I don't own Yu-gi-oh etc...

Shattered

Neo-Domino Security Command Center. A large building located at the center of the city that was used by the security force to protect the citizens. For some people, this place was a monument of protection. For others, it was a goal to achieve. And for certain people, mostly criminals, it was a place of danger and hate.

For Placido, it was only a base of operation.

From his office, at the top of the tower, the envoy of Yliaster could see the entire city and everyone that was living in it. At this altitude, they were so small that they looked like insects. Yes, insect was the perfect term for them. And yet, they acted like they were the kings of this world. Just because of their technology, they believed they could achieve anything. They had no knowledge of the ancient powers. They were only concerned with what they created. Like those synchro monsters. How he loaded them. They were an insult to all that was sacred. They had to be removed from this world. And that was why he was here.

A knock at the door brought him out of his thoughts. With the corner of his eye, he saw his secretary enter the room and place a small pile of papers on his desk. She bowed to him before leaving the office. Placido took a look at the sheets. It was the report of today's operations. He grunted mentally at the pile of papers he will have to read carefully. Being director of Neo-Domino Security wasn't a hard job, but the paperwork was really annoying. He knew he had to fill them if he wanted to keep his disguise in place.

But destiny had something else in store for him. Only a few minutes after he had begun to read the report, the communicator on his desk began to ring. When switching on the channel, Placido his comrade, José's face.

- What is it, asked Placido.

-He is ready, replied José, through the mask he was wearing.

The communication ended after this. But these three words had brought a smile on the the director's face. Finally, he thought. Things will move on now.

He took aking a last look at the reports on his table, and he decided to finish them later. He had more important things to do first. After telling Jeager that he would be gone for the day, Placido went to the building parking, where his driver was waiting to take him to his home. During the trip, Placido didn't say a word. He was lost in his mind, eyes closed. He only opened them when his manor was finally on sight. He left the car and went directly to his room. He wanted to get rid of that business suit first. After removing his vest and his pants, he put on a white dress with a hood. He also had some metal plates and finally, a metallic eye patch with the sign of infinity on it. He always preferred to wear his ceremonial cloths than his business cloths.

After making sure that his dress was perfect, Placido went to the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, he punched a special password on the typing board, which made the elevator go down. When it arrived at its destination, the doors opened, revealing a long hall with barely any lights. But it didn't seem to affect Placido at all. It was like he was seeing in the dark. The hall took him to a large room. When Godwin was living here, this room was the place where he kept the remains of the Temple of the Stars. Now, it was filled with electronic device and space maps. But what Placido was interested in was at the center of the room. At this place, there was the most sophisticated duel disk ever created. And inside this machine was the deck that he received from the stars: The Wisel deck. He couldn't wait to use it with his own hands, but he knew that now wasn't the time. He still had to uncover the potential that the machine emperor who lived in these cards had. But this day would arrive very soon. After all, he now had the perfect weapon.

Taking his eyes off the deck, Placido looked at a large water tank filled with a blue liquid just beside him. And inside the tank was a young boy. An armada of cables were plugged on his naked form and he had an artificial breather on his face. He appeared to be sleeping, which was normal to Placido since he went through a lot of operations in order to make sure his mind and body were perfect. While smiling, Placido remembered how he came to know this boy.

The first time he heard of him was on a report from Godwin about the situation in Satellite during the events of the Dark Signers. The former director had kept a lot of information about the Signers. Since this boy wasn't a Signer himself, he was barely mentioned by Godwin. It was only written that he was the twin brother of one of the Signers. Nothing more. So at first, he classified him as useless. The second time was in a report that the new Chief of the Special Investigation, Mikage, had wrote about the battle between Signers and Dark Signers. It was mostly a personal journal of what happened there. She didn't know that her computer had been hacked, since she had been Godwin's assistant. They had to make sure she didn't uncover any information about them. In this journal, it was written that the boy fought a Dark Signer and managed to resist him until he summoned his Earthbound God. And all this was just to protect his sister. Realizing that he could become a precious hostage if the need came to be, Placido decided to increase the surveillance on him. But they discovered much more than a simple hostage.

At first, he wasn't an interesting boy. Sure, he had a lot of energy and he always seemed to be in a good mood, but he wasn't really smart. He would jump in a situation without thinking for a second and would make a fool of himself almost every time. He was a typical clown that wanted attention, but only managed to look stupid. Furthermore, he had no special power, unlike his sister and the others Signers. So all in all, he was just an immature brat like so many others. So it was decided that he would just be used as a hostage. But while Placido was spying the boy during the night in order to find the perfect opportunity to kidnap him if the need came to be, he discovered a completely different side of his personality.

Apparently, he wasn't as happy and full of himself as the others thought he was. In fact, he had a major low esteem problem. Often, when he was alone in his room, he would cry about how the others were always making fun of him and how they just didn't understand him. He wasn't screaming for attention. It was just in his nature to be always on movement. He couldn't remained in one place and do nothing for a long time. But his friends couldn't understand that. Sometimes, he would wake up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare he had. Usually, he would write them right away in a journal that he always kept hidden in his closed. This book immediately spiked Placido's curiosity. Taking advantage of the boy's absences, he had sent a special stealth robot to take pictures of the book. Apparently, the nightmares mostly involved his friends forsaken him and making fun of him while his parents and his sister left him to suffer without looking back. Even the director had to admit that these nightmares were truly frightening, especially for a child. But the book had revealed much more than his nightmares.

From what he could read, his problem hadn't started recently. According to the journal, he had begun to feel inferior ever since he was little. It appeared that his parents had always preferred his twin sister since she was much more mature than him. And it was the same thing in kindergarten. The kids would usually get attracted to her because she was so smart, kind and responsible, while he was usually the one getting into trouble and getting grounded by his teachers. Dueling was also a major part of the problem. The boy loved to duel. Anyone could see that. And for a kid of his age, he could come up with quite a lot of interesting combos. Morphtronic decks are usually looked down upon since they don't have a lot of power individually. But together, these monsters could become a deadly force. Sure, he wasn't perfect yet, but he was learning. But people didn't see that. They would always compare him to his sister, who was a genius with duel monsters cards, and they would laugh at him because they taught that he should be more like his twin, since she was much better at him.

The most interesting part was that this little boy wasn't jealous of his sister. That was quite a surprise for him. Normally, he should have hated his twin because she was so much better than him. But the only thing he felt towards her was a fierce resolve to protect her. Ever since she was little, she always had a fragile health. She would become exhausted after just one duel and she wasn't really strong. Because of that, the boy had decided that his purpose would be to protect her, no matter the cost. For the others, it would look like a very intense family love, since he knew of the boy's lack of self-esteem, he knew it meant much more. It was the only thing that drove him forwards. For him, it was the only thing that made him feel like he could do something. His life was dictated by this only purpose: to keep his sister safe.

Placido laughed a little at the thought. It was so ironic that the only thing that gave him the will to continue his live was also the thing that was killing him, even more now. Apparently, the battle with the Dark Signers didn't help him at all. According to the boy's journal, ever since his sister gained her dragon back, she grew stronger. Now she could duel without any problem and she never felt any better. This brought her brother's pain to a new level. He had lost the only thing that gave him the strength to go one with his life. The reality he had spent so many years to preserve was pulverised in a matter of months. And like a wolf that was surrounded by enemies, he became desperate. He was doing everything he could for his sister, even the silliest things. But because he wasn't focused all the time, he would make mistakes, which made him even sadder.

For Placido, this situation was perfect. He was looking for a way to test his deck even further. And right in front of him was a boy with low-esteem, a will to find a purpose to give him strength and the experience of using small machine to create a powerful combo. He was looking for a hostage and he found a pure diamond. All he needed to do was to get him.

His wish was fulfilled a week ago. He was looking for an opportunity to get the boy when his spy robot caught the twins having a fight at their house one night. Apparently, the boy had messed up a team oral that his sister, his friends and he had to do and since it was a team project, everyone was penalised. The whole team gave him the bad eye and his sister made sure that he received a long lecture after school. While she was yelling at him, he was trying to defend himself, even if he was really hurt inside. But suddenly, his sister yelled something that she would have never said if she knew what the consequences would be.

-I'M TIRED OF YOUR STUPIDITY. WHY CAN'T YOU DO SOMETHINGTHING USEFUL FOR ONCE?

One sentence. One drop. And yet, it was the drop that destroyed the diamond. The boy's face reflected only two things: pain and terror. His sister, the only purpose of his existence, had said that he was useless. It crashed into him like a bull. Never before did he felt so miserable. Without another word, the boy ran out of his house. But Placido wasn't going to let this opportunity go. This was what he was waiting for. After activating the tracking device he had put on the boy's shoes a while ago, he ran to his personal D-wheel that he had been using for practice in case he would have to face Yusei or one of his friends on a riding duel. He knew he didn't have much time, so he needed to act fast. The tracking device showed him that his target had stopped running in a park. When he arrived, he immediately started to look for the boy. After a while, he finally found. He was hidden in a bush, crying.

Placido remembered pretty well how the conversation went. He had reassured the boy and said that he understood his suffering and he kept telling him that he wasn't alone. He was always good with words. After a moment, Placido told the boy that he needed his help. He told him that he was on a quest to help humanity and to protect the world from a dangerous force. It was a lie, but that was he had to say. He was giving the boy a chance to be useful, to have a new purpose, a new Sun. The child couldn't think this carefully. He was too broken for that. And finally, he accepted to go with him.

He didn't give this child a chance to recover from his despair. As soon as he brought him to his lab, he and his comrade began to work on him. Thanks to the powerful technology of their group, they managed to erase this boy's memories and his capacities to feel emotions. They worked all day with barely any break, but after a few days, they succeeded. They now had the perfect fighting machine at their command. And he was going to use it now.

By pressing a couple of buttons, Placido emptied the tank of its liquid. Then, he removed the electronic cables that were attached on him. Finally, he took off the artificial breather. The boy was now on his knees with his head down, motionless. The director looked at him like a cat who had found a delicious mouse.

-I awakened you because you have a mission to accomplish, said Placido.

The boy was still not moving, but Placido had a feeling that he was listening.

-This world is corrupted by the madness of men. They have crossed boundaries that they were forbidden to break. Now, the balanced of this world is broken. And only we can return this world to its original form. Your mission is to search this city for duellists who use Synchro monsters and destroy those vile beasts. They are nothing but foreign objects and need to be removed. We need you for that. Do you accept?

He had chosen his words very carefully so that even if the process wasn't perfect, he would still tap into his hope to be useful. It seemed to be effective since the boy agreed by shaking his head, making his green hairs move.

-Good. Now, proud warrior, take this deck and tell me your name.

While he was saying that, Placido took the duel disk containing the Wisel deck and offered it to his new duellist. Slowly, the boy rose up from the ground. It didn't seem to bother him that he was naked since he stood up on his feet without any shame. When he lifted his head, Placido knew he had succeeded. His face was a pure mask. No emotions were visible, not even in his eyes. Even the Black Rose Witch didn't have a face like that. After a moment, he broke the eye contact and took the duel disk and put it on his arm. Then, he looked at the emissary of Yliaster and spoke a name that will soon bring terror to the duellists of this city and despair to the signers.

-Infinity Rua.

(Author's note)

This is a little story I wrote to express my thought on how Rua is used by the show and by the authors that I have read. I thought it would be interesting to go deep in his head and to see the consequences of abusing him. Hope you like. Please review.

Volcaniclord