Yuuma was seeing things that he'd never expected to see again. One of them was Shark wearing the Barian emblem pendant again. The other one Shark having his bass guitar.

"Shark, I thought that was a one-time thing," Yuuma said in a surprised manner. He remembered that school festival pretty well - one of the funnier days, at least until Vector had decided to brainwash people.

Shark shrugged in response. "We needed money and Chouno Sanagi's manager called me some weeks ago. He ended up telling me that I should come to perform with her every now and then and that I'd get a nice sum of money for it. And yeah, I kind of didn't mind..." He avoided Yuuma's gaze as the shrimp-haired boy looked at him in fascination.

"That's so cool, Shark!" Yuuma exclaimed, smiling. "So, what does Vector do at the concert?"

Vector had given Yuuma a change of clothes - almost too dark for Yuuma's taste, but oddly fitting at the same time - and disappeared inside his room without another word.

"Let's say this much: he makes use of his vocal range," Shark said, chuckling. He didn't hide how great he felt about annoying Vector by taking Yuuma along to the concert, for it was obvious he still didn't like Vector very much. But liking him wasn't necessary - the former Barians weren't connected by how much they liked each other; they were connected by their history.

At that moment, Vector stepped out of his room. He was wearing black clothes - something no one was surprised about anymore - and the first thing Yuuma noticed was that Vector's ears had quite a few piercings on them.

"So you're a singer, Vector?" Yuuma asked, looking at Vector excitedly.

Vector glared at Shark before returning his attention to Yuuma. "Yeah, it's an easy way to earn money."

"Alright, let's go," Alit said, looking like he was in a hurry. "You're gonna like it where we're going, Yuuma."

"Don't give him any alcohol," Shark said with an annoyed expression as they left the house, waving goodbye to the remaining former Barians.

Yuuma gave them a questioning expression, but no one bothered to notice it or react to it.

Gilag looked like it was his birthday - his happiness was undeniably visible. He was leading the group as they walked to the train station.

"So, Gilag is there to listen to the concert because of Chouno Sanagi, right?" Yuuma asked, smiling about everyone's - except for Vector, anyway - positive attitudes.

"Yeah," Gilag replied, grinning. "And thanks to Nasch, I always have a place in the first row."

Shark simply nodded, crossing his arms. He had known how much Gilag liked Sanagi, so he'd helped out with that.

Meanwhile, Yuuma was still trying to get used to how the Barians called Shark 'Nasch'. It felt wrong, but he knew how right it must feel to them.

"By the way, Alit, are you there to listen, too?" Yuuma asked, looking at Alit with interest.

Alit shook his head and laughed. "No, it's not my kind of music. I just work at the bar. Selling the drinks and stuff. I have a lot of different jobs, but most of them bore me. And this time I got the opportunity to watch Vector sing, so I accepted the job." That earned him a death glare from Vector.

For the rest of the train ride, they remained silent, with Yuuma's thoughts drifting back to what they'd been focused on for the last two months: Astral.

His attention returned to the Emperor's Key and he didn't notice Shark's and Vector's simultaneous sighing; he also didn't notice Alit's worried gaze.

He could be distracted by things that weren't dueling, but ultimately his thoughts always returned to Astral. Astral felt like a part of him and missing Astral was the worst thing ever. He understood that he needed to cheer up, but he just didn't want to miss Astral anymore.

For a moment, Yuuma thought about calling Kaito and V to ask about how their progress regarding the dimensional transporter was. But then again he was scared - scared of hearing them say "No", crushing his hope. They would also run out of astrite soon, something they desperately needed to travel to Astral World.

Yuuma sighed. Just then, he felt his D-Gazer vibrate inside his pocket. Pulling it out, he realized Akari was calling, so he quickly took the video call. "Akari-nee-chan, what is it?"

Akari looked worried as she spoke. "Kotori told me you ran away after class, is everything alright? Where are you right now?"

Yuuma bit his lip, trying to find an excuse. "Wait a moment, nee-chan." He muted the call and looked at the others. "What should I say?"

Shark sighed, his arms remaining crossed. "Say you're sleeping over at my place. She doesn't know Vector lives with me, so this should be safe."

Yuuma's eyes lightened up. "Thanks, Shark!" He unmuted the call, and so Akari's impatient face returned.

"So?" Akari asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm sleeping over at Shark's place. I hope that's okay for you," Yuuma said as he tried to smile, but it ended in a miserable failure.

"What about that Shingetsu kid?" Akari still seemed quite worried and Yuuma just hoped that Kotori wasn't at his house right now since Kotori knew the truth about the Barians. Yuuma hadn't bothered with the details back then, so Akari and Haru only knew that he'd been off to fight a threat from a another dimension.

"Shingetsu's sleeping over at Shark's place, too," Yuuma now reassured Akari.

Akari sighed before giving up. "Fine, but take care of yourself."

Yuuma nodded. "I will. See you, nee-chan!" With that, he dropped the call.

The four Barians and Yuuma sighed in relief.

The concert hall was filled with excited people of all ages. While Yuuma still felt a little down, he was looking forward to seeing why Shark and Alit found the fact that Vector was gonna sing so amusing.

Immediately after they entered, Shark and Vector left them to go backstage. That left Yuuma with Gilag and Alit, although Gilag quickly left for the first row. Yuuma had gotten a VIP ticket from Shark, meaning he could've went to the first row, too. But Yuuma wasn't in the mood for that, so he sat down at the bar where Alit was selling drinks of both the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic kind.

Yuuma took a moment to question why Alit was even allowed to sell alcohol, given that he was 14 according to his ID card. But then Yuuma remembered that Shark was regularly riding a motorcycle, which was just as illegal as Alit's occupation. He decided to drop the thought.

"Can I have some coke?" Yuuma asked, and Alit granted him his wish.

He tried to not focus on the Emperor's Key, but it was hard to do so now that his main two distractions were gone. He just hoped that the concert would start soon.

"Hello, everyone!"

Just in time.

Yuuma turned around to see Vector, Shark and Chouno Sanagi on stage, all of them smiling. Vector was holding a microphone and speaking in his Shingetsu voice and Yuuma heard many people in the audience shout his name.

And then it began.

Yuuma tried his best to not laugh, but it was really hard not to and he choked on his coke, coughing a little.

"Now I get why Vector didn't want me to see it," Yuuma said, still laughing.

Alit just chuckled, apparently he'd seen it a few times already.

So here Vector was, singing about duels and how they made his heart pound, how he wanted everyone to share his excitement. Even more confusing was the fact that Shark was actually smiling. And next to them was Chouno Sanagi, apparently enjoying her duet with Vector a lot.

Yuuma tried to not fall from his chair when he heard Vector sing something like "Is your effect that you can make me smile once per turn?". While Yuuma had no idea of love, he knew that it definitely wasn't about cheesy dueling-related pick-up lines. Nonetheless, the crowd was cheering.

"Is he doing this very often?" Yuuma asked, looking at Alit again.

Alit shook his head as he handed Yuuma another glass filled with coke. "He's a solo artist, but collaborations with Sanagi earn him a lot of money, so he occasionally agrees to have performances with her."

"It's amazing how all of you guys work to afford your house," Yuuma said, emptying the glass in one go. His throat felt dry and he didn't know why, but it probably had something to do with his emotional state.

"It's something we have to do," Alit replied, shrugging as he walked over to some people who wanted to get drinks - mainly alcoholic ones.

Yuuma had never shown any interest in alcohol and now that his conversation partner was gone, he put his arms on the table and rested his head on them, sighing as he looked at the Emperor's Key that was lying in front of him.

"Astral..." Yuuma muttered as he silently wished that Astral could be here with him.

He imagined how Astral would ask him why everyone was excited. How Astral would ask what alcohol was, how Astral would make observations.

Closing his eyes, Yuuma sighed.

He realized that he hadn't changed. And that realization hurt him.

Back when he'd thought Astral to be dead, he'd chased Astral, forgetting everything and everyone else. How was this any different from back then?

When even Vector - Vector, the one who was the least likely to do this - worried for him, it must mean that something was wrong with him.

Yuuma wondered why Kattobingu didn't work when it came to missing Astral.

Because it's nothing I can influence.

He was no scientist. He wasn't Kaito or V. He wouldn't be able to build a dimensional transporter on his own, and he could not influence the time it would take for Kaito and V to do it.

His thoughts were running in circles and he felt a tear run down his cheek.

One hour had passed in which Alit had been too busy with the customers to talk to Yuuma very much, leaving the younger boy to his own thoughts.

Yuuma's ears had gotten accustomed to the happy songs and he was able to ignore them without problems.

But then suddenly, a completely different kind of song started playing. Alternative rock, Yuuma would guess, and he turned his attention back to see that both Chouno Sanagi and Shark were gone, replaced by two different guitarists. And what was the most surprising was the fact that Vector was using his real voice.

Some people had left, too, and new people were coming in.

Alit walked over to Yuuma again, grinning. "This is Vector when he sings his own songs."

"He writes them?" Yuuma asked, surprised.

Alit nodded. "Yeah, all of them. Sometimes he doesn't get out of his room for days because of a song."

They spotted Gilag moving through the crowd, apparently having lost interest as Sanagi was not there anymore. He sat down at the bar, asking Alit for "the usual", whatever that was.

Yuuma soon found out that it was a mixture of different fruit juices that Alit knew how to mix well.

While Yuuma had never really bothered with music at all, he found Vector's music strangely enjoyable. Vector was singing about all kinds of things (that were not dueling), mainly negative emotions or his lack of emotion towards people and things that were attempting to drag him down. Some songs were about war, too.

Yuuma couldn't help but to wonder whether Vector felt the way the lyrics were or if he had written the music from a different person's point of view. It felt strange to think that Vector might be more emotional than what Yuuma had started to believe.

This went on for another hour. Yuuma had fun listening to the lyrics and he even was able to recognize himself in some of them. Mainly the ones that dealt with regret.

And so Yuuma failed to notice that Shark had sat down next to him.

"Having fun?"

Yuuma flinched, surprised by Shark's presence. He quickly nodded. "Y-Yeah. He's a totally different person when he's performing with Sanagi."

"It's part of the job. He can do any collaborations with that vocal range," Alit explained, handing Shark some cold water. "Or so the people say." He stretched.

Gilag yawned, not impressed by Vector's music at all. Of course he was not. But nonetheless he waited with them for Vector.

A few songs later, Vector's solo part of the concert was over. He quickly jumped down from the stage and made his way through the crowd, not bothering with the fans that asked him for autographs.

"We're leaving," he declared, looking at his four companions with a slightly tired expression (which was no wonder since he'd been performing for more than two hours straight).

Alit threw a towel in Vector's direction, knowing the orange-haired boy definitely needed it.

The security was keeping the fans off Vector and so the group had no trouble getting out of the concert hall.

"Vector, why did you never tell me you were this famous?" Yuuma asked as they were walking. It was dark already and the moon shone upon them.

"I am not famous," Vector responded tiredly. "It's more that people in there are just so easy to amaze." He looked really worn out after all, the moonlight made that even more visible.

"He isn't always like this after a concert," Alit said with a grin as he crossed his arms behind his head. "It's more that he usually doesn't have two of them in a row."

Yuuma laughed slightly, feeling better right now. "Gilag, you do like Sanagi a lot, don't you?"

Gilag nodded with a smile. "Ever since I came to earth back then."

"Wait, you watched Sanagi even when you were supposed to fight me and Astral?" Yuuma winced when he said his partner's name.

"He was slacking off," Shark explained as they reached the train station and got inside the train. "Just like Alit."

"I wasn't slacking off!" Alit jokingly protested. "I was just looking for a challenge."

"Alit, we gotta duel one d-" Yuuma realized what he was about to say. He smiled, laughed nervously. "Never mind."

Alit sighed, about to say something, but Vector stopped him.

"Not today," Vector said as if he knew what Alit wanted to say. "It's late and I think it's for the best if there are no arguments or discussions for tonight."

Alit clenched his teeth, again about to voice protest, but Shark's stare kept him silent.

Gilag did not quite understand the issue because he wasn't as involved with Yuuma as the others were. He didn't dislike Yuuma, but they weren't close friends either.

Yuuma was thankful to Vector right then, but he kept quiet for the rest of the train ride.

Returning home, they found Rio and Durbe dueling in the living room.

"Dueling again?" Shark asked as he walked in. From what he could see, it was pretty even so far.

"Yeah, we don't want to get rusty," Rio said, chuckling because Shark looked exhausted. "Unlike you."

"I'm just busy," Shark hissed, not in the mood for jokes. But Rio understood why, everyone understood that.

Shark didn't cope well with the loss of his Numbers. Not at all. Similar to Yuuma's incapability of coping with it, but less emotional because it wasn't his most important person that he'd lost. It was just... a part of his life.

Without another word except for "Good night", he went to his room.

Vector yawned. "Yuuma, get some pajamas from my room," he simply said as he walked to the direction of the bathroom. "I'm gonna take a shower. You can sleep in my room if you find some blankets."

And so the evening came to its end, with Yuuma falling into an uneasy sleep that was still not as uneasy as it could have been.

Maybe his friends were able to help him heal after all.

A/N: I really appreciate the reviews, they help me a lot. I was worried about Vector's characterization a lot, so any feedback is great.