Title: Cast a Reflection
Characters: Asuka, Selena, Ruri||Ship: Asuka x Selena/Selena x Asuka
Word Count: 500/5,000||Chapters: 1/10
Genre: Angst, Friendship||Rated: PG
Challenges: Diversity Writing, Arc-V Alternate/Divergent timelines, G1, drabble novel; Word Count Set Boot Camp, #27, 5,000 words; Arc-V Angst Week Day #4, Separation
Notes: This takes place in the same universe as my earlier fic Good-bye. For those who haven't read that, then the Professor chose to use Selena to find the other bracelet girls, and Asuka is her partner/girlfriend (much as Yuuri and Dennis work together in canon, only deeper).
Summary: To find one's target means going deep undeercover, concealing one's allegiance, and witnessing horrors undreamed of first hand. Asuka never suspected to find a friend with the face of her beloved, let alone have to choose between the truth of her life and truths she's just begun to learn.

Asuka wanted to turn her head away from what she saw. Endless lines of soldiers of Academia, marching through what had been a beautiful city only a few days earlier.

Her heart ached every time she even considered what she'd had to do. But she'd seen that face, as familiar to her as her own heartbeat, and there wasn't anything she could change about her orders.

I shouldn't have listened.

The face was the same. The hair and eyes a little different, the expression very different – the only time Selena didn't look absolutely determine was when she was asleep – but two faces, identical in every other way.

It sent shards of chill worry all through her, even more than when she'd sent the message back, that her target had been found and the invasion needed to begin.

The whole thing failed to make sense to her, really. If the Professor wanted someone from this world captured, then why bring in entire armies to card people? Especially when the one person they weren't allowed to card was that one?

It hadn't made sense to her from the beginning and even less so now.

The next part of her orders remained the same. If she could do this and then return to Academia, maybe she could talk to Selena about all of this. Selena would listen to her. Sometimes she was the only person Selena would listen to.

I should talk to them all.

Asuka wanted to find all of these girls, with mirror-image faces and those odd bracelets. She wanted to find them and bring them together and find out what was actually going on that the Professor wasn't telling any of them about.

There had to be something. The longer all of this went on, the more certain she found herself of it. She didn't know what it was, only that something secret was going on.

Why are there these girls who look like Selena? There were four of them; one for each dimension. He'd told her and Selena that much. Each one identical in the face, but with slightly different hair and eyes, and each identical in age down to the birthday. All duelists to some degree or other – Asuka remembered hearing that the one here in XYZ dimension wanted to be a pro duelist one day. She wasn't sure about the one from Synchro or Standard yet; she hadn't yet received all the information about them.

She pressed her lips together. She wanted all of that, but she knew that she wasn't going to get it without putting in more effort.

One good part about this invasion, if one could even call it good - she could hide herself in the destruction and claim she came from another part of the city. She'd never spoken to Kurosaki Ruri before. No one would know the truth of her origins.

She planned carefully for how to blend in with the survivors. No deck. No friends. No family.

Asuka started running.

To Be Continued

Notes: This will be updated on a weekly basis. See you next week!