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.
Fandoms: Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal
Series Title: Hating Humanity
Title: To Find The Lost Ones
Characters: Ryouga, Rio, Durbe
Romance: Nasch x Durbe/Durbe x Nasch
Word Count: chapter 9: 1,191||story: 9,985
Genre: Drama, Supernatural||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section I19, a multichap with chapters between 1000-2000 words; Written for the Advent Calendar 2015, day #12, write a gift-fic (this is for SilvorMoon)
Notes: This begins shortly before the duel between IV & Ryouga, pre-canon. It also contains some of my headcanons about the Barian World and the power of the Barian Emperors.
Summary: Durbe wanted to find Nasch so much that he made his way to Earth far sooner than expected. What he did not expect was to run across Kamishiro Ryouga at the worst time of his life.


Red across the sky. Blue and white pulsed inside of her, memories of another sky. She couldn't have said what sky it was; to call it a memory was to give it more than it deserved. A flicker of imagery, perhaps imagination, nothing more. But the blue and the white enfolded within her and she knew who she was: Merag, sister to Nasch. A Barian Emperor.

Or Empress; the term didn't matter. She was one of their leaders, her brother's right hand, the sword of ice.

Merag walked the world beside her brother, learning what he did, and learning other points as well. They were not the only Barians. They were the leaders, but there were others. She could not say if there were many of them, only that they outnumbered the two of them. But those Barians, those lesser Barians who were their servants and people, knelt to them and called them their king and queen, and Nasch would not turn away from those who needed him.

He never had. She'd needed him and he'd been with her, no matter the cost to himself. If anyone harmed her, Nasch put an end to them.

She did not know when this had happened. She only knew that it had, and that she would do the same for him.

She had done the same, once. Again, she did not know when. Only that it had.

And it happened here as well. Not all of those who lived in this world of scarlet and flame, shaking and silence, approved of this new arrival as their lord. One attempted to stab Nasch in the back.

For the first time, Merag found she could wield ice and cold. She stared at the long, sharp-edged blade that pierced the heart of the Barian who dared to raise a hand against her brother. For a single moment the foolish one stood where he was, eyes wide and round in shock, and then he faded away and was no more.

What happened to him next no one knew. No one had ever seen a Barian die, not to their recollection. But Merag did not care. He'd attempted to slay her brother. Whatever else, that meant death.

Power meant training. Power meant having to learn to control that power. Power meant learning more about herself and Nasch learning about himself as well.

By the time Durbe arrived, they knew more of themselves. No one else dared to attack Nasch. Word spread; their king and queen were very capable of taking care of themselves. No one wished to follow the example of that first one.

From the moment she saw Durbe and Nasch gazing at one another, Merag knew there was far more to the bond between them than liege and knight, fellow king to fellow king, Barian to Barian. The brush of hands, the pulse of the gems that gleamed on their bodies, the whisper of voices when they thought no one else could hear them. All of those wrote a tale that Merag could not help but believe was a continuing, not a beginning.

Such a tale both included her and did not. Their love was for them alone. But her friendship was theirs, and her protection when they needed it.

Not to mention all the amusing remarks she could make at other times. And she did make them. It was part of her job as a sister, she decided. Someone had to keep them in line and there wasn't anyone else suitable for the job.

Life grew both more complicated and simpler when the other Emperors began to arrive. She did not like Vector. She did not trust him. She didn't know if any of them did. For all that he seemed as loyal to their cause as any of them did, she still held a faint flicker of thought that he should be watched.

Watching Vector wasn't easy at all. He was as slippery as they came, able to slip away at a moment's notice and not return until he chose. But she watched when she could and protected her brother, as was her task. Durbe might be their shield, but a blade could defend and attack at the same time.

The others were much better to spend time with than Vector was, and she enjoyed doing so when there was time. Alit and Gilag sparred with one another frequently and watching them passed many an idle hour. Mizael was a skilled dueling opponent and training against him sharpened her own skills. He always found time to speak to her of dragons – a beloved topic with him – and she spoke with him of the half-whispers in her thoughts that might've been memories or dreams or perhaps even memories of dreams.

He had no answers for her, but of them all, he considered her thoughts of Vector the most serious, and more than once they watched him together, though what he was doing, neither of them could figure out. Vector's ways remained mysterious to everyone, perhaps most of all to Vector himself.

Somewhere in those years, something happened. Merag knew that she didn't know what it was, only that it had been horrible and infuriating and when she found out what it was, she would exact the most terrible revenge that she could imagine on whoever did it. They'd brought pain to her brother and that she would not allow. Whoever it was, she would end them. She would break them and make them weep in fear at the very thought of her name.

But now memories and reality welded themselves into one and together the three of them stood where they had in the hospital room. She blinked slowly, realizing as she did that she wasn't on the bed anymore. She stood next to Durbe and Nasch, her hands folded around the talisman with theirs, and she could see them.

Durbe caught the sound of her breath as she inhaled in shock and smiled at her. "Barians can heal quickly from almost anything short of death itself. With your power brought back to you, it healed your injuries."

She touched her fingers to her face, wondering. The doctors and nurses had spoken of her injuries and how they weren't certain of how well she would heal and how much of her sight she might retain. But now she saw as clearly as she ever had.

Durbe looked toward both of them now. "You are Nasch and Merag. Will you come with me to our world? We need you. Both of you."

Merag flicked her gaze toward Nasch, who stared at her as if every wish he'd ever had in his life had come true. With Durbe's question, she knew that she had no ties to this world that weren't her brother. She did want to find IV and speak to him about what happened in their duel. But aside from that…

"Yes," she said finally. "Yes, I'll go with you." She wanted to go home, to the friends she'd had for centuries and missed so very much.

Nasch raised his head, sea-blue eyes bright. "Let's go."

To Be Continued

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the chapter. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.