Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V.

Chapter 25: The Cabin

Rin and her two new escorts wound up riding though a tunnel of blue light after passing through the strange portal that had taken them off the highways of Neo Domino. They were only inside the tunnel for what seemed like less than a minute though, for soon there came blinding flash of light that appeared to signal the tunnel's end. When the light cleared, Rin found that they were now on a rugged trail that seemed to go up the side of a mountain. The sky was overcast and the air was extremely cold. Rin noticed a thick layer of snow on the ground, which indicated that they seemed to be very high up on the mountain.

"Um, where exactly are we?" Rin asked her two escorts. "More importantly, how did we get here?"

"Right now, we're headed for a little cabin we have here on a mountain at least two hundred miles from Neo Domino," the blonde woman answered. "As for how we got here, it's kinda technical. Bruno could try and explain it to you later if you want, but at best he'd probably just put you to sleep."

"We should be at the cabin in approximately five minutes," the goggled man known as Bruno informed Rin. "Don't worry. There's very little chance of Iliaster finding us here."

Rin and the others continued up the mountain trail. As they did, a gentle snow began to fall. Rin couldn't help but notice how beautiful the falling snow was. It was after all the first snowfall she had seen in over two years since Iliaster had forced her and her friends underground. Despite the beauty of the snow though, Rin was very eager to get to this cabin that Bruno and the blonde were talking about. Not only did she want to get Yugo some medical attention, she really wanted to get some place warn; as her riding suit wasn't exactly designed to protect her from the cold.

It was not very long before the travelers reached a large level piece of land. On that spot of land was a medium-sized single story cabin with brown walls and what appeared to be a garage attached to its right wall. The cabin's front door was painted green, as was the door to the garage. The cabin's pointed roof was of course covered in snow. As they approached the cabin, its garage door opened and Rin and the others pulled inside.

Once they were inside the garage, the door began to close, and Bruno helped Rin get Yugo off her D-Wheel and though the door that led into the main house. Rin got a good look at the interior of the cabin once they were inside. There was a small and excellently furnished living room complete with a large flat screen T.V. and a state of the art stereo system. Right beside the living room area was a small open kitchen with a fridge and a marble countertop, along with a polished dining room table with a matching set of four chairs. There were also two large windows behind and to the left of the little dining area that showed a spectacular view of the outside.

Bruno guided Rin and the still unconscious Yugo into a hallway between the living room and kitchen areas of the cabin. The goggled man took them to the first room on Rin's left, which was revealed to be a small well-furnished bedroom with a large bed. After Bruno and Rin set Yugo on the bed, he removed his helmet to reveal a head of pointed blue hair.

"I'm going to get to work removing the implant covering Yugo's eye," Bruno informed Rin. "You probably won't want to be here for this."

"You do know how to take it off him, right?" Rin asked.

"More or less," Bruno answered. "Don't worry, Ms. Akaba. Yugo is in good hands. For now, why don't you get something to eat? I'm sure you must be hungry after the day you've had."

Rin decided to take Bruno up on his offer and headed out of the room to the small kitchen she had seen. As she emerged from the hallway while taking off her helmet, Rin saw that the blonde woman that had been her other escort was behind the counter pouring a glass of milk. The blonde had taken off her helmet, allowing Rin to finally get a look at her face. The blonde had green eyes and very striking features.

The blonde noticed Rin heading towards the counter. "Care for something to drink? We've got water, milk, orange juice, and these horrid smoothies that only Bruno seems able to stand."

"Some milk will be fine, I guess," Rin decided as she took a seat on one of the three black barstools that were in front of the counter. "So, who are you people exactly?"

"I'm Sherry LeBlanc," the blonde answered. "You've already met Bruno. Our job is sort of to protect you and Yugo, not that we've been doing a bang up job of that so far of course. In our defense though, there wasn't much we could do to save Yugo from being captured during that little stunt your psychic friends pulled on that bridge. We were just too far away and there were just too many of those damn droids. Things might've been different if Bruno and I had been allowed to move into your little resistance group, but we were under orders to keep our distance until absolutely necessary."

"Under orders? So you and Bruno are working for someone?" Rin asked. "Who is it?"

"I guess there's no harm in telling you that much," Sherry decided. "His name's Rudger Goodwin."

"Wait, Goodwin? As in Rex Goodwin, the man who's running Iliaster?" Rin asked.

"The very same," Sherry confirmed. "Rudger is Rex's older brother, but he doesn't agree with anything Rex has done. The reason why Bruno and I were forced to keep our distance is because Rudger didn't want his brother to know that he's trying to stop him."

"Okay, but why does this Rudger Goodwin want you and Bruno to protect me and Yugo?" Rin asked.

At this, Sherry took a long sip from her glass of milk. "Well… the short answer is that you and Yugo are likely the key to stopping Iliaster once and for all. There's actually a lot about this I can't really tell you yet because I'm under orders. Rudger doesn't think that you're ready to hear it all yet, and I kind of have to agree."

"Well what can you tell me?" Rin asked. "Does this idea that Yugo can take down Iliaster have anything to do with his dragon? Because our friend, Shinji once had the same idea a couple of years ago."

"Your friend wasn't all that far off, but there's a lot more to it than that," Sherry told her. "I'm sure you've seen that mark that shows up on your boyfriend's back a few times. That mark is the seal of a being known as the Crimson Dragon. Don't ask me to tell you exactly what it is, because I don't really know. But it comes from the stars and has protected Earth a few times from certain evils that popped up a few thousand years ago. Some scholars believe that this Crimson Dragon was the inspiration behind the myth of the Azrec god, Quetzalcoatl.

"According to the legends, the Crimson Dragon would pick certain humans to help in its mission to protect Earth, giving them marks like the kind on Yugo's back. The people who bore these marks were called Signers. Most of these Signers would have marks that only represented a part of the Crimson Dragon's body, like its head or its wings. There are a rare few of these Signers though like Yugo who would posses full seal of the dragon. These Signers were said to be incredibly powerful. One of these Signers who possessed the full mark of the Crimson Dragon was a powerful barbarian who had the power to communicate with Duel Monster spirits and once led an army against a hoard of invaders from another world."

A slight chill went down Rin's spine when she heard Sherry mention a supposed legendary barbarian who did battle with invaders from another world. It caused her to recall how Divine had mentioned that a powerful barbarian had supposedly defeated the Anunnaki during their unsuccessful attempt to conquer the Earth. It unsettled Rin that Divine's story and Sherry's seemed to have that one common detail, and caused her to wonder if there really was some truth in Divine's claim about her supposed alien heritage.

"Anyway, it's no coincidence that Yugo ended up with Clear Wing Synchro Dragon," Sherry continued. "You see Clear Wing is the very first Synchro Monster ever to exist. That barbarian I mentioned to you once called upon the Crimson Dragon to give him a powerful servant to help him overthrow the invaders. The Crimson Dragon lent the barbarian his power and allowed him to harmonize the life energy of two monsters to give rise to a completely new dragon born with the Crimson Dragon's strength. Clear Wing is basically the Crimson Dragon's son."

"Its son?" a surprised Rin repeated.

"That's right," Sherry confirmed. "There were other dragons born soon after Clear Wing, but they aren't the Crimson Dragon's children. These dragons came into being because the six warriors who were closest to the barbarian had figured out how to copy the same summoning method used by the barbarian to create their own dragon servants. When Maximillion Pegasus stumbled upon the secret of Synchro Summoning while creating the Duel Monsters card game, the stone tablets for Clear Wing and these other six dragons I've mentioned were the first Synchro Monsters he saw. He made those dragons into cards and used the information he collected where the tablets were stored to figure out how Synchro Summoning works."

"But what are these other six dragons?" Rin asked.

"You've seen your friends use a few of them," Sherry revealed. "One of them is the dragon used by Neo Domino's champion, Jack Atlas."

It was then that Rin recalled how the mark on Yugo's back seemed to glow when Clear Wing would roar at the dragons belonging to Aki and Jack, and also how the dragon cards belonging to Crow and Luna would seem to glow while Clear Wing was active during a duel involving Black Rose or Red Dragon. She never once suspected that all of those dragons had such ancient origins. She also recalled the strange things Ruka had said about Clear Wing being some sort of prince during those trances she'd have when her dragon card would glow.

"Okay, but what about me?" Rin asked. "What do I have to do with taking down Iliaster?"

"That's kind of the part that I can't tell you right now," Sherry answered. "Like I said, you're not ready to hear that, especially not after the day you've had. My advice is to just relax and enjoy your stay at this cabin. You stay here. I'm going to make sure that your room is ready."

With that, Sherry left the kitchen and headed into the hallway. Rin remained sitting where she was, thinking about everything Sherry had told her about Yugo and his supposed connection to this Crimson Dragon. It wasn't long though before her mind went back to Yugo's current condition. She hoped very much that Bruno was as good at removing that implant as he said he was.

Crow was walking the halls of the resistance base towards the large main garage. Saiga and Izzy had called Crow over the communication system five minutes earlier saying that they had a surprise for him. While the redhead wasn't really in the mood for surprises, he was a bit eager to stretch his legs. Crow had been confined to a bed in the infirmary for the past week, and the doctors had only recently released him. In addition to the broken arm he received at the end of his duel with Aten, Crow also had suffered three broken ribs and a concussion that thankfully did not cause any lasting damage.

Of course while Crow seemed to be recovering fairly quickly from his physical injuries, the mental injuries he had recently suffered were another matter. His loss to Aten had hit him fairly hard, partly because of Aten's true identity as Yugo. Another thing that didn't help was Aki and Jack allowing Rin to abandon the convoy mission and go off after Yugo. That whole week Crow had been worried about what had happened to Rin. He was of course furious with Jack and Aki for letting Rin go off on her own, and what really infuriated him was that everyone in the resistance seemed to be totally behind Aki and Jack's actions. Crow's moral may have been at an all-time low, but everyone else's moral had been at its highest in years. The redhead was really starting to doubt his abilities as a leader.

Crow arrived at the garage and found Izzy and Saiga at the far right corner near the massive metal door working on what looked like a D-Wheel. As he got closer, he saw that the D-Wheel in question was the one he had lost during the convoy mission.

"Hey man," Izzy spoke as he saw Crow coming near. "Bet you never thought you'd see this baby again, huh?"

"How did…?" Crow began to ask.

"Once we were sure that droid patrol activity in the area where you dueled Aten had gone down, I went out with Sid and a couple of the others and hauled it back in one of the trucks," Saiga revealed. "It needs a whole lot of work, but in time we'll have it up and running better than ever."

"Thanks guys," Crow told them. "Though I don't really know why you bothered."

"Just when I thought you couldn't get any more pathetic," a familiar voice remarked. Crow and the others looked and saw that it was Jack.

"Really not in the mood right now, Jack," Crow told him.

"It's bad enough that you've been acting like a coward," Jack responded. "The last thing any of us need is for you to start feeling sorry for yourself."

"Yeah? Well where the hell did you and Aki get off letting Rin go after Yugo like that?" Crow shot back. "For all we know, Iliaster has probably assimilated her by now!"

"Rin was the first person in this resistance besides me who had the spine to do something towards actually overthrowing Iliaster!" Jack told him. "We've played things too safe for too long now!"

The argument was interrupted by the distinct sound of someone's throat being cleared. Crow and the others looked to see Carly standing a few feet away.

"Hey guys. Sorry to interrupt, but there's been sort of a development," Carly reported. "You might wanna come to the command center."

With that, Crow and Jack dropped their argument and followed Carly to the command center with Izzy and Saiga. When they arrived a few minutes later, they saw that Ushio, Sid, Aki, Matsuri, Shinji, Anastasia and Team Unicorn were all present.

"So what's up?" Crow asked.

"You know the people we evacuated here during the convoy mission?" Ushio asked. "It turns out one of these people was actually an agent carrying some information that could be a big help to our cause."

"Somehow this agent managed to obtain codes for disabling the security barriers all of the major droid manufacturing plants outside of Neo Domino," Jean reported. "If we could take at least a few of those plants out of operation, it would deal a heavy blow to Iliaster."

"Carly's been on the line all morning with the leaders of the other resistance branches," Ushio revealed. "We're working on a coordinated plan of attack to take out as many of the bases as we can. We just need your approval, Crow."

"I don't know… this idea seems pretty risky," Crow remarked.

"Dammit Crow! Will you grow as spine already?" Jack snapped. "We finally have a chance to deal a major blow to Iliaster, and you're afraid to take it?"

"He's right, Crow. This is the first chance we've ever had to do something towards taking back this world," Shinji agreed. "We're never going to gain ground just running and hiding all the time. This mission may be incredibly risky, but it's a risk that everyone in this room is ready to take."

"…Fine. You guys do whatever you want," Crow relented. "It's not like I'd be of much help either way."

With that, Crow headed for the door out of the command center. Jack merely huffed and turned his back to the redhead as he left.

"What the hell is his problem?" Andre asked.

"Cut him some slack, man. His head's not in a good place right now," Breo pointed out. "Between that trashing he got from Aten and Rin running off like that, he's taken quite a beating mentally. He just needs a little time to recover."

"And right now, we need to focus on taking out those factories," Aki told them. "Now let's get to work."

Rin was sitting in a large blue armchair by Yugo's bed, waiting for him to wake up. She had been in that chair almost constantly since Bruno had finished the operation to remove the eyepiece that Iliaster had used to control him. Rin had gone back to the room that Sherry had prepared for her to change out of her riding suit and into some clothes that had been laid out; an outfit consisting of a black t-shirt with a pink vest and blue jeans. After though, Rin had stayed in Yugo's room watching him. Yugo had been unconscious for over a day and a half since he had been knocked out at the end of his duel as Aten, and Rin was starting to get very worried that he might never wake up.

"Still no change, huh?" a familiar voice asked.

Rin looked, and standing in the doorway was a young man with slightly long unkempt blue hair and indigo eyes. He had on a while jacket with yellow trim and yellow pockets over the front, along with a blue t-shirt with a large white horizontal stripe around the middle, blue jeans, and a pair of blue and white sneakers. Rin let out a startled scream upon seeing the stranger, causing him to let out an equally startled cry in response.

"Who… who are you?" Rin asked.

"Relax! It's only me, Bruno!" the man answered.

"Uh… seriously?" a stunned Rin asked. "Wow! I totally didn't recognize you."

"It's understandable," Bruno responded with a nervous smile as he rubbed the back of his head. "I do look radically different when I'm not wearing my riding outfit. Sherry pretty much reacted the same way around the time we first started working together. Anyway, I just came in to see how you were doing."

"I'm doing okay," Rin assured him. "Yugo on the other hand…"

"Look, why don't you go to your room and get some rest?" Bruno suggested. "I'll let you know the instant Yugo's condition changes."

"Thanks, but I want to be right here when Yugo wakes up," Rin told him.

"Well… alright," Bruno replied. "I'll be back later with something for you to eat. You really should try to keep your strength up."

With that, Bruno exited the room and Rin went back to her silent vigil.

Bruno entered the living room area of the cabin to find Sherry on the couch reading a book. The blonde had on a white turtleneck sweater and a pair of black slacks.

"I heard screaming coming from you and Rin earlier," Sherry remarked, not once looking up from her book. "I told you to knock on the door and let her know who you were."

"I know. I forgot," Bruno responded with a heavy sigh as he sat next to her on the couch.

"So, I take it Yugo is still out cold?" Sherry assumed.

"I'm afraid so," Bruno confirmed. "Rin insists on remaining by his side until he wakes up."

"Can't blame her a bit," Sherry responded. "That boy's the most important person in the world to her. She's not going to rest easy until she knows he's going to be okay."

"…Hey Sherry… how much did you tell Rin about why Dr. Goodwin assigned us to protect her and Yugo?" Bruno suddenly asked.

"Well I didn't tell her about the stuff she wasn't supposed to hear, if that's what you're asking," Sherry answered, this time looking up from her book. "The doc was right. She's totally not ready to hear about any of that stuff, especially not now. I only told her about Yugo being a Signer and his dragon's relationship to the Crimson Dragon. I did also mention the barbarian that Clear Wing was originally partnered with thousands of years ago, but I said very little about the enemy he fought."

"Okay. I trust your discretion, but I just wanted to make sure," Bruno told her. "As you said, she is in no way ready to hear about her connection to those invaders."

"To be perfectly honest though, I think she might suspect something about it already," Sherry spoke as she marked and closed her book. "Who knows what that lunatic who ran the Arcadia Movement told her about her roots? Plus she might've picked something up while she was in Neo Domino. We both saw how those droids escorted her to where Yugo was. She might've asked them some very big questions, like why the hell they weren't assimilating her into that collective."

"True. It doesn't seem like we can keep the truth from her for very much longer," Bruno realized.

"No kidding," Sherry agreed. "Fortunately, all that stuff seems to be the furthest thing from Rin's mind right now."

Rin awoke from the light sleep she had fallen into earlier to the sudden sound of moaning. She looked and saw that Yugo was thrashing around in his bed as if in the grips of a horrible nightmare. As Rin reached over to try and wake him up, he shot straight up in bed with a loud scream. He sat there breathing heavily afterward, his brow glistening with cold sweat.

"Yugo?" Rin spoke as she put a hand on his shoulder. "Yugo, it's okay."

Yugo looked over at her with an expression of terror on his face. "Rin?"

"You're fine now. You're at this cabin that belongs to some new friends of ours," Rin explained. "How we got here is kind of a long story, but you're safe. That's all that matters right now."

"I… I remember all of it, Rin," Yugo spoke. "I remember every single thing that Iliaster made me do… all the people I hurt."

"Yugo, that wasn't your fault," Rin told him. "You weren't yourself during that time."

"I know, but… I tried to stop it, Rin!" Yugo told her. "I tried to stop it but I couldn't! I just wasn't strong enough! No matter how hard I tried to break free of Iliaster's grip, I wasn't strong enough! And because of that… so many lives have been ruined."

"Don't worry about all that now," Rin told him. "It's over now."

"How… how can you stand to even look at me, Rin?" Yugo asked. "Sure I didn't try to kill you in that duel… but I'm still a monster for everything I did as Aten."

Rin suddenly pulled Yugo into a hug. "Don't ever say that! Nothing you did as Aten was your fault! It was all Iliaster's. You're not a monster at all, and nothing could ever make me see you as one, ever."

"How can you say that?" Yugo asked. "How can you even look at me and not…?"

Yugo was cut off when Rin suddenly gave up a deep passionate kiss on the lips.

After a few moments, Rin finally pulled away and looked deeply into his eyes. "I love you. It took me a while to figure it out, maybe longer than it should have, but you're the one I love most, Yugo."

Yugo's breath was totally taken away by what Rin had told him. After a few moments he totally broke down in tears from the weight of emotion he was feeling. Rin pulled Yugo close and silently cried with him.

It was the dead of night as Rin woke up in her room. From the moonlight streaming in from her bedroom window she could see new snow falling outside. Rin shivered from the cold air in her room. Despite the cabin's excellent heating system, her room always seemed to be a little too chilly. It had been that way during her now five-day stay at the cabin, and Bruno seemed unable to fix the problem. Deciding that enough was finally enough, Rin left her room to go get an extra blanket out of the hallway closet.

As Rin headed for the closet, she heard the sound of moaning coming from Yugo's room. Rin had been very concerned about Yugo's state of mind since he had first woken up. He just hadn't seemed at all like himself. Rin decided to go into Yugo's room to check and see if he was okay. Upon entering the room, Rin found Yugo in the grips of a nightmare. As soon as Rin went over to try and wake him up, Yugo shot up in his bed in a cold sweat.

"Yugo, are you okay?" Rin asked.

"Yeah, I… I'm fine," Yugo assured her. "It's just another nightmare. I've been having them ever since I got here."

"What… what are these nightmares about?" Rin asked, though she feared she already knew the answer.

"They're about the stuff I did as Aten," Yugo answered. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to sleep soundly again because of all that."

"Yugo… move over," Rin ordered.

"Huh?" Yugo responded.

"You heard me. Move over," Rin told him again.

Yugo complied and moved over a space on the bed away from the blue chair next to it. Rin then got into the space next to him got him to lie back down. Yugo's face turned a bright red as Rin cuddled up close to him.

"There. This way I'll be right here in case you have another nightmare," Rin told him. "Now get some sleep."

After a few moments, Yugo relaxed, closed his eyes and gently wrapped his arms around Rin. It wasn't long before he had fallen back asleep. Rin meanwhile felt the safest that she had ever felt in the last two years with Yugo's arms wrapped around her. She also found that he was much warmer than any blanket that she could've pulled out of the closet. Within a few more moment, Rin had fallen into a very deep sleep.

Author's Note: And with this chapter, the Aten arc finally comes to a close. I hope everyone enjoyed this latest chapter. The second to last scene of this one was a little harder to write than I had expected because of the raw emotion involved. The final scene though was one that I'd been picturing almost ever since this story was in the outline stages. I'm very happy that I was finally able to present it to everyone.

Please review and let me know what you think.