This is an update that took its time, isn't it?
Thank you to the people who still left comments even though this story was left alone for years. I have no idea how big the fandom is for the Yu-Gi-Oh! series anymore, and even less about 5Ds. But I really wanted to finish this story now that my life (as a proper adult) is finally on track. I want to finish this.
And hopefully, also create more.
Quick recap: With the Zero Reversal having never occurred, Fudo Yusei grew up with his birth parents in Neo Domino City and became the King of the City and a world-renowned duelist. Izayoi Aki, his childhood friend - whom he fancied he felt emotions towards - and Senator Izayoi's daughter, was born a powerful Psychic Duelist but had been protected from the world through the power of her father. However, no one could protect her anymore when she was egged on to duel and subsequently gave a fatal blow to Misty's brother, and the Psychic Duelist was given the capital punishment. Refusing to believe that Senator Izayoi allowed the deed, Yusei kept searching for traces of Aki's possible survival and found his confirmation in Jack Atlas, a runaway from Satellite to the City. Instead of hearing about a damsel in distress, however, the picture of Aki that slowly emerged was of a tormented and vengeful soul, one who was actively hunting down Yusei. Hearing the name 'Rosewood' from Jack, Yusei set out to that place where Aki was kept in Satellite, only to be attacked by Aki yet again and saved by Crow. Hearing that the King did not return from Satellite, Jack and Carly arrived at Satellite with Ruka and Rua's help and were just on time to help save Yusei and Crow from Kiryu's minions. As he heard more and more accounts of Aki's days in Rosewood, Yusei was forced to re-evaluate his feeling towards her, his perceptions of her, and his life itself. Was he truly deserving of all the praise and glory that was given to both his ability and his birth, or was he just a spoiled rich child, ignorant of all the complicated lives the rest of the world led?
Sexto
It was not an angel of salvation who reached down to Yusei, but he did not care.
Indeed, to be completely honest, Jack was probably the last person Yusei had expected to come to his aid, but that did not matter.
He needed to survive. That was all he knew at that point.
Yusei reached up with a leap and tightly grasped Jack's outstretched hand from below. Their hands met and clasped as one heaved the other up, back onto level ground and into the light. The monsters still raged overhead, locked in a deadly strife as the Satellite rogue duelists swore profusely and commanded their monsters to stay as a group. Unfortunately, faced with Jack's mighty servant, it was not enough. When Yusei finally found his two feet on flat ground again, Red Demon Dragon was already the only one left in the sky. Having dispatched its foe with one blast of its fiery breath, it gave out a mighty roar as it circled the remaining Satellite duelists menacingly, sending more than a few of them running away on their D-Wheels.
The world fell silent as their enemies retreated. With the screech of the D-Wheel engines dying away in the distance, Yusei felt himself releasing the breath that he did not know he held. Closing his blue eyes in brief respite, he was vaguely aware of Crow's arrival and the orange-haired man's command for a few of his monsters to retrieve Yusei's damaged D-Wheel. Those monsters worked quickly, and when he heard the twisted wheels of his machine thumping into the tarmac, there was another high-pitched revving of a speeding car being forced into a sudden stop.
"King~~~! King~! Yusei! Are you alright!?"
That voice… was it…?
With an exhausted grunt, Yusei cracked open his eye, only to gasp and stumble on the spot as a jubilant and bespectacled face hovered only a few inches away from his own countenance.
"Car…ly?"
Reaching out, Carly pulled Yusei into a big, exaggerated hug, completely ignorant of Jack's intense stare. Dusting off his dirtied riding suit, Carly eagerly checked Yusei all over, making sure there were no injuries that she could see.
Meanwhile, all Yusei could do was stared incredulously at his City friend while muttering, stunned: "What are you – no, how did you two get here, Carly?"
"Ruka's parents got us here." Cutting Carly off, Jack answered the question instead, his eye glancing towards Crow to include the other man into the conversation as he continued his explanation. "Those two used their parent's container ship to get us here overnight, together with our vehicles. I went to Crow's place to find you two," turning fully to Crow now, Jack narrowed his eyes, "but you were gone. Had to follow this ruckus to find you at the end."
"Of course I was gone. Kiryu was after us. What do you think I should do, sit there and wait for him to come?" Crow snapped back, almost too quickly even for him. For a moment, Crow and Jack stood there glowering, as if some old enmity had suddenly resurfaced and refused to back down. Crow only looked away when Carly and Yusei both turned to look at him but kept muttering darkly under his breath.
With a grunt, Yusei turned his neck gingerly, with Carly clinging to his arm. "How did you know to come looking, though? Does that mean… the City already knows where I am?"
Yusei paused. For a moment, he dallied with the fantasy that perhaps Security was already on the move, or that Ruka and Rua had already arranged for their employees to be on the lookout for the King. The thought of returning to the City sounded terribly tempting – but somehow, somewhere in his heart, Yusei wasn't quite sure that it would be the right thing to do. He felt that he had taken a definite step towards the truth of this place. For all his common sense and logic, his curiosity screamed that backing down now would only allow this doubt to relentlessly grate on his mind.
"No, it doesn't, as far as I know." Walking back to his vehicle, Jack took his card off the black D-Wheel, dismissing his dragon. "This one," he motioned towards Crow with his chin, "called me and asked me to come, in fact."
Yusei blinked and his sapphire eyes shifted to his previous companion. The said grey-eyed man, however, didn't respond and simply averted everyone else's gaze.
"… You didn't tell me about that, Crow."
Silence briefly reigned over the abandoned street as Crow resolutely stared at the ground next to his feet. Only Carly's tentative cough served to disrupt the tense mood.
"Um… weren't you guys actually going somewhere? Jack did say there's something further down the road. It's Margar's – Maggie's – "
"Martha's House." Jack finished Carly's sentence for her, leaning back against his D-Wheel. "You are going to Martha's orphanage. There is nothing else interesting along this road."
"And I suppose you want to know why…?" Crow's voice was low and subdued.
Jack gave out a long sigh. Martha's House – the place where Crow and he and countless other children grew up, children whose parents have been taken away from them and had nowhere else to go. Martha seems to have been there forever, Jack recalled. The history of the orphanage went back almost as far as the creation of the Satellite district, when the City started to actively send criminals and other unwanted individuals to this lonely land far out into the sea.
"… That's right." The blond man replied at length. "You're the one who got me to run away to the City, just as you are now asking me to come back. What are you playing here, Crow? What did you find out? What are you going to do?"
Crow simply started the engine of his D-Wheel again after motioning for his monster to push Yusei's D-Wheel along. Turning to the others, he tucked his legs in and settled back, giving them the hint that he would keep riding along this road.
"Then come to Martha's with me. I would tell you everything I know there… because, really, that is the last safe haven left in Satellite."
Jack's eyebrows twitched. "What do you mean –"
"Don't question, Jack. Just come."
-\-\-\-\-\-
What might have been a short journey ended up far longer than they had thought. After they finally agreed to go to the orphanage – which was, by then, barely a few hundred metres away – they were faced with the rather arduous task of getting Yusei's broken D-Wheel there together with the man. Crow had willingly recruited his monsters for the task, yet it was still slow going. They weren't too keen on breaking even further what was probably the best and fastest D-Wheel in Neo Domino.
At the end, Yusei took a seat at the back of Carly's car, thanks to his injuries. Jack and Crow rode on their D-Wheels, while two of Crow's monsters did the labour of pushing Yusei's D-Wheel. They advanced slowly, taking into account the monsters' speed, and in this strange fashion – one car, two D-Wheels, and a broken vehicle – they finally arrived at the gates of Martha's House.
Lightly leaping off his vehicle, Crow started to wave his hand, evidently hoping someone would spot him and recognise the retinue from the main building.
Peeking out from the window of Carly's car, Yusei inwardly sighed as he looked upon this 'haven' at long last. It didn't look half as sturdy as he thought. What consisted of the orphanage was a large, earthen courtyard surrounded by a few dark-shaded low buildings, some with two storeys and some with only one. It looked like some disused rural elementary school, with the roof tiles covered in age-old dust. However, unlike a school, the orphanage was deadly quiet, the courtyard undisturbed by any running child. In front of the closed iron gates, Crow waved and waved, as if making a desperate attempt at establishing connections with a place that was no longer here, making a call to someone who would not answer.
After a long, long time, Yusei spotted a little boy running out of a door from a building nearby. The kid saw Crow, but hesitated visibly, looking back and forth between Crow and the safety of the building he just left before finally deciding to head towards Crow.
Another little boy joined him soon after, running to catch up to his companion. Together, the two of them stopped before Crow on the other side of the gates, their eyes wide open in admiration and wonder.
"Crow Nii-san, you… you're back! And you brought Jack here too!"
"What did I say?" Grinning, Crow pointed his thumb towards his own chest. "Toldya I'm gonna come back all in one piece and bring back a few more friends too."
The boys clapped happily and jumped with joy. Remaining in the car, Yusei could hear Jack's voice beside Crow, the blond man sounding surprised and concerned at the same time.
"Aren't these the kids under your care, Crow? What are they doing at Martha's?"
Crow did not answer Jack. Rather, he turned to the children. "Can you get this door open for Crow Nii-san? We kinda need to get inside to see Martha." As he spoke, he leaned towards the children, and patted the first boy on the head affectionately.
The children nodded emphatically and eagerly fumbled out a key, which they used to open the gate with some difficulty. Once Crow had heard the affirmative sound of the lock turning, he helped the boys lift up the iron bolt and push back the heavy gates. Surprisingly, Jack parked his D-Wheel and dismounted to help Crow. For Yusei, this seemed an unlikely camaraderie – especially after the disagreement he had just witnessed moments ago.
With Crow and Jack's combined efforts, the rusty and aged gates creaked and slid open. The two of them then helped Yusei's D-Wheel through into the courtyard and waved for Carly to drive through. Once that was done, they moved back to their own vehicles and entered the orphanage, dismounting afterwards to secure the bolts, closing the doors of this place once again.
Directed by the children, their vehicles were guided to a low, unobtrusive garage, where Yusei saw some other civilian vehicles were also parked in. At a word from Crow, the boys ran away to fetch the adults in this place, momentarily leaving them alone.
"You still haven't answered my question, Crow."
And yet, it seemed their internal inquiries were not over.
Turning off his vehicle, Crow barely gave Jack a glance. "You'd have guessed. I sent them here."
"Not happy with your own nest and wanted to give Martha more problems?"
The orange-haired man paused dead still. Slowly, very slowly, he turned to face Jack, an angry glare in his steely eyes. "If you want to know, O great King… then I shall tell you Satellite is no longer a safe place even for me. I'd never want to trouble Martha. Not that you would know since you never returned to visit her, ever."
Jack's eyebrow twitched. A low growl rumbled out of his throat, and he all but ignored Yusei and Carly's curious glances, which they shot at the two Satellite men after getting out of the car.
"I have my reasons." In the covered gloom of the garage, Jack grumbled. "Unlike you, who lived oh-so-comfortably on your own."
Crow took a sudden step towards Jack, and Yusei could swear he saw the muscle on Crow's arm twitch in a sudden rush of raw emotions. In the end, the shorter man forcibly restrained himself, managing just to grate out: "So you'd think, Jack. Just wait and see."
Jack sighed and visibly gave up on pursuing this seemingly endless argument. Glancing over at Yusei and Carly, who stood next to the car and gazed bewilderingly at the Satellite duo, the blond man frowned and motioned them to follow as he and Crow opened a side door and entered the building.
What greeted them was a long, wooden corridor, with many rooms opening off from it. From the looks of it, this corridor likely traversed the entire length of the house, if not a good part of it. With Crow leading the way, the four of them eventually turned the corner and arrived at what seemed to be a dining room, and the two children whom they saw before greeted them.
"Martha will be coming down soon!" They chirped excitedly as they ran off deeper into the building, waving at the company on their way out. "And she said she's really looking forward to see Jack too!"
Yusei could have sworn a brief blush creeping up Jack's pale cheeks. Beside him, Carly looked up too, her big eyes blinking with curiosity. Crow chuckled, and smirked towards Jack, which the later tried his best to ignore.
The City-born man coughed, trying to change the awkward atmosphere. "So, where are – "
"This is Martha's House. The orphanage where Jack, Kiryu, and I all grew up." Stretching out his arms, Crow made an encompassing gesture before Yusei finished his sentence. "And I figured, for all that Kiryu is, he would not attack this place – not unless he absolutely has to."
"So, you think there is still a shred of humanity left in him, huh?" Jack heaved a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping a little, looking unusually weary. "He talked to you after what happened at Rosewood, then you came running to warn me that he's out to get me, right?"
Crow nodded.
"You also agreed to work with him for a little while." Standing a little behind them, Yusei surmised. "That was why you came for Ruka. Being one of the only Psychic Duelists in the City, she would have been a major obstacle for Kiryu, especially if he really wanted to use the power of these black Duel Disks against Neo Domino."
"That's… correct." Crow frowned; his brows knotted tightly together. With a grimace, he turned towards Yusei. "For that, I am sorry."
With that, he started to lean forward in a deep, apologetic bow.
"Don't apologise for what you did under duress, Crow!"
Crow paused, his torso frozen rather comically mid-bow. Looking towards the source of the stern female voice, Yusei blinked as he saw a dark-skinned older woman emerge from deeper within the house. Dress in the garb of a nun, the woman gazed rather admonishingly on Crow, like a mother berating a misbehaving child.
And yet, before Yusei came to realise the identity of this woman, she walked quickly forward and held Crow in a tight embrace.
"Thank goodness you're back." The relief was evident in her voice as she stepped back a little, looking straight into Crow's eyes. "I was so worried about you, Crow. I thought you decided to follow Kiryu for good."
"No, Martha, I'd never –" Like a naughty son caught in the act, Crow stammered to reply to Martha's words. But remembering the presence of strangers just on time, he made a face and feebly attempted an introduction. "Um, this is Martha. She's, err…"
With a sigh, Martha – who was obviously the matron of this orphanage – released Crow for good. Turning to face the group, she gave a warm, hearty smile. "Don't mind Crow. I expected him to come here sooner or later, but didn't know he'd bring so many guests. Welcome to my place."
Yusei and Carly both blinked, momentarily unsure of how to greet this Satellite woman. For them, she was the first person in Satellite whom they had met on civil terms. Yusei had all but decided to extend his hand to Martha for a formal handshake when Jack beat him to it.
The blond man did not attempt to simply shake Martha's hand, however. Rather, he knelt down on one knee, and brought the older woman's hand to his lips.
"…"
The expression on Yusei and Carly's faces were priceless.
"Oh. Oh, Jack!" Martha beamed, her face the very definition of joy. "You've grown up so much since I last saw you, and you're still trying to be such a gentleman. Oh my, oh my. We really need a hug."
And with that, Jack was swooped up into a hug and squeezed tight as if he was still a little boy. Judging from his stiff shoulders, he was in no way comfortable with what Martha was doing, but he didn't complain. Unable to restrain himself anymore, Crow lowered his head and let out a low giggle.
"Martha really misses you, Jack."
"I... I get it, Martha." Jack's face was crimson red in no time from embarrassment. When Martha finally released him, he huffed and tried to regain his composure.
"How are you these days, Jack?"
Turning back to Martha, Jack gives out a grin. "Not too bad. And you, Martha?" He nodded towards Crow. "I suppose this rascal's been hanging around longer than he should have."
"No matter how old you are, my house is always open to you." Martha pats Jack's arm. "There's no such thing as hanging around for too long when it comes to you boys. I don't suppose you'd mind some food, though?"
"That... That would be good, actually, Martha. We'd be very grateful for that." Crow picked up the topic without missing a beat, looking at Martha with a pointed gaze.
"No worries, Crow." Martha replied with a similar look. "Just make yourselves comfortable."
Martha and Jack then exchanged more words of reminiscence with each other before Martha left for the kitchen for good. Crow gestured for Yusei to sit down on one of the chairs in the room. Yusei complied without too much resistance, his entire body still feeling a little sore from the chase just before.
The hard, coarse, wooden chair he sank into was nothing like the padded comfort he was used to at Tops. No, this entire place, the entire life he had live here in the last two days, all seemed a million years away from how he had lived before. Yusei let out a long breath, and quietly clutched his hand into a fist.
Was this the abnormality, or had he been the one living in a bubble all this time?
Carly settled close to him as well, her eyes brimming with concern. However, she was visibly holding herself back. She bit her lip, held back the hand that was going to pat his arm for comfort, and sat down next to him wordlessly.
Not far from them, Crow was telling Jack the story that he had already told Yusei, about what happened within Rosewood in the last few months. Jack faced Crow as the latter quickly recounted the events since Izayoi Aki's arrival at Satellite, occasionally cutting in with a brisk question, then letting Crow continue once it was answered.
"So, you're saying that that place, which we all thought was a rich hospital, was actually a place that conducted experiments with its inmates?" When Crow concluded his story, Jack raised a curious eyebrow, and posed his summary of the events so far.
"I... I suppose." Contrary to his usual decisiveness, Crow mumbled a reply. "Judging from what Kiryu and Aki said to me afterwards, it seemed to be case."
"Afterwards?" Jack narrowed his eyes. "I suppose that meant after those two burnt it down? And then proceeded to threaten you to join them in their little movement?"
"Not those two." Crow murmured. "Just... Just her."
There was a tremor in his voice, the rumbling of a deep-seated fear that shook him as he spoke. Yusei looked up. Crow's tanned face was pallid, his eyes clouded with some dreadful memory. The orange-haired man closed his eyes as Yusei watched and took a deep, trembling breath.
"Please, Crow. Tell me what happened." When Yusei spoke, he found that despite the tension filling up the room, his own voice was surprisingly calm. "I apologise for making you remember those memories, but now I think I must know what happened." Looking over towards Crow, Yusei's gaze met Crow's for the briefest of moments, before Crow quickly looked away. "I need to know what happened... so I can know what I should do with her."
"I would tell you what happened sooner or later anyways." Crow let out softly. "Out of all people, you should know everything that happened to her, so you can somehow make everything right again - "
"Make everything right?" Jack scoffed next to him. "We can't even save Kiryu and Izayoi anymore, from the sound of it. With the power of the Psychic Duelists, those people are beyond saving. What else can we do?"
"It's not about saving Kiryu and Aki." Crow cut in conclusively. "They were only the product of everything that happened here, in Satellite, in the City, over many years. Something is wrong with the entirety of Domino. Very wrong."
-\-\-\-\-\-
As the heat of summer approached a suffocating zenith, the ordinary denizens of Rosewood were allowed more time off, especially at night.
Crow benefited immensely from this excess of free time in this secluded community. More leisure time meant more opportunities to duel, which meant more customers for Crow. His visits became more frequent, and people asked less questions about his coming and going.
But of course, the only one not allowed more freedom was Izayoi Aki.
He left Rosewood that day after he presented her with the deck he made for her, instructing her that she can leave it with Kiryu for safekeeping until Crow returned. It was a reasonable enough arrangement. He returned home with a silly grin on his face as he recalled the elated sparkle that passed across her eyes when she saw his gift to her. Duelling was the fire in that girl's soul, just as it was for Crow. He had brought her real joy, perhaps for the first time in many months. And for that, he was content.
He even went to sleep in a happy mood, which wasn't common, given how he was making barely enough money to live from one day to the next, and having so many young and hungry mouths to feed.
Whatever happy dreams he might have had, he no longer remembered them now.
Crow was woken up in the middle of the night by a terrifying clamour that shook the earth. His first thought was an earthquake, or a Momentum malfunction like what happened so many years ago that sundered the land between Satellite and the City. Barely managing to throw some clothes on himself, he dashed to where the children were sleeping and did his best to comfort the crying and screaming little ones, all the while the horrible noise and shaking was going on. It boomed through the air and the ground and showed absolutely no signs of stopping.
He made sure the older children were taking care of the younger ones, then rushed outside of their little housing area to see what was going on.
There was the thick smell of burning that hit him full on the face. He remembered that most intensely. Together with that came the heat, the glowing tinge on the skyline, and the faint sounds of screams that drifted along with the heated air.
And all of that was coming from Rosewood's direction.
Instantly coming to the realisation that something had happened there, he settled the children as quickly as he was able and set out towards the institution. He supposed that even then, he had already understood what might have happened. But of course, fearing and knowing what responsibility and guilt it may come with such knowledge, he refused to believe it until much later.
He saw the dragon a few blocks away from the building, the tail and the surrounding thorns over its body poking out from behind the nearby houses. He then heard that alien creature screech, its voice shrilling in its ferocity and sending a chill straight down his spine.
It was her dragon. All the stories that he had heard about Psychic Duelists instantly sprang to his mind, how they could control the cards and bring monsters to life, wreaking havoc and destruction to them all. He also couldn't not help but think of everything he had heard of her case. Killing a child, a spoiled Senator's daughter, a skilled duelist on her own... All these labels surfaced in his mind.
But would that Izayoi... that beautiful, tragic Izayoi...
But there were no doubts about it. It was the very dragon that served as the star of her deck.
The curving tail and the thorns shook with barely restrained rage. The hospital itself was aflame, the entire courtyard engulfed in some unnatural black flame. The area was almost unrecognisable, and for one of the only times in his life, Crow felt genuine fear.
Somehow, he just knew that if he were to become involved with Rosewood right now, he would die.
Like a coward, he turned his D-Wheel and fled before her fury, as more blocks of buildings crumbled around him. He didn't have the courage to move on. And he knew that, rather than caring for Kiryu or even Izayoi's safety, he wanted more than anything to have nothing to do with them at that instant.
Perhaps Jack was right. Perhaps he did run away into the slums and away from the murky power struggles of Satellite, unwilling to take responsibility. He ran away once more then, hoping again that this would remove him and his kids from danger. Yet while he did manage to run away from Kiryu, from gangs, from evil men... He feared he could not run away from the likes of her.
He rushed back to the shelter with the children as quickly as his D-Wheel could, not even daring to approach Rosewood and visually survey the damage himself. He told the children to hush and be good, and huddled in his corner of the tent, trying very hard to stop his own tremors. The earth continued to shake throughout the night, and the stench of incarceration became thicker and thicker. It only stopped close to dawn, but Rosewood continued to burn like a torch of death, glowing softly beyond his field of vision, a horrible reminder of what had just passed.
Terrifying rumours of what happened at Rosewood immediately started to flood through Satellite after the event. Security poured in at dawn the next day and shut the entire ruins down, but none could realise what was going on. Crow knew, though. He also knew what enabled her to do this. He knew that those cards - his cards - were what made this slaughter possible.
He hid with the children he was taking care of, far away from where Rosewood was, and ultimately gave the children to Martha to care for. In retrospect, it did save them from the initial horror. At the same time, he should have known that Kiryu could read him. Read him too well, perhaps.
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"Kiryu found you and held those kids' lives over you, didn't he?"
Crow raised a pale face towards Jack's question and softly shook his head.
"I don't know... All I knew was that he contacted me, and told me he knew where the kids are, that it would probably be best to join them... I don't know what happened." Crow mumbled powerlessly. "I rushed to Kiryu as soon as I heard that, thinking maybe Kiryu was threatening Martha... but he didn't say anything, no matter how I pressed him. And... I haven't been physically back here since I dropped the kids off."
"Then did that 'Kiryu' ask you to go to the City and pressure Ruka-chan for them, Crow-san?" Carly, true to her reporter's instincts, guessed the later events accurately.
"Yes..." Crow squeezed out and shook his head. "I agreed to work for them, and I was given the task to do what they called 'hunt the kings'..."
"What does that even mean?" Jack gritted his teeth. "I can understand Yusei and me, but it seemed they had even more people in mind –"
"Those twins were my job." Crow admitted. "I didn't know what prompted them to do that at first, but now I understand. That girl – Ruka – she's a Psychic Duelist, just like Izayoi –"
Crow didn't finish his sentence, and no one continued it for him.
"And... what would be the purpose of this?" Jack ran a hand through his tousled hair. "I understand that Izayoi may have a personal issue with Yusei," here he cast an uneasy glance at Yusei, but the City-born man did not seem affected by the comment, "and I suppose Kiryu has a reason to hate me. But even though Ruka has the ability to communicate with what she called 'Duel Monster spirits', she's still just a kid –"
"Maybe they're just trying to gather Psychic Duelists." Carly offered a suggestion. "That could explain why they went after Ruka-chan?"
"But I am not a Psychic Duelist." Jack growled. "And the last time I checked, the King of the City isn't one either. They may have tried to capture Ruka, but for me... I think they were genuinely trying to eliminate me. The Black Witch – Izayoi Aki – she was probably the one after me."
"Probably." Crow concurred. "I was already sent to the City together with Kiryu. She would have been one of the only people left who could give you such a hard time."
"Did she ever come into the City herself?" Yusei, who had kept quiet ever since Crow started to talk, suddenly spoke up, instantly drawing everyone's attention.
"Um... I don't believe so, no. Kiryu stated that she was to stay behind in Satellite in case something went wrong." Crow furrowed his brows as he responded. "Do you think she did?"
"Just... immediately after the affair with Jack, there was an incident with one of the Security officers, who had made his D-Wheel very similar to mine in appearance..." Yusei replied in a low voice.
"And what happened to him?" Ever the curious, Carly questioned eagerly.
"... He passed away."
No one made a reply.
Yusei sank back down into silence after that, while Carly and Jack loosely summed up what they knew so far. Crow supplied more information on what he knew about Rosewood, including the incident with the man named Divine, as Aki had recounted.
Jack and Crow both admitted that while the institution of Rosewood had been in Satellite for as long as they could remember, they really didn't know how it was first built, and for what real purpose. This got the group into another bout of discussions and speculations, with Carly throwing out all sorts of strange theories.
"Maybe we can ask the old lady here – Martha?" In her enthusiasm, Carly suddenly suggested. "You said she's been here since Satellite got separated from City – maybe she would know something?"
"Don't you involve Martha in this anymore than what Kiryu had already done." Jack snorted, but still patted Carly's head in a reassuring way. "And stop worrying about this yourself. Martha has been through a lot, being in Satellite all this time, and I won't want her to get even more mixed up in bad things like this."
"And thanks for your concern, Jack." Right then, with the creaking of the door, Martha's voice drifted in. "But I can handle myself, you know?"
"Martha!" Jack and Crow both jumped up, with the blond man running up to Martha first.
"And you boys really should stop worrying about me." Sighing, Martha put down the plates of food she was holding. "Kiryu and that Aki-chan had already been here already."
"What?!"
Everyone looked up at that. Facing Jack and Crow, who were staring wide-eyed at her, Martha smiled and shook her head.
"Like I said, don't worry. They've already paid me a visit after Crow left Satellite for the City."
"But... Martha! What did they say? Did they hurt you?" Jack cast a nervous glance at Crow, then scanned Martha from head to toe. "Kiryu has been nothing but trouble for a long time. How did he –"
"Please, Martha. Tell us what happened." Yusei cut in while Jack was still looking over Martha with an incredulous gaze. "I would like to know what those two said to you, and what their actual goals are."
Martha looked from one youngster to the other in front of her and took a deep sigh.
"It wasn't much, but I will tell you what I know." She sat down at the table, and then fixed her eyes at Yusei. "But I have to say, Fudo Yusei, you really broke that girl's heart. You are going to have a tough time making up to her, if you manage to do it at all."
"I know." Yusei mumbled a reply. "I know."