A/N: Hiya~! Mana here, with a 5D's oneshot, no less. Surprising, considering how addicted I am to the Sonic fandom, but 5D's recently won a very strong spot in my heart. =D This story is based on the Fortune Cup Duel between Yusei and Aki. I was trying to capture Aki's feelings during the duel. My inspiration kind of spurred from the last episode where (spoiler!) Aki tells Yusei that she was afraid of him when they first met. My initial reaction was, "Wha? Aki scared of Yusei? You're the one who was throwing him into the ground. ._.", but I thought about it, and that's how this was born! =D So, without further ado: Victim Sanctuary!

~Victim Sanctuary~

Normally, when Aki Izayoi dueled, the emotions she felt during the duel were always kept under wraps, hidden away behind her mask and locked away within the deep recesses of her hardened heart.

However, this was not one of those occasions.

This situation had forced her to leave her mask off. At the moment, the pristine, white piece plastic that gave her comfort like a teddy bear would to a child was hiding within her crimson dress, due to the fact that Divine wanted her to show her face to the world with pride. She hated not having her mask on, and the temptation to put it on was growing stronger. To her, it seem like with each passing second, her opponent's piercing cobalt gaze was peeling away her layers of protection and revealing the crying little seven-year-old girl whose father had called her a monster.

Her opponent was Yusei Fudo.

This man with a wretched mark just like hers had revealed so much in this one duel. Each card she played seemed to have been some sort of step for him; some sort of key to figuring out her heart. In a way, he called her out, saying that she enjoyed the destruction her powers brought. He claimed that she loved seeing the pain she caused with her cards, such as the damage her Black Rose Dragon could conjure up just from being summoned or when she had used Rose Tentacles to throw him into the ground.

And he was right.

He was so frighteningly on the mark, that she couldn't even fathom the idea at first. How could he tell, but she couldn't? She was Aki, so shouldn't she have understood all of her feelings? However, after all the jeers of crowd finally got to her, she realized she did enjoy the destruction. She loved the feeling of taking out her misery on the people who called her a witch, a demon, a monster.

After all, was she really the monster?

It wasn't her fault that the wretched mark had chosen her. That the stupid tattoo and this "Crimson Dragon" decided to give her freakish powers along with it. She couldn't control her powers, and people labeled her because of it. They would throw insults like sharp rocks with no shred of remorse, no hint of compassion, no sense of mercy towards the human being that was forced to walk this path.

When her powers had first appeared on that cursed day, all she had truly wanted was to have a simple duel with her papa. She wanted to show him how good she could duel with the deck that he had given her. She wanted to beat him in a duel and have him be so proud that he would scoop her up into his arms and give her butterfly kisses that tickled and forced her to laugh joyfully.

But that wasn't how it turned out.

She became upset with her Papa. He received a phone call and had the audacity to say he would be on his way. Why couldn't he have said he was busy? He was the boss, her seven-year-old mind reasoned. He should have been able to tell those mean people who always stole her Papa away that he was playing with his daughter and it would have to wait until later.

But he was going to leave her behind.

Again.

And so, she continued her attack, even though he said he had to go (because really, he didn't have to), and then a blast of a yellow, orange, and red inferno erupted from the card and assaulted her father. The columns of flame disappeared, and her Papa fell to the ground with a frightening thud. Last time she checked, cards weren't supposed to do that. Was she the one who did that? Did she just hurt her Papa? Her arm started throbbing, and that wretched mark had appeared on her arm and stuck with her like a tattoo. Naturally, the young girl was frightened, and tears formed in her eyes. She walked towards her Papa, because she wanted him to help her. Papa could fix this, she thought, because he was Papa. He would make the pain go away, he could make the scary mark disappear, and he would always love-

"Stay back, Aki! What was that power right just now? It's almost as if you were some kind of… monster!"

Monster.

That was the name her father had branded on her heart that day.

She had wanted him to console her, and he had rejected her. She started crying. She was sobbing, wailing, hiccupping- begging him to take the word back because it felt like she was being squeezed in her chest where her heart was supposed to be.

He may have apologized that day, but his actions proved that he wasn't going to help the cause. He had slapped her when she had taken the frustration of being teased by young children by unleashing her powers on them. He sent her away to Duel Academy, because he couldn't handle her.

And lastly, his darkest sin of them all was that he laughed with her mama, simply because she wasn't there to cause them anymore pain.

From that day on, the story of the Black Rose Witch began. With a mask upon her face, she took out every foolish duelist that dared to cross her path. She wasn't going to hold back her powers anymore.

Yusei Fudo had seen a few of the feelings that were buried within her heart: rejection, anger, and the joy of causing pain towards others.

But now, the marked man who stood across the field from her was trying to convince her to do the impossible. He was asking her to think. To reject the dark feelings she harbored because, according to him, that wasn't who she was. She told him to shut up, because he had no idea of how much she was suffering. The only man who understood her was Divine. He would think for her. He would love her.

And so, when Yusei's Stardust Dragon destroyed another of her monster, she resorted to wearing her mask. She was tired of his ridiculous notions of who she really was. Maybe she didn't know who she actually was. But she could let Divine decide that, and she would be fine.

She decided from that point on that she would definitely win the duel. When she won, she would prove to that horrible man called Yusei Fudo that the way she was living her life now was alright. Because Divine loved her, and he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.

Aki had to win the duel.

Because if she lost, then that would that mean her whole world was wrong.

The duel continued once her mask was secure. It felt so much better now that her mask was shielding her face. She could be the Black Rose Witch. With her mask, she knew that all she had to do was feel. No more thinking. She would only enjoy the pain of others without a shred of regret.

And she would enjoy seeing Satellite's Shooting Star suffer from her wrath.

But as the duel persisted, Aki lost her the confidence she was using to empower her. Her gut clenched as she became more nervous. The man's intense gaze did not falter, nor did his attempts to sway her beliefs. Eventually, her birthmark started throbbing, and she clutched it in a futile attempt to tell it to shut up.

"Why is this birthmark throbbing? Why isn't this fun? Why does it hurt?" Aki wondered desperately.

Her opponent had launched into a monologue, explaining to her that her time to change was now. He claimed that anyone who held the birthmark was bounded by a fate. He stated that they all shared the same pain and could understand each other because of it.

She hated him. She thought he was stupid. Her birthmark was asking her to do something for it? This wretched mark had caused her nothing but pain. What did she owe to it? The fact that, because of the stupid birthmark, she was allowed to meet this lovely little opponent who tried to destroy the world she created? That she was abandoned by her parents and forced to suffer a living Hell? Yusei thought that he could understand what she had been through, and it sounded like blasphemy to her ears.

His speech reached his climax as he screamed at Aki from across the field, "Don't leave thinking to others! Think for yourself!"

He couldn't see, but her expression was one of disbelief behind her mask. She responded to his declaration, "What does a witch like me have to think about? So long that Divine shows me the way and loves me, then-"

"No!" he interrupted her. "You have to love yourself!"

She was caught off guard by his exclamation, and her malicious feelings towards him were shoved aside for a moment to contemplate the idea. Love herself?

"If I could do that…" She mused aloud. "If I could…"

Loving herself involved thought. Loving herself involved forgiveness. Not only would she have to throw away the self-loathing of herself (because she knew deep inside that she did hate herself), but she would have to forgive her father, forgive the cursed mark that was painfully throbbing on her arm, forgive everything that hurt her before she could possibly love herself.

Impossible.

No one… Not her father, not the Crimson Dragon, not even Aki herself deserved that kind of forgiveness.

"NO!" she heard herself shout back at Yusei. "I can't!"

"Can't you see how much I'm suffering!"

She was drowning in absolute chaos. Her power inhibitor clip flew out of her hair, and she didn't care. She felt her powers scream out for the wicked man's blood. She hated him.

She destroy him like how he was trying to destroy her world.

She detested him for even suggesting the idea of thinking.

But most of all, she was afraid of him. Afraid of how true his worded sounded to her weeping heart.

Aki beckoned for her Black Rose Dragon to activate its effect: the destruction of all the cards on the field. 'Destroy them!' she thought amongst the chaos of her heart and mind. 'Get rid of that wicked man!'

But fate wasn't having it. In her rage, she forgot her opponent's monster's effect.

"I'll catch anything you dish out!" Yusei had cried, causing Aki's eyes to widen. What was he saying? "Vent out all your sorrows!" Why was he doing this…? "Victim Sanctuary!"

The sparkling ivory and sky blue dragon rushed forward at her dragon, embracing it with its wings.

And with a sudden start, Aki understood what the man across her was trying to do. She knew there were times that a duel could reveal everything to the opposite duelist. Something about the vigor and passion within a fight brought out the feelings within anyone's heart and laid them out on the field for the other duelist to see. Their dragons were their symbols. Aki was Black Rose Dragon, and Yusei was Stardust Dragon. Yusei saw the girl behind the mask. He saw her misery, her fear, her anger, rejection, self-loathing-

He saw Aki Izayoi. And he saw that she was crying.

So he wanted to save her, to stop her tears because he knew that if he didn't, then no one would.

Divine may have taken away her need to think, but he could never take away her ability to feel. In fact, that was the only responsibility her mentor had left that to her. And because of that, she was still suffering. Divine had saved her, yes, she would never even dream of denying that. But she was still crying. She was just a little girl who was subjected to a cruel fate.

Stardust Dragon's effect: Victim Sanctuary. Yusei was offering her a safe place. He was offering her a home.

Ice froze Aki's insides and she began trembling. She had a home. She had Divine. She didn't need him. She wouldn't take his offer simply because she didn't need it. She wasn't a victim! And as the symbol of Aki, Black Rose Dragon began striking her captor with her sharp vines, mimicking the thought process of her master, trying to pierce the other dragon with her thorns. She didn't want anything to do with his offer. But Stardust Dragon (or was it Yusei?) held fast. He didn't let go.

The two dragons disappeared from sight…

As shaken as Aki was, she tried to strengthen her resolve to beat him. He was wrong. He had to be.

"If I land a direct hit, I'll win," she explained to him.

She was almost relieved. She absolutely had it with this duel. Aki was drained by him and his frightening resolve to change her.

Yes, the Black Rose Witch was afraid of this so-called "Shooting Star".

"I wish everything would just go away…" she whispered to him.

She was afraid of this man.

"Don't try to make me think."

His words, his presence, everything about him terrified her…

"You're indeed a wretched foe."

…because it was frightening how much she was tempted…

"If I am, then why are you crying?"

…to make a wish on that shooting star.

Yusei activated his trap card, Cosmic Blast, and with a vengeance, Stardust Dragon swallowed the power of the gales she had created with her mind and shot it back towards her.

She was going to lose.

That terrifying realization hit her harder than the rock that hit her face and destroyed her mask. Her body slumped in defeat after her only shield she had left fell from her face and laid broken on the floor.

She had lost.

And because she lost, it meant that Yusei was right. Her whole world was a lie. The way she was living wasn't the right way to live. She may have liked seeing other people suffer, but she didn't take pleasure in the fact that she was causing pain with her powers. She had to love herself, or she would destroy herself instead. But how was that even possible? Loving herself? What was she supposed to do? How was she going to rebuild her world? Why was she always the one who had to suffer?

She felt tears of hopelessness and fear gather on the corners of her eyes, ready to cascade down her cheeks as a sign of her surrender. She had lost the duel, and it seemed like the path she had ever known had disappeared before her eyes.

Aki Izayoi had no idea what to do. She was lost, so she took her chance.

She wished on this Shooting Star.

"Help… me…"

And she prayed that he would answer her call.

How was it? I could really use a critique, but please go easy on me; first 5D's fanfic. Ever.

But thanks for reading! =D