Chapter Twenty-Eight
It took them six shots to take him down. One in each leg, three to the chest and finally one to the head. Strangely enough, none of them hurt. It has only been a few days since, and the wounds have already fully healed. No one could explain how that was possible. Yet they still haven't believed him.
It was the magic.
And they still didn't believe him.
When Cole came into the station, everyone was so confused. When he picked the chiefs desk up and threw it through the wall, they should have believed him. When their tasers didn't faze him, they should have believed him. When they shot him six times and even a headshot didn't put him down for good, they should have believed him.
But they didn't.
And now he was here. Myoto City Institute for the Criminally Insane.
They have to pump so much sedatives into him; it would be enough for a whole criminal gang, just so he doesn't rip up his straitjacket with his bare arms. Or kick down the door. Took them a few tries to figure out the proper dose.
And they still didn't believe him. Cole didn't know how much it would take for them to believe in magic.
But soon they would. For the last few hours, Cole could feel the magic in his chest pulling him. He needed to go somewhere and do something for it. He felt it grow more powerful and after one last struggle, he ripped the straitjacket open and tossed it aside. The sedatives still made him tipsy, but not quite as much as before.
The steel door was no match for him and his magic, so he just ripped it from the hinges and slammed it into the corridor. But what he found there… a literal bloodbath.
At least four guards, which were supposed to keep him in, dead on the floor. And in the midst of all of that, a man in a red-haired man in a velvet outfit, strangely enough holding a lantern that shined in a bright blue light.
And just on that sight, the pulling inside Coles chest stopped. Seems like he found his target. The somewhere he had to go.
"Who are you?" he asked the man.
"I like your courtesy," Tian answered, "if someone comes to break you out of your room, first ask for their name. But you can call me Tian."
"You have magic," Cole simply stated, which got a chuckle out of Tian.
"One could say that," he replied, as he blinked closer to Cole in a flash of blue light, "but I'm not here to exchange pleasantries. You have something I need. And I will not leave without it."
Right on cue, a forcefield rose up around those two, blue and green colors running on its surface.
"It's a Contest of Champions," Cole stated.
"You know the terminology, that's good. That means we can run though this a lot faster," Tian said, as he threw the man his Duel Disk. He picked that up right before coming here. Finding it was actually a lot harder than finding Cole.
Somehow, the other man did not even question that, he simply put in on and coldly stated: "I could always use more magic. Bring it on, lantern guy!"
Cole: 4000 LP
Tian: 4000 LP
They have been running for nearly half an hour now, desperately trying to get out of the city center. The farther they came, the less fighting there seemed to be, which was a great relief for both of them. Maybe they could find a place to camp out until after the convergence.
"I think we can take a breath right here," Saburo was barely able to say, as he immediately backed down panting.
Hatsuko just gave him a nod, as she also slunk down to sit next to the wall.
"Seems like the fights are more concentrated to the city center," Saburo stated, "we should be safe here for a while."
"No, we're not," Hatsuko suddenly jolted up, looking down the street, "someone's coming. My Crosspoint wants me to go this way."
"They found us," Saburo summarized, trying to shake off his exhaustion, "we need to hide!"
"If I can feel the other Crosspoint, then so can they. And we're in no condition to run."
"So what do we do? Just wait for them to come and take your Crosspoint?"
"No," Hatsuko stepped out on the street, braving for her opponents arrival, "I'm gonna fucking kick their ass back to where they came from."
"Good, I'll hold em, you'll punch 'em," Saburo said, taking a stand behind Hatsuko.
"You know you can't do that," she replied, "a Contest of Champions doesn't work this way."
The boy wanted to retort something, but they were silenced by the sound of an oncoming car. Hatsukos heart sank when she realized who was sitting behind the wheel.
The red-haired woman, Yuitos manager. Alessia.
And next to her on the passenger seat – Carter. The man in the suit, the one that gave Yuito his Duel Disk, the one who she won the red Crosspoint against.
When they saw her standing on the street, Alessia slammed the brakes, coming to a halt just mere inches from plowing into her.
"So you gave up running," she said while she got out of the car, "good for you."
"What kind of twisted game are you playing?" Hatsuko asked the woman, who just laughed.
"The same that you are. The game that are the Crosspoints, the game that humanity is forced to play every thousand years."
"And this is you losing," Carter said while he got out of the other side, just as cocky as ever.
"Don't you be so sure about it. You want a Duel?" Hatsuko snapped at Alessia, "You'll get a Duel, and when I'm done with, your little friend here can scrape you off of the sidewalk."
"My husband will do nothing of sorts," she retorted, "because I'm not going to lose. We've been working for this moment for years and you're just an insolent child. I'm gonna crush you under my heels."
"Don't let her get you monologuing. We don't have time," Carter intervened, "we can talk after this is finished."
As if to prove his point a red and orange forcefield rose up around the four of them, trapping them inside.
"What? Why am I in here?" Saburo asked confused, "I don't even have a Crosspoint."
"Neither do I," Carter remarked, "maybe that's the point. One additional guy on each side. Sounds pretty equal to me."
"Not that I'm gonna complain about help," Hatsuko said, starting up her Duel Disks interface, before the other three followed suit.
Hatsuko: 4000 LP
Saburo: 4000 LP
Alessia: 4000 LP
Carter: 4000 LP
There was no denying that the atmosphere between Yuito and his father was at least tense. Neither of them knew how they imagined their reunion to be, yet not quite like this one. They hadn't seen each other in years, yet there was really nothing anyone would like to talk about.
Yuito didn't want to talk about living on the streets, because his father was responsible for that in the first place, nor about his Combat Dueling career, since his father probably knew everything about that.
And his father… he didn't talk about anything either, keeping the reasons to himself.
And so they basically sat in silence together for a while, until Suito finally broke the mold and spoke up: "Regardless of what is between us and what happened in the past, I'm glad you turned out to be such a fine man."
"And that is yours to judge because…"
"I tried to give you a compliment," Suito replied, but Yuito brushed him off.
"I don't need your compliments," he said, "if I'm in this, I'm only in this for the people out there. Not for you."
"I honestly should've expected you to be like this," Suito sighed, "after all, what we did was for you to make me hate me. So I shouldn't be surprised that you do in fact hate me."
"I don't know if I really hate you, or if I just dislike you. That's nothing I can figure out in such a short time."
"Never mind that," his father said, "you're doing the right thing, no matter the reasons. And I'm proud of you."
He turned to leave the small room they were in, but Yuito decided to ask him one more thing.
"What's gonna happen to Hatsuko? She has the red Crosspoint and we need that one. What if she doesn't give it to us, or lose it?"
"Alessia will try to take the point from her, and she is not a Duelist you can defeat easily," Suito explained, "and if she fails, well. You played against Tian in the past. He always wins."
"How about the other Crosspoints?"
"We are only missing green and red, the rest are in our hands already. Tian went to retrieve the green one, then he'll see about the red one and bring all of them to us. Then we can use them during the convergence."
"What about the orange one? Who has that?"
"Tian won it and then he gave it to Alessia. She'll use it to claim the red one from your friend Hatsuko."
"He can do that?"
"Certainly. You can pass along Crosspoints based on your free will as you please. It only gets complicated if you want to take one by force."
"I think Tian said something like that once," Yuito recalled, "maybe I didn't listen that well."
"Talking to Tian can sometimes be tiresome," his father laughed, "yet he is..."
Suito was interrupted when he heard the door to the cathedral open.
"I'll be right back," he said, before exiting the room, but Yuito just followed straight after him in some distance.
"Eva?" he heard his father say, as he woman in white approached him through the aisle, "has our problem been dealt with already? It's crazy how you still manage to surprise me to this day."
"Don't worry," Eva said in her light, feminine voice, "he has been handled. Nothing will stand in our way now."
"He?" Suito asked and suddenly stopped confused, but before he could react, Eva pounced on him and pinned him to the ground.
Except that she was not actually Eva.
"You will not destroy this world, not while I'm still breathing," Yuito heard a raspy, dark voice say, only to see that it was Ava who was holding his father down by his neck.
"Get away from him you bitch," the boy screamed, running towards the both of them.
"Don't come any closer kid," his father tried to stop him, with Ava reassuring him.
"He's right, don't. I only have to kill one of you," Ava raised one arm up, which released a black bubble that immediately wrapped around the two, "but I won't hesitate to kill you both."
As soon as he saw the bubble, Yuito realized what was gonna happen. Ava trapped his father inside a forcefield. They would have a Contest of Champions.
Having her victim successfully trapped, Ava released her grip, allowing Suito to stand up.
"Kill me?" he said, still panting and holding his throat, "it takes more than a Contest of Champions to kill me. If what your sister said is any indication, you're barely strong enough."
"Maybe," she retorted, taking her stand on the other side of the dome, "maybe I can't kill you. Maybe I can. But what I can do either way is to stall you."
"You want to keep me locked up until the convergence has passed?" Suito laughed, "that is your master plan? Honestly for something a thousand years in the making I'd have expected better."
"Getting cocky, are we?" Ava replied, "My previous plans have failed, otherwise you wouldn't still be here. Plus, you have a very short time window when it comes to the last part of the ritual. Can you make that?"
"How about we just get started, bitch?" he retorted, starting up his Duel Disk, "I'll kick your ass in record time."
"Oh why the hurry, when we could still have a little chatter," Ava said, but nonetheless started her Duel Disk up as well, "but if you insist, I shall comply."
Ava: 4000 LP
Suito: 4000 LP
One couldn't say that Jeanie had a sense for subtlety.
Of course her Raid Airship was the least sneaky form of transportation that the three of them could have chosen to reach her underground throne room and retrieve her Duel Disk, but to top it all of, she decided to go in guns blazing and shoot at everything that moved.
Her monsters guns were on full auto as they soared across the city, riddling every monster, as well as every man that Jeanie recognized among the lot with bullets. Calming her had no use, Keiji had tried. She was just too furious at everybody down there for disobeying her, so she decided to carry out her will while she still could.
Of course it was only a matter of time until someone decided to fight back.
The wave of flying monsters Jeanie dispatched easily. Solid vision guns never went out of ammo.
But as soon as they got into viewing distance of their destination, a giant white arm shot from among the skyscrapers, grabbing hold of the airship.
"What the fuck is that?" Daichi asked confused.
"Not the slightest idea," Jeanie yelled, ordering Raid Airship to launch its missiles, "but I'm not gonna bother."
Tiny explosions riddled the being, and it did actually let go, before it shrunk back in size.
"See, wasn't that hard, was it?" Jeanie said, trying to sound convinced.
She was quickly disproved when the ship shook from another impact and causing all the three passengers to turn their heads to the window.
They saw the white arm, albeit much smaller and attached to a giant white creature that hissed at them from outside. It had a large cone-like head filled with three lines of razor-sharp tears and while it lacked any eyes, it seemed perfectly aware of its whereabouts.
As it crawled upwards onto the balloon, they could see that the arm that had previously attacked them was actually one of the beasts six legs. It's body seemed like a strange mix of several insects and animals, as it resembled a spider more than anything – evidenced by the six legs, but its upper body stood upwards like a twisted centaur. There it sported two more limbs, which ended in large mantis claws.
And it immediately put those to use, clawing into the fabric of the balloon and releasing the gas inside.
"Fuck," Jeanie yelled as she looked out the front window, "we're losing altitude!"
"What?" Keiji asked in disbelief, "this is a solid vision airship! Shouldn't we just continue floating?"
"Ask the ground when he hit it!" Daichi yelled as the concrete came ever closer.
Jeanie tried to maneuver Raid Airship between the skyscrapers, but eventually ended up grazing, shaking the entire airship.
"Did I shake it off?" she asked, with Keiji taking a second to understand what she meant.
"You try to get rid of the monster by flying through buildings? Are you trying to kill us?"
"I either maybe kill you, or that thing definitely kills you, so shut up and let me do my thing!"
"You did your thing a lot today and see what it lead to!"
Before Jeanie could retort something, she was interrupted by the sound of broken glass right next to them and saw that the beast had crawled onto the other side of the ship and broken into the control room.
"Okay, we're close enough now," she said, before grabbing Keiji by his uninjured arm and pulling him away from the broken windows.
"What do you mean close enough," Keiji asked, but instead of an answer, Jeanie opened the door and jumped right out of it, pulling her brother out behind her.
Through his screams as they fell towards the street, he could hear Daichi scream 'What the fuck!?' before apparently jumping after them.
At least judging by his screams. Either he jumped or the beast got him and he certainly hoped it would be the latter.
As the concrete came closer and closer Keiji needed to close his eyes before the impact.
And it was hard. The hit pushed all the air out of his lungs, making him gasp for air as he… sank? Keiji sank deeper and deeper into the ground as his fresh new skin parts burned like fire, but, that was it. No broken bones, no cracking skulls, nothing.
When he was finally able to catch a breath again, he opened his eyes, only to see that they had landed on one of Jeanies smaller blimps. One with an elastic surface. Like a big balloon.
"Come on, its gonna catch on to us," his sister yelled at him, before Daichi grabbed hold of him and helped him climb down the blimp.
"You could have told me..." he tried to say but was silenced by a loud noise as Jeanies Raid Airship crashed into one of the nearby skyscrapers. Its gas eventually caught fire, incinerating the whole ship in a giant explosion.
"That's not solid vision," Jeanie exclaimed breathlessly.
"You're still alive."
The three of them turned their heads to see a young girl with short white hair and a dress standing in the middle of the road right in front of them.
"Eva?" Jeanie asked her confused, "what are you doing here?"
"You know this lady?" Daichi asked.
"So do you, just not like this," she replied, "that's Ever White, just without her mask."
"You knew who Ever White was all along?" Keiji asked, "why did you never tell anyone?"
"Because she told me in confidence. I'm not a backstabber."
"People might have differing opinions on that," Keiji retorted, "how far to your throne room?"
"Just around the corner," Jeanie said, "we can run there."
"No you're not," Eva said, "you're not going anywhere."
"What do you mean?" Jeanie said confused, "we need to put an end to this war."
"And I have an avid interest in keeping this war ongoing," she replied, "you're staying right here."
"Wait," Keiji finally caught onto it, "when Yuito dueled you, he said he had… visions, about the Crosspoints. And tonight, the convergence would take place, where all six Crosspoints have to be at the same spot, with two people fighting over a wish, Yuito having to be one of them. Is this what this is about?"
Eva just chuckled at this: "You're a smart little prince, aren't you?"
"Answer his question," Daichi yelled at her, "or I'll make you."
"I'm not scared of you. I doubt you'd ever beat up a little girl. Or, should I say, beat up a little girl again, daddy?"
"I'm gonna fucking kill this bitch!" Daichi yelled and was about to storm straight at her, but Jeanie held him back.
"Wait!" she said, "Eva what is going on?"
"If you really need to know," as the girl spoke, a small white sphere appeared in her hand, which slowly grew in size until it wrapped around the four of them, "at the moment, this civil war is the only thing that makes the boy with the Elder Blood join our efforts, so I will have to keep it running just a little while longer."
Eva then pulled out her Duel Disk and started the dueling interface: "And you needn't worry about stopping any wars. Once we are done, wars will be a relic of the past. But until then, are you all familiar with the rules of a Contest of Champions?"
"Yes," Keiji said as he started up his Duel Disk, along with Jeanie and Daichi, "but a Contest of Champions requires two equal sides. We're three versus one here."
"Oh I noticed," Eva retorted, "I'm afraid you'll have to put up with the disadvantage."
Eva: 4000 LP
Keiji: 4000 LP
Jeanie: 4000 LP
Daichi: 4000 LP