Title: To Win Is To Live
Characters: Haou
Chapters: 1-1||Words: 583
Genre: Angst||Rated: PG
Written For: GX Month 2022, day #3, playing to win
Notes: Takes place before Jim, O'Brien, and Shou find out who Haou is.
Summary: There is a reason that Haou plays to win - because playing for fun ended up killing so many he cared about. No more.

Haou did not play for fun. Playing just for the enjoyment, for going up against someone as skilled or even better than he might be was a thing of the past. Now he dueled for one reason and one reason only - to kill other people, to claim their souls for Super Fusion and to establish his rule over this world.

He would never return to the human world. Being there without those who had passed would be a fate he'd never sentence himself to, and even if he could, he couldn't bring himself to face those who had been left behind. They would already be disappointed enough in him. He was already disappointed enough in himself.

So he would stay here. He would rule. He would create Super Fusion in its entirety and he would accomplish this. Johan might be no more - might be dead - but Yubel would be out there somewhere, and he would find them. What he would do when he found them he hadn't yet decided.

Avenge all the deaths, he decided. There wasn't much else that he could do. He remembered Yubel, but he couldn't be certain of much else. Why they claimed to love him. Why they were so angry. Surely it couldn't have meant that much - and yet somehow it did.

There were things that he'd forgotten. He'd always been aware of that. He'd just never thought about it all that much. It had been a time when he was a child, and he'd been told he was very sick. He still wasn't sure about all the details, but it had been after he'd sent in the Neo-Spacian cards to Industrial Illusions.

Sometimes, if he tried very hard, he could recall a voice speaking to him then. Had it been Yubel's voice? He thought it might have been. Even now it was so difficult to remember clearly and he usually didn't try.

He had too much to do now to worry over what he'd forgotten. Regardless of why it happened, Yubel came in search of him and Johan paid the price for that, as had all the others. Somewhere in the world hid Shou and O'Brien and Jim - and he could do nothing for him but work to keep them safe, in a way they'd never approve of.

Because he fought to win now. Because he didn't dare lose a single duel, because doing that meant everything he'd fought so hard for meant nothing. Meant that those who died, died for nothing, and he would not allow that. He'd gone too far. He'd done too much. To let it slip away by the simple loss of a duel - no. Never. Not ever.

Those who served him had no idea of why he wanted any of this. They knew that he wanted Super Fusion and to rule but not why. He wasn't going to tell them. No one needed to know.

They only needed to win. So he set the example and they followed. Just like it had been in Duel Academia - but with the added bonus that he knew it this time and he would make sure it kept on happening. Winning might not put everything back the way that it had been but it would keep everything from getting worse.

And if his exploits happened to bring those who survived close to him - well, there were places in his realm for anyone, as long as they could win.

The End

Notes: Always fun to write Haou! I like to dig around in his head and see what's there.