Hey, everyone! Welcome to another chapter! Sorry that this took so long, but I had a lot on my plate. Without further ado, please enjoy! I don't own rights to YuGiOh! 5Ds!

Remove the Mask

Unexpected Assistance

Yusei POV

I rolled my eyes as Jack left, already knowing where he was headed. Why couldn't he last longer than a few hours without a cup of coffee? A tug on my jacket pulled me from my thoughts and I looked down to see Leo looking up at me. "What's up?"

"I just so happen to know how we can find the underground duels," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "He's a friend of mine and has a knack with computers."

Crow chuckled. "Sounds like a miniature you, Yusei."

"Is that so?" I asked, ignoring Crow's comment.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, and his uncle works with Security. He happens to be one of their best officers."

This could actually benefit our search. If we had eyes and ears close to the Security, we could widen our search area with their high technological equipment compared to ours, or our lack of equipment. "What's his name?"

"Leo, don't go dragging Dexter into this," Luna pipped up, moving to stand next to her twin. "You know he doesn't like it when volunteer him for things without his permission."

"Aw, come on," Leo grumbled, proving that his sister was speaking the truth. "This is his big chance to meet the three most incredible turbo duelists that ever lived!"

"They can find their own way of tracking down the underground duels," she continued. "I'm sure they'll figure something out."

A lightbulb turned on in my head. "As a matter of fact, I may have already come up with an idea." I flinched as Martha flicked my head. "What was that for?"

"I know that look on your face all too well." She politely asked for Leo and Luna to leave the room and once the door had closed behind the twins, she turned back to face me, a hand on her hip. "Let me guess, you're thinking of going undercover and participating in these underground duels."

"I think it's a great idea!" Crow nodded, shrinking a little as she glared sideways in his direction. "How else are we going to find the locations of the underground duels going on?"

"Doesn't Trudge work for Security?"

I grimaced and spoke in time with Crow. "No. Way."

She rolled her eyes. "I know that you boys have never been close, but it wouldn't hurt to ask." she paused, flicking our heads as we scoffed. "What am I going to do with you boys? To think that the Izinski family asked you to find Akiza, what were they thinking?"

Anger flared in my chest for the first time in years, shocking me to the core. Ever since Akiza had disappeared I had become more stoic than a rock. Very rarely do I ever get riled up or overly emotional, so why did her words anger me so much? I blinked as my pocket suddenly vibrated and pulled out my phone to see Jack's contact ID flashing across the screen. "Yeah, Jack, what's up?" I swiped the screen, placing it on the table so he could see the other two.

"You chaps interested in finding some underground duels?"

"You bet." I nodded, looking to Crow and earning a smile. "We were actually thinking the same thing."

"Now hold on a minute," Martha intervened, a familiar stern look on her face. "You boys honestly think that I'm going to sit by and let you go?"

"That's what I like to hear," Jack continued, pulling up a map and showing us a factory over on the north end of town; the oldest and most dangerous part. "This is where the underground duelists like to gather, according to my source. She's even been so kind as to agree to slip us past the front doors." He shifted the screen and revealed a familiar waitress from the cafe we liked. She had long platinum hair gathered into two piggy tails that reached her knees, very dark chocolate skin, and piercing gray colored eyes. "What do you think, chaps? Should we take her up on her offer?"

"I say we go for it." Crow gave me a thumbs up. "Let's do it!"

Martha sighed, shaking her head. "I can't stop you, but promise me that you'll all be careful."

"We will." We chorused."

~L~A~F~

"Yousure this is going to work?" I asked, skeptically looking at my appearance as Jack's source, Vanessa, studied me from various angles. She had styled my hair into an Elvis-like look and had switched my natural black for a nearly blinding orange. Instead of my jacket and black cutoff tee, she insisted that I wore a burnt orange colored tee with a black vest and distressed brown cargo pants with military boots. I, thankfully, had gotten off lightly.

Crow's hair had been gelled and flattened after being dyed a dark emerald green and were bleached on the ends. He was forced to trade in his attire for a baggy yellow sweatshirt and green cargo shorts with sandals. He looked like a hippie reject...scratch that, an incredibly miserable hippie reject. "You can't be serious..." he groaned from under a dark cloud as she placed a pair of round spectacles on his face that matched my own.

"Tough up, baby," she cooed in her thick French accent as she adjusted his multilayered bead accessories. "No one will ever suspect that you're Crow Hogan."

"Cheer up, it's not that bad." I raised an eyebrow as Jack finally emerged from the changing area. His hair had been spiked and dyed platinum, he was wearing a bright purple shirt with tails and black leather skinny pants decorated with tons of studs and buckles. His shades, like ours, were white with purple colored lenses, but they looked like they belonged with his get up more than ours. "When was the last time we looked this dashing?"

"We look like disco rejects," Crow grumbled, catching a glimpse of himself in the nearby mirror that she had hung up. She had arrived at the garage a few hours after we had left Martha's and has been working on our "transformations" nonstop.

She took a step back, studying the three of us. "You want to get in, don't you?" I asked her why she was helping us and she merely shrugged. "Call me crazy, but I thought that you three might shed some light on one of the duelists. I can't have someone going around and endangering the duelists." She explained that she was in charge of pairing up duelists as well as distributing the spoils and assisting any duelist that is in need. "It's my job to oversee the duels and every duelist's well being is my top priority. I am the designated health specialist, after all."

I nodded. Her answer was understandable, but it caused a lot of questions to rise, questions that I was sure that we would find. "Then let's get going."

~L~A~F~

"What are you three supposed to be?" A duelist snickered as he entered the factory building. "Freaks."

I sweat dropped as a tick mark appeared on Crow's head. "Maybe we should go inside instead of hanging around the entrance. We could divide and conquer for a while then meet up later to go over our finds." Turning, I worked my way to the west end of the factory as the duelists were paired up.

"Hey, you," a duelist wearing spiked clothing approached. "You're new here, right?" He extended his hand while tilting his head so that his long black hair shifted out of his face. "The names Tonio, and I'm in charge of this place. I hear that you wanted to participate in some of the duels. You really think your friend could be down here of all places?"

His tone suggested that he was skeptical and who would blame him? Why would someone from the tops be all the way down here? "We just want to cover all the bases, that's all," I answered. "Are you the one who picks out the duel pairs?"

"Sure am," he gestured to the gathering duelists. "I already have them sorted out, so you're going to be a spectator for tonight."

I nodded. "We'll consider tonight an introduction to the roster."

"I like your attitude," he laughed, thumping my heartily on the back as he turned to address the duelists. "You all know the rules, so I shouldn't have to repeat them. For newcomers, there's no discrimination between winners and losers. There will be no physical violence during or after the duels. There is plenty of lodging and supplies for everyone, so no ganging up on one another. Break any of my rules," he paused, glaring at each duelist in turn. "You will find yourself in a very unfavorable position."

Every duelist nodded obediently as they began activating their duel disks. They have obviously heard that speech quite a few times, and it appeared that a few have been on the receiving end of the warning. Things seemed to be organized and well thought out. Some of the duels were quick, lasting a mere ten minutes, but there were a handful that lasted nearly an hour. There was nothing out of the ordinary that Martha had heard about.

Just as I was preparing to head back to our meeting spot, the slightest of movement near one of the doors on the second floor caught my attention. I quickly made my way up the stairs after casting looks to Crow and Jack, moving my back to the wall as I approached the cracked door. My movements stalled as a child's yell followed by a string of curses from a much lower voice came from the other side. My arm rose to cover my face as the door literally exploded off its hinges and smoke billowed from the room.

I grunted as something collided with my chest, causing me to fall backwards onto the concrete. Hands grasped the front of my shirt, clinging to me as if I was a life jacket as I sat up.

"Stay there, out of the way." A distorted voice barked from the room's depths followed by the sounds of multiple monsters. Jack's note of what the barista had said about the customer's distorted voice rang in my head as the child clung to me. Standing, I backed away slightly as a large figure appeared from the smoke, holding his hands in front of him in a defensive gesture and his pale eyes wide with fear and locked on something within the room. The voice continued as the man came to a stop, his back against the railing. "You are nothing but trash, yet you meg for the same mercy as the child did?"

Sweat began to bead down the man's brow as a red glow began to emit from the room. "It was a mistake, I swear! I thought that he had taken my wallet!"

"That's a lie!" The child cried as I placed him on his feet, pointing an accusing finger at the now cowering man. "You were the one who stole my piggybank! I had saved money up so that I could get a pack of new cards since my last few were stolen!"

"You filthy little-" The man's words stalled as the glow grew, becoming blinding. Sounds of metal bending and sounds that were almost animalistic filled the air. After a few seconds, the light receded, revealing the man in a crumpled heap on ground floor! There was a large hole in the railing where the man had originally been! Most of the people were keeping their distance from the man as he remained motionless, only two stepped forward and removed him from the building, most likely taking him to the nearest hospital. None of them seemed surprised by what had just happened, and I was unsure of how to take their reaction.

I leapt into the room in time to see a shadow leap out the window and without another thought, followed them into the night. The figure was a little shorter than me, not much taller than Crow, and they had a slim build from what I could see when their cape-like coat billowed in the wind. Something bothered me as I followed them down the alley. The barista had said that there was a duelist that liked to duel in front of the cafe. Could this person be one in the same? If so, why would they be here? "Wait!" I shouted as they darted around a corner a few paces ahead of me, but all I found was a dead end when I turned the corner; the figure nowhere in sight.

"You lost them?" I turned and nodded as Jack and Crow appeared behind me. They told me that they had been around for quite awhile, and that there was a very slight chance that they may have any information that could help us. We agreed to come back tomorrow night, and went our separate ways.

I was just about to start my engine when a hand came down on my arm. "I heard it..." The girl twin, Luna, looked up at me with tears in her eyes as her brother came up next to her. Where had they come from? "I heard a deck crying in pain, so I came to see if I could do anything to help it..."

"She can hear duel spirits," Leo stated, taking one of her hands as she wiped away her tears and fixed me with his eyes. "I've never seen her this upset, so something big must have happened. She said she felt your deck here too, so I knew that you guys would be going off whatever Martha told you."

"We are looking for a friend that disappeared a couple years ago, and we thought that they might be here. I don't think they are here, but we can't ignore what's going on." Dismounting, I dropped a knee and placed my hands on her shoulders. "If you can do what you say you can, will you tell me what you felt or saw?"

She nodded. "I saw a red glow coming from this area, and there was an awful sound ringing in my head. It seemed to be crying out in pain." Her head lowered as she squeezed his hand. "I heard another voice, but it was very faint and I almost missed it. It was crying out, it kept calling for something...or someone."

"I believe you," I nodded. If she was able to sense duel monster spirits, then we may have a chance of finding Akiza. Rolling up my sleeve, I revealed the dark colored dragon head tattoo on my forearm. "I received this a few years ago during my duel against Jack during the Prix."

"I remember that!" Leo rolled up his own sleeve and revealed a similar odd mark on his own arm. "That's when we received these marks." Luna held her arm up and showed hers. "So we are all somehow connected, right?"

I nodded. "I know of someone who can help us understand these marks, he's an old friend of my father." Standing, I pressed the call button on my D-wheel and the other two's faces appeared. "Hey, we need to meet at Goodwin's place tomorrow. I have some new info." They nodded and the screen went black.

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