[warning for prostitution — no explicit sex scenes, but it is in there.]

Kaito didn't want to move, after it was over.

Shark was still underneath him, bent over the table, with Kaito's arms folded across the back of his shoulders. It had to be an uncomfortable position, but Shark didn't say anything until Kaito eased out of him, and off of him, and produced a handkerchief (it was Chri — it was V's, or had been, and Kaito folded it so that the monogram was hidden before he pressed it into Shark's hands) for him to clean up with. There were bruises on Shark's bare skin that stuck out vividly, revealed by the low cut of his shirt and the wide sleeves of his jacket, visible even after he began to dress. After he was done with the handkerchief, he tossed it to the floor; Kaito took great satisfaction in imagining V finding it later.

But he wasn't supposed to thinking about V. That was the whole point of this — Kaito searched for a word that would delay the inevitable self-loathing — transaction.

Shark finished getting dressed, the snap of his belt buckle echoing loudly in the warehouse. Kaito was already decent, but then again, he hadn't done much more than unzip. He hadn't really wanted to be naked in front of Shark.

He supposed Shark was used to it. (He supposed that for Shark there wasn't really a choice.)

"Well?"

Shark leaned against the edge of the table. "You dueled three duelists last week."

"That isn't a question."

"Who's their supplier?

So that was what Shark was after. He looked too good to be an addict, though. his eyes weren't bloodshot, his voice and hands were steady, and he wasn't manic the way duelists coming down from a high often were, frantic and unfocused in their desperation to get more.

He considered the question. He knew that Heartland was the one in charge of distributing the Barianite, with Droite and Gauche underneath him. And they had several underground dueling rings they frequented, where they gave out Barianite to the winners and let it trickle across the city. Presumably they had ways of guarding it so that it wasn't stolen from them. Even if he told Ryoga where they were, Ryoga would just have to duel for it, and the worst thing that could happen to him was that he'd end up possessed by a Numbers.

It would be unpleasant for him, but it would help Kaito. He had a quota to meet, and if he failed, neither Tron nor Faker nor the Barians would show him any leniency. Kaito could not fail.

But Kaito was the best. That was why he was willing to endure the increasingly difficult circumstances, and the nightmares, and the pain, and the fact that he had become the kind of man who traded information for sex. He was not just a Hunter, but the Hunter, and that meant he could capture more Numbers and obtain more Barianite than anyone else.

He was willing to have a stained soul if it would keep Haruto alive.

"They were working out of a dueling ring on 4th and 27th. It's called the Bright Heart."

He felt bad for Shark (what a stupid nickname). He was walking into a dangerous place; the Bright Heart was invitation only.

Shark nodded to himself, one hand twitching towards the fang around his neck. A tell, Kaito thought, as Shark's hand dropped again.

"We're done here," he said, and he started to walk away, hands in his pockets.

"How did you find me?"

Kaito wasn't a street duelist, not in the tradiitonal sense. And his soulless victims could hardly tell tales.

Shark stopped. He smirked at Kaito over his shoulder, but he didn't answer.

Then he started walking again. He was very steady for someone who'd just been fucked over a table. Kaito envied him his calm as he reached for his D-gazer; it seemed it was time for Orbital 7 to stop fooling around. They had work to do.

Don't think about it. Just remember what you're here for.

The Bright Heart went dark as the audience — the bookies with their pages of bets, the recruiters in their sharp suits, the duelists in their flashy colors, the spectators all varying degrees of drunk — was seated. The ring that took up most of the room was the only thing lit; a steel cage was lowered over top of it, to keep the duelists inside. There would be no forfeit accepted, no surrender allowed this night.

It was win or lose.

Ryoga was in a seat at the bar, away from the audience, his full glass still sitting on the wooden surface. There was a bitter, sour taste in his mouth, from the bile he'd swallowed, and the favors he had performed to get in here, but he didn't dare take even a sip. He needed all his wits tonight. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to calm the nausea in his stomach; but his belly roiled, his teeth clenched, his hands would have trembled if he weren't sitting on them. The announcer was beginning to speak, his voice painting a picture for his listeners: two duelists, of equal and great talent, risking everything for a mysterious prize. He made it sound almost noble.

Ryoga wondered if anyone bought it. He knew that the duelists were just thugs, looking for a fix that they couldn't get anywhere else; he knew that the prize was really a taste of the highest quality Barianite, and a chance to feel a rush of power for a few brief hours before the drug wore off and reality, cold, pathetic reality, came crashing in. He had seen the duelists outside the club on his way in. Their eyes were hungry. They were too addicted to duel without the Barianite, but they were too addicted to stop dueling for it, and the paradox left them with nothing.

He understood the hunger too well. After all, he was here for the Barianite, too.

It looked nothing like the stadium from Nationals, he told himself, but the sight of the scoreboard and the duelists prepping their disks still made him ill. He took a deep breath, swallowing down the memories.

"It's Shark's turn, but he hasn't played yet! What is happening?"

Fire and smoke. Strands of singed blue hair over bright red skin. They were saying that he had saved her, but Ryoga knew better; he knew that his opponent wasn't just an asshole, but a murderer.

And yet he had no drive to defeat him. He knew the truth: it was not IV's fault that Rio was comatose. It was his.

It should have been me, Ryoga thought, and he put his hand over his deck in surrender, in penance —

The crowd roared as the duelists drew their hands, jerking Ryoga out of his own mind. He shivered.

You knew this was coming, he reminded himself. Don't fall apart. Or you'll end up like those guys outside.

One of the duelists was using a card he recognized. It sucked Ryoga back into the past — it had been Rio's card, back when she dueled and walked and spoke and breathed without the aid of machines — and she had been very good. She'd been strong and brave and intensely focused.

If she could see him now, gagging and sweating, completely unseated by the sight of a dueling ring, she would — Ryoga covered his mouth with his hand, feeling the pressure all over again, the doctor's voice in his ear saying her organs are failing, the crowd screaming Shark! Shark!

He couldn't do it. He couldn't even move. He was a failure, he was disgusting, he couldn't stand being in the room; Ryoga almost bolted, held in place only by the last of his resolve.

I can't think like this. It doesn't matter what happens to me, as long as Rio…

He kept his eyes just above the ring. He had hardly moved, he realized dimly, for all the turmoil inside him, and with the noise of the duel ongoing and the fact that he was sitting away from both the entrance and the audience, no one was even looking in his direction. If he could just hold it together for a little longer.

One of the duelists taunted the other — standard trash talk, but Ryoga heard it in another voice, a mocking voice that he heard in his dreams through walls of fire and clouds of smoke — and that was too much. There was a bathroom only a few yards away; he stood up, forcing his legs to move without shaking, and walked, not ran, into it.

The moment the door closed behind him, Ryoga collapsed.

He took deep breaths, or tried to; the air wouldn't move into his lungs, his heart beat fast, and it was too hot in the bathroom, and none of his limbs would move correctly, and all Ryoga could hear and see was the hospital, Rio's body covered in bandages, the heart monitor beating steady and slow, the doctors whispering about survival rates and surgeries and life support —

It took him a long time to regain control. By then, he was leaning back against one of the sinks; he noticed then that the bathroom was filthy, and it smelled, and after tracking down Kaito and then having to convince Rikuo and Kaio to bring him along, it hurt to sit on the hard tile floor. Ryoga shielded his nose with the sleeve of his jacket and thought.

I can't waste any more time.

Ryoga looked up. There was a vent on the wall across from him. It was small, but so was he; he could probably fit, if he were willing to be uncomfortable.

The vent couldn't be worse than the bathroom, and there was no way he was going to be able to steal anything otherwise, not without being noticed. Ryoga had to use the sink for support to haul himself upright, but he did.

Thirty minutes and a painful, cramped crawl through a dusty ventilation shaft later, Ryoga found another vent that led into a room.

An occupied room, Ryoga saw, and he scooted backwards as quietly as possible in case one of them looked at the vent. There were two of them; a woman and a man, the woman with a stern face, the man's expression suggesting he was about to get into trouble. They were brightly dressed, like duelists, and they were carrying disks and deck cases, but what were they doing back here, then?

"…a dangerous plan."

"Oh, come on, Droite! Don't be a stick in the mud. Heartland said it was alright."

"Gauche, the case —"

"The case will be fine! When was the last time you dueled?"

The woman frowned, but her fingers twitched towards her belt. Ryoga watched as she stepped forward; he could see that she was carrying a briefcase in her right hand. It was ordinary: bron leather, shiny, no visible locks. Ryoga felt a jolt when he saw it, and he knew.

Impossible — there was no way — and yet Ryoga had heard the rumors that beloved city icon Mr. Heartland was somehow a criminal, and these two were duelists who apparently didn't duel much, and there was nothing else of value here in the underground dueling rings. It was too good to be true.

"Alright." Droite set the case on the table gingerly. "Let's go."

The two left, the door clicking shut behind them, and once Ryoga could no longer hear their footsteps, he moved the vent cover and slid down onto the floor. He brushed the dust off his body as he walked, slowly, towards the case.

There was a simple latch holding it closed. Ryoga looked around once more, and then he opened the briefcase. Nestled in the black velvet lining were twelve large pink rocks, crystals filled with light, Barianite that was larger and brighter than any Ryoga had ever seen. He'd heard about the exorbitant prices of the barely-glowing pink powder that was common place all over Heartland now, but this was the real stuff, almost blinding, worth its weight in gold.

He closed the case and hefted it; he expected an alarm to go off, or for something to happen, from the way Droite had handled the case, but nothing did. It could be a silent alarm. The case would be rigged to blow. It could be anything. Which meant he had to leave quickly.

There was no window in the office, so Ryoga had to risk the door. He opened it to an empty hallway, to silence, and he fled.

He found a door leading out back without running into anyone else, and he ran across the city to the hospital. His lungs burned like the air was on fire. His legs ached like he'd been beaten. The briefcase kept knocking into him as he sprinted, and every time it did it left bruises. Everything around him seemed to be blurred; later, he wouldn't remember what route he'd taken or the near misses with cars.

But no one tried to stop him.

Ryoga reached the hospital, and thought the night nurse gave him an odd look, she let him sneak into Rio's room. He approached the bed, where Rio lay still as death, and set the briefcase beside opened it, and gently lifted out the first stone. He set it beside her hand, and when he placed her palm over it, the light drained into her, seeping away into her skin. The heart monitor beeped faster.

"Hey, Astral."

"Yuuma." Astral floated upside down over Yuuma's hammock. "You are awake."

"I was just thinking." Yuuma held up the card he'd been carrying around since the moment the Key activated, the one that street duelist had left behind when he'd run away after he'd lost. Yuuma could still remember the frightened look in his blue eyes before he'd fled. He hadn't even given Yuuma his name.

He wondered if the duelist was in danger. If he were lonely. If he had noticed that his Black Ray Lancer was missing.

"We should go look for that guy again tomorrow."

"He does not have a Numbers," Astral said. His head was cocked to the side. "And he is dangerous, is he not?"

"Nah." Yuuma tucked the card back into his deck case, next to Hope. "I could tell from his duel. I bet he's cool."

"Then perhaps tomorrow, we will find him."

"Yeah," Yuuma said. He could feel his heart beating fast. There was something exciting about to happen, he thought. He could feel it.