My Dark King

by Masterdramon

In a world where Dark Signer Carly succeeded in turning Jack to her side, the remaining Signers are left bereft and hopelessness descends. Earth's only chance for survival lies in the love that the Dark King and Queen share; a love that has survived even death.

14. Revolutions

My Dark King – Chapter 14: Revolutions

Disclaimer: In case you haven't figured it out yet, I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. All Yu-Gi-Oh!-related characters, settings, etc. are the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi.

[-]

"You may now take leave of us, Professor Adler," Samuel Bolger said calmly, slipping his own deck into the open slot in his Duel Disk. "Bring as many of our Master's servants as you wish. I no longer have need of them."

"I certainly hope you aren't implying that I do," replied Professor Frank Adler with a small frown. "I believe I can handle a handful of infants and this pitiful dame on my own. Their numbers would be much better utilized by returning them to their normal duties."

"If you insist," stated Bolger, shrugging indifferently. "Disperse them as you see fit, then. I would advise sending a battalion back to the Reaper, however, so as to update him on our progress."

"Your suggestion is well-taken, Bolger," responded Professor Frank, wordlessly relaying those orders to the nearest group of zombies. "And with that out of the way…come along, woman. It is time for us to return to your base of operations. The hour of my vengeance is finally close at hand."

"We don't wanna go!" Kokoro shouted, her fingers balled up into tiny fists. "Crow Nii-san, you need to stop him! This…This isn't like you!"

As the other children chimed in with their own words of encouragement for Crow and derision for Frank and Bolger, however, the orange-haired Signer slowly turned away from them and said in pained, hoarse tones, "You guys need to trust Mikage, alright? I…need to stay here and finish this."

"Be careful, Crow-san," Mikage told him in a similarly trembling voice as she hugged him goodbye, before gently gathering the kids and guiding them out of the warehouse in single-file, a disturbingly calm Professor Frank at the head of the procession.

Having been expressly instructed to do so by their big brother, the children were not protesting vocally, but it was abundantly clear from their expressions that not one of them was happy about what'd just happened.

"Indeed, Crow. 'Being careful' would be an excellent idea right now," Bolger repeated, drawing his opening hand and allowing the energy within his feather to peak as he did. Crow was thus forced to avert his eyes from his departing kids and turn back to his opponent once more, by a ring of bluish fire that erupted around them at Bolger's silent command.

"And now, as the challenging party, I shall take the first move. Draw," he added as the flames rose high, his beady eyes scrutinizing his hand without a shred of passion. "I place two cards face-down, and set one monster in Defense Mode. Turn end."

"That's all you got? I was expecting a bit more from Satellite's former second-best!" Crow exclaimed, mostly to cover up the fact that he was still shivering with anxiety over how this situation was turning out. Nerve, Blitz, and the rest had been right; it'd been fucking stupid of him to jump into this botched rescue attempt without any kind of a plan, and now he was paying dearly for it.

So preoccupied was Crow Hogan with this matter, in fact, that he failed to notice that both his hands were now completely free for dueling, Ushio's service pistol no longer dangling within his loose grip.

[-]

This was among the weirdest sensations that Yusei had ever experienced in his life…and considering he'd just now gone grave-digging with a wandering vagrant claiming to be some sort of physical god, that was saying something.

As it was, the Signer leader was currently seated in the ruins of what must've been the Arcadia Building's lobby, his elbows resting upon a pristinely clothed café table and his eyes set upon his former best friend, who was flexing his recently acquired wings and twirling around a coffee cup in apparent boredom.

His paramour, meanwhile, seemed to be fully and completely uninterested in all matters of Yusei Fudo, ambling around the surrounding ruins in silence and occasionally making searching motions similar to Judai's.

"So…err…how are things lately?" Yusei asked after a protracted silence, his fingers twitching nervously. Jack Atlas merely raised his eyebrows.

"Small talk, Yusei?" was his incredulous reply. "Really?"

"Well, you were the one who asked to talk in the first place," said Yusei weakly, before sighing and shaking his head. "But I guess, it's just that…I've just got so many questions, I've got no idea where to begin. I…wasn't expecting to see you again like this, Jack. Not so soon…"

"Then let's start hearing them," Jack grunted, his arms crossed impatiently.

Sighing again, Yusei's gaze turned to the Dark King's fidgeting wings and muttered, "Well, to start with…where in the world did you get those?"

"I've switched gods, so to speak, since we last crossed paths," Jack answered, still playing absently with the cup. "That fool Goodwin got the bright idea to try and usurp the powers of Light and Darkness, by absorbing the marks of both. I…relieved him of one of the marks in question, and with it, ensured my immortality."

"Immortality?!" exclaimed Yusei without thinking, his eyes bulging at his old friend's turn of phrase. "But Jack, you're…I mean…!"

"I may technically be dead, Yusei, but I assure you I am immortal in every respect that matters," Jack told him, his own blackened eyes narrowed intensely. "There's not all that much to miss about human life, anyway. I have everything I could ever need or desire, and I have it all for eternity. So if you're planning on trying to 'talk me around' – and don't deny it, I know that's precisely what you've been intending from the moment I slayed Divine – then forget it. You're no savior, Yusei…not in my case."

"But…I mean, don't you miss any of it? Not even the little things?" asked Yusei, flailing wildly in his head for an example to use. Finally, his eyes fell on the porcelain object still twirling around the Dark King's finger, and he seized on it.

"Like coffee!" he continued in a pained voice. "Remember? You used to lead Crow and me in pinching a bit from Martha whenever she managed to pick up a can! Or, I dunno…cup ramen! All those days in the orphanage, the three of us sharing a carton while we dueled with whatever random cards we could find lying around? You can't tell me those memories mean nothing to you…that your own life means nothing to you!"

"That's precisely what I'm saying," Jack declared insistently, placing the cup back onto the table…only to smash it with his fist a moment later. "The human Jack Atlas was weak, and lacked the strength to do what needed to be done! At least this way I'm finally happy, which is more than I can say for any other part of my worthless, godforsaken life!"

He swept the broken pieces of the coffee cup off the table with one, dramatic motion, growling in frustration.

"Wasting away in a slum with no hope of a future, or preening around as some glamorous pawn on a glass throne?" he added in furious tones, as the shards clattered noisily to the ground. "Compared to bringing the entire world under my heel, alongside the only being on Earth I still give half a damn about? Any man with even the slightest amount of pride would've chosen the same!"

"And here…we get to the heart of the matter," Yusei replied carefully, glancing over Jack's shoulder to make sure the other Dark Signer was out of earshot. "That woman…who is she to you, exactly?"

"My wife," said Jack, as if the answer was self-evident. "Carly is the love of my eternal life…my life that is death. She is my Dark Queen, the only person in all the cosmos worthy of sharing in my reign."

This latest declaration took Yusei somewhat aback – he'd never thought of Jack, even in life, as a particularly sexual being, much less a romantic one. And as for what it implied…

Well, it certainly explained why Jack had been so reticent to speak about the Dark Signer who bore the hummingbird mark – and yet had, by Aki's account, gone running after the woman in a stunned haze as soon as Yusei had left to chase Rudger. Being that time was short and the Signer leader had his own Dark Signer to worry about (two, in fact), Yusei had never thought to follow up on this bit of odd behavior.

But now…now it all clicked.

Withdrawing the picture of Carly's smiling human self that he'd printed from her obituary, the stoic teenager slid it across the table and said, "These glasses that she's wearing here, at her graduation. These are the pair you spent all that time at Goodwin's mansion staring at…aren't they?"

"Where did you get this…?" Jack demanded as he scrunched his brow. His former best friend pulling out a photograph of his wife that he'd never seen before was doing little to curb his rapidly rising temper.

"I knew her name and I knew you two were working together, so I looked up her obituary online. It wasn't that hard to find," Yusei explained. "But they are, right? Those swirls aren't exactly a very common pattern."

"Well, what of it?" Jack shot back, grabbing the picture without consciously deciding to and scrutinizing every detail. "Yes, they're the same pair. I found them here, in fact…right before the tower collapsed, that is."

"Tell me why you kept them, then," Yusei replied, seeing a potential opening. "I want to understand what was going through your head before you faced her."

"Why?" the Dark King asked, still glaring intently at the photo of the smiling, laughing Carly in her graduation cap-and-gown. "None of this matters anymore. I've chosen my path, Yusei, and I care little if you understand it."

"Don't give me that line, Jack," Yusei answered sternly, leaning forward without breaking eye contact. "You went into our mission two days ago a hero, and you came out a tyrant. I need to know why!"

Receiving no reaction beyond a tensing of the man's well-toned muscles, Yusei decided to guess…which really wasn't all that difficult, given the information he now had.

"You loved her before she was turned by the Jibakushin, didn't you?" he whispered, finally understanding. "You wanted to save her…just like I wanted to save Kiryu…"

The Signer leader could see, from the way that Jack's blackened eyes widened, that his accusation had been right on the money. His jaw clenched, Jack found himself crushing the picture still held within his palm and leaping to his feet, utterly incensed.

"You…You know nothing about what you're talking about, Yusei!" he shouted, extending a pointing finger at the Signer's face. "I was a deluded fool, caught up in ridiculous fantasies of white knights and daring rescues. But in the process of death and rebirth…they withered to reveal the pathetic lies they were. There is no saving a loved one from the grip of the Darkness – only the possibility of joining them there. Even if you have to sell out the world to do it."

"But Kiryu came back from it, Jack!" exclaimed Yusei, slamming his palm against the table. "I was at his side when he died, and…and all he could talk about, was how happy he was to play Team Satisfaction's final duel. I failed to save his body, I know that…but his soul was redeemed!"

For the first time since Yusei had laid eyes upon his friend's new form, Jack Atlas took the opportunity to laugh – although it was far from the confident, boisterous laughter he was used to from the champion duelist.

Instead, what came out was a low and humorless chuckle, one which was coarse and grating, as if the very idea of laughter was moving his god to punish his throat accordingly.

"As I said before, Yusei, you know nothing," he said, the low level of mirth leading into a tone that was even harsher than before. "We messengers of the dead no longer possess souls to be redeemed. Our sins are too great; our very existence is an abomination! One deathbed confession won't excuse Kiryu from damnation – not while his dozens of victims remain restless in their graves."

Jack sat back down and leaned toward Yusei, his eyes burning with a strange sort of hatred. It took the Signer several moments to realize why the glare was so unusual: because the emotion within it wasn't directed outward…

But inward.

"And the blood upon his hands…it's nothing compared to the amount that Carly and I have spilt," he whispered, his voice deathly cold. "In this city alone, nearly ten million people now lie dead by my orders. And many more shall come, as the King of the Underworld razes this entire blighted world to the ground. If you seriously think that 'redemption' is possible for someone like me – like us! – then you are truly a greater fool than I ever imagined."

"But…well, err…" Yusei responded lamely, suddenly reduced to grasping at straws. He hadn't been anticipating that Jack would say anything like that, and the Signer was having trouble coming up with an adequate counterargument, as inherently wrong as it seemed on the surface.

In order to maintain his basic faith in humanity, the cornerstone of his moral outlook on life, Yusei had always needed to believe that redemption was possible for even the most wretched of society – and the Dark Signers should've been no exception.

He considered for a moment bringing up Bommer; the man had, after all, sacrificed his second life for Crow's first, letting the god tied to his own soul perish so that the children inside might live. But the events of that duel had been so strange, with the killer whale physically possessing Bommer when he was prepared to forfeit, that Yusei wasn't certain it'd really help his case.

Suddenly, however, a different approach occurred to him. He wasn't at all sure it would work, and he certainly had no idea where it might end up, but he pushed forward all the same.

"You claim to love Carly with all your heart," said Yusei, his expression steadfast. "If you're really both as 'damned' as you claim, how could that be possible?"

Jack stood ready to toss off another offhand remark to this, a haughty dismissal lingering at the tip of his tongue…but no easy answer came to his lips. Having wiped every other flimsy attachment that could conceivably be called a "bond" from her mind, the hummingbird had proven utterly unable to dissolve Carly's love for him. And the condor had been likewise powerless, when he'd chosen to take it into his body.

It wasn't because they hadn't tried; he was certain of that. The two surviving Jibakushin made no secret of their distaste for each other, and at best were only begrudgingly accepting of their relationship. If they'd had the power to eradicate their bonds of love at the point of death, he couldn't imagine why they wouldn't pounce on the opportunity.

The silence following Yusei's question had stretched on for far too long. Jack steeled himself, willing words – any words – to come.

"I will admit…I do not yet have a proper answer for you," he replied, finally turning back to Yusei and granting his silent plea for eye contact. "All I truly know, and all I truly care to know, is this."

He paused for a moment, choosing his next words carefully.

"I love Carly Nagisa, and I would move the Heavens and the Earth and the very Circles of Hell for her sake. We are one, and we are forever," he told his former friend in a quiet voice. "Irredeemable we may be, but that singular truth shall remain throughout all of eternity. As this planet descends into its Last Days, as the grounds splinter and the skies darken with the spirits of the damned, we shall continue to fight and struggle. Together, and always."

Then, unable to help himself, he muttered under his breath, "Which, incidentally, is more than I can say for…some people I could mention."

"Err…what do you mean by that last part?" asked Yusei, honestly lost at the Dark King's none-too-subtle barb.

"You are, without a doubt…the most selectively oblivious man I've ever met, Yusei," said Jack, in a tone containing equal parts exasperation and mild amusement.

And for just a second, the ominous pronouncements that the winged Dark Signer seemed to simply…vanish. It was as if the two old friends were young kids again, playfully teasing each other over how Yusei had accidentally called Martha "mommy" when he was ten, and thus far too old for such a childish thing.

The moment was over as soon as it began, but its presence hung over both men as Jack went on, "I am speaking, of course, of Izayoi. How you can construct a fully functioning Momentum reactor out of a box of scraps, and yet miss that girl practically throwing herself at you every chance she gets, I can't fathom."

"Aki and I are just friends, Jack," Yusei insisted, scarcely believing that they were beginning to have this conversation after the graveness of their last. "I want to do everything I can to help her make her own future, but it's not like I expect anything out of it."

"Try telling her that, then," responded Jack, waving his hand and scoffing at the younger man's blindness. "Have you honestly not noticed how she looks at you these days? Especially after that week you spent as 'roommates' at Goodwin's mansion? She could scarcely be less subtle about it without stripping naked and holding a sign saying, 'Yusei, fuck me now.'"

"Err…let's just drop this matter, alright?" the Signer leader asked, pleadingly; he'd just pictured precisely that image in his mind's eye, and he was struggling desperately to banish it without flushing. "But here's a question: if you really don't care about me or the others any longer, why the hell are you bringing up something like this?"

"I suppose…that I don't wish for you to waste your final days on this doomed planet. That's all," said Jack, after a long pause. "The hour at which you and I are destined to battle draws near, and as for Izayoi…I feel obligated to inform you that Carly is after her blood, in retaliation for the death of Misty Lola. And I assure you, my Queen is quite relentless. She will not rest until her appetite for revenge has been sated, and that girl who cherishes you so deeply lies dead at her feet."

His tones were harsh and cold, but his expression was unreadable. His eyes, in particular, pierced Yusei's with an emotion he couldn't entirely recognize – except in that it was almost frightening in its intensity.

"When we face off for the final time, Yusei…I don't want there to be any regrets," he murmured. "So if there's anything you have yet to do in your final hours, I suggest you…resolve them before we next meet. For when we do, we meet as enemies. And we shall fight to the bitter end, until only one set of gods is left alive on this planet."

Carly, meanwhile, was eavesdropping upon this rather strange discussion and finding herself torn between a desire to laugh uproariously, and a strong urge to tear the filthy Signer's head clean from his body.

She knew, from the way Jack had positioned himself, that her husband did not wish for her to overhear this exchange of words. But as much as she loved her Dark King, she almost had to roll her blackened eyes at his naivety. Her senses as a Dark Signer – far more developed than his – meant that she could pick up every word with little effort, even from this distance.

Of course, it wasn't anything to do with Yusei Fudo himself that was enraging the undead woman, but rather a knee-jerk reaction to such a…casual mention of her chosen target. And in such an audacious context!

That she would have the gall to pine for romance, for happiness, in the wake of Misty-san's murder…!

If pressed, Carly wouldn't have been able to articulate exactly why this news of Aki Izayoi's unrequited affections was bothering her so much. But the flames of her hatred burned fierce and deep, stoked by wings of her god, and increasingly they pushed away all rational thought in favor of an overwhelming, all-consuming obsession.

And in her single-minded state, it didn't take long for her…subtler senses to detect a powerful source of energy surging in the immediate area. An energy with a signature that was tied wholly and completely to the girl in question.

Making sure to stay out of the men's line of vision, Carly traced the pounding signal to its source, hidden away in an abandoned bakery – Yusei's D-Wheel, pulsating with a power that only the highly attuned could possibly detect. It was a strange energy, and not one that the Dark Queen was at all familiar with, but one thing was absolutely certain: this was a teleportation signal, tied directly to Aki Izayoi's current location.

Carly could hardly believe her good fortune…but at the same time, knew better than to question it. The subtle threads of Destiny had handed her a golden opportunity, and she wasn't about to waste it.

The Dark Signer moved her gloved palms across the crimson metal, the part of her brain that she shared with the hummingbird god analyzing the energy more thoroughly. This was by no means an amateurish job, but it was still rather sloppy, as if established by someone in a great hurry and with far too much on their plate at once.

The activation trigger was also ridiculously convoluted, requiring an acceleration of just under 142 kilometers per hour for the transport to initiate. But Carly could change that easily, and did, with little more than a flick of the wrist.

Smirking wryly at the sheer poetic justice of utilizing the techniques Misty had taught her to pursue her killer, Carly used a pulse of dark energy to bridge the connection manually, holding on tight to the motorcycle as it faded from the material plane.

It was finally time to confront the object of her vengeance, face to face.

[-]

"Hells yeah! Score one for Team Kizuna, baby!" cheered Yoshizo, dusting off his hands as the various teammates stepped back from their prize, thrashing wildly against the transparent walls of its capsule but unable to inflict even a single dent.

"Perhaps not the kind of…exuberance I'd put into it, but I appreciate the sentiment all the same," said Jean with a thin smile. "Phase one seems to have gone off without a hitch. We've got one of these things safe and secure, and it doesn't look like we've alerted any of the others to our location in the process."

The creature responded to this the same it responded to everything – by slamming its pale fists against the invisible barrier and shrieking loudly. Setsuko Izayoi, who was closest to the device, took a few steps back and remarked timidly, "It's really quite…frightening, isn't it? Are you sure that that machine can hold it?"

"I don't think we have to worry, dear," Hideo attempted to reassure her, flipping through the manuals that'd come packaged with the capsule. "These are pretty technical, but it says here those walls have been tested under forces exceeding eight tons. This creature may be strong, but I don't believe it's that strong."

"Well put, Senator," Jean replied, nodding. "And now, it's time for phase two: testing whatever weapons we've got on this fucker, until we find the point where it breaks."

"No, that's phase three," said Andore with a smirk. "Phase two is giving our good friend here…drumroll please…!"

The redheaded duelist paused here and looked around, as if he was actually expecting such a thing. When none was forthcoming, he gave an exaggerated sigh in mock-exasperation, and finished, "Aw, c'mon guys! Isn't it obvious? This dude needs a name! We can't just keep going around calling him an 'it.'"

This suggestion was met, predictably, with raised eyebrows and weary groans all around, with Jinbei outright facepalming and responding through gritted teeth, "Urgh…this thing's a zombie bent on killing us all. Not some fucking team pet."

"Maybe something like 'Specimen #1'? Or 'Subject #1'?" offered Setsuko, trying to be diplomatic. "That way, if we need to get another one, we can name the replacement accordingly."

"Now don't be so boring! We gotta give him a name with some real…character," Andore told them, swaying gaily upon his heels. The glares of bewilderment, or of outright irritation, did not disappear. "Oh, c'mon! How many more times in human history will someone have a chance to name a zombie?"

"How many more times will anyone care?" Jean pointed out, shaking his head at his ardent lover. "But fine, fine…whatever. Anyone who actually gives a crap can name it whatever they damn well please. Me? I'm getting back to actual work."

"Ooh, ooh, wait, I've got one!" Yoshizo shouted suddenly, jumping up and down in his exuberance. "Whadaya guys think about…Reginald Q. Balderdash?"

There was a long, drawn-out silence following this…unique offering, before Andore clapped the younger man on the back and exclaimed, "Now we're talking! Put my vote down for that one!"

"Well in that case, how about just 'Reggie' for short?" said Taro, his hands raised in a plea to defuse the tension. "That way everybody wins – it's short, to the point, and if we need to replace it we can just call the next one Reggie-2 or something."

"Like I said, fine," Jean murmured, now pinched his forehead in annoyance over how long they'd spent on this subject. "Reggie it is. And now that we're done with probably the stupidest conversation I've ever heard in my life, can we quit wasting time already?"

"C'mon hon, chill," Andore attempted to console him, chuckling as he took out a pen and scrawled 'Reggie's Crib' across the glass separating him from a very enraged ghoul. "We're still running ahead of schedule, aren't? And it's not like the rest of these guys have any freaking clue where we are."

That was when the building shook.

The first indication that something was amiss was a flickering of the lights and other electrical equipment, followed swiftly by an earthshaking rumble that sent Andore, Jean, Hideo, Setsuko, Taro, Yoshizo, and Jinbei sprawling ungracefully to the floor. Fortunately, Jean had possessed the foresight to bolt down Reggie's capsule, and none of them appeared to have been more than badly shaken up by the fall.

Less heartening was that immediately following this, the power died out completely, and in the inordinate quiet – Reggie had even ceased to shriek for a moment – the faint but unmistakable sound of fists pounding against metal and stone echoed all around them.

"You just had to say it, didn't you?" Jean muttered through gritted teeth, running over to another terminal and fervently attempting to assess the damage.

[-]

The graves were extraordinarily plain, by Judai's estimation, and he'd been to far too many funerals over the years – most of them in secret – that he hardly had an uninformed perspective on the matter.

Still, Judai knew that that was precisely how Takuma and Mizuchi Saiou would've wanted it. Marked by naught but a pair of simple stones, the names of the deceased etched invisibly with his powers rather than physical scratches, there was a sort of humble dignity to the markers. Particularly in contrast to the ornate and well-kept headstone that sat between them: the final resting place of Edo Phoenix.

Well…perhaps "resting place" wasn't quite the correct term. Given that Edo and four hundred-thousand of his adoring fans had gone up in flames, an entire stadium wiped out in an instant, there hadn't been any scrap of a body left to inter. But Edo's executors and media personnel hadn't let a little something like that stop them from constructing the most expensive gravesite in modern history, in order to hold the ashes that – their marketing machine claimed – belonged to their fallen hero.

Still, they were legally bound to one singular condition; the only one contained in Edo's remarkably brief will. The burial would have to take place here, in Edo's hometown of Lakewood, California.

Of course, none but Judai knew exactly why Edo had chosen this particular spot to spend the rest of eternity. There'd been much speculation amongst the media of the time about the star pro-duelist wanting to return to his roots, to the very brief snatch of childhood he'd managed to claim before losing his father.

And there was doubtlessly some truth to that – Orville Phoenix had, after all, been laid to rest in this very same cemetery, many years before. Still, the primary reason for his choice was a great deal more private.

Over three decades prior, this'd been the very spot where a young man with deep, violet eyes and a horrific destiny had come to a melancholic boy in the midst of a thunderstorm…and offered him an umbrella.

This was a place of love, and in all the journeys Judai had taken across the far reaches of the cosmos, he'd never witnessed anything more potent than that.

"Heh, look at me…waxing nostalgic…" murmured Judai, choosing to sprawl out and rest for a few minutes in front of the three friends' gravestones – hopefully now, reunited in spirit, if not in body.

It's natural, my beloved. You don't exactly interact with your fellow humans very often, these days. And with our brief sojourn to Academia Island…

"Yeah, that was…that was something, alright," Judai continued to muse, kicking his legs idly. "Part of me wants to let everyone out and just hug them senseless for the next fifty years, but I know we've gotta wait until we get under cover. Japan's a power keg right now, and America's not much better. At least they're safe in my pocket dimension. Well…for the moment, at least."

For the moment. Yes.

"Something's bothering you, Yubel," said Judai. It wasn't a question. "What is it?"

Ah. You know me too well, my Judai.

"Well yeah…plus there's the whole, y'know, living inside my head thing," Judai replied with a grin.

Indeed. But if you must know, I've been feeling…uneasy about that boy we left back in Japan. The one who wields the power of the Crimson Dragon.

"What, you don't trust him?" asked Judai, his lip clenched.

Not at all. I'll admit, I was slightly…jealous at the attentions you lavished upon the Signer. I've gotten quite used to having you all to myself, you see. But I understand how serious the present crisis is, and the importance of the role Yusei Fudo has to play in it.

Ultimately, my Judai, you trust that human to share the burden of your duties, and therefore so do I.

"Then what's the issue?" Judai muttered, closing his eyes.

Well, are you absolutely sure that leaving Neo Domino City was the wisest course of action, my beloved? He still lacks much of the knowledge he will need to conquer the forces of the Underworld once and for all, and requires your guidance.

"I'll be coming back just as soon as I've got my own team back together," said Judai. "The guy should be able to handle himself until then."

And yet the gateway you opened using his motorcycle as a vessel remains unused. That fact disturbs me. Are you even certain he knows how to operate such a channel?

"I…didn't really consider that," Judai admitted sheepishly, now sharing his lover's apprehension. "I had to throw that portal signal together in a couple of seconds, so I used the first trigger that'd pop into any guy's head when it comes to teleporting a vehicle."

And if that young human hasn't seen "Back to the Future"? So far as our research indicated, he grew up in a decrepit slum. His knowledge of American popular culture is probably…limited in comparison to the general population's.

"Y'know, despite everything I've seen over the years…sometimes I'm just the same idiot I've always been," Judai told his wife, chuckling a bit. "Guess I'll have to go back and give him the rundown on awesome eighties movies, now that I've laid the Saious to rest."

That would probably be best. Or, wait…did you feel that just now?

"Yep…the transport just initiated," Judai confirmed, his eyes blazing gold for a moment as his senses reached out toward Japan. "Guess Yusei must've figured it out on his own…through trial and error, probably. No point in going back now, then."

Feeling a bit more jovial, he allowed his irises to snap back to their natural murky brown and added, "And since we can't actually do anything until the sun sets and my powers have recharged, I guess we've got a couple hours to kill. Fancy a quick nap, Yubel?"

"Nearly twenty years and you haven't changed a bit, aniki," spoke a warm voice from behind, and Judai was snapped immediately out of his reverie as he fell over himself, struggling to find the speaker. After all, only two men on Earth had ever used that particular title to refer to him – and one had long since been laid to rest.

Which left only…

"Sho…" Judai whispered in a strained voice, small tears already forming in the corners of his eyes as he rushed to embrace his oldest and dearest friend.

"Judai…God, it's really you…" returned Sho Marufuji, reciprocating the hug in full as decades of separation melted away in an instant. It was a long embrace, held without regard for anything else in the world, and by the time the old friends slowly released each other they were each crying openly, eagerly and vigorously drinking in the other man's changed features.

It was Judai who managed to regain his voice first, thanks in no small part to Yubel providing him with a good couple mental "nudges."

Breathing deeply and wiping the warm tears from his cheeks, he slowly choked out, "What…What are you doing here? I mean, I've been looking for you for weeks, traveled up and down the world without an ounce of luck…but I never thought, here of all places…"

"Whoa, whoa…slow down there, aniki," said Sho with a high-pitched chuckle, for Judai had blurted all this out very quickly. "Anyway…not being found was sorta the point of going into hiding, wasn't it? Ever since those bastards started offing all our friends…and…and my brother…"

"So you know those were all more than just a string of accidents?" Judai asked.

"C'mon, aniki. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not stupid," replied Sho, sounding bitter. "Never figured out who was behind all that shit, but I know assassinations when I see them. Y'know they almost got me, too? Back when I announced my retirement from the pros. I'm only still here because a policeman took a bullet for me at the press conference."

"You're right on the money there, dude," Judai told him, shaking his head in soft mourning. "Ryo, Hayato, Kenzan, Misawa, all the others…Yliaster was behind it all. They're a secret society that's supposedly dedicated to protecting the world – but that's all a front. For what, I'm not completely sure, but I know they see me as a threat. I think all these murders were their way of trying to scare me off. Hurting me through my friends. So after all these years, not hearing anything about you, I…well, I thought the worst."

"I made enough from the pros to retire young, if I stayed out of the public eye. That's why I thought a suburb like this would be best," explained Sho. "Plus, my brother's will said he should be buried as close as possible to his last dueling opponent, so when they made that big show of burying Edo here, I had to come. And after that, I just…I just couldn't leave him here, y'know?"

"Yeah, I do," said Judai solemnly, briefly embracing his old friend once more. "I know where every single friend we've lost is buried, all around the world. And I make sure to pay tribute them whenever I'm in the area. Honestly, it's kinda surprising we never ran into each other before today. I'm here for a couple hours every two months or so, to lay a few flowers at least."

"So that's why you're here now? Visiting Edo?" Sho asked, extracting a single flower from the bouquet meant for his brother's headstone and placing it across Edo Phoenix's. "The two of us were never really close…but I feel kinda guilty I never paid him my respects after all these years."

"Well, sorta," responded Judai. "The main reason I came here today was actually because…see, I've been trying to gather up what remains of the old gang for the past few weeks. I managed to track down Takuma and Mizuchi…but I was too late to do them any good. So now I'm here, burying another two friends.

He chuckled to himself, a little darkly. "But I guess Fate decided to throw a bit of a silver lining into the day, didn't he?" added the former student. "Gonna have to thank him next time we play poker."

Sho gave another small smile at this, but decided not to ask. Instead, he said, "But why've you been going around doing this now, after all these years? And have you succeeded? Who've you seen? I…I gotta know, aniki. I miss them all so much…"

"I…could be having better luck, that's for sure," answered Judai, sighing. "Most everyone's turning up dead or missing, although I think I've found some promising clues on Johan, Jim, and Austin. But the only guys I know I've got with me are Manjoume, Asuka, Fubuki, and Rei. A…creature attacked the island yesterday, and slaughtered nearly all the Duel Spirits there. Most of the students and staff got out alright, at least."

"And our friends…?" Sho asked hesitantly.

"They're safe," Judai assured him. "I used my powers to fold them into a timeless pocket dimension, where they've been staying ever since. I'll release them as soon as night falls, and I can recharge myself from the ambient Darkness."

"I'm really gonna have to get used to you saying things like that, aniki," Sho muttered dryly, now motioning for Judai to follow him to his car. "But it sounds like you're gonna need a roof over your head until sundown, so I'll volunteer my place. It's gonna be a little cramped with six people, but…"

"Nah, it's fine. I'm grateful for the hospitality," Judai replied, casting one last, lingering gaze at the trio of graves, while Sho wondered off slightly to lay his remaining flowers upon the headstone of his elder brother. "Err, I should probably ask, though…how good is your security?"

"Well, I guess it's kept those Yliaster guys out for nineteen years," Sho replied with a chuckle.

"Yeah, I suppose that's true," said Judai, now strolling toward Sho's discreet black automobile. "But just to be on the safe side…I think I'll put up a few wards of my own as soon as the sun sets. I've got a feeling there's gonna be a lot said tonight that should be kept behind closed doors."

[-]

These children couldn't possibly understand the complexity of the situation, of course. All they'd seen was their surrogate big brother caving into the demands of a "bad guy" for probably the first time in his life.

And since they obviously couldn't bring themselves to blame Crow for this, all of their collective disappointment and disgust was being directed toward the closest available target: Mikage Sagiri.

Which wasn't exactly a helpful factor, given that Mikage was going to need their cooperation if she was to have any chance of overcoming Professor Frank before it became too late.

Proceeding down the empty streets of Satellite, broken-down storefronts and ramshackle homes populated only by the occasional lone wraith lining the sides, the seven of them walked as slowly as Mikage could manage without arousing Frank's suspicions.

At least she had one asset at her disposal the psychopathic psychologist was entirely unaware of: the service pistol Ushio had tossed to Crow, and which she had surreptitiously pocketed. Nervously she ran her fingers across the cold metal of the weapon hidden within her jacket, hoping fervently that she wouldn't have to resort to using it.

True, as an employee of the Public Security Maintenance Bureau, she of course had basic training in such matters. But she'd never attempted to shoot a living target before, and she didn't exactly fancy learning how it felt on a night like this.

"How much longer will it take for us to get there?" demanded Professor Frank suddenly, not bothering to look Mikage in the eye. "We had a deal, after all, Miss Sagiri. And I'm certain you would not wish to, how should we say…displease me by reneging."

"I promise you, Professor, this is the straightest possible path to our base," Mikage lied carefully. "We should only be about ten minutes away at this point."

"Ah, very good," Frank replied, his eyes widening in wicked delight. "Then the little bitch is less than an hour away from justice being served. Ah, to see her tiny, mutilated cadaver, lying in a pool of her own blood as I wring the last breath of life from her tender throat. Oh yes, I have dreamed of it for so long…"

"And what makes you think she'll lose to the likes of you?" Mikage couldn't help but ask, her blood sent straight to boil by the man's unrestrained sadism. "Ruka is a dueling prodigy without a single loss on her record. And Director Goodwin specifically chose you to face her in the Fortune Cup, because he expected you would bring out her hidden Signer powers…and lose to them in turn. That was your role – no more, no less."

"I was chosen by no man but myself, idiot girl," said the psychologist, his mad eyes glinting in the moonlight. "That lower-echelon fool thought he chose me for that purpose. Just as he thought a great number of other things that were not true. Who actually leads Yliaster, for example. Or what its purpose really is."

His head slowly turned to face her, and though the features were frozen and still, the effect was deeply chilling.

"But this is not the time to discuss the ignorance of Rex Goodwin," he added, clearly reading the questions formulating in her mind and choosing to deny them with glee. "Now, as for your original query…at what point did I suggest that I intended to engage the bitch in a game of Duel Monsters? Throttling someone doesn't require a Duel Disk or adherence to the rules of sportsmanship, you know."

"You mean…?" Mikage gasped, her grip on the concealed gun tightening involuntarily.

"I've told you, I have no greater or lesser agenda than to reduce the girl you call Ruka into a bloodstained pile of shredded flesh by the end of this night," Professor Frank whispered excitedly. "Nothing else in this entire world matters to me."

"Well then, I suppose you might want to rethink your priorities," Mikage spat with as much contempt as she could muster, before abruptly seizing Frank into a simple but powerful hold and slamming the barrel of Ushio's pistol into his back. "In the name of the Public Security Maintenance Bureau, I hereby place you, Professor Frank Adler, under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. Make a single false move, and I will kill you faster than you can say 'bitch' again. Got that?"

This sudden display was enough to change at least one of the kids' opinions of her, as Daichi filled the next few moments of stillness by shouting, "Fuck yeah! Kick his ass, lady!"

Professor Frank, on the other hand, took this exclamation as a cue to break down completely into a fit of insane laughter, shaking and chortling with as much abandon as was possible without breaking Mikage's grip.

"Look who decided to try her hand at being competent!" he managed to shout, turning his head back to stare her in the eyes, demonstrating just a bit more flexibility than seemed humanly possible. "But if you weren't paying attention back there, I feel absolutely no dread at the sight of your firearm. Not only are its effects doubtful at best on my current body, but I understand you. I understand what you are."

"Wh…What do you mean by that?" Mikage stammered, hating herself for the shakiness in both her voice and her hands.

"Don't forget…before I was broken by that little bitch, I was one of the world's foremost experts in the field of psychology," Frank explained, his curling in amusement. "And within your eyes I can see precisely what kind of scared little girl stands behind me, much as you are trying to hide it. I'd place you as the scion of a wealthy family – not the kind with five mansions and a private jet, but certainly one that would've indoctrinated you from the youngest age into the sterilized world of high society."

His eyes glinted, seeming brighter by the moment.

"I see it writ plain as day across your tender little face: the desire for action, for a life out in the field, shooting men like me in our tracks every single day. But these are fantasies, girl, nothing more," he continued to jeer. "Much as you wish you could, you simply don't have the mettle to fire that gun, even if your life depended it…which, of course, it currently does. So why don't you place that weapon on the ground and release me, before I'm forced to snap your pretty neck with my bare hands?"

He briefly looked quizzical, as if thinking something over, before he said, "Or on second thought…perhaps it's best I start with a couple of the mewling brats. Just as a warning, you understand. I still need you to lead me to the bitch, after all. So go on, drop it. Drop it. Drop…!"

The piercing sound of the gunshot rang across the streets of Satellite with little impedance, the only other noise in the air being Professor Frank's low gasp as he collapsed forward, blood pooling around his stomach as his fingers reflexively twitched.

"You…you…" the psychologist choked out, and then he was still.

Shivering violently and turning away from this ghastly sight, Mikage swallowed hard and asked the children, "Are you all alright?"

"We're f…fine, ma'am," Hikari stuttered, her eyes watering and her lip trembling. "Did…did you just…?"

Mikage Sagiri was, however, saved from having to answer this question with a response she very much did not want to give, as by a burst of violet light erupted from the feather lodged in Frank Adler's chest. A slowly pulsating aura surrounded his body, the tiny tendrils of dark energy plunging deep into the bullet wound and beginning to slowly repair the damage.

"Shit, shit, shit…" Mikage murmured under her breath, now fully panicking as she witnessed undeniable proof that Frank's claims of invulnerability hadn't been all talk. "Kids, follow me, now! We don't have time to stand around!"

Despite how frightened the children must've been by this point, there was little hesitation in their movements as they hastened after Mikage. It occurred to her, with an uncomfortable chill running up her spine, that given where they'd grown up this probably wasn't the first shooting they'd witnessed firsthand.

Mikage pushed that train of thought out of her mind, however, her eyes darting all around them as they ran, searching desperately for something that could serve as shelter. Unfortunately, she'd been preoccupied mostly with leading Professor Frank as far away from the Signers as possible; she hadn't given a great deal of forethought to where they'd go next.

But still…she would find them safety in the mere minutes they had before Frank would resume consciousness. She needed to.

"What's that place?" Taiga piped up, pointing off in the near distance to what appeared at first glance to be a small, impossibly positioned mountain range. Closer inspection indicated, however, that the enormous hills were in fact composed of copious scrap metal and other junk, piled precariously on top of each other with little regard for structural integrity.

On the other hand, in the tired and desperate state that their group was now in, there was really only one thing the building placed at dead-center of the massive heaps could be called…

"It's salvation, kids," said Mikage, and with Ushio's weapon still primed the blue-haired woman proceeded cautiously onto the property.

[-]

(Samuel Bolger: 4000 LP – Crow Hogan: 4000 LP)

"Alright, let's do this!" shouted Crow Hogan, drawing his first card with a flourish. He needed to end this quick, if he was gonna have any hope of catching up to Mikage and the kids.

Fortunately, Black Feathers were no slouches at One-Turn Kills.

"First, I'm activating the Magic Card Black Whirlwind!" he said, a flurry of darkly tinted winds swarming around him. "While this card's in play, each and every time I Normal Summon a 'Black Feather' monster, I get to add a new one from my Deck to my hand – just so long as it's got less ATK points than the first. And now, to test that all out…say hello to Black Feather – Sirocco the Dawn!"

"I dueled alongside that deck for over five years, Crow. I do not require in-depth explanations of its most basic strategies," replied Bolger, as the humanoid hawk materialized at the center of the circle blazing around them.

"Hey, don't go thinkin' that this whole deck's just a bunch of old tricks!" Crow exclaimed, the cyclone that represented Black Whirlwind's effect hitting a crescendo as he carefully selected the right card. "All the cards might've all been Pearson's, but I've figured out a ton of new ways to use 'em. Case in point…my little friend here, Black Feather – Breeze the Zephyr!"

Emerging from the darkened winds was a tiny, almost pixie-like orange bird, its far-too-large wings sweeping around it in what appeared to be a feeble attempt at looking cool and dramatic.

"Now Breeze here may not look like much, but he's got a fun little ability tacked onto his normal Tuner duties," added Crow with a grin. "See, adding him to my hand by a card effect means getting to Special Summon him for free."

"A Level 3 Tuner Monster and a Level 5 non-Tuner Monster. It's no small wonder what you are planning," Bolger stated dispassionately.

"Hey, hey, I'm getting to that!" Crow responded, waving his hand. "But first, I don't trust those face-down cards of yours one bit. So I'm gonna be Special Summoning Black Feather – Gale the Hurricane and then activating Delta Crow – Anti-Reverse! When I've got exactly three Black Feathers in play, this baby can be played straight from my hand…and it allows me to destroy every single Magic or Trap you've got set on the field. Or, to put it another way…boom goes the dynamite!"

And "boom" the effect did, as blasts of light shot out from Sirocco, Breeze, and Gale and collided with both of Bolger's face-down cards, incinerating them instantly. The explosion, amplified by the powers of the feather, forced the former businessman to lose take a few steps back, and he was still squinting from underneath his forearm as Crow made his next move.

"And now for an encore, we've got Blackfeather Shoot!" he yelled out. "All I gotta do for this one is send one 'Black Feather' monster from my hand to the Cemetery, and your monster goes the same way as your other face-downs!"

This time, Bolger was better prepared, and so he managed not to flinch too noticeably as a new bird-creature was enshrouded in flame and sent hurtling at his White Warrior – Fog the Treasured Shield.

Now apparently defenseless, there was definitely some justification to the smug smirk that Crow donned as soon as his Magic Card resolved successfully, especially as he made his next move.

"Oh, and as an added bonus…the monster I just pitched to the Cemetery was none other than Black Feather – Zephyrus the Elite!" he said, giving a short, sharp laugh. "And when this guy's sittin' tight down there, all I have to do is return one card I control to my hand and take 400 points of damage, and he gets to join the party with all the rest of his friends. So say goodbye – for a few seconds – to Black Whirlwind, and say hello to the ruler of the West Wind!"

"Hmm…four 'Black Feathers' under your command, armed with a combined ATK of 6000. For a first-turn play, I'm being fully honest that Robert couldn't have done any better," Bolger told him. "But before you get any ideas, I'm activating the effect of one of the Trap Cards you just destroyed – White Screen!"

White fog began to flow, in great, billowing waves, all across the field as the older man explained, "By removing from play both this card and a 'White Warrior' monster in my Cemetery, all of your monsters will be rendered unable to declare attacks or use their effects until the End Phase. And in addition, at that time all monsters you control, other than Synchro Monsters, shall be removed from play as well!"

"Damn, you really wanna see me bring out my big guns, don't ya? Well, let it never be said I don't play for my audience!" Crow called out, gesturing a hand to each of his 3-Star Tuners. "Alright, first off, I'm gonna be tuning my Level 3 Gale the Hurricane with my Level 4 Zephyrus the Elite!"

At this bequest the wide-eyed sparrow transformed into emerald rings and surrounded its companion, as their master began to chant, "Darkened gales, become the wings which will soar to Heaven! Synchro Summon! Black Feather – Armored Wing!"

"Your signature ace card, as I recall," Bolger declared coolly, as the darkly armored tengu swept onto the field with a flourish. "Or at least, formerly so. You've still got eight Stars left at your disposal, so why don't you show off the last piece of Pearson's legacy? The card that has eluded me for so very, very long…bring forth the Blackfeather Dragon! Show it to me, now!"

Unnerved by this uncharacteristic outburst, Crow frowned as he shot back, "Urgh…fine then! You wanna see Pearson's last, best monster…then I'll give it to ya! I'm tuning my Level 3 Breeze the Zephyr and my Level 5 Sirocco the Dawn! And now…darkened gales, become the wings that soar from resolved hope! Synchro Summon! Soar, Blackfeather Dragon!"

It was hard for this simple projection of his newly acquired Signer Dragon to come anywhere near matching its flesh-and-blood appearance, but it certainly made a good effort as it descended upon the dueling field for the first time in years.

Roaring with a sense of bestial dignity that befitted its new status, the dragon flexed its massive wings and flashed its crimson eyes menacingly, before the winds surrounding its descent died down and the Synchro Monster came to rest beside its companion.

"And now, since I can't attack with either of my monsters yet, I'll reactivate Black Whirlwind and end my turn!" said Cow, smiling in satisfaction. Bolger might've averted his near-perfect One Turn Kill, but a victory in the second or third round was still within reach.

And the sooner the former CEO went down, the sooner Crow could move toward rescuing his kids from that other psycho.

"My move, then," replied Bolger, drawing and examining his options as both Armored Wing and Blackfeather Dragon stared down his barren field. "Well, to start off with, I think I shall summon White Warrior – Hail the Iron Hammer. And now, with the Equipment Magic White Warhammer, I get to increase his ATK by 1000 when it battles a DARK monster…or 2000, if that monster happens to be a Synchro Monster as well."

Bolger's eyes narrowed as he looked upon Pearson's beloved ace monster, focused and unblinking.

"And since your Blackfeather Dragon fits both descriptions, I'm afraid I'll be burying its magnificence just as quickly as you unleashed it," he continued in a quiet voice. "Such a shame…but it cannot be helped. Perhaps my Master shall permit me to salvage that creature from your corpse, Crow …but before that, I must produce that corpse! Hail the Iron Hammer, attack! Stormwind Strike!"

Swallowing hard, Crow averted his eyes as his newly Summoned Signer Dragon burst into shards of light at the thunderous impact, instantly cutting his Life Points down by another thousand.

"Sorry man, but I'll get you back soon…somehow…" he whispered to the fallen beast.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Crow Hogan," said Bolger, looking strangely somber. "This world has a way of derailing even the best-intentioned plans…as I shall prove to you now. For you see, when Hail the Iron Hammer destroys a monster by battle, I'm allowed to destroy an additional monster with its effect. So I suggest you also bid farewell to your Armored Wing."

"I gotta know, Bolger…" spoke Crow as he reluctantly slid his other Synchro Monster into the Cemetery, the older man's words reawakening the tangled confusion he'd felt prior to getting caught up in the adrenaline rush of dueling. "What…What happened between you and Pearson? What could've possibly made you do that to your best friend?"

"Don't you dare say that to me!" spat Bolger, his eyes burning feverishly behind his cracked glasses. "Robert Pearson took everything away from me…from us! The two of us could've had it all – fame, fortune, our names in the history books – but he had to ruin it all by refusing KaibaCorp! And for the sake of what? Nothing but his own, overbloated ego!"

Bolger began seizing bits of his hair and tearing them from his scalp, looking quite deranged.

"He left me no choice!" he shouted, his tones increasingly manic. "I had to take advantage of the opportunity when I saw it, whatever the cost! But if he'd just been…just been less stubborn. Then we could have…shared in this life…together…"

His voice now cracking with sadness and what might've been a shade of unacknowledged regret, Bolger finished his tirade with, "Now I have everything I've ever dreamed of, after fifteen years spent rotting in this godforsaken slum. But thanks to the memory of that pigheaded fool, I can't enjoy any of it. Every day I hear his laughing voice, haunting me, taunting me. But once I eliminate you, the Dark King shall bring a deathly silence to my world, and I shall finally be free of Robert Pearson. Once and for all."

He feebly slid another card into his Duel Disk, adding, "And to that end, I place one card face-down, and return control of this game over to you."

"Wait a minute…you're telling me you jumped straight from 'Pearson made a decision I disagreed with' to cold-blooded murder?!" Crow cried out furiously, his mouth agape. "I've loved you like family for years, Bolger…but I guess now I see your true colors. In the name of my kids – and the man who protected them from harm before me – I'm ending this, now! My move!"

[-]

"Do you even…want to do any of this, Jack?" Yusei asked after a very long pause, gazing pleadingly at his brother in all but name.

"I'm not sure why you seem to think that matters in the least, Yusei," the Dark King replied, his tone equal parts imperiously dismissive and deeply bitter.

"Dammit, of course it matters!" Yusei exclaimed, his insides screaming in frustration as Jack again retreated back from their all-too-brief moments of progress. "I mean, one minute you're saying how you're going to bring an end to the world, and then the next we're reminiscing or you're giving me dating advice! And then you just go right back into all that 'divine destiny' crap! I…god, I just can't a read on you anymore. And we're supposed to be friends, Jack – best friends. There's nothing stopping us from going back to the way things were…"

"You think I haven't considered it?!" Jack abruptly roared, slamming a fist into the table between them with such force that it splintered in two. "You honestly come here and have the nerve to assume that if there was the slimmest way out of this horrific destiny, I wouldn't have gone to any lengths to find it?"

"Then why, Jack?" said Yusei, pleadingly. "You don't even seem to be enjoying any of what you're doing, other than being with Carly. So why don't you just…walk away? She could come too, you know…all could be forgiven…"

Instead of answering, the Dark King merely shook his head and began undoing the buttons on his coat, until his muscular chest – resplendent with the dull violet mark of Wiraqocha Rasca – came into full view.

"Have you been listening to a word I've said, Yusei?" he asked, sounding suddenly weary. "There is no going back for me, or for my Dark Queen. This sign is proof. I sit before you now because the condor wishes for me to, and should its opinion of me change it could snuff out my second life in an instant, as easily as blowing out the flame on a candle. Or worse…it could seize control of my very bones and muscles away from me, and turn me into its mindless puppet. At the moment, I can fight to hold back its power – but I am not foolish enough to assume that will remain the case forever."

So that was what'd happened during Bommer's duel with Crow, Yusei realized. The young Signer tried to imagine that same unearthly glow and sickening veins upon Jack's face and very nearly vomited in response, his mind rejecting the intensely disturbing image outright as the other man refastened his jacket.

"So…is that it, then?" Yusei eventually muttered, placing his palms over his face and letting out a deep breath. "You're just…giving up?"

"It's not 'giving up,' Yusei," Jack insisted, but his tones were just as quiet and somber as his former friend's. "But fate dealt me a false hand; a so-called choice with only one answer. I bring about the tides of Armageddon, not because I wish to, but because nothing else matters anymore. Nothing…except my Queen. So if the choice is between experiencing oblivion without Carly by my side, or being together for as long as it takes to set this world in flames around us…you should already know my decision."

Yusei Fudo, for his part, had been moved nearly to tears by these words, his mind producing a white-hot sensation of equal parts disbelief, exasperation, and overwhelming grief that his throat was finding intensely difficult to translate into speech. But just because he wasn't able to articulate a coherent counterargument didn't mean there wasn't one…

Did it?

"I want to speak with her," Yusei found himself saying, the dragon's head on his forearm sparking slightly as the thought suddenly came to him. "To…To Carly."

"And why in the world would you want to do that?" demanded Jack, his eyebrows rising in suspicion. "You're a Signer, Yusei…the only reason my Dark Queen hasn't already torn your head from your spine is that I requested her not to. She has nothing to say to you beyond words of hatred, and perhaps some vengeful insults she'd like you to pass along to Izayoi."

"Still, I think I need to hear from her," Yusei responded, choosing his words carefully. "You can remain here and observe us, if you want. I just wanna ask her a few things no one else on Earth can answer."

Pressing the tips of his fingers together and briefly closing his eyes, the Dark King thought deeply for a few moments before reluctantly grunting in affirmation.

"Fine then, Yusei…if that is what you wish," he told his former friend, removing himself from his chair and sweeping it to the side with a broad swipe of his left wing.

"Carly!" he called out, looking around at the sweeping field of rubble and debris that'd once been the Arcadia Building. "My Queen, the leader of the Signers desires to speak with you!"

But there was no reply, and after a an uncomfortably long silence, Jack realized to his great shock that his wife was no longer within range of his unpracticed senses. Except, no, that wasn't right…he could faintly detect some traces of Carly's trail, which he followed with the intentness of a bloodhound.

Yusei was yelling something, but the Dark King ignored him completely as he swept across the cracked streets and into several dilapidated buildings. Finally, however, his senses led him to a small, abandoned bakery, and it was here that Carly's trail stopped dead.

"Jack, what the hell is going on?" demanded Yusei, panting as he sprinted up to the Dark Signer's side. "Where did she go?"

"I'm not certain. But I believe she followed some sort of…pathway, set up in this building," said Jack absently, his face screwed up in concentration. "I'm new to this, but the signal…it's…"

The blond Dark Signer was cut off, however, by a pulse of energy that burst violently through the front of his jacket, causing Jack to collapse to the floor and clutch his chest as the sign of the condor blazed bright.

"Whatever this is…I don't…understand it at all…" he murmured through gritted teeth. "My god is…repulsed by it…"

It was at this point that Yusei belatedly realized exactly where he was…and more importantly, what that meant. This was the place where he'd stashed his D-Wheel before heading into Arcadia's ruins, and there was certainly no sign of the motorcycle anywhere around the overturned tables and collapsed bread stands.

Which meant that, somehow, the avatar of the hummingbird had managed to activate the "spell" that he'd been unable to crack. A spell which would've led her directly to…

"No!" Yusei shouted at the top of his lungs, stumbling about in horror at the conclusion he'd just drawn.

The exclamation was so uncharacteristically shrill that Jack Atlas appeared to simply forget his pain in an instant, wrenching himself back to his feet and roaring, "What is it, Yusei?! Do you know what caused this? Do you know where Carly is? Tell me, now!"

"She…she must've used my D-Wheel! It was…" Yusei began, but he stopped himself there. Just enough presence of mind was poking through his rising panic for him to realize that telling Jack about Judai was unlikely to be a good idea.

Trying to be as vague as possible, he said, "It was…rigged, somehow, to teleport the rider back to Satellite. I don't really know the details, but…it was tied to Aki's current location. That's where she's gone."

"Please…tell me you're joking, Yusei," responded Jack, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "You heard what I told you before – my Queen is wholly and obsessively fixated upon achieving vengeance for Misty Lola. If Carly confronts Izayoi now, she…she won't be in her right mind. And if she engages in battle with a psychic that powerful…neither one of them will be safe."

"Then we have to stop them!" Yusei exclaimed, already moving toward the door.

"Excuse me, Yusei?" asked Jack, his brow furrowing. "What is this 'we' business?"

"Well, you just said it yourself!" Yusei answered heatedly. "They're both in danger, so we both should want to stop this fight before it starts…!"

"You seem to have forgotten, Signer, that while I have postponed our final battle until the time is right, we remain – by our very blood – mortal enemies," Jack declared coldly. "I moved for this brief truce for one reason and one reason alone: to work out some…lingering questions that've plagued my mind since my rebirth. For better or worse, you have allowed me to put those thoughts to rest, and for that I thank you."

His eyes narrowed, even further, and while Yusei might've imagined it he was almost certain he could see a violet light flickering within them.

"But make no mistake, Yusei…that changes nothing about the two of us," he continued, his tones increasingly harsh and rough. "You and I shall still fight to the bitter end in less than two day's time, and in the interim, expect no more favors from me. If you wish to rescue Izayoi from my wife's wrath, then so be it…but do not expect her wellbeing to concern me in the least."

And with those final words, Jack Atlas turned away from his former best friend and swept his wings around himself, his sign glowing madly as a miniature geoglyph of Wiraqocha Rasca appeared below his feet.

"Jack, wait! Jack!" Yusei called after him, rushing to try and grab hold of the other man before he could disappear completely. But by the time his hand reached out to touch the Dark King's shoulder, Jack was once again standing at the heart of Satellite.

Yusei's only consolation, as he stood at the threshold of that desolate bakery and fought back tears of anxiety and regret, was in two final, quiet words that'd seemed to escape from the vanishing blond, so soft and so out-of-sync with his preceding speech that Yusei couldn't tell whether they were real or imagined.

But still, they hung over the air, the final message that what the Signer leader desperately hoped was Jack's innermost, truest self had chosen to impart…

"I'm sorry."

[-]

"Medically speaking, she's in perfect health," stated the calm and professional voice of Doctor Lewis Schmitt, although as Ruka was currently floating through some indiscriminate, inky blackness, she couldn't actually see him. "But of course, this is all rather outside my area of expertise. Really, all I can do is prescribe the standard: that we allow her to rest as long as she needs, and provide plenty of fluids once she wakes up."

"Thank you, Schmitt-sama," Aki Izayoi replied, a glowing crimson light appearing before the young Signer and her Duel Spirits in time with her soft tones. "But I won't know whether this actually worked until Ruka-chan awakens. It's been nearly an hour since I tried to bridge a connection…and still no change…"

"Pass through that beacon, Ruka-chan! Quickly!" Ancient Fairy Dragon exclaimed to her avatar, both she and Regulus already beginning to fade away as they shifted back into the Duel Monsters Spirit World. "Enter the light, and you shall be pulled back into your physical body."

"But stay on guard once you return," said Regulus, growling low at some unseen threat. "I'm not sure exactly what it is, but a force with malevolent intentions is fast approaching."

"Indeed. Be wary, my child," agreed the dragon, her voice growing distant as Ruka drifted closer and closer to the increasingly clear image of Aki Izayoi, bent over the young girl in concern. "The forces of the Underworld rapidly gather from all across your mortal land, and you will need to be ready to meet them. And when you do…keep your brother close at your side. In our absence, you will need his protection…and he will need yours."

"I…I will," Ruka responded awkwardly, unsure of what to say. "I'll see you both soon. And…thank you. For everything."

It took Ruka several moments to realize that she'd spoken these last few words aloud, not to two of her Spirit Partners, but instead to a small room packed with four equally anxious faces.

Slurring deliriously as her eyes slowly fluttered open, the green-haired girl gradually drunk in the each of their expressions: Aki-san, her gentle hand placed across Ruka's forehead as she murmured a long string of words the younger girl couldn't make out; Doctor Schmitt, his weary face lined with concern as he monitored her blood pressure with a small cuff; Martha-sama, sitting to the side and clutching Ruka's right hand, with the practiced look of one who'd done this more times than she could count; and her brother, lightly stroking the other hand and trying very hard to prevent small tears from escaping his eyes.

But with the sound of Ruka's latest utterance, feeble and strained as it was, the mood in the room changed considerably.

"My god, you're awake!" exclaimed Martha, smiling glowingly as she brought a glass of water to the young girl's lips. "Do you feel well enough to drink this, Ruka-chan?"

"I…I think so…" Ruka groaned hoarsely, graciously accepting the cool liquid and cherishing the ability to feel something other than mind-numbing pain once again. "How did you…?"

"This incredible young lady managed to bring you back from what looked like the brink of death," said Doctor Schmitt, inclining his head toward Aki. "Don't ask me to understand how…but whatever she did, she was incredible."

"It was…It was nothing, really," whispered Aki, blushing and looking away from them, but Ruka reached over as far as possible and squeezed her around the waist just the same. "Honestly, if you really want to thank someone…you should thank your brother. Rua ran for help within moments of your episode. His quick thinking almost certainly saved your life."

Now it was Rua's turn to experience his face flushing brilliantly as his sister asked, "You…You did?"

"Well, I…I just, y'know, did what you told me to, and…" the boy answered, shuffling about uncomfortably, until he was interrupted by Ruka pulling him into a full-body embrace.

She seemed to be putting a lot more than she was currently capable of saying into that hug, and Rua wondered briefly whether she'd somehow sensed the worry and self-pity he'd been feeling before she began thrashing. He concluded in short order that it didn't really matter, and returning the gesture with all his remaining strength.

"Look, I'm just…glad you're okay," he managed to choke out, the tears he'd been storing up now beginning to flow freely.

The embrace continued for at least a full minute, the other three occupants of the room carefully averting their eyes from what was evidently an intense – if almost entirely unspoken – family moment.

Finally however, Martha broke the silence by saying, "Now, my dear…are you up for telling us what just happened? It's perfectly fine if you'd like to rest a little longer before answering questions."

"I can tell you what Ruka told me, but I don't know all the details," Rua offered, finally detaching himself from his sister and pulling a bedsheet back over her shuddering form. "See, she was having these dreams about that…err, that thing that was attacking Satellite. So she sorta like…detached her soul from her body in order to track it. But that's about all I know…"

"Found it in…America…" Ruka coughed, accepting another glass of water from Martha's tender hands. "Destroying…spiritual locus…sacred ground…"

"Hmm…that makes sense," Aki muttered, tapping one finger against her chin. "Divine used to say that Duel Spirits are naturally drawn to spiritual and holy sites, like the Ise Jing ū or Stonehenge in Britain. They're where the barriers between our worlds are at their weakest. The King of the Underworld probably isn't native to our dimension, so it would be attracted just the same."

"That's…what I thought…" Ruka struggled to continue whispering, politely waving away any further aid from the two adults. The others needed to know what information she'd just gathered, and time was of the essence. "But…the King got…distracted…"

"By what, sis?" asked Rua.

"Three men…calling themselves…Team Ragnarök…lured it there…" said Ruka, now breathing heavily. "And they summoned…three of the Norse Gods…to fight it off…"

"The Æsir?" Aki whispered in astonishment, her eyes wide. "Ruka, which ones were there? Did they triumph? And who were these men who were with them?"

"Let's keep it to one question at a time, alright Aki-chan?" requested Martha, placing a hand upon the young woman's shoulder.

"It was…Thor…Loki…and Odin…" Ruka told them, her tone an even mix of reverence and terror. "Team Ragnarök were…duelists…marked by them. Like…Like us."

"So there're more gods than just the Crimson Dragon fighting these guys, huh?" asked Rua. "Do you think they'd be willing to help us against Jack?"

At this, Ruka became very tense and her lip began to tremble, before she finally replied with a sobbing, "That's…why they said…they were there. But they don't…trust us. That's…That's why Odin…"

She couldn't bear to finish that sentence, but the intent was clear, and Aki let out a low, horrified gasp.

"You mean…they did this to you? But…But how could they…" she murmured to herself, though she let the sentence hang in the air.

Instead, she began removing her gloves, slowly flexing the fingers as if the feel of them was unfamiliar to her. Giving a resigned sigh, she asked of the younger girl, "Ruka, do you trust me?"

"Wh…What? Of…Of course I do…Aki Nee-chan…" she said, smiling in spite of her obvious fatigue and lingering pain.

"Then I'd like to try one of the most advanced psychic techniques I know: memory absorption," Aki told her, biting her lip nervously. "With your permission, it'll allow me to take in the memories of everything you just experienced. You won't forget them, exactly, but the pain connected to them will be…numbed, I guess is the best word. If I do it right, you should be able to rest a lot easier, and it'll allow me to see all that transpired through your eyes. But…well, I've never really done it before, not outside of tests…"

"If you think…it'll help…Aki Nee-chan…" Ruka whispered, weakly but encouragingly. "Then I know…it…will…"

And so, with a gentle touch of Aki's ungloved hand upon her forehead, the youngest of the Signers drifted off to a dreamless sleep, the scarlet claws on both of their forearms peaking brilliantly as Aki half-closed her own eyes and began breathing in a deep, pounding rhythm.

Tendrils of an indescribable power soon began to drift from Ruka's temples and into hers as Martha, Doctor Schmitt, and Rua all stared on in awe, slowly but surely bringing with them the memories of the past few hours of the green-haired girl's life.

It happened suddenly, without any sort of warning. Perhaps it was the product of Aki's low self-confidence, combined with her inexperience with the technique, or else some sort of freak side-effect of placing two Signers in the same psychic circuit.

Whatever the reason, however, Aki soon found herself unwillingly absorbing far more from Ruka's mind than she'd initially intended, blinding flashes of a life that was not her own bursting into her mind like split-second sunspots. Moving quickly, she managed to sever the connection only moments later…

But not before she found herself standing in what was undoubtedly the twins' apartment, having her hair ruffled in Ruka's place by who must surely be their father.

"But why do you guys have to go again?" whimpered the crying figure of Rua beside her, looking to be perhaps six or seven. "You just got back two days ago!"

"Now you both know your father and I work long and hard to provide for you," the person who was presumably the twins' mother replied coldly, not even bothering to look her children in the eye as she examined her nails. "Besides, you have a nanny, a housekeeper, seven world-class tutors…and all the toys and games a child could ever want. Why must you constantly be this…ungrateful?"

"Mommy, daddy…all we want is to spend some time together, as a family. Just a week or two," Aki felt her lips say, Ruka's voice escaping from them in place of her own. "While we do appreciate everything you've given us, I don't that's really too much to ask. After all…"

"Maybe another time, honey," interrupted their father, straightening his tie and checking his watch. "We'll definitely be back for Christmas…or a couple days afterward, at latest. But if we're late, we'll make it up with a double-load of awesome presents – won't that be nice? Now, our flight leaves in less than an hour, so…"

The twins' father gave both of them light squeezes – perfunctory, without any more than the barest levels of affection – before picking up a heavy briefcase and heading out the doorway, their mother offering them nothing but a half-smiling nod as she followed behind him.

Then the door closed, echoing with an air of finality, and with it, the room dissolved…

The world around Aki, seemingly composed of precisely the same sort of psychic vapors that she'd been absorbing from Ruka's troubled mind, soon reformed into that of a hospital ward. Tremendously disoriented, Aki eventually found herself strapped onto a bed and lying still under the covers, able to hear and observe her surroundings but not to make herself known in any way.

"Sis…" whispered a strained voice from her side, and a beat passed before Aki realized that a slightly older Rua was holding "her" hand, hyperventilating and generally looking like an overtired, sleep-deprived mess. "God, sis, I'm so sorry…"

Tears were streaming down the young boy's face, his fingers running across hers with such vigor, as if he was terrified that any second now, they would go limp and cold in his hands.

"Dammit, this is all my fault…" he muttered, more to himself than to her. "I shouldn't have left you alone to duel with that guy. I mean, I thought you could take someone like that on your own, but…well, I'm your brother. That means I'm supposed to protect you. And I promise you, Ruka…I'm never going to fail you again. I promise…"

Then the hospital room became fog and smoke once more, periodically reshaping itself into distant and hazy shadows of things that had been.

One moment, Rua and Ruka were finding a bruised and beaten Yusei near their home in Tops and wondering what they should do with him; the next, Ruka was facing off against that psychology duelist at the Fortune Cup, learning from her Signer Dragon of the plight the Spirit World was currently facing.

Then, there were flashes of a long journey taken to retrieve the petrified body of that very same Dragon, just in time to end the threat of the Dark Signer Demak once and for all. And, finally, the haunting image of Jack Atlas, standing astride the mutilated corpse of Divine as the psychic's blood stained his jacket.

And with the dissolution of that last vision, the strange stream of jumbled memories flowing from both Ruka's conscious and unconscious minds seemed to end, and Aki thought that she could finally begin to see the physical plane once again. Except that the lines and shapes of what she knew to be the real world were not yet fully solid, but rather fading in and out like a badly tuned radio. One last, lingering memory stood alongside it, just barely visible.

This one was different from the previous recollections, however. These visions were so distant and so hazy that Aki was fairly certain the green-haired Signer must've been too young to fully acknowledge them at the time they'd occurred.

"Aki-chan, are you alright?" asked Doctor Schmitt, a concerned hand reaching out to her, even as a faceless man in a lab coat appeared before her as well and began noting a few things on a clipboard.

"After months of setbacks, this project finally seems to be bearing fruit," said the researcher, speaking to a man just out of Ruka's range of vision. "How much longer do you think we should wait before we report our success to the Director?"

"Did it work, Aki Nee-chan?" Rua exclaimed, one hand still clasped around his sleeping sister's. "Did you grab all the stuff you need?"

"Patience, patience, my good fellow," replied the other man, his calm and neutral tones giving Aki the distinct impression that she'd heard him speak fairly recently, though his face remained obscured. "Project Wachakuy is easily Director Goodwin's highest-priority 'business venture' currently in operation. And so long as Yliaster's upper echelons feel that long-haired fool remains of use, we need to keep him placated. These promising new results should be saved for the…proper time."

"Aki-chan! Aki-chan, speak to us!" shouted Martha, now lightly shaking the younger woman by the shoulders.

"Eh, I guess you're the boss," the first researcher acquiesced, moving over to check the read-outs on a couple of exceedingly complicated machines. "But if the Director gets pissed that we waited this long, 'Professor'…well, it's your ass on the line, not mine."

Aki wanted to call out to the visions – to will them to make sense, to understand how such a strange scene fit into the tapestry of Ruka's past. But as quickly as they'd come, the images from experiences that were not her own finally and completely disappeared from Aki Izayoi's sight, and the young psychic's sense of the world around her returned in a great, overpowering rush.

It took her a few moments to come back into the "feel" of her own body, realizing belatedly that her hands were clammy, and her skin dripping in a cold sweat. With a great effort she managed to pull herself up from the floor and turned back to the other residents of this room, all of whom were staring at her with matching expressions of apprehension and worry.

"What happened, Aki Nee-chan?" Rua demanded anxiously. "You just kinda sat there without moving for, like, a whole five minutes. We tried moving you, but you seemed like you were all…frozen, or something."

"I…I'm fine, Rua," Aki muttered in a low voice, her attention still divided between the physical world and whatever long-forgotten scene she'd just witnessed. "I managed to get what I needed from your sister quite easily. It just…it took a little longer than I expected, that's all. Now, excuse me, but I really need to…to lie down…"

And with that Aki was stumbling out of that tiny room without another glance, half-delirious and feeling a desperate, overwhelming need to get away from all human contact. Her own cramped chambers on the second floor of Zora's home were out of the question, for she needed very badly to meditate and she couldn't risk someone walking in on her as she did.

No…it was best she return to the place where Rua had found her, that abandoned gymasium that held an inexplicable sense of security and warmth for her, no matter how little sense it made. Attacking that much-abused punching bag for another half-hour or so might be enough to clear her head of all the unwelcome memories, and sift through to the ones which was actually valuable…

She knew that Doctor Schmitt and Martha were chasing after her – Rua having presumably remained by his unconscious sister's side – but even in a dress she was quite a bit faster than either of them, and she guessed they'd likely check the entirety of the house before even considering the outside streets. In any event, she would at least be able to buy some amount of solitude this way.

Or at least…that had been the plan.

As soon as Aki bolted the door to the gym, yet more images from a foreign source assaulted her psyche. But this felt nothing like what'd happened with Ruka, where the best comparison might've been a spigot accidentally turned too far, so that instead of a steady drip a faucet instead let loose a sudden stream of water.

But the feeling here was completely different – as if someone was holding a high-pressure hose, the kind used to extinguish enormous fires, and was deliberately aiming it for her at full-blast.

She saw a large expanse of rubble in the middle of the city; a tall brunette man with long, matted hair whom she did not recognize; and finally (in a moment that caused her breath to catch in her throat) Yusei, standing atop that same broad stretch of debris as his jacket billowed silently in the wind.

Then the crimson claw set upon her right forearm burst back to life and filled the room with its blinding glow, and with an indescribable rushing sound that nearly pierced her eardrums, Yusei's custom D-Wheel came into view directly before her.

But the person sitting astride that scarlet chrome was most assuredly not Yusei Fudo.

"Hello, Aki Izayoi," greeted the Dark Signer who wielded the sign of the hummingbird, venomous hatred evident with every syllable she pronounced. "I do hope that you're prepared to die today."

[-]

This was Hel.

Harald Ledberg was having a difficult enough time wrapping his head around the idea that there could be a single person on Earth – and a wielder of one of those unholy creatures that'd jumpstarted the countdown toward Ragnarök, no less – apparently too "pure" for even Odin to judge.

The minor complication of the King of the Underworld getting back up for another round, then, was entirely unwelcome.

The full fury of three of the mightiest gods of all time unleashed upon it, and this monster seemed to have been little more than momentarily inconvenienced. Its titanic strength, its astonishing speed, its ability to heal even the most grievous of wounds instantaneously; nothing about the creature seemed to have been diminished in the slightest, and if anything it was only picking up steam now.

Harald, Brave, and Dragan were not speaking as Sebastian expertly piloted their jet through the mayhem, fully occupied by maintaining the corporeal forms of the Æsir via their Rune Eyes. Unfortunately, while the King had emerged directly upon the physical plane, allowing it to draw upon its own boundless power to maintain itself, the Polar Gods were not so lucky – they could only manifest on Earth so long as their mortal avatars had the energy to fuel them, and those reserves were rapidly dwindling.

As such, it wasn't long before Thor, Loki, and Odin were forced onto the defensive, hovering in a slow but steady retreat as they fought off the unending barrage of hellish flames. And that was a problem; as soon as this battle reached the shores of dry land, there'd be little chance of averting millions of fresh casualties.

Harald, for his part, was making a concerted effort to drive the King of the Underworld in circles. Though they were thousands of kilometers away from both America and Europe, he knew well how quickly a god could traverse vast distances if left unimpeded, and he was determined not to give the King the opportunity to do so.

Still, this strategy was living on borrowed time, and Harald knew it; any moment now, any of the teammates could collapse from exhaustion, and with only two gods he very much doubted they'd last more than a few seconds. Desperately, the former soldier's mind whirred, cycling through any number of alternative plans that might be able to stop or even slay this beast.

And it wasn't like they had a lot of time to come up with one. Every single human, animal, and Duel Spirit alive was depending on them now…

The idea came to Harald in a single, blinding flash.

"Gentlemen," said the biologist, motioning for Sebastian to bring their plane back to a hovering position. "Do you remember the last technique we discussed before departing Norway?"

"It was creating that weird rainbow thing, right?" replied Brave, his eyes not leaving the window through which this battle of gods could be observed. "What, are you suggesting we gay the monster to death?"

"It is the Rainbow Bridge, Bifröst. The legendary conduit between Midgard, the realm of man, and Asgard, the realm of the gods," Harald corrected him tersely. "The original bridge, guarded by the watchman Heimdallr, was destroyed by the forces of Muspelheim long ago. But with all three Eyes of the World burning at once, I believe we can manifest a temporary replacement. With enough power, the Bifröst we create can bridge any spatial gap."

"I think I see where you're heading with this…but where can we go at this point?" Dragan asked, his expression grim as he grasped his seat hard enough to leave small dents. "That thing'll be a bitch to deal with, no matter where we are."

"To the only location capable of containing the King of the Underworld, with minimal loss of life: the Duel Monsters Spirit World," responded Harald, already moving toward the rear of the jet to open the cargo hold, allowing them direct access to the outside atmosphere. "Or, more specifically, the least-populated and most desolate of the Spirit World's Twelve Realms…the Undead Wasteland."

"Alrighty then…but you're gonna have to 'steer,' dude," said Brave, both he and Dragan falling into place on either side of their leader as Sebastian wordlessly opened the cargo bay doors.

Deafening stormwinds immediately began to blast directly into the plane, but the trio's Rune Eyes shielded their senses enough for them to stand their ground, holding their gods' cardboard relics aloft in perfect harmony.

Then Harald Ledberg, Brave Gosforth, and Dragan Thorwald all shouted a great, guttural cry in a language long-since forgotten by the tongues of mortal men, and in unison slammed the cards upon their waiting Duel Disks.

The Solid Vision technology was not, of course, the reason that the Disks had to be included in the mystical circuit. Rather, it was the miniature Momentum reactors spinning wildly within the core of each, boosting the already near-boundless power of the Rune Eyes to truly astronomical levels.

Being a biologist rather than a physicist by trade, Harald wasn't going to pretend that he understood exactly how, but experience had taught him that harnessing the unlimited energy of Momentum was the key to achieving modern-day miracles by their gods' hands.

Used to great excess, such miracles would bring an end to the world – that was the reason they were fighting, after all, and why they could not suffer the son of Takashi Fudo to live – but right now, with billions of lives depending upon them, the ends justified the means.

Clearing his mind of all thoughts but a simple, primal serenity and silently bidding his teammates to do the same, Harald fished a blank piece of cardboard from his pocket and placed it at the center of the others, allowing the Æsir's sacred energies to bathe the card in their multi-hued glow. They'd done something like this only a handful of times before – to empower their decks with Magic and Trap Cards specifically designed to interact with the Polar Gods – but the ability for Momentum to transfer thoughts into reality was well-proven, if immensely dangerous.

"I…I think it's working…" Brave whispered, bracing himself against a particularly strong gust of wind as text and a picture slowly began to imprint themselves upon the blank card.

"Indeed," said Harald in a low voice, allowing the new Magic Card's genesis to speak for itself.

Sensing his avatar's gambit, Odin seized the opportunity to strike the King of the Underworld with the holy prongs of Gungnir, again splitting it apart into a puddled, oozing mass. And in the time it took to reconstitute its upper body, the Polar Gods had already raised their enormous arms to form a spatial gap, through which the bridge could be constructed.

There were a brief few moments of palpable suspense as they did so, the only sounds roaring through the background being the dying remains of the thunderstorm Thor had called down, and the low hum of the Momentum reactors as they spun with abandon.

And then, with a surge of blinding light…it was complete.

"I activate the Rainbow Bridge Bifröst!" Harald shouted in triumph, stringing the beam of pure energy from the newly generated card through both the ring formed by their rattling Duel Disks, and the one formed by the Æsir's massive bodies.

Gradually this white beam widened and split into its component colors, blazing with the intensity of a sun as it forced open the gateway to the spiritual realm. Energy crackled and sparks flew wildly across the sky, until eventually the dimensional fissure enveloped the entire horizon, exposing the waters of the Atlantic Ocean to the dunes of the Undead Wasteland.

"Alright Thor, take it from here!" commanded Dragan, and with a mighty nod the God of Thunder summoned forth a great burst of lightning that coursed through the reforming King and channeled straight back into Mjölnir.

With the colossal demon's strength temporarily stolen once more, Loki followed up by grinning madly and conjuring a net of mystical chains to drag the King of the Underworld along with them, as the Polar Gods drifted majestically through the immense portal and into the Duel Monsters Spirit World.

"Without our Rune Eyes to fuel them, our gods will stand little chance against that creature!" Harald explained, answering his teammates' unspoken questions. "That means we must follow! Sebastian, take us through that rift!"

And with that, the members of Team Ragnarök disappeared from the mortal world, ready to do battle with their nigh-immortal foe upon the sands of a new arena.

[-]

"And…yeah, I've got him!" Breo yelled out, pumping his fist in the air. "Dojima Yamamoto, arrested alongside Shizaki Katou and Uryu Tanaka on May 2, 2025. Looks like the three of them were charged with stealing two crates full of…uhh…magazines."

"Alright, I'll use the info to track 'em," responded Leo, imputing the codes from the three petty criminals' files into the tracking software and engaging the program. "Looks like they're all hiding out together in…yep, Dojima's old family house! Now that I've got the map up, it's all coming back to me – they seem to be cooped up right between my mom's house and the local gym. I guess that's a relief; Uryu's kind of a dick but he's not stupid, so if he picked that place to hide it's a pretty safe bet the area isn't crawling with zombies."

"So your mother lives in that house, sonny?" asked Yanagi, gesturing to the large structure adjacent to the current shelter of Uryu and his small crew. "Pretty nice place, I gotta say! Well, just going by size, at least…"

"My dad used to have a clock-repair business in the garage. Most of the extra room was for that," Leo explained for the older man's benefit. "After he died…well, the garage's pretty much been collecting dust ever since. I've been out of the country all these years, hoping to come back with the skills to finally bring life back to that place, y'know? But now…"

Officer Kazama, who'd finally managed to wrench himself upright, placed a sympathetic hand on the blond man's arm.

"I understand how you feel. I followed in my old man's footsteps too," he said quietly. "He was a cop too, back in the days before Security. Died when I was six, taking a bullet for some pro-duelist guy."

He sighed, wearily running his fingers across his scalp. "But I guess that's enough reminiscing. Point is, we've finally got a fix on one of the people we're searching for, so what're we doing still kicking our feet around here?" he demanded of the others.

"Hold on a minute, Soichi," replied Breo, tapping a finger pensively against his beard. "Leaving this base means risking our lives even in the best of scenarios, and we're not even certain we'll find anything useful at Leo's house. We need to have a better reason to head out there if we're gonna justify the risk."

"Well, like I said, it's a long-shot…but if my Auntie Martha had to go running from that giant monster, it's a pretty safe bet that we can find her at my mom's," Leo told them all. "And Martha raised Jack and Yusei, so having her on our side can only help. Plus she's got a ton of connections throughout Satellite – everyone owes Martha a favor."

"I guess that makes sense, especially if we're looking to gather up those 'Signer' people," said Stephanie, looking thoughtful. "But one thing is still bothering me…exactly how're we planning to get into Satellite? It's not like we've got a private jet or anything."

"Helicopter, actually," declared Breo with a chuckle, flipping a switch on a nearby console to change the security camera feed to Always' vehicle bay, where – indeed – a flamboyantly painted helicopter could be seen at the center, apparently ready to take off at a moment's notice. "Andore has a pilot's license, in case you're wondering. Took the test for kicks, and actually managed to pass…somehow. And while drunk off his ass, to boot."

The general absurdity of this tale was more than any of their composures could take, and nearly in unison all five of the teammates broke down into riotous laughter.

And in was in this brief moment, when all of their guards were down, that Andore decided to tempt fate on the other side of the complex…and it was in the very next that the power for Always went out completely.

Being located several floors further underground than the rest of Team Kizuna, Breo's group only mildly felt the tremor that sent their fellows sprawling to the ground. But they certainly noticed when every light and computer screen within sight went dark, courtesy of the complete destruction of the fortress' outside generator.

Mercifully, the backup system kicked in a few seconds later, bathing their faces in the soft red glow of the emergency lights. But in the brief moments of total blackness an equally pervasive silence had blanketed Always, and consequently even they could hear the pounding of emaciated hands that indicated their troubles were only just beginning.

"Stephanie, you run up to Jean's group and find out what's going on!" Breo ordered, and the former waitress gave a gulp and a quick nod before disappearing up the stairs. "And Leo, pull up the feeds from all our security cameras. I wanna take a look at whatever's outside."

"Not like we don't know, right?" Leo replied grimly, and the worst of their suspicions were confirmed as each and every screen began to display a nigh-endless swarm of walking corpses, striking their pale fists at every point along the walls in what appeared to be an organized search for a weak spot.

Exactly who was performing said organization was unclear, but the audio feed from the front of Always was picking up – in addition to the clanging hands and incessant moaning – the distinctive sound of a whip cracking from within the crowd. And so far as they were aware…these things weren't capable of wielding such a weapon.

"Everyone, come on! We're under attack! Jean and Andore want us back upstairs!" exclaimed Stephanie as she clattered down the steps and back into the computer room, waving dramatically with her arms for the others to follow.

The reactions to this news were fairly diverse – Breo and Kazama kept stoic as Stephanie placed an arm around the latter and helped him back to his feet, Leo shuddered and tugged hard at his bandana, and Yanagi yelped and placed his arms over his head, as if performing a duck-and-cover exercise – but all four followed the instruction nonetheless.

Fortunately, Always was made of some rather sturdy stuff, and so by the time they reunited with Jean, Andore, the Izayois, and the countryside trio the situation didn't appear to have worsened considerably. The only noticeable change was that the hammering upon the walls was much harder to ignore on the ground level.

And of course…the screeching zombie that was also present in the room, thrashing about wildly as if struggling to return to its numerous brethren, wasn't exactly helping matters.

"So you did manage to capture one of those things," said Kazama, peering over at the hastily scrawled sign reading "Reggie's Crib" across the impenetrable capsule. "Do you think they might've followed you back in when you caught it?"

"I…I'm not sure," Jean replied, taking a few deep breaths. "I mean, I thought we made sure not to be seen, but now…"

"Perhaps they're more intelligent than we gave them credit for?" suggested Hideo Izayoi, an arm around his wife's shoulder as she shivered. "They may have set up scouts, for all we know."

"No, I don't think that's it," Breo stated, looking pensive. "When I was taking a listen using our recording equipment, I heard a whip being used to direct them. My guess is that there's at least one human leading those creatures right now…and they're the ones who discovered the location of our base."

"You're right on the money, C-listers," boomed a slightly accented and sneeringly cruel voice, though the source was unclear. Holding their ears in pain as this new noise filled the atmosphere, each member of Team Kizuna twisted their heads around in a vain attempt to identify who was speaking.

Instead, a second voice proceeded to add itself to the din, this one female.

"C-listers…yeah, that's a pretty good way to describe perras like you," she said, cackling derisively. "Honestly, going after you is probably a waste of time…but hey, it's the principle of the thing. You little shits are gonna serve as an example of what happens to anyone who fucks with the Dark King."

"Ja…we're going to make sure your fancy little cameras record all of you getting torn limb from limb, so that every human left alive knows what we do to traitors," declared the male voice. "So enjoy the few minutes you have left, before we break through your pathetic defenses und slaughter you all.

"Don't worry, though," added the woman, laughing again. "No one's going to miss you."

Then the two disembodied voices died away, and the intensity of Reggie's wailing and the fists striking their stronghold from all directions went up accordingly, causing both Setsuko and Leo to begin hyperventilating.

Apparently skipping that step altogether, Stephanie started to shake all over and cried out shrilly, "Oh God – oh God! – I'm too young to die, I'm just a waitress and I should've never done this and oh God what a way to go and fuck, I can't…!"

"Shut…the hell…up!" roared Jean at the top of his lungs, instantly bringing all the other members of Team Kizuna to full attention. "Look, we don't have time for panicking right now, alright? This is the point where we need to prove our bonds are stronger than a bunch of zombies and two crazy fucks with a whip, so pull yourselves together and get moving!"

"Moving on what, exactly?" Andore demanded, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"Quite a lot, actually," said Jean. "Gather around, team…I think I've got a plan."

[-]

An entire ocean away, the sun was just beginning to set upon Lakewood, California, where Judai Yuki was standing out on his old friend's veranda and drinking in the descending darkness.

"A new moon, Sho…we're in luck," he muttered distantly, gazing upon the dim twinklings of the first stars of the night. "My powers should be at their peak tonight."

Sho, for his part, looked apprehensive. It was still so utterly bizarre to hear Judai talk like this – so serious, so comfortable with his abilities. They'd known Judai to be the reincarnation of the Supreme King for years, ever since their "adventures" in the Duel Monsters Spirit World, but Sho hadn't ever really understood what that meant.

But it was there, in those eyes; eyes that, while appearing their usual murky brown at first glance, were filled with the tiniest flecks of gold, swimming just below the surface. Most people might not have been able to notice it, but Sho did, and it spoke volumes.

"Your powers depend on the phases of the moon, aniki?" asked Sho, deciding to choose a safe topic. "That's pretty cool."

"Well…yes and no," Judai replied. "Basically, I fuel the stuff I do with ambient darkness – the less visible light there is around, the stronger I get. So with no moonlight tonight, I get a serious boost."

He chuckled lightly.

"Good thing, too. I can definitely use the extra juice," he added, taking a deep breath of the cold twilight air as he did. "Yubel's way better at explaining things than I am…y'know, big surprise. Keeping her manifested the full night will make everything go a lot smoother, I think, but I need serious reserves to manage that."

"Are you…umm…sure it's wise to summon her out in front of everyone?" said Sho in a very small voice, choosing his words carefully. "I mean…well, it's not like most of the memories we have of her are, y'know…fond…"

"You do realize that she can hear everything we're saying, right?" Judai told him, a teasing grin upon his face. "Seriously though, I'm kinda banking on the whole 'oh my god you're still alive!' thing to smooth things over. After all that happened, I'm not demanding any of you like Yubel…I just hope you can accept she and I are a packaged deal these days. We've got so few allies already, we can't afford to fight amongst ourselves."

"I…guess that makes sense," Sho responded, nervously tugging at his collar. "So, how long before you can bring out the rest of the gang?"

"I should be capable of generating the portal right…about…" Judai began, mentally counting down the seconds as the sun dipped further and further below the horizon, "…now."

No one who wasn't specifically looking for it would've been able to see the rift that Judai opened in that moment – subtlety was the very nature of the True Darkness, after all.

Even its occupants did not initially perceive its presence, having been suspended in a timeless void for the better part of a day. But they certainly noticed when Judai briefly donned the golden eyes of the Supreme King and gave them all a delicate but effective mental "shove," sending the four Duel Academia professors clattering onto Sho's hardwood floors.

"Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck…okay, I know it's a total cliché, but I'd really like to get the number of the bus that hit me," murmured Rei Saotome, evidently still delirious from her time in the pocket dimension.

"That wasn't a busssssssss…" slurred Fubuki Tenjoin, who was – whether because of his body's natural reaction to the time-space fluctuation, or because he was deliberately choosing to do so – responding to those same stimuli as if he was severely intoxicated. "It had wings and pink slippers and a funny horny-nosy-thing…like a naaaaaaaaarwhal! Oh narwhals, narwhals, living in the ooooooooocean…"

"You're both…acting ridiculous…" mumbled his sister Asuka, clutching her head as if she had a severe migraine.

Her husband, Jun Manjoume, merely nodded weakly before turning over and retching violently onto the nearby carpet.

"Well on the bright side, at least now I know how you guys deal with bad hangovers," Judai said brightly, causing the Duel Academia professors to immediately go rigid.

Slowly, in unison, all four of them turned their heads to look up at the long-haired gentleman standing above them, a goofy grin on his face as he sealed up the small fissure with one hand, siphoning Manjoume's vomit into the closing portal with the other.

"Holy…shit…" Manjoume managed to sputter out.

"Judai-kun…God, Judai-kun, you're alive! You're fucking alive!" screamed Rei ecstatically, attempting to lift herself to her feet and hug her former crush but managing only to make a spectacular pratfall three feet short of her target.

"Don't worry, I'll get you all feeling back to normal soon. Basic-level healing's pretty easy…y'know, as long as none of you are hiding any terminal illnesses I don't know about," Judai added with a chuckle, his eyes flickering between their natural brown and the inhuman gold as he placed hands on each of his old friends' foreheads in turn.

One by one, their lingering deliria vanished in an instant.

"Looks like you've been practicing," breathed Manjoume, as he shook his head and began to smooth down his wild hair a bit. "I sure as hell don't remember you being this…skilled way back when."

"Well, it has been a while," said Judai, flushing sheepishly, before being bowled over by Rei's second, far more successful attempt at an embrace. Smiling broadly, Fubuki and Asuka both moved to do the same, while Manjoume gave a terse nod and brief handshake once they were finished.

Of course, Judai hadn't really been expecting much more from his old rival, so he laughed merrily all the same.

"How did you…? I mean, how did we…? Urgh, I don't even know where to begin…" Asuka asked after a while, blushing slightly at her babbling. "The last thing I remember, Fubuki, Rei, and I were heading away from the island on the boats, while Jun was staying back to fight off that…that thing."

"It's called the King of the Underworld," Judai told her, his tone growing instantly serious. "I'll be explaining a lot more about that big-ass sucker in a sec, but here's a quick run-down: a few months ago, I learned some really serious shit was about to go down in Japan. Biggest threat to Earth since we took down Darkness in my third year. Since then I've been working around the clock, searching for allies to help prevent this disaster…but by the time I got to Duel Academia, I was nearly too late. I just barely managed to shove you all into a pocket dimension before Manjoume got charbroiled."

"Hmmph…well, if you're looking for a 'thank-you,' then save your breath," grunted Jun, though both men knew all the meaning that was implicit in those words. This was only strengthened by the Osiris head briefly turning his head to the others, as if daring them to say something, before pulling Judai into the stiffest and most fleeting of one-armed hugs.

"Alrighty, I think I gotcha so far. Just one more question before I let you get back to your story," said Fubuki, his head bopping as he whistled some long-forgotten pop ditty. "Where exactly are we now?"

"The home of someone I think you're all gonna want to see," Judai answered, his grin widening. "Now why don't you come out of that corner and say hi, dude?"

Doing as he was bidden, Sho Marufuji stepped out of the shadows from which he had been observing them all from a distance, slowly and timidly making his way toward the others…

Fubuki, for his part, dropped his jaw in what seemed like slow motion. "No, it can't be…it really can't be…" he murmured slowly.

Then he gulped and, with a stab of blind, irrational hope he hadn't felt in a very long time, he whispered, "…Ryo?"

It wasn't often these days that Judai could be caught off-guard, but that'd certainly done it. His head snapped in a double-take toward the man who was now shuffling about nervously and staring down at his feet, clearly both embarrassed and saddened over the mistake.

Upon further reflection, though, he had to admit that he could see where Fubuki could've made the error, particularly in the dim half-light he'd insisted Sho maintain within his home. It didn't help that the younger Marufuji brother had apparently taken to wearing both his coat and his azure hair in Ryo's signature style, though the latter was a few shades lighter than the Kaiser had ever sported in life.

Still, the greatest element of resemblance between the two siblings, one living and one deceased, was in their faces. No matter what dormitory he'd called home, Sho Marufuji had always given off a perpetual aura of innocence, contrasting starkly with his battle-hardened and cynical brother. But now that very same look was Sho's default expression, a reflection of just how deeply Ryo's death still affected him after all these years.

Readjusting his trademark circular glasses – still several sizes too small for his wide eyes – so that Fubuki might realize his mistake, Sho simultaneously sniffed and blushed before replying, "Sorry to let you down, Fubuki-sama. But when your mind is telling you something's impossible, it's probably best to listen to it."

"Err…nonsense! I pull off the impossible at least three times a day!" Judai cut in, vainly trying to lighten the tension and awkwardness currently pervading the room.

"Yeah, yeah…guess I was just being stupid. But it really is great to see you've survived too, buddy," said Fubuki, displaying a warm and genuine smile as proof of his apology. "C'mon Sho, it's been way too damn long…"

"Alright, alright, I get it. We all love each other, hugs and kisses all around," Manjoume declared pointedly, rolling his eyes as the late Kaiser's brother and best friend both embraced each other as well. "But if I remember what Judai was spouting a few minutes ago, we've sorta got bigger things to worry about than a bunch of touchy-feely reunion speeches."

"Jun…!" Asuka started to chastise, but Judai held up a hand to stop her.

"No, no, he's right," responded Judai with a deep sigh. "I've got a ton of info I need to lay onto you guys, and not nearly enough time to do it. We can all get catch up more in the days ahead, but for now…as ironic as this has gotta sound coming from me…"

Then a brownish mist, tinged with blue and purple, began to escape from Judai's eyes and mouth, slowly reforming into the immortal Duel Spirit known only as Yubel.

She smirked, knowingly and impishly, before concluding her lover's sentence with a sultry, "…Class is in session."

[-]

Snow. Every way that Tetsu Ushio turned, he could see nothing more than a wide, white expanse of the stuff, stretching on for kilometers upon kilometers in all directions.

Ushio had never really been a particular fan of wintertime – the frigid temperatures would always wreak havoc on his sinuses, and the requisite bulky attire tended to make him feel even more goofy-looking than usual. As such, finding himself stranded in the middle of a horrific blizzard wasn't exactly doing wonders for the Security Officer's already exhausted constitution.

Fighting the natural panic that came with the territory of being hopelessly lost in a strange land, tired and cold and hungry and possessing only the vaguest of ideas over how he'd come to be there, Ushio shivered and began to take stock of his current situation, trying to keep the cool head that Security had burrowed into him for so many years.

First thing was first, checking for injuries. But beyond a general numbness from the arctic climate and a bit of bruising on his hands and knees, he seemed to have made it to this place without serious issue.

Of course, that brought the burly Officer to the obvious questions: where was this place, and how the hell had he wound up there? Nothing about this frozen tundra seemed like a location that might be found in Japan, and he certainly couldn't remember hopping on a boat or an international flight.

The fact that the answers weren't coming immediately worried Ushio quite a bit, since he was acutely aware that temporary memory impairment could be a sign of an unnoticed concussion. His head was throbbing rather painfully, as he slowly moved to pull himself to his feet.

But then the memories began flooding back, vague and disjointed though they were. Heading down to that Satellite's warehouse to rescue Saiga and the kids, confronting that psycho who'd kidnapped Mikage-san and his equally insane friends, diving through some weird portal-thing in pursuit of the giant and his unconscious hostage…

"I…I've gotta find him…" Ushio muttered under his breath, beginning to trudge forward through the knee-high snowbanks and not doing a very good job of it.

The tedious layer of powder was both thick and unyielding, and to be frank, he simply wasn't dressed for weather like this – particularly as the first flurry of a fresh new blizzard now appeared to be blowing in from the horizon.

And so it went for the next half-hour or so…or at least, that's roughly what it felt like (as both his watch and phone appeared to have been rendered completely inoperable by all that'd transpired). Walking in a randomly selected direction and succeeding at nothing but replacing the vast stretch of thick, white mist before him with another, utterly identical one.

It would've helped to have the sun, or any other landmarks to guide his journey, but the sky remained as blank and inscrutable as the rest of his surroundings, leaving him with no measure by which to gauge his progress as he proceeded onward through the icy wasteland.

But he would not quit; Saiga was defenseless and that man – no, that monster – who'd taken him clearly had no compunctions about cold-blooded murder. And so Ushio pressed forward, placing one foot in front of the other even as it grew increasingly difficult to breathe, or even…

Even to stand upright…

"Could it be…he thinks those leaves are money?" asked one Domino High student, gazing in utter bewilderment at the sight of hall monitor Tetsu Ushio giddily rolling around in a large pile of autumn leaves.

"Yuck! It's not just leaves, there's garbage in there too!" cried his girlfriend, making a disgusted face and turning away.

"But he looks happy…" said another teenager, shrugging off the display and beginning to walk back home.

It didn't matter, though, because he was entirely right. Ushio had the money all to himself, and couldn't possibly have been happier about it – even licking a few of the lower-denomination bills, just to prove he could. No one else might've been able to understand, but that just meant more cash for him, and he was perfectly fine by that.

And the day just kept getting better, as his own march home saw a pathway literally littered with riches, oodles of yen coins and bills just lying on the ground or falling from the trees, somehow ignored by every other man and woman walking the streets of Domino City.

By the time he arrived at his mother's apartment, his pockets were stuffed with what he roughly calculated to be around five-months' worth of income, and so despite having lost the "business" of that little shit Yugi Muto he was feeling quite pleased with himself as he sauntered into the kitchen, whistling absently as he did.

"Ma, I'm home!" he shouted, throwing his keys onto the counter and waiting for a response that did not come. Walking around the small and rather unkempt home he eventually found her passed out stone-cold on the couch, an assortment of needles and bottles strewn about her frail and heavily veined form.

"Ah shit, ma, not again…" grunted Ushio as he threw a blanket over his evidently relapsed mother, and began heading to his room to count his bounty.

Of course, it wasn't like he was really one to talk about drug addiction, but at least he was young and full of energy, whereas his middle-aged mother was…less so. Only last week the doctor had berated her in no uncertain terms that she had, at best, another couple of years left if she kept shooting up like this.

But they would worry about that more once they were rich, and oh, how rich they were now! And this would only be the beginning; in an hour or so he'd head back out and continue collecting these wonderful treasures, until he could outright buy a rehab facility or three.

With enough money, he was sure she could be convinced to kick this heroin habit to the curb once and for all. And maybe himself too, eventually…

"You know…that's a lie…Tetsu…" croaked the wizened and tired voice of Karachi Ushio, and the teenager jumped so fiercely that he nearly fell to the ground. Turning around, he saw the nightdress-clad woman had managed to pull herself to her feet and was now advancing slowly toward him…something that simply wasn't possible this soon after a dose like that.

Something was seriously, seriously wrong here.

"You know as well as I do…that in another two years, I will be dead…and you will be poor…and pathetic…and an utter failure…" the woman hissed, her eyelids snapping open to reveal bloodshot irises and pupils so heavily contracted that they barely appeared human. "The bills you hold…are an illusion, just like every success you've ever experienced in your life…"

"Ma…what're you talking about?" Ushio demanded, unconsciously taking a few steps further up the stairs. "You're…You're tripping from the drugs, ma. You're not making any sense."

"Oh, I'm certainly not your mother, mortal scum…just wearing her for the moment, like a skin…" she said with a distinctively unfeminine snarl, and that's when she began to change.

The blood in her eyes expanded outward and swallowed her entire body, expanding into lines of deepest red that crisscrossed with the shadows of their apartment to reform into a massive spider, towering over the trembling hall monitor and clicking its pincers eagerly.

"I may be gone from this particular plane of existence, My former slave…but within the recesses of your mind, the Jibakushin Uru still lives," the spider screeched. "I took you for My own twice over, before you gained that pathetic little mark upon your forearm. And whether you wish to admit it or not, that frightens you…frightens you so very deeply…"

"I…I mean…what…you…I…help, someone, help!" Ushio stammered, now attempting to scramble away from the creature on his hands and knees and desperately fighting to hold onto control of his sanity.

"This gets Us nowhere," Uru spat in disgust, clicking its pincers a few more times and dissolving the world around them, until a much older Tetsu Ushio remained, clad in the uniform of a Security Officer and panting heavily from the harrowing experience.

"You!" he yelled furiously, remembering everything in an instant, as he pointed an accusatory finger at the deceased Earthbound God. "You're that bastard that ate Martha-sama!"

"Ah, much better. And yes, that is indeed what I am…to a degree, at least," said Uru. "I take the shape of the almighty God who led the Jibakushin in their Second Coming. But It fell by the hand of the Signer Yusei Fudo and his familiar, the Stardust Dragon. No, I am nothing more or less than your inner darkness, Tetsu Ushio – your deepest fears and most abject despair. Why you chose to represent Me in this form is for you to interpret. Although perhaps it's because you feel, deep down, that My repeated possessions of your mind render you…unworthy to bear that sign?"

This charge struck quite potently at the Security Officer's nerves, severely weakened as they were by cold and fatigue, for now he felt himself collapse to his knees in this empty void, part of him wishing that this enormous arachnid would simply consume him whole and get it over with.

At least, that was until…

"You will be silent, spider!" boomed a voice from Ushio's jacket pocket, and as if in a trance the Officer moved to open it, allowing a thin white figure to escape from there, revealing itself moments later as the very dragon Uru had just mentioned as its killer.

"I have destroyed you once, and I shall do so again, as many times as is necessary," Stardust Dragon cried out, shielding Ushio with its wide, protective wings. "This man may not be my chosen avatar, but he is a warrior of incredible bravery and skill, and a fine ally to my Master. You will not impugn his honor."

"My existence is merely a sign that he feels the need to impugn his own honor," replied the Jibakushin. "I believe it telling that this mortal would jump so readily to his memories as a petty school bully, caring naught for any soul but himself. Or did you think that a few pretty words from your precious Signer would be enough to erase three decades of self-loathing?"

"Tetsu Ushio's path to redemption is a gradual one…but at least he possesses the strength to take it," said Stardust Dragon, flexing its wings warningly. "Though he may not yet know it, that is why the hand of destiny has brought him into our world. The Crimson Dragon smiles on heroes of all kinds, and it has chosen this man for a reason."

"We shall see then, dragon. Yes, We shall see…" the spider whispered cruelly, before giving a great, hideous cry and dissipating into the shadows, leaving Tetsu Ushio standing alone alongside the hovering form of the Signer Dragon he'd been handed temporary custody of.

Stardust Dragon opened its maw and appeared to be on the verge of saying something to the scarred Security Officer. But then both it and the rest of this dark, empty world began to fade away as well, leaving nothing but the sensation of frigid winds upon his face, and the feeling of soothing hands running down his skin, bringing it a life-giving warmth…

Ushio's eyes snapped open. While it did not surprise him that he'd fallen unconscious in the wake of that snowstorm, the sight of another human being nursing him back to health – much less a female one – was rather…less expected.

Except that, now that he began to get a closer look at her, there was some inexplicable quality about her that made him certain that she wasn't human, though he would've been hard-pressed to name what it was.

Perhaps it was the way her face was shaped – perfectly rounded and angled, as if she was more of an artist's conception of the human form, rather than a specimen of the species. Or else those eyes, seemingly frozen over with a perpetual blue tint, even in the portions that should've been white.

Of course, the fact that she was wielding two enormous snowflake-like weapons as if they were chakram, occasionally twirling one around with a graceful flair as she set about healing his bruises, might've also had something to do with it.

"Who…Who are you?" Ushio asked weakly, feeling sorely tempted to simply drift back to sleep but knowing it was probably better he remain conscious for the moment.

The young woman (if that was indeed what she was) gave a sudden start at this groaning outburst, but appeared pleased with it all the same.

"Ah, good…you're finally up," she said, now rubbing some sort of paste on one of his larger injuries. He was shirtless, he realized belatedly, and flushed a bit at the skin-on-skin contact.

"You've been sick with fever for many hours now, babbling under your breath," she told him, bowing her head respectfully. "I'm glad to see you're feeling a little better. As for your question, you may call me Maihime…the 'Dance Princess.' I found you passed out in the snowbanks while I was out…practicing, and brought you here to recover."

"Th…Thank you," grunted the Security Officer, attempting to make a grateful gesture that probably came off as more of a generic wave than anything else. "But…where is 'here'?"

"See for yourself," Maihime responded with a small smile, before ripping away the animal-skin that was serving as this abode's door and exposing Ushio to the full view of her village, a long stretch of tents and ice-dwellings extending for kilometers on end.

Drawn by the motion, another passing villager bedecked in ornate blue robes raised his icicle-tipped spear to the sky and shouted, "Oho, you are awake! Let praise be to Trishula, human brother…and welcome to L'ad, capital of the Ice Boundary!"

[-]

(Samuel Bolger: 4000 LP – Crow Hogan: 2600 LP)

Despite his unceasing bravado, Crow Hogan was well-aware that he needed a miracle draw to stay in this duel past the next turn. Secure in his knowledge of his old partner's deck, Bolger had played him for a fool, tricking him into wasting all his resources on two Synchro Monsters – both of whom were now lying fallen in the Cemetery.

Closing his eyes and concentrating very deeply on the kids for whom he was waging this mortal battle, the redhead grasped the top card of his deck and shouted "Draw!" as loudly and as desperately as he could.

Then he opened his eyes…and his trademark smirk reappeared in full.

"I activate Black Feather – Blackjack!" he called out, sliding the Magic Card into his Duel Disk and placing his eager hand to his deck once more. "This allows me to send up to three cards from the top of my deck to the Cemetery…and for every 'Black Feather' monster among them, I get to destroy a Magic or Trap Card on the field. Problem is, every Trap Card that gets sent hits me for 700 damage. So I guess we're about to see just how lucky this bird really is."

Holding his breath for a moment, Crow slashed the air to reveal…Black Feather Beacon, a Trap Card.

"Err…that's okay, that's okay," said Crow, now sweating a little. "I can afford something like that, especially when my second draw is…"

"Fake Feather," Samuel Bolger read off emotionlessly. "Perhaps you should have edited Pearson's handiwork a bit more carefully. The man always did have more of a flair for surprises and tricks, than actual talent in implementing them…"

"Shut the fuck up!" yelled Crow, taking a few steps forward as his fists clenched tightly. "You don't deserve to even mention him any longer, you got that?! Now…let's do this, one more time!"

One final card was turned over and slipped into the Cemetery slot on the young Signer's Duel Disk…but this one possessed a rather distinctive orange border: Black Feather – Vayu the Grand Flag.

"Oh, hell yeah!" Crow exclaimed, waving a hand toward the sole Magic Card on Bolger's field and watching with glee as the hammer that'd eradicated his monsters was blown to dust. "And just the little birdie I was hoping to see, too! Because with Vayu in the Cemetery, all I gotta do is remove it and a non-Tuner from play, and then I can Special Summon a Synchro Monster with a Level that matches up to theirs. So goodbye Vayu and Black Feather – Armored Wing, and now…Black Feather – Lone Silver Wind, come on down!"

"I am unimpressed, Crow," Bolger responded dismissively, as the mighty avian warrior appeared in a flurry of wind and unsheathed its lengthy katana. "If I remember that monster's effect correctly, the Synchro in question cannot even use any of its effects. So all you've really done is brought forth a colorful brick wall."

"Yeah, that's true. But without that Equip Card on your side, that's really all I need to whoop your goddamn ass!" said Crow, directing his hand forward. "Lone Silver Wind, attack his Hail the Iron Hammer! Bushido Cyclone!"

Like a dutiful samurai, Lone Silver Wind immediately set into a battle stance, rapidly slicing the air with its katana and drawing up a great gust of wind with every new slash. Then, when a sufficiently powerful aura surrounded the creature, it burst forward, focusing all of that energy into one massive strike that tore the helmeted warrior clean in two.

Grunting irritably as he took his first damage of the Duel, Bolger placed a hand on his deck and declared, "So it appears that you've made a small comeback. But that means little. It's still only a short matter of time before you run out of Pearson's little birds. And now…I shall begin to prove it. My draw!"

Clearly possessing a particular strategy in mind from the onset, the former CEO barely even glanced at his new card before explaining, "Now, I summon the Tuner Monster White Warrior – Snow the Rope Dart, as well as discard White Warrior – Miasma the Hidden Gate. By discarding Miasma and selecting one monster that was previously Special Summoned, I can Special Summon 'White Warrior Tokens' in Defense Position for every two Level-Stars' difference between them. Miasma is Level 2 and Lone Silver Wind is Level 8, so I'm allowed to summon three Tokens. And with that…the stage is finally set."

Right on cue, three clumps of what appeared to be concentrated, murky fog – each Level 2 and possessing 1000 ATK and DEF points – took their places beside the blue-robed warrior, which immediately began to transform its body into a series of verdant, glowing rings that surrounded two of the Tokens.

Snow's master, in the meantime, struck out his hand to a point just over Crow's shoulder and allowed the feather protruding from his chest to pulse. A subtle prod from his own mark provided the Signer just enough warning to dodge to the side as a white piece of cardboard sailed through the air with the speed of a flying bullet, landing within the murderer's outstretched fingers.

"One born from the Darkness of the Heart, come forth at the price of a good Soul!" Bolger chanted, the violet light coursing through the feather expanding across the rest of his body until it appeared to engulf him completely. "Synchro Summon! Make this Signer bleed…Blood Mephist!"

Set against the backdrop of towering flames that surrounded both duelists, the already threatening Synchro Monster looked downright demonic as it twirled onto the field with a twirl of its gentlemanly cloak and a mad, wheezing cackle.

The holographic stats-indicator informed Crow that the monster possessed the same ATK as his own eight-Star Synchro. But unlike him, Bolger still held one last card in reserve, and the curled lip the businessman was sporting – possibly the closest thing to a smile Crow had seen across his face all day – seemed to indicate that he was about to use it.

"I assure you that all this reminiscing has been quite…illuminating, Crow. But this is the end for you," said Bolger, sliding one final Magic Card into the appropriate slot. "I activate Rage of the White! With this, I can remove from play one 'White Warrior' in my Cemetery, and one Synchro Monster in yours, in order to increase my monster's ATK by that of the Synchro's. So it appears your Blackfeather Dragon will indeed decide this duel…but in my favor. Blood Mephist, receive your rightful bounty!"

The demon tipped its top-hat to Crow's Cemetery as the spirit of his Signer Dragon was forcibly exorcised from it, its essence streaming into Mephist's skull-tipped cane and empowering it with double the strength of Lone Silver Wind. And with no other cards face-down on the field, that meant that Bolger was one attack away from ending this duel, and bringing an utterly merciless death upon his younger opponent.

Crow swallowed as he finally began to process what this meant. In the first great test of his worth to the Crimson Dragon, in this fight to ensure the safety of his kids from the worst danger that'd ever dared to threaten them…

He had failed.

"Now Blood Mephist, take the victory you deserve! Take the victory I deserve!" Bolger snarled, his face again contorted with an uncharacteristic fury.

But the creature did not move.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Bolger demanded. "Kill that monster, and kill the Signer! End this match swiftly, so that I might finally be granted my blessed peace!"

"And why exactly should I listen to the likes of you, human?" said a deep and innately sinister voice, and while the source wasn't immediately clear there was really only one being left in this abandoned warehouse capable of uttering it.

But such a thing was impossible…wasn't it?

"But you're…you're just a hologram!" exclaimed Bolger, his eyes widening and his jaw clenching nervously. "You shouldn't be able to disobey me! I…I am your master, and you will do as I command! Destroy Lone Silver Wind, immediately!"

Blood Mephist's response to these increasingly frenetic assertions was to begin laughing uproariously, before casually forming a fireball in its right hand and hurling it at a section of the ceiling. The aged metal burst apart immediately, forcing Bolger to back away from the falling debris.

"You still believe me to be nothing but a simple hologram?" it asked incredulously, still wheezing maniacally in between sentences. "Even after you witnessed me using my very, very real powers to murder a fellow human, directly before your eyes? The late Seto Kaiba's Solid Vision technology was an…impressive achievement by mortal standards, but it's still nowhere near that potent."

"Hey, hey, hold the phone!" Crow cried out, his own eyes now burning with indignant wrath. "Are you fucking telling me you were the weapon he used to kill Pearson?!"

"Oh yes…and what a fine death it was, too!" replied the monster, its tones dripping with a sadistic relish. "I can still remember that poor, defenseless human, gasping desperately for air in the pungent smoke as I burned his skin and crushed his bones. One…by…one. Oh, I've slaughtered quite a few mortals over the years …but your 'Robert Pearson' was easily one of the most fun."

"You…You sick bastard!" Crow screamed, leaping over to sock the demon in the gut but receiving a targeted blast of dark fire in response, which sent him hurtling to the ground in a coughing heap.

Clutching his chest and attempting to reassert control over his damaged lungs, the redheaded Signer decided that this creature definitely wasn't exaggerating about its powers.

"So then…what exactly are you?" asked Bolger, still utterly bewildered by the fact that his ace monster had just up and decided to ignore the ongoing duel, and hold conversations with the players. "I thought that you were just a KaibaCorp experiment!"

"The man who allowed you to 'steal' me certainly wanted you to think that," answered Blood Mephist, twirling its cane and grinning as the spirit of Blackfeather Dragon trapped within screeched piercingly with each rotation. "After all, were you to know the truth, you would've never come anywhere near me, and the destiny of the Signer Crow Hogan would've never been properly written."

Now hovering to the center of the ring of fire, away from either player's side of the field, it continued, "I am a Card of Darkness…the pure concentration of an essence far greater than your feeble minds could possibly comprehend. I am ordained with the very powers of God himself, and like the fool you are, you've just decided to bring me forth in a circle empowered by the pure energy of a Jibakushin. I should've thought, after witnessing your 'Master' blown across the room for idiotically interfering with an active Penalty Game, that you would think twice about mixing magicks to this degree."

"I…I don't understand…" Bolger murmured, now looking quite defeated. He had been so close…so close…

"Of course you don't understand. Humans so rarely do," said Blood Mephist scornfully. "But to put this into terms even you can comprehend, the force that gives me life, and the force that is perpetuating this Yami no Duel, are entirely incompatible. I could not move to complete your pathetic little game, even if I wanted to. So instead, as a rightful punishment for your wanton arrogance…I think I'll leave you both with a parting gift."

And with that, Blood Mephist's eyes glowed bright with a devilish scarlet, and in the next moment it was vomiting profusely over Bolger, a hellish black sludge erupting from its throat and splattering all over the former CEO.

True to its word, the feather jammed into Bolger's ribcage did not appear to like exposure to the monster's essence one bit, first beginning to hum and then rattle violently, until the otherworldly energy housed within peaked to a breaking point and then beyond it, resulting in a blinding explosion that encompassed the entire warehouse. Several seconds later, the smoke cleared…and each and every being or object, from Bolger to Blood Mephist to the circle of violet flames, was gone.

Only Crow Hogan, completely comatose and muttering a string of anxious, incoherent babble about his children, remained.

[-]

"Oh, now that really wasn't smart," said a man bedecked in white, as he finished "relocating" Samuel Bolger's unconscious body to a comparatively safer location, picking up the again dormant form of Blood Mephist as he did.

"Mixing some of dear Plácido's handiwork with an Underworld geoglyph…very bad medicine indeed," he continued to murmur to no one in particular. "And…ah, I haven't seen this little demon since I last paid visit to the Emperors three years ago. Not that they knew who I was, of course. None of them ever do."

Now passing a hand over the Synchro Monster, black vapor flowing out of its borders and being supplanted by an equally strong white, the gentleman whose face was perpetually hidden from view curled his lips and whispered, "But enough waxing nostalgic. Here, my dear pawn – this should be enough to prevent another…incident like today's. And, as an added little bonus, give me another 'agent' to keep watch over affairs here. One can never have too many contingencies, after all."

At this Samuel Bolger began to utter some slurred and blathering drivel as his head lolled to the side, though his eyes remained closed. Knowing that he was on a rather tight schedule, the man in the white tuxedo kneeled down, snapped his fingers, and whispered directly into the businessman's ear.

"You will not remember what happened when you played Blood Mephist this day," he commanded, his words seeping deep into the recesses of Bolger's subconscious. "You will keep Blood Mephist by your side at all times. And if and when Blood Mephist next speaks to you…you will be prepared to listen. Goodbye, Samuel Bolger."

Then a great white light filled the dank and decrepit alleyway, leaving nothing behind.

[-]

The man in white, meanwhile, appeared as if out of nowhere half a world away, dusting off his crisp suit and beginning to stroll across the desert sands of Nazca, Peru. This was an errand he'd been meaning to attend to for nearly forty-eight hours…but what was time to a being such as him, really?

There were human children playing very close by, judging by the sounds of unrestrained joy and mirth drifting over the dunes – the village that housed the last descendants of the People of the Stars, no doubt. Of course, having not directly revealed himself to them, they were completely ignorant of his presence…and the man in white intended to keep it that way.

Oh, it would be so easy to slaughter the entire tribe, and so satisfying as well; all it would take was a single glare. But business needed to come before pleasure, and in any event, exposing his form to these unenlightened masses on such an essential mission seemed rather imprudent.

Besides, that was not how these brats' fates had been writ. He would not kill them all this day because he did not kill them all this day…that was the very nature of the timestream, after all.

Even now, the very, very small part of him that was still even tenuously human occasionally marveled at the novelty of perceiving time from a nonlinear perspective. Every single event he had ever experienced – or would ever experience – played across his mind in a simultaneous procession; past, present, and future running alongside each other as he bore witness to every one of them, across every point of his nigh-eternal existence.

Events such as Yusei Fudo thwarting the plot of his greatest and most valuable patsy, the researcher-turned-god known as "ZONE," and subsequently derailing two full timelines' worth of work on his part.

Oh yes, Yusei Fudo…the third mortal on this primitive, backwater planet to show up in the space of only thirty years, whose Destiny was blocked from his otherwise-infallible sight. All that effort expended to facilitate the rebellion of the Kikoutei and manipulate ZONE into dropping the Arc Cradle, unwittingly setting into motion the process that would finally bring an end to the irrevocable chaos of Infinity…all of it, negated in an instant by a single, teenaged human.

And with the Arc Cradle obliterated in the course of ZONE's last-minute change of heart, salvaging either that or ZONE's original timeline was impossible. Which, needless to say, necessitated a…correction in strategy.

Fortunately, with the Planetary Particle-manipulator known to mortals as "Infinity" under his indirect command, he effectively possessed unlimited chances for getting his eons-old mission "right."

Given how…compelling his voice was known to be, it hadn't taken more than a moment or two for the man in white to convince that egomaniac Clark Smith that using Infinity for the petty task of tightening his jacket would be quite a good idea. The ultimate result being that the Dark Signers were sticking around in this particular reality, far longer than they'd done in any other he'd bothered to observe.

It was a risky gambit, to be sure. Or at least, it would've been, were he not effectively omniscient. With allowances for the holes in the grand tapestry of Fate that Yusei's unknowable course produced, the man in white was perfectly aware of how these events were prepared to play out in the coming days, weeks, and months…and all signs pointed to the obliteration of all existence as the most likely result.

But first…first, he would need to begin acting upon a few of these scrambling pawns directly. Within this particular timeline, ensuring its existence by "influencing" Clark Smith and then planting a small portion of his essence upon Samuel Bolger were just the latest steps, in a plan that spanned billions of universes and untold millennia of labor. They were, however, probably the most…overt actions he'd taken on this particular planet, since appearing to the Goodwin brothers all those years ago.

Still, they were baby steps in comparison to what he was here to do, in the midst of this small legion of dormant but exceedingly agitated Jibakushin.

Stepping straight past the intricate carving of an enormous serpent, the man in white waved his hand across a virtually indistinguishable stretch of desert, sending the sands flying to reveal the Earthbound God Asiru Amaru's underground burial chambers. The People of the Stars had used potent magicks to render the entrance impossible to find if one wasn't already looking for it…but of course, that wasn't exactly a problem for him.

If the man recalled correctly – and of course, he did – the mortal known as 'Bommer' was fated to mark this spot with a temple of appeasement shortly after his resurrection, but for obvious reasons that destiny no longer applied to this reality.

It was no matter, in any event. After all, no one else would need to find these chambers in the future, should everything continue to proceed according to plan.

The stairway down into the depths that bordered the edge of the Underworld was very long, and it was very dark – but of course, the Darkness always parted way for him, whenever he approached. It was in its very nature, to cower and flee before the Light.

The man in white walked for some time, surrounded by nothing but a pitch-black void, until finally he was joined by one other: a singular pyre of blinding-hot flame, burning slowly at the foot of the stairs. Smiling slightly, he approached it.

"Who dares to disturb the resting place of the Crimson Devil?" uttered a high-pitched voice from within the fire, sounding simultaneously enraged and intensely curious.

"A friend to your Lord and Master's cause, most honorable Familiar," the man in white answered, a low glint alight in his unseen eyes. "I've come to bear Him information I believe He shall find quite…worthwhile."

"Oh, really? A mere mortal in a suit thinks that he has something to offer to the very God of Evil?" the voice asked with a simpering giggle, escalating in both volume and intensity as the pyre expanded into the form of a slender imp. "But no…you aren't any mere mortal, are you? I'm not entirely sure what you are, but a normal human couldn't have found this place without my guidance. It's simply not possible."

"You are correct about that, at least in essentials. But I assure you, my identity is…nothing you would care about," said the man, chucking inwardly at his little joke. "So might I be granted permission to share my knowledge with you, oh Familiar of the mighty Scar-Red Nova?"

"Urgh…very well, then," the Familiar whispered after a few moments of internal consideration and external grumbling. "It's not like We tend to receive very many visitors down here, anyway. Even my Master's…younger siblings…haven't bothered to send back word now that They've gotten all uppity, and taken on human avatars. I'm afraid the life of a demon just isn't all that interesting, without the occasional mortal coming around to trick out of their soul."

"That's precisely what I wished to parlay with your Master about, actually. Although as His sole representative…I suppose you shall suffice," the man in white replied. "For as you well know, unlike Wiraqocha Rasca and Their ilk, the Crimson Devil has proven unable to rise again in this Second Coming, by possessing a human corpse and generating a Dark Signer…"

"That is the fault of the humans, and not my Master," the Familiar cut across him, looking rather incensed. "Over the years since Uru first gave it a shot, Scar-Red Nova has offered the same bargain to dozens of souls…but not a single one has survived the process of becoming His emissary. There was this one chap a few years back who'd been swimming in limbo for a few decades – some sort of bigshot by mortal standards, heard he even came close to ending the world once. 'Gozaburou' something, I think? Anyway, he took the deal without a second thought. And y'know what? He lasted about three seconds before what was left of his soul was shredded to pieces."

"I'm quite thoroughly aware of this shortage of…adequate hosts," the man in white told the imp. "But that won't be an issue with the man I wish to suggest to you now. I promise you that."

"Well, with that kind of recommendation, you can consider me intrigued," the Familiar responded, its blazing eyebrows rising in curiosity. "Do go on, then. What is his name?"

"The name of his birth has been lost to the ravages of time. I don't believe that even he remembers it any longer," said the man. "I know it, of course, but there is no need for you to learn it; it is no longer his True Name. No, the name your Master will need to hunt down his spirit in depths of the Underworld is the title he bestowed upon himself so many years ago. The single word that describes all that he is, and all that he aspires to be: Divine."

"Divine? Bit of an ego on that one, I'm guessing," the Familiar sneered, licking its protruding fang with interest. "Not that that's necessarily a bad quality for an avatar intending to house the almighty Asiru Amaru, of course. But what makes you think his…conversion would go any better than the others?"

In answer, the man in white simply waved his hand across the dank air, leaving traces of white mist within which various scenes of the late Arcadia Movement leader's depraved actions played for the fire-demon's benefit.

"Not only was Divine one of the most wicked individuals across modern human history, his innumerous sins writ in bloodstains soiling the very tapestry of Fate…but he was also the second-most powerful psychic ever alive, surpassed only by the Signer Aki Izayoi," he explained. "His potent mental powers shall, I believe, allow him to survive the agony of possession by the Guren no Akuma with his mind intact. Not to mention provide a strong baseline for your Master to build upon, should that possession be successful."

"I will…take this under advisement," said the Familiar after a moment's pause, looking somewhat dubious. "But one question still remains: why would you share something like this with Us?"

One thing the man in white prided himself upon was how infrequently he needed to lie to manipulate every being he encountered, from humans to demons to genuine gods, into performing his bidding. The Truth, framed in just the right way, was simply so much more potent in cajoling weaker minds than his own – which, in the countless eons that he'd been in existence, had appeared to be all of them – toward the path of Enlightenment.

As such, the man in white answered delicately, "As you may be aware, only Aslla piscu's and Wiraqocha Rasca's hosts remain active within this mortal coil. The condor's avatar is a former Signer, one Jack Atlas…and he has awakened the King of the Underworld under his command, using Its unmatched might to lay waste to the Earth, and declare himself its undisputed monarch."

"So the condor wants to play at king with all his little toys," muttered the Familiar, its arms crossed childishly. "And this concerns my Master how?"

"But in order to accomplish this, he first murdered Divine…the man responsible for the awakening of both Aslla piscu's and Ccarayhua's destined emissaries," the man went on, as if he hadn't been interrupted. "The Crimson Devil, of course, has sworn vengeance against His brethren ever since the King and Its Secondborn, Wiraqocha Rasca, betrayed Him to the nonexistent mercies of the Crimson Dragon. Divine is likely the first human in countless generations to understand and sympathize with that vengeance. He is the enemy of Signer and Dark Signer alike…just as your Master has earned the wrath of both Light and Darkness. Who better to champion His cause?"

"Champion…how, exactly?" asked the Familiar.

"The throne that Jack Atlas has claimed is quite…tenuously held, shall we say," replied the man in white, his smile widening. "Deep down, he knows this. His lieutenants are few, his armies numerous but dependent solely on the King's energies…and as Asiru Amaru proved ten thousand years ago, in terms of raw power He is vastly superior to His 'creator.' If He can slay the King of the Underworld, the condor and hummingbird shall fall before His might…and the Dark Kingdom they have built upon Earth, shall belong to the Guren no Akuma alone."

"Tempting, tempting," the Familiar admitted, though its eyes were narrowed in suspicion. They seemed to be searching for their counterparts on the face of this mysterious visitor, though without success; even a creature born to the Darkness, could not pierce these shadows without permission. "It doesn't really answer my question, though."

"You mean, what's in it for me?" said the man, and at this he laughed. It was a high, cold, deeply unsettling laugh, and if the fire-demon had a spine it would've shivered violently. "Well, as you so perceptively surmised, I am not a human myself. And the long and short of it is that I believe they've overstayed their welcome as the dominant species of Earth."

Then, for the first time since his arrival in Nazca, something did appear within the veil of shadow that blanketed the upper half of his face: tiny, yet still inconceivably bright, pinpricks of light that flashed through the dark void, enveloping the rest of his body into that purest white once more.

"And if the human race should finally come to its most blessed end…" concluded the man in white, that same cold, cruel laughter echoing throughout the infinite emptiness. "Then who better to strike the final blow, then the very God of Evil Himself?"

And with that, the burial chamber of Asiru Amaru was emptied of its first visitor in several millennia, nothing remaining but a confused-looking imp and, so faint that no human could possibly hear it…

A small, nearly imperceptible hissing.

[-]

A/N: Ooh, this was definitely a fun one. Finals season slowed my progress on this baby to a crawl for a good couple weeks, but I seem to have made up the time fairly well via the beginning ides of summer break.

Fortunately, the position I recently took up – an internship in the office of the Governor of Hawaii – is only part-time and fairly easy to work my writing schedule around, so y'all should be expecting lots more material out of me in the coming months! :D

Of course, since the publication of Chapter 13 we've all had to deal with the rather game-changing shift of "Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's" wrapping up for good (the short version of my opinion on the finale is that it was quite good apart from a handful of Fridge Logic-y loose-ends, most principally the way that it handled the Carly/Jack dynamic, which was a cop-out and just generally infuriating) and "Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal" starting up in its place.

Personally, I haven't seen a lick of the new series since Episode 3 and have absolutely no desire to continue, so if anyone happens to be wondering, ZeXal is not currently considered canon in the "My Dark King" Universe. So to preempt any potential questions on the subject, no, neither Yuma nor Astral nor any of the other characters from the fourth Yu-Gi-Oh! series will be making any appearances in this fic.

Of course, if anything regarding the metaphysics/cosmology of the "My Dark King" Universe that was revealed in this chapter remains unclear to any of you, feel free to send along a PM and I'll do my best to explain the admittedly somewhat esoteric concepts in fuller detail.

But if it helps any of you and you happen to get the reference, when thinking of how the man in white (who is, indeed, the Big Bad of this story in broadest strokes) perceives the timestream and the Universe in general, try and think of Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan.

And now, 'tis that most hallowed of Author's Note sections: the reviewer shout-out jamboree! Eleven reviews came out this time around, and so I would like to extend many thanks to HK, WhiteAsukaLover, KaliAnn, JillRG, Xoroth, Tsukirie, Alicia, Sara Crewe, Zaconator and Zackis, Endless Strategy Games, and mitzirocker.

Since rewards like cookies or puppies became clichés years ago, I offer y'all in gratitude a great big carton of kung-fu radishes. Use them well.

Anyway, moving on to a few more specific responses…

JillRG: Well, far be it from me to encourage someone to relapse back toward an addiction…but just between you and me, I fully encourage you to relapse back toward your addiction. ;P

Seriously though, Viewtiful Jeff's wonderful TV Tropes page for this story (a link to which can be found, for those who haven't yet seen it, both in Chapter 13's Author's Note and my profile on this site) most definitely Needs More Love, and there are no words to describe the amount of appreciation I'd feel to you or any other Tropers out in my readership who are willing to take some time out of their day to touch it up with more tropes, WMGs, Headscratchers, Crowning Moments, etc.

Trust me when I say that I shall read everything posted on that page…multiple times. I am, after all, a self-admitted egomaniac XD

Now, as for the non-TV-Tropes-related matters…there are two main reasons why I've not reclassified this story as a GX/5D's crossover. First, on a purely pragmatic note, crossovers are typically harder to find and thus get a lower readership level on the whole compared to main-fandom fics here. And considering that said readership has already been steadily declining for the past year or so, I can't really afford to risk such an additional loss, LOL.

The other, more story-related reason is that I don't necessarily see the remainder of the GX cast as "equal" in importance to the 5D's cast…at least at the moment (the eventual sequel will probably be split up far more evenly). So far as Judai at least is concerned, this is ultimately the Signers' fight, and the majority of the story's focus shall continue to be on their efforts in waging it.

But just because the torch has been passed to the next generation doesn't mean the old one is out of the game for good, and that is the dynamic I'm attempting to explore with Judai's newly reformed group.

Tsukirie: Once again, merci beaucoup for plugging this fic on your LiveJournal. Stumbling across the entry while roving about Google was definitely an excellent surprise, and I highly appreciated the kind words, both there and in this review.

Zaconator and Zackis: Well, I called that "twist" long before it was actually revealed in the show, but that doesn't mean I was particularly pleased with it, considering the sheer amount of potential drama and human resonance the turnaround ultimately avoided. But this is only one of the many, many great story opportunities that Yoshida and the other writers for the last half of 5D's completely dropped the ball on, of course…

On the bright side, this little "revelation" allowed ZONE to play a much cleaner role in this fic than he would've had he turned out to be an aged Yusei after all – just another patsy, albeit an exceedingly powerful and ambitious one, for the enigmatic man in white.

At very least, I believe the last bits of the Arc Cradle arc have allowed me to form a consistent, all-encompassing cosmology for the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! Universe that is finally, finally immune to Jossing, and I greatly look forward to exploring it more fully as this story progresses.

Endless Strategy Games: Wow, that's…well, that's some damn fine praise. I mean…holy crap. My utmost thanks, and please, don't apologize; the longer and more in-depth a review is, the more I enjoy reading it initially, and the more likely I am to revisit it when I need to be reminded just how great my fans are.

As such, if you still have any thoughts left from your long-form review that didn't make it here, feel free to share them in either another review or via PM. I'd absolutely love to hear them. :)

Now, as for your two continuity questions…in my mind, Leo returned to Neo Domino City at the same time in both timelines, but in the main one he had to wait until the completion of the New Daedalus Bridge in order to actually charter a trip to Satellite. I picture him having spent the intervening six months' in the main-verse honing the practical end of his skills to earn some quick cash, until Satellite finally opened up to city visitors and he made his way over for the events of Episode 85 to unfold.

And on the subject of the King of the Underworld…one thing you should keep in mind is that the Savior Dragons are one of the Akaki Ryu's disciples briefly channeling all of its power, and as a singular being the Crimson Dragon possesses far more raw power than Thor, Loki, or Odin. It is, after all, identified with Quetzalcoatl by Bommer in the show…and those familiar with Mesoamerican myths will know just how powerful that means the Akaki Ryu must be.

Individually, each of the Polar Gods is more or less equal in strength to the Signer Dragons (Odin being one step above the others), so while they can certainly harm the King of the Underworld quite easily, they don't yet have the might necessary to kill it. The entire Æsir working in commune would probably be capable of such a feat, but as many of them – Baldr and Tyr, for example – are now deceased, the King won't be going down so easily against our Norwegian friends.

mitzirocker: Again, the high praise is exceedingly well-appreciated. Although I must say, I'm afraid I've never been much of a Whovian, so any similarities between the Doctor and Judai in this story are purely coincidental. Based on what little I know of the show, however, I can definitely see where the comparison springs from.

Now, with regard to your criticism toward my heavy reliance on backstory as a storytelling device…well, I'm afraid I can't really agree, mostly by virtue of the fact that writing backstories is freaking fun, LOL. But in all seriousness, there are simply some pieces of information that I feel are better conveyed by reaching directly into a character's mind and culling through their personal history, so I don't intend to let up on doing so wherever I deem it appropriate.

Trying to maintain story flow is a significant concern of mine, however, which is why I usually have any backstories placed at the beginning of a given "section," rather than directly interrupting the action.

And finally, on the subject of an autograph…well, send me along something to sign, and sure, I'd be more than happy to oblige. XD

[-]

The first gauntlet in these grand battles of dark versus light and Light versus Dark has finally been thrown, and the seeds sown by their forces' initial confrontations may well turn out to spell doom, not just for this now-hellish Earth, but for a far grander cosmos as well.

Those scattered pieces of the rebellion ready to fight to the ultimate end have never been so close to unifying, but it'll take the personal sojourns of heroes and heroines the Universe over to bring that vision to fruition, before the clock runs out for good on Neo Domino City…and on the entire human race.

So keep on reading and reviewing, and stay tuned for Chapter 15: Reflections.

– Masterdramon