Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds: The Judgement of the World

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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Crow sat at the bar with his tool kit next to him and a small box filled with a broken heart. In one hand he held a carving knife, the other a slim block of wood. While stationed beside his elbow was a picture of a music box. Near by was a shoe box that held the pieces of said music box. Splintered and broken; every time he sliced even the slightest bit of wood, he heard Patty sniffle. The sound made the muscles in his jaw tense and motivated him all the more to rebuild the box. 'But the reality is that I can't fix these broken mechanical pieces, not alone. I'll need Yusei to help me, and the couple well, I think Carly can help restore that...'

A sharp rap at the door caused him to look away from the wood panel as Hikari looked up from the few meager dolls that the place had. Crow put the knife and panel down before going to the door, only to be pleasantly surprised at the sight of Yusei standing outside. No D-Wheel in sight but ok! "Just the guy I needed to talk to! Get in."

If Yusei had ever been the chatty type he would have been taken aback by Crow's order. Fortunately he was usually a clam and while surprised, it wasn't as though Crow cut him off from saying anything in the first place! Leaving the quiet duelist to follow his more bubbly, red head brother into the... house, apartment, whatever it was technically called.

"So Ruka asked me last night if I would check in on her friend today because Patty was going to be home with her grandma." Crow began before gesturing to the box of the table, "Its a music box, was kinda old and is broken. Its going to be a team effort at best, but I want your opinion on the mechanical parts. Think you can help me fix it?"

It was a much welcomed question, free of interrogation and allowed Yusei to focus on something other than himself. So he walked over the rest of the way, looked inside the shoe box, and winced. 'This isn't good,' he thought as he picked up a bent metal bar that had a gear stuck on it. 'Depending on what gear is supposed to even do. I might need to replace it instead of just straightening it out.'

"Yusei says?" Crow asked as Yusei dug through the box, looking at more pieces.

"You up for a challenge?"

"'You' up for a challenge?" Crow replied to Yuseis' way of saying it could be done.

"I would think there would be more pieces... If its a music box..." Yusei began while Crow gave a small, frustrated sigh. "Patty's grandma had the box in her hands when her heart took that hit. She fell on the box and I suspect the emergency crew trampled over it. The neighbor gathered up what they 'could' but on the bright side, Patty says they have some videos so we can hear the box too if we need to."

"Might have to convert it to a sound file instead of the original traditional format," Yusei warned.

"I said I'd come back later today, I'll ask when I get there," Crow replied. But it was a good reply, Jack could do the painting part for the box, Carly do the figures that were originally in the box. Good work this. "By the way Yusei, where's your ride?"

"Back at the condo with the twins. Yugi had me dropped through a portal into the shed back home."

"What did you just say?" Crow stared at Yusei completely flabbergasted.

"A certain 'king' made an executive decision to open a portal under my feet and drop me at the shed." Yusei fairly bit out in annoyance, but not wanting to give out too many details with so many small children around.

Crow's little home was an abandoned shop. Like most shops the living quarters were upstairs, the business end was down stairs. While most of the place was modified for the children, there was a cleaned off area for Crow and his own D-Wheel. Suddenly for all that space it didn't seem enough room for Crow's brain to properly explode.

"Well good to know that we have a little from help up there when it comes to keeping you from beating yourself up." Crow teased as he leaned against the bar that the shoe box rested on. As the glower he got from Yusei deepened he shook his head and shrugged. "Come on, which would you rather have? Keep doing all of this by yourself, or have the original 'King of Games' as your adviser?" Crow held his hands up as though the options had physical weight to measure it by.

It forced Yusei to stare harder at Crow, and grow even more disgruntled by the fact that Crow had a valid point. A point that he resented with every fiber of his being and decided to express by double downing on his stare.

"Did you talk to Martha about Aki?" Crow asked in his most nonchalant way he could imagine, his head cocked to the side. 'With that glare I'd say he did...' "Well its good that you talked to someone," Crow finished as he moved over to where his D-Wheel was parked. "So you want me to give you a lift right?"

Yusei's mouth was a straight line as he put a spared smaller gear back in the box, "I need to get the pills to Ruka."

"You still have them?" Crow was astounded even as part of him whispered that it would be something Yusei would do. "I would have thought you left the pills at the condo."

"Two sets of bottles? It would have confused the twins," Yusei answered causing Crow to stop moving forward and turn to look at him.

"So? You just explain the situati- Yusei..." Crow groaned at the sharp look he got and realized what Yusei had done. "You didn't plan to tell them."

"They're kids." Yusei snapped in reply with that tired tone that gave Crow a small idea about what might have motivated Yugi to send Yusei to the orphanage.

Crow called out to the kids that he was leaving before putting his focus back on Yusei. "Doesn't matter, its about 'trust'. You want them to be able to talk to you about their problems? You need to show that they can trust you with that information. They're not orphans starting from scratch with you as their only source of security. The twins old enough to decide on their own. Do you want them to call you 'big brother' because its a generic Japanese honorific? Or do you want them calling you 'big brother' because they know they can trust you like family?" He handed a spare helmet to Yusei before climbing onto his ride while feeling the lasers that was Yusei's glare on the back of his head.

"Are all of you just going to chew me out about that?" Yusei growled as he climbed on the backseat of the D-Wheel and wished violence on Crow.

"Well you live so much in your head. You need someone to force you to step out once in a while," Crow called back as he took off, leaving his little nest. "Just nice to know even people who don't know you, know 'you'!"

From there the conversation paused as Crow drove out back towards Neo Domino. Driving Yusei past all the recognized locations that the pair knew from growing up. All the things he recognized and now felt as though he betrayed by living in Neo Domino. From the dirty, lifeless, dilapidated shard of Domino, to the clean, towering City of Light. Yet it all was once upon a time whole. One city.

Somewhere outside of time, there was a Yugi that belonged to Yusei's reality. How was he going to feel if he ever got home just to see what happened to everything?

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"Hey Yusei? You ok if we stop at the bakery? Patty wanted me to pick something up for her grandma. Won't take long!" Crow asked as they drove through the city proper, nodding once Yusei called out an affirmative. "Thanks!"

They drove through the city, to a small bakery where Crow went to pick up from, With the front of the shop revealed a robust amount of breads. Enough so that Yusei was tempted to go in and grab something for himself. Save that whatever money he had was currently at the condo, with his Duel Disk, his D-Wheel... And everything else damn you YUGI! But that was only a side thought as he began mentally going over a list of likely places he could find parts for the music box. While trying not to think about the cylinder that would hold the original music, the odds of 'that' being faithfully reconstructed felt impossible. 'Its going to take a level of delicacy I've never had to use to mend the holes in the piece.'

Neo Domino continued flowing about even as he sat there lost in thought. Vehicles of various type traveled the roads, the random shopper walked the sidewalks. It wasn't long before Crow returned, a small bag in his hands. He didn't have to say anything his presence was enough to bring Yusei back to the present when he got off the D-Wheel. Allowing Crow to open the spare compartment under the seat , with the package secured the two rode on.

"So what did Ruka ask you to do?" Yusei asked finally, wondering why it wasn't asked of him seeing that he was living with the twins.

"She said Patty is having trouble looking after her grandma by herself. Nothing major just heavy lifting and stuff, said I didn't mind. Benefits both of us really, they can be a reference I can use when I apply for jobs. They get someone to help Patty with the heavy stuff and keep anyone from trying to prey on them." Crow reported his voice drifting off before shaking his head. "Like I said, those kids are smarter than you think. Ruka picked up on something about Patty that made her want me to visit them."

"Ruka's got a talent for seeing through deceptions," Yusei agreed as they rode along. "I think that was part of what made her willing to brave interacting with Aki. Ruka can't help but be attracted to wounded souls and wanting to help." Yusei explained as Crow began to chuckle.

"So basically Rua is her bodyguard, that's going to be rough, Marks or no Marks! You better be teaching him how to do his job right!" Crow's chuckle turned into a full laugh as he imagined Rua trying to chase away every potential boyfriend.

Yusei rolled his eyes, while not bothering to offer up a reply to Crow and instead looked at the passing scenery. Something he couldn't really do while he was driving around himself. The rounded feeling of the bottles in his pants leg pocket rubbed against his leg. Reminding him subtly that Yugi went and told the twins about Ruka's heart condition. But Yusei couldn't recall much about Yugi's personality. Most information he had was on the man's skill as a duelist, but what he was like off the dueling field was largely an unknown.

So what did Yugi tell the twins?

Did he just flippantly tell the pair that Rua had killed someone? It felt far too out of left field given what interaction Yusei had with him. Yugi didn't have to willingly autograph all those books in the elevator. But he did. He didn't even have to offer that card to Crow, but he did that too. So what would he have said? Would he explain everything? Just offer the pills? He 'did' send Yusei away, perhaps he just said that Yusei gave the bottles to Yugi to give to them? Yugi didn't feel like the type of guy who would willing terrify children.

It was frustrating. Yusei preferred to have control over his life and Yugi was someone he couldn't. The man could literally appear out of nowhere and just interact with his surroundings any which way. Well, to the limited degree that he could, since he couldn't touch anything. But he could summon Dark Magician into the world easily enough! 'What am I supposed to do? Just put the pills down and act like nothing happened at all? How do I even approach that topic with Ruka?' Yusei thought to himself as they passed into the residential complexes that made up the area of Neo Domino.

Crow began to decelerate his D-Wheel before pulling onto the side of the road in front of an apartment complex. It wasn't as tall as the condo where the twins lived, in fact in comparison it was fairly modest. It didn't have the access to drive a D-Wheel into the building like the twins home had. But there was a parking garage that was gated for residents only, the building wasn't even able to get proper sunlight. Standing modestly in the shadows of taller, more imposing, buildings, sunrise and sunset would be difficult to see if seen at all.

'I need a place that lets me bring my D-Wheel in with me. But I can't afford a place with a set up like the condo with just what I am making doing odd repair jobs... Even if Crow moved in there wouldn't be enough...'

Crow dismounted his D-Wheel and waited for Yusei to as well. "I'd ask if you want to come up, but the residents already get a bit skittish with me going up, two marked guys and well..."

Yusei absently touched the mark under his eye before nodding in understanding as Crow retrieved the bag. The red head put his helmet in place of the bag, and left with the delivery, leaving Yusei alone. Idle observations leaving Yusei to realize that the place, now that he wasn't driving by, was older. The building held an well maintained age, but it looked older than the buildings around it. 'Would explain being blocked in like it is. Everything else was built 'around' it...'

A sudden sharp breeze whipped across his skin chilling him so completely that he shivered as an automatic reaction. An anomaly that confused him, given the season and time of day and though he knew he couldn't 'see' wind or where it came from. He looked about the moderately busy street for what could have produced that wind. The people didn't look the least bit concerned if they even noticed.

'Was that Yugi?' But that felt overly childish even while a part of him tried to rationalize if it 'could' be the man. He had a magician after all, but Yusei hadn't been thinking anything particularly 'prayer' worthy. In case it 'was' him though, Yusei scrutinized the side walk all the more. Though it wasn't hard, he just had to check for someone dressed as Yugi was known for. It wasn't like the guy was showing up in various outfits. 'Might not be able to if he's stuck outside of time, its not like he has access to his closet. And just making new outfits seems a bit much.'

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"Here are the donuts you asked," Crow reported as he handed over the bag he had picked up from the bakery. "Man that place looks great, I appreciate you sending me there!"

Patty received the bag with a slightly less fake smile, though there was an underlining fatigue in it. "You're welcome, I.. Grandma and Grandpa loved that place when they visited last time... And I..." 'Couldn't bring myself to go there' hung in the air around her as a silent neon sign.

"Patty is alone to help her grandmother when her parents have to work. It would mean a lot to me if you could visit her on those days so she can have some help. She's a kid like us and she's my best friend," Ruka pleaded looking up at Crow with such an earnest expression... Made him actually question what everyone said about him to require such a look.

"You don't have to worry Ruka, I have no problems helping your friend!" Crow answered with a comforting grin.

"Its still a good place, and you'll be able to go there again. You and your grandma," Crow offered as a gentle encouragement to the child. "You need anything else?"

"No... we're fine. Thank you, and thank Ruka for me, I know she set you up to this," Patty answered with a bit more life in her eyes.

Crow gave a small salute before waving and leaving her and her grandmother. When he reached his D-Wheel though, the first thing that struck him was that it was lacking a crab hair styled duelist. Odd. He looked about the surrounding area and couldn't see Yusei anywhere. He made his way to the D-Wheel and checked for a note or some sign that Yusei left him a message. Hindsight pointing out that it would be improbable given that Yusei had nothing on him to write with or on. Not to mention that Crow didn't carry such things either.

But he found his spare helmet in the compartment which meant that Yusei didn't take it with him... so where was he? 'Well maybe he decided to walk back to the twins place? It can't be that far right? Or even if it is, its a nice enough day, and...' A quick glance at the time showed that Yusei could possible rendezvous with the twins if he walked. 'maybe he went to walk with them? Would give him time to chat about the pills I think.' With that in mind, Crow put back on his own helmet and u-turned back home to Satellite.

While off in the distance Momentum spiked.