Chapter 2: Blast from the Past – Old Memories, a Team's Bond

Victory and War Counsel

The hideout was really just the remains of an office building on the edge of a cliff that jutted out over a lower part of the city. Once, this had been a business district, but after the Moment Disaster had split Satellite from the mainland, a large chunk of land had been pushed upward, creating the cliff. Now the Enforcers controlled the ruined building and were able to see most of their conquered territory from their war room, which was open to the sky on one side as well as high enough to see the ocean between them and Neo-Domino City.

The Enforcers were currently gathered there, watching as Kiryu bent over their Territory Map and used a fat black Sharpie to shade in the turf they'd just conquered. Crow sat on a makeshift bench of concrete chunks while Jack and Yusei leaned against the wall near the door. Renei sat with her legs crossed on the floor near Crow, and everyone was grinning with excitement at being able to fill in another section of the Territory Map. When Kiryu had finished, he held the map up triumphantly and said, "All right! Now we've got control of that area, too!"

Yusei and Jack bro-fisted while Crow gave a whoop and said, "Haha, yeah!" Then, in a lower voice, he added to Renei, "I can't believe their leader was that little kid, though!"

Kiryu heard the comment and looked sharply at Crow, saying, "Hey, a leader is a leader, kid or not. He was pretty tough." Then he looked at Renei and pointed at her with a grin. "But either way, you beat him, and that's all that matters!"

This earned Renei a clap on the back from Crow, while Yusei smiled slightly and nodded at her. Jack, however, was scrutinizing Kiryu. Slowly, he asked, "I… heard you got captured by some rival gang, Kiryu. You okay?"

Kiryu's expression turned furious, and he pounded on the table with his fist at the memory of it. Renei just managed to keep herself from jumping at the suddenness of it. His voice came out in a low growl as he said, "That little punk came out of nowhere and got me from behind! What a dirty trick!"

Then, just as quickly as he'd turned to fury, he became jovial again, saying, "But I guess I would have to resort to tactics like that, too, if I was that bad at dueling!" This made all the Enforcers snort with laughter. It'd been obvious to them all that the members of Team Black 'n Blue depended on muscle and intimidation, not their dueling skills to stay in control.

Yusei leaned forward and asked eagerly, "So did you go all out on him?"

Kiryu's eyes became dark and he said fiercely, "I beat him to a pulp all right…" He glanced in Renei's direction and added with a little grin, "In a duel. Fair and square."

Renei shivered at the memory, seeing him choking that gray-haired guy again and fearing Kiryu wouldn't stop until he held a corpse. Then Crow asked, "Fair and square, eh?" in a teasing voice, and Kiryu said defensively, "What?!" His hands were balled into fists, and Crow leaned back, holding up his hands in surrender and grinning mischievously.

"Nothing, I just feel sorry for the guy. That's all. Getting beaten to a pulp by you in a duel definitely doesn't feel good, I'll tell ya that."

Yusei nodded in agreement while Jack shrugged, though Renei could tell neither of them had missed Kiryu's aggressiveness and were subtly tensed as if for a fight. Kiryu didn't notice and instead shouted, "Hey, he attacked me first!"

Before Crow could bait Kiryu any further, Jack cut in, saying, "Well, more importantly, we've conquered almost all of Satellite." This was acknowledged by the others with a chorus of "Hell yeah."

Jack glared irritably at the interruption and added, "But don't get cocky. It's not over yet."

Crow said, "Yeah, you're right. So what area are we goin' for next?" He looked eagerly at the map lying on the rickety wooden table they were all gathered around. Yusei studied the map speculatively and said calmly, "Don't get ahead of yourself. First, we have to make sure we know our opponents."

Kiryu inhaled deeply, pinched the bridge of his nose, then let out his breath in a whoosh and leaned over the map. "Yusei's right. I'll go stake out the next area tomorrow or something."

Jack nodded in agreement and said pointedly, "All right. Let's call it a day." To Renei, he added, "Get some rest. You may not feel it right now, but your body's probably exhausted."

She blew a raspberry at him and said, "Is it because I'm a girl, Jack? I can keep up with the big boys just fine, thank you!"

Crow laughed and said, "Yeah. It's more like we have trouble keepin' up with you, Renei. You took down that leader like it was nothin'!"

Renei gave a snort and said, "He made me play by special rules, but even with a handicap, I beat him no problem." This made the guys laugh and shake their heads. All of them had gone up against Renei before and been beaten. She was the strongest duelist in their group for sure, even though Kiryu was their leader. The only reason she wasn't in charge was because she had no vision for the future like Kiryu did and didn't want the responsibility of being a leader. He inspired the other guys with his dreams of uniting Satellite under the Enforcers and was perfectly comfortable in the role of leader, even if lately he'd been a bit on edge. Renei just went where he pointed and dueled until there was nobody left to duel. She would help him make Satellite better after they'd united it and would continue to support him even if he was acting a little differently. Being a leader was hard, after all.

Kiryu said "I'll let you know once we decide on our next opponent."

The charisma that had brought them all under his leadership shone for just a moment as he said, "I hope you're as stoked as I am!"

After that pronouncement, Yusei and Jack excused themselves, saying they needed to go see Martha. Crow dashed out, shouting something about how he needed to get back to the kids and check on them. Kiryu left to begin his stake-out, and Renei sat there for a moment wondering what she should do.

She decided to spend the night at the hideout rather than with Crow and the kids. It would be quieter in the morning for one, and for two, she might be able to get a glimpse of a star or two up here in the war room. Satellite was so often covered in smog and pollution that it was nearly impossible to see any stars at night, but sometimes, if you were high up in a building and the sea winds were moving especially fast, enough of the overhanging crap would get moved aside for long enough to let the tiny, flickering stars peek through at her. A memory flickered in her mind as she brought up blankets and cushions to sleep on in the war room.

Renei and Crow had met each other a few days ago and had begun hanging out together. They were only nine, but since they were both orphans, they had a lot of freedom to explore the ruins of the B.A.D. Area. Today, Crow had convinced her to climb with him up to the top of a building as the sun was setting. By the time they reached the top, the sun had almost sunk completely below the horizon.

Crow ran over to the edge of the building and spread his arms as wide as they could go. "Look, Renei! I'm a Blackwing! Now I'll attack your Life Points directly!" He rushed at her with a yell and she playfully pretended to take damage and fell on her back to the roof top. Crow flopped down opposite her, both their heads nearly bumping against one another as they looked up at the sky.

As it got dark, Crow suddenly gave a shout and pointed up at the sky. "Renei, Renei, look! It's a star! A star! Wow, I've never seen one before!"

Renei squinted at where he was pointing and was surprised to see a little pinprick of light winking in the sky. Normally, the sky was completely dark at night, covered by the dirty clouds that always hung over Satellite. Nobody Renei ever knew bothered to look up at the sky, so she had never thought to look up, either. The star enchanted her with the way it seemed to dance in place.

Her voice awestruck, she said, "It's beautiful…"

It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, better even then the colorful sunsets that she saw every day because it was so rare. It seemed to twinkle with a secret so wonderful that it couldn't keep it to itself.

Crow said, "I think you're supposed to make a wish on them. Martha told me! Come on, make a wish with me, Renei!"

Renei squinched her eyes shut and made a wish. Once she was done, she wondered if the secret the star seemed to want to share was all the wishes that had been made upon it. She was certainly curious to know.

She watched the star with Crow until it winked out, covered again by the ever-present clouds.

She smiled at the memory. Since then, she'd only seen a couple of other stars, and had wondered if they were the same one as the one she'd seen way back then. They served to remind her that there were great and beautiful things beyond this sad, dirty little island. She fell asleep while searching for one, and dreamed of skies overflowing with millions of stars, every single one holding onto someone's wish.

Ridiculously Long Author's Note: The geography is a bit messed up in this chapter, since I'm not only going off of the map in the game, but off of what I've seen in the anime, and they don't quite match up. In the anime, there's a scene where they're in their hideout on the top floor where part of the room is open to sky. In the background of one of the shots (I think either Jack or Kiryu is in it), you can clearly see ocean and the shore of the mainland off in the distance. It seemed to imply that their hideout was on a side of Satellite that could see the mainland instead of facing out to open sea.

HOWEVER.

In the game, your hideout is located on a cliff, beneath which you can see more buildings and houses and stuff. The way the building has been placed would have the open-sky part of the war room facing this view instead of seaward. That area isn't east enough or north enough to have a view of ocean and the mainland like there was in the anime according to the map that's shown when you're picking a new area to go to. The shore of the mainland would have to make a pretty sharp U-turn off-screen and come back down far enough on the left side of Satellite in order for your hideout to have a view of the sea and mainland like in the anime.

I'm probably thinking way too hard about this.

Thank you, reader, for taking the time to read this filler-y chapter. Kiryu is turning out to be ridiculously hard to properly motivate into evildoing. Hopefully, I'm doing a halfway decent job of keeping him from suddenly switching from nice, intelligent, idealistic young man to psycho soul-stealing nutcase. Drop a comment and tell me what you think!