Nasch is pretty sure that the world hates him.
He's fought and died so often that he's died for the third time now, and he would've been content with just being. Dead.
Turns out, he is.
Except, he's conscious and in his human form and moving and in Heartland City.
So he considers.
Maybe this is what the afterlife looks like?
But that's bullshit, because Barian World is the actual afterlife.
There's no life after the afterlife, is there?
Then again Nasch has been through enough to consider what's happening now quite... normal.
Not good, not bad, just. Not really much of a surprise.
He's about to head for the hospital when he hears the roar of a very familiar engine—
his own.
Two things happen in quick succession:
1. Nasch realizes he can speak and understand English right now, and he's pretty sure he couldn't do that before.
2. The person riding the motorcycle— almost runs him over and yells.
"Watch where you're going, pipsqueak!"
"Who the hell are—" Nasch wants to say, but he shuts his mouth when the rider takes off his helmet... and it's him.
There's a moment of silence.
"That's a pretty lame trick, even for a Barian," the other him says, and he smirks as he looks at Nasch's Barian pendant. "You could've at least hidden that old-fashioned piece of jewelry you guys call your symbol!"
Nasch sighs. I traveled in time? Why now?
But something is off, because this isn't his voice and it definitely isn't his kind of words. 'Pipsqueak' is nothing Nasch would say and nothing Kamishiro Ryouga would say, either.
Nasch decides to ignore it for now. "Look, Ryouga, I'm—"
"Who's Ryouga?"
What.
"What's your name?"
"Reginald. Reginald Kastle. And now duel me, you'll be the first Barian I'll feed to my Sharks."
Nasch wants to facepalm, but he doesn't, and his duel disk materializes around his arm. "Will you shut up once I beat you?"
"A Barian like you is just prey for a shark, don't think you can win."
Nasch just wants the dumb shark jokes to stop.
They duel and it's weird, because Nasch is pretty much sure that this is the past, but it's not his past, and at the same time, it is.
It's like. It's his past but in English and with bad jokes and puns.
As predicted, Reginald summons Shark Drake and Aero Shark, and Nasch knows how to easily get rid of them, which is why he'd almost feel bad for Reginald... if it weren't for Reginald's trashtalking.
"Go, Aero Shark! Use your Torpedo Take Down to take that fake down!"
Nasch facepalms this time. "Can you stop that?"
"Stop what? Are you scared?"
But this undoubtedly still is me. An obnoxious and childish version of me, apparently.
Nasch shakes his head, draws Rank-Up Magic — The Seventh One, unsurprisingly, and uses it.
"Show yourself, Chaos Numbers 101! Guardian of unappeased souls—"
"What's up with that weird light sparkle stuff and those poems of yours?" Reginald interrupts him.
"What?"
"Yeah, like, what are those for?"
"Just shut up."
Unsurprisingly, Nasch wins the duel that turn, but not without listening to Reginald's pathetic attempts to seem unimpressed and the following "HOW COULD I LOSE" like that's an actual surprise or something.
"So," Nasch begins—
"Will you take my soul now?"
"I'm not Kaito."
"Kaito? You mean Kite?"
Nasch sighs. "Yeah, fine, Kite then. I'm not him and I'm not taking your soul and can you stop being annoying now? I just wanna know how to get out of here."
"Wait, wasn't it your mission to, you know? Defeat me and take my place? Or something? Not that you'd manage to do it, you're a bad actor, like, worse than my parents—"
"Your parents are dead, stop trying to look cool."
Reginald's face turns to shock for a second, then he returns to his regular expression. "What are you talking about? What games are you playing, Barian?!"
"You forgot about the car accident?"
"I thought they went missing after that... have you been stalking me?! Creepy."
Nasch is about to open his mouth— he's missed having one—, but—
"Shark!"
"Hm?" Nasch and Ryouga turn around simultaneously... to see Yuuma.
Oh god. Not Yuuma. Not now.
"A Barian?! Shark, why does that Barian look like you?!"
An obnoxious version of Yuuma, Nasch corrects himself.
"I don't know, but I was just about to show him a lesson about not messing with the king of the sea." Reginald smirks.
"You just lost a duel against me. Can we not do this?"
"A Barian who doesn't wanna fight? Isn't that good?" Yuuma asks, and he smiles and it's still the same smile, and Nasch thinks that's at least one good thing.
But then something clicks.
He thinks I'm part of the Barian's Guardian or something.
Nasch's suspicions are confirmed when Yuuma winks at him in the most obvious possible fashion.
Nasch figures he has to thank Vector for this.
"Yuuma, you can't trust Barians," Reginald protests, and for once, Nasch absolutely agrees with him, but he keeps quiet.
"But Shark," Yuuma pouts. "I'm sure there are good Barians."
And Reginald crosses his arms. Pretends— it's obvious— to think about it. "...Fine. But this is still fishy."
Nasch ignores their talk and decides to take some action. "Reginald, where is Rio?"
"Rio?" The pronunciation is different, but the name is the same. "She's with Tori, I think? What do you want from my sister?!"
"She's probably the only sane person around," Nasch mutters, and without much hesitation, he grabs Reginald's helmet and takes his seat on the motorcycle. "I'll return the motorcycle later."
"Wait, I'm not done with you yet—"
But Nasch doesn't listen to him anymore.
When Nasch arrives where Rio is, she faints and talks about approaching Barians, which is not a surprise, but still worrying to him. Tori doesn't quite catch the difference between him and Reginald for some reason, so it's easy to take Rio to Heartland River.
A few moments pass, then Rio opens her eyes again.
"You're not Reginald."
"You're not Kamishiro Rio."
"I'm Rio Kastle."
"I know. I need your help."
"With what?"
"I'm... let's say, I'm a dead version of Reginald from another world from the future. And. I'd like to go back where I belong. And where I come from, my sister usually had answers to problems like this. So."
"If you're here, there's probably some purpose you're meant to fulfill. Try sticking around my brother, it might help."
It actually sounds like good advice, Nasch knows, no matter how much he hates it.
"You're probably right. Thanks, Rio."
Two weeks have passed, he's getting used to Reginald by now. They are living together with Rio, and Nasch can't say he has complaints aside from preferring to be dead.
(Nasch feels Vector's voice whispering in his head, that suicide always is an option; but he knows it really isn't because Ragnazero is in his deck and that means Merag is in his heart.)
Nasch is starting to suspect that he's here to help Reginald embrace his nature as a Barian later, and he can't say he likes it.
When in Sargasso, Durbe— Dumon, Nasch corrects himself— doesn't realize the similarities between Reginald and the leader of the Barian Emperors (and on top of that, doesn't question Nasch spectating the duel), Nasch realizes—
His mission is to help things go their predetermined way because everyone is extremely stupid here.
So finally, he speaks up. "Ahem. Dur— I mean, Dumon. I wonder if any of us reminds you of a friend of yours, I don't know—"
"Now that you say it, yeah, Reginald is a bit like Nash."
Nash.
Nasch tries to not laugh. Or cry.
This isn't gonna be fun.
"There's no way I'm one of those filthy Barians!" Reginald insists, and he's in the hospital with Nasch, looking at Rio's unconscious form. "Something about this stinks."
"It's probably you," Nasch simply mutters, because Reginald won't listen and Reginald's stupid humor is starting to rub off on him.
I'd not have listened, either, though.
Nasch doesn't make many changes to history. He just helps out where things are about to go out of hand, and it goes quite well, until one evening Reginald is in his arms and crying because he can't deal with the pressure.
"You were from the future all along, weren't you?! Why didn't you tell me?!"
"You wouldn't have listened. I wouldn't have, either. Stop being overdramatic, the true hell has yet to start."
"What do you mean?"
"You think they won't put up a fight? You'll have to kill them."
"You mean, like, they'll die?" Disbelief in Reginald's eyes.
I hate this world. "Yeah. But. I can fight IV... Quattro for you in an hour from now or so. I did it once, I can do it again."
There's a nod from Reginald, and Nasch questions why he's even helping in the first place.
And why he can't have peace in his afterlife or whatever this is.
"You never should have challenged me, Quattro." Nasch tries hard to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing at the dialogue he came up with to imitate Reginald. "Winning was never in the cards for you."
The puns are still bad.
Nasch is pretty sure he sounded bored for the entire duel, but that's because Quattro isn't IV and Quattro's investment in the duel was anger from the start; no actual cruelty from Nasch's side was needed.
As he walks toward Reginald in order to switch roles again, his body starts glowing, and he feels that it's time. "Well, I'm leaving now. Good luck, chicken."
"You know what happened the last time someone called me a chicken?!"
"You made a fool of yourself, like now."
And with that, Nasch's body fades.
And he'd think that finally, finally, it's death, he can rest, it's over, but—
Yuuma's eyes.
"Shark! You're awake!"
Precisely, Yuuma's tears on his face and Yuuma is actually speaking Japanese and Nasch can't say how much he missed it.
"What happened?" Nasch mutters.
"Astral used the Numeron Code to revive you guys," Yuuma explains, and it takes Nasch another moment to realize Yuuma's tears are tears of happiness.
"And apparently some of us ended up in parallel universes in the time between our deaths and our revivals," Vector (who is sitting next to Yuuma) adds and he scowls.
"...Were you in a world where everyone made bad puns, too?"
"Yeah."
That explains a lot.