Chapter Twenty-One

Hatsuko spent the weekend waiting for the announcement that the newest rising star of the Combat Dueling scene has died as of reasons unknown. She didn't know whether she should anticipate that moment or fear it.

On the one hand, as Ava said, with Yuito gone the world would be safer as the convergence could not take place. On the other hand, Hatsuko would be a murderer. Not directly, but still a murderer. And she didn't know if she could live with that guilt.

She checked her Duel Disk on an hourly base if there were any updates of the blogs and news feeds. Especially the blogs, those people were vultures and as soon as the police picked something up they usually knew within the hour. On that account she also persistently ignored Saburos attempts to call her. By Sunday night he had racked up twenty-eight missed calls and he even showed up on her doorstep once. But as Hatsuko had told her mother she was sick and didn't wanna see anybody, she turned the boy away.

It was nice to see that he cared for her, after the night she claimed her Crosspoint, but, this wasn't something he could help her with.

Maybe there wasn't a death message. That thought also occurred to her. If Ava just made Yuito disappear, there would be no evidence. But eventually she figured out that she would've heard of that too. His manager, and especially Keiji, they would be worried sick if he disappeared.

Poor Keiji. Out of all of those she had done wrong with her actions the last days she pitied him the most. He was a decent fellow, with a great sense of humor and yet, she gave his best, his only, bestest friend a death sentence. He'd be broken, if only that.

It would be an understatement to say she was taking the situation lightly. She had barely eaten anything since her meetup with Ava and refused to leave her room. She didn't talk much to her mother and even less to her father. And she kept telling herself that the guilt would go away. Eventually. Maybe a while after something happened that she had to feel guilty for.

It had to happen any day now.

She hoped it wouldn't, but she also hoped it would. She didn't know what to hope for anymore.

So when Yuito called her Monday afternoon, she had not the faintest idea what to do. Her first notion was to ignore him like she did with Saburo, but she couldn't just bring herself to do so. She handed him to a killer, at least have a conversation again before he dies. It seemed like an act of common decency to her.

"Hi Yuito," she said, failing to conceal her shaky voice.

"Hatsuko?" she heard his voice through the speakers, sounding like he just woke up, "are you alright? You sound strange."

"I've caught a small cold," she lied, "but I'm mostly fine."

"That's bad to hear, but get well again soon," he said, "but why I'm calling, I'm calling to warn you."

"Warn me?" Hatsuko repeated in disbelief. Was he threatening her? Did he find out?

"Hatsuko, I've been attacked this weekend. By Ava, that woman in black. I barely made it out alive, and I'm scared she's coming for you next."

The girl didn't know whether to cry or laugh, or both. The universe was clearly messing with her at this point. The boy she ratted out to be killed not only survived the attempt on his life, but first thing after that he went to warn the girl that set all this in motion, because he was worried about her well-being.

As she did not respond, Yuito continued: "Hatsuko I'm fine. Someone took me in and will keep me safe until the convergence is over. I promised not to tell anyone where I am so you must believe me I'm safe. But you are not. This woman, Ava, she's probably a shapeshifter."

"A shapeshifter?"

"Yes. I heard a knock on the door and saw a delivery girl in front of it but when I opened it, the girl was gone and Ava was there."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know. But the Crosspoints all have some sort of power, I learned that this weekend. My purple one makes me super lucky or something, blue basically lets you teleport and yellow makes you super smart. I don't know the others all in depth, but orange makes you creative, green makes you strong and your red one should make you stealthy. And if Ava is somehow connected to the Crosspoints then that means that she might have powers like that too."

"That explanation is as good as any other."

"You don't believe me?"

"Yuito, in this story I'm inclined to believe everything. So yeah. What you say is most likely true, or at least has some truth to it. But what do you want me to do with it? Start growing suspicious of everyone?" Hatsuko let the frustration that was building up inside her these last days finally break loose, "Because I already am. I am suspicious of Saburo because he's so caring lately after ignoring me for the longest time. I am suspicious of my father because he taught me about this legend. And I am more than suspicious of you."

"What do you mean?" Hatsuko could hear Yuitos disbelief through the speakers but she didn't care.

"You show up on the Combat Dueling scene mere days before this entire carnage starts. You meet a guy carrying a Crosspoint even before that, not knowing what it was. Then you conveniently get paired up with me on your first ever official match. I tell you about the Crosspoints and we do actually find one when I originally thought this was just going to be an elaborate picnic trip."

"Hatsuko..." Yuito started, but she quickly cut him off.

"Let me finish, for fucks sake," she snapped at him. She was just so angry. Not particularly at him. At everything. That she had to be in this position. Making decisions about life and death. And maybe also at him, just a little bit, for being such a fundamentally better person than her while in a worse situation.

"Then you claim the Crosspoint before even winning your Contest of Champions and I learn you have the Elder Blood. That you're the last person alive with the Elder Blood and necessary for the convergence to take place. I then win my Crosspoint against that one guy who gave you your Duel Disk and conveniently sets you on the path you take to meeting me and learning about the Crosspoints. Then you face off against Ever White, who then mysteriously disappears. You survive Ava attacking you in your apartment and come calling me telling me that Crosspoints give people superpowers when I never read anything about that, a fact I've never heard of before despite studying the Crosspoints for months now. Like, how would you even know? And then you have the audacity to question why I am suspicious of you? After such a load of coincidences?"

"How did you know I was attacked in my apartment?"

"What?" Hatsuko asked, not even sure if she had actually said that.

"I said I was attacked by Ava, but now where. How do you know?" She could hear how angry he sounded, and that that was not a question. He knew.

"I tipped her off," she answered him nonetheless, "gave her your address. Something terrible will happen if the convergence takes place. And I cannot let that happen. Not for you, not for anybody."

Seeing that Yuito had hung up on her, she tossed her Duel Disk aside and herself on the bed, screaming her anger, frustration and sorrow into her pillow until her throat was hoarse and she started to cry.

It took her a whole day to get out of her mojo, but she eventually managed to set foot on the street again. She didn't kill anybody yet. Yuito is staying away from the convergence as he claimed and probably also from her. Both being good things. Yuito was probably gonna be the prime target of Evas fraction as she needed him more than the red Crosspoint. And Ava was no threat to her, so she could shapeshift wherever and into whomever she wanted.

Thinking over it, things went just as Hatsuko wanted, without bloodshed even.

And so she did the most reasonable thing that came to her mind: Spread more Crosspoints around. She knew the last remaining points – if there were any – were eager to be claimed and wouldn't be to picky. So she took her time to pinpoint more locations and was going to play Ava for a pit. As in, she would put people into Contests of Champions.

The more outspread the points were the better. As long as she still had hers, time was in her favor.

For her first move in this strategy, she had called Saburo after such long days of silence.

Of course he was worried sick about her and while she also did not fully trust him anymore, she scheduled a meetup for the two of them, at the points location. If she showed up late, maybe the Contest of Champions was going to be taken place and she could just watch from afar. She wouldn't even upset anybody. Saburo wanted his shot on a Crosspoint too, he said that himself.

If everything went perfectly smooth however, he would lose. Not that she didn't want him to have a powerful card and whatnot, but as a friend of hers and Yuitos he could be easily traced by either side. A complete stranger, that would be a different thing however. And as she knew, Saburo probably wouldn't be able to defeat someone who's deck he didn't know beforehand.

So she was hitting to birds with one stone there. And even if she misjudged Saburo, he couldn't blame her for his loss.

She was, however, just two blocks away from her house when her heart nearly stopped.

There, only a few meters in front of her. Officer Rokurou Cole. The police officer that Yuito won his Crosspoint against. Talking to a taxi driver. While holding a piece of paper in his hand. Talking to a taxi driver, who glanced in her direction and immediately pointed his finger.

As the officers head darted in her direction, she could see that the paper had a pretty accurate drawing of herself on it, with the clothes she wore the evening she met him.

Looking into his face, he had a rough time. His uniform was less tidy then she remembered it, his hair was all messy and he had massive rings under his eyes.

And he didn't seem happy to see her.

Hatsuko immediately turned on her heel and dashed into the nearest alleyway, wanting to get out of his sights quickly.

But that alleyway was littered with people sitting on the floor, probably living there, so all she did was stumble over legs and stomachs until she made the next corner. This proved to be bad however, as she saw that her run had caused all those people to get up, making it an ease for Officer Cole to shove them out of his way and slowly catch up to her.

She took a few more laps though different alleys, trying to lose the officer, but he was hot on her tail and faster than she was. Eventually she just hoped to evade him long enough to get back on a crowded street, but even that was denied of her.

In a brief moment she took to look back at her pursuer, she failed to notice a garbage can in front of her and tripped over it with full running speed.

As she tried to get back up a horrible sting went through her ankle. And she stumbled and fell again, only being able to pull herself up at another garbage can. She assumed she at least sprained her ankle, but this was no time to check her first aid skills.

Seeing the officer almost catching up on her, she did her best to limp away from him.

But to no avail.

He quickly grabbed her by her shirt and pinned her against the wall, seemingly unbothered by her struggling.

"This is the point where I'd tell you you're arrested," he said calmly, being only a little tired out by this chase, as opposed to Hatsuko who was completely out of her breath.

"This is police brutality!" she yelled at him, thinking that intimidation might make him loosen his grip on her, "I'm reporting this to your superior!"

"You mean the superior who expelled me?"

"You can't be expelled, you couldn't arrest you if you did."

"I don't arrest you," he replied, "But let me tell you how this all went down first. Apparently, if the report you file in on how you lost your gun contains the word 'magic' you are deemed unfit for duty and are expelled on the grounds of being a fucking nutjob."

As he spoke his grip on her tightened, so she tried to calm him: "I'm sure this will all work out."

"If my fucking superior calls me a fucking nutjob in front of the entire station then nothing will work out," he snarled at her, "you little twat and your friend got me fired from my job."

"I'll have you know," Hatsuko replied, tears filling her eyes, "I… I carry a taser and I'm not afraid to use it."

The man holding her in place just grinned and let go of one of her hands: "Taser me then."

She used her shaky hands to quickly pull the device from her pocket, but Cole just slapped it out of her hand and crushed the plastic under his heel, before taking hold of her again: "Now, that's that. I'll tell you what will go down. You are going to come to the police station with me and tell them that what I said is real. And you're gonna show them that magic that I have seen."

"Please," Hatsuko whimpered, close to tears, "I just wanted a fun night out with a friend, I never wanted any of this to happen."

"Oh I'm sure your apologies suddenly fix everything."

"What else can I do?"

"What I just told you. Come to the station with me and tell them."

"If I said that they'd think I'm insane, they'd think you're insane, they'd put us both away."

"Not if you can convince them that it was real."

"It won't work, I already know that. If they didn't believe you why should they believe me? They don't know me, I could just be some random girl you picked up anywhere."

"Well," the man said, "we'll never know unless we try it."

"Please," Hatsuko cried, struggling in Coles grasp, "just let me go!"

Much to her surprise, he actually let go of her as he stared blankly: "What did you do? Where did you go?"

Not sure of what he meant, Hatsuko used the moment to ram her knee into his crotch and stumble away from him. It wasn't until she looked down at her legs until she saw, causing her to trip and fall again.

Her legs weren't there. Or rather, they were there, but she couldn't see them. Neither her hands. Or anything of her.

She was invisible.

'The red Crosspoint makes you stealthy,' she repeated Yuitos earlier words in her head. Now this made sense. She had no idea how she triggered it, but this was the perfect moment.

"Witch!" she heard Cole yell behind her as she was getting back up, "I'm gonna find you! And then you'll do this to convince my superior that I'm not insane!"

Suddenly a thought occurred to her. She wasn't too far from the place she invited Saburo to. And this man was clearly at odds with everybody at the moment. She wasn't sure if Saburo could stop his rage. He knew some details about his deck, or at least what she had told him, so maybe he could. Not like Hatsuko had many other options.

In the meantime, Cole adjusted his strategy of finding Hatsuko to staying completely silent and trying to hear her breathing or her footsteps.

She was tempted to take her shoes of and just run for it but… they'd probably become visible again so he'd see where she was by the time she had the first one off and until the second he'd probably be back onto her already.

So she just carefully took steps backwards before rounding the nearest corner and 'accidentally' knocking over a garbage can, alerting the man to her position.

Giving chase, he rounded the corner before returning to silent patrolling the area so Hatsuko made more careful steps backwards before faking a pain groan and again making him catch up to her. She repeated this a few times until they were close to her meetup spot with Saburo. Now she only had to hope he wasn't running late.

She rounded the last corner, sprinting as fast as she could with her ankle, when she saw Saburo standing right there.

"Saburo!" she yelled when he didn't pay attention to her.

Bewildered, he looked around the scene, before muttering: "Hatsuko?"

She bumped into him, causing him to scream and stumble back: "What the fuck?!"

At this moment Hatsuko realized he couldn't see her and she didn't know how do toggle the invisibility. Maybe she just needed to concentrate hard enough? She just thought about being visible again and apparently it was as easy as that, as Saburo crawled back on his fours when she appeared right in front of him.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked bewildered.

"I'll tell you later," she replied, "I need help."

Right on cue, Officer Cole rounded the corner, sprinting at the both of them: "There you are, little witch. Now I got you."

Quickly realizing what was going on, Saburo got back onto his feet.

"Stay away from her you lunatic," he said, taking a stand between Hatsuko and the man.

Right as Cole got into range, the ground beneath the two flared up with green light as a forcefield formed around them, cutting Hatsuko off from the two of them.

Realizing what this was, Cole screamed in ecstasy: "Yes! This time I'll win! And then they have to believe me! Everyone will have to believe me!"

"I take it you're the guy that lost to Yuito," Saburo calmly said, also realizing that he was now too forced to partake in a Contest of Champions against the Officer, "but I'm not gonna cut you some slack because you already did this once. Nobody frightens Hatsuko and gets away with it."

Without further ado, both of them booted up their Duel Disks to begin the fight for the green Crosspoint.