A prologue most mystical where little is said and all is revealed...

Disclaimer: I don't own 5ds.

Prologue:

To dream of him

Crow POV

I dreamed about him again.

It began as many of my dreams did, on the sparkling coast near Pearson's grave. The moist wind played softly with my hair, whispering through the bouquet lying serenely against the stone. As was usual, nothing else moved around me: my eyes never strayed from the blurred name of my departed friend, my normally twitching hands were still, and everyone else in the world had vanished for this moment of peace.

But I was far from calm, I was confused.

I hadn't spent my nights here since my duel with Bolger, when I had uncovered the truth about Pearson's death. The sense of closure from that battle had cured me of the poisonous guilt that drew me here like the moth to a flame. Then why was I here again?

For a moment I thought of Yusei, and wondered if my pain was anything like the agony he had silently suffered for seventeen years. I wondered if he visited his parents in his sleep; if he saw the explosion that had ended their lives. But he had been healed as well, hadn't he? As a matter of fact, I still believed he made it a point to soothe me because I had done the same for him.

What had he said?

Don't hold onto that guilt. If you think you are doing what is right, follow that path.

His words were fainter somehow, as if damaged by time like that faded photograph of Yusei's parents I'd found in Rudger's mansion.

I frowned, the first voluntary movement that had ever taken place by this seaside. There was something about that picture... something about Yusei...

As if that tiny action had flipped a dangerous switch within me, soon all my muscles were moving, contracting, stretching, as I bent over the grave and cleared of the straying petals from the bouquet. The quiet world chocked in silence.

The uncovered name stared back at me with its bold simplicity while I gasped, slack jawed, unable to process what I was taking in. I had to be seeing things, that was the only option. It had to be just another figment of my imagination in my completely screwed up dream world. There was no way this... because if it were true...

How could I have let this happen?

I jerked away and ran towards the flat-lined sea, desperate for a cold jerk to awake myself from this horrible nightmare. But I knew no matter how hard I pumped my legs, no matter now quickly I gulped in moist air, no matter how desperately I tried to escape from the haunting truth; relief would never come.

No matter how deceptive this place was with its whispering wind and glittering sunlight, it would never bring me peace.

I knew what it was that carried me here when sleep came to call in the starless nights. I knew why that name stared up at me from the cold rock. I knew why I would never reach the cold ocean waters that would bring me relief.

It was because he had died like Pearson: suddenly, young, and without any proper explanation.

And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why he wanted it that way.

Ruca POV

I saw them again tonight.

The water had been unnaturally still, even for the Spirit World. I remember that the grass was damp with morning dew and the crisp breeze of the ocean not even two feet from my bare toes. I remember staring out into the great blue mirror without blinking, hoping for reassurance in such a lonely place. I remember watching the sun break across its surface, casting reflected light into the soft sky.

And I will never forget what followed.

She came first, appearing with the sun in slow winding steps. Whispers on water, the blue surface below her cracked like a shattering mirror with every step she took, distorting her reflection beyond repair. Her short hair floated freely around her in the caress of the morning wind, framing her heart shaped faced like a beautiful painting. Where she had been red before, there was simply white.

With the rustling of wings, he came next, shadowing her movements with soft footfalls. Yet where hers fractured the glass, his healed. He had eyes only for her, and followed without a sign of complaint. Where he stood there was no reflection beneath him, only dark waters.

She looked back, smiled, and offered her hand to close the space between them. He took hers by the wrist, and took the lead, carrying her towards the blinding horizon.

"Don't leave!"

Before I knew it I was running, sprinting across the ocean surf, screaming out their names with all the power my weak lungs could manage. My cries must have reached their ears, for they turned to watch me approach, something stricken across their lovely faces.

My chest burned, and I wished that my brother was here to egg me on, to give me the strength to reach them. Feet pounding against the freezing glass below me, I could feel it splintering against my bare flesh, stabbing me without hesitation. Sharp pinpricks of blood strained a crimson trail behind me before falling like stars into the stirring ocean waves.

But I didn't care—couldn't care!

They were shaking their heads now, urging me back without speaking a word, desperation in their actions and bright eyes. But I couldn't stop, not with them so close, so pretty, so white! Not when I could see them again, touch them again, hold them again!

It was not to be.

Something was shifting in the ocean currents as I drew closer to them. Waves began to crash around me, surf clouded my eyes with stinging salt whenever I blinked. The solid ground at my feet began to wither, the surface tension becoming iffy at best as they shook their heads and began screaming out to me, words lost in a typhoon of howling gales.

But I couldn't turn back, I had to reach them, I had to save them!

"Go back!" The wind carried their words to me, but I couldn't listen. Didn't they see it was too late for that now?

I didn't see how literal that really was.

My foot felt the jaws of thin ice shatter as it fell through, sawing jagged lines up my leg. Before I could breathe, before I could scream, the cold sting of open water swallowed me whole. The ocean had me tight in its grasp, sucking me into its depths, back to that place where it was so hard to breathe, pounding me with waves and unpredictable currents, spinning me like a hopeless top in all directions...

Though my vision grew darker and colder, my eyes did not stray from the surface where they walked so effortlessly on water, where the sun shined warm on their hair, where they pounded on the barrier they could not cross and tried to reach me, where they shook their heads in hard warning...

Where the black waves and silver wind carried their words to me:

Hope precedes death, Ruca.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

Jack POV

Jack Atlas does not get nightmares.

No, I may have unpleasant dreams from time to time, but there is nothing my subconscious can conjure up to frighten me. It was childish to be afraid of the dark, and Kings had no business cowering at figments of their own imagination. It did not matter if blue eyes followed my every move at the night, if the wind whispered strange things through the window when I woke in the early morning.

And there was no need to close that gateway to the outside world because:

I. Was. Not. Scared.

I had no business believing in ghosts, those were fairy tales made to frighten the lesser minded. I would not sit quietly at the table in the morning, pale faced, because he leaned in and murmured things that made my mark bristle under the covers.

Someone had to be strong in this damned garage.

Someone had to pull the others together and repair the missing gap. Bruno sure as hell couldn't. Crow was too busy listening to the wind.

But I was not busy fussing over the unknown. It didn't matter to a King; the only important things were protecting my kingdom and ruling sensibly. So I'll let the others wake with screams in the morning and stay up till dawn the following night; what they believe is their own business.

But I don't believe, I know. That's what separates the weak from the strong, that's what makes Crow a close friend instead of my sole rival. He's stuck with his head in the clouds, distracted by fairy tales like a child, while I'm staring down the barrel of the gun our friend left behind for us.

Oh, yes, the King must always know what challenge to face, what goal to reach for, and when to back down.

I had thought he knew it too.

The echo of my fist striking the wall was deafening.

Hmm...

~AxJfan