Hello everyone. Hope you guys all have a good day and welcome to my first ARC-V fanfic story!
I, like many of us here, had high hopes for ARC-V at the beginning with the grand scale and premise of it all; then we all knew what happened. There are many good stories here that are undeniably better than the mess we had at the end but not many of them place Yuri and Selena as the central focus so I decided to do one.
Inspired by good stories in this website that are either completed or discontinued, this story takes place at the end of the Xyz arc but there are major differences to fit my vision. You will find out as you read this story.
Apologize for any improper literature writing in advance since English is not my main language and I just write this story because I want to do so that badly.
Enjoy reading!
Spiral 1: Pain of Love
Fire.
Debris.
Smoke.
Corpses.
The only immediate recognizable remains of the once-standing primary Academia base, now in control of the Resistance.
A large, purple, humanoid-shape machine hovers above the destroyed military stronghold, its red eyes pierce through the dark sky faintly lit up by the color reddish orange of the raging fire below. The abomination of war emotionlessly admires the result of its sudden attack before slowly vanishing from the sky above.
"Masks on!" A young man's voice from the ground, carried with command. A few seconds later, twenty people in military uniform wearing fire masks storm in the ruin.
"Card anyone still breathing, especially three male individuals Sakaki Yuya, Yuto and Yugo, capture two primary targets Kurosaki Ruri and Rin alive! We don't have much time before their reinforcements come up so be quick! Three minutes max!"
"Roger that!" The entire team says in unison and then marches in the place, leaving one man in charge and another person wearing a hood behind.
He turns to the direction the other person was standing.
"I don't know why you deflected back to us, but at least you proved your worth. That does not mean we trust you one hundred percent yet and probably never will, remember that."
The other person points at the destroyed base in front of them.
"Call that my proof of loyalty. Don't forget you lost all the other girls out of your grip, and I did give you the position of the last girl in Fusion, right in our home world. At least Dennis has some work to do now." A clear and firm voice, countering the cold and calculating one of the leader. "And I do know, Edo, there is no way Academia would accept my offer unless they are running low on capable soldiers."
"Whatever you say, freaking side-switcher…" An emotionless response from Edo. "It's true we lost our control in Heartland, but the primary plan is still going on strong. You already lost our trust on you once little girl, so feel free to try anything stupid again." He slightly raises his left hand in front of him, pointing his Duel Disk at the girl's eye sight. A clear threat on her life. She does not say anything in return but the quiet glare to his murderous eyes was enough for a response.
They return their focus to the scene happening in front of them. Resistance soldiers are futilely fighting back with their bare hands as the sudden bombing from a Chaos Giant also deactivated their Duel Disks like an electromagnetic pulse somehow, removing their only defense against the soul-imprisoning technology of Academia. Watching them getting pinned down, engulfed in purple light and seeing cards of their terrified faces printed out of the Duel Disks does nothing to Edo, who got used to this everyday brutality made by Academia's hands, and the girl, if she did not keep her wavering emotion in check.
That is right, the young girl was feeling conflicting emotions. Defecting from Academia is already hard; no matter how imprisoned she felt in that place, it was also the place she spent years growing up in, making several connections despite Academia forbidding every soldiers in there to do so. She still regretted leaving those few precious people in there to suffer in Academia to this day. With the Lancers and the Resistance, she had made new connections, new friends, she fought with them, and for the first time brought true decisive victory for the Xyz dimension. So everyone in their right mind must wonder why did she betray them all to return to that sick hole?
Selena already has an answer for it, but she wishes nobody would know, at least not now.
As she wonders on her decision, several soldiers brought out two people.
Girls, unconscious, different clothes but same face structure.
"Edo-sama, we got them. Kurosaki Ruri and Rin." A soldier reported.
"Good job. Tie them up." The soldier brought out two metal, mechanical handcuffs and tied the girls' arms behind their back. The hooded girl kept staring at them, her eyes not showing any emotions, but for once or twice, they would twitch a bit.
"How about the others?"
"No sign of Sakaki Yuya, Yuto or Yugo here but everyone else is carded already sir."
Edo sighs slightly but he does not let that bother him. "Quite a pity, but the main objective is done."
He turns to Selena. "You said those three boys would be here Selena. You kidding with me?"
"I don't know…" Selena is honest and Edo can feel it through her facial clues. "They probably went to other bases or somewhere else. It's been a few hours since I contacted Academia after all. If you people trusted me a little earlier, then you would have everything you wanted now."
Despite wanting to lash out at her so bad, Edo knows Selena is not wrong at all. He simply shrugs and watches everything going on.
Good, at least a silence to calm herself down will help her greatly.
"What the…?" Edo mutters at something in front of him.
Great…
Some kind of commotion broke off the silence. Far away from her and Edo, a young man breaks free of the grasp of Academia soldiers and tries to make a run towards them. The dark blue coat and the grunt make it clear to her who it is.
"Kurosaki Shun…" Edo grits his teeth under the mask. "That asshole…!"
"Ruri!" Shun screams her name hard while dashing madly towards her location. Two Academia soldiers quickly knock him down, leaving a painful gulp coming out of his mouth. They bring him up to his knees in front of Edo and ensures that he had handcuffs attached.
"Kurosaki Shun…" Edo repeats his name with barely concealed hatred. He takes of his mask, walks towards him, ignoring the fearful eyes of the Resistance menace looking at Ruri and Rin, and delivers a powerful uppercut to his stomach. Shun yelled painfully from the sudden hit. The hooded girl flinches her eyes in shock, she hopes no one has seen that even if the mask already does the job for her.
Edo punches Shun again, this time in his face.
Another punch. Blood flying out of his nose.
Another punch. Shun's left eye swells.
Another punch. A tooth flying out of his mouth.
Another punch. Shun nearly falls down on his back if not for those two soldiers keeping him at place.
Another-
"Enough Edo!" Selena catches his fist, not wanting any of this to continue. "We don't have time for whatever petty shit you are doing! Reinforcement is on the way now!" Edo glares at her, breathing heavily, trying to shake his arm off her strong grip. A few seconds of exchanged staring without words, no one dares to do anything.
"…S… Sir…?" A soldier says shakily, not completely sure on what to do, though his stance is clear on pinning Selena down and away from his boss. Same thing with the remaining solders who has finished carding the Resistance and returned to the front gate of the base.
Edo calms down, his breathing returns to normal. He looks away and puts his bloodied hand down.
"It's fine."
"It's not fine beating him up like that! Just card him already!"
"He ruined my mission here okay bitch?" Edo raises his voice at Selena. "Now shut up!"
"Hey… wait…" Shun weakly mouths; from the way he got beaten up, even talking is a hard job for him at this moment. He looks like he must have been summoning all of his remaining strength to even move his head around.
"You…" He stared at the masked girl. It is no mistaking, even if the hood and the mask cover her features, the voice still gives away who that girl is.
"Selena…!?"
Selena freezes up, not saying anything in return. Only her wide eyes beneath the tinted glass of the mask shows Shun her emotion. She can feel her body slowly trembling, cold breeze running through her skin.
"Is that you… Selena…?" Shun mumbles nearly unrecognizably due to missing a tooth, total disbelief visible on his trembling voice.
Selena takes a sigh, then she removes her mask, showing her face to him.
"Yes… it's me… Kurosaki Shun." She refuses to look at him, not wanting to break down from seeing the face of her former friend.
"Why… Selena…?" Shun asks. He still cannot believe what he is seeing right now. One of the Lancers, his fire-forged friend to boot, is standing with Academia, his enemy? He cannot fathom that at all. "Why did you do this…?"
"Well…" Edo speaks up. He places a firm grip on Selena's shoulder, slightly flinching her. "This little bitch here finally realizes where she really belongs I suppose. I admit her intel is useful though, now we have all the girls and pretty much destroy the core Resistance." Selena refuses to look at either one of them, trying her best to keep her stone-cold face in check.
"Dammit Selena! Why?!" Shun yells, Selena does not react at all. "Why do you work with that son of a bitch?"
"Why Selena? Did Academia force you to do this?"
"We're friends Selena! Say something!"
Selena cannot hold it anymore. If Shun wants answers, sure, she will give it. She harshly throws Edo's hand off her shoulder and turns to Shun. The strong fire against the surrounding darkness lights up her left side and hides the right side behind the shadow.
"They did not force me Kurosaki, I did all of this on my own."
The answer breaks whatever left in Shun down. He stares at her in shock, not saying a word, but the emotions of pain and shock and hatred were clear on his face.
"She's right Kurosaki." Edo says. "A few hours ago she contacted us and made a deal. A rank-up in return for the three girls' location. Have to admit I don't trust her at all but somehow the Professor does, but hey, it worked right?"
"You kidding me right…?" Shun mumbles, then he suddenly yells. "Is this a freaking joke right Selena?! You can't be doing this to all of us! We were friends Selena!"
Friends, right. They were friends to her, dear friends even. But now, they are no more, and she is not happy about this either…
"I wish it was…" She weakly answers. "But it's true Kurosaki, nobody forced me to do this to all of you."
"All right, enough chit-chat." Edo approached the still shocked Shun and prepares to card him. Suddenly a bright white light emitted in front of him, blinding everyone present.
"What happened?" A soldier says after regaining eyesight and ear sight.
"A flashbang card?!" Selena eyed at the card in front of Edo and Shun.
"Who threw it?" Edo looked around. "Wait! Where are Shun and the two girls?!" It was true. They were no longer here.
"They're behind us!" A soldier yells as he finally sees Rin, Ruri and Shun running away from them. They are now very near the front gate.
"Not that easy idiots!" Edo quickly manifests a Duel Anchor, turns around and throws it as far as he can to the front entrance. Selena can only see the outcome of this quick action: the hard light red anchor holding Shun in place who apparently pushed the other two girls away in front of him to avoid suffering the same fate.
"Brother!" Ruri yells at him, trying to get to him while Rin holds her still.
"Run now Ruri, Rin! Leave me!"
"But-"
"They're coming Ruri!" Rin points at the approaching soldiers.
"Now!" Shun yells as hard as he can while he kicks a soldier away. "Keep her safe Rin!"
"I will!" Rin uses all of her strength to force Ruri to run away with her. Ruri reluctantly does so, leaving her dear brother behind. The last thing she managed so see from him was a small smile of relief from Shun, knowing her sister was safe.
"Shit!" Edo curses. "Chase them!"
"Roger that!" The soldiers run towards the two girls. Edo runs towards Shun and kicks him in the stomach after deactivating the anchor. "Screw you you freaking asshole!"
"Edo stop!" Selena tries to do something but he throws her away. The Destiny HERO duelist inserts a card into his Duel Disk, then he grabs Shun by the shirt to lift him up.
Without a word, he uses his right hand to grab something materialized on his right, keeping his angry eyes on Shun.
And with a quick movement, he lungs the object to Shun's heart.
Shun gasped, his eyes opened wide, immediately feeling the object plunged into his chest. He shakily looks down to see a knife stabbed in his heart, blood oozing out from the spot. Gritting his teeth hard, Edo then twists the knife further into Shun before pulling it out.
The blade dematerializes, the red blood previously on it falls down to the ground.
Edo lets go of his grip on Shun and the Resistance soldier falls down on his back. Blood running out fast from the wound and on his mouth.
Selena watches the entire scene going on with pure shock on her face, her hands covering her mouth in total disbelief. She stumbles on her way up, unable to accept what was going on.
"Edo…" She finally says something after seeing Shun's dying state, trying her best not to cry. "What the hell did you just do…?"
Edo does not say anything besides quick shallow breathes.
"Sir! The Resistance is coming!" Edo receives the report from his earpiece and from the direction Rin and Ruri ran away, he can see his team frantically running back to his place. Behind them was a ton of red scarf soldiers. Selena even sees Sakaki Yuya riding Odd-Eyes, Ruri and Yuto hanging on the flying Dark Rebellion and Yugo madly riding his D-Wheel towards the base while carrying Shiun'in Sora as the passenger.
"We got Rin back but lost Ruri to them! What are we gonna do now sir?"
"We don't have time anymore Edo!" Selena reminds him. "The entire Resistance is on the way!"
"Shit!" Edo curses under his breath. "Return to Academia now!"
"Roger that!" The soldiers touch their Duel Disks, activating the function to teleport. Blue light engulfs all of them as the Resistance futilely tries to grab at least one of them or even Rin back.
With no other choice, Edo turns to Selena. "We'll capture Kurosaki Ruri later, return to Academia now."
Without saying anything, both of them teleport out of Xyz, leaving the Resistance and Ruri behind. The last image she saw of this dimension before getting out was the dying form of Kurosaki Shun, and his fading eyes staring at her.
…
…
…
"Is that you… Selena…?"
"Why… Selena…?"
"Is this a freaking joke right Selena?!"
"You can't be doing this to all of us!"
"We were friends Selena!"
Those words keep resonating in front of her mind even when the running water from the shower head pours down on her slender form. She was supposed to find peace in her own personal space in her private room, but the moment she walked into the shower and took a look at her youthful yet tired face, all of the traumatizing experience back in Xyz flooded back into her mind.
It was all her fault that things became like this.
The tears slowly form in her eyes.
"No… not now…" Selena wipes the tears way and steels herself up. She has no time to mellow out and melt down her regrets into tears right now, not until she finishes the stupid plan that she set out. The girl quickly finishes taking shower and wears her former Osiris Red uniform. It is funny how, the once degrading costume that marked the low point of her Academia career, is now the only thing giving her any sort of comfort. The smell of good old times perhaps.
As per the deal she made with the Professor, she would give the position of the three girls and after that she would receive a promotion that he promised to be equal to Academia's top enforcers. She was given a few hours to rest before going to his room for the ceremony and the Fusion girl wasted no time in immediately retreating to her small heaven while avoiding everyone on the way, especially that asshole Edo Phoenix.
But in truth, she highly suspects this ceremony is actually a trap.
If Professor wants to capture Yuzu, Ruri and Rin alive, Selena knows she will be the next one on the list as well. Four boys with the same faces and four girls looking exactly like one another, all eight of them must have a connection somehow. The moment Selena walks into the room, there is an 80% chance she will be captured; no one is willing to trust a betrayer like her and she knows it.
Therefore, from now on, she only has 30 minutes to set out what she really wants to do.
Taking a deep breath, she opens the door and finally walks outside. Along the way, other Academia personnel cannot stop taking a glance at her; beneath the straight-ahead eyesight she makes Selena notices some envious ones from the Osiris Red lackeys, barely-concealed hatred from higher-ranking ones. They all wondered why a defector like her suddenly got returned into their ranks and even got a huge promotion even. No time to care about it though, she has to keep going.
But first off, time to look at her "result". Got to make the mask convincing, just 10 minutes is enough, and she would still have 20 more on the clock.
Selena makes a turn to the lower floor where the prison is. The two guards standing in the front metal door block her way.
"What are you doing?" Apollo asks. He along with his sister Diana standing next to him are the two guards that previously guarded Ruri and Rin in separate towers. They did a bad job at it though since the girls escaped and if not for Selena, they would not be keeping their job now. She still wondered why Professor did not just card them right after their failure though, perhaps he foresaw how understaffed Academia is right now.
"Checking the prisoners. Let me in."
"Whatever you said to convince Professor." Diana leers at her.
"I know…" Selena cuts her off. "I don't need you guys to trust me, but Professor clearly does, and I'm about to rank up higher than you two."
"Still not now. We can card you right on the spot."
"And face the wrath of Professor?" Selena reminds them. "I don't think so."
Ignoring the angry duo, Selene walks in. A dark room lit up by small white neon lights, showing ten small cells behind strong steel doors. Eight doors are open and two are closed, marked with red lights.
Taking a breath to calm herself down, Selena pulls the peephole cover of the two cells open and peeks in the closet one. The darkness inside does not hide away the fearful and terrified look of the young prisoner inside.
Hīragi Yuzu.
"Hello Yuzu." Selena greets her. Yuzu slowly approaches the door, the hatred in her face is clear as day, contrasting the blackness of the room the poor girl is in. "Cozy in there? I suppose it's better than the bombed hideout outside the city. Shame that Sakaki Yūshō and Tenjōin Asuka are nowhere to be found though, tough duo."
"Why Selena?" The same question Shun asked her. "We trusted you to go to Xyz to help the Resistance and Lancers there, and all of a sudden you betrayed us?!"
"Don't listen to her Yuzu!" Rin yells from her other cell, her spiteful eyes piercing through my skin. I returned the look with my usual stoic face. "She played us all. She was working with Academia all the time."
Selena would want with all of her heart to say to Rin how wrong it was but she knew it would never work at all. She made the choice, she had to deal with the consequences.
"That's right." She plays along with the lies despite how painful it is. "I was never by your side Rin, Yuzu."
"But we were friends Selena!" Yuzu says, again, Shun's words. In a moment Selena swears she could see Shun's face over imposing Yuzu's. Selena discretely shakes her head, trying to remove his image out of her head. "You even said it yourself Selena, we're friends for life! Was it all… just a lie?"
"…It is…" For some reason Selena found it hard to even mutter those words. She can only hope those two girls do not figure it out.
"Screw you Selena!" Rin sneers at her. "Yugo trusted you, the Lancers and Resistance trusted you! I thought I could too. Last night we even had a party and a large Entertainment Duel together with Yuya! And turned out you played us all the whole time! So many of us were carded thanks to you, betrayal bitch!"
"Selena…" Yuzu mutters after a silence. "Was Yuya carded…?"
Selena remains silent.
"Was he carded? Tell me!" Yuzu demands.
"I checked the carded victims…" Selena says. "And no, your boyfriend was not in the list. And so did yours Rin. And that's the truth."
The two captives do not say anything, but Selena could hear a small sigh of relief.
"Thank God…" Yuzu mutters under her breath.
"Huh, now you forgot everybody else?" Selena mocks her. "Tenjō Kaito, Sasayama Sayaka, Kōzuki Aren, the Arclight brothers, Crow Hogan, Sawatari Shingo, Shinji Weber. Do I need to bring those cards to you to remind you how you over-prioritize Yuya over everyone else?"
As Selena guessed, Yuzu shuts up immediately, her head hangs down in shame.
"Wait." Rin cut Selena off.
"What?"
"How about Kurosaki Shun? Was he carded Selena?"
Selena remains silent, not looking at either girls.
"Or not?" The Fusion girl felt like she got stabbed in the heart at that moment.
"Not? What do you mean Rin?" Yuzu wonders.
"Before I lost consciousness I kept looking at the base where he got captured. I did not see any purple light from his spot, I remember it clearly so don't lie to me Selena. What happened to him? What the hell did Edo do to him?"
The Fusion girl quickly responds. "It's not your business!"
"It is!" Rin yells. The two guards attempt to charge in but Selena wordlessly signals them not to. "He is my ally! Someone I trust with my life! I deserve to know what happened to him! And I will still be in here for whatever the Professor wants to do with me and Yuzu even if you say it or not, so it would not hurt a little telling me."
"Selena…" Yuzu whispered to her. "What happened to Kurosaki Shun… Is it like Rin said…?"
Selena silently swallows before turning to Yuzu. "You wanna know? Fine." She stands directly in front of the peephole, making the deadliest glare possible, creeping out the Standard girl a bit. "It's true that the Commander of Academia force in Xyz Edo Phoenix did not card him, instead…" She pauses a bit to let the two girls know how serious it is. "He killed him."
"What…?!" Both Yuzu and Rin cannot believe it.
"Kurosaki Shun is… dead?!"
"You kidding me right…?!"
"I am not, kidding." Selena confirms with a cold whisper. "Edo stabbed him with a blade, right into his heart. I could not believe it until I saw with my own eyes." She said with all of the coldness she could muster.
The two captives futilely shake their heads in denial, muttering "no" over and over until they crawl down next to the door and start crying. Betraying the Lancers and capturing the girls were bad enough, but when they break down like that, Selena know she cannot hold herself together any longer.
"Gonna be late for the promotion. Bye." And with that, Selena quietly goes out of the prison.
"Selena!" Yuzu calls her from her cell. Selena stands still despite not turning back to her.
"I don't buy into whatever bullshit you try to say to us. I know you enough to know you are not that type of asshole like that. You hate Academia!"
"Wild guess Yuzu. Don't try any illusion on me." Selena says in a monotone.
"That means you sold us out because of another reason right?" Yuzu says between sobs. "Something else you dearly hold onto? Something that important to sell us all out?"
"Or… someone else?" Selena's eyes widened. She silently cursed herself for accidentally leaking out one small detail during their stay together at Synchro. The girl wordlessly walks out and closes the door, leaving the sobbing girls behind…
…
…
…
"There it is…"
No, not the large, mostly empty place filled with large circular pillars that is Professor's room.
Selena has no intention to go there, to walk in the trap he has laid.
Someone else's.
That someone.
Knock knock knock.
No response.
Three more times.
Still nothing.
"Dammit… we promised you idiot! Where are you?"
"He's not here." A calm yet deep voice from behind. Selena quickly turns around, preparing for the worst.
Turn out, it is even worse.
Somehow Kurosaki Shun was there!
His face was bloodied and there was blood on where his heart is!
"Shun?!" Selena accidentally tripped over in fear, breathing heavily.
"Shun" quickly put one hand on her mouth to keep her quiet and whispers to her ear. "No Selena. It's me, it's me Barrett!"
"Barrett?!" Selena wipes her eyes and looks at the man. True, besides the coat with a hoodie over his head that looks quite similar to Shun's, that man was not Shun. He is Barrett.
"Yeah. War screws you up badly huh? I know that feeling weel little sweetie." He says with all of the warmth he could muster to the girl, who stares at him with tired and watery eyes.
Selena sighs in relief and hugs Barrett close to her.
This large, imposing 190 cm Russian-born-with-an-eyepatch man in front of her there is basically her father figure in her first 17 years of life. Rumor has it that Selena is a product of a call girl with a man without protection that the mother wanted to keep, then a year or two later she abandoned her due to not having enough money. A foster house then adopted her and she grew up in there until Professor took her for his Duel School, seeing her potential talent in Dueling. The soldier Barrett there was assigned to take care of her and other kids her age. Things were rough at first but eventually she opened up to him. "What are you…?!"
"He filled in everything for me after he last got back here, don't worry. But…"
"But what?"
Barrett says the next words with sadness. "Professor already made his move."
Selena fells her world completely collapsed, threatening to pull her down along with it. Her ears deafen, her heart stops breathing, everything in her body just feels like stop working at the news.
"No…! No way…!" She grabs Barrett's shirt and looks straight at him.
"Tell me Barrett! What did Akaba Leo do?"
Barrett says nothing, feeling unable to mutter anything else. He can only sadly look at the young girl's eyes.
"What did he do to Yuri?!"
Yep, that was the first chapter. Pretty dark so far right?
Gotta one-up Kaito's ZEXAL awesome final moment with a contrasting one, and who had to die better than the most awesome and arguably "real" main character Kusoraki Shun? I feel that with the Xyz arc, Shun has reached his final level of character development so I killed him off here.
Just like Frost190 and other writers, I do wholeheartedly agree that Selena and Yuri must have a connection in the past somehow. If Ray placed Yuzu near Yuya, Ruri near Yuto and Rin nears Yugo, there is no way she could not do the same to Selena and Yuri. Still screw Akaba Leo for destroying this bond though.
Next chapter preview
Spiral 2: Shaken Resolve
The Resistance and Lancers deal with the aftermath of Selena's betrayal.
