Sky: *Looks up from reading a book* Um… what's going on now?

S-S: Shhhhh! Don't let them know he's here!

Sky: …Again, what?

*Someone knocks on the door*

S-S: Tch. *Opens the door a crack; it's a crowd of extremely angry 5Ds characters* You need something?

Akiza: Yeah, where's Doccy?!

S-S: Behind you.

Akiza: Wha—!

*Some time later*

Sky: Okay, seriously. What the heck is going on?! Why were those guys looking for Doccy, and why did you duct tape them?!

S-S: Doccy and I are co-writing a story. It's set in the Blue Sky-verse and incorporates The Darkness Within, too…

Doccy: Akiza and the others aren't too happy about that. As for the duct tape, nothing, no matter how powerful, magical, or awesome can penetrate it.

Joseph: Unless you're me! But they're not me because I'M me! *Continues eating cake*

*Vague noises of frustration from the closet*

Joseph: Sorry Lucy! Can't let you guys out because CAKE!

Sky: Well that explains where the evil muses are. *Pales* But, wait… a collab between you two… oh god…

S-S & Doccy: Exactly.

Sky: Well. Guess I have no choice but to stick around. Ugh. Is there a betting pool for how long it takes for me to die in this story?

S-S: *Laughs*

Doccy: We don't own Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds…

S-S: …but we DO own our OCs. Hope you guys enjoy our new story!

Chapter 1

Even though I'm so excited to be back home with the gang for the first time in four years, I still manage to wear myself out enough to take a nap on the plane ride there. Immediately after I shut my eyes, I hear screaming and smell burning. New Domino. New Domino itself is burning, its citizens screaming to their last breaths. I can't move, can't do anything to stop this image in front of my eyes.

"Open your eyes. You don't have to wake up, but open your eyes."

Was this… a vision? After so long? But—no, I refuse to believe this is New Domino's future. It can't be.

"The world should have died long ago, Fudo. Your actions do nothing but delay the inevitable."

I don't know where that voice is coming from, or why it's speaking to me. My actions only delay the inevitable? Is that doomed future that Dusk and the others spoke of still going to pass? But… they all vanished. That means the future had to have changed. I just don't understand…

"Victory is impossible to achieve without sacrifice."

Something I wouldn't really know. I've never had to sacrifice anything that directly mattered to me without justifying that it would just come back or something. I'm not like Dusk at all in that regard… B-But I still succeeded in my goals, didn't I?

"Heroism is nothing but a barefaced lie. A lie so common that even its inventors forgot that it was a lie."

Okay, now that's just stupid. Without heroism, people would be dying left and right in accidents that could have been stopped, or murders that could have been prevented. And… and the world would have been destroyed twice over—by the Dark Signers and by Yliaster. …Well, at least New Domino and Satellite would've been destroyed by Yliaster.

"She is lying to you…"

The last thing I see of this vision is the silhouette of a person—I think it's a young man… that has horns?—set over the top of the burning city.

I gasp, my eyes snapping open. I nearly hit my head on the seat in front of me as I sit up, coughing madly. Like I'd actually inhaled a ton of smoke… But that was just a dream. I couldn't have actually inhaled smoke.

"Sky? Are you alright?" Shoshan's worried voice asks as he lets go of my hand.

…Wait, why was he holding my hand to begin with? "Shoshan… yeah, I'm fine. But why were you…?"

"A-Ah…!" My friend blushes faintly and looks away, scratching his chin. "I was just—your Mark started glowing, and you looked like you were in pain. What were you dreaming about?

I stare at the red mark on the back of my hand, the one that marks me as the Envoy of the Crimson Dragon. I've always wondered why I still have this power, even though everything is peaceful now. If it was glowing, then… maybe that was a premonition. I shudder at the thought. "I… I saw New Domino burning," I admit. No point in trying to hide something from Shoshan. He's too persistent to leave something like this alone.

"Burning?"

"Yeah… but, but I'm sure it's nothing," I say, though I don't sound convinced. "Even if it's not, well, there's no way I'd let that happen, so there's really nothing to fear."

Nothing to fear. Right…

"So," Crow tries to start, nearly chokes on the food he has in his mouth and has to swallow before he continues, "why don't we have some fun?"

The reunion, so far, has been nothing but catching up on what's happened to everyone since we went our separate ways, and eating a pretty lavish meal that Martha prepared for us. Akiza has been doing her absolute best in college, and can now speak German somewhat fluently. Leo and Luna have also been doing good in school, though it sounds like Leo is about ready to enter the pro leagues. Crow's been having fun with the team he's a part of, winning almost every Duel he's been a part of (no surprise here). Jack, well, he's basically my rival at this point even though we both know that Yusei is his true rival, and I'm quite looking forward to the next Duel I have with him. And as for Yusei, he's made extreme progress in refining the Ener-D Reactor, setting up so many failsafes to prevent the disaster that was Dusk's future.

Then Trudge and Mina are also here. As a "welcome back to New Domino" message from Lazar on Mina's part, and actually as Yusei's friend on Trudge's. Not that I find any problem with that.

Well, Crow's statement somehow triggers everyone to start talking about the scariest things they've been through, barring the things we've been through because of being Signers. It's a bit hard, listening to Crow talking about the time before he was found by Yusei and came to the orphanage, but he was the one who suggested it so he can't just chicken out now. But no one really takes it seriously, until…

"This is nice and all… but can I share one as well?" Trudge asks, leaning forward in his chair.

"You've got a story?" Leo asks, all-too-excited to hear something from an officer of the law.

"Yeah, it was actually the reason I received my first promotion," Trudge replies, leaning back. "Let's see… it was about two years after Zero Reverse. The day started off just fine, no trouble in the part of the City I was patrolling. Then word came in of a Psychic Duelist going nuts inside of an abandoned building."

I look at Akiza's face; talking about Psychics going crazy might be hard for her considering what happened to her. But it's unreadable, aside from a slight frown.

"Naturally my squad shows up at the building. There's a crowd around the building and they're all freaking out about the ungodly screams coming from inside the place. We head in there, and it's this kid, probably only 18 or so, with the strangest Duel Disk attached to his arm. He'd stopped screaming by then. Well, he wouldn't put down the Duel Disk—and at this point the other officers all take out their guns and are near ready to kill the guy."

Okay, well this just got suspenseful.

"I wasn't going to let it end just like that, though. I stand my ground, trying to talk some sense into the guy. He responds by letting his powers go out of control—the ground was shaking and the kid somehow grew these large wings made of energy, and he roars—but then almost immediately calms down when his Duel Disk deactivates itself. To this day, the kid's face haunts me. He was so angry, so frustrated… but it looked like he'd gone through hell and barely came out alive. I even asked how he survived whatever made him so angry and sad, and he goes and says, 'Who said I did?'"

The table's silent for a moment—crazy, I know, when Leo and Crow are both here. On the other hand, there's not much to say. I mean, I wonder what happened to make that boy so broken, but I doubt Trudge knows either.

It's actually Trudge himself that breaks the silence as he suddenly frowns, turning towards Akiza. "Actually… his yearly psychological analysis is set for tomorrow. Would there be any way you could assist, Akiza?"

"Me?" The magenta-haired woman raises an eyebrow. "I'm not done with medical school yet, would I even be allowed to?"

"I don't mean conducting the whole analysis, just help out a little, get a set of fresh eyes on his situation. Maybe we'll even make progress on helping him, considering we've never had another Psychic talk to him," Trudge replies.

Somehow, Akiza agreeing to help out with the analysis turns into all of us tagging along to watch. Like this is some sort of attraction at a circus. I'm not entirely comfortable with it; my gut's been nagging me since that nightmare I had that something bad is going down soon. Besides, Jay Alkain—that's the poor Psychic's name—is still a person. This just isn't right…

"That's him?" Akiza asks as she stares through the window of an isolation cell. A doctor is already in there, a pudgy bald man with glasses so thick I can't see his eyes from here. The other occupant, though…

He appears to be about eighteen (even though according to Trudge's story, he looked like he was eighteen twenty years ago). He has blood-red hair that's an absolute mess, like he didn't bother combing through it this morning—or any morning. His eyes, meanwhile, aren't like anything I've seen before. One was a once-vibrant blue that was now cold, and the other, blood-red like his hair. But… the scariest thing was that he had horns. You'd think that Trudge would have mentioned something like that.

Horns… just like that silhouette…

I blink, forcing the thought away. It's a coincidence. Has to be.

"Yeah," Trudge replies.

Akiza stares, a far-off look in her eyes. "It's strange…"

I'm about to ask what she means by that when the doctor starts to speak. "Alright Jay, we'll start with some simple word association. Just say what pops into your head first. If I were to say 'Day', you would say…" the doctor trails off.

"Sun," Jay responds. I can't sense any emotion at all in his voice.

"Exactly." The doctor clears his throat. "Now, the next one. Fire."

The emotionless look fades for a moment as he shifts, but it returns almost immediately. "Guilt."

"New Domino."

A haunted look appears in his eyes. "Destroyed."

Okay, now that's a weird thing to connect to New Domino. Destroyed? I place my hand against the glass and stare at the man I don't know what to think of. Guilty when fire's mentioned… my dream… No! That dream hasn't happened and it won't happen in the future!

"Duelist."

"Warrior."

"Psychic.

"Monster."

Akiza tenses briefly, and Yusei gives her a reassuring look.

Right, her parents had called her a monster when she first developed her powers…

"Sun."

"Darkness."

The doctor frowns and jots down a few notes. Then he continues, "Moon."

"Gone," Jay responds without missing a beat. But he's starting to sound impatient, compared to him being stoic for the last several answers.

The doctor retains the frown. "Akron."

For once, Jay has no response. His eyes are even colder now, like he's trying to keep all his emotions locked up that respond to that word. Akron, though. What does it mean?

"Akron," the doctor repeats, louder.

"Done," Jay says firmly, his lips sealing shut. He's done talking for now, whatever 'Akron' means clearly upset him somehow.

To be continued…

Sky: Oh, great. We got a premonition of the City on fire, what amounts to a recap of the end of The Darkness Within, and now Jay's here too. And I'm not liking the title of this story at all…

Jay: I'd agree if this bothered me. I've gotten too used to Doccy throwing me through hell and back…

Sky: …True, you'd think I would be used to the chaos my author comes up with.

S-S: Yeah, you've been through how many stories now that specifically traumatize you? Eight? Meanwhile Jay's only been through technically three.

Doccy: The Darkness Within, Ascension, and I Miss You? Yeah, three, unless you count Redux separately.

Sky: *Shrugs* Well, whatever. I just wonder how long it's going to take for everything to go downhill.

*S-S and Doccy exchange looks*

S-S: You'll find out very soon.

Doccy: In the meantime, we wish all of you a happy new year!

S-S: Yep! And please, don't forget to favorite, follow, and review this story if you like it!