Today's target was Chlorofiend.

Ryoga had put up a photograph of him onscreen while he planned out the theft; it seemed to be smirking at him, and the longer he watched it, the less guilt he felt about the fact he was planning to pickpocket an essentially innocent person. With a face like that, Ryoga decided, at the very least he was guilty of being an asshole.

And if he wasn't…well…Ryoga's entire life was proof that bad things happened to people who hadn't earned them. This was just one of them.

He slipped his deck into the inside pocket of his coat, and tucked the crest under his shirt so that it wouldn't be recognized. Twice in the past few weeks, he'd honed in on a Number only to arrive and find it had been stolen already. Whatever these Numbers were, he was no longer the only one hunting them. He would have to be more careful.

He checked his watch. It was time.

Ryoga parked his bike two blocks away from the mall, and walked, head down to avoid looking into any cameras, the rest of the way. He bought himself lunch when he arrived, in part because he was hungry, in part because he always tried to have a valid reason for being in a public place just in case someone linked him to a disturbance. He watched Chlorofiend duel while he ate.

He was, in fact, a douchebag. Ryoga gripped the fang hanging from his neck tightly for a moment before plunging into the crowd. People were swarming around Chlorofiend on all sides, some of them fans, some of them just everyday shoppers trying to get through. It was easy enough for Ryoga to lift the Numbers as he pushed past.

He slid the card up his sleeve and made his way to the wall, where he stopped for a moment and pretended to be engrossed in his d-gazer while he snuck a look at the card he had stolen: Numbers 50: Blackship of Corn. Satisfied, he tucked it away and actually pulled up his email on the d-gazer. Maybe the cops had found out something new about the fire.

He glanced up at the crowd to make sure no one was watching, and felt a pulse against his chest. There was another Numbers holder here, maybe even more than one. The number 39 was shining on the shoulder of a kid in the Heartland Academy uniform; it looked like he was a first year — was he named Yuuichi? Yukio? Yuuma, that was it — and beside him, there was an older boy and a blue-haired little kid. Neither of them glowed, but something about them set the hair on the back of his neck standing up — and then he saw him.

He was blue, and transparent, and floating above the crowd. His hair was pale and slicked upward; jewels studded his body. Ryoga had never seem him before. But he hated him. His heart pounding, he stared at the ice blue figure and despised him with everything he had. Whoever he was, Ryoga knew without being told that he was an enemy. He had to be destroyed. The crest beneath his shirt was burning against his chest, and Ryoga had to put his hand over it to keep the glow from being seen.

The blue figure turned his head and met his eyes across the mall.

Ryoga scowled and walked away.

Numbers 50 was the tenth Numbers Ryoga had collected, beginning with Numbers 32: Shark Drake, which he had received along with the crest he wearing. At his lowest point, he'd been given a chance to restore the only thing that really mattered to him. And if the cost was terrible, so be it. He had seen what life without Rio was like. He had no desire to live it.

Besides, he was sort of proud of how good at stealing he'd become. Ryoga was a good duelist — so good he'd defeated the famous IV at the Nationals last year — but after the extremely public fallout of that victory, he had quickly realized that if he dueled every duelist with a Numbers, it would not go unnoticed. He couldn't exactly ask the Numbers holders nicely — having a Numbers, as far as Ryoga could tell, brought out the crazy in people — so he'd resorted to stealing.

(Besides dueling made it worse.)

Rio would have been furious with him for sinking so low. Someday in the future, she would be around to berate him in person.

He took his bike back to the parking garage where it belonged, and walked from there back to the burned shell of a building he called home. Most of the building was gone, and what was left was blackened, falling apart, or both.

The basement was still mostly intact, though, and since the owners were still fighting with the city about zoning, it wasn't going to be demolished, sold, or rebuilt in the near future. Ryoga could climb over one of the remaining walls and climb down the steps into the basement without any problems. It was cold sometimes at night but Ryoga had managed to get several flashlights and three laptops and to steal internet down there.

And after a heist, like the one he'd just pulled, he normally crawled into his sleeping bag and crashed.

Not today, though. He had to hunt down the blue figure — the enemy — the —

Astral. The name came from nowhere into his mind, along with another wave of that seething hate.

Pain flared up briefly behind his left eye. Ryoga clamped a hand over it and made himself take slow, deep breaths until it passed.

Then he laid out his deck on the floor and began planning his attack.

Ryoga barely heard the rain falling over the pounding of blood in his ears.

Tonight's hunt was going wrong.

Soaked to the skin, he pushed his wet hair out of his eyes and stared at the field. What had started out as a duel was now a one-sided slaughter. They were only four turns in, and he could already almost taste defeat. He couldn't blame it on bad hands, or carelessness — he was dueling with everything he had.

Ryoga was forced to admit to himself what he would never say out loud: Astral's human, whoever the hell he was, was a better duelist than he was. He was probably the best duelist Ryoga had ever met. And if he won — when he won — Ryoga would lose everything, and Rio would never —

He swallowed down the fear and made himself reexamine his hand. He could probably hold out another two turns before he was whittled down to zero..

He should have left the moment he realized it was a trap. Astral and his human had been waiting for him, had predicted what he was going to do, had known his name and way too much about him. Ryoga knew that he should have run, but he never had before, and with Rio's face in his mind, how could he now?

His head hurt.

No. His eye hurt.

It was happening again.

The pressure was building up behind his face, pressing against the bones of his skull, the pain lancing through him like a hot knife shoved deep into the eye socket, Ryoga;s teeth clenched as he tried not to scream, and then —

Everything went red, and then black. He barely felt the impact as he fell heavily to the ground.

When he woke, there was a little kid with blond hair and only half a face leaning over him. Ryoga, still reeling from the stabbing pain in his head, considered it a victory that he didn't scream.

"You're awake."

"Who the hell are you?"

The boy, half of whose face was a void, turned away from him. "III, tend to him while I begin the ritual."

"I said, who the hell are —"

Ryoga was interrupted by the Barian. Cooperate with them.

But —

Cooperate with them. The Barian, whose voice always appeared directly in his mind, made his headache worse. Ryoga decided that arguing was pointless, and let it pass.

Void-face was talking to a pink-haired boy, presumably III. Both of them stood over the blue-haired little kid Ryoga remembered seeing at the mall. He had no idea who they were or what they were doing; Barian had never mentioned them.

He was always weak after an outburst. He didn't know how he'd gotten from downtown to this large, empty room, but he didn't question it. Weird things had happened after he lost it before.

He sat back and listened.

"Go and help IV and V with the preparations, III. We can't have Kaito interrupting the ritual."

"What about Yuuma, Tron?"

"Yuuma?" Tron laughed. "Your new friend? Are you worried about him?"

"No, but…he'll try to help Kaito."

"You and IV should be able to handle him."

"And Haruto?"

"They can have him back, once the ritual is over."

"What about…" III gestured in Ryoga's direction.

"Him? He'll go home and lick his wounds, if he knows what's good for him. The Barian won't like it if he interferes with our plans."

III left, heading down a staircase at the far side of the room. Tron lay down on the ground next to Haruto.

Ryoga didn't go; he sat there and thought about what he'd just learned. The mysterious Barian, who until now had been a voice in his head that he only knew existed because of the crest and the Numbers, had other people working for him. Whatever scheme was being carried out was more complicated than just collecting cards. Ryoga wanted to not care, to tell himself that as long as Rio came back, nothing else mattered, but…

The little kid was moaning in his sleep. "Nii-san…"

The cold, calculating thing to do would be to leave. If Kaito was Haruto's brother, he would be too busy looking for him to fight Ryoga anytime soon.

So Ryoga did nothing. Downstairs, the sound of dueling filtered upwards. Tron and Haruto began to float, and glow, wreathed in strands of twisted pink light.

Tron laughed.

Haruto groaned, as if in pain, and then glowed red briefly before falling back onto the floor.

"Nii-san…"

"Fuck it," Ryoga muttered. He got up and swayed dangerously on his feet; when would the pain stop? He staggered to the center of the room, and scooped up Haruto in his arms.

"What are you doing?" Tron asked. He tried to snatch at Ryoga, but whatever magic he was working on himself held him fast.

"Shut it," Ryoga replied. He ran for it.

He made it out of the building, which turned out to be an enormous mansion. Ryoga read the name Arclight on a plaque by the front gate as he passed through the grounds. He was far from the main roads, and panting heavily as he ran.

He went as as fast as he dared. But he could feel his strength flagging and if he was caught…

It was almost a relief when he was waylaid by Yuuma. Even if he was incredibly, obnoxiously loud.

"Hey! Shark!"

Ryoga stopped and turned to face Yuuma, who was surprisingly fast, and wearing Gagaga Magician pajamas.

It s been a while since anyone called me Shark…

"You're that kid who hangs around Kaito."

"Yeah — wait a minute! You're only a year older than I am!" Yuuma said. "And you kidnapped Haruto!"

He opened his mouth to protest and then closed it. The last thing he needed was for Yuuma or Kaito to think he was soft.

Instead, Ryoga thrust Haruto into Yuuma's arms. Yuuma caught him, and Ryoga idly considered stealing his Numbers while his hands were full. He let it go; it wasn't as if he couldn't collect them later.

Besides, if the Arclights caught up with him before Kaito did, he'd need his Numbers to defend himself. It would be pointless to rescue Haruto from —whatever the hell Tron had been doing — only to have him get kidnapped again on the same night. It would make Ryoga look incompetent.

The sound of a helicopter rumbled overheard. Ryoga glanced up reflexively — it was just a news copter — and decided it was time to go. He wouldn't go after Kaito tonight; any weakness from him having to duel the Arclights would be offset by the fact he'd be furiously trying to protect his brother.

"You should get out of here before they find us."

"Right," Yuuma said. He adjusted his grip on Haruto. "I'll take him home. Thanks, Shark."

He left, and Ryoga ducked into the shadows. For the first time, he concentrated on his left eye, and called up the pain. It burned, spreading across his face, down the back of his head, into his shoulders and back and arms. He let the heat build up deep inside him, until he felt like he would die if he didn't let go.

Then he snapped. There was a brief sensation of total numbness — he was outside his body, he was made of stars — and then he was on the floor of the basement of the burned down building, on his hands and knees. He was gasping for breath.

"Fuck," Ryoga said, and he dragged himself onto his sleeping bag and fell unconscious.