opted to sit in the corner next to the window, sipping his soda slowly while observing the room with his lazy gaze.

“It’s almost unreal, right? Seeing everybody together like this, I never thought we could live to see this day,” she told his brother.

“It’s all thanks to Yuma,” Ryoga cracked a smile, and Rio smiled with him.

Rio, and the other Barian Lords, had never expected to open their eyes again after they perished in that brutal war. Yet right now, they sat here, holding a party and laughing and joking around with their ex-enemies. Rio knew none of them deserved this second chance, seeing the amount of agony they had inflicted on Yuma and his loved ones. But after obtaining the Numeron Code, their little friend, being such a painfully innocent and forgiving soul that he was, resurrected them regardless. They owed their entire second lives to that boy, yet Rio wasn’t sure how they could repay him for everything he’d done to them.

Before long, Ryoga tilted his neck and looked out the garden again.  

Rio snorted, “Worry about Yuma? He’s not a baby, he can take care of himself for a minute or two.”

“He might as well be, compared to us. Besides, he has kinda been strange these days.”

Outside, Yuma had finally stopped flailing his arms, now Kaito and he were engaging in a quiet conversation that they couldn’t hear. In fact, only Kaito seemed to be speaking, while Yuma stood perfectly still.

Frowning, Ryoga stood up and strode outside, with Rio hot on his heels.

The closer they got, the more apparent that something concerning was happening. Kaito started to shake Yuma’s shoulder, while the latter still didn’t utter a single word, nor move.

Sensing them, Kaito’s head snapped up, he yelled, “Shark, come help me! He doesn’t respond to me!”

“What do y-,” the twins blurted out then ran over. Once they were in front of Yuma, it became clear what Kaito was talking about. Yuma’s red eyes were glazing over, and he was staring straight ahead at nothing, his face devoid of emotion.

Ryoga grabbed his shoulder and shouted at him, “Yuma! Hey, Yuma, answer me!” 

There was no response so he shook his shoulder and resumed calling him, but it was like Yuma’s very soul wasn’t with them anymore. He just stood there, body swaying slightly following Ryoga’s shake.

“This is no good. Ryoga, you stay here with him, I’ll go inside and call for help,” Rio turned and was about to dash away.

“Me too,” Kaito hastily said and pressed a button on his duel disk, “Orbital, revert!”

Rio’s back was facing the three boys, so she didn’t see what was happening, but she felt a strong burst of energy blast from behind her. Something golden sparked to existence on the ground and curved lines expanded from behind Rio to rest about a meter in front of her.

“What’s this?” She whipped her head back to see an unbelievable sight. In front of her, Yuma was standing in a golden circle with a lot of mystical symbols, his Emperor’s Key glowing brightly and floating up above his head. Yuma’s eyes followed it, yet his face still remained blank.

“What the hell?! Yuma!!”

“Yuma! Yuma!!”

Ryoga and Kaito joined forces at calling the younger boy awake, but to no avail. Rio turned back once more, only to discover that she couldn’t step foot outside the circle.

“The Emperor’s Key! It’s creating a barrier!” She yelled.

“You mean it’s causing Yuma to be like this?!” Ryoga yelled back.

“Step aside, Shark!” Kaito reached over and attempted to grab the pointy pendant, but he jerked back immediately.

“What’s wrong?” Ryoga asked.

“It’s hot,” Kaito revealed his palm, a burn mark etched on his skin.

Suddenly, a bright white light appeared a few meters above Yuma’s head, and the young duelist tilted his head up, following that source of light while everybody had to cover their eyes. 

“What the hell is this?”

“Oi, Yuma!!”

Through the crack of Rio’s finger, she saw a humanoid figure appear amidst that bright light. The figure extended one of their hands toward Yuma, fingers enclosed around his precious pendant. 

Yuma gasped, and for the first time since falling into this state, exclaimed loudly.

“NO!”

The figure pulled the Emperor’s Key toward themself, but Yuma shot his hands out to grab and pull it back.

“NO! You can’t take it from me!” He yelled.

Suddenly, Rio felt a pull upward and she had to steady her feet when that force almost pulled her off the ground. Her power reached out instinctively and she transformed into her non-human, heavier Barian form. The additional weight kept her ground bounded.

“Yuma, fuck!” Ryoga, who also had turned into his Barian form, managed to hold onto Yuma’s body and helped him pull the pendant back. Kaito reached out not a moment later and soon Rio did as well.

“Please let go, this power shouldn’t stay with you, let me take it away from you,” a voice resounding in her head. The white light was getting more intense, almost drowning out the golden light from the Emperor’s Key. 

Yuma held fast to his treasure, stubbornly shaking his head.

“Don’t listen to what it says. Don’t let go, Yuma!”

“That’s right, don’t let go!”

Rio parroted their encouragement and gripped a bit tighter onto Ryoga, who was still holding on to Yuma. Above them, the figure was clearly losing their patience, they increased the pull on them and tried to tuck the pendant over once more.

“Stop resisting. It will only hurt you.” 

The voice resounded once more, to which the three of them said in unison, “Never!”

Above them, a multi-colored portal appeared and all of them were slowly pulled toward it. Rio’s feet left the ground when the pull grew so strong it overpowered gravity.

“Don’t. Kid. With. Me!!” Yuma gritted his teeth.

A blue light appeared next to them, and Rio could make out an incorporeal arm placed on Yuma’s, aiding him in this deathly game of tug-o’-war.

“Astral, you’re here too?” she heard Yuma whisper.

‘Let’s go, please,’ the figure pleaded with them.

From the house, Rio caught a glimpse of everybody running toward them.

Another strong tuck, and then… nothing.

Rio pulled back from her hiding position behind a large crystal spike.

The outburst of power earlier had shocked her and prompted her to rush over to the village ruin to check on the three strangers that she let in here, even though she knew she should be staying in place and guarding the black crystal lattice behind her.

Right now, Rio just wanted to curse herself. In a moment of weakness, she had taken one look at that injured boy and permitted them to enter. She couldn’t help it, those twins reminded her so much of her brother and herself, even though the boy who accompanied them was ringing countless alarms in her head. 

When she first landed in this world,  directly to the inside of this crystal barrier, she had tried multiple times to conjure her Barian appearance, to find out she could hardly do it without experiencing immense pain. Outside of it, though, she found no problem changing her form or even summoning her monster in solid form to attack. The energy from those guard crystals was obviously suppressing any other kind of power to manifest here.

Yet, she saw it with her own eyes that both that little girl and that boy had summoned their monsters at the same time, while seemingly nonplussed from the barrier’s effect.

Rio was in trouble, she couldn’t decide if that group was a threat to her or not. Those twins seemed to be genuinely lost and tired, but that boy called Yuri…

Speaking of the devil, Rio saw Yuri getting up and walking away from where the twins lay asleep. At first, she didn’t know why he left their side until she saw him strolling straight toward her.

Welp, busted.

Rio got out of her hiding place behind a large crystal spike, and casually approached him.

“After ambushing us, now you’re interested in stalking us as well? Naughty girl,” he smiled.

“Shut up, you foul-mouthed creep. Instead of spewing whatever degenerated thought going through that dirty mind of yours, how about you tell me honestly? Who are you and what objective do you have?” 

“Ah, getting right into the topic, arn’t we?” Yuri crossed his arms and smirked, “For all the unprompted aggressive behaviors toward us, now you suddenly decide I’m the shady guy? Give me a break, young lady. Those should be my questions, not yours.”

Rio narrowed her eyes. Even with the barrier suppressing on her power, she could still see a dark aura, albeit a little thin, coming from the other boy’s body. Yuri was clad in a protective veil of darkness, and unlike that little girl, whose power was unbelievably immense, but still in its potential stage, he clearly knew how to use his abilities, judging from the way the dark aura pulsed rhythmically around him.

“You can lie to those kids, but not me. The power inside you isn’t that of righteousness, it’s dark and chaotic. Those with that kind of power cannot be nice people.”

“Pot calling the kettle black!”

Rio flinched. She forgot that if she was able to see into him, then he could just as easily see into her as well.

“Never said I’m the good guy,” she gripped her arm tighter.

Yuri snickered, “My, would you look at it! What an amazing coincidence it is, for the two villains like us to cross paths in this forgotten world. What’ll happen next, I wonder? Will we tear each other out or will whoever called us here hand down our punishment first, I wonder?”

This wasn’t working, Rio thought she could at least get some information out of him but aside from purposely trying to rile her up, the guy really didn’t wish to have an intellectual conversation. Worse, even knowing her power, he didn’t seem to be afraid of her at all. Thinking quickly, she decided to change her tactics.

“You know what, we wouldn’t get anywhere being hostile and suspicious of each other like this. I propose a truce,” she offered.

“Truce?”

“You told me before, right? Us stranded should group up, not fight each other. To be honest, I want nothing more than to find a way to get back home, and I imagine that you want the same. So how about we stop quarreling for a moment, sit down to exchange information and see what we can go from there?” 

Yuri’s smile widened but Rio could see the calculation going in his head. She let him study her offer for a bit and knew he would cave eventually. If she guessed it right, then he’s just as lost as she was and therefore should be open to any chance to gather information.

“And how do I know you’d be telling the truth?”

Bingo.

“Honestly,” she shrugged, “you wouldn’t know, but then I wouldn’t know either. We both have to take a huge risk of believing in each other then.”

“You’re telling me to believe in you after you tried to kill us for no reason whatsoever earlier? Do you even hear yourself?”

“That was because…,” she hesitated, “well, I was alone and you guys just barged into my territory. Of course I would feel threatened. You can never be too careful.”

“Not because you’re afraid we may harm whatever it was that you were protecting?” Yuri gestured to the purple crystal lattice behind her.

Cold terror struck Rio and she immediately whipped her duel disk out just to have Yuri raise his hands in surrender.

“Relax, I don’t mean any harm,” the little shit laughed, “man, you must be fun at parties. A little joke and you’re all riled up.”

“Joke?” Rio gritted her teeth, maintaining her position.

“Let me give you a lesson, lady. If you wanna take control of the situation, don’t lose your cool immediately the second someone pulls a fast one on you. Frankly said, I’ve no interest in you and that purple crystal behind you. You don’t touch us, we don’t touch you. Simple as that.”

Rio flushed. This kid really did see through her little scheme. But it’s okay, she could still convince him somehow.

“So… you’re saying you wish not to engage with me whatsoever. Even if I can tell you something useful?”

“I’m not saying that,” he signed. “Consider yourself lucky. You’re right, I’m really in a tight spot right now, so I’ll agree to that little game of exchange with you. However, you make this offer with me and me alone. Don’t go asking those kids anything, got it?”

Rio could feel a vein pop on her forehead, but she held it in, “I never intended to take advantage of those twins in the first place. Okay, deal. I’ll ask you a question, you can say either true or false. Then you ask me, how about it?”

“Sounds fair. Lady first?”

“Of course. My first question: You meet those twins after arriving here, correct?”

Yuri scratched his head, “Well, here I thought you’ll be asking another question. But yeah, you can say I ‘acquired’ them after some mishap here. My turn, apart from us, you haven’t met anyone since coming here, right?”

“Yeah, I landed just outside the barrier and had been staying here since.”

Yuri hummed thoughtfully, his face looked a little disappointed.

“My turn, have you?”

Although Rio fully expected a “no”, seeing Yuri shaking his head still made her heart sink. 

“You got companions out there,” she realized.

“And so are you.” 

These two sentences weren’t questions, because they both didn’t need the other’s confirmation to know that’s the truth. Kaito and Yuma, she knew they’re out there somewhere, but where?

“Next question: You’ve been here no longer than a few hours, correct?”

Rio frowned, “More like several days.”

“Oh?” The other boy raised an eyebrow.

It had been three days since the day they had a clash with that mysterious figure, the energy born from their combined power spread throughout the time-space continuum and tore into the fabric of the multiverse itself. However, those minuscule damages should’ve healed themselves and should’ve been unable to leave any lasting effect, never mind something as huge as pulling people from multiple worlds into another.

“Have you been here before?” She asked.

“Psfff, nope,” Yuri snorted.

Not the naturally occurring world-imprinting jump, which happened regularly to multidimensional travelers, that tend to pull people toward the world they’d gone to before, then. 

“It’s my turn,” Yuri said, “you were sucked into this world after hearing somebody calling for help, and then the ground lit up in multicolored rays of light, you heard music and were sucked into a tunnel of stars, correct?”

Rio’s head snapped up, “What?”

“I mean,” Yuri’s smile let up a little, sounding genuinely fuzzed, “Is that not what happened?”

Rio narrowed her eyes, “So that’s how you were pulled into this world?”

Perhaps sensing his own fuck-up, Yuri didn’t answer her, but his own silence was enough. Okay, all of her speculations were incorrect. Someone purposely dragged this boy, and potentially those twins and their friends, to this place? This… complicated things a lot.

“You said someone was demanding your help. What about those children? Have you asked them how they came to this world?”

“I clearly told you you’re not to involve the kid in our game,” Yuri growled in irritation, “Also, that’s two questions you’re asking me, it’s cheating.”

Rio heard a vent pop on her head, “Okay, I’m sorry. They just came out of my mouth. I’m not going to mention them again. Happy?”

Yuri glared at her for a long time, then perhaps sensing that she really didn’t have any malice, replied, “I guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you. No, I haven’t got a chance to ask them anything, they were really tired. And if you want to know more, then you must wait. They’re sleeping.” 

“So I can see.”

They both turned back to see two small figures still slumped peacefully on the far side. The slanted sunbeam cast a deep red shadow on the little village, painting a deceptive serene picture over the whole scenery even though nothing about their situation was serene at all.

“It’s about to get dark,” Rio chewed on her lips, “I suggest we put this on hold. You should go back to your kids and try to light a fire, it’s going to be so cold here at night.”

“They’re not my kids,” Yuri protested.

“Sure, whatever you say,” Rio gave him a dismissing wave before turning her back on him and walking to the purple crystal.

Her stomach was rumbling, but she paid it no mind. She knew she wouldn’t die even if she didn’t eat. Rio used to hate her unique human-Barian hybrid body. She was nothing more than an alien spirit possessing a reanimated corpse, her body was kept alive by her Barian power, not food and water like a regular human, but here, it’s useful. Even though this barrier was suppressing her form, it still let her retain the innate power that kept her alive, and she was thankful for it. This way, she didn’t need to wander far away from that purple crystal lattice to find food or water. 

Speaking of which, Ryoga was about to be re-awaken soon.

Standing in front of the lattice, she waited patiently for the last ray of sunlight to disappear below the horizon, drowning her into the night.

Once all the natural light had disappeared, one by one, the clear crystal spikes around them lit up. In an elaborated show of light, from the outer ring of the barrier to the tiny piece of crystal emblem into the earth, illuminated tendrils pulsed out of the crystals’ core in waves. Each time the tips of a light tendril touched a spike, it began to light up and emit light on its own. The streams of energy that had been invisible during the sunlight, now turned visible in the darkness. Several streams of light, instead of spiraling upward, began to swirl toward Rio, they twirled and converged around the deep purple crystal, as if drawn by it.

The huge crystal got drowned in the vortex of light, and with a loud crash, it shattered open and a humanoid figure fell out.

“Welcome back to the world of living, Ryoga. You owe me another 12 hours of looking after you,” Rio smiled idly, watching the boy dressing in purple stand up on the pile of crystal sharps.

“Which is nothing compared to all the time I had to take care of you while you were in coma,” the figure replied.

Rio sighed and stepped over the sharps to make her way to Ryoga and wrapped him into a hug.

“It’s good to have you back,” she smiled, pressing closer. 

“Why the sappy gesture? It’s the third night I’ve been like this already.”

“Shut up. For some weird reason, you crystalized under the sunlight of this world and only reverted when night came. Don’t tell me I don’t need to be worried when I haven’t figured out the cause yet. Who can guarantee that the next night you’ll be able to turn back?”

Ryoga just sighed and patted her back.

They separated when Rio deemed it was enough to fill her emotional quota.

Ryoga asked, “Did something change when I was crystalized?”

Rio knew what he was asking about. This humongous tree was the largest landmark around here, people could see it from thousands of miles away, so for the last three days, they had opted to stay here and wait for Kaito and Yuma to turn up, for they were sure those two were sucked in here with them.

“They are not here.”

Ryoga’s shoulder slumped at her words.

“...but, we got other companies,” she said, gesturing to the direction of the village.

“Tell me, then,” he frowned.

Far from the holy protection barrier of the crystal tree, upstreamed the river running at the edge of the forest, there was a waterfall. Flowing from the top of a cliff almost a hundred meters tall, it’s taller than the tallest normal tree in this forest. The vapor created a permanent mist, further hiding everything around the area. 

The forest ended at the root of the cliff, and above it, next to the stream of fast-falling water, a city of ruin stood.

Most of the city was deserted. Collapsed houses, vacant streets, and dried canals were the only pieces of evidence that this place used to be bustling with people. Now, the only building with signs of life was the castle made of rock in the middle of the city. Along the gray outer walls were traces of a long mural that once told the tale of a mighty kingdom that existed since time immemorial, but now only a few parts of it remained standing amidst rubble. Curiously, enormous white crystal spikes broke out from the walls at large intervals, which seemingly the direct cause of its collapse. The inner courtyard inside was in a similar state, spikes of crystal, big and small, littered the ground everywhere.

Squads of duel monsters crowded the courtyard, their silhouettes illuminated by torches. Their conversation, shouts, and commands back and forth as they used every tool at their disposal to break the crystals heated the air up.

“Bring some more over here!”

“Hey, this big ass thing aren’t bulging, I need help. We need to repair the castle’s wall by sunrise!”

“What do we do about that huge hole above the throne room?”

“The Lord said to leave it be, he wants to watch the moonlight.”

“Seriously?! I can’t understand him!” 

Sitting on the dark throne inside the castle, far from the noisy atmosphere in the courtyard, was a man dressed in dark armor and sprouted six pairs of inky black winds behind him. His subordinates called him The First Darklord. 

He was idly twisting a small knife with intricated handle in his hands, and absentmindedly observed a large block of crystal, which almost took over the whole throne room, in front of him.

A clinking sound of metal boots echoed from the outside and a Darklord soldier ran through the broken doors of the throne room, and went to kneel in front of him.

“My lord, I have bad news,” his face looked grave.

“Speak,” he commanded.

“Lord Ixchel and Lord Jaunne’s entire squad are missing, and we are detecting strange sources of power from all over the land.”

The First Darklord raised an eyebrow, “And… what do you presume is the cause of these phenomena?”

The soldier threw a hateful glance toward the block of crystal behind him before turning back to speak, “I would hate it if it turned out to be true, but it looks like after his failed attempt at destroying us, our invader has called for help.” 

Darklord gave a smirk and then stood up. He strolled to the block of crystal in the throne room. Behind the thick, translucent layer of pure mineral, the shape of a gigantic white creature could still be seen.

“How completely annoying!” He growled, “After seeing no chance of triumph in the battle with me, this vermin had to barricade himself and sent for help. He must’ve thought his little ragtag team of helping hands would find a way to come here to rescue him eventually.”

“Then… what of Lord Ixchel and Lord Jaunne? Should we sent people to look for them?”

“No need. I’m afraid it had been too late for those two.”

The soldier paled at his Lord’s conclusion, but he knew better than to question his judgment.

Instead, he asked tentatively, “My Lord, you already knew about this?”

“But of course, since the moment those little rascals appeared in this world, I’ve been able to sense them. If you fetch me a map, I can even point out their exact location,” he told the soldier.

“T-then, I’ll bring one here immediately.”

When the soldier was about to leave the room, Darklord called him.

“Wait.”

“Yes, my lord. Do you need something else?”

“Tell your subordinates not to worry. Losing Ixchel and Jaunne might’ve been a great shock to you all, but I have a way to deal with the intruders without our troops interacting with them.”

When the soldier wanted to ask more, he interrupted, “I’m taking hold of one of them, soon I’ll have them fighting among themselves to the death.”

Somewhere far, far from the castle, Tsukumo Yuma collapsed for the second time.