I couldn´t feel anything.

I had no idea where I was, and I didn´t know if I was lying on the ground or if I was standing on my feet.

Only with a lot of struggling, I was able to open my eyes again to try scanning my environment. I could see that I was lying on my side on quite uncomfortable ground.
When I could finally focus my view, my mind started to work again, and I remembered of myself:

My name is Hendrik Jigoku. I´m 19 years old and I´m known as a great dragon-duelist in the scene of Duel Monsters. My ace-monster is the legendary Blue-Eyes White Dragon, three of it at all. This dragon is the strongest normal monster in the entire game.
I could identify myself the best with it. And thanks to my dragons, I am pretty popular in the scene.

And I had another special card as well: the Egyptian god monster Slifer the Sky Dragon. There was only one piece of this card on the world as well as the other divine beasts, Obelisk the tormentor and the winged dragon of Ra. Nobody knows where the other god cards are, but Slifer is in my deck since a long time.

As the feeling in my bones came back, I was able to stand back up on my height of 6,5 foot. My clothes consisted of a white shirt under a black leather jacket and a long black hooded cape, the hood was over my head. When I pulled it back, my chin length black hair with some red stripes fell down. Through my glasses, I could see that my clothes were still quite clean which meant that I couldn't have lied here for a long time. And finally, there was my duel disc on my left arm, the revolutionary device which allowed the people to duel each other whenever they wanted.

It might sound weird, but I checked my deck first before looking for any injures on my body. My heart was in my cards, and I could never forgive myself if anything would happen to one of them. But there was no problem with my cards. All of them were on the same place as always: my Blue-Eyes White Dragons, Slifer the Sky Dragon, the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and the Dragon Master Knight, Pod of Greed, Ordeal of a Traveler, my Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon and all of the other monsters, spells and traps.

I breathed in relief and packed away my deck in the box on my belt, and then I gave attention to the area I woke up at. It looked like a destroyed place, full of metal pieces and broken parts of different machines or something else.

But when I raised up my eyes to the sky beyond me, I was shocked: there was no sky as I would have expected it, no, I saw an unbelievable huge plate of metal. It looked like another floor of the world.

"This is never Domino City," I thought by myself. It was a little relief to hear my own voice. But this "city" was not the only thing which looked strange, this entire place seemed to be like a completely different world, like a lost and forgotten planet.

"I think it wouldn´t make sense if I stand here all the time," I finally said to myself after focussing my mind for a moment. "Maybe I can find civilisation somewhere."

So, I started to walk around over this terrible place while looking for any kind of life, but there was nothing except me in this desert of rubbish.

When I walked without a goal, I didn´t think about my friends. Simply because of the reason I didn´t had any friends. I have been an outsider who has no idea about social contacts since my childhood. There has been nothing more than me, my cards and my opponents in countless duels, but I didn´t build up a relationship to them.

Basically, other persons saw me as a friendly and respectful duelist, but I was also able to become very angry when someone provoke me. Especially one of my rivals, Seto Kaiba, who always treated other ones without any form of friendliness, and because of that, I hated him.
And he hated me because I had three Blue-Eyes White Dragons and the god Slifer.

While I was thinking about my daily life and my rivalry to Kaiba, I barely realised that I was standing on a big hill and looked down on a city in front of me. But I startled when I saw how it looked like: all of the buildings were made out of rubbish, and they made a very depressing impression. The people I spotted were running through the dirty streets.

At first, I thought this town would be as much developed as the people in the time of renaissance, but then I saw modern devices like TV´s and radios as well.

"I think it would be the best if I would go among them to get some information," I decided after thinking about my strategy while I pulled my black hood over my head. I tried to hide my duel disc as good as possible under my cape, and then I walked down the hill and into the sordid city. In front of the first houses there was a sign with the lettering "Slums of Section 7".

"It seems like the name is also program here," I thought by myself while heading directly into the business activities of all the people which allowed me to hear what they were talking about:

"Hey, do you want to eat at Tifa´s this evening?"

"Did you already hear the news today?"

"Do you think that this group called Avalanche is really as dangerous as Shinra says?"

"Avalanche? Shinra?" I asked myself. It seems like there was a lot of stuff happening here. "I must get more information if I want to survive here."

Usually, you were able to get some information in a bar or a restaurant. And because of that, I looked carefully to find such an establishment. And when I came to an opener place in the "downtown", I spotted a big building with a long stair under a double-door made out of wood. On a big sign there was the lettering "7th heaven".

I must admit, this name made me a bit nervous. Just as it was with social contacts and friendship, I had problems with love as well. Although I was also mistaken for a 30 years-old family father a few times. But I´ve never been in love with a girl since... ever.
But was it my fault when I was over 6,5 feet tall and had a damn annoying beard growth at the age of 19?

"Anyway. I searched for a restaurant, and I found one," I said to myself and forced me to go up the stairs and enter the 7th heaven before anything could stop me.
And when I say anything, I mean my own thoughts.
When I entered the room, I saw a quite comfortable room with a few tables and chairs, all made out of wood. On the right side there were different arcade machines, a dartboard and a long bar.

There was no other person except me and a young woman who was probably the owner of the restaurant. The woman seemed to be in my age. Her long black hair fell down to her hip, only at the end it was tied together. She wore a white tank top, a black skirt and red shoes. Her eyes glowed in a confusing red.

"Welcome to the 7th heaven," the woman greeted me friendly and headed behind the bar where she looked at me with a smile while I pulled back my hood and took a place in front of her. "Hey, I´ve never seen you before. Are you new here?"

"Yes, you can say it like that," I replied shortly while I looked around in the restaurant. But I always ended in the woman´s eyes which were in a similar red as my own.

Because of that, some people joked to me that the Red-Eyes Black Dragon would be much better as my Ace-Monster than the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. But I never saw anything funny in that. Apart from this, the Red-Eyes Black Dragon WAS in my Deck. But he wasn´t my ace monster.

"Then I should introduce myself. I´m Tifa Lockhart, the owner of the restaurant. And you are?" the woman asked friendly and looked at me with a warm smile. "So, this must be the person named Tifa I´ve heard of on the streets," I thought before I answered her question: "My name is Hendrik Jigoku. Nice to meet you."

"Wow, that´s a quite rare name. Nice to meet you too," Tifa said as she stretched out her hand which I shook after a short period of hesitation. "Why are you here at the Slums?"

"Well, I am... I am a restless traveller, with no way and with no goal," I formed the truth a bit without lying. "It is... a bit complicate."

"Oh, that doesn't sound good," Tifa said tender hearted and watched me closely as if she wanted to find out what I was carrying with me. "Well, some people have more problems in their life than others," I said quickly. "But beside that, what do you want to drink? Do you have any favourite cocktail I could make you?" Tifa asked.

"Nothing. I´ve sworn to myself to never drink any alcohol," I explained. "Well, this is very laudable. It´s good to see that someone who is only one year younger than me is so disciplined to avoid drinking alcohol," Tifa said appreciative while she cleaned some glasses with a towel. Meanwhile I asked myself how she could know how old I was.

"So, how is the general life here?" I asked after a while. "Well, like living in the Slums is," Tifa said with a shrug. "Life is quite hard here because the Shinra group has all political power here. And they are absorbing the entire Mako with their reactors. The people here are getting poorer every day while the others become richer with the mako-power."

I listened closely while trying to focus on all the information. There was this Shinra group again. But what was Mako? Some kind of energy? And how did they make it to get this energy directly from the planet? Could it be an energy form which didn´t exist in my world?

"You´re asking strange questions," Tifa said which got me out of my thoughts. "You sound like you´re not even from this world."

"If she would know how right she is," I thought to myself, but forced me to not speak this out. "To be honest, I´ve no idea what to do now. I´m a traveller, and I don´t have a path to follow or a goal to reach. And I don´t know how it will go on with me."

Tifa listened carefully and nodded a few times. Then she said: "What do you think about the destruction of our planet? Are you on Shinra´s side or do you hate them?"

"Dammit, why is she asking me that?" I thought panicked, but then I tried to focus myself. What did I know about them? Shinra seemed to be a corrupt corporation which stole the planet´s power to become richer and live in pure richness. And the people who were living in the slums suffered under them.

And I really hated people like them. I couldn´t look away when people were getting richer and richer on the costs of other ones who hadn´t made anything wrong.

"I hate them," I said after thinking carefully. "All of them are criminals who don´t even think about all the people who must suffer under their deeds."

Tifa seemed to like this answer because she smiled even wider and looked at me over the bar. "That´s good to hear. What do you say? How about joining Avalanche?"

This name got my attention. I already heard it on the streets. The people said it wasn´t sure if they were dangerous or not. "And who should that be?" I asked carefully. "This is the group which is fighting against Shinra by destroying the reactors to avoid letting the planet getting destroyed because of the missing Mako," Tifa explained. "Basically, everyone is talking about us. And we will go on our next mission this night. Would you like to join us?"

I was really surprised when I heard that. A member of a rebellion was standing in front of me. And she asked me if I wanted to become a part of this group and help them destroying giant energy reactors?

But something inside me said that I could trust her. Even now when I´m thinking back, I cannot explain it, but I felt that it would be the right decision to join this team.

"Ok, I´m with you," I said which caused Tifa´s red eyes to glow while she shook my hand. "So, welcome to Avalanche. The others will be here soon, then you get to know them as well."

I just nodded.

But suddenly I felt some kind of vibration in the ground, and then everything behind me exploded.