Rin woke on a bed that wasn't her own.
If she was fair, the last time she had woken up in her personal bed was years ago. In Synchro she often fell asleep either in the middle of late night projects or crashed on Yugo's mattress with him. Then for the past few months in the tower here, she had used the nice one that had been too soft to sleep comfortably in. This one was still better than the old mattresses they had scrounged out of the junkyard, but it also had a certain degree of use that made its covers less suffocating than the tower's had been.
"Finally," A familiar voice drawled, sending shivers down her spine. Immediately she sat up to see its owner lounging on a counter across from where she laid. While he shared the same face as Yugo, those magenta eyes were too intense to ever allow her to mistake the two.
Memories flooded her senses-but not of that night he had stalked her down with no remorse. Instead a new set surfaced as their gazes met.
Just a few minutes ago she had been with Yugo in the tower, where had he gone? Where was she? All Rin could do in this tube was watch three girls with her face plead to another Yugo look-alike as her life force was drained. Nobody even acknowledged she was there, not even the Professor guy telling confusing stories about previous worlds. Was this how she was going to die-alone in a crowd that couldn't care less if she existed?
Just then, an explosion went off in the main room. Rin couldn't see what was happening from her angle, which somehow made everything all the more frightening. She tried moving closer to get a better look when suddenly, the glass surrounding her shattered into thousands of pieces. In a flash she had her arms raised to shield her face from the brunt of the damage. Still it took all her willpower not to cry out in pain from that shards that nicked the rest of her.
Before she could recover, a strong arm snaked itself around her waist, pulling her roughly against their chest.
Rin struggled to break free of her captor, screaming, kicking, whatever it took. A fire burned in her chest, and she would not let anyone else, no Tops, or Academia, or whoever this was continue to treat her like an object to be tossed from person to person. However when she saw their face, that blaze froze.
"Yugo..." She hadn't even realized she had murmured the name until he turned his head to address her.
"Don't call me that name." One glare from those slitted eyes snuffed out what little remained of her spark.
After that, her memories became vague and disorienting. She couldn't tell if they were actually real or a figment of her imagination. Regardless she was certain she was here with the not-Yugo, and the fact she had let herself be taken by him again was enough to rouse her anger.
"You're going to tell me what's going on and why you took me, and you're going to tell me now."
He hardly seemed bothered by her threat. Those magenta eyes just kept studying her with the same intense fervor. Still this time Rin refused to let herself waver underneath his gaze. In the the light, it was just as human as hers. And if he was human, that meant Rin had a chance at beating him.
With a deep breath, she drew herself up to her full height,
"I demand you answer me. If Academia needs me so bad I can-"
"Academia didn't order this." His words were clipped and short. "The only thing you need to know is that as of now, you are mine and mine alone."
With that, he jumped from his perch and made his way to a door. In a flash, Rin was up and racing to reach it before him; however, it closed in her face with the decisive click of a lock.
Rin was trapped. Again.
Despite the depressing situation, Rin didn't give herself time to mope. The Yugo look-alike hadn't given her much useful information, but if he had really gone rogue as he had claimed, then it was unlikely he had an accomplice to help guard her. If she could escape then she'd just need to find Yugo again, and they'd be back home in no time.
Her heart clenched in her chest at the thought of Yugo. Back in the tower she had tried (and often failed) to avoid thinking about him, but now after their brief reunion, it was impossible to do so anymore. Was he ok? She had been so mean to him, too caught up in trying to appear strong to admit how much she had missed him. Would he be able to find her again? If she was right about this not-Yugo working alone, then there wouldn't be a larger organization to track down like last time. She wasn't even sure where she was, how could she depend on him to know?
Rin took a deep breath. That was all the more reason to focus on getting out on her own. In the tower she had lost hope, but maybe this new environment would be less secure than the previous one had been.
The first order of action was to make sure the exit was really locked securely. She would have been lying if she said she had never had to "persuade" a few doors open in the past. Regardless this one seemed to be dead-bolted and unaffected by her fiddling around.
She tried checking for other alternative exits, but there weren't any other doors or even windows. All there seemed to be was the small living room/bedroom combination she had awoken in, an adjacent kitchen devoid of much food, and a simple bathroom. Everything was working more or less-there was both electricity and running water-but Rin was hesitant to try any of it. Even now she didn't understand where the blanks in her memory from Yugo finding her to being trapped in that tube had come from. While she didn't consider herself the paranoid type, there was no telling if she had been drugged or worse.
Rin collapsed back on the bed with a sigh. She was expecting too much to be able to find a way out just like that. At the very least she felt more comfortable here. The tower may have been a cage, but it was gilded with a sort of neatness that had made the situation all the more uncomfortable. It was like being stuck in a high-class hotel you knew you couldn't afford. At least this was closer to the type of quarters she had lived in most of her life. This might turn into a waiting game of sorts, so she might as well feel comfortable here.
You know life sucks when you can find something good about being kidnapped.
For all she had lost, she still had her humor.
That was good. She was going to need it.
It was ironic that Yuri was the one being hunted now. If it had happened to anyone else, he would have laughed at the situation. Instead though all he could do was gasp for air as he hid on the roof of Academia. The location lacked any real usefulness for stealth, but at the moment all he could concentrate on was catching his breath as he pulled his knees close to his chest.
It seemed in the time-frame since he had grabbed and secured the Synchro girl, that Sakaki Yuya and the rest of his group had retreated while the Professor had placed a bounty on his head. He couldn't hold back a groan at the realization. Fantastic, not only had he lost his chance to become one, but now he had a swarm of flies after him. Even if they weren't particularly threatening, it was a hassle to swat them away and look for Yuya. At this rate it could take weeks before there was another confrontation between them.
Yuri pressed his forehead against his knees in frustration. It was all that Synchro girl's fault. He had let himself get distracted by and had lost everything for it. He told himself she had to be punished for this, carded and torn to shreds, but a wave of revulsion passed over him. It was eerily similar to the feeling of seeing her in that tube.
This must have been what godhood felt like. Yuri couldn't imagine a being more powerful than he was now. Like a lion on the prowl, he stalked towards the throne room. Only one thought consumed his being: to finally, after all these years, become one again.
With a wave of his hand, he tore down the doors. There were several others in the room as well, but they didn't matter. Yuri knew only one person would hold his complete attention.
He had just been wrong about which person that would be.
Magenta eyes met golden as his body was frozen completely in place. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but stare at her in shock. Then his body snapped into motion, like it was being pulled by an unknown force. Part of him questioned why he was doing this, why he cared at all about one girl when Sakaki Yuya was right there. But soon that was all drowned out by one dominating thought.
I can't let him hurt her.
He had never felt a more certain truth in his life.
So he hadn't wanted Leo to have her. He could make sense from that. After all, the fun would all be over once he got all the girls. This was a just a necessity to bide him some time. Knowing that she was safe from Leo would ease his mind and he could get back to searching for Sakaki Yuya. Simple, simple.
However it wasn't long before his thoughts drifted back to the Synchro girl. She had to be getting hungry at this point, especially considering that it was unlikely she hadn't been fed since-
Yuri had to resist the urge to claw his eyes out. It seemed he wasn't getting rid of this fascination with her any time soon.
Rin found her actions falling into a pattern of sorts. It made sense; even without an accurate way to measure the passage of time, she was a creature of habit. Still a part of her worried that she might be getting used to this all a little too quickly.
She tried to push those thoughts to the back of her mind. Let them rest with the other worries dragging her down. The only thing that mattered was escape.
It didn't seem any closer at the moment, but at least there was a routine to her movements now. Whenever she woke up she would got to work searching every last inch, of whatever area she had sectioned herself off for the time. If that meant tearing up bookcases and upturning the sparse furniture, then so be it. Her experience tinkering with machines had taught her that there was no such thing as a perfect creation. If she studied her surroundings just a little bit closer, perhaps she could find a crack in her prison's defense. Maybe she could find a way to unlock the exit from the inside. After all, it made no sense to have a bunker's lock only activate from the outside. Maybe she could find a way to force her way out. She wasn't a weakling; with a little extra help, her muscle just might be enough.
She was trying to stay optimistic. It was hard to do that without Yugo to keep her spirits up, still she had to give it a shot.
It wasn't like not-Yugo would be any help. Thankfully she hadn't had to interact with him any since that first time. Any time she heard the door start to creak open, she would race to lock herself in the bathroom. She didn't want to talk to him, didn't want to even look at him. Just having to know of his existence, that someone so cruel and sadistic shared the same face as her Yugo, made her skin crawl. If she had to live her life out in this enclosed space then so be it.
Luckily he never seemed to stay too long. All she had to go off of her assumptions were a few auditory clues, but there was rarely much of an impact to his visits. Over time Rin found he had a few quirks but overall, it was like he was a ghost. If she had left a bookshelf torn down or the bed flipped over, he would put it back into place. He hardly seemed to touch a thing, but he would always make sure to restore the bunker to the state it was in when she first arrived.
There was also that habit of leaving food on the counter. It wasn't simply a candy bar or something small, but often entire meals. Their aroma was always so enticing, so tempting to her long empty stomach, yet Rin didn't let that stop her from throwing them in the garbage. It was painful after a childhood of scrounging around for whatever food was available, but just remembering the blanks in her memory made her shudder in horror. She still hadn't ruled out the food being that cause and that Yugo lookalike declaring her his didn't make her feel better at all. Rin didn't even drink the water, she was so afraid of being vulnerable around that creep.
So she ignored the lightheadedness and her racing heartbeat that never calmed down. She told herself it was the only option for her: to either escape or to die trying.
This was very... irritating.
Yes, Yuri thought that was the right word to describe how things were. It was like a gnat buzzing around his ear, not a major problem but still vexing. It was hard to pin down the exact reason it was bothering him, but it was bothering him all the same, and he didn't like it.
You'd think kidnapping someone meant you'd be seeing them at least some of the time.
Yet every time Yuri visited the bunker, there was neither hide nor hair of the Synchro girl to be seen. The first time he had returned only to be unable to find her, something he might have mistaken for panic had bubbled in his throat. Before anything could come of it though, he had noticed the bathroom door was locked. He had thought nothing of it at first, but it happened again and again with every visit.
It shouldn't have bothered him that she was taking care of her bodily functions, yet it did. Lately there had been a strange itch to see her in person, face-to-face. He told himself it was to only confirm her condition and make sure she was taking care of herself, but when he was at his most vulnerable, he couldn't deny that it ran deeper. This was a pain. Why did he have to care about such frivolous things? Nothing made sense.
Still that didn't stop him from going ahead and extending his visits bit by bit. It was never more than a minute, but slowly they grew longer.
And yet, the Synchro Girl still never seemed to leave the bathroom.
He didn't know what was the last straw, yet suddenly he found himself knocking on the door.
"You ok?" The words fell awkwardly off his tongue, and there was no reply. Yuri tried to keep his cool, but his knocking became more and more frantic. "Yo girl, are you alright? Answer me! I don't have time for dumb jokes, you know!" He knocked more and more, yet there was no reply. His heartbeat seemed to be racing faster than a hummingbird's. Why wouldn't she answer?
He couldn't take it anymore. Yuri threw open the drawers and cabinets until he found the ring of keys that went to the bunkers. His hands were shaking so much he could barely insert the bathroom key into the lock.
I can't let her affect me so-
All coherent thought was lost the instance he found the Synchro Girl unconscious.