A/N: DANG, SHIMMERING-SKY, BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH YOUR ANGSTY ZARC/RAY SONGFICS!

…I'm not even a fan of that meme…

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Ridiculous. A song from Guilty Crown got stuck in my head the other day, so I went and listened to AmaLee's English cover of it on YouTube… which led to me listening to her cover of "Departures", which resulted in my muses flipping out because they thought it could perfectly fit FusedShipping. Well, to be more precise, they thought it would fit Ray's part of the AU I crafted for my story "Demon". (Side note I totally predicted that Zarc will eventually fight Reiji in the anime. I was completely off about like everything else though… :( …)

Anyways, so here we are again. Better prepare your tissues for the umpteenth time.

(I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V or Departures.)

No longer can I call myself loved by you anymore

And neither can I say I'm still wanted or who you need

And so now I'm on my own

Or was I guaranteed to walk alone?

"You deserve far better than that boy, Ray. One day he'll be the death of you."

Those words, said by my father nearly two years ago, ring true now more than ever. I'd laughed it off then, saying that he was just overreacting and that I wasn't going to be his precious baby girl forever. I was an adult now, I'd said, I didn't need him telling me who I could or could not love, and I love Zarc. I was so sure he was the one.

Now I'm sitting against the door to my room, and I feel like I'm dying on the inside. The Zarc I love is gone, replaced by someone who doesn't even know that hurting people in his Duels is not right. I really should have known this would happen… I'd waited too long to intervene.

But still. I can here Zarc pounding on the front door, screaming my name, even though I'm in my own room. Each pound tears my heart anew, and I try to make it stop by covering my ears. I still hear him. I can't ignore him. He's so desperate that I can almost pretend nothing's wrong and run back to him, but as much as I want that, I can't.

Months pass and he doesn't try chasing after me anymore. I thought the distance would help me heal, but it does the exact opposite, the pain just grows worse. My father tries to help, but he just doesn't understand. He never liked Zarc in the first place, but she'd given him everything and now Zarc was gone.

Gone, lost to the bloodthirsty crowds he thought he could still make smile… until the day that he's had enough and snaps.

Once again I should have seen this coming, anytime I was forced to go watch one of Zarc's Duels, I could hear his cards' pain and anger grow worse and worse. I never said anything because hardly anyone believed in Duel Spirits, and Zarc was the only one I know who can hear them too. If he didn't care about his own cards, then why should I? If only I'd seen what the Spirits' anger really meant. That Zarc himself was suffering, anger building up inside him until he couldn't contain it anymore.

Now everyone is running for their lives, as Zarc's dragons tear everything apart. His laughter booms throughout the city. He enjoys the destruction. He's suffered for months because of it, but no longer. Now it's humanity's turn.

God, why didn't I do something to stop this…

I wish I knew what you had tried to express long ago

But when you spoke the heavens swept up all of your words

Even though it's nothing new

I'll take another step

And make a wish that will not come true

Four flimsy pieces of cardboard have never felt so heavy before in my life.

They look like they should be regular Spell Cards. In any other circumstance, they would be. But these cards were created as the antithesis of the Supreme Dragon King's power, and with that comes the price of using their power. It's basically a death sentence, so said my father, but sacrificing just one life to save the entire world is worth the cost in his eyes.

Of course, he'd meant for that life to be his own. His atonement for creating the Real Solid Vision that allowed for the world's destruction at the hands of Zarc and his dragons. But he'd failed to consider any other variables in his plan—namely, that I would take that burden on my own shoulders and steal the cards before he could use them.

It hurts. It hurts a lot, knowing that I'm running towards my own death. My father's frantic cries from behind the rubble I've knocked into his path drive it home even worse. He'll be alone after I do this, and I know it. A big part of me wants to turn back, but—no. I'm not a coward anymore. I have to own up to my own mistakes. I should have seen the pain—the desperation—in Zarc's eyes back then.

("It's been months, Ray. Don't you think someone would have told me to stop by now if it was wrong?")

It's so obvious now that, looking back, my ignorance to his pain was inexcusable. I can hear the hearts of Duel Monsters, and for as long as I've known Zarc, his dragons have always felt the same as him. During the months it took me to build up the courage to confront him about his violent Duels, I heard his dragons… hurting more and more…

("RAY! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME! RAAAAAAAY!")

I stop at the base of the crystalline that the Supreme King Dragon is always flying about. He's there now; this close, his hatred is deafening, but I have to press on. I can't stop now.

My grip on the four cards tightens.

I wish that I could go back to that day and fix everything… but that's an impossible dream. Instead… I wish that we could have a second chance together… in the four new worlds.

And with that in mind, I begin the climb to Zarc.

Please say you won't let go of me

And tightly hold me so

I need to know that we will forever be this way

The memory of holding your hand each and every day

I'll never forget

"So… after all this time… you've finally decided to show yourself?" his voice booms.

I stare up at him. His golden eyes shine eerily as he glares at me from his position within the Supreme Dragon King. I can see his face, twisted and cracked by the constant exposure to this power. I can barely recognize him anymore… but, he's still Zarc. "I'm so sorry…" I murmur, as I look away to ensure that the cards slide into the Duel Disk correctly. "I'm so sorry, Zarc…"

He must hear me because he laughs, until the four cards take effect and materialize on my wrist as bracelets, and the light from them begins to tear him apart. He screams and curses my name, and if he's feeling even just a fraction of what I feel now, then that's completely justified. The light from my bracelets harshly pulls at me from every direction, and it's all I can do to stay quiet. The edges of my vision start fading to white.

Not yet, I think, dredging up any remaining strength to keep the whiteness at bay. I need to make sure that this works…!

Zarc screams one last time, his voice distant and distorted to my ears. I see transparent images of his four dragons split off and fly away, and Zarc is gone. I let out a sigh of relief. It's done.

Please, let us have a second chance together.

I let the white overtake my vision.

You made me cry so many times and that never did change

But looking back I'm glad I cried even though it still hurts

Because when you'd apologize

You'd make the sweetest face

And you'd pull me into your embrace

Where… am I…?

Everywhere I look, there's only a vast, empty white. Everywhere. I can't even see my own body, but I can feel it. I try blinking, but that doesn't do anything because I still just see white. There's so much of it. I never thought I would get sick of a color, but after just a few moments, I don't want anything to do with the color.

…So, this is the price for using those cards.

I'm not dead, but I'm trapped here, alone, with my memories completely intact, too. I wasn't expecting this, I was expecting a completely new start, four different lives away from each other… with Zarc's fragments by my side. I bury my face in my hands—as much good as that does. I guess this is just my punishment. After what I did to Zarc, it was just too much to ask for, being able to be close to him again.

I can't sit forever, though. So I wander through the endless white, hoping to find—I don't know, something other than this pallid color. I never seem to grow tired, so I just keep walking, and walking, and walking. It's so mind-numbingly repetitive that I have to take breaks just to get my mind on something else. Sometimes I hum a tune, one of the lullabies my father used to try to sing for me when I was younger. Sometimes I try to imagine the second chance I thought I'd get. But more often than not, my mind drifts back to simpler times. When it was just Ray and Zarc, sneaking around to spend time together and stealing kisses behind Leo's back. I can still remember when my father first found out about it all, he'd been so mad that he grounded me for two whole months before giving in.

One time, I think back to our very first meeting, way back when we were kids. That awkward apology he'd given me after he'd jumped off a swing and landed on me. He'd been so afraid that I was gonna hurt him for it that he actually stared at me for several long moments after I said it was no big deal. And the goofy, toothless smile he'd given me once he realized what I meant… that had melted my heart then and there. I can still picture it… and the memory brings tears to my eyes. I miss it. I miss him, I miss my father, I miss everything about my life.

Please say you won't let go of me

And tightly hold me so

Inside your arms is where I would like to call my home

My true wish is to open my eyes in the morning light

Ahh~And see your face

One day in my wandering, I see something that is absolutely impossible. I see colors other than white. It's faint, but I see a spiral of pale-green light in the distance. Ignoring all reason, I run to it, and suddenly I find myself floating inside of some sort of castle, directly over some sort of machine that's emitting light of the very same shade I'd seen before. I see my father too, atop some sort of hovering throne, furiously typing at the keyboard before him.

"She has to revive before him," I hear him murmur under his breath. "Ray…"

"Father!" I respond, reaching out to touch him… but my hand goes right through him. He can't hear me either, but movement on the ground draws my attention, and I drift over there instead. There's a little boy there. He can hear me. He can see me. It's from him that I quickly learn exactly what's going on.

Zarc's fragments are here, about to reunite. Mine are too—I just now notice them, in four canisters attached to the machine I'd awoken over—and Father is trying to reunite my fragments along with the Four Dimensions before Zarc can. Zarc still seeks the destruction of the world—I can't let that happen again.

"I'm the only one who can defeat Zarc!" I tell the boy, and he believes me, fighting his older brother to keep him from stopping my father's plans. It's true, though; the cards and my bracelets are the only things that can counter Zarc's power… or so I believe.

In the middle of the boy's fight with his brother, I'm overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of memories—not mine, no, but those of one of my fragments—Yuzu. Yuzu's memories. I see a life that isn't mine—a life that by all means shouldn't exist… and yet… it does. Yuzu has lived a happy life up until being caught up in this war that—that my father started while trying to get me back. Yuzu has her own father, her own friends, her own cards—and she has Yuya.

Yuya, one of the boys with Zarc's face…

(Yuya…! I have to help Yuya!)

Soon after I'm overwhelmed by another set of memories, more tortured by the war that my father caused, but no less a good life. Ruri. Ruri has a brother, and before the war she had loving parents, but most of all she has Yuto. She hasn't known him as long as Yuzu has known Yuya, but they're still so close despite her brother's misgivings about it.

Yuto, another of Zarc's fragments…

(Please, let me see Yuto!)

It's not long before the third set of memories come rushing in. Rin. Unlike Yuzu and Ruri, Rin has never had a true family, only the fellow children at the orphanage where she was raised. But, one of the boys there is Yugo, and the two are very close, sharing the dream to win the Friendship Cup on the D-Wheel they built together. And even after Rin was abducted by my father, she still hoped and hoped that she would be reunited with Yugo.

(There's still so much I have to say to Yugo!)

After that, there's a respite from the rush of memories—but that's only because the Duel between the last two fragments of Zarc—Yuya and Yuto against Yugo and… and Yuri—comes to a close and Zarc is reunited. He doesn't have his full power back, but he's still here, and seeing him hurts. We did have our second chance together, but he hasn't changed… he's still lost in the power he'd found with his dragons.

I look over at the last canister, which holds my last fragment—Selena, my mind supplies. The machine has to hurry… I won't let Zarc hurt anyone else. I'm going to make things right this time.

My father steps in to buy time and succeeds in nothing. He's a researcher, not a fighter, and he loses in the blink of an eye, falling into the machine that is reviving me. I scream after him, but he still can't hear me because he's screaming too—something about finishing "Arc-V" no matter what. And just like that, he's gone.

I fall to my knees, just at the edge of the pit that holds the machine. I stay there until my last fragment returns to me—and with it, her memories. All of them, even the ones that had been hidden from her ever since my father showed up on this island. Selena, an outcast of the school, with Yuri as her only friend, until even those memories were taken from her.

(…So Yuri is, my friend…?)

Yuzu, Ruri, Rin, and Selena. All four of my fragments have returned, and I can feel my body starting to be pulled back into the machine for my physical revival—but just one last time, I turn and see Zarc screaming and pulling at his hair. There are other people down there—I don't recognize them but my fragments do—and they're all trying to reach the four boys within Zarc. It looks like they're succeeding, but they don't in the end and Zarc goes to end the Duel once and for all. That's when I let myself go into the machine.

I know how I'm going to save Zarc.

Did you ever think that this day would come?

When a goodbye would last forever

Zarc wants nothing at all to do with me when I return in the flesh. He yells at me, curses at me, tells me exactly how badly I've made him suffer over the past fourteen years—no, even longer than that. I was the only human that truly cared about him, and after I abandoned him, he had nothing. And when I split him apart, his consciousness had no memories at all, unlike me, who remembered everything.

I try to explain everything but he won't listen, he just keeps going and going and now he has Astrograph Magician out alongside his dragons. I know what's coming next. He's going to reunite himself with his dragons, but I can't let him. And if he won't listen to my words… he'll have to listen to my actions.

Just as he's about to be pulled into the light, I throw my arms around him and hold as tightly as I can. He squirms and kicks and scratches at my arms and face—I accept the pain and hold him tighter. He screams about how he has to become one, but he doesn't. He screams at me to let him go.

With every ounce of my strength, I scream back at him. "NO! I'M NOT LETTING GO THIS TIME!" When he freezes up in surprise and stares at me incredulously, I press on, tears beginning to fall as pour out my guilt for the first time. "Not again… I could never forgive myself if I let you go again. I never should have left you, Zarc. I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. I was too scared to help you until the day I told you that you needed to stop hurting your opponents, and I was too stupid to see how much pain you were in, when I thought you were simply too far gone to save."

He doesn't say anything. He's too stunned.

"I took those cards from my father because I knew it was my fault you fell so far. The chance to save the world from—from you—never crossed my mind when I was using those cards. I just wanted—" My voice cracks and I have to stand there for a moment, trying to calm myself down. "I just wanted, a second chance with you. It didn't work out the way I'd hoped, but surely you remember our lives in the divided worlds!"

Yuzu, Ruri, Rin, Selena, please help me reach the hearts of the boys you know. I can't do this alone.

They jump at the offer and for the next few moments, I'm buried in my own mind again. But the moments don't last long at all, and soon enough I'm holding him close while he cries and I'm crying too, telling him that he's not alone anymore and that everything will be alright. I have him back now—finally—if only for this instant, because our Duel hasn't finished yet, and the light from Astrograph Magician renews its attempts to drag him into it. I know that I won't be able to stop the light from dragging him in, even with his change of heart. Even still, I can't bear to let go of him and Zarc tightens his grasp on me.

"RAY! HELP ME, PLEASE!" he screams, eyes wide with horror.

His desperate cries remind me of the ones he made when I abandoned him, and my heart aches for him. There's nothing I can do, not now. I might have those four cards and the bracelets they created, but they can't do anything to just the dragons, it has to be the Supreme Dragon King. But unlike last time, I know what I'm doing. I know exactly how to make sure that this never happens again. Our fragments—they have the right to keep living.

"Zarc, I—I… I can't help you now. I need you to—"

He doesn't take that well at all, I think he thinks I'm betraying him again. He screams at me again.

"Listen to me," I hiss, and that gets him to shut up. I tell him exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to split us both apart again after I win this Duel—but rather than send us back to the edges of our own minds, like before, we won't exist anymore. We'll finally be able to rest. Together. "Doesn't—doesn't that sound nice?" I ask him.

"Yeah… that sounds nice. I'd—I'd really like that." He closes his eyes and smiles, and I see hints of that goofy smile I fell in love hidden inside of the bittersweetness of this whole thing. "You promise?"

I nod and blink away my tears, and I wrap my pinkie around his. We always used to make pinkie promises when we were little… "Yeah. I promise."

And with that, he's gone.

Please say you won't let go of me

And tightly hold me so

Your smile won't be for me, you'll be a memory

Just one more time, before your warmth completely disappears

Ahh~Hold me in your arms

The Supreme Dragon King shatters after my victory. My bracelets are shining; it's time to split apart again… but not just yet. I run to Zarc, who lays amidst so much debris knocked loose by our battle. He's sleeping, so peacefully, a smile on his face as I gently scoop him up and lay his head on my lap. His smile is beautiful. I hope that his fragments inherit it once he's gone. It would be a dull world without his smile…

I'm playing with his hair, waiting for the end, when he stirs. His eyes aren't shining anymore. He blinks a few times. "R-Ray…?" he asks weakly. "Is… is it over now?"

I smile at him. "Almost, Zarc… and then we can rest together."

He tries to sit up, but his body is too weak from the fight, so I help him up and hold him steady. He looks at me. "Thank you… Ray. And… I'm sorry for, for everything that I did. I wish that… things could have happened differently…"

"Me too, Zarc…" I agree. But wishes are just that for a reason, dreams that don't always come true. "Even still… after everything… I never stopped loving you."

"I—I didn't, either," Zarc admits. "I'd wanted to hate you… so much… but as you can see…" He chuckles sadly. "I was blinded with rage, but deep down, I never gave up on you…"

The light from my bracelets overtakes us after that.

A/N: Well, there you have it. The end of this little AU of mine.

…Guess you guys have to be on the lookout for Donjusticia's parody of this, now. Unless you are Donjusticia reading this, in which case, get to work.

Edit: I have just found out that today is Donjusticia's birthday, so everyone should go wish him a very happy birthday.