Roman reached up to his prosthetic arm, gripping a small cord, "You may think that you have won, but with the Reactor awake, the King of the Netherworld will arrive at sunset unless every tower has been locked. But you will not be here to help the other Signers."

He yanked on the cord violently, and an explosion ripped out from his location as he turned to dust.

In a panic, I tried to rush back to the others, but the bridge was falling beneath me. I reached out, trying to grab anything, literally anything, to hold onto to stop from falling.

A rope slid past my hand, moving out of my reach before I could do anything, leaving me to fall.

The lights swirled around me, and after them, the world was black.


Blinking a few times, I cleared my vision to see a world of purple. Everything in sight was differing shades of the offending color, and appeared very dead.

So, is this the Netherworld? If so, I guess that means that I'm dead.

A chilling moan came from behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin as I whipped around. White ethereal beings were rising out of the ground behind me, stumbling in my direction as they broke free of the earth.

"What the heck?"

My left arm was pulled sharply to the back, and I twisted to see another of these things holding onto me. As its grip tightened, my arm flared up, glowing a brilliant red. Images flashed through my mind like a stop motion film.

A bright beam of light shooting up into the sky.

The earth splitting apart as buildings collapsed.

People running for their lives as the world kept shaking, while waves swept over them.

Zero Reverse. These spirits must be the people killed when the Reactor went off!

I yanked on my arm as hard as I could, "Get away from me!"

My balance went off as the ground shifted underneath me. In the blink of an eye, dozens of hands gripped me, each one of them shoving me downwards.

The force with which they were grabbing me was unbelievable. Every time I tried to free either of my arms, the other was pulled. My shirt was being pulled on, my head was being pushed, they were coming at me from every angle.

With a pop, my right arm vanished underneath the ground. I pushed up with my legs, frantically trying to pull my arm free as the other one was shoved under.

Instantly, the hands grew more pushy, each reaching out to shove me completely under as my heart raced out of control.

No matter how far underneath they pushed me, they weren't pleased. I squirmed as hard as I could, desperate to get out as my chest sank in.

A blinding flash of white light dissolved the ghosts directly around me, "Spirits of the Reactor, leave this Signer alone. She's trying to atone for your deaths."

The rest of them slowly faded away, leaving me alone with the light. It pulsed briefly, freeing me from the ground, "I'm sorry about that, Yusei. It's not your time. You don't belong here."

It drifted away from me, leaving my mind racing as I was trying to figure out where I had heard that voice before.

Wait. That's Dad's voice.

Racing off in the direction that the light had gone, I forced myself to ignore the burning pain that filled my legs and arms from all of the Shadow Duels that had happened.

After a long stretch of time, my body was struggling to keep going. I stumbled to a stop next to a pond, where the bright light formed over the water.

I looked up at it, "Dad, is that you?"

My heart pulsed as the light formed into the shape of a ghost, looking just like he did in all of my pictures. His expression was completely unreadable as he spoke, "I'm glad to see you, but I wish that you weren't here. You're still needed on Earth with the other Signers."

"But..."

He started floating backwards, "You have to be there for your friends."

I chased after him, my feet slashing the water everywhere, "Don't leave me again! Come back!"

"Yusei, you need to go now."


For a brief moment, the world was spinning out of control, then the next thing I was aware of was that my arm was burning. Arms grabbed me and lowered me to the ground, gently placing me down.

"Yusei, wake up!"

"Come on sis, open your eyes!"

"Yusei?"

A groan slipped out of my mouth as I slowly blinked my eyes open. Standing over me was the twins, Crow, and Trudge, who were all looking at me with differing levels of concern, "What happened?"

Crow knelt down next to me, reaching an arm behind my back to help me sit up, "You fell into the Reactor, and were gone for about half an hour. We weren't sure if we were going to see you again."

Luna came to my side, "Are you okay?"

I looked her in the eye, trying to smile at her, "Emotionally? Jury's out. Physically? Never do this many Shadow Duels in one day."

Crow laughed, "No kidding, I'm so sore after mine, and you were in two!"

Leo looked at him, "No, three. She dueled Roman last night and he bailed."

My brother's expression changed rapidly, "Seriously? That jerk!"

Reaching up, I shifted around, "Could someone help me up?"

Trudge grabbed my hand, while Crow pushed me from behind. Every single muscle screamed in agony as they were forced back into action, "Let's get out of here. I have enough bad memories here to last a lifetime."

Crow pulled my arm over his shoulder, helping me up the stairs. While we were going up, he handed me a framed picture, "I found this when I went down the back way."

It showed my parents holding a black haired baby. Dad's hair was so easy to remember, but there were few pictures of Mom, "I almost forgot what Mom looked like. Thanks Crow."

Suddenly a strange feeling went up my still-burning arm. I looked at it, watching it flash then vanish as Leo yelled, "That's what happened right before Yusei summoned the wicked cool dragon!"

As I watched the marks disappear, I realized what happened back then, My friends gave me their powers so I could save Kiryu. And to show that, the full mark appeared on my back. So that means that Jack needs our help to save his Dark Signer.


We were almost out of the crater when the marks returned, and for one second I could feel a grief that I knew well. The pain of losing someone you loved.

Jack loved whomever he just battled. Whether or not he knows it yet.

I started walking to my runner, and Crow jumped in front of me, "What are you doing?"

Raising my eyebrow, I stared him down, "Going to make sure that Aki wins. It's two hours to sunset, and by the time I get there, it's going to be really close. Can you go make sure that Jack locked his tower?"

He nodded, "Be careful. I don't want to lose you again."

I playfully shoved him, "I'll be careful to not stand on a bridge with a Dark Signer."

A classic Crow smirk came back to his face, "Fine, I'll take what I can get."

Trudge pulled up next to my runner as I climbed on, "Are you sure that you want to ride your runner?"

"Yes. You don't know this because you've always been on the side of the law, but us Satellites often don't sleep for a couple days for safety's sake. I can make it."

We set off together, with me finding the path for the car, putting most of the jumps that I normally would do out of the question. As it was, multiple times I would hear one or both of the twins yelp in surprise as we went off a small jump.


A/N: Thanks to Let's-Go-To-Vermont and an anonymous Guest for reviewing on the original version of this chapter!