Well, as I said in the description:
SPOILERS TO 145 + ahead!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yugioh 5ds.
So I have finally gotten hold of the entire duel of Yusei vs Zone and am rather pleased with the opportunities it leaves. BIG thanks to CFG101 for that (AKA CAP) and the updates will come swiftly. I've already written everything but the duels!
AN UPDATE A DAY (or so) UNTIL THE NEW EPISODE AIRS. Make sure to keep checking, they'll be quick!
You'll find…
3rd Person POV
"Impossible!"
It was the first word to leave the spectator's lips, coming from the man who was always first. Jack Atlas, the King of Riding Duels, and Yusei's eternal rival, his closest friend. "Do you expect us to believe such lies? Yusei would never abandon hope!"
"I… I don't think I can do this, Jack." Fists trembling, he refused to look up once the sentence was out of him, once he had finally released the thought hounding him and consuming him, afraid to look at how he'd hold the insecurity in his own shaking hands. Jack grabbed him by the throat, accused him of being dead.
Blue eyes heavy, staring off into those distant possibilities he rarely ever shared, "We all lose people differently."
Their approach barely seemed to register as his thoughts wove and spun around him, nearly tangible in the soft sunlit breeze blowing over the channel below them. The steel bridge reflected shards of rays across his face, bringing to life the downturned lips born from the pressures engulfing him, the battles he would always choose to fight alone. "This is my battle, Jack."
Quelling the unease with a threatening shake of his fist, but no words left for attack, Jack settled back into the folds of shock, picking through the weeds that had always clogged Yusei's heart, the start of a growing infestation.
Crow revived next, jolting back from the blank void of shock he had tumbled into with vigor, "Did you even try, Ghost? At least with Jack, you nailed his arrogance! Yusei doesn't fight like this—he's never fought like you! Besides, you've got his face wrong!"
"Let go of me!" He barely heard the words over the stinging in his hand. Shock kept his usually silver tongue quiet for a moment, his matching eyes uncomprehending as they watched his form continue to stalk away without a hint of regret for the unwarranted strike. Were the WRGP and Ghost truly too much for him to handle in his silence? Why wouldn't he just talk to them? Didn't he understand he was just as precious to them as they were to him?
"How could they ever accept a piece of shit like me as their friend?" Crow backed down, staring at Yusei's stiff form, waiting for the reassurance that couldn't possibly come. With so much hatred stored for him, was it really any surprise that he became lost in it?
"To survive the future alone…" Aki stood in uncertainty, observing the mirrored angles of his jaw, the weary intelligence in dark sapphire irises, and the outwardly justified way he held himself. As Crow had pointed out, there were stark differences to be found as well, other than the graying in his hair and the Yliaster cloak he bore. The left portion of his face (coincidentally, the half already marked by society) was obscured in a vicious burn scar, leaving only the hard light of his eye distinguishable.
White teeth snaked out a bit deep into her soft lips as she recognized there would be no point to add such features if this was just a fake—a machine. So then this was just the man who had lost everything, who had clung to hope until it was physically impossible to do so…
"I don't know where these feelings will lead," he admitted as he stared down at her. Enraptured, she clung onto every syllable that escaped his mouth, desperate to know how to deal with the loss of Divine, and how he would deal with the loss of Kiryu. "But since we were friends in the past, I'll carry that burden and keep moving forward."
But to keep moving forward endlessly, without the faces he strove for, without the bonds that kept him from falling into himself, from shutting himself out from the world…
Miles away on a separate plane of existence entirely, Martha stared out the tinted windows of the bus, seeing Zone's face splashed across the wide screens, listening to the MC try and splutter out an explanation for the paradox unfolding.
"Right now, you've got the doors to your heart closed up. And the ones who can open it are your friends, aren't they? Being with your friends will knock on that door. And once your hear it, it will open up."
Hadn't she been the one to tell him that? If he was with his friends, they could pry him from himself, from the black, never-ending hole of his mind, and lead him out into greater sights, into the supernova he was before he fell. And without them… without anyone to save him…
"I was born after the certain death of this city, and I carried the burden of its destruction." It was a shout without a raised voice, and Harold took care to listen. "But I refuse to give up and leave everything to fate! That's why I'm prepared to gladly give my life for this! That's why I'll never give up! I'll use whatever power I have until there's nothing left to give!"
Brave and Dragon stood laboring beside him, panting over the exhaustion they had overcome creating the BiFrost Bridge, sharing his thoughts and fears with their rune eyes shining. Zone's goal had been as mad as Yusei's, as impossible and daring and risky only to himself, but with the fate of the world breaking and bending his back. And he had brought them together to create something impossible, to bring a legend to life, just as Zone had managed to travel through time with his three companions.
Sherry, who had approached Yusei to betray Zone, glanced back at Aki slowly, having come to the same nasty conclusion much earlier. The absolute silence their leader wore like a heavy cloak told them he knew the same.
"You asked me to defeat Yusei," Sherry repeated to herself, the words lost under the waist-deep denial that the five Signers were spouting. "But… you are…"
"You shouldn't take such unnecessary risks." She blinked, the true ending looming closer on her horizons, the true purpose Zone had crafted for this fight, for this confrontation, and for her involvement.
There was no question. Zone was Yusei.
Yes, they could see it.
Third Person POV
Arc Cradle
A face was all it took.
Although many would describe him as quiet, it was a rare ability to steal the words away from him, even scarcer to snatch a thought.
Encompassed in the fickle notion of time, his eyes remained wide and locked on what he could not be seeing, and his body which was always moving, calculating, or at the very least breathing shut down, becoming so still it was easy to believe in the prophecy that sent his friends scuttling after him in the first place.
Stillness engulfed him, and all that was left was silence.
"Zone…" his companions muttered, falling in line beside him with mouths open in horror. The once loud, assured, and arrogant voice was just a whisper, "You wanted me to kill Yusei… but…"
The hissing of Zone's machines filled the silence fittingly, broken only by the soft tap of his mask's pieces hitting the buildings.
"Impossible. Do you expect us to believe such lies? Yusei would never abandon hope!"
"Did you even try, Ghost? At least with Jack, you nailed his arrogance! Yusei doesn't fight like this—he's never fought like you! Besides, you've got his face wrong!"
"To survive the future alone..."
"You asked me to defeat Yusei. But… you are…"
"The Momentum Reactor."
Admittedly, they jumped when he began talking again, though he still did not move an inch. Drained and exhausted orbs gazed blankly at Zone with little will to continue, the words that had been stolen were dropped in the air. The elder nodded, his mechanical fingers dangling loosely at his sides in a defiant form of relaxation.
A strange little titter escaped his lips at that, binding his companions in confused silence once more. "So even then I bare that curse." His gloved fingers lingered on the golden mark.
Although many would say he showed little emotion when he did speak, it was easy to tell when he was talking through his mask or his heart.
He sounded wrong: defeated although the duel had hardly started, like a man staring into the eyes of the reaper without the will to live. The vigor and grit that had occupied his will had dissipated like a fine morning mist under the hot truth of the sun, leaving a listless, robotic recording left to spell out the facts. Devoid of emotion, his lips continued to move.
"Antinomy… Bruno… this is what you meant," he muttered, gazing at the aged version of himself without really seeing.
Although many would admire his confidence, infallibly, and apparent perfection, anyone who spent five minutes in his company could tell he was struggling, and very few knew it was with himself.
"Yusei, you don't—!" fear chocked off the rest of his sentence as Crow realized the pointlessness of a question that had been answered countless times. Gray eyes flicked around the room as if expecting a swaying bridge to appear below their feet and a monstrous spider to tame Momentum into a web.
I wonder… do we understand Yusei?
The nagging thought that had plagued him ever since that hellish night reared its ugly head once more as he stared at the version of his friend that would kill for a lie and the one who had already let him. Aki's earlier comment that something had felt weird surfaced along with it, and now he found himself facing the answer to both questions and liking neither of them.
"Yusei you idiot!" Jack snarled when it became apparent that Crow was at a loss. The blonde would have stormed into the sky had Aki's arm not held him back, but his words cut as hard as any blow could. "You seriously can't be moronic enough to believe that you would try and destroy this city! Have some respect for yourself! As your rival and friend, I think my judgment is sound on this! You are not this man!"
"No Jack," he replied hollowly, "I'm not."
The statement brought no relief, only a lingering feeling of the despair that Aporia had tried so hard to destroy for Zone. Yet Jack paid this no heed, pressing, "Then why the hell are you just standing there?"
"Because he will be," Sherry answered, look turning sour as she sized up the man she had wanted on her team. Yusei returned the contact with no denials, adding, "Ah, I can see it."
"You can—?" the blonde's mouth worked furiously to keep up with the rage surging through him, to no avail. Yusei took the moment of frustration to clarify, "We would have fought against them, the Machine Emperors."
The orbs that had been locked firmly onto the present shifted towards a destructive future, hazy with the feelings he knew were to come. "Accel Synchro would be a dueling weapon, but Clear Mind's power would become abused and filled with hatred… connected so closely to Momentum's Light…"
Recognition leapt across his eyes like a comet, brief and startling. "That's why Placido said if I used Accel Synchro I would cause a second Zero Reverse. He wasn't lying."
Zone nodded. "The pollution of Accel Synchro is what caused the Momentum Reactor to overload and the abuse from the Speed World."
"And to survive the future alone… everyone must have died in that chaos, and if Momentum failed to kill me twice before, why would it succeed a third time?" He barely seemed to register Zone's voice, his attention fully towards the future playing out before his glazed eyes. "They are my hope, my life, and without them…"
"Coming here, I knew the risks," he switched abruptly, sight refocusing on the image in time's warped mirror. "But I did not know what I would do if I lost any of my friends, which is why I wanted to come alone."
His blue eyes skirted to the side and one hand came up to his chest, shaking before closing to a fist. "But I failed to keep them safe. Bruno was killed because I wasn't prepared for this, because he knew I was too weak to defeat you as I am."
"In the short time I stayed with you, you showed me again and again that you could overcome the wall of impossibilities."
Bruno, resting on his knees, eyes closed towards the death that would finally reach him, a single shot, a crimson rider, an offered hand, a fate of destruction, a world of speed, a warping in time, a chance to fix the past, a restoration of memory, a prolonging of life…
Bruno, beaten on the ground, held up by the same hand, a single goal, a crimson team, evolution, destruction of despair, clustering wishes, a changing of hands and ideals, a beautiful world of speed, a passing of time, hopes to change the future, a creation of memories, a dwindling life…
"And at the moment my memories returned, I decided that I would believe in your possibilities, Yusei."
A D-Wheel breaks into the city, a King is dethroned, criminals united, a witch saved, friends are lost, families broken, a man dies in his arms, he tastes death twice, but overcomes his human limits, a meeting with a ghost, a revival of hope, transitions of love, lives once lost returned, darkness held at bay, two cities untied…
A tournament looms, a new engine designed, Clear Mind, the approval of another God, defeat of a Ghost, of an emperor, binding bonds across the world, a message spread clear, a plan foiled, a decision to make, an outstretched hand, left empty…
"I know you can do it. If it's you, Yusei, I'm sure you can surpass the limits of your own being."
To face the future alone, to be the last survivor of mankind, to search for an answer, to abandon hope only after it had been long since dead, to sacrifice humanity for Godhood, to break the boundaries of time, to exceed the limitations of humanity, to sacrifice the part of him that still lived for a better world… to become a God…
To face the future together, to be the martyr for mankind, to search for reasons, to never abandon hope even after it's long since died, to offer his life for humanity, to push the boundaries of faith, to exceed the limitations of a God, and to sacrifice the part of him that never lived for a better world…
"That's why I started this duel—so I could guide you towards a new power!"
Because Accel Synchro was so much more than light, it was a truth impossible to ignore. It had first brought him before Zone, to be granted his own card, to 'even the odds', and to allow this disaster to slip into this time stream.
"Everything he was trying to tell me… it's you. I… when he died…" Trembling, brimming over his capacity with movement, his arms slashed with the harsh words from his mouth, "I hated you for forcing him through that, for creating a situation where I would have to defeat him to get closer to you, for making another Dark Signer war out of this. But I was only truly angry at myself for watching him die."
Bitter, he muttered, "It seems I was at least justified in my anger."
Zone stayed quiet, observing his tale spill from the young mouth before him, inhibitions destroyed by a simple cracked mask. "So then, in your time, at the least I would want vengeance, but I could no longer use the Accel Synchro or any other kind in fear of triggering another explosion. So I created the weapon that saved Bruno."
"And then I found him, and later Paradox and Aporia, it gave me a sense of direction and people to protect. So I worked towards prolonging our lives and trying to save what was already gone."
I don't have the power to save anyone.
"There was no hope for the future, but the truth was they needed lies, I needed lies. So I turned towards Destiny that I did not believe in and used the power of the Speed World to split from that time. The Speed world needed to be breached if I were to bring about the Arc Cradle, and it needed to be controlled."
"Then!" Sherry interrupted, overtaking the suction of his heedless tale with her brimming enlightenment. "My father's card! That's why it was created. Z-One controls the Speed World, which is how Bruno and you escaped from it when we separated."
Making another appearance, the card flashed and seemed to draw in the world as she held it before them, revealing the thick patterns the wind made around them. Remnants of the Arc Cradle's voyage through the rotting universe gathered around its edges, a slight shimmer in the air.
"And I was taught the Accel Synchro to provide enough power so that it could cross over into reality," Yusei followed up. When their eyes met briefly over the distance, she saw that same grimy light reflected in him. A birthing of the dangerous bright knives in Zone's.
"Fudo Yusei," she repeated suddenly, fully understanding the meaning of her own words. "You will die when you board the Arc Cradle."
The shapeless, dark mass that had paid rent within such a dark heart roamed free now, sliding through the concrete wind, clinging to their cheeks, whispering bitter nothings into their straining ears.
"That is not why Antinomy chose to die," Zone said finally, sensing an end. "He always knew of who I used to be, and he still foolishly carried hope for that man. No, Yusei, he died because he knew that you already succumbed to me because of how you were."
"How I was…?" he repeated, still and suffocating under the looming threat of his own future. "Bruno died because I…"
Zone nodded curtly, just as he would have done, following with, "Yusei, I will prove to you that this is the only way to save this world! I'll open your eyes once more if that's what it takes! Draw!"
Time Machine Deity Razion vanished back into the folds of Zone's deck, sparing Yusei one last, sympathetically condescending quirk of the eyebrow. He just stared.
"Watch carefully," Zone advised, "and you'll see why your methods will fail. I was you, and I can predict every move you'll make. I understand your naïve way, having once followed that road myself. So watch and try to understand: I destroy the continuous trap Zero Machine Ain to activate Infinite Machine Ain Soph."
A triple ringed golden portal appeared, giving off a faint alabaster glow. "This allows me to summon as many Time Machine Deities as I have in my hand!"
Yusei flickered back into focus across his wide blue eyes, feeling the dread of being out foxed creep in. "What?"
"So appear now, Time Machine Deity Tzaphion, Zadion, and Camion!"
The three flashed into existence calmly, as if they had always been there, but were just waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. Gleaming and grinning, they stared down the three Signer Dragons that glared against them, reveling ins godly silence while the beasts growled and roared in warning against them.
Three on three. He's already summoned two. Halfway through the ten.
"Tzaphion attacks Black Feather Dragon!"
No!
"I activate Scrap-Iron Scarecrow!" Yusei shouted, parting the vicious stream of light from the deity's assault. Zone's lips twitched upwards slightly, a telltale sign of Yusei's strategy gone right.
"I knew you would stop my first attack, but what matters is the next. Zadion attack Black Rose Dragon!"
Helpless to stop it, he watched the torrents of harsh wind and debris smash against Aki's dragon, who stood strong and brave under the powerful onslaught, breaking it with a firm flap of her magenta petals.
"When Zadion battles," Zone elaborated, "it is not destroyed and battle damage becomes zero. Furthermore, it returns my life points to 4000."
"What?" he hollered, watching all the damage they had worked hard for vanish under one monster's simple effect. A bead of sweat trailed down his brow as he stared down the last monster left to attack, realizing for the first time how desperate this battle had to become for a victory.
"Now do you see how pointless it is to fight against me? Camion attacks Red Demon's Dragon!"
Letting loose a torrent of fire and a monumental roar, Jack's ace crushed the attack before it made contact, only for the ash to swirl around and engulf him, soon swallowing the other two dragons whole as well. "Camion's effect returns each of your monsters back to the extra deck and inflicts 500 points for each."
A gasp left him as his friend's wishes exploded, blindsiding him and knocking him down into the approaching city. Screaming as he went, the wings twitched and spiraled out of control, swinging him from one street to another until he finally looped around the Security Building and took back to the sky, panting heavily.
Yusei: 1500
Zone: 4000
Brow damp from sweat, muscles shaking, resolve uprooted, he drew a card. His eyes widened. With this I can…!
Shifting his attention back towards Zone, he took in the features he saw each morning in the mirror, focused on those bright, sapphire eyes. The eyes of a murderer. The eyes of a hero. His eyes.
No.
Never.
"Zone!" he shouted, banking all his anger on the word, spitting it, cursing it. "I do not believe you! I am not like you and never will be! I'll prove it to you in this duel!"
"You cannot change the past, Yusei, isn't that what you told the Dark Signers? It's our futures that we shape, and I am what has been created. You are my past, thus I am inevitably your future."
He bit into deep into his lip, keeping clarity with the ache in his body, the blank void of his mind. "I won't believe that! I'll set one card face down and end."
Zone's visible eye narrowed. "Is that all you have left to do? Now you have no cards in your hand."
Those watching wondered the same thing. "Yusei…"
It was the last thing he was willing to hear from them, his name, whispered so softly and with concern, poisoned with the taint of another, with a reflection of himself, with a lie…
Veins popping and knuckles white, he stared down the shared face of his enemy, expression quickly morphing into a flash of hatred, something that had only appeared for a brief second a year ago, covered by darkness, revealed by Momentum's light.
"I may have none at this point, but I'm willing to bet on this card. You will only have one yourself, Zone."
"Very well," he whispered, though his tone remained unchanged. "You leave me no choice but to crush you." Tzaphion, Zadion, and Camion vanished with his words and the draw of his new card. "Tzaphion's effect activates. I can draw until I have five cards in my hand."
Glare darkening; Yusei watched his last glimmer of hope for Zone failing to draw a monster snuff out. But he had been hoping on this, willing to bet his life on this…
"Trap card open!" Caught off guard, Zone allowed a gasp to escape in place of his next summon, surprise fleeting on his burned face. "Insightful Cards of Reversal!"
"A trap before any moves are made?" he wondered. "Then you're going to…?"
"If my opponent is granted an extra draw on their turn, I can draw the amount of cards equal to those in your hand, making mine five as well!"
Slicing the five cards from the top of his deck, aware of each passing second, he declared, "I drew Scouting Warrior, which can be summoned on my field when drawn!"
The lithe monster appeared, out of turn, out of place, right in strategy, and stared down the man on the other end of the sky. "Also, Steam Synchron can be special summoned whenever another monster is, regardless of the turn. Furthermore, its second ability activates, which allows me to Synchro Summon during my opponent's turn!"
Appearing only to dissolve into thick green rings, the tuner took to the ceiling of the Arc Cradle, lighting a path for its partner. Ruca started as her arm began to ache, clinging to the crimson glow with all the strength her frail heart had. Folding her arms in silent, begging prayer, she shouted, "The light of justice will become a door that connects life. Synchro Summon! Shine, Ancient Fairy Dragon!"
Then softly, to herself, "Please protect him."
She came without a sound, bathing the warring Signer in her otherworldly light, wrapping her thin tail behind him and her claws before him in defense mode. He glanced into her wise eyes, and found her stare too hard to meet, looking instead towards Zone, the future he would not accept.
"Another dragon?" Zone muttered. "You haven't learned yet, Yusei? These bonds will do you no good—these bonds die in the future!"
He knew it—had said it—believed it—but to hear said, to hear it shouted at him without a raised voice, to hear it as a fact and not a possibility… Chest seizing, he found he could not even look at Zone without seeing their faces, without gazing into their eyes and searching fruitlessly for life in death's grasp. "I won't let that happen!" he hollered. "I will defeat you and protect them!"
"Don't you understand?" Zone replied. "You can't protect them! They will die, have died, and there is nothing that anyone can do to change that now. That's why I am here Yusei. Everyone dies in the future! I'm here to stop that before it happens! The only way you can protect them is to let this city fall! Even then, they must leave the Arc Cradle, or they will perish within it regardless!"
His breath hitched.
"Yusei I am not trying to destroy you," Zone continued. "I am trying to save you!"
Sherry stepped back, tightening her grip on the card in her pocket, praying to anyone watching that her warning would be heard. Her glare on the back of his spiky haired-head sharpened when he failed to make a sound, just stared into his own words and ideals and they continued to turn around and hit him, break him, send him hurtling into doubt.
"I do not wish for them to die again," Zone admitted, "but they have chosen their fate by following you, just as they did with me. They will follow you into death. I activate Crown of the Empress from my hand, which allows me to draw two cards."
His eyes widened. Zone had even anticipated his card play, letting himself stay ahead with his hand and monsters alike. There was no chance he did not have a Deity now.
"Now I'll special summon Time Machine Deity Michion, Hanion, Raphion, Gabrion, and Sandaion from my hand!"
Five Gods. All he had left in one turn.
They surrounded him, blocking escape from all side, mocked him with their silent expressions, and their age-old disdain. Ancient Fairy Dragon pulled into tighter around him, trying to protect him as the other half of her soul wished, but she was useless against such an onslaught, against the heavens, and against the gods.
"Yusei! This is the path you have chosen, and it will lead to nowhere but my future! You'll find that it is both fate and fact, and you cannot escape!"
Utterly defeated, he could do nothing but jerk from one face to another, seeing the destruction he had created in each grin, and hearing the screams of the city as his defeat loomed closer on the horizon. They all knew it now, whether they believed or balked in denial.
Fudo Yusei must die.
Although many would claim his bonds were his weakness, they would find that only strength lied in his belief in them, and the only true enemy he ever had was himself.
AN UPDATE A DAY (or so) UNTIL THE NEW EPISODE AIRS. Make sure to keep checking, they'll be quick!
FOR THOSE HAVING PROBLEMS EDITTING THEIR STORIES
Fanfiction has been showing "Error Type 2" for a lot of authors. If you want to get around that, go to that error page, and in the URL change 'property' to 'content' and you can edit like normal. Hope that helps people!
Oh college and your many ways to make me procrastinate...
Sorry guys.
But did you all like the little italic bits about Yusei's character? I liked how they fit in, but wasn't sure if it drew the reader out of the story too much...
Thanks for reading and please review,
~AxJfan
