~-Den City Square~

Yusaku's POV

There were three things I was thinking about. One, Ai. My partner was back and in my duel disk. It seemed empty but I could still tell Ai was in there. He hadn't moved in the two days I had gotten him back. No matter how I tried talking to him, he refused to come out. Guess he finally listened to the threats I used to give him about being quiet at school. I never activated the prison program I had used on Ai before. I somehow knew he wasn't going to try and escape. I didn't know what hurt more, him being here and not talking to me or him being somewhere I didn't know. Perhaps a little more patience was all he needed. Despite his dramatic acts and worrisome personality when things were tough he always got serious and came around.

Second, this new group, Modicum. In English, its definition was 'A small quantity of a particular thing, especially something considered desirable or valuable.' They seemed to work on the same basis the Knights of Hanoi used to have. Minions running around while the higher-up stayed out of sight fulfilling their wishes. Accepting orders and data they did not know about and dared not question so they could be praised for their achievements. They even had a ranking system on power. There were three current ranks known at the time, akumas, onis, and yokai. They had also been planning on getting and using Ai's Ignis data for what? They were collecting the data just like SOL Tech had so they must be trying to build or create something out of it, not destroy it as the Hanoi did. Was it perhaps about what Modicum meant? Even, Divine, the one after them said she didn't know.

That lead to the third thing. Divine. A duelist that has remained well hidden from me and Revolver. Even hours loomed over a computer on a train ride lead to no clues on her whereabouts or activities. The trails kept going cold as soon as I latched onto one. A tiny piece of code out of place would suddenly disappear as soon as I found it. If this was Divine's work or if she had help, they were no slouch on codes. What intrigued me more about Divine was her cards. Cyberse cards, cards which only the Ignis could make. These cards were even based on her name's sake. Divine attribute cards had been unheard of since the first years of duel monsters. Only three cards had ever held that attribute, and they had disappeared a few years after they had been heard about. So how did have divine cyberse cards? How did she also connect to Modicum? Considering the words the blue akuma had with us after my duel with him, she seemed to have worked for or with them at one point. Even her conversation with the grey akuma during her own duel pointed to that reasoning as well, but something seemed off about that.

"Yusaku! Your back!" a familiar voice shouted before I could continue my thoughts.

I could barely lift my head before I was put into a tackle hug and spun around.

"Dude. We've missed you," I quickly recognized the voice as Kusanagi's.

That's when I realized I was here in Den City Square. Was I already here? I had just gotten off the train. I know I had been told that I don't pay attention to things before but to not be aware of where I was going was something else. Before I could real in my thinking, I felt Kusangi's hands grasp the sides of my arms.

"It's so nice to see you Yusaku."

I finally got to see Kusanagi face to face. There were three things I noticed right away. One, he was clearly at work. It would be the only reason he would be wearing his Cafe Nagi apron. Two, Kusanagi's smile was stretch as far as it could. And third, His eyes were set on me. His bloodshot eyes I knew too many times from working on the computer all night. What I realized more than the red lines was the tears that welled up in his eyes.

I let my thoughts from earlier dismiss as I let a small smile form," It is nice to see you too Kusanagi."

It only took a glance around to see what was going on. I had arrived during the Square's slow time. Kusanagi had been wiping down the fold-out tables and chairs when he saw me walk in. He had quickly abandoned the rag to come say hi. Nobody was manning Cafe Nagi and except for me and Kusanagi, only less than a dozen people were moving in and out of the square.

"I hope you've been well," Kusanagi said as he set down a fresh cup of coffee and a fully dressed hot dog.

"It hasn't been bad," I said as I took a nibble of the hotdog.

"I wasn't expecting you to be back so soon after you left when Blue Maiden found you," Kusanagi stated.

I remembered that. After Divine had logged out when Revolver and I had first found her. I had only said thanks to Blue Maiden for trying to help before I had logged out to try and track the golden duelist. Yet, like on the train. It had only lead to dead ends, so I continued looking for Ai while trying to keep an eye out for her.

"I wasn't either," I agreed before staring at my duel disk blankly as some of my previous thoughts started to return.

"So you found Ai again," Kusanagi said, knowing what I was thinking about.

I nodded before taking a sip of the hot coffee. Kusanagi looked down at his hand, which folded in front of him.

"Do you know what you are going to do now?"

I shook my head," All I've thought about is getting Ai back. I never thought about what was going to happen next."

"Just like us after the Knights of Hanoi, right?" Kusanagi chuckled, trying to keep things lighthearted.

Another bite of my hotdog was my only reply.

"Well, you can always enroll back at Den City High. Takeru did transfer out but Jin is going to school there now and Aoi says she would like to see you back at school," the hot dog vendor said," she also says Shima has missed you too seeing as you were the only person willing to listen to him talk."

I nodded my head as I listened. School seemed so far away right now. After saving humanity from Lightning, Ai's disappearance, and all this new stuff going on. The Ignis data that both Divine and Modicum sought after could not go overlooked too. Divine only seemed to get it for Ai's revival, but why would she be willing to do it with no connection to the Ignis themselves unless there was a connection that I couldn't see yet? She had cyberse cards so there had to be one, perhaps even more than one connection.

"...saku. Yusaku," Kusanagi's voice called, " You there?"

I nodded as I glanced at him to let him know I was there. His confused look soon turned milder.

"Want me to get you another hot dog and coffee?" He asked.

I looked down to see my hot dog and coffee now gone. I did not remember eating or drinking all of it, but I could not argue with the empty cup and basket in front of me.

"No need," I said as I stood up and grabbed my duel disk.

Den City's servers were much better connected to Link Vrains than any other city. Finding relevant data outside Vrains would be better here. With some time, finding a location on Modicum or Divine should be mildly difficult with a little time. Hopefully, within that time, Ai would finally come out and talk so I could apologize to him.

"Where are you off to now?" Kusanagi asked.

"My apartment. Maybe being there will help Ai while I figure out what to do next," I answered quietly.

"There may be a problem with that Yusaku," Kusanagi chuckled embarrassingly.

"What is it?"

"After a month, the landlord hadn't seen you and you hadn't paid rent so he kicked you out, "Kusanagi broke the news as he scratched the back of his head, "I was able to grab all your stuff though."

"Just like Yusaku to forget things like that," a new voice muttered.

"Ai!" I nearly exclaimed and I set my eyes on the duel disk.

The familiar purple eye was now visible on the screen.

"Uh. Hi..." the Ignis said, clearly wanting to sink back into the duel disk.

Before Ai could escape, Kusanagi's clear laughter stop his process as we both looked at him in utter confusion.

"Your absolutely right," was the only thing Kusanagi said in between his laughter.

Ai and I glanced at each other before looking at the hot dog vendor. I never cared about the humor of a situation but if Ai didn't get it, we were going to have to wait for an explanation.

"Sorry," Kusanagi chuckled," The way you were looking earlier told me you hadn't had a chance to talk to Ai yet. It was you forgetting about rent that got him to come out."

"You know he was never good at these things," Ai rolled his eye.

"Very true," Kusanagi smiled, before turning his attention back to me, " You can always stay at my place. Jin is staying the night at a rehab facility to run some tests so you won't be able to see him today. If you stay awhile, Aoi should be coming by. I think she is bringing Miyu by again too."

In the conversation, Ai's eye faded from the duel disk, indicating his escape again.

"Thank you, Kusanagi, but I will figure something out," I said as started to turn on my heel to walk away," I've got to do something today."

"Is it about that new duelist, Divine?"

I stopped my turn and nodded at the vendor. He smiled, knowing he was indeed right.

"Then maybe this will help you," he said as he reached into one of his pockets and threw me a data card," I've been trying to track or just find anything on her, but whatever program she uses, they are harder to crack than the Knights of Hanoi's programs. I think they're even struggling to try to find her, " Kusanagi put on a solemn smile, " I was going to give that to Aoi when she came by, but I'll just send her the digital copy after I close up tonight."

I looked at it before inserting it into my duel disk. I would look at it later and I had no doubt Ai was looking at it now. I started to walk away.

"And Yusaku, your welcome to come back tomorrow. Hot dog on the house."

I didn't offer him a reply.

~-LINK VRAINS-~

Divine's POV

"THOSE STUPID MORONS!"

I only barely registered the pain as my hand went crashing through the holographic screen and into the wall behind it. My rage was past boiling now. No... a volcano just erupted. They were planning WHAT?! My eyes were verrucous as I re-read the data. It had not changed. It was as I had read it.

"Divine, what is the development?" Seina's voice poked out in my red filled vision.

"Those Modicum nimrods is what!" I yelled, leaving the screen to try and find something else to occupy my rage beside cursing out Modicum," I knew they were senseless and malicious but they... oh they just proved me SO wrong!"

I fumed in anger as I paced back forth. My nails dug into my skin as I closed my hands in and out of fists. I would've probably gotten close to breaking my teeth if I was gritting this hard in the physical world. Not only was my jaw tensed but all my other muscles were too. It was like it was just bracing for me to punch something again. It was only the fact that I only had a wall to punch is that stopped me. The option I resulted to was pulling my hair near my scalp, carefully trying not to touch my helm.

"Divine, you have to tell me what it is," Seina said trying to calm me down, clearly a little worried.

I merely motioned in the direction of my undamaged screen nearby. Seina took it as a sign to read for herself instead of asking me. She knew I was clearly too enraged to think straight much less speak outside of yelling.

"Those frivolous, apathetic, harrowing excuses for human beings!" Seina yelled as she read the data, "

"My point exactly!" I exclaimed right back.

No wonder this was being transported along with Ai's Ignis data. This was their plan with his data. Their stupid, alarming, and horrendous plan. We stayed like that for a few moments. Me pacing back and forth while Siena angrily stared at the screen in front of her. Siena was the first one to speak as the initial anger wore off.

"This changes things," she said softly," You can back out now and let me deal with this."

"Not really," I shook my head, teeth still clenched in anger, "I wanted Modicum under lock and key for mine and her's sake. But now..." I dragged on, boiling anger mixing with painful sadness," We can't let them do this. This...this has to be stopped."

My voice broke at the end as I place myself beside Seina as I read the data over and over and over again. Seina said nothing as she put her hand on my shoulder. She knew words would and could not comfort me if she tried. My emotions died down allowing my head to create even more chaos. I lost myself to it as the worst possibilities circling around my head, going millions of miles an hour.

"I won't let them get away with this."

~-Den City Square-~

Aoi's POV

"Fujiki's back," I nearly yelped.

I quickly looked around to make no one had overheard me. Thankfully the square wouldn't be getting really busy for another hour.

"Yea. He came by with Ai about an hour ago," the hot dog vendor said as he flipped a hotdog on the grill, " He seemed a little out of it though."

"After six months without contacting anyone and probably being in VRAINS the whole time, I am not surprised," I nodded.

I tried to think of the hard times I had. Moving from place to place as my brother worked, not having any friends, the loss of mine and Akria's parents, losing Aqua, but no matter how hard I tried, Fujiki's troubles always trumped mine. All I could do was try and help. If that meant knocking out a few cyber terrorists in the darknet or tracking down Playmaker, I was willing to do it.

Kusanagi nodded," Agreed. I gave him the info I scrounge together about that new duelist."

"Divine, I believe she called herself right?" I asked, "E...Ghost Girl hasn't able to find much after we found those duels."

I quickly hushed myself after that quick slip. Kusanagi and Emma didn't know each other's identities outside of Vrains and both wanted to keep it that way. At least Emma did, Kusanagi was fine with her knowing as long as she didn't sell his identity to the highest bidder. Emma just responded with a 'don't tempt me'. The identity they were both after, however, was of this new duelist. The one Playmaker had run into with Revolver the one time Kusanagi pinged his signal. None of us thought about it too much until she gave the rest of Ai's data to Playmaker. Emma's mused on a female rival as she reconstructed a few seconds of the two duels came up constantly when I went to visit her earlier this morning. The thing has her so stumped I think I saw her contacting Blood Shepard about it. Probably need to check on her before I log in tonight.

"Divine, Goddess, Princess... She seemed to have multiple names but yea," Kusanagi said, " I was able to find a quick moment to send that data to you to your duel disk before you arrived. Maybe with those hacking skills Ghost Girl is teaching you, maybe you can find her while we can't," he smiled.

I smiled as well," I am nowhere near as good. I'm still years away from either of your levels. Probably a decade away from Fujiki."

"You may still have an angle on this girl that we just can't see," Kusanagi said as he handed me my order." I'll have the house to myself tonight, so I'll be back at it."

"Same thing here," I smiled as I handed him the money, " I'm going to be checking in with Ghost Girl before I head in to see if I can find anything. Maybe she'll have something along with this that will lead us somewhere."

"Later then Zaizen."

"Bye Kusanagi."

I am done with school. YEA! Well... at least until January. I will be working on this as much as I can though. I only had this chapter up to 2000 last night thinking I was done with it. Sat down this morning, and then got another 1000 words out of it. I have been trying really hard to had more emotion and detail into this. I am going to try to get the next chapter out as soon as possible though. I am trying to figure out how to work the decks so I can make a good duel out of it. Constructive criticism is welcomed and so is a review and like. Thank you for your support.

~Karnia