Disclaimer: I do not own YGO 5Ds

I eventually found myself sitting at the bottom of the stairs near the front door, staring at nothing in particular, as Chaos got ready to go find Yusei and Akiza, with Nervin sitting in the backseat.

"You wanna come?" Chaos invited lightly, like he's not going to find a young woman with more firepower than a squadron of Navy Seals.

"Sure," I agreed.

Chaos has the negotiating capacity of an actual seal, and I don't even know what Nervin's there for, so at least if I was there… I could witness the damage as they're being done.

"Are you sure?" Nervin asked, "She did just try to kill you."

"Which is why we should get this done before the fear catches up with me," I grinned as I took a seat next to him.

"Is that necessary?" Nervin asked again, his reluctance only piqued my curiosity.

"Oh I have nothing else to do," I assured him with a smile, "as long as you guys don't mind me tagging along, it's not every day we get to see the Black Rose without being attacked."

"Get on," Chaos didn't notice our little disagreement, "Let's get this over with."

The purple-haired duelist knew very well the location of Yusei's hideout, seems like the only people who didn't know about it was Sector Security. He took us through the tunnels and stopped beside Yusei's 'living room'.

Personally, I thought it was an unacceptable breach of privacy.

"Yusei?" Chaos asked quietly, as though afraid of waking a particularly dangerous animal.

Apparently not quietly enough, the only person in the tunnels was Akiza, she turned around and examined each of us in turn, her eyes eventually focusing on me.

"Yusei left to test his duel runner," She gave us a twisted smile that had both Chaos and Nervin reaching for their guns. "But I'm glad you came. It saves me the trouble of looking for you."

The three of us instinctively backed away.

Akiza didn't even bother saying the spell, she waved and sparks of fire danced around us dangerously, keeping us in place.

"Remind me why we came here again?" Chaos muttered, asking nobody in particular.

"So we could get rid of a ticking time-bomb in the Satellite," Nervin answered anyways.

"We come in peace," I raised my hands above my head.

In hindsight, we really should have made sure Yusei was inside before barging in like this. (Again illustrating the importance of doors).

"Get them to drop the guns then!" Akiza demanded, her hazel eyes now flashing scarlet, she looked ready to change into Black Rose at any second.

"Not gonna happen." I lowered my hands, slowly retreating towards the duel runner with Chaos and Nervin.

"Don't move a muscle!" Akiza ordered, "Do you really think you could get away from me?"

I stopped. She had a good point. None of us were carrying heavy weapons. I glanced at Chaos, he shook his head almost imperceptibly. Chaos still had his gun trained on her, but I doubt it would do much good.

"Akiza," I tried to talk her down, which, in retrospect, wasn't one of my strengths, "You don't want to do this."

"How do you know what I want?" Akiza demanded angrily, "People like you will never understand," She paused, her large brown eyes sparkled with something that looked suspiciously like tears, "I just want a normal life like everybody else, but I can never have one. No family, no friends. And now, I'm trapped in the Satellite, separated from everybody I ever knew, with no way to get back! Don't you dare say you know what that's like!"

"Oh I really think I do." I couldn't resist the sarcasm, it's a problem of mine. "Let's see, you feel like you're stuck in a world that you don't belong? Cut off from people who care about you? Surrounded by strangers of dubious virtues, no offense," I smiled apologetically at Chaos and Nervin, "You're essentially living in a dump- again, no offense guys. Your entire life was turned upside down by a bizarre twist of fate? I think I can imagine what that's like."

"But you have people to help you! You have friends so you can be happy no matter where you are or what you have!" Akiza protested in a typical Akiza fashion, a little naive and backed up with a frightening amount of firepower.

"Oh wake up and smell the industrial waste! Look around, you're in the freaking Satellite, we don't have for sentimentalities!" I pulled on my hair in frustration. "Pick anybody, chances are, half their friends are died. Why do you think I'm not having a mental breakdown every single day? My hell is their life and your life would be their wildest dreams!"

Akiza was stunned into silence by my outburst. "What about your life?" She asked curiously after a pause.

"Well," Frankly, I had been trying to repress those memories since I got here, to prevent having any of the aforementioned breakdowns, "I guess my life was what you dream about." Akiza didn't notice my choice of verb tense.

"With family and friends?" She asked tentatively, I nodded. "No wonder you're so well balanced."

Well, that's definitely not a compliment I've received before.

"Then let's how you do when you're cut off from all your friends and people who loved you!" Akiza's expression suddenly darkened as she reflected on her own life. She allowed the magic to flow through her and cackled. I'm not kidding, she actually cackled.

I wanted to explain how I was already cut off from all my loved ones, but before I had the time, giant vines rose out of the ground, twisting and turning until they formed a giant cage, sealing Akiza and I inside, the vines continued to grow until we were completely cut off from the outside world. The YGO series generally prefer blatantly obvious representations of character psychologies.

"Don't you love it? To be in their loving embrace." Akiza raised her arms to welcome the vines that wrapped tenderly around her arms, "My garden always protected me. For a long time, it's the only thing I could count on to protect me. Plus, with my Black Garden on the field, you're all alone too. I think that evens the playing field, don't you think?"

"How, exactly?" I asked rhetorically, pissed, terrified, but still marveling at the cage made of plants that grew at her will. I wonder if you could eat it.

"Now you don't have your friends to help you," Akiza explained, seemingly reasonably, "And I don't have any friends to help me. So we're even."

"Help?" I repeated sarcastically, "Really? You want help? Why do you need help? You're possibly one of the most powerful human beings on the planet! You can literally make something out of nothing! You can fight a tank and win, you can probably fight a battalion of tanks and win! What do you need help with? Laundry?"

"So just because I have this stupid mark, just because I have these stupid powers, everybody thinks it's okay to leave me out in the cold? Alone and soaking in sweat, blood and tears!"

Probably the sweat, blood and tears of the villagers after she destroy their homes like an evil dragon, I thought. Thankfully, I had enough self-control left not to say that, and chose something less scathing instead.

"I can see that you're angry with the world, what I can't understand is why," I said instead. "You have all of duel monsters at your disposal! You could nuzzle up to tigers, play with pandas, you can have a pet dragon if you wanted. You can't have a pet dragon and be angry at the world at the same time. Me, for example, I'm angry at the world right now because I don't have a pet dragon."

I want my pet dragon.

"If you think I was so lucky, would you trade with me?" Akiza demanded.

"I'm sorry?"

"If you think it was so lucky for me to have powers, if you think my life was that great, would you trade your parents for them?" Akiza repeated her question.

"God no!" I laughed at the idea, "Don't be ridiculous. I mean-, okay, I see your point."

Would I trade a half-decent childhood, a reasonably well-established personality and everybody I loved and loved me for superpowers. No. No I wouldn't. I have too much to lose.

"You take these things for granted," Akiza smiled sadly, "The things I can only dream about. Having somebody by your side, a shoulder to cry on. Having any friend at all who you can count on! I don't have any of that and I never did! I'd trade all my powers for your friends in the Satellite."

"Friends? In the Satellite?" It felt a little odd as it rolled off my tongue, I realized I rarely ever referred to these people in the Satellite as 'friends', even in my head, "…I guess?" Being stuck in the Black Garden does have its advantages, I felt safe from prying eyes, if not safe from the insane woman with magical powers who I'm currently playing a card game with.

"Aren't they your friends?" Akiza looked noticed my hesitation and asked again, her voice a mixture of curiosity and resentment. "People who like you and would help you at least?"

"They…" I hesitated long enough that, had we been outside, even Chaos would have noticed, "I don't know, depends on what you mean by 'friends' I guess." I paused and tried for a less confusing answer, "They like what I can do, for them and for the things they care about. They like what I represent, or what they think I represent at any rate. They may even like my actual goals and plans. And that makes up a large enough part of me that I consider them to like 'me'."

"And without any of that, they wouldn't like you?" Akiza's voice was a mixture of awe and sympathy.

"Without any of that, I don't think I'd like myself very much." I smiled, "I'm not even sure I would be me anymore. Akiza, you really have to stop separating fundamental parts of yourself from, well, 'You'. Your friends like certain aspects of you for whatever reason, there're probably reasons why you like yourself if you think about it, and that's fine. We all do that, it's part of being human."

"I wouldn't know," Akiza lamented "I never had friends before, or liked myself."

The last part stung a little.

"Akiza, let me in!" Yusei's voice drifted from the outside.

"Look Akiza," I was glad to drag the conversation onto another topic, it was getting a little uncomfortable for me."These barriers you put up, you don't need them anymore. But if you don't start letting people in, you might not get a chance like this."

Akiza tilted her head, looking longingly at the sound.

"Akiza, please! I'll get you out of the Satellite, you'll have to trust me! This isn't who you are!" Yusei's voice rang clearly from the outside.

"Well?" I arched an eyebrow at the now-flustered redhead. "If you want friends, Yusei is really your best bet. You don't meet a lot people like him you know, and if you push him away, he might not come back.

"He won't?" Akiza looked panicked for a second.

"I will help you, but you'll have to let me in!"

"I activate the effects of Black Garden," Akiza listened to Yusei's words from across the wall, which I admit, did sound a lot more convincing than my own. Then again he wasn't fearing for his life, "And send everything on the field to the graveyard."

At her words, the cage of vines surrounding us collapsed, her monsters disappearing again.

Perhaps more importantly, a tornado appeared in the underground subway tunnels.

A tornado appeared in the completely sealed compartment within the underground subway tunnels.

Physics be damned.

As soon as the cage collapsed, Yusei rushed to Akiza's side, completely overlooking me, the obvious victim of the situation. Yusei looked so cute when he's hovering over Akiza like nothing else in the world mattered, I just want to put a leash on him and lock him in my backyard forever.

I will admit to being a little jealous.

"Will you help her get out of the Satellite?" Yusei turned to me and asked naturally. I suspected that in his mind, by transitive property, all of Nervin's friends are naturally his friends and therefore would help him, no questions asked.

I have only one condition, I need to know Sayer's plans." I replied.

Akiza hesitated, "I can't betray Arcadia like this."

"Have you considered, you know, leaving Arcadia? It's obvious that Sayer doesn't exactly care about you, or he would've gotten you out already. Why do you still help him?"

"He does care about me," Akiza argued.

'Just not enough' were the words that lingered in the air, "Nobody had ever given me a helping hand until I met Sayer!"

"Tell me about his plans to attack us then," I relented. Arcadia wasn't exactly my problem, and it's a little beyond my reach at this point.

"I don't know much," Akiza nodded in agreement, "I'm not the only one he has, but I don't know who else there is. Sayer wouldn't just give up though. He sent me to destroy the Zephyrs, now that I failed, he'll send others."

"Yes… Tell me, does Sayer have a plan to attack the Sector?"

"Not that I know of," Akiza replied uncertainly.

"Perfect. We'll say any Arcadia member trying to sneak into the Satellite is trying to attack it."

"I just told you that Sayer isn't planning to attack the Sector."

"But Sector Security doesn't know that." I gave her a disparaging look.

"He could tell them," Akiza argued, "Why should they believe you?"

"Are they going to believe the people who heroically stood up and stopped the last attack," Akiza had the good graces to blush, "or the crazy businessman trying to sneak people into the Satellite?"

"So there's no way for him to get around it?"

"Of course there is. These kinds of rumors will even die down on their own if given sufficient time, but that's what we need, time."

Yusei gave me a sideways look, presumably skeptical over why I needed to buy time.

"Let's go then," Chaos prompted. "We shouldn't keep Vincent and Greiger waiting."

I didn't need to be psychic to know that he was worried that Akiza might turn crazy again.

"We should finish the duel sometime," Akiza offered, having somehow wrapped her arms around Yusei's without him noticing.

"Let's not." I grinned, "You enjoy it, don't you?"

"Enjoy what?" Akiza asked.

"Dueling. Victory, destruction, control, inflicting pain," I ripped open her mask of vulnerability to reveal the real Black Rose inside, the young woman who could conquer cities.

"I-" Akiza wanted to agree but stopped when she saw Yusei beside her.

"Oh there's nothing wrong with that," I assured her, tilting my chin in Yusei's direction, "But you really should find somebody who doesn't mind."

"Yuki!" the crab-haired duelist protested loudly, turning his whole body towards me so he didn't have to look Akiza in the eye.

Not that would be a problem, Akiza was busy looking at anything but him at the moment.

After sending off Akiza, Vincent and Greiger, the first satellites to go to Domino in two years (except those invited by Sector Security of course), Galen, Chaos, Nervin, Blizzard, Cyril and myself sat down to discuss the real problems.

"In conclusion, the essence of industrialization and indeed the modern era is to improve productivity per capita, in order to increase maximum consumption per capita, or what we otherwise refer to as living standards. To that end, infrastructure is the foundation of industry and commerce, and therefore more than deserving of our attention and resources." Nervin finished with a sweeping bow.

I clapped, and glared threateningly at everybody else until they clapped too.

I had asked Nervin to prepare that speech to convince everybody to turn their attention to construction. Now that the pier is available, the next natural step is to move everything out, and for that, we need real roads.

"What was glasses going on about?" Chaos asked as though he didn't hear a word my engineer said in the past five minutes.

"I want to build a road from here to the pier," I summarized simply.

Note to self, no more prepared speeches, or at least don't let Nervin prepare them.

"Oh." Chaos nodded dumbly, "But there is a road, we took it today."

He of course, was referring to the trip that would have been considered extreme motorcycle parkour in my previous reality.

"I agree," Cyril concurred, "With Chaos I mean. Why do we have to build roads? It's going to be a huge waste of money. Plus, isn't that Domino city's job?"

"Trying to fix up the Satellite would only attract more attention from Domino," Blizzard added cautiously, "And that never leads to anything good."

All true, I admitted, but there's a bigger problem.

"The reason we, um," I chose the verb carefully, flashing Blizzard an apologetic smile, "occupied the pier, is to move products outside, we can hardly do that given the road conditions here."

"We had no problem getting to the pier today," Chaos replied, completely ignoring the rooftops and subway tunnels we took in the 12km trip, "why do we need to build something new?"

"It's a matter of cost," I sighed. Nope, he definitely didn't hear anything Nervin said earlier. "It's too expensive trying to get electronics across Satellite... terrain." And of course, by road, I mean a strip of flat-ish dirt,

"It's still be cheaper than building an entire road," Cyril said confidently, he's been track of our finances.

"The way I see about it, we have two choices. We could pay minimum wage, haul products across Satellite, making what money we could. Eventually, we'll go to Domino with whatever money we made, leaving the rest of the Satellite in exactly the same position as before."

Cyril grumbled, obviously anticipating what I was about to say.

"Or we invest in actual infrastructure so more businesses than our own would be possible here, and see where that takes us."

Chaos' eyes lit up.

"Of course, to guarantee the safety of the road and transports, we'll need a security force." I looked across the room, "Galen, will you head that up?"

"Huh?" Galen started, he had dozed off while Nervin was talking. "Sure! Of course! What was it again?"

Cyril still looked unconvinced.

"So we'll just waste our own money to do Domino's job?"

"The area around the road will have just become prime real estate property." I shrugged, that's the real source of profit.

"And what makes you think it would be under our control?" Cyril asked skeptically.

"That's why we have a security force." I dismissed his concerns. "In any case, we'll start the designs tonight. Let's meet up tomorrow and see what Zigzix can come up with in the technological department."

A couple of roads (or in this case, one) might do more good for the residents of the Satellite than even opening it to Domino corporate interests. Even if the idea fails, this noble cause should keep them busy until the end of the Dark Signer arc at least. I smirked to myself.

"So," Blizzard whispered to Cyril hesitantly as the two started walking away, "The decision was made based on majority rules? But what about the people who aren't here?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Cyril didn't bother whispering, "The decision was made based on Yuki's rules, they always are."

"Then these meeting?" Blizzard prompted.

"One of her quirks I think," Cyril shrugged, "It's easier just to go along with them."

A/N: Seeing as this is a first person story, I feel obligated to mention that, as may become more apparent in later chapters, Yuki's views, social, economic or otherwise, does not necessarily reflect those of my own.

A/N 2: This is the majority of my rants about Akiza the character. It's not that she's not justified in her pains, it was just odd that she chose to take it out on Yusei, an orphan in the Satellite who never had a fraction of the opportunities she had. And also she had superpowers! Superpowers! Why would anybody want to give that up?