Cinqo
Today was like any other normal day in the Fudo household. Like always, everyone rose early and had breakfast before preparing to go their separate ways to work. The only difference, if we must find one, was that their son was missing from the dining room that was basking in the full light of the morning sun.
Despite repeated reassurances from Goodwin, the atmosphere in the house remained gloomy. Yusei had left for Satellite exactly two days ago, and nothing had been heard from him since. The news of his Security retinue's demise only made things even more glum. Both Professor Fudo and his wife had been through blaming themselves for allowing their son to go on that crazy journey. Now all they could do was to sit still and wait for any kind of news.
Buzz.
It was far too early in the morning to have a visitor, but the doorbell had definitely rung. As if startled out of their thoughts, Yusei's parents spent one millisecond staring at each other, then both sprang up from the dining table and ran to the door at the same time.
"Yusei –!"
"… No, though I'm certain he'd back very soon." An apologetic Rex Goodwin stood outside their door as the Fudos stared at him in eager expectation. "I'm sorry to call in this early, but I have urgent business that requires me to visit you before getting to work today, and I knew you'd both be up early."
"Don't worry, Rex." Despite her obvious expression of disappointment, Yusei's mother sighed and opened the door wider. ""Do come in."
"Thanks." Rex Goodwin stepped into the house with a nod. Yusei's parents backed away from the door. However, Goodwin did not move further into the house. He did not seem like he was here for a friendly, or long, talk.
"What brings you here so early anyways, Rex?" Yusei's father didn't bother to conceal the tiredness in his voice. "You could have called us at work. You didn't need to get all the way here."
"This arrived in a posted envelope at my house earlier this morning." Pulling a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket, Goodwin cut straight to the point. "Take a look. I think this is strange enough – and in current circumstances, urgent enough – to warrant an immediate visit to your house."
Curious and puzzled, the Fudos opened the folded piece of paper. It contained only two words; each letter crudely cut from various newspapers as if it was an imitation of anonymous ransom letters in crime novels. Tall and short, thick and thin, capital or not, the letters seemed to jump out of the page thanks to their stark and startling contents.
REmEmBeR dEMAK?
"Freaken' hell?" Yusei's father swore uncharacteristically. The letters, grotesque and out-of-sync with each other like tree roots grown out of their natural confines, reflected the light of the early morning sun with a devilish sheen of ink. Yusei's mother also let out an involuntary gasp as she registered the words, and Goodwin's face turned into an even paler shade of ashen grey.
Demak. It was the name of one of their own whom they had lost. With a project as demanding and ground-breaking as the development of Momentum, it was inevitable that the sanity of the men who took part in it were consumed whole. Demak was one such. In fact, he was the best that they had lost to madness, and in a manner more dramatic than any other.
The man had one day leapt into the giant hole that constituted the Momentum's turbine of light, the cylindrical container that extended all the way deep into the ground to contain the Yusei Particles and their unfathomable power. Demak had disappeared into this ethereal void, his body never found, and his was presumed dead seven years later according to Japanese law. Even when they cleared up and moved out of the Old Momentum site, the man's remains had not been discovered by the recovery team that braved the deep cavern. In a way, Demak had been a sacrifice for his team to obtain Momentum's divine power, a lone mind lost in the tumultuous calculations and theories that went on through the years to achieve Neo Domino's crowning glory.
Of course, they would remember him. They remembered him with a sharp pain and regret that kept the team silent for days at a time as they worked on the formula Demak left behind, remembered him as they gazed upon the twirling spiral of the Momentum turbine. Men do not forget their comrades whose lives had been lost on the way to their communal goal. The completion of Momentum served as an eternal reminder of their loss.
"What kind of sick joke is this?" Yusei's father squeezed those words out between his teeth.
"I've checked with the families of all of our previous team members already." Goodwin rubbed his eyes, not succeeding in erasing his fatigue. "It was tiring work, but they're all in the clear, including Demak's own family. It wasn't any of them. Thankfully, I still have the residential and phone numbers of the entire team from back when I was your assistant."
"Then –" Yusei's father's words caught in his throat. The implications of what he was thinking… was deemed as impossible.
"Then it has to be someone outside the original team who knew about Demak." With one hand on her husband's shoulder for support, Yusei's mother picked up where her husband left off. "But that's impossible. You – we – made sure that the sacrifices we made for Momentum were kept secret. No one would have gotten to it. Many records were destroyed over the years. If all of the team are clear, then there should be no other living human being who knew about this incident."
"No." Yusei's father held up a hand to stop his wife. "No, there is one other possibility, something that Rex and I had considered back then. Perhaps – perhaps –"
"Perhaps Demak wasn't dead after all." Goodwin finished.
The three old friends looked at each other. The corners of Goodwin's mouth were dropped downward in deep concentration, while Yusei's father's eyes were clouded with memories and his wife's face was evidently weary. Standing in the warm living room with the early sunlight filtering in through the blinds, they might well have been back in the cavernous Old Momentum research site more than two decades ago, chilly and damp and lit with only the eerie light of Momentum itself to guide the men through the darkness.
"What do you think?" Yusei's father spoke in a soft whisper. "I've devoted my entire life to Momentum. I no longer know the intrigues and the politics of the City. You're the Security Chief now; you must have heard of some rumours, must have some theories. What do you know of this, Rex?"
Goodwin didn't respond. With his back to the morning light, his face was swathed in the shadows that still lingered in the dark corners of the house. The expression on his steely face was unreadable in his silhouette cast by the slanted light.
"Rex…?"
"You're right, Professor Fudo." Goodwin's voice cut softly through the tense silence. "I do have an inkling to what is going on… I am sorry."
"Sorry?" Yusei's mother took in a sharp breath. "What is this, Rex?"
"I do not ask for your forgiveness, but know this: I did everything for the goodness of the City and of Momentum." Goodwin lowered his head. His voice shook a little, a little shiver that the politician quickly steadied. "I have kept the true reason for Rosewood's existence from you two for all these years."
"And that would be?" Yusei's mother's voice shook slightly. "Don't tell me that Demak is really still alive in there."
"No, he is not within Rosewood. But –" Goodwin paused, his brows creased in a light frown. For all that the Fudos knew, their old friend could well have been the lone guardian of this ominous secret, which had lain undisturbed for so long. His hesitance was understandable, but it seemed it was time for such old ghosts to be settled once and for all.
"When Rosewood was created, I sealed – him – in there as well."
"What… did you say?" Yusei's father gasped.
Goodwin leaned forward and bowed down before the Fudos, his shadow casting a perfect right angle of apology on the wall. In that position he stayed.
"I am… so sorry."
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"Alright, get moving, Yusei. Since you said you want to leave on the D-Wheel with me, you've gotta keep up first!"
"I'm coming, Crow!" Yusei gritted his teeth as he dashed after Crow to retrieve their D-Wheels from their hiding place. Crow had advised him to move across the open spaces quickly, in case that Kiryu still hovered in the skies somewhere above them. Yusei was doing his best to keep up with Crow's demand of speed, but he was still just a little bit unsteady on his feet.
"You sure you can ride, Yusei?" Crow didn't turn back as he kept shifting wood and fabric out of the way to reveal the two D-Wheels. "You better not crush halfway there."
"I can ride." Yusei quickly shuffled into the shade of one building and gave Crow a baleful look.
"I sure hope you can." Crow returned with a similar glare as he heaved the last piece of canvas off their D-Wheel. "You're from the City, so you'll have to follow me today. Don't want you to get lost."
"Thanks for the concern." Yusei grasped the handles of his D-Wheel when Crow handed them to him, his fingers curling firmly around the familiar hold. "I'll make it. Where are we going, anyways?"
"The orphanage that I grew up in." Crow fiddled with his own D-Wheel as he replied. "To be more precise, it's the place where Kiryu, Jack, and I grew up together. He would never attack there, and we can hopefully get more information once we arrive. It's about a 45-minute ride."
"All of you grew up there?" Yusei shifted his attention to Crow. Ever so slightly, he caught an odd tone in Crow's voice, and he was sure the Satellite-born man was deliberately avoiding eye contact with Yusei.
"If you're interested, I can tell you about it on the way there." Still keeping his eyes firmly on the D-Wheel, Crow started the engine. "And maybe a little bit more about what I did to Izayoi, as well?"
Yusei paused with Crow's unpleasant choice of vocabulary. "Go ahead, if you don't mind."
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After their first meeting, Crow made it a point to inquire after Aki from the guards every time he went to Rosewood.
The guards had little to say about her, and it seemed information was more and more scarce. He had all but despaired at the prospect of seeing her again. Therefore, he did not expect her to seek out his company on her own.
The nurses had loudly complained every time she walked toward him during his visits. She didn't seem to care, so neither did he. Secretly, he was glad. At least he could ensure that she would never go mute.
"How's Kiryu doing?"
"He's… away working… as usual."
"And you? How are you holding up, Izayoi?"
"I'm… doing fine. I'm getting out more… often now. Your… kids must be… doing the… same, Crow?"
"Yeah. The summer nights are so hot now that even these brats are staying up late. Been teaching them lots of math as a result. I've gotta say, this year is definitely hotter than usual."
"Really? It is… certainly hotter than City… summers. Is that how things are… in Satellite?"
"Oh, you're underestimating the smoke screen on top of us big time, Izayoi. There had been a few crazily hot summers about 10 years ago. Once it got so hot that the Security's vehicles couldn't patrol…"
Such idle chats were what they used to pass the time. Kiryu was always away doing whatever work Rosewood had its male inmates do, and Crow and Aki had a corner of the courtyard all to themselves. Crow knew the two of them were the subject of all the gossip in Rosewood that summer, and he also knew those rumours were all wrong. Aki admired Kiryu. The conversation involved Kiryu more than Crow himself, and her attachment to Kiryu was evident every time she mentioned him. He was her hope. Kiryu was the one who gave Aki a reason to live on, not Crow. As she had repeatedly told the grey-eyed man, Crow could not understand what Rosewood was like. But even if Crow pushed her, she refused to tell him what she meant. Though she welcomed his company, she had also shut him out of her world.
Crow would have been lying if he said he didn't mind, but he refused to be envious of Kiryu. Without Kiryu's leadership, Crow and Jack would never have stepped outside the narrow confines of the orphanage and became who they were now. What pained him more than that was seeing those invisible chains that bound Aki there. The girl was in limbo, living with one foot in reality and one seemingly out of it, lost in whatever drugs the institution had given her. Yet Crow couldn't do a thing for her. Rosewood did not kill; it simply kept its inmates till time took its eventual toll. Was someone as young and beautiful as Aki doomed to that fate? Crow didn't want to accept it. There were times when it became almost too much to bear, seeing that broken smile she had on her tear-scarred face. But something kept him from running away, something kept drawing him back. It was the hope that maybe he could make her just a little bit happier, after all.
He paid Rosewood regular visits every month like the predictable cycle of the moon. But his sun, his moon, his scarlet rose, only weaned and never waxed. The institution gave Aki less and less free time as the summer went on. He saw the longing in her eyes as he sold cards and lent Duel Disks to the guards, and he felt for her. It was one thing to imprison someone, but he didn't understand the rule against the game of Duel Monsters. The cards offended no one. Even the lowest beggars in Satellite manage to keep a deck of some sort. He couldn't – no, he wouldn't keep this last joy from her.
Therefore, on the hottest night of that summer, he put together a Plant-themed deck and presented it to her.
"For… for me?" She was stunned. She had never asked him for it, and he had never hinted. This gift was nothing like what she had expected.
"Well… er… I remember that you liked Plant cards." Awkwardly, he scratched the back of his head, his eyes wandering to look at anywhere but her face. "But… I mean… the best I can do is to lend it to you. You're under enough security as it is and keeping a deck would only make it worse. I'll be back later in the week…"
"No. That's… alright." She smiled, a real smile that lit up his heart. "I… completely didn't expect it. Thank you. Thank… thank you so much, Crow."
"Sorry I can't do more, Izayoi. I wish I could help you more, but –"
She stopped him with a shake of her head. "This is… already a lot. Really. I can't thank you enough, Crow."
He had a foolish grin on his face during the entire ride from Rosewood back to his hideout. In fact, it still lingered when he got back and settled down to make the kids dinner. The children noticed Crow nii-san was in a good mood, but he didn't respond to their eager questions, only patting their heads gently and told them to be good and go to sleep early. Savouring the small and painful joy in his own heart that night, he laid on his wooden hard bed awake and alone.
He would like to think that he had given a tiny piece of freedom back to her, if only for a little while.
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Crow fell silent. The only thing left for Yusei to hear was the sound of the wind whooshing past their D-Wheels as they galloped towards their destination. Looking at Crow, the other man's expression was impassive, but Yusei could imagine what must be churning in Crow's heart.
The silence between them drew out longer and longer. Crow didn't speak again, and Yusei didn't know what to say. He could guess the consequence of what Crow had done. How did the Satellite man managed to face the ruins of Rosewood? How did he bring himself to face Aki? Yusei didn't dare to think of that. Crow certainly gave Aki freedom – but it was not what he had envisioned out of the goodness of his heart.
"It's not your fault."
"… what?" Crow could hear his own voice shaking. He sniffed twice before turning to Yusei.
"It's not your fault, Crow." Yusei repeated himself. "You didn't know the truth. You were only trying to help her. I understand."
"I know whining over it is meaningless," Crow's voice was low, almost inaudible over the hum of the two D-Wheel engines, "but I can't deny the fact that I triggered everything that came after –"
"Then let's try to save her." Yusei interrupted before Crow could finish. He could read the guilt in Crow's eyes – and he wondered if his own irises reflected the same emotion. He remembered what he was thinking himself as he gazed over the dark sea towards Satellite, shrouded in a choking haze. He remembered what he felt when Goodwin showed him that broken video with Kageyama, with Aki's voice emotionlessly proclaiming her goal. Damn himself. Damn himself for letting Aki go, for selfishly hoping that everything would work out on its own, for having lost himself in the demands of the King.
What was he, as the King? What was a King if he could not even protect the least of his people?
"Let's try to save her together." Yusei lowered his head, the shadow of his helmet obscuring his eyes. "That's the least we can do for her."
Crow narrowed his eyes. Yusei's expression could not be read, but that shiver in his voice was something Crow was familiar with – he had heard it coming from his own mouth far more times than he could count.
"Yusei… just what was Izayoi to yo – ?"
He wasn't given the chance to complete his sentence. From the corner of his vision, he saw Yusei swerving savagely towards his Blackbird. Crow saw no other options but to decelerate, and narrowly missed out on a crash with Yusei's D-Wheel. Before he could demand an answer from Yusei, however, the King spoke in a hushed voice.
"Crow, you mentioned… Kiryu was going to give those black Duel Disks to other people in Satellite?"
"I thought –" Crow stopped midway through his sentence. "No way…"
"I think I saw them." Yusei gave a quick glance behind him, then kept his gaze at a shadow flying low above them. Crow had thought it to be a large sea bird of some sort, but now he had a better look, he knew he had been very mistaken.
"Is that… Baby Dragon?"
"And there are groups of… people on crude D-Wheels, going parallel with us on the street a block away." Peeking through the dilapidated buildings, Crow caught a glimpse of Satellite D-Wheels roaring past. "Damn it. We can't turn away now. This is the only road we can use to get Martha's from here. Hold on, Yusei!"
The Satellite man knew the two roads will eventually merge into one and lead them toward their destination. While something as weak as Baby Dragon was easily beatable, he knew most Satellite duelists were actually much more powerful than City folks tend to believe. If this comes to down to a battle between high level monsters, Crow could well be at a disadvantage.
Besides, this would not a duel. Rules did not exist here. The only things tested in a clash between Psychic Duelists were the attack powers of the monsters and the said monsters' abilities. For Crow, whose monsters were often weak in statistics and only strong when combined with other cards, smashing into the monsters of powerful players head-on would not be wise. Even so, he must do his best to keep them safe.
Crow reached into his Extra Deck. "Blackwing Armed Wing! Blackwing Armour Master!"
"Crow –?"
"Keep moving along the road, Yusei." Speeding up, Crow pulled himself abreast with Yusei's D-Wheel. "You'll see a courtyard up ahead. That'll be Martha's Orphanage. Get in and tell them I sent you. Hurry up and do that while I hold off these goons."
Yusei opened his mouth to protest, but he didn't make it. Crow's trouble eyes made him pause.
"You don't have a black Duel Disk, Yusei. Don't risk it."
Yusei swallowed what he was about the say. He was the King; he never ran from duels. But Crow was correct; he had momentarily forgotten that this was not a duel. This was a real, physical battle between monsters that had solidified in the real world. Biting his lip, he nodded to Crow, and started to move down the road with an inward sigh.
Were Kiryu and Aki truly planning to create an army of Psychic Duelists to overwhelm the City? As he rode on, he could hear Crow issue commands to his monsters, and the shrill yells of their pursuers wielding their monsters against Crow. While the monsters certainly overpowered humans, could they stand against the modern weaponry that the City possessed? What he was hearing were the shrieks of dragons and the sound of mighty wings taking into flight as Crow engaged into battle. But even if those monsters were weak, the despair the Satellite folk brought with them gave them strength. Yusei could now imagine just what kind of envy many people in Satellite surely had towards the City, towards its King. And that envy – can surely destroy a city.
"I've got you, King!"
Yusei swore under his breath and swerved hard to his left, narrowly missing a bolt of electricity that dove straight into the tarmac where his D-Wheel would have been, smashing the bitumen into fragments that flew up in the air, light as moths. Grimacing as a small shower of gravel scraped at his cheeks, Yusei gave a quick peek behind him and spied an enemy monster floating in the air, looming dangerously between him and the light of the sun.
"Machine King…" Yusei muttered. Fine, scratch what he had just said. There were certainly other monsters that could have taken on the City's artilleries. Operating purely on instincts, Yusei turned quickly to his right – and managed to dodge the second bolt that slammed into his previous location. His heart at his throat, Yusei risked another look behind him to gauge the location of the monster and yanked his D-Wheel in the opposite direction, just on time to dodge the third blast in a row.
The road was getting wider, with many lesser streets coming off it. Yusei saw some of his pursuers. Some were still engaged solidly in battle with Crow, some chasing after him on their homemade D-Wheels. What made Yusei's heart jolt and skip a beat wasn't their numbers – but the fact that they each held a black Duel Disk in their arm.
"King!" He could hear their yells, screams, shrieking at him from across the block. "We've got you this time! Do you know how long we've waited for this? Seeing you prattle on the television screens was not enough – you're in our hands now, Fudo Yusei! Come nicely with us now! We won't hurt you~!"
"Like hell." Yusei bit his lip and accelerated, pressing on the gas as if his life depended on it. No, his life did depend on it. He had no black Duel Disk, which was the symbol of absolute power in this land ruled by a new and unconquerable fear. Some of his attackers appeared to have cut through the block and were hot on his heels, but Yusei had no time to care. Right now, his first priority was to get away, and as quickly as possible.
His D-Wheel roared as he revved up the gear, the sound of that metallic beast enough to stun the few enemies closest to him. Then, with a thunderous crescendo that seems to shake the entire frame of the D-Wheel to pieces, the engine went into overdrove and his mount shot forward, leaving all his pursuers in the dust as he galloped straight ahead at a speed unmatchable for those Satellite motorcycles. True to his title as the Shooting Star of the Neo Domino, Yusei dashed toward the courtyard that he could already see with his own eyes, leaving only a red shadow behind him as his D-Wheel's enhanced engine and acceleration system pushed him towards the limit that was humanly achievable. The blue-eyed youth grasped the handles of the D-Wheel tightly as his entire body rattled with the machine, bearing the discomfort that this miraculous speed also brought. In this state, the best he could do was to hold tight onto the controls and keep the D-Wheel in a straight course, and pray he would reach the haven of the orphanage in one piece.
Of course, he knew the price he had to pay for this supreme speed was the loss of his machine's agility. The smallest rock could become his downfall, and the most minute crevice would spell disaster for the D-Wheel. Yet, he was willing to make that gamble, willing to hope that he may outrun his enemies – and their Monsters too.
A beam of lightning smashed into the ground before him, blasting right through the bitumen to reveal even the network of pipes that crisscrossed every city in the world. What was a smooth path was suddenly riddled with cracks, littered with dust and debris, not to mention the resultant hole itself, gaping open toward the dark underground sewers that once served old Domino City –
Yusei barely had the time to scream before he felt his mount tumbling into the emptiness together with him. The wheels span in thin air as the ground gave way before their combined weight, as the road splintered and crumbled to dust. Falling, he reached out blindly, and barely grabbed hold on the creaking edge of the tarmac over the hole – and winced as he heard his vehicle crashed into the earth down below.
Craning his neck upward, his eyes narrowed in exertion, Yusei saw the shadow of Machine King looming over him, its pupilless eyeholes blazing with its controller's fury. He could hear the enraged, cackling laughter of the pursuers now, leering at him as he struggled helplessly to get up to the ground level, his feet kicking against nothing but air. His Duel Disk was still strapped tightly around his arm, but it was useless. He could not draw a card. Even if he could, it would mean nothing against those men – monsters – with their psychic Duel Disks.
For the first time in his life, Yusei found himself praying for others to come to his aid. He wasn't a weak fighter, nor was he a bad tactician. Such a form of hopelessness – of having to completely depending on someone such as Crow to save his life – was alien to him.
And it seemed his saviour would not be arriving anytime soon.
Above him, his enemy lifted his hand, adorned with the black Duel Disk, and was about to give the order for his monster to let loose the final blow. If only Crow might hurry – if only he had more allies – if only he had somehow gotten one of those accursed Duel Disks himself!
Yusei closed his eyes. But that blow never fell.
What he heard instead was a mighty crush and the scream of men as something thudded into the road above him, the sound of a fire roaring through the air and the painful crack of metal on metal. He felt the road shudder under heavy wheels as if more D-Wheels joined the fray, but it did not seem to touch him – no, the psychic apparition that had hovered above him beforehand never attacked him, as if suddenly lost the will to end the existence of the King of Neo City, an existence that many in Satellite feared and despised.
Creaking open one blue eye, Yusei was just on time to behold Machine King being swallowed in a wall of torrential fire and burnt into the ground.
Dazed, the City-born man looked to the skies above and saw the monster that currently rained flames of terror upon his enemies.
The crimson scales of Red Demon Dragon glistened in the dull light of the Satellite sky, and every beat of its giant wings fanned the fire that its mouth had sprouted. It screeched then, a sound that tore into the very fabric of the world itself, a keening that proclaimed dominance over all who existed under heaven. Yusei simply stared, mesmerised in disbelief, not knowing what had just happened, as if what he was seeing was an illusion created by his consciousness overwhelmed with despair.
It was not so. A long, pale hand reached down for his own tanned one. A head, sporting a halo of rebellious blond hair, appeared above his face.
"Grab my hand, Yusei!" In the cacophony that Red Demon Dragon still maintained above them, Jack yelled down at Yusei, his hand reaching for the shorter man's.
"Wha – what's going on?"
"Get up now. Talk later!"