Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Red To Black: Chapter 1: I Don't Know
Characters: Juudai
Word Count: chapter: 1,025||story: 1,025
Genre: Drama, Angst||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Yu-Gi-Oh GX Non-Flash Bingo; Diversity Challenge, section I, #19, a multichap with chapters between 1000-2000 words
Notes: This begins in episode 136, just after Jim and O'Brien leave to follow Shou. Juudai's mind hasn't fractured into Juudai & Haou yet. This will be a retelling of how he came to power.
Summary: [1/15 chapters, Juudai, GX Non-Flash Bingo & Diversity Challenge] Juudai's always won before and it always fixed everything. But now that he's won and it's fixed nothing, what can he do?
Whispered voices reached to Juudai, murmurs of fear and panic, followed by footsteps, first quiet, careful movements, ones designed not to draw attention, and when that appeared to work, as he didn't look up at all, more hurried ones, replaced seconds later by all out running.
When he did look up, he was the only person in the arena. Brron's arena. Where they'd died. Where he'd failed to save them.
His heart twisted and Juudai found he couldn't even begin to stand up. He wanted to. He wanted to do something, but he had no idea of what that something might be.
Maybe doing something wasn't the right phrase. He wanted to undo everything. He wanted to go back to how everything had been a week ago. A month ago. A year ago. Two years ago. Back to before he'd knew there were worlds where people could die from dueling, before his friends had died because of him.
Before he'd remembered Yubel and the pain that he'd caused.
All his fault. He couldn't turn away from it, no matter how much he wanted to rewind time and let this all have not happened. If he hadn't sent Yubel into space, then Yubel wouldn't have become this evil monstrous creature that wanted revenge on him.
He stared down at his hands, seeing his duel disk on his arm as well. Perhaps if he'd never dueled this wouldn't have happened? The thought of giving it up sang to him in a sweet siren song.
No. No matter how much he wanted to, that wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't bring back his friends. Not dueling would only mean that he would die, and in a manner far more painful than his friends.
If that would bring them back, then he would do it. But it wouldn't. Nothing could bring them back. The thought ran around in his head like some kind of trapped mouse. He would do anything, but the one thing he could do, winning the duel against Brron, hadn't done anything.
Always before when he'd won a duel, whatever was wrong had stopped. He'd won against Darkness and released Fubuki-san. He'd won against Camula and Kaiser and Chronos-sensei had been released. He'd won against Abidos and given him what he wanted. He'd won against Daitokuji-sensei and freed Manjoume, Fubuki-san, and Asuka. He'd won against Kagemaru and saved all the duel spirits. He'd won against Edo and helped him have fun in dueling again. He'd won against Saiou and saved the entire world from the Light of Ruin.
But now he'd won against Brron and nothing changed. The people he'd lost hadn't returned. They couldn't return. They weren't trapped or sealed up somewhere. They were gone. Dead. No one came back from being dead.
Tears splashed down on his hands and he could feel his throat closing up with sobs. If he'd believed any kind of God was watching, he would've thanked them for the arena being gone. He didn't want anyone, least of all an army of evil monsters, seeing him break down like this.
Something else caught his eye, just a short distance away, within the reach of his hand. He rubbed the tears out of his eyes and stared at it.
Super Fusion? That was...the card Brron had boasted about, the one that...that...
His heart wrenched again, but his mind coldly supplied the words he didn't want to think.
The card that his friends had died for.
Slowly he reached for the card. He'd always loved Fusion monsters, the idea of making something strong out of what looked weak. Just what was Super Fusion anyway? What kind of power could it have that would make it worth killing people for? Could that kind of power exist?
No. Not for him, anyway. There wasn't any kind of power that made what had happened right.
Brron had said something about fusion materials and summoning some kind of amazing monster. Juudai didn't remember all of the monsters that came from Dark World, or all of their summoning conditions.
He picked the card up and stared at it, shuddering at the feeling in his fingertips as he did. In a part of him that he hadn't acknowledged in what felt like forever, he knew this card. It was almost like when he'd found the Neo-Spacians, their existence filling in a hole that he hadn't known existed until it wasn't there anymore.
"Juudai?" It was Neos. The great hero bent next to him, staring at the card. "That card...it is not of Brron's fashioning."
Juudai blinked, trying to get his voice to work. "What?"
"It comes from somewhere else. I don't know where, but not this world or Neo-Space." He frowned, staring down at it harder. "It's full power is still sealed, though."
Juudai returned his gaze to the card, and for a moment, it pulsed. In that moment, he could see writing. He'd always been quick to understand cards, when he bothered to pay attention to them. While he couldn't repeat the exact words, the essence of what it could do read clear to him now.
Whoever plays it can fuse any monsters from their field, and use monsters from their opponent's field as materials as well. You have to discard a card to activate it, and it can't be negated by anything.
That was powerful. Ideas for how to use it in battle flickered on the edges of his mind. His shoulders tensed and his eyes sparked with tears unexpectedly.
I can't. I shouldn't even if I could. It won't work now. It's not finished.
But regardless, he slid the card into his deck. He wanted to know more about this card. He wanted to know what it could do and what he would have to do to unleash its power. Surely there was a way aside from killing his friends.
"Juudai?" Neos rested a hand on his shoulder and Juudai looked up at him. "Are you certain of what you're doing?"
Juudai managed a small, weak smile, though his lips didn't really want to do anything of the sort. "No. But I never have been."
To Be Continued
