Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Red To Black: Chapter 7: His First Recruit
Characters: Juudai
Word Count: chapter: 1,108||story: 7,535
Genre: Drama, Angst||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Yu-Gi-Oh GX Non-Flash Bingo; Diversity Challenge, section I, #19, chapters between 1000-2000 words
Notes: This begins in episode 136, just after Jim and O'Brien leave to follow Shou. Juudai's mind did not fracture into Juudai & Haou and this will be a retelling of how he came to power.
Summary: Juudai's always won before and it always fixed everything. But now that he's won and it's fixed nothing, what can he do?


"Super Fusion needs souls, and the souls of those who are evil are the ones that will make it come into existence faster," Kozaky said, not a shred of doubt or hesitation in his voice.

"My friends weren't evil." Juudai held no more doubt in his own tone as he stared at the scientist. Kozaky shifted back, glancing with faint bits of nervousness at Juudai.

Not at Juudai. At his eyes. Juudai ignored that, still staring at the horned creature.

"What do you mean?" Kozaky asked carefully. "What do your friends have to do with Super Fusion?"

Juudai looked at the card. He couldn't tell the different souls apart, but he still thought he could sense something different about it when he thought about his friends in particular. Something painful and deep, like a shard of something lodged in his own soul.

"I dueled Brron. He did something so that their souls went into it." He tried not to think about those last moments, of Manjoume's fierce, impassioned shouts, of the pained voices of all the others. He hated that their last thoughts of him had been so awful, that he'd ignored them the way that he had. And for what?

He swerved his mind away from that, too. He didn't need to get going down that road right now. "It was something called 'Wicked Doctrine'. He used four out of five of the cards and that still didn't create it properly."

Kozaky hmmed, then went over to one of the shelves and walked along it until he found the book he wanted. Bringing it back, he opened it up and paged through it. "That isn't something I've heard of often, but I do recall having heard of it. A spell?" Juudai nodded and Kozaky kept turning pages, finally stopping on a set of illustrations that brought back even more memories Juudai didn't want to have again. "Is this it?"

"Yes." Juudai hated seeing them again but he stared anyway, recalling each of his friends.

Kozaky nodded and shut the book. "That gave Super Fusion a huge boost toward existing. But it wasn't complete because, as you said, not all of the Wicked Doctrine cards were involve with it."

"How do I create it now?" He wouldn't use that last card, even if he had it. He thought that one was attached to Shou and there was no way that he would kill Shou for a card. He'd just have to do this the hard way.

Kozaky tapped taloned fingertips onto the leather bound book. "As I said. Evil souls. I do not know how many will be necessary; no one has ever tried to create Super Fusion before and the information isn't as complete as I would like. But it could take hundreds. Perhaps thousands, even."

Juudai didn't like the sound of that. To have to kill all of those people…

This is Dark World. They don't deserve to live. it wasn't the first time that he'd thought this since leaving Brron's arena. Everything he'd seen along the way only made it clearer to him. Everything that had happened before this as well.

I made Yubel evil. That was my fault. If it weren't for me, my friends would still be alive. The words sank into him, filling every tiny little chink in his heart, and his fingers tightened on the arms of his chair. I was stupid. I shouldn't have done it. He couldn't make up his mind just which 'it' he shouldn't have done. Probably all of them.

So. He needed to figure out what he could do about it. Super Fusion was the key; he'd made up his mind on that already. And if it took having to kill people to create Super Fusion, giving him the strength to rule this world…

To rule the world? Juudai hadn't ever wanted to do anything of that sort before. The idea now still wasn't as appealing as it could've been. But regardless, he looked the concept full in the face now, and could not bring himself to look away.

"Kozaky," he said at last, coming to a decision that wrenched him in the heart and that he knew he couldn't step away from once he got started. "I need to kill a lot of people. I need Super Fusion. I need to rule this world."

So that no one else would ever have to suffer from the mistakes that he'd made. So that no one else could ever make the mistakes that he did. So that he could do everything that he could to make up for the ones that he'd already made. So he wouldn't ever make them again.

"I will help you, Haou-sama," Kozaky said at once. "And I can help you get the beginnings for an army. I know a village of fiends and spellcasters not that far from here."

Juudai nodded. It would probably be better to start with an army of the most evil beings he could find. He could weed out the weak and put them into Super Fusion, and the ones that survived would be under his watch from then on. And if I have to kill some of them to keep the others in line, that will just help Super Fusion that much more.

His stomach twinged still at the thought of all the death ahead of him. It was for a good cause. It was something that needed to do. But he didn't look forward to it at all.

"Why do you keep calling me Haou?" Juudai mentally seized onto another question. He recalled what Birdman had mentioned before he died, about becoming Haou, but why did Kozaky use the term?

The scientist's lips curved up quickly. "There is an old legend in our world that in a time of great evil, the true Haou shall arise from the shadows and set out to bend his will upon our world. Brron insisted that he be called Haou, but no one believed that he was the one spoken of. The legend says that Haou-sama's eyes will be of gold and his power that of the deepest shadows."

Juudai blinked at that, and Kozaky's only answer was to gesture toward one of the walls. Specifically, to a mirror on that wall. Juudai looked that way and blinked again.

Eyes of shimmering gold looked back at him, a hint of distance and raw power glowing deep within them. He could feel the darkness around him, now that he turned his attention to it, and set his jaw a little firmer.

"I've got a lot to do, Kozaky. Let's get started."

To Be Continued