A couple weeks pass, and I keep tabs on Aki as she slowly but surely learns to be a rider.

I help when I can, but I've been distant from Yusei recently—and on purpose. We haven't talked about that evening at the party. I'm still a little pissed that he thinks he has the right to judge me on what happened between me and Andore. It's not like I'm ever actually going to see him again. The WRGP's so big, the chance of our teams getting bracketed together is pretty slim—something like 1 in 100.

I think Aki's having a pretty good time, though. Whenever we talk, she gets excited and babbles on about the things she's learned. She had me help her pick out some riding gear. A few times, we've table-played a pretend turbo duel as a practice for her license test. Pretty soon, now, she'll have to pass a riding test by winning a turbo duel with an authorized Bureau agent.

It's a pleasant sort of difference I'm seeing in her. She used to be so afraid of riding—afraid of falling and getting hurt, that is, and though she still has a pretty intense aversion to pain, I think she's doing okay with it. So far she sounds like she's taken all of the precautions she can to keep herself safe.

When I'm not helping Aki out, I'm still trapped in my daily norms: work, kickboxing, therapy. Repeat ad infinitum. To be honest, my life's been pretty normal and boring as of late. Oddly so. I actually kind of hate it; there's nothing to keep my mind off of the Divine thing. I've been thinking about it even more ever since Aki told me she decided to testify.

I take a later shift in the stacks on a Thursday — it's the only quiet that's good for me. I never have to think when doing this job, I've already memorized the system and read most of the books I'm re-filing. It's cool and underground and the lights are low and it smells like old pages. Nobody bothers me here unless they need a book. And, even for that, rarely anyone does. Most of the patrons stay upstairs, in the warm lamplight and at the long community work tables.

So, I'm somewhere in the very back of the filing lines, reshelving crumbling hundred-year old tomes of Shakespeare, and I flinch when I hear somebody clear their throat. I fumble with the copy of Two Gentlemen of Verona I was about to reshelve and search for the sound — and I find a familiar pair of blue eyes peering at me through the empty space on the other side of the shelf.

"Can we talk?" Yusei says flatly.

He's cornering me at work? Instead of coming to my house to talk to me like a normal human being?

I turn up my nose at him and reshelve The Tempest and Two Gentlemen of Verona right where his face is.

I hear him puff a sigh. His voice comes through from somewhere lower on the shelf. "Please?"

I reshelve The Winter's Tale and Venus and Adonis, down where his voice is coming from, and I shove my cart of books back down the aisle so I can get to a different section.

"Silvan, can we please be adults about this?"

"I'm sorry, you want to be an adult now?" I retort. "Two weeks after you threw a hissy fit over something that doesn't concern you?"

"I did not."

"That's not what I heard!"

"Listen, please." He intercepts me at the end of the stack and sticks out his foot to keep me from pushing the cart past him. "You're right, it's not my business. But, if it was —"

"Oh my gods."

"— I'd be upset because it's the competition."

"It was also just a fling," I emphasize. "I didn't give so much as a last name. Not even a phone number. I left before the sun was up. We know literally nothing about each other. I'm not an amateur."

His face flushes. "Okay fine. Fine."

"Can you move, please? I'm on the clock."

"Give me a break, it takes you twenty minutes to empty these things." He knocks against the front of the cart with the toe of his boot. "You can stand still for a couple seconds."

"I don't know what your problem is," I say. "This is your damage. Not mine. You ghosted me."

"I didn't 'ghost' you."

"Well you sure have been ignoring me ever since the party! What do you call that?"

"I've — been busy!"

"Busy! Amazing! So has everyone else, and yet I seem to see Crow and Jack and Aki pretty much daily—"

"Look, can you not crucify me for having a hard time? It was tough enough to make myself come down here to talk to you as is!"

"Well, I'm sorry I'm so unapproachable!"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Then what did you mean?"

"I just—ugh!" He puts his forehead against a bookshelf, hard enough that his head makes a sound on the wood. "Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Does that help at all?"

I cross my arms. "It'd help if I knew what you were sorry for."

"For—ugh, I don't know. Everything you're mad at me for?"

"Okay, wow. Well, let's forget for a second that what I do in my free time isn't your business. Apparently, you literally don't talk about your feelings to anybody except me. Which is, uh. Dumb. You know Crow and Jack have been worried about you, right? That they're scared to poke and prod because they don't know if you'll respond? And I certainly can't help you if you ignore me for who knows how long, especially if I'm apparently the only one you let help you nowadays."

"I… know…"

"Okay, so if you know, take a step to remedy it, maybe? Hopefully? You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"I know."

"So act like it. Geez."

He rolls his eyes. "You're not even going to pretend to be nice to me?"

"You ignored me for two weeks, I get to be as mean as I want," I retort. "Now move a little so I can put these books back."

He exhales and steps to the side. I push the cart past him, and I can feel him following behind me. "What do you suggest I do?"

"I don't know. Tell me what's wrong, maybe. According to Aki, after you came out of the soda truck you were locked in, which by the way you also haven't told me anything about, some lady showed up and something happened? And when you were off moping at the party, somebody tracked you down and fed you some new dueling technique? I've heard none of this from you, and it was all two weeks ago, so I literally don't know anything beyond the vaguest bullshit possible."

"Shit, I forgot about that." He claps a hand over his eyes. "Yeah, I went on a work call, nobody was home, but someone hit me over the head and I woke up in a truck. I literally got kidnapped because someone wanted me to play on their WRGP team, Silvan."

"Wonderful."

"The lady's name was Sherry—Sherry LeBlanc—"

"That's a mouthful."

"—and she wanted me on her team, too, but she wanted to ask for it the old fashioned way."

"Right, by playing cards while pushing eighty miles per hour," I retort. "You already registered with our team. You can't play for anyone else."

"Tell them that," he says. "At the party, I got corned by this guy in a visor, calling himself Dark Glass, who said he could help me with my Synchros."

"You're still on that," I say. It's not a question.

"Do you expect me to just forget about it?" His voice lowers sharply as he continues, "I'm afraid, Silvan. That's not something I can get over in a couple of weeks."

"It was a one-time thing, Yusei."

"If somebody showed up and was deliberately trying to fix it," he says, "it's not a one-time thing." He grabs my arm, and I flinch. When I stop to look back at him, the look on his face knocks me breathless.

"Something is coming, Silvan," he says. "Something is coming and I'm afraid I won't be able to stop it."

"Listen," I tell him, softening my tone, "you need to let me help you. You need to let us help you. Last time, we weren't a team. We are now. We know each other better. And you won't get anywhere if you try to take it all on by yourself."

"I-I know, but… last time, I was the one to take it on. I was the only one left."

"Hey, but you can't take on all of that responsibility by yourself." I reach to squeeze his shoulder. "Not when nothing has happened yet. You can't just let yourself lose sleep over this. You know how bad that is. I won't let you do this to yourself. I need you to trust all of us, let us help you however we can."

"Okay," he whispers. "I'm sorry about… sorry about the last couple of weeks."

"It's all right," I tell him. "I don't like arguing with you."

"Yeah, me neither." He cuts his eyes away from me. "How much longer are you on the clock for?"

"I don't know. Hour, maybe?"

"When you're done, do you feel like helping me with a project?"

"What project?" I say.

"I'm building Aki a duel runner."

Pleasant surprise jolts up through me. "Really?"

"Yeah, she's — you know about that, right? She's training for her license test."

Hm. Aki must not have mentioned that I suggested he teach her. "No, yeah. It's tomorrow, isn't it? I've been practicing a few things with her, too."

"She's getting pretty good. I've been teaching her all I can, I even took her skating to try to get her balance to be better, if you can believe it."

"Skating, really?" A secret sort of smile fights its way onto my face. That almost sounds like a date, but… am I in the position to ask him about it?

"Yeah, and Crow and Jack have been helping me out building. It's been a nice break from coding."

"I'll bet. But no, yeah, I'd love to help out." I push my cart further through the stacks. "Wanna help me put these back? I'll teach you Dewey decimals."

"Sounds boring. I'm in."

For the last hour-ish of my shift, we empty my cart together, our conversation having shifted to more meaningless things, like me teaching him the library's shelving system. I didn't realize until now how much I'd missed being around him. I missed his face and his voice and how good and natural it feels to be standing next to him.

When my shift is done I tell Nina, the head librarian, that I'm heading home, and Yusei and I walk outside toward the parking lot together, close enough that our shoulders scrape together.

"What are you thinking?" He asks absently.

"I just… missed you, is all," I admit, bumping against him. "I don't like fighting."

"I—missed you, too," he says. He sounds a little surprised, but warmth has crept into his expression. "I think not talking to you is kinda bad for me."

"Me too."

"I know I need to try to open back up to Jack and to Crow but… I don't know. Usually it's just easier to talk to you."

"It's okay to take it a step at a time," I tell him. "They're being patient. They don't want to overstep their bounds."

He shrugs.

Together, we head back toward home. It's getting later, but somehow we end up making it back without having to brave too much traffic. Yusei's bright red duel runner is easy to follow through all of the sidestreets and shortcuts we've both memorized.

I think Evan must have a closing shift at the convenience store, because the apartment is empty when I get back in to put Hiraeth away. It does give me more of an excuse to leave right away, though — to head from my quiet, empty apartment to Yusei's (likely) populated one.

Sure enough, when I knock on the door, Crow answers and wrangles a muscular arm around my shoulder to lead me down into the living area. "Look everyone! My exercise buddy's here!"

"Exercise buddy?" Jack, who's over by the stove, shouts, "We gonna go jogging together, too, Silvan?"

"When you someday decide to go jogging," I retort.

"Okay, okay, no squabbling." Yusei waves from over by the duel runners. "We have to have this finished before tomorrow morning."

"Ah, we know," Crow says. "We can have fun while we work, though, right? Maybe? I don't really have the attention span to be all silent."

"It's not like we have to suspend all conversation to work," I say, shucking off my jacket. "How much more do we have to do?"

Yusei yanks a sheet off of a fourth duel runner—it has a full shape to it, which is good. It probably just needs some internal work and some paint on it.

"How long have you been building this?" I ask.

"A week, maybe. On and off." Yusei shrugs. "I've been doing a little bit every day in between work."

"Still taking a break from the prototype?"

"Yes," he says flatly. "Every time I think about it my brain starts to hurt."

"I'll look at it again, maybe," I say. "So, where are we with this?"

"I still have to write more of the programming," Yusei tells me. "Mostly just duel protocols, though."

"I have a couple more things I have to put onto the engine," Crow adds. "I've been doing a bunch of the building."

"I've just been handing people tools so far," Jack calls from over by the stove. "I think I get to help paint, though."

"That's cool, you guys are all helping out." I kneel down next to the runner, where the side gapes open at me. I can see the engine, sort of in pieces, in to the left.

"Well, yeah!" Crow says. "We need another riding lady on our team, I think."

I shrug. "I can't get all the attention, I guess."

"Yeah, widen the dating pool a little."

"I didn't know Aki was your type, Crow," Jack retorts.

"Hey, she's a pretty girl and she has ambition. What's not to like?"

I shrug, but I almost don't think anyone can see me. "I'd date her."

"She not into women?" Jack asks.

"No, that's not the issue, we just… ahh, I think after what we've been through, it'd be tough for us to have a relationship like that. We both have different ways of coping." I sigh through my nose. "Also, I'm not sure I'm her type."

"She has a type?"

"I, uh, don't know what exactly it is. But I don't think I'm it."

"Dumb," Crow retorts. "You're definitely everyone's type."

I smile to myself, thinking of the conversations we've had as of late. "Are you flirting with me, Hogan?"

"Do ya want me to say yes?"

"It's no fun if I tell you to!"

"What's your type, Silvan?" Jack asks. I can hear the smile in his voice.

"People who are nice to me," I say, in an effort to dodge the question. "And have good bone structure."

"So we're all in the running, then, hm?"

"Not you," I scoff. "Carly's way better than I could ever be. And if you don't keep her, I will make a move of my own."

"That's fair."

Crow kneels down next to me and starts handing me tools. It doesn't take me very long to figure out what we have left to solder on, and with the both of us working, it'll be easier to finish up.

It gets later and later, smatterings of meaningless conversation breaking the silence of our work, and as Crow and I finish up, we take a break to let Jack do the painting. When Yusei is done with the code, we all just sort of sit there and watch the paint cure.

"Are we gonna name it?" I ask.

"I had some ideas," Yusei says. "I was thinking we could put it to a vote."

After a pause, I say, "Can I put some roses on the back? Like over the bumper?"

"When the rest is dry, sure. I think she'd like that."

"How long ago did you teach yourself to do artsy-fartsy shit, Silvan?" Crow asks.

"When I was fourteen, I think," I tell him. "I went through this––phase, where I was really into art history and stuff. I'd doodle on everything. This, actually, this was..." I turn out my bare shoulder toward him, the one with the roses tattooed across it, "...I drew this."

"Really? That's super cool."

"Thanks. I guess Aki and I must both have a thing for roses. Or I'm just good at drawing flowers."

"Or maybe both."

It's a little boring, waiting around, delving into little moments of small talk, but at least I'm not alone. I'd trade boredom for loneliness any day.

The four of us end up on the floor at some point, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the room to stop smelling like wet paint. Crow makes something for us to eat, but I'm not hungry so I stay comfortably where I am, drifting around in my own thoughts. Eventually Jack and Crow wander off to go to bed, so it's just me and Yusei lying next to each other on the floor, shoulders pressed together. An hour ago, I painted roses on the duel runner's back bumper with whorling strokes of iridescent violet paint, so as soon as that dries, the duel runner will be done.

"I'm stuck in between Frenzy and Blooming Racer," Yusei is saying.

"I liked Frenzy, too," I tell him. "But I also kind of like Bloody Kiss."

"That's the one Jack and Crow voted for. Maybe we'll go with that one."

"Hm."

There's a pause. There hasn't been any real conversation between us since we left the library. But I feel like there's something he's trying to work up to.

"Tell me what you're not saying," I say.

A long moment of silence.

"Vizor guy," Yusei says, "Dark Glass, or whatever. We went out onto the track below the convention center and just… had it out, I guess. But he could do this sort of summoning that wasn't a Synchro. It was like — like some different, new-age Fusion Summon."

"Okay," I say softly.

"If — If I can manage to do it, maybe it'll solve my problem," he continues. "Maybe I can get some sleep."

"Just let me know if I can help you."

"I think it has to do with speed." He frowns. "Which just makes me angrier about the damn prototype. It could be part of the solution. Can't get it working, can't use my cards…"

I reach for him, resting my hand as lightly as I can over his heart like I'm keeping him from bolting upward. It's quite a reach like this, lying beside him on the floor. "You'll figure it out. We'll all help you. We'll debug the program, and we'll debug it in time for the tournament. You'll fix your cards. I promise."

"I hope so."

There's silence again, and I stare at the ceiling and the shadows the rafters cast. If I listen hard enough, I can hear Jack snoring faintly upstairs.

"So… when you do that stuff," Yusei says at last, his voice dark and low, "is it just to do it? Do you… do you feel anything?"

The emphasis on that stuff.

"What, like. Like love?" I tilt my head toward him a little.

"I… I guess."

"...can I tell you something kind of sad?"

"Hm."

"I really don't think it exists. Love."

He shifts, but says nothing.

"Like… I don't think a world like the one we're in is capable of sustaining something like that."

"You don't think so?" His voice has grown soft. "With all of the bad things, there has to be some capacity for beauty."

"I don't think beauty has anything to do with it," I say. "I've been able to find beauty in all sorts of things since I got out. I'm talking about love, about — about the capacity to need someone and have them need you…"

"I think it's real."

"I just — the only person I wanted to love me for the entirety of the life I can remember never loved me back. Screaming and neglect and torture isn't love, but… but as much as I hid from him and wanted to escape, I wanted his attention. I wanted to be loved, but it wasn't… that wasn't…"

"That's not love, then," he says. "Never feeling love and it not being real aren't remotely the same thing."

"I don't know. I don't know what it is, so… so maybe it's just not real for me."

"You got dealt a bad hand —"

"Bad hand or not… I just don't believe in it. So, no, I don't do that stuff for it. I do that stuff because I never really know how to feel, ever. If I even can. I want to be wanted without having to worry about the emotions part. You know?"

"Maybe." He sighs through his nose.

"You defend it like you've been in love before," I say.

"I dunno. You don't love your friends?"

"That's — different. Your friends are different than the kind of love I'm talking about. Not that it's less powerful, or whatever, just… it's not the same idea."

"Okay," he emphasizes.

"I don't love Andore," I say. "I didn't love any of them, not the emotional way. That's the point. You don't have to love somebody to get close to them like that."

"No, I never said that. I just want to understand, it's… something I can't wrap my head around." He laughs a little as he says, "I can't really imagine myself doing anything like that. Not without knowing a person for… I don't know, a while beforehand."

"It's not everyone's cup of tea," I say. "But it is mine. And I really don't… no one's known about it until now, save for Evan."

"You don't have to be embarrassed about it —"

"I know, I don't, but I am. It's embarrassing when my friends nitpick at me about it."

"I didn't nitpick at you."

"You ignored me for two weeks."

"Look, I… I told you, he's the competition."

"You know that's a low key stupid reason to be mad, right?"

"No, it never occurred to me, actually." After a moment of hard silence, he sighs through his nose. "But I am sorry."

I sigh, too. "Just a couple of sorry kids."

"...I guess so."

I don't know when I doze off, but it's sometime after that, and my head sticks in to Yusei's shoulder. Just a couple of sorry kids keeps ringing in my ears. That's just what we are. Too similar to be apart, but too different to get any closer. I think about what Aki said about not knowing whether she liked him or the things he did. I can't help but wonder where I stand in relation to him. At least in that respect.

In the morning, I'm the first one up, and I leave Yusei sprawled on the floor next to the duel runner while I fire up the coffee machine. I run my fingertips over Aki's new duel runner, testing the smooth, cured paint, and I breathe in the smell of the brewing coffee coming from the stove.

Crow's the first one to come down from the loft. He yawns noisily before saying, "You stay over? Where'd you sleep?"

"Just on the floor, there's plenty of space."

"We have a couch, Silvan," he says blandly.

"The floor was closer."

Crow rolls his eyes and goes to pour himself some coffee.

Jack's the next one to haul himself down, and Crow and I stand with him in the kitchen, waking up slowly.

"I mean, I knew the two of you barely slept," Jack is saying, "but on the floor?"

"I dunno," I say. "It was close and it was comfortable. I've slept in stranger places."

Jack raises his mug very briefly at me, as if offering a toast before he takes a drink.

"What time's the test again?" I ask.

"Ten. We still have a while. And Aki is meeting us here, anyways."

"What has she been practicing on?"

"That." Crow gestures to the finished runner. "It's been pretty much a skeleton, though. No balancers or duel protocols or anything remotely exciting. Yusei was working on it all through when she was training. Plus, they have classes at Duel Academia so I think she rode on some of their issued runners, too."

"I'm glad she had more time to learn than I did," I say. "Two weeks kicks my two days' ass."

"You did the most with what you had." Jack shrugs. "Plus, that's impressive. Two days? I think the three of us—" he gestures around the room, "—took turns learning over something like three weeks. Your muscle memory's insane."

"Memory," I mutter. "I guess. Some things, I retain better than others."

Crow frowns. "How is that going?"

"What?"

"Evan said you were seeing a special therapist for psychic stuff. No updates on your memory?"

"Only once every few months, but yeah. I'm still a blank slate, for the most part," I sigh. "Nothing but flashes. Feelings. And I don't know why." I plaster on a fake smile. "I can recite somewhere near three hundred digits of pi, though."

"So, what? Trade your childhood for being a fucking genius?"

"I guess so. But it makes most everything feel like it's come straight out of a fever dream."

"Any hope of getting any of it back?"

I shake my head. "I don't know. I'm… I'm still trying to figure out if I want it back."

That sort of makes the conversation between us fizzle out. The elephant in the room becomes, "but Silvan, why wouldn't you want half your brain back?" Well, going back means I have to remember more of Divine. More of what I've blocked out. And I would rather make new memories than obsessing over where the old ones went.

At least, for now.

Some amount of time later, there's a knock on the door. Crow rouses Yusei off of the floor, and I go to get the door for Aki — she's standing outside, her posture drooping, and underneath a big warm jacket she's wearing a red and black leather riding suit. She looks nervous, but she smiles wide when she sees me.

Crow spots her from down below the stairwell and grins, hands on his hips. "I like the new digs!"

She beams. "Thank you!"

Yusei's still rubbing sleep from his eyes, but he holds out a hand toward the duel runner. "For you."

Her eyes go wide. "Th-Thank you!"

"We'll be there, too, watching and sending you good vibes," I say. "And afterward maybe we can all take a drive together."

She blinks. "But… what if I —"

"Shh! You're not allowed to doubt yourself!"

We all gather ourselves together, and about fifteen minutes later we make our way to the Duel Academia track. Aki rides in between me and Crow the whole time, and when I risk turning my head to check on her, I can see the wheels turning in her head; I can see her thinking about staying upright.

At the track, we meet the twins and my brother, who's wearing a dark hoodie over his blue and yellow polo shirt (the convenience store's 'uniform'). He must have just come from work.

Together, we stand at the railing in the very first row of the bleachers, and Evan slings an arm around my shoulder as a greeting.

"She's really nervous," I tell him.

"She has no reason to be. I saw her and Yusei on the track last week, she's not half bad."

Aki's positioned herself at the starting strip when a Sector Security-issued duel runner pulls up. It's — Ushio who's administering the test.

"I didn't know Ushio was a turbo duelist," I muse.

"He used to chase after me when I was first testing out my duel runner," Yusei says. "I've lost count of how many times I used to outrun him."

The countdown clock dials down from three. Ushio surges forward, but Aki's just a second faster than him. She hits the corner of the circuit first and is allowed to draw for the first turn.

"I summon Revival Rose in Defense Position! Then I end my turn!"

Ushio draws. "I summon Stygian Street Patrol in Attack Position! Go on, attack Revival Rose!" Since Revival Rose is in Defense Position, Aki doesn't take any damage from its destruction, but Ushio activates his monster's special effect. "Due to Stygian Street Patrol's Effect, I can deal you damage depending on the level of your destroyed monster times a hundred!"

Revival Rose is LV 4, I think, which means that Aki takes 400 points of damage. Her

Life Points fall to 3600, Ushio places a facedown, and then he ends his turn.

It's Aki's turn. "I summon Twilight Rose Knight in Attack Position! Due to its special effect, I can Special Summon Lord Poison from my hand in Attack Position!"

She tunes them together to bring out Black Rose Dragon. Seeing it here, for real, this close again, makes distant memories surge upward in me. I remember two weeks ago, seeing it in physical form at the WRGP party… how different even that was.

After the damage calculates and Stygian Street Patrol has been destroyed, Ushio's Life Points drop to 3200. He flips his facedown.

"I activate Final Penalty! This allows me to destroy a monster that destroyed a card on my field, as well as deal half of Stygian Street Patrol's Life to you as damage!"

Black Rose Dragon shatters, and Aki takes the 800 point reduction, leaving her at 2800. "I activate the effect of Revival Rose from my Grave—when a monster on my field is destroyed, I can bring it back to my field in Defense Position!"

Revival Rose returns, cloaked in Defensive blue. Then Aki sets down two cards and ends her turn. They're on their fourth lap, and their Speed Counters have risen to 3.

"This is fast," I murmur.

"And she's good," Yusei adds.

Ushio's turn. "I activate the effect of Stygian Street Patrol from my Graveyard! I can remove it from play to Special Summon a Fiend-type monster from my hand that has an ATK lower than 2000—I'm bringing back another Stygian Street Patrol!"

It's an odd looking monster on a motorbike, wearing a helmet trimmed with Viking horns.

"Yusei, you notice?" Crow, to my right, asks. "New monsters."

"He can change his deck all he likes," Yusei muses. "He duels the same as he always has."

"Next, I summon Stygian Security!"

"That's a tuner," Yusei mutters, half to himself.

"I tune Stygian Street Patrol with Stygian Security in order to Synchro Summon Stygian Sergeants!"

The green envelope of light bursts away to reveal a twisted looking thing on a bike, pointed reptilian wings spreading out of its back. I haven't read up on Stygian monsters — they must be Bureau-issued — but I'm going to predict that its ATK is somewhere over 2000. Revival Rose only has 1300 DEF points, which will make it an easy target. I wonder what Aki's facedowns are packing.

"Stygian Sergeants, destroy Revival Rose!" Revival Rose shatters, and Ushio triggers his card's effect. "When my monster destroys another monster, I can give it a boost of 800 ATK and send it to attack again!"

That's… got to be pretty high. Aki flips a card over. "I activate my facedown, Offensive Guard! This card allows me to temporarily halve the attack of Stygian Sergeants as well as draw a card from my deck!"

Her Life Points plummet to 1300. Taking half the damage is definitely better than taking all of it.

"Next, I activate the Speed Spell - Speed Demon! This allows me to inflict 1000 points of damage on you, and come my next turn, I can tribute three of my Speed Counters to add the Speed Spell - Speed Storm to my hand! Then, I set one card face down and end my turn!"

Their Speed Counters jump up to four. Aki draws; the silence for a moment tells me that she's thinking. Not about the drive, though. About the duel. "I summon Witch of the Black Rose! Due to its special effect, I must draw a card! If the card isn't a monster card, I have to discard it and destroy Witch of the Black Rose!" She pulls a card from the top of her deck, then shows it. "Because I drew Dark Verger, I get to keep both!"

"I activate my facedown!" Ushio reveals his Trap. "Climactic Barricade! Because you Normal Summoned a monster, all monsters LV 4 or below can't attack! Even more, at the end of your turn, you'll take 500 points in damage for every LV 4 or below monster that's on your field!"

"I play the Speed Spell - Summon Speeder! If I have 4 or more Speed Counters, I can summon a LV 4 or below monster from my hand to the field! I summon Dark Verger!"

"Does she have any other Synchros?" Jack asks.

"A few," I say. "But I haven't seen them in a long time."

"Now, I tune Dark Verger with Witch of the Black Rose in order to Synchro Summon Splendid Rose!"

That's definitely a card I haven't seen in a long, long time. And I've never seen it in battle, just flipping through her deck. Divine always had her endgame be Black Rose Dragon and nothing else.

"By activating Splendid Rose's Special Effect, I can halve the ATK of your Stygian Sergeants and take it out!"

Ushio's Life Points drop to 2100. They round the turn farthest away from us, where an odd and out-of-place stack of metal pipes suddenly explodes in a cloud of smoke. Pipes outward toward the track. I can feel the vibration from the detonation under my boots, and as I peer closer at the smoke to check if Aki and Ushio are all right, I spot a trio of guys on the other end of the bleachers fighting over something that looks a lot like a detonator.

"You have to be fucking joking," I say.

Yusei, instinctively, grabs my arm. "What just happened?"

I stab my index finger in their direction. "I think they did that. Who the fuck are they?"

Yusei's expression changes from curious to concerned.

"Hello!" Evan shouts. "Look at the track, you guys!"

I turn and look back towards the track, where Aki's made it past the pipes and flipped a trap: Blossom Bombardment. When a monster is destroyed in battle, the opponent is dealt the attacking monster's ATK in damage.

Ushio loses his remaining life points to Splendid Rose's 2200 ATK, and Aki finishes her lap around the track before skidding to a stop in front of the bleachers. She yanks her helmet off and starts to jump up and down, almost catatonic.

Yusei and Crow go tearing down the aisle toward her begin to rush over to her, but my first immediate thought is to beeline for the creeps on the other side of the bleachers. They're still fighting over the controller when I Waste one of them into the air.

"H-Hey! What the fuck! Wh-What are you?!"

"Who the fuck do you think you are, pulling something like that?" I say. "You could've hurt someone! And for what?!"

"Silvan! Hey!" Jack plants a hand on my shoulder. "Put him down."

"Are you stupid?"

"Just put him down!"

I let him drop, rather than actually placing him back down (mostly because it takes less effort). I would have thrown him, I think, had it not been for the venom in Jack's voice. He wrestles one of the others into a headlock and elbows the other so hard that he goes flying backward into another row of bleachers.

"You hurt any of my friends," Jack says to the third one, jabbing a finger in my direction, "and I won't stop her next time. Then, if there's anything left when she's done with you, I'll be sure to fix that."

The third one yanks his friend back over the bleacher Jack threw him over, and Jack practically throws the one under his arm toward the other two. They escape down the stairs, and as they go, I Waste the detonator out of one of their hands and in our direction.

"Why'd you do that?" I say bitterly, toying with the detonator box. "I could've taken them."

"I know. But I wanted to scare 'em, not break 'em. Plus, you bleed when you do that floaty thing for too long." he grins. "And I wanted to help, too."

I breathe out hard through my nose. "Next time something like that happens, I get to do more than floaty things."

"I gotcha, I gotcha. I won't stop you again."

I stare at the detonator between my fingers, and I dig deep. This is the first time I've done this on my own since the Dark Signers — the box bursts into flames, and I keep it, suspended, burning between my hands, until it's nothing but charred, melted metal.

Jack exhales. "Nice. When'd you get fire?"

"A while ago," I tell him. "I have a lot in me. I just never Expel."

"Right, right." He slings an arm around my shoulder. "Let's go join the congratulations."

I walk down onto the track with him, feeling like I'm still vibrating from using my powers, but I see the joy on Aki's face and it fades away.

She throws her arms around Yusei, and I feel a twinge of something unrecognizable.