Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's: The Judgement of the World

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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"Thank you Uncle Malik," Ryu whispered into his small phone.

"Think nothing of it my little dragon. If my sister would send a message from the beyond, who am I to ignore her?" the older man replied with a gentle warmth to his voice. "But now that I have you on the phone and you don't sound urgent..."

Ryu was buried under the blankets on his bed, a small flashlight in hand. "I wasn't even sleeping, I was at my desk doing homework. Suddenly I was soaring alongside Spiria, and the world was dying..." Held in his young hand, was one of the absolute rarest cards in the Dueling Monsters game. 'Seeress of the Pharaoh: Spiria', rare in that it was the only card of its kind. Lacking even the required code to be loaded into a duel disk. But that was to be expected, his Uncle Malik had told him once.

"She showed me a future... a future where a designer poison was created to kill those without psi skills. It ran rampant and killed everyone, even the psi's that were intended to live."

"Yugi made these cards explicitly for your father, they don't have to be conventional in any form, so long as they 'work'."

Uncle Malik had told him that there were originally 'four. The deck was designed to support four priests, but it was only in the greater scope of styles. It wasn't themed beyond being a power deck, intended to summon powerful monsters. Yet the deck had no powerful monsters to be called forth thus it was incomplete. It stuck out as though it was waiting for the strong monsters to be brought to the deck. Yet supposedly it was already 'here'.

Those five rare cards were all based on Yugi's 'inner circle' his Uncle, Black Luster, the General. Mahaado was ever the Dark Magician, Spiria was Isis, and Bastet was Kalim, with Bakura's 'Change of Heart' rounding out the original group. Then two more support cards apparently appeared in the deck after the Zero Reverse incident.

"That... is dark..." Malik answered after a small pause. "Has the cards ever done anything like this before?"

"I've been messing with them more recently, there's this woman, kinda got in trouble with my father. Doing a bit of study on her and I found that she likes to do card readings using the Duel decks and well." His lips twisted into a small depreciate smile, it was a curiosity that he held privately. But at least something he could share with his uncle.

"You want to give it a try?" Malik remarked with a more warm smile in his voice, "Sister saw visions, so I can understand... And if she's trying to reach us from Yugi's throne, it must be important."

"You think so too?" Ryu asked softly as he wiggled in bed to get a bit more comfortable. "But if she can send visions here... Why can't they just wake Uncle Yugi up? Why won't they come home?"

"We can only assume that its because we weren't strong enough," Malik replied, a sadness in his voice as his thoughts drifted back to his family and friends. "They're still fighting that demon and can't make it back yet."

"Do you think I'll ever meet any of them?" Ryu asked, as he began flipping through the deck to find the cards associated with his extended family.

"I... I want to believe yes," Malik answered, but there was a crack in that confidence. They lost Mai 'and' Valon on the day of Zero Reverse and now to learn Jounouchi had died. The older man had made his peace years ago that he would never see his brother and sister again. Yet Ryu... he was just a kid... "You know... I know Yugi was larger than life... I know he did insanely incredible things, but..."

"I should stop believing in fairy tales?" Ryu finished the sentence, granted not the way Uncle Malik would. He could even hear the wince in the man's grunt. "That's how father puts it, 'fairy tales'.. But I... I just want to believe in fairy tales, a little longer." Ryu replied, "Even if Uncle Kaiba was as cold as people make him sound. I want to believe he'll come home one day and Father will be happy again. Then I can stop too! I can stop monitoring the world like this..."

'Oh little Dragon, you're too young for this...' Malik thought in shame as he closed his eyes. "You're right, and you should, we should all have a tale to believe in."

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Moonless, the front doors of the motel slid open to a chilled gust of wind. Muted lights from the porch warmed into a soft glow of interior lights as Kiryu looked up from a home school book. Tucked protectively under the curve of the front of the counter, a small radio prattled on about the news in Neo Domino. He expected that there would be some news about this supposed poison the pair had spoken of. But if there was it was being kept insanely undercover.

He rubbed his eyes in irritation from staring at the words in the book when a glance up revealed Crow walking in. He expected Jack looming over the red head maybe the pair bickering over some nonsense. Their personalities were always the type to clash over the most idiotic of things. What he didn't expect was Yusei to be with him instead. For several reasons actually.

"Hey Kiryu! We got Yusei, Martha is going to kill us, but we got Yusei!" Crow announced with tired cheer. Watching as Kiryu's normally serious expression drop into naked shock before slowly pushing himself up from his seat.

"What... how?"

"First let me bring everyone back, Jack and Aki are waiting back there... You can look after Yusei while I go pick them up right?" Crow asked, weary cheerfulness in his voice as Yusei managed to push himself into standing up. Albeit swaying with heavy exhaustion, leaving Kiryu with no real choice.

"Yeah, go get them, I'll take Yusei to the room." Kiryu replied, though he painfully didn't want to be with 'Yusei' alone. Not after everything he had done and without the Dark Signer's soothing ability to make him just not care about others. He doubled back to grab the key to the room he had set aside for the 'pair' not 'quartet'. Still no announcements of a potential dangerous poison carrying patient of Neo Domino Hospital on the loose.

The card was tucked underneath his literature book which he grabbed before returning to his former fellow gang member. Yusei looked exhausted to his untrained eye. 'An easy mark' was a good term for how Yusei looked at the moment. A clear lack of focus in his eyes, despite being in a strange new location. Just blindly trusting Crow and running autopilot.

But at least he didn't look capable of having a conversation, leaving Kiryu only with the burden of helping the guy to the room. 'How did you get from Neo Domino to here though? No, better question, how did the hospital get talked into letting you out?' he thought as he waved his hand in front of Yusei's face.

Yusei's eyes darted to the gesture, the ride had been chilly and he had kept his eyes closed as he rested for the whole time. Even when Crow parked and made him get up, he hadn't, feeling partly justified in that his eyes felt glued shut. So he hadn't seen the exterior of the motel only the inside when the warmth of the interior heating began melting through that thin layer of chill on his bones. The colors were muted, tired and reminded him a bit of the sand outside that he saw en route. Making it more a blur of paleness before his eyes than something to focus on.

He just remembered that Kiryu worked in Crash Town and his mind distantly worked on issues more relevant to his now. Overseeing the twins, the mechanical motor for the music box, the items he was entrusted to repair and now didn't know the status of. There was just so much to occupy the back of his mind. With the air now comfortably warm, so much so that it was starting to lull him into sleep. "Kiryu."

"Yusei... Crow and Jack didn't say you were going to be here... Come on I'll take you to your room." Kiryu instructed taking a step back, giving Yusei a critical look.

Yusei tried to take a step forward, but his legs started to give out. Reminding him of the terrifying weakness he had started to experience when the poison started beating him. Yet before he could hit the ground, Kiryu had caught him, throwing Yusei's right arm over his shoulder. Kiryu began helping Yusei walk out of the room and towards their room.

"This is rather unlike you Aki," Yusei noted patiently as he rested against her shoulder.

"I... I'm just tired Yusei," Aki admitted quietly, so much so that he could barely hear her over the sound of Black Roses' wing flaps.

"So land, you don't have to do this, just take me back." He suggested, only the tips of her hair brushed against his face as she shook her head.

"No, not this, I can handle this. I... I mean I'm tired of being people toys, their tools. I learned in China, that its part of the reason Black Rose has become this... But now the Movement has created a poison. I can't stand aside for that, just turn my mind off. How many people could die because I just shut down?" Aki asked, turning so her words flowed more quickly to his ears.

He tightened his hold around her waist as they rode, his fingers resting against the robes just under her ribs. He could feel the warmth of her body through the fabric and she was right when he thought on it. It was no life to live, and through the haze of fatigue that tainted his awareness now. 'Its actually nice to hear you say that.' He thought as he tried to watch the skyline, but without his helmet the wind just dried out his eyes and made seeing anything difficult.

"Its something I need to do, but I'm not sure if I can do this consistently," she confessed to herself. Perhaps she didn't expect him to hear it, maybe he didn't and instead only dreamed it up. But the excuse to hold her was a welcome opportunity. Just the soft scent of roses mixing with the cold rush of air.

But that was on their impulsive flight to the middle of the desert. From the sky, as the sun rose into the air, Yusei had taken small glimpses at the ground below. A vivid slash of pale sand stretched as far as his eyes could see. Not the sand of a beach with the ocean for a horizon, just sand on the ground and the dry air that denounced the scent of water. A scar brought by Zero Reverse and a pained reminder that there were other warps to the world as it tried to deal with Momentum on its own that day.

Crow and Jack had decreed that Yusei needed to rest inside the safety of a motel most and had forced him on the back of the BlackBird. Aki sleepily agreed to ride next, and followed by Jack, but it meant being left in the motel with Kiryu for a little while. With Yusei too exhausted to know how to even start a conversation with his former leader.

Probably for the best though, it allowed him to hear the quiet of the town as everyone was nearly home. Few cars were on the road, the wind dancing, swirled around them whispering as it went by. He could hear the doctors already, their cold, clinical disapproval of his disappearance, the pleasure that he wasn't a walking ground zero. But still plenty of displeasure.

"Another blanket..."

Kiryu was taken aback by the mumbled two words out of Yuseis' mouth, before wondering if it was Yusei trying to say he was cold. But Yusei was more direct than 'that'. "What?"

"Aki wore a robe here..." Yusei began, his words slurring out. "But dragon back is different than a D-Wheel. She'll have to hike it up and that means her legs..." the rest was lost to mumbling. But at least Kiryu now had a clue and nodded. She'd have to hike the robe clear up to the top of her thighs and the cold desert air would be cruel enough.

"We don't carry extra blankets really, but I'll turn the heat on in the room," Kiryu answered. It was telling that Yusei was 'this' out of it and his thoughts were for his team mates. 'How could I have ever... if I hadn't been so selfish, so arrogant...' He released Yusei's hand, bringing his hand back to his own face where his Marks rested. The searing pain of it being burned into his flesh a memory one didn't lose easily if at all.

He didn't care back then, he wore the mark with vain pride and savage hate for the perceived betrayals. The others taken over by the Earthbound Gods had reasons to return to the living, save for the two men who brought about Zero Reverse. 'So why did I come back?'

It wasn't as though he had family, he was an orphan. Nor was it because he had friends, he had burned every bridge and the building materials as well. Life without the gang was a drudgery, home school boring, but the old man meant well.. And his apathy made the old man's more rougher edges more tolerable to him than to most others probably. While Crash Town was now the place he rested his head. A town most like him, crashing back to earth and trying to build a life made out of sand.

'I never would have thought this would be my life back in our old Team days,' he thought as they reached the room. He slipped the card into the slot and opened the door, light was unnecessary to know where to guide Yusei. But odds were that Yusei would share the bed with Aki, so he needed the closer bed and thus heater.

By the time Kiryu was back at the front desk, he had left Yusei in bed, the guy had taken off his shoes and gone straight to sleep without a word. Now sitting and studying didn't feel realistic anymore, for Kiryu, at least for the time being. Dresses were problematic and stupid for even a basic bicycle, to say nothing of a D-Wheel. Would Crow drive slower to accommodate Akis' clothes, or just risk it?

Kiryu tried for all of a minute to play it off and wait behind the desk, but the Mark on his face began to itch. Unbidden memories distracted him from his supposed studies. The air blowing in the lock up in Neo Domino when the heat kicked on, the yelling between Jack and Crow when he started to lose himself replaced the sound of DJ's on the radio. He had thought of only greatness and not his team, while Yusei was passed out mid thoughts that prioritized his team over himself.

So he got up from the desk and paced the lobby, moving out towards the front and keeping an eye out for a lone headlight. When one such headlight pierced the darkness, Kiryu came to stand by the door watching the light. Until the phone rang and he was forced to abandon his spot to answer it. A guest making a call to reserve a room a month in advance. Once he had gotten the information down, the headlight 'if' it had been Crow, should have pulled in. Its absence only meant it traveled on and wasn't the redhead.

The night carried on but it wasn't horribly long before he saw yet another lone headlight stabbing a hole through the darkness. The speed was slower, unlike the other one and as he gazed out the sliding doors he saw a black D-Wheel approach. Crow pulling in, even as Kiryu stepped outside enough to open the sliding doors. Enough that if the phone rang he'd hear it and race to pick it up.

Close enough to see that Aki's wrists had been tied around Crows' waist, and she wasn't 'wearing' a robe. Or perhaps it was taken off and put in the travel bags. Instead she was wearing that too tiny for motorcycles dress. It had snapped off the garter belts that held them down and worked its way up to her waist. If nothing else watching Crow go from weary cheerfully climbing off his ride to near panic rose a strange sensation Kiryu hadn't felt in years.

He started laughing.

Crow shot him the most 'help me you bastard' look he could muster. Anxiety in his every movement as he tried to discretely pull down her dress even as he pulled her off the D-Wheel. But it only sent Kiryu laughing harder. It felt ridiculous and wonderful all at the same time, what remained of his old team now had replaced him with a girl. And those three knew 'nothing' about girls. Even if Kiryu could boost no superior, grand knowledge himself, it was something to stand outside and watch the little red bird flutter before him.

But perhaps he shouldn't have laughed, somehow between himself and the pair, a doll appeared between them. Deep purple in gown, and despite her large, glass doll eyes, she looked rather pissed. She was hovering high enough to block a view of Aki. Not that Kiryu was looking at her... directly, just that she had nice thi...

"You might want to run!" Crow called out as he finally got Aki presentable again and began carrying her into the building.

Kiryu gave a double take as he suddenly remembered that Aki didn't qualify strictly as 'Yusei's girl'... "That's real?!"

"ly pissed yes," Crow answered, laboring under Aki's weight, thanks to both fatigue and their near same height...