A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, L12 - a multichap that is in a canon setting but not in complete agreement with canon. . A mix of dystopia/utopia and zombie apocalypse-like AU… You'll see as you read. :D

The Plague of Darkness

Chapter 1
A Deck Battle

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Yuuma watched his sister, on their father's motorcycle, vanished into the distance. He didn't like it. How he, the only male in their household, had to stay home twiddling his thumbs – or, rather, sorting through all the food Akari had brought yesterday and getting rid of anything that looked like it had spoilt.

There were some desperate enough to eat that, he knew. But, for now, the Tsukumo household was not any of them.

And that was all thanks to his sister and grandmother. Akari braved the city every day, hunting for information and supplies. And she was good at it. And her job was still intact. One of the few lucky ones. The reporters, the people at the power plant and on the communications network, and the police. Everything else had been thrown out the window. Shops, schools…everything.

Yuuma couldn't remember how it had started. Everybody else remembered at least a bit, as fast and as blurrily as things had changed. But Yuuma remembered nothing. He had just gone to sleep one night, had a strange dream he'd had for weeks on end before that – and then woke up, looked out the window, and saw how drastically things had changed.

The school building, for whatever reason, had been the first to go. Collapsed unto itself – or blown up by some supernatural force. Everybody had been saying the first of them – until they really did see aliens. Or creatures they didn't understand. But those creatures seemed incapable of destroying whole buildings. They attacked living things. People. Pets. Wild animals. They couldn't even scratch through stone. But still, buildings fell. No homes yet. Only large buildings. Like the school. Like the buildings in the shopping district, one by one. The hospital was still safe, for now. But most of the patients had been sent home in case that changed. They didn't need a tragedy like what had occurred at the school happening again. Hundreds of innocent seniors who'd gone for their final exams crushed.

That had been some weeks ago. They knew little more now, and Yuuma was in one of the best positions to know because he had Akari and Akari had her job.

But Yuuma was a hopeless fighter and even more hopeless a duellist to do anything but stay inside their still safe house.

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Akari slowed down as she came towards the shopping district. Speed would be safer, but not even her father's mountain bike could climb all the debris at break-neck speed and she needed to keep her eyes peeled.

The shopping district was still a place where people of all sorts gathered. Though she didn't think there were any dates in progress, there was plenty of scrambling and fighting.

She took off her helmet and strapped it to the handles. It didn't look like there was any of them at the moment. Though the people were still on edge. Still armed. Akari had a gun on her right hip and her duel disk on her left arm.

She'd never thought a bunch of cards would become a life-saving weapon, and it still didn't make sense why they were, but they were. Some idiot had been the one to discover it. Idiot…or desperate. He'd put a monster on the disk and hoped it would come to life and attack – and it had done exactly that. And then the media had caught wind of it and spread the news.

They didn't all work, all the time. Some guy who'd tried to summon out a level ten monster in the food square last week had wound up with a dud. That was, of course, when the food square was still there.

But she could see a level ten out now. Gravekeeper's Saniwa if she wasn't mistaken. Sitting atop a broken building as though it were his throne. She pulled out her binoculars to take a closer look. Yep, it was Gravekeeper's Saniwa. Not far from him was an officer waving his arms.

Some sort of trouble, Akari surmised. But it would be diffused by the time she got there. There wasn't much to see already. She could find out what happened later. Ask around.

That might be why there were none of those creatures to be seen in the square. Still, Akari kept her eyes peeled.

That was how she spotted two boys, both familiar, in the middle of a duel where the games shops had once stood.

The game shops had been the next to go, after the school.

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The game shops biting the dust had become a huge problem. It had only been three weeks since, but since firearms were in short supply and their ammunition too and knives and such were quite useless, they had to rely on their decks. And, of course, the ones with the most powerful decks were the ones more likely to make it through.

For now, everyone was safe in their homes. But at least one person per household had to get out – to fetch food and water, if nothing else. And those weren't easy to get. Heartland City had a government, but its government lay hidden beyond high walls. They said nothing, did nothing.

As for nearby cities…no-one seemed able to approach them. There was something in the air. Or a barrier. Something that kept them locked in.

People were already scared. Already deciding who would be left for dead, who would go on a little longer.

Just because someone else had decided Tetsuo was one of the former ones, it didn't mean he was going to lay down his deck and walk away.

And he was good. Just not as good as the guy who'd made it to the finals of the national championships.

He gritted his teeth. Shark grinned. He looked like a shark too. The hairstyle, the teeth, the pendant. Really, who cared about jewellery and hairstyles at a time like this, Tetsuo thought. And it might've looked threatening while they were back at school, but not now.

Except he was kidding himself, because he might have just walked away if it hadn't been his appearance, his reputation.

At least the monsters weren't tearing up what was left of their scenery.

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The monsters in front of her were real as well. Solid, not holograms. Though they were carefully controlled. She stopped but ten feet from them but she knew she was safe. The new destruction was only between the two duellists. Both of them were wary of their surroundings. And neither wasn't the other too badly hurt.

Still, that didn't stop one of them – Tetsuo, Yuuma's friend – from being all scratched up. In earlier times, those clothes would have been thrown away. But any new clothes to be found would be in similar states now.

And what the hell was he doing, duelling? Yuuma didn't have a lot of sense, but Akari had thought his friends were a little better.

Then she gaped. His opponent had played an Xyz monster. And the air was cackling with energy. She quickly recovered from the shock and reversed.

She was in the clear when Tetsuo went flying, tumbling over what had once been a counter, his duel disk catching the edge and cracking audibly.

Shark laughed and stalked towards his prey. Akari growled and activated her duel disk. But the boy heard her and looked in her direction with a frown. 'We had a bet,' he said coolly. 'If you want his deck, you can duel me with yours at stake.'

Akari growled again, but stepped down. She wasn't going to drive about the city proper with just a handgun. And she wasn't going to be intimidated by a little boy as well.

After all, getting thrown like that had to hurt. And the duel had been whittling away at the boy by the looks of things as well. Even Shark, whose life points were still at their maximum, looked rough for wear.

Shark took her silence for answer enough and left on his own motorcycle. Akari considered aiming at the tyres, but decided it wasn't worth it. The handgun was just for emergencies, and she didn't want him retaliating with a monster when a level ten could be physically summoned. She had a good deck, but not many heavy hitters. And no Xyz monsters. Those were for the elite. And there were no elites in the city. Just an ex-elite. That still had Xyz monsters at her disposal.

There was nothing worse when all things went to hell than a bully taking advantage of it.

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Yuuma gaped at his sister. 'You carried him?' Tetsuo was like twice Akari's width. Or his own.

'I didn't have much of a choice,' Akari replied tiredly, slumping on to the couch. 'Couldn't just leave him there, now could I?'

'No.' And Yuuma was grateful. He really was. Because Tetsuo was one of his closest friends and if he needed help, he was glad Akari had offered it. 'But what happened?'

'Shark,' Tetsuo groaned. One eye was swollen shut, and Haru prodded at it carefully. Clean water wasn't as scarce as food yet, but no-one doubted that the supplies would soon be contaminated, or drained. 'I duelled him.'

Now, Yuuma gaped at Tetsuo. 'Are you crazy?' he spluttered. 'Shark was the number one duellist at our school. And he was always taking – ' He froze, his eyes dropping down to Tetsuo's belt where he always kept his deck-box clipped. It wasn't there. 'He took your deck.'

'I was an idiot.' Tetsuo closed his eyes. 'But…we needed stronger cards. Especially Nee-san. Those things are getting stronger. Level four or below monsters aren't doing much now.'

Yuuma knew that. Akari had told him, but the news hadn't been broadcasted. Akari said it was because there was no easy way to get stronger cards with the shops destroyed and the supply dried up. The only way was to get them off other people. And they didn't want to light that fire.

But it looked as though that particular fire had been lit on its own.

'Still,' Akari frowned. Her eyes were closed as well and fatigue clung to her tone, but her voice was still scolding. 'What made you think you could beat a guy who got to the finals of the national championships? And he was disqualified to boot. He didn't lose.'

'I know, I know.' He would curse this day. He knew it. 'He just – he angered me. He is good at that.'

Akari remembered her own flash of anger. And the boy hadn't even been trying then. 'That he is,' she agreed.

'And I couldn't do the same if it was someone I didn't know at all. Or Yuuma. But Shark is…he has lots of cards. All those decks he…won back at school.'

'He probably does.' Yuuma clenched his fists. It wasn't fair. There were lots of desperate people and few who weren't. For cards at least, Shark shouldn't be desperate at all. If only because he'd been taking decks from those he defeated for almost a year. Whatever made him start acting like that – for Yuuma and Tetsuo, he had always been like that. But Akari said it was after he'd been disqualified. 'Someone needs to stop him.'

Akari snorted in amusement. 'He offered Tetsuo-kun's deck if I put up my deck on the ante.'

'He does that,' Tetsuo agreed. His voice was regretting, and defeated. 'Don't bother. No-one can afford to lose their decks. Especially not for my stupidity.'

But Yuuma didn't think it was so stupid. It wasn't that easy to get under Tetsuo's skin and someone really did need to stop Shark. But that was the sort of stuff that was top priority in school. There was a reason he hadn't disobeyed his sister's orders to stay in the house.

There was a shadow outside, suddenly. Akari lifted her head. Their grandmother went to the window, watching the figure pass silently by. Black, gooey – there weren't many good words to describe the thing and that was why they were yet to receive a name.

Then the shadow passed and Haru turned around. 'All gone,' she said, smiling brightly. 'Let's all have dinner. Tetsuo-kun, would you like to ring your family?'

He nodded and took the phone gratefully. If he didn't show up at the dinner table they would be worried. Even if there was less in both quantity and glamour to put on the table now.

How long before there was no food at all? No water? No medicines for the ill and the injured. No phone lines – a few had already fallen, most around the school and shopping districts but a few elsewhere. No electricity – the power plant was a large building too. It could go down any day. No weapons – guns ran on bullets and there wasn't an infinite supply of those. No cards. No shelter – once the big buildings were all gone and the homes were the next to fall.

They were still fortunate, for now. But slowly, their supplies were shrinking. Drying up.

'How long can we last?' he wondered aloud.

Akari glanced at him. 'Humans are a stubborn lot,' she said. It didn't answer the question, but it had to do. Because the answer depended on a great many things outside their control.

At least until they found out what those things were and where they were coming from. And what was cutting their city off from the rest of the world.