Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V or VRAINS.

PROLOGUE

SYSTEMS ENGAGED
SECURITY PASS

CONFIRMED
CONNECTING TO SOLT DATABASE
DOWNLOAD PROFILE #OATM5328333
CONFIRMATION
SCANNING
ERROR
FILE DESIGNATION PAM INCOMPATIBLE
ERROR
ERROR
E-ERROR
EeRROr
eeERroR
E-ERRO-R—R
E-eRR-OooR
E-e-e-ER-r-
eeeeR-
E-eEeeEeee-
-E-
SYSTEM OVERRIDE
CONNECTING TO PROFILE #OATM5328333LINK ESTABLISHED
01000010010001010100011101001001010011100010000001010011010010010100110101010101010011000100000101010100010010010100111101001110

"Wake up."

Wrong.

CONNECTING SUBJECT #OATM5328333 TO SERVER DENN_3

RENDERING MODEL
00 80 00 , 41 61 E1 , 19 19 70 , FF 00 FF , FF F8 DC

Something was wrong, he could feel numbers running and those made sense but why

"Wake up."

He's trying.

ERROR
FILE DESIGNATION SP INCOMP-P-P-Pppppp-
SYSTEM OVERRIDE

He was… touching? But no this wasn't touching it wasn't real there were number binary he could read them through his fingers

0101001001000101010011100100010001000101010100100010000001010100010001010101100001010100010101010101001001000101000010100101001101010100010001010100010101001100
2F 4F 4F , 70 80 90 , 77 88 99

This was a steel beam.

It wasn't real.

INITIATE NEURAL SCANNN—n-nn-nnnN-
ERROR
ERROR
ERRrrrrrrrRRrrRrRrR
SYSTEM OVERRIDE
NEW FILE DESIGNATION LCP DETECTED
SENDER
01000001010001000100110101001001010011100100100101010011010101000101001001000001010101000100111101010010001000000101010001001000010011110101010001001000

He started feeling other things. His clothes. Himself. The wind around him. The cold. He was so high up.

SENDER NOT REGISTERED
INNITIATING SECURITY SYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY-
SYSTEM OVERRIDE
FILE ACCEPTED
DOWNLOADING TO SERVER DENN_3

The world around him was buzzing. He could feel the signals, the networks and the data. His deck was pulsing with his own pulse, and far away was presence as familiar as it, if not even more so – someone alive and more real than anything.

RENDERING COMPLETE
NO ERRORS DETECTED

SYSTEM OVERRIDE
01000001010001000100110101001001010011100100100101010011010101000101001001000001010101000100111101010010001000000101010001001000010011110101010001001000
DELETE LOGGING DATA

Yusaku Fujiki opened his eyes. Ahead he could see. Spirals of synthesized crystal, armed cement, steel and carbon alloys reached higher than the sky. Solid Vision monitors illuminating the streets. Neon lines illuminating the constructions themselves rather than placing any obstructing street lights, showering them in all the colours of the rainbow. Strong magnetic fields kept the smooth vehicles afloat. Hustle and bustle far below, voices and music of all kinds.

A beautiful, well constructed, well rendered lie.

And he would get OUT.

He sent a Ping.

Far away, and yet so very close, two deceptively young riding duelists stared at the new skyscraper that marred the sky of their City. One that in all the previous loops, all the different versions of their lives they had lived, had never been there.

They recognized the logo all the same. They had seen pictures of it, and even up close once or twice. They knew that it meant very bad news.

"…Shit. You think the others know?"

"Nah, they're not even here."

Suddenly a Ping resounded. A second one immediately after.

Out of pure reflex, Yugo and Rin sent their own. They soaked in the numerous responses.

"You think Yusaku and Ai are in there?" asked Yugo.

Rin nodded. "They definitely are. Let's get the others. We can't possibly deal with this on our own."

"Yeah. Let's get out of here before Security comes."

The two sped up on their D-Wheels, leaving nothing but an empty park behind.

Inside the skyscraper, in the security boardroom, a programmer blinked as the message "Error" popped up in her screen. When she opened her eyes, it was no longer there. She blinked again. Nope. No sign of an error.

She started scrolling up and down, reading each line of code carefully. Ran one more diagnostic just in case. Nothing.

"Status update?"

The head of the department walked in, dressed in a sharp three-piece suit and tie. He was young, but he rose through the rank at an incredible speed, achieving the position of Chief of Security in SOL Technologies in record time, easily overthrowing the previous head.

"Main Server 1 all clear!"

"Sub-servers 1.01 to 1.09 all clear!"

"In-network surveillance, systems A to K, coverage at 97.36 per cent!"

"Improve that one! We need coverage of at least 99 per cent!" He knew that even the slightest short coming could mean an opportunity to someone.

"Yes, sir."

"Main Server 2 all clear!"

"Sub-servers 2.01 to 2.09 all clear!"

"In-network surveillance, systems M to R, coverage at 98.02 per cent!"

"You work on that too."

"Yes, sir."

"Next?"

She wondered if she should say something. About the error she spotted but… There was no hint of it. No anomalies. Nothing. It was eerie.

"Main Server 3, all clear, Mr. Zaizen."

"Good."

It was lack of sleep. That was all it was.

"Director! We have detected two suspicious individuals in Tops area 47!"

One could potentially call Jean-Michel Roget a micromanager. It was very much true. His job was like a game of chess after all, carefully detecting the move of each and every piece. As small as a transgression was, he liked the feeling of overseeing it, of reading through it and detecting the moves of the pawns on his carefully constructed chess board.

He turned his attention to the monitors. "Please bring it up."

The assistant did saw immediately.

Just two brats on D-Wheels. They stood there for a few minutes and then they left. Roget briefly debated what he should do. They were probably long gone by now, but those Commons needed to learn their lesson…

He saw something glinting in the light, and centered the image.

The bracelet. This was it.

"Interesting. Very interesting."

He loved this job.