Well, as I said in the description:

SPOILERS TO 145 + ahead!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yugioh 5ds.


Interlude: In the darkness

Arc Cradle

Aporia's POV

"Zone?"

He looked up, or at least I assumed so. Trying to see his eyes from across the room at my age was a futile attempt, but although strange, he was company all the same, a savior to this parasite-filled word of despair. Shifting across the meticulously clean floors was difficult with my cane, and it was a relief to my old bones when I settled down beside him on the worn, used bed. "What is it, Aporia?"

The only thing that betrayed his true feeling were his clever hands, wove tightly around red tinted glass. Frowning behind my wilting beard, I rested my cane against the metal bedpost and let my green eyes wander around the room, out of focus without the red contacts I had lost sometime after my lover.

There was an old, beat-up duel disk on the hard, gray end table next to his soft, blue pillows, his Synchro Monsters were still spread over the sheets, and there was a pair of mismatched sock hung on his open closet door. Random hulking pieces of equipment piled in that crammed space had begun to spill out with neglect, depending on those doors being closed and latched to stay upright. A few spare shirts and pants lined the carnage under them.

Screwdrivers and wrenches lined the gray-carpeted floor, and I thought dimly that it was a miracle he didn't wake up and stab his soles on them each morning. I sighed.

That was one thing he didn't have to worry about anymore.

"What is it Aporia?" Zone repeated, a slight edge creeping into his voice. It was the most emotion I had heard out of him in five years, and it sent a misplaced smile on my face. Affection for pain, or really just anything I could get out of him after being alone for so long, I truly had gone mad.

"I had a story to tell," I wheezed, licking my dry lips and glancing up at the ceiling. Fluorescent lighting greeted me by blinding my already faulty eyes. "Just an old man's tale for you."

It was not the first time I had approached him like this, and he had never once denied me these pleasures, perhaps because he needed me just as much as I needed him, or because he was just too polite to tell me to shut the hell up like he wanted to. Taking his silence as an invitation, I continued, "A long time ago, just after the start of this terrible mess, there was a young boy. Luciano, like many others in these hard times, was orphaned when the war started. Luckily Luciano was a gifted child, and was able to fend for himself in the world gone made. He made many friends, betrayed a few and was betrayed by few, and evaded the Machine Emperors through trickery and clever plotting all through his teenage years."

"But Luciano grew tired of losing people each day to foolish mistakes they made, and one day he left. He didn't intend to come back, I think. As we both know, it was a dark and dangerous world even a decade after the initial outbreak, and the extermination of humanity was still in full throttle. Without people, even if they were more friends than allies, he knew he would not last very long on his own. But he was young, and so very tired…"

Slinking in the shadows, he peered cautiously into the mirror clutched between his long fingers, dirt from his soiled padding smearing over the surface. Depending only on his sight was risky business and he knew it, those killers could descend from the clouds like angry gods at the blink of an eye to smite him. But the air was foul with the stench of friend flesh and rotting corpses, and the entire city was so unstable roofs and concrete crashed at random, inconvenient times, setting his skin on edge.

His eye itched from the contact he had managed to pilfer from the destroyed store a block away, and he nearly jumped when the mirror caught it. A colored contact…?

Wasting no time complaining in light of the fact that he had found some of his own prescription in the first place, he took a deep breath and stepped out into the alley. The machine gun he carried strapped to his back was a useless comfort to his crawling skin; he knew the weapon was little more than an annoyance to the mechanical devils storming the planet.

He knew, in a distant way, he had set out to die.

Perhaps that's why, when a Grounel tanker appeared around the corner, its scanner useless against the technology in his targeting system and gray camouflage padding, he did not duck into the open door of the building next to him.

The day he left, two little girls had been murdered while searching for their missing brother. He had given them food and watched them die five minutes later.

Mechanically, he reached for his gun.

Three days before that, he watched two lovers be separated by a crueler twist of demented fate, the woman dying during the precious miracle of life, only to birth a stillborn herself and leave the man alone. Luciano found him hanging from the ceiling pipes three hours later. It was no wonder his hair had grayed at twenty-four.

Running a gloved finger over it, he counted the ammunition. Grounel had yet to spot him.

That left his group down to three, all mistrustful of the other. There was an entirely different reason to sleep with a gun handy when around them. He couldn't stand to stay another day not knowing whether he'd see the sun again.

His finger wrapped around the trigger, and he wondered if he could rip as many holes into this monster as it had humanity.

He had to try.

The gun sounded like the sordid hacking of the unfortunate survivor he had put out of his misery an hour ago, chocking on his own blood. Caught off guard, Grounel's sensors went haywire, its single flowing infinity-sign eye glowing bright in the ruined atmosphere. Bullets pinged off of its orange, metal body like rain off shingles, the sound that had accompanied the dead lover's childless screams.

Its head jostled lightly against the impact, slowly rotating towards the path of his trajectory, too cold to feel any sort of pain. It was only when his vision began to blur from the steady red haze that he felt the hot moisture rolling down his cheeks.

The gun pulled in tighter, kicking and bucking against his bruising ribcage with all the anger he could pour into it, willing it to life. Still, it couldn't see him, and stood paused in the intersection where D-Wheels used to run through, children holding hands played, and lovers on nightly strolls passed.

It was only when his throat seized from misuse that he realized he was screaming. "Face me you fucking bastard!"

Clawing at it, he seized the green targeting system that cloaked him and ripped it from his face, gouging chunks from his skin and letting him pretend his tears were blood. Revealed, Grounel spun and faced him immediately, its laser cannon focusing on his puny weapon while his shots bounced off, useless.

"Die, damn it! Burn in hell!"

Why won't you die? The ground vibrated with the force of its charging gun in spite of the fact it hovered thirty feet in the air. Light gathered at the nozzle, promising sweet oblivion for his ever bleeding wounds.

Wordless screams poured from him now, tears, blood, and despair overwhelming whatever sense he had left in him. He was going to die. Dear Lord he was going to die.

Dear God it was over.

Over the din of his shriek, silence fell on the world. It was charged. Blurry in his distorted vision, the arm drew back and aimed, vanishing behind the glow of Momentum that powered it, ready to end him once and for all. Dead silence echoed in its wake as it was shot, the blast obliterating any sense of direction, swallowing his world into light.

Before covering it in a canopy of dust. Gun cluttering to the ground, spent, casing spread dead at his feet, he threw up his hand over his still fading hair and bleeding scalp. Downed by a fallen chunk of debris (an awning?) he reached weakly for the shells with his free hand, stretching cramped fingers towards the horizon.

"Y-You missed me, fucker… come at me again… die…"

Crushed like an insect, he could do nothing, not even twist around to see the cruel beast that had stolen his swift death and left him here to suffocate and splinter.

"Stop moving you moron!"

Instantly, his struggles stopped, mouth falling open in shock. A woman, alive and in the path of death, standing between him and the demon? "G-Get away… Grounel… round the corner…"

Dark gray combat boots strolled into his vision, kicking his cases aside with little care for the noise they made. Patched up gray kneepads quickly followed the feet as she knelt down, and he heard scratching above him and the shifting of stone.

"Gr-Grounel…" he tried again, hearing her hum in either annoyance or amusement.

"I killed it, don't worry. Next patrol's not due for two hours."

Shock left him limp as she continued to work, reducing the weight methodically and practically as the minutes passed by. When he found his voice, he could only say, "Y-You…?"

She laughed, such a wonderful and pure, hearty caress in the wasteland, the sound of bells and birds and singing and traffic and everything that had been missing in the world tumbled from her lips, and he knew, right then and there, that not all hope was lost, and that this woman was not in despair in spite of her struggles and that maybe she could save him too…

"She dug him out in half an hour, that woman," I continued, pausing to catch my breath. Though he gave no indication of such, I could feel Zone's attention through the white mask he hid his face with. "And when she asked for his name, Luciano knew this was his chance to start again. When he looked into her gray eyes, he felt his cold heart stirring, and the tears continued to fall down his face. She didn't comment about it and he didn't feel embarrassed, and when he told her his family's name, Placido, in place of Luciano, she believed him."

"Placido, eh?" she murmured, running small hands across his bloodied head. She said nothing about his attempted suicide, and for that alone, he was grateful enough to follow her into the half-collapsed building across the street for medical supplies. "You did a number on your scalp when you tore out that cloaking system. You'll probably be bald there from now on."

Her hand ran through his thick, gray hair as she bandaged his head, smiling lightly at the awed expression in his discolored eyes. That unfamiliar look bathed her in the glow of an angel, and when he reached out to touch her soft cheek, she did not pull back, only flashed white teeth and said, "I know. I worried you weren't real either."

"What's your name?" he wondered, running his hands along her purple hair, shoulders, touching the missile launcher on her shoulder gently. A glint appeared in her expressive, lively eyes.

"While we're still living in this limbo, I don't have a name," she declared. "I'm just a human fighting for my life and the lives of others. Once we've overcome this war stronger than when we started it, that's when I'll tell you my name—when we're in a world worth living for and not one worth dying for."

"You think we'll win?" he repeated dubiously, the reality check in her naïve ideals grounding him, bringing the pain back into his head and limbs from the beating. Gaze hardening, she answered with a single nod, putting her hand over his on the weapon.

"I've taken down two of them each day on my own with this weapon and others I've found in the city's armory. Here," she added gently, reaching into the pouch strapped to her dark gray belt and pulling out two pills and a water bottle. "This will help with the pain."

"Now this young woman was persistent in her beliefs," I chuckled, wheezing away my dwindling breaths. "No matter how hard Placido tried, she refused to give up her name."

"What am I supposed to call you then?" he snapped a few fruitless days later, settling down beside her as she kept her eyes on the sky for their enemies. Absently, her small gloved hand fell on his knee and she smiled, the sight of it dazzling the fight right out of him.

"You can call me partner, Placido." Satisfied with their safety, she turned the power of her sparkling gray eyes that never changed in the light or atmosphere, tightening her warm pressure on his leg.

"So he did, that man was a sucker for her smile." Again, I paused for air, but for a different reason this time. Even in memory she had the power to steal my breath away. "They stayed like this for a long time, fighting the Machine Emperors together, just the two of them. They were a perfect team: he was headstrong and unafraid to face death, and she was intelligent and deadly accurate in everything she did. Slowly, he felt himself fall victim to a different poison in that time, the taint of her naivety, and the shine in her eyes."

"Placido, do you ever miss them?"

Placing the gun he had been polishing down, he drew his eyebrows together in confusion. She had moved much closer to him while he had zoned in on the wonderful gifts the death machine had given him, as if drawn closer by the attraction of his faraway thoughts. He blinked. "Miss who?"

She glanced away for a moment, leaning forward a little more, supporting most of her weight on her long, scarred arms. Biting her lip, she risked looking up into his contact covered eyes and crawled forward the last few feet, resting her head on his shoulder. The sudden contact sent heat billowing through his skin and racing along the track of his bones, celebrating in heady victory before her words left him cold. "Other people. Friends… family…"

Hesitating, he worked his arm around to her thin waist and sighed, looking anywhere but her steely eyes. The room that held them would be called the same color: steely and gray, but was nothing in comparison to her. It was empty, harbored only weapons for a desperate war, and she was full of passion and optimism that did not belong in this world.

He would protect her, even if it meant he had to lie. "Partner, sometimes I'll find myself thinking of what things were before… with my parents and my friends… and yes, it's true I miss them more than I can say."

Her hand traveled down his leg as she looked away, a sign that she would retreat soon if he didn't finish. Grabbing that escaping hand and holding it tightly, he continued in the light from her startled eyes, "But I would never leave you, not even if they were alive, because the moment I see your face, your eyes, your smile; hear your voice, your laugh, your shouts; you chase it all away. I can only see myself with you, Partner."

"That's not what I want you to call me, Placido," she murmured, tears spilling over her lashes as he preemptively struck uncertainty from her heart. Softening, he pulled her closer, fully intent on pressing his face into her grimy purple hair, breathing in the smell of death and sweat and something burning that was her perfume, and never letting go.

"What do you want me to call you then?"

Returning the embrace with her fingers twisting in his matted hair, she pulled herself up to his eye level, touching their noses so he could feel the tingle of her lashes against his cheeks. "Your lover."

"That was the first time they kissed, but not the last," I smiled, the old tingling of her touch still lingering on my cracked, old, lips. "They made excuses to do so: each time Wisel, Skiel, or Grounel was taken out, whenever they found food and water, whenever the other coughed or sneezed or even said 'Good morning.' Two foolish young ones in love with the weight of the world on their shoulders: It was something out of a twisted fairy tale, I suppose."

Need, fire, lightning, drowning, hysteria, and calm—they crashed into each other, tugged at hair, and traced the flexing muscles of their skin through their love born through death. Nails bit deep into dirty skin, hands grabbed so tightly bruising were left in their wake, but neither cared to notice as they focused solely on the ripping desire burning through their pounding lips.

"I love you" became a sweet whisper between them, shot out of place and random, whether they were killing an Emperor or putting a human out of its misery. "I love you so much."

"They consumed each other," I noted with a bitter little frown. "There was no one else in the world that mattered to them anymore, not their families or friends they had lost, and not the cause they were fighting for. The killing just became an expression of their love, a 'for you' sort of mantra now."

"We'll have a small house," she decided, lying in his arms under the cracked rooftop without a care if it should fall and crush them both. He hummed in response, tucking his chin over the top of her head as she burrowed deeper into his shoulder. "So that we'll never have to be alone again. A lake will be behind us, surrounded by oaks and sakuras and willows to hide us from the world. We'll just have a little rowboat so all we can hear is each other and the waves, not the roars of engines. And we'll have two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, with my hope and your courage—they'll overcome anything in their way."

Steady, the rise and fall of her chest against his relaxed his tense muscles, and her breath under his chin set a lazy smile on his face. "They'll have your green eyes, but we won't tell them that you wear contacts, claiming that the gods picked the finest of emeralds from the sky for them. Ryuuko and Kitai, bravery and hope, names suited for the little heroes they'll be. We'll have neighbors down the valley, and we'll go over every Tuesday to play poker, Kitai will fall in love with their daughter, and we'll watch Ryuuko torment him about it."

The ground shook with the nightly reign of terror, setting dust free from the ceiling and onto their wistful faces. They paid it no heed, so entangled in the other's arms and body and dreams, staring into warm eyes and delusional futures. "And when they grow up, they'll visit on weekends with their children, and we'll spoil them rotten with sweets and teach them how to shoot a gun."

Voice fading to a murmur, she trailed her lips across his neck, unbothered by the heady sweat. Half-lidded, they smiled, unseen but felt, and she finished, "And we'll die old together, leaving the world in each other's arms."

I had to stop. Zone's head was turned towards me now, but he said nothing as I closed my eyes and took deep, haggard breaths. It was no surprise; he rarely spoke even in the times we all still had hope left to save this world. "A foolish dream," he said finally.

I nodded, tired. "Ah, but a beautiful one."

"Aporia…"

"Now let me finish," I chided, recognizing the way he said my name. My intention was never to gain comfort from him: he had given me an unlimited amount of it simply by finding me all those years ago. So close to God-Hood, his uncertainty was harder for to sense, and I wondered if giving himself up to the World of Speed would rob him of not only his humanity, but his soul.

No, I couldn't believe that, not now. I couldn't have doubts.

"Placido and his lover," I continued, "were cursed from the moment they met, as every love in that world was. And they both knew it, but chose to cling onto the false hopes of their foolish, beautiful dream."

There it was again. That slight softening in her eyes, the tug of sweetness in her dry, chapped lips, and the way her gentle warmth overcame the cold breeze of combat. This beat of silence was theirs, floating in the afterglow of another death of a 'God.' Quiet, eternally so, but soon to be filled with the sounds of their voices, lips, and love.

He made the first move, taking a confident stride towards her as she shouldered the missile launcher. His foot never touched the ground.

A scream was startled out of him as light sliced through the air, splitting them down the middle, away from her, and he could barely stifle the thought of stupid, stupid, stupid!

They both knew what they sort of silence meant, he been raised on it, thrived for it, depended on it! How could they mistake such a silent reaper as a moment of devotion? Were they that lost in each other than they fell victim to the calm before the storm?

We won't make this mistake again, he cursed, airborne scream echoing in his wake. Dimly, he wondered why he couldn't hear her, if she had already lurked into the shadows and assumed her assassin position before his world came crashing down.

Shoulders greeted the concrete first, fresh bruises blossoming over old ones, and he tumbled out of control. The universe became a blurred shade of gray, monotonous, dull, nothing like the sparkling in her eyes. He was dimly certain he was going to be sick if he didn't stop soon, barely registering the damage his already beat-up body endured.

The wall finally stopped him, knocking his breath out with a harsh oof!

Sparing himself that flicker of weakness was already far too much, so he popped up strong, gun in well-trained hands, ready to fire. The Machine probably thought they were dead, so it wouldn't expect retaliation so quickly, now just to make eye contact to assure she was ready…

The other side of the room was completely destroyed. A horrible, black scar had been left by the cannon's shot, drawn down the middle, leaving the floor wide open and gaping, sharp teeth lining a carnivorous mouth. Beyond that, piles of gray stone and shingles continued to tumble down in a mammoth pile, dust trickling down it like a waterfall.

Where was she? Had she jumped over the scar already?

Tracing the ground for signs of her crouched position, probably already giving him that little took you long enough smirk, he finally saw her. Or what was left of her.

At first, all he could think was damn, without her weapon we'll have to retreat.

The thought that she had been attached to the smoldering heap of twisted metal didn't quite present itself, and it took another glance at the pile of ashes, dust, and debris to send it hurtling forward.

No.

The word couldn't even make it past his throat, leaving his lips to form it soundlessly. The launcher still bled white-hot residue, indifferent to his struggles.

No.

Gray-gray-gray-black-white-gray—it was everywhere, she was nowhere.

No!

She—She—He didn't even have a name to call out, no a syllable or a sweet nothing, just an empty word that had escaped like smoke into the gray atmosphere.

"NO!"

She consumed him: the rough, callous tips of her fingers, the long, bleeding tracks her nails made down his back, the grimy, soft strands of purple hair against his cheeks, the long, fluttering lashes that framed her luminous, goddess-like eyes…

It was only when his vision began to blur from the steady red haze that he felt the hot moisture rolling down his cheeks. It was only when his throat seized he realized he was screaming.

"To this day, Placido still doesn't know how he survived that day," I mused, excusing the quiet lisp of my voice on fatigue. Zone and I both knew otherwise. "It must have been that her last shot at Grounel, even though it hadn't killed it, had weakened it enough for his bullets to pierce. But so lost in his despair, Placido hardly registered that he had taken down the monster who had stolen his lover. He wished for death, and when it was not received, he sought it out."

Blood turned black by the poison of night; Placido continued to gouge his hands against the rubble, working with a frenzy of a man gone mad. Sobbing, trembling, his muscles begged for release from the tight, futile labor, ignored by his blank, desperate mind. He had to find her—just dig her out like she had him. That was all this was! A reversal of fates—it had to be!

She had used his fire to take out Grounel the day they met, he had nearly been blasted into oblivion by the demon-powered monstrosity, and then he had been buried, suffocated, only to have her give him the sweet release of air, of life, of love again. Now he could do the same for her, and they would be together, and it would be beautiful, and they'd have a new world under their feet…

Unseen, the moon had dipped back below the horizon by the time Placido found her, agonized screams reverberating through the room when his shredded, slick palms clutched her limp face, still frozen in that smile. His fingers trailed through her matted hair, painted the sides of her face crimson, and tenderly cupped the smashed hand that was left; her entire right arm disintegrated by the laser.

Glassy, dull eyes stared blankly out past him, fixed on the point over the horizon that had been denied to him once more. Gray, unremarkable, hue less, ugly, and completely without life—just like the rest of this world. Howling, he hefted what was left of her, the lower half of her body dragging limply behind, leaving stains behind.

He stroked her hair, her cheeks, her lips, her shoulders, clung to her back and sobbed into her chest, cradled her head and hands in his own, kissed clumsily everywhere but those lips that would not respond and avoided looking in those eyes that only reflected the hell around them. They no longer cared for the promises they had made, for the world they would save, or for their love that barely had time to bloom.

"W-we'll have a small house," he whispered between sobbing gasps, hands sliding over her face, so covered in their mixed blood. "So that we'll never have to be alone."

Pulling her so close his arms threatened to break, sobs rolled down his back, tears down his cheeks. "We'll… we'll have two b-beautiful children, with y-your—"

Unable to spit out the word that had betrayed him so ruthlessly, he held her and screamed more, waiting for the Machine Emperors to come and challenge him, to find him shrieking and anguished, to die here with these shattered fantasies…

"We'll name them Ryuuko and Kitai," he pressed, the names a moan too low to be called pain. She said nothing, did nothing, did not smile or laugh or sob or bite or thrash or threaten to shoot him for being weak. Too late… too late…

"We'll have n-neighbors," he gasped, curling her closer still. "Kitai will fall in l-love with their daughter."

Will she be as beautiful as you, with your misleading ideals and lovely lies? Will she leave him with unfulfilled promises and without death too?

"L-love," he moaned, because it was all he could call her, without a name, without a soul, without the breath of life to identify herself as his savior and devil. "When they grow up, they'll visit on weekends with their kids, and we'll spoil them rotten."

She would slip them sweets under their knitted blankets, fluff pillows, and he would cook for them, find work with his hands. The soft fall sun would shine through the changing leaves outside their cozy home, ignored under the laughter and joking from the den. Warmth would ooze from shared glances and cuddling glee, children would tear into presents, games would be played, mundane stories swapped, and when the night fell and the house was quiet, they'd slip upstairs and under five heavy layers of blankets, stare into each other's eyes, and he would say her name, and she would say his, and they'd fall asleep staring into the face of love…

"And we'll die old together," he chocked out, the illusion slipping from him with her cold hand, "leaving the world in each other's arms."

I had nothing to disguise this pause with; the tears tracking down my stinging eyes gave me away quicker than my shaking breath. "He still clung to her promise that night."

Zone made a slight movement, and I was struck with the absurd thought that he would wipe my tears away with his gloved hands. But he did no such thing, instead letting me pull myself together, rubbing leathery old skin against irritated aged, green eyes. "He stayed there until the sun was high up in the sky, hoping that the Emperors would come back and claim him so he could die in her arms. But things were too quiet that day—none of them passed. Whether he liked it or not, Placido had survived the apocalypse. Humanity was eradicated."

"He couldn't stand to go by what his nameless lover had called him, so Placido changed it once more, deciding on his middle name, Jose," I muttered, looking anywhere but the slits in Zone's mask for his eyes. "Though it was futile, he swore to search for others so that her dream would not be wasted, so that humanity could rise again. He grew old doing that, old and entirely alone."

Each day, each season, each year: time passed on; sometimes so quick it was as if he blinked, others agonizingly slow. Each city, he passed was the same: destroyed, in ruins, bones accumulating on the streets with little to no animal life left to live off of. Each second he was sure death would finally rise and greet him, would steal him from the miserable life of a phantom. Each moment he was proved wrong, time and time again, left in despair, but toiling on nevertheless, searching for something beyond his weathered reach.

"And then," I muttered, finally composed enough to glance back at him. Zone's blue eyes regarded me thoughtfully, having already seen where I was going with this, but I refused to stop, knowing on some detached level that he needed to hear it. "When Jose was at the end of his rope, he collapsed in the ruins of a city where Momentum had been created. There, he found three men who took him in, fed him, and gave him what he never thought was possible: a future."

Knowing Zone's dislike for contact, but ignoring it, I laid a hand on his cloaked shoulder, feeling the muscles tense below it. "Luciano, Placido, Jose—whose name from then on was Aporia, which meant doubt in the English she had spoken so fluently, because that was all he had left to overcome—they all lost what they loved, one man bore three great despairs."

Paradox, Antinomy, and myself…

"But he found something greater in the end, though the memories haunted him. He found he had life left to fight for, and he found great friends who could help him do it. He found a light in the darkness. He found a miracle named Zone. And they would fight for the world."

"Aporia," he began, shifting under my hand. I gripped it tighter in response, settling the soon to be god with a gentle squeeze.

"It's alright, Zone," I smiled, though he couldn't see it under my billow beard. "We are going to create a new world, even past death. Our memory remains."

"Memories remain…" he trailed off, staring past me with those sapphire eyes, so blue the gods must have plucked them from the skies. We sat in silence on Antinomy's bed, taking comfort in the familiar scent of oil that hung in the air, and the quiet that usual wrapped around us as we worked. His hands had fallen still in his lap, the red visor limp in his grip.

"Memories remain!"

I jumped as he stood, nearly toppling me off the sheets with his sudden outburst. Though his back was to me, I could imagine the shine in his eyes as his thoughts raced, determined to outdo each other, spinning in their never-ending cyclical nature. Surprising as it was, it was over quickly, his emotions back in check and his tone calculating once more.

"Aporia," he whispered, looking back at me over his shoulder. The burned flesh of his left half was wrinkled slightly, the only sign of the grim smile playing at his hidden lips. "There still is hope after all."


Zone…

Zone… I wonder… if you had this much life in you… why you let it go…?

Looking up into those same blue eyes, so bright with intelligence and anger, dark with hatred and uncertainty, I was able to lend him one last smile, knowing the hand I had left outstretched was not empty in the end.

"But I know what you want—no. I know what you and Bruno gave your lives for, and I won't let that go to waste!"

Did he know how brightly he burned with this vow, could he feel the rising feeling of hope within himself as he told me those words?

"With the power of our bonds, we will overcome Zone!"

Did he know how powerful those truly were—how they could kill him in the end—already had? His fist kept shaking, but his mind was steady, giving me an answer I could accept.

"With your sacrifice, we know his strategy, and with Bruno's… I have the means to end this!"

His hands or the child's were on my shoulder, just as mine had rested on Zone's when Antinomy had died, telling me the stories he would stop with the bright will in his eyes. So much life, so much beautiful, imperfect perfection in that human soul…

My hand fell on my duel disk, charging it with my last bit of energy, willing it to go to Yusei's D-Wheel upon my death, to give him the power of flight he already had…

Darkness crept into the edges of my vision, dying my world a steady gray, the color of her eyes.

I'm glad… that I gave hope… to the future…

"Aporia!"

To… Zone…

"Aporia!"

Yusei…

"APORIA!"

My hand fell, never to rise again.

Aporia… my name is…

Laughter.


NOT the next chapter, an interlude.

IMPORTANT:

So, in order to continue this, I'll need an epic duel between Yusei and Zone... but since we only know a handful of Zone's cards, I have a request for you guys. Please send me the duel in the following episodes, just the duel. I don't want any dialogue, just the cards and the order they are played. Now before anyone complains, remember, this is what I did with Mistakes, and I used it then so I could manipulate the duel between Yusei, Jack, Crow, and Goodwin.

So please help me out so I can stop spamming the bold button. Just tell me if you can in a review and I'll post who volunteered in the next interlude before the next chapter. :D

...

So, only I could blow a five second scene into 6,000 words, right? Hehehehehehe...

Thanks for reading!
~AxJfan