When we all finally climb out into the open, I find that I've been trapped in the biggest crater I've ever seen. It makes sense, though. It must have been formed from the explosion.
Our group consists of me, Evan, Yusei, Crow, the twins, and Ushio, for some reason. Ushio apparently tagged along solely to try and keep everyone else from getting into trouble, even though the fate of the world most certainly doesn't fall to him. Mikage, I learn, went with Aki.
According to Ushio, Yusei's father built four failsafe towers that will shut down the generator the Dark Signers have been siphoning power from. We just have to activate them. The keys are the Signers' dragon cards: Yusei's Stardust Dragon and Aki's Black Rose Dragon, as well as the dragon cards that must be Jack's and Ruka's. So far, to everyone else's knowledge, two towers have been activated. Jack, though, asked to go to his tower alone, so we're heading out to go help Aki.
At the mention of Jack, I can't stop thinking about that Dark Signer, Carly. Murdered by Divine, and taken advantage of by some god somewhere who capitalized on her human emotions.
One thing I know, though, is that, if Jack asked to be left alone, Carly has to be important to him. And if he's the way she said he is, then maybe I've misjudged him. Maybe there's a heart in there beyond the ego. I just need more time and more room to try to understand him.
I cling to Evan for the whole ride—Kiryu whisking me away means that my duel runner must still be back at Martha's house—and brace myself against the biting cold wind. Despite how late it must be, I feel wide awake. It could be the cold. Or the fear of what we'll find when we get to wherever Aki's tower is. Misty didn't seem like any old opponent, and I now know from personal experience that hell hath no fury like a sibling scorned.
When we stop, I blink as I take in the strange buildings stretching toward the sea in the distance. Yusei gave me his spare helmet to borrow for the ride, since Evan doesn't have one, and as I'm handing it back to him, I say, "What is this place?"
"You've probably read every single book in existence," Yusei retorts, "but you've never seen a picture of a theme park?"
"Ah… Well, I mean, I've heard of them. But I thought they were supposed to be… I dunno, populated."
"This one's been abandoned as long as we've been alive," Evan amends. "Even though a lot of it is still intact. We used to fuck around here all the time."
"Yeah, Jack suggested we try to jerry-rig the Ferris wheel once, and I have never been more sure that I was about to die!" Crow shouts from where he's parked on the other side of Ushio's Security truck.
"This place looks like a horror movie in the making," Rua amends; Crow helps him and Ruka down from the truck, and Ushio hops out of the driver's seat to come stand by us, wearing a very plastered frown.
"Ooh, let's not go there," Evan says. "We've already overloaded our scary quota. Let's just help Aki and get out."
"How do we find her, though?" Ruka asks. "The duel hasn't started yet; there's no glyph and my mark isn't doing anything."
"I guess that means we look for her the old fashioned way," Yusei says.
"We should split up to cover more ground," Ushio suggests gruffly. "I'm sure if I try to contact Mikage, too, I can figure out where she and Izayoi went."
"It's probably safe to assume that they went toward the tower, but it's likely that Misty will be in there somewhere waiting," Yusei adds. "So, how are we splitting?"
"I'll take the kids," Ushio exhales. "They'll be safer that way, anyways."
I don't know what I expect, but nobody argues. So Ushio and the twins go one way, and Yusei, Crow, Evan, and I go the other.
"...will they really be safer with him?" I ask once we're out of earshot.
"Ushio will be safe with them," Yusei retorts, which makes Evan laugh.
As the four of us start toward a fat red and yellow building that says "FUN HOUSE" in big letters, Crow pipes up, "...ah, so is anybody going to tell me about this Aki girl? Maybe so I'm not the only person here flying blind?"
"Oh," I say. "You haven't met her?"
"Nah, I met up with Yusei and Evan after everybody split up. I have no face for that name."
"She's a piece of work," Yusei says plainly.
"She's nice and my friend," I say hotly.
"She's nice because she knows you and she trusts you. To anybody else, at best, I'd call her cordial."
"Should I, uh… be scared?" Crow laughs nervously.
"No," I say. "Yusei did some unsolicited pushing of her buttons at the Fortune Cup, so now they don't like each other. Ignore him, Aki's very nice and she knows her way around a battlefield."
"Okay, cool, then."
"'Unsolicited pushing of buttons'," Evan repeats. "Yusei in four words."
That makes both him and Crow laugh. I can manage something like a smile, that they're able to find humor after so much has gone wrong tonight.
"Glad you're all having fun at my expense," Yusei sighs. A second later, he stops so quickly that he almost trips, and his mark illuminates.
My ears pop; around us, I can feel the ground trembling and the air getting hotter.
"We got here just in time," Yusei breathes. "Feels like they just started."
"Okay, so… let's go find them," Evan says.
We spend a lot of time running around the park, looking for Aki and where she could be. Yusei isn't much help; he can feel that Aki is dueling, and I assume he can feel if she's doing well, but he's sort of useless when it comes to finding exactly where she is. At one point, I take the lead, and I lose the others for a little bit, too, while I'm trying to reach out and sense where Aki is. It shouldn't be too hard, she's exorbitantly powerful, even when she isn't directly using her powers…
In front of a long wall of mirrors, I can sense her the strongest. Where it says "ENTRANCE" under a big arrow is blocked by a mirror… it could be an illusion. Kiryu said all Dark Signers had the power of illusion Maybe Aki's inside? I feel forward, wondering if I could push through one of these mirrors, if Misty did something to them, when my foot hits something metal. I scramble to try and see what I kicked, because it felt kind of heavy.
It's Aki's stabilizer.
I weigh it in my shaking hands. What's happening? Why did she take it out?
"Silvan? What is it?" Evan and Crow appear and crowd in beside me.
"Aki's stabilizer," I say.
"That's not good," Evan replies. "What's it doing all the way over here?"
"I… I don't know." I slip it into my pocket for safe keeping. "I think she's in here, though."
"Let's check the perimeter of the building," Evan suggests. "Maybe there's a way we can get into the hall of mirrors and closer to Aki."
"Maybe," I say.
"I say we look for some higher ground," Crow replies. "That's better than looking for a way in, where we're all in danger."
"Wait, where's Yusei?" I ask.
"I don't know, he wandered off."
"What do you mean, he wandered off?"
"Just that, I don't know where he went!" Crow remarks.
"I honestly thought he was following you," Evan says.
"Okay," I exhale, "how about this. You two go look for a way to figure out what's happening with Aki, and I'll go look for Yusei."
"How will we find each other, though?" Crow asks.
"I'll Specify you," I say. "As long as you stay in one place, it shouldn't be difficult to find you."
"Got it."
I split off from Evan and Crow, who start their way around the hall of mirrors. I start to retrace my steps and see if Yusei may have gone snooping deeper into one of the abandoned attractions.
A little ways from the entrance, I see a billboard that's toppled into the footpath. I swear that wasn't there when we came in. Did it just give out and fall? Or maybe the Line going up caused it to topple? Either way, I feel the need to check around here.
I twist my way around some shriveled-looking poles, presumably, for ropes to make a queue, when I think I hear somebody shouting. I have to stop and wait, listen again, and then I'm absolutely sure that somebody is calling out.
It takes me a while to figure out where it's coming from, but eventually, I find my way inside a Fun House, where Ushio is trying to pry a grate off of the ground.
"W-What's happening?" I exclaim.
"Hi! Hey!" Yusei's… under the grate? Mikage's beside him, gripping the iron bars, and both of them are trying to kick up and away from water that's rapidly filling the little room they're in. "Help? Please?"
"H-How did you get in there?!" I exclaim.
"Never mind that! Can you help?"
"Ushio, get back!" I command, and to my surprise, he listens without complaining. Then I take a breath, unhitch my stabilizer from around my arm, and Waste the grate upward.
It feels like it was forced down by something else, something that wasn't gravity, because it was on too tightly to have just fallen into place. Wasting it seems to work, though, because it goes flying up and off onto the ground. Ushio reaches out for Mikage, and I grab onto Yusei, pulling him up out of the water with all of my weight as my anchor.
He shakes out his wet hair, and I put my hands up to try to deflect it away from my eyes. "That makes three times you've saved my life, Silvan, I don't want you hear you say the word 'debt' ever again."
"Oh, fuck off," I say. "What happened?"
"Some—Some man claiming to be a Bureau agent shoved us both down there!" Mikage splutters. Ushio is holding onto her by the shoulder, and she's sputtering water out onto the ground.
"He was psychic, Silvan," Yusei adds. "I don't know what class, but I know he was. He used abilities like yours."
A psychic? Here? "Did… Do you know which way he went?"
"No, but he couldn't have gone far. He was pretty interested in Aki's duel."
"Let's go find him, then," I say.
Together, we bolt back outside and I reach out to see if I can sense any other psychics besides Aki and my brother. Is it a Satellite psychic, I wonder? Maybe someone who was living here? If that's possible?
"Are you okay?" I ask as we run. "Anything bruised? How are your stitches?"
"Martha's definitely going to have to redo a couple of them," he says. "Lucky for me, I've been so anxious all night, I stopped feeling pain two or three hours ago."
"That's not lucky, that's really dangerous, Yusei."
"Details. Are we getting anywhere close?"
"I… I think so." I stop in front of what looks like an old aerial gondola ride, where there's a stairwell leading up to a little observation-deck looking area. Remnants of cables sit, dead and unused on poles in a line into the distance. I take a couple steps up.
"Careful, Silvan," Yusei murmurs.
"I'm being careful, I just..." I take another step up the stairs. "There's definitely a psychic up there."
"It has to be the Bureau officer that locked me and Mikage under the grate." He stands beside me, hand on my arm. "Can you recognize anything about them?"
"No, it doesn't... for me, at least, it doesn't work like that. It can't be Aki, she's..." I turn my head toward the dome of rose-colored light in the distance.
"Do you want to go up there?" He asks.
"...Yeah," I say. "Stay close."
The two of us creep up the stairs, Yusei following closely at my back, toward whoever I can feel in the room at the top, whoever tried to lock Yusei and Mikage in a room full of rising water.
I don't know who we'll find at the top, but there's an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Who's this person meddling in the Signers' business?
When we hit the top of the stairs, I come up into a room with a half broken window and a view of Aki's duel. Standing directly in front of the window is my worst nightmare personified. My stomach careens downward to my knees. A man in a long dirty overcoat turns toward us, his face half concealed by shaggy russet hair.
"Cipher," Divine says, his voice a content sort of purr. "What a pleasant surprise."
"D-Divine?" Every bit of resolve I think I've ever had melts from me. "You're... alive?"
"Don't sound too disappointed, now." He pivots. "And Yusei Fudo—how unpleasant to see you, I'd hoped that grate wouldn't be able to budge. You've been quite the wrench in my plans lately, haven't you?"
I can't feel my fingers—all of my words are gone.
Yusei says, "Why are you here?"
"Well," Divine retorts, "why do you think? These damned Dark Signers destroyed my movement, permanently scarred me, and have forced me to start all over again."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"But I believe it does. I currently have complete control over Aki, and it would appear that Cipher is too... ah, occupied, to do so much as lift a finger."
I'm frozen to the floor. My brain is telling my body to run, to get away from here, but my feet won't move.
"Finding Aki was very easy, since it was a given that Goodwin would go after her. Although, I suppose I should have found you as easily."
He starts toward me and I'm still frozen to the floor. The room is beginning to spin—all I can think of is that it's over, that I'm going back... that, beyond confusion and anger that he's still alive is just fear, fear, fear.
Thinking about closure, about doing something, about saying something, is so easy. Just the thinking part. And that was me thinking about him in handcuffs, maybe, far enough that he can't see or touch me, just hear my voice. Not this. Certainly not this.
I blink, and Yusei is in front of me. "Aki is changing—she's changed already, after you tried messing with her mind the first time. She's stronger than you and she's going to break free. My friends and I are going to help her. And, if you want Silvan, you're going to have to go through me."
"I'm not afraid of you," Divine laughs. "You Signers are ridiculous wastes of celestial energy. Aki is the only one of you worth paying attention to, and with Cipher beside her, they're practically unstoppable."
"Do you really think I'm going to let you just control people?"
"Once someone is in my hands, they'll be at my mercy," Divine remarks cooly. "Regardless of who they are."
"Sounds fake."
"I don't recall asking for your input." Divine continues his advance; Yusei's hand tightens on my arm.
"Don't come any closer," Yusei exclaims. "You're not touching her."
Divine scoffs. "How cute. You think you have a say in what happens next."
"Run, Silvan," Yusei demands.
"We're going home, Cipher," Divine states. "Now."
"Silvan," Yusei says, something in his voice like he's begging.
"If you're good and come quietly, l may be willing to forgive your misdemeanors and let you off with a warning," Divine states. "Come here, Cipher."
"You can't shut down now, Silvan," Yusei attempts. "This is happening. This is real. You have to try to do something about it. Get out of here. Please."
"That's enough, you meddlesome Satellite," Divine retorts. "It was amusing when you attempted to break Aki, but you've crossed the line at trying to take both of my protégés from me." He holds out a hand—my heart leaps as Yusei goes flying. I hear the breath escape him, and the thud as his back hits the wall, then the floor.
"L-Leave him alone!" I blurt, my voice hoarse. He turns over, leaning heavily on his right side, where his stitches are... "H-He has nothing to do with this!"
"Come with me, Cipher," is all Divine says.
"Silvan," Yusei tries, sounding strained.
"Cipher," Divine warns.
"T-That's not my name," I manage to say, no stronger than a pitiful little squeak. "S-Stop… calling me that."
"I beg your pardon?" Divine's voice changes to that—that menacing, parental sort of tone.
"That's not my name," I tell myself to say, a little stronger this time. "Don't call me that."
His expression darkens. "Oh?"
'Complacent' was what Misty called me. I sat by and I let all those things in Arcadia happen, but what else could I have done? I had nowhere else to go. But now I—I have Evan and Yusei and Aki and Crow and Martha and Rua and Ruka… And I don't want to be taken from them. Not again. Please, not again.
My hands start shaking so hard that I think something important in me has finally snapped.
"You... you stole me from my home. Took my memories away from me, gave me a new name that meant—that meant nothing, and you want me to go back?" My hands tighten into fists. My anger isn't as strong as my fear, but now, it's palpable. "Why would you do that? What could you possibly have to gain? You already had a city full of psychics for... for your army, or whatever you wanted. Why would you go all the way to Satellite to handpick me out of a bunch of orphans?"
"Everything that I have done," he says, "has been for your own good."
"That's your favorite thing to say," I argue. "For my own good. You say that every time you tell me 'no', every time you fill me up with static because I didn't do what you wanted me to...! You locked me up for eight years, Divine, and I didn't even know it was that long until someone told me that was how long I'd been missing!"
"Would you rather have grown up in this garbage heap?" Divine demands in a voice that makes me shrink. "I gave you everything this place couldn't!"
"I'd give every second of whatever you think you gave me to get all of this back!" I say. "Because of you, I keep spending all of the time I can looking for something new to do just so I can feel something! I sacrificed my life and my happiness to be obedient to you, and that was never enough for you anyways! The second you found Aki, I was still in trouble for breathing, but you could've cared less what I did as long as it was inside the Movement!"
"You refuse to let yourself feel," he states. "That is not my doing. When I pushed you, you receded, and when I pushed Aki, she moved to excel because it made her angry to disappoint." His voice lowers, and the menacing sound of it sends shivers down my spine. "This is the first I've seen of your anger, Cipher. Because you bottled every emotion I gauged in you up, you could never amount to what I needed you to."
"And yet you still want me in captivity?" I say hollowly. "Even though I'm just—useless? Your Cipher?"
"Not useless—dormant. Eight years of trying every method I could to elicit a major outward emotion in you only made you more and more silent. I decided that you had to have a breaking point. One I needed to reach. Today, it seems, I've finally reached it."
"I'm not your experiment," I breathe. "You don't get to treat me like some successful ten-step-plan pet project. I'm a human being and—and you broke me."
"Often times," he states, "you must crack someone into pieces to see what they're truly made of."
"Yeah, cool motive," Yusei groans, hunched over at my feet. His voice brings me back down to Earth. Reminds me that I'm not alone. "Still human trafficking."
"In a way, I suppose you helped," Divine remarks, sneering down at him. "Had Cipher never found motivation to leave Arcadia for good, I don't know how much longer this would have been delayed."
"What?" I say bitterly. "Your monologue?"
"No—your metamorphosis." Yusei forces himself up as a sphere of fire forms in Divine's hand. "Time to show me what you're truly made of, Cipher."
"Run," Yusei manages.
I feel scattered and my hands are still shaking, but—I pull Yusei out the door, to the crumbling patio outside. I'm stumbling all the way; I can see Misty's Immortal all of a sudden, an enormous shadow of something like a reptile, not far away from us. She summoned it pretty quickly. It's too late for us to turn back when I realize that it's a dead end—Divine saunters out to us, brushing embers from his gloves.
"Stay away," I demand. "I-I'm not doing anything for you!"
"We'll see."
"Silvan," Yusei warns, standing in front of me again, brandishing his duel disk like a shield.
"How frightening. A little Satellite who breaks like sandstone," Divine miffs. "I wonder just how many pieces you can break into, Yusei." He's advancing, and at this point, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to ward him off. There's nothing here to Waste—nothing worthwhile—and receiving any help from Aki is impossible.
And Yusei's in the mix, now, too: two psychics and a common. I'm sure Yusei could hold his own against a regular person, but Divine is no regular person.
Then, Divine goes sailing up into the air, arms and legs stuck to his sides. I can see him struggling against whatever is lifting him.
From the doorway of the balcony, my brother, with his hand outstretched, says, "Hey, asshole, ready to fuckin' die for real this time?"
"I don't think I've ever been so happy to see you in my entire life," Yusei groans.
"Thanks, pal, I'll figure out if that's a compliment or an insult later." He begins to cross the balcony to us. "Are you two okay?"
"Well, we're alive." When Evan gets close enough, Yusei adds, no louder than a murmur, "Silvan's shaking like a leaf."
"I don't blame her."
Behind him, Divine starts to careen downward. I can feel the pressure in the air. He's Wasting against my brother.
"Watch out!" I cry—a ball of fire comes careening toward us, and Evan whirls to catch it in the center of his chest. The fire crackles off of him, spinning inward, as he Internalizes it before it can sear through his shirt.
Divine, on the ground now, says, "Why not? Make this more interesting."
"Hi dickhead!" Evan says cheerfully. "You must be Divine! I've punched you a lot in my dreams, pal, and I've only known about your existence for about three days! Sorry to hear you're not dead, because when I'm through with you, you're gonna wish you were!"
Divine sneers at him. "Well, it would seem that I did make the right choice."
"How about you tell me about that! Why Silvan?" Evan asks. "Why come all the way to Satellite to take her? And why not take the both of us? What the fuck is your deal?"
Divine looks over him, like a predator over prey, and scoffs. "You're both mine. But you look far too much like him."
"Oh, so we're playing riddles now?"
Divine starts a slow advance toward us, clapping the soot from his gloves as he goes. Evan stands his ground in front of me and Yusei. "Cipher, I suppose you do deserve an explanation, so here it is. This world did not deserve your mother. She was better than any psychic or common ever could have been."
Divine knew my mother?
"But she didn't pick you, did she?" Yusei pipes up from beside me, and for a second I don't understand what he's talking about. "She picked their father, Sö—"
"Don't you dare say his name!" Divine roars. "He didn't deserve her, either!" He takes a second, it seems, to regain his composure. "What she saw in some smitten common man does not concern me. She betrayed our people when she entertained his foolishness, risked producing children that were common. Had you been mine, you would have been the most powerful psychics in this day and age. Though you are not mine in blood, you are mine in essence. I will make you powerful."
My mother. My mother? I stand there, still trembling, my hand clutching Yusei's arm for some semblance of balance, trying to piece it together. What motivation could he have?
"You have some serious problems," Evan says slowly, menacingly, "if you kidnapped a child solely because you think you got fucking friendzoned. You motherfucking psychopath!"
I put it together about a second after Evan says it. I realize what Yusei said, that my mother 'picked' my father as opposed to Divine, and suddenly that's it. That's why he came for me. That's why he took me, didn't take Evan. It's why he passed me off as his child, it's why I was conditioned to call him my father, it's why he tried to train me so hard and punish me when I failed. Because of my mother.
Because my mother was psychic, and Divine was infatuated with her. And she chose my father instead.
You inherited many things from me, she told me in that sea of light. I take the blame for all your life has amounted to thus far.
You tell him that you are too good for him. That you are not his.
"I don't expect you," Divine begins, "to understand—"
"I understand perfectly!" Evan exclaims. "Love isn't an excuse. Not for anything. Love is a poison, and too much of it can kill you, especially coming from a person like you! There's a reason my face looks like this—" Evan points to himself, "—and it isn't because my mother was too good for anyone else! It's because my father was better than you! It doesn't change that my sister came from him, too! That she and I might have our mother's features, but we're cut from his cloth! And the fact that you think you're entitled to either of us doesn't make you powerful or the victor in the situation, it just makes you pathetic!"
Divine throws up his hand, and my brother, unprotected, suddenly goes sailing over the edge of the balcony.
Yusei dives for him before I can think to, but—it's too late. I can't see him from here, either, from where I've lost my balance at the edge of the crumbling balcony and sunk to my knees. I don't know how far down it is to the ground, or where he could have landed. Or if he's safe.
The twinge of satisfaction I got from listening to my brother rip Divine a new one begins to fade when my old mentor starts toward us again, a darkness on his face that I've never seen.
"You took everything from me," I croak, "because of him? My mother is gone, and you don't think for a second to honor her memory and leave us alone?"
All he says is, "We're going home, Cipher."
"That's just it? You're planning to take me and Aki away now, right in the middle of a battle that decides the fate of millions of people?"
"Humanity always rebuilds," he says. "And, even if they bother us, once they find us, we'll be too powerful for them, anyways."
"I'll die before I go with you, Divine."
"Don't be dramatic."
"I'm not afraid to die," I tell him, shuffling further away, toward the edge of the balcony. "I'll jump."
"You don't have the nerve," he remarks. "In eight years, you've never had enough nerve to do anything dangerous to yourself."
"Then you haven't been paying attention."
He—He actually laughs. "The electricity doesn't count. Your mother's gift will always save your life in that respect."
"That doesn't make it okay," I croak. "That doesn't remotely make it okay! You know what, I saw all of your files, I know you didn't just do that to me!"
"Oh?"
"Your intentions, my powers, they don't matter! Forget what it did to me, I know there are other people who died from it! Even if I didn't! T-Toby, that Dark Signer's little brother, down there, who's fighting Aki, for one! You killed him, didn't you? You're the reason Aki's down there dueling, anyways!"
Divine sort of laughs. "Does it matter much? In the end, this Dark Signer is no match for Aki at her strongest. She's so pathetic for going dark after something as ridiculous as that."
Yusei pulls himself back toward me, and he rolls onto his feet, his hand fumbling toward his duel disk. Something on his face tells me that I just gave him an idea. "Is that true? Did you kill Toby and pin his murder on Aki?"
Divine stares uncaringly behind us at the battlefield. "Not a second of your upbringing was the same as the treatment any of those pitiful recruits received, Cipher. On occasion, when a psychic duelist wanted to join Arcadia, they would go through a series of experiments to test their abilities and see if they were worthy of assimilating into the Movement. One of the experiments consisted of a device that would create a powerful wave of electricity."
I swear I can feel the heat leaving my body.
"Unfortunately, the boy you speak of was unable to withstand the procedure and died as a result. His life wasn't of much use to me anyways, since he couldn't live up to expectations, but that's all right—I have Aki and once you and I see eye to eye, I won't need anyone else." He flicks his hand again and Yusei, unprotected, sails off of the ground and over the edge of the patio.
My heart leaps into my throat; I take a dive for him, my arms scraping against the stone as I slide out to try and grab onto whatever part of him I can. He manages to grab my hand, and with his other he catches himself on the ledge and hangs there while Divine gathers a sphere of fire in his fingers. "Now, Cipher, don't be difficult."
Yusei laughs, despite being a fall away from being seriously injured for the third time tonight. I'd like to smack him upside the head for it. "Thanks for that!"
"What are you talking about?" Divine scoffs. I'm confused, too, but I see my opportunity to pull Yusei to safety.
"I've got a lot of time on my hands, most days," Yusei manages as I heave him up off of the ledge. "A lot of time, and not a lot of nice things. I had to make my own duel disk, which happens to have a record and broadcast setting. Just so you know, whatever Misty does to you for murdering her brother isn't my fault."
A piercing scream skitters up toward us from down on the battlefield. I whirl around just quickly enough to see Misty's Immortal with its head angled down toward us. She... she heard that?
"Aren't you clever," Divine says mockingly. "But this doesn't change anything. By the time the sun comes up, Arcadia will be reborn with you and Aki at the wheel." He raises his hand again, probably to toss Yusei somewhere else.
And this time, my hand goes up, too.
I feel the force and the pressure he's exerting against me like he and I are the same poles on a magnet. It's so much—he's powerful. Much more than I felt in Aki, when we dueled. I'm already exerting so much of myself that my head is spinning.
"Good!" He calls. "Fight back!"
Blood bubbles down my nose, and Yusei makes this sound of concern.
"Are you going to give up?" Divine asks. "Show me all you've been hiding!"
I'm trying to blink away the black spots in my eyes. This is the longest I've ever Wasted with my stabilizer on. And against Divine... I can feel my shoes scraping against the stone as he pushes me further back, inch by excruciating inch.
But over the roaring in my ears, there's more yelling. I blink away the tears and crane my head to let my blood drip onto the stones, and then suddenly I see Evan below us on the ground, his face smeared with dirt, his hands cupped around his mouth to project his voice.
My ears feel like they're stuffed with cotton, so I spend the first few times trying to read his lips. Figure out what he's shouting.
Then I hear it.
"EXPEL!" He's screaming, I think at the top of his lungs. "SILVAN! EXPEL!"
For a second I don't know what it means. The word is familiar but everything is so soft and pearlescent around me as the nosebleed gets worse and Yusei's arms curl around me to keep me from falling off of the edge of the balcony that I just... can't remember.
"EXPEL! SILVAN!"
Oh. Wait. In the basement, when he... the fire... and... oh. Oh.
I reach backward for Yusei and pull him forward, diving in toward Divine, my arm twisted in Yusei's. We hit the ground and the pressure ceases, and I let the blood from my nose drip onto the ground for only a second or two more before I heave myself to my feet and unlatch my stabilizer from around my bicep. It hits the stone with a too-loud clattering noise.
Like digging a tunnel, Evan had said of it before, in the basement. Down into yourself until you can breathe whatever is in there back out. Like Wasting.
You have to let yourself feel, Yusei told me before, when I was full of light. Even if it's just this once. Let it out on three.
The electricity on my fingers, I remember it. I feel it. The whole world explodes into a song of glittering blue lightning.
Every pore in my skin, every inch of me, from the tips of my fingers to my very eyelashes, I've become a lightning rod again. But this time, I'm not the converter, not the thing that's supposed to absorb and contain.
I'm the source. And I never knew I had this much in me.
Divine doubles backward instantly to save himself from the static shooting out of me, and as quickly as it started, it's over. The electricity crackles away from my skin and into the air. It smells like my hair's been burnt a little.
My eyes are still reeling, and it takes a moment for them to adjust. The only thing that keeps my legs from giving out is Divine—at my feet, looking up at me as though I were someone great and terrible and ten times taller than I am.
It's mesmerizing. After spending such a long time looking up at him, looking down on him feels so new. So strange.
"It only took eight years," he says, his voice breathless, "for you to show me what I knew you were capable of."
"M-My mother wanted me to tell you," I hear myself say, blood dripping down my lips, "that I am too good for you. That I am not yours." I stumble backward to get away from him before he can do anything else. I teeter off of my feet, and Yusei, who's still on the ground and not quick enough to jump up onto his feet, rolls toward me break my fall.
He's holding onto me, fingers digging into my shoulder, as Divine wobbles his way up again. Before he even takes a step, Yusei's raised his duel disk in front of us again, still trying to protect us, and I'm trying to get my shaky hands to lift off of where they're trapped against my sides.
Suddenly, Misty's Immortal comes out of nowhere, its huge green eyes rolling down toward us. Yusei shoots an arm around me and pulls me down toward the ground, my face underneath the cover of his jacket and my head beneath his duel disk.
"Don't look," he says roughly. "Don't look."
We lay there for a second, and I'm expecting the worst, either from the Immortal or from Divine. But after a moment passes, Yusei raises his head a little more and looks around. "Okay," he breathes. "We're okay."
He helps me up until we're seated, and I'm trying to wipe blood from my face. "W-What happened?"
"The Immortal—it took him," Yusei breathes. "Came right up and swallowed him."
"He's… gone?"
"Yeah. I saw it with my own eyes, so I'm sure of it this time."
"What about Evan?" I breathe.
"He's a little beaten up, but he's safe. He's on the ground."
"O-Okay."
"Hey," he murmurs, inclining my chin upward so that I look at him, "you stood up to Divine. I know how hard that must've been after all he's done, but I'm proud of you for doing it."
The word proud hits around in my mind like the sounds from a bell. It most certainly isn't the time for it, but I can't stop myself from beginning to cry. I don't know if it's out of relief, or exhaustion, or finally, finally being free from Divine for real, but Yusei pulls my dirty, bloody face into his shoulder and I cry until my chest starts to hurt.
"T-Thank you," I hiccup, "for letting me out. Thank you for b-being my friend."
"Any day, Silvan. You have me in your corner for as long as you want me. But I need you to promise me something."
"W-What?" I blubber.
"Now I know why you keep running into danger, why you chased after me in the Old Reactor tunnel… you say it's because you're not afraid to die. But I need you to swear to me that you're not going to do that."
"D-Do what?"
"If you ever want to kill yourself ever again, you need to come to me. Go to Evan. Get Aki. Talk to one of us. This is the second time I've heard you say you wanted to do that, and I should have said something the first time, but I didn't, so I'm saying something now. You have people who care about you. And, just like you said to me, we're going to be there for you every step of the way."
"O-Okay. What did I do to deserve a friend like you?"
"You saved me," he says. "It's only fair that I do my best to save you."
We meet Evan down at the bottom, who I found couldn't come up to us because he hurt his ankle when Divine tossed him down. He can move it, but not without pain, which makes me think that it can't be any worse than a bad sprain. He must have Internalized some of the impact from the fall? He throws his arms around me when he sees me, and I make him stoop down so I can kiss his dirty forehead.
"Are you okay?" He asks.
"A-Ask me tomorrow," I say.
He nods. If I think about what just happened right now, if I try to analyze every little detail, I'm not going to be able to keep going through the rest of this battle.
Speaking of battle… Yusei puts his hand on my shoulder to get my attention. His mark has started to flicker. Up over our heads… I recognize The Lizard line as it slowly starts to dim, until it's gone entirely.
"...is it over?" I ask. "Is that it? We're safe? No more Dark Signers?"
"I… I think—agh!" Yusei hunches over, hand on his mark. It's stopped flickering, but it hasn't stopped glowing.
"W-What's happening?" I ask. "Yusei?!"
"Silvan?" Evan points to the sky, not too far in the distance, where the sky has lit up again. But it's not the sun; it's not quite morning yet. Though it isn't the sun, I do recognize what I see.
"That's… another Nazca Line," I say, swallowing. "That's The Condor."
