Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds: The Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"Soo what happened?" Mikage asked as she sat at the head of the table in the small break room of the Neo Domino hospital. Off white was the walls, a contrast to the crisp clean coats of the doctors trimmed in deep oak browns. There was a couch pushed off to the furthest part of the room, and even had a small folding partition to block out some of the rooms' light if staff needed a nap. While the ac pumped a regulated flow of chilled air. Not that it was going to penetrate the crisp business suit of river blue color that Mikage was wearing.
While Ushio was sitting next to her with a pad in hand and taking notes dressed in his sturdy uniform. He was actually rather comfortable at the moment, getting information on what happened was fine. What he was definitely not looking forward to was facing the parents of the teenagers that this group had found. 'I know there's something up and I'm glad that I wasn't involved in it... But I'm not going to be thrilled when I have to make some sense of this story to relate back to them.' he thought as he looked down at the notes he had taken so far.
'Outside the city.'
'No means of travel there on foot short of a long bus ride followed by an even longer walk.'
'Extensive injuries causes unknown.'
The dragons looked among each other at a loss, Aki was stiff back and trying to keep it together while her school friends were being looked after by the doctors. Beyond that the group found themselves in a bit of a situation. It wasn't as though they 'had' to hide stuff from Mikage, she and Ushio were well aware of the duel spirits and what the dragons 'were'.
"There's nothing more that we can tell you," Yusei finally answered with a faint gesture of his hand. "We know the same as you. We were at the twins condo when one of Tenjoins' duel spirits came looking for help. We rushed after where it directed us and you saw just about what we did."
"There was a battle maybe it didn't 'start' there, but it ended there," Ruka added quietly. "And we won't know for sure until they recover enough to talk."
Her voice broke into soft sniffles while Mikage swept the group with a gaze and noticed the same quiet look shared about the others. Her gaze lingered on Jacks' for a moment but he didn't look back, it was busy looking at something only he could see. From there her gaze went to Ushio who was frowning at his notepad and she could see him trying to add up what it read. And it wasn't balancing.
"What about the spirits? Like the Crimson Dragon and all the others, shouldn't there be something that saw what happened?"
Aki took a breath and strained to steady her voice, "No, there wasn't..." She looked down at her hands as she realized she was possibly going to have to say this again soon. "Their decks are dead. All of them."
Ushios' expression was perplexed as he looked up, and Mikage wasn't much better but she understood that this was serious. Discussing 'Duel Spirits' was this nebulous topic that they only had an outsiders' understanding of. A part of them wanting to continue thinking of 'Duel Spirits equal ghosts'. Even though that was woefully inadequate of a term or perception. The room with its pale tired walls, and its snack machines seemed more interesting to look at, rather than the heart break among the girls. Carly was fairly curled up around her deck while Aki and Ruka were outright depressed.
"I'm sorry, what do you mean by 'dead'?" Ushio finally asked, trying to be polite and gentle but he felt rather ungainly and awkward given the conversation.
"The spirits associated with their decks are all dead... The only survivors were Cyber Petite Angel and Red Eyes Black Dragon." Aki explained quietly, "But Cyber is still in as bad a condition as my friends are. Red Eyes wasn't there to start with either."
"Wait, spirits can be 'killed'?" Ushio repeated as he looked down at the pad he had been writing on, rereading the Aki's last comment. "Don't they just got to the graveyard?"
"Yes, they're entities in their own rights, though they don't start out that way. Duel Spirits evolve their identities over time with regular interactions with their partners. There are those that start out with identities and such, but Asukas' and the others were all developed by interacting with humans." Aki explained as she finally looked up from the table to address Mikage and Ushio directly.
"And whatever happened, it possibly started in the Duel Spirit 'world'?" Mikage asked seeking confirmation while Ushio shook his head.
"I mean we've seen enough to know about this, but I can't wrap my head around how we're supposed to explain this to their parents. These are just everyday working folks, you're kind of expecting them to just easily accept the whole idea. On 'top' of dealing with what just happened to their kids." Ushio pointed out as he looked around the table, he flipped to the previous page. "We're talking degrees of burns, several broken 'bones'... None of this is going to sit right or easy with them."
Outside the room they could hear the intercom system calling for various doctors, codes were passed out that no one understood. Out there, the normal world was just running like a well oiled machine, lives lead, life.
"How am I supposed to explain to my friends that their duel spirits are all dead?" Aki asked quietly. "You're right, nothing about this is going to be easily explained to anyone, but I introduced them to their partners. They enjoyed hanging out with their spirits, the Cybers, the Harpies, Djinn all of them. They were 'real' even if they were just holograms to the rest of the world, or a monster for a game. For us, their spirits were real and had been there since the beginning for them... And now they're gone..."
Crow looked down unsure of what to say, the Duel Spirit casualties had been steep, all of the remaining spirits in Mr. Jounouchis' deck, everyone among this group, only that silly looking Cyber Petite Fairy and Red Eyes Black Dragon survived. With Red only surviving because he hadn't been there to start with.
When Witch and the Fortune Fairies had returned, Crow could still recall the quiet shock and horror in the spirits. Give and take, Crow suspected that the Fairies didn't know the other spirits, but Witch undoubtedly 'did'. So seeing the fairies hovering around Witch and having to do the talking 'for' Witch had been disheartening.
"There's nothing there really, its just a scar on the ground seared in. Rocks were melting into slag and um... There is nothing in the area, but we're fairly confident that's where this battle took place," Ann explained, she fiddled with her glasses as her bat wings fidgeted. "The area is so saturated in darkness that it could have been deep in the Dark Lands themselves, though the edges are getting eaten away by the light. It will shrink down into nothing in time, but right now..." Ann's words faded into silence, her wand held limp in her own hands.
"We looked everywhere around the area, we spread out as far as we could, but there wasn't any sign of anyone else," Hikari added. Her glow dimmed by her sadness as she side eyed Witch out of sympathy. "We did a reading, hoping that maybe we could come up with some proof that we should keep trying. But," she shook her head.
"The Gentle Darkness is meant to look after the Dark Lands if you will, but something has happened clearly. Crippling Judai so much that he's no where even on Aki's level of power..." Swees' voice faded into the room as she started to manifest. "And when I say 'crippling' I mean 'how were we supposed to even know that bungling idiot could BE the Gentle Darkness' levels."
"How is that even a title? Sounds kind of silly," Ushio grumbled as he wrote in the title into his notes.
While Mikage got up and made her way over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. She added a sugar cube as a means to hide her own confusion over the whole concept of the Duel Spirit world. The kids all looked pretty calm about it even though they must have been relatively new to the concept themselves. But they were taking this 'so' calmly that she felt like it was a lie, a facade to make her feel ok. But no one really 'was'.
'Course this is pushing how far the Chief will be willing to believe. I mean it still doesn't give us a way to explain to the Tenjoins or others what happened to their children.'
"Well its a word thing. Like are we supposed to say 'gentle darkness' or 'gentle black' this region of the human world doesn't have a problem with either words. But there are some places... Where you humans seem to assign actual good and bad virtues on white and black color schemes sooo... But that's not the point. The point is that whoever is hiding wants Judai dead and willing to mow through even fellow Duel Spirits to do it." Swee explained as she glided over to sit on the table in front of Carly.
"Judai is new as well, that's probably part of it," Aki added with some calm returning to her voice. "From what I've gathered, until Ancient Fairy returned they were pretty free to do what they wanted in the Duel Spirit world. Not only did she return, but Judai moved into the area shortly after, its like the biggest universe sent 'get out' sign I can imagine."
"Aki? Who is 'Honest'? Yusei asked, finally breaking his silence. "You mentioned that 'Honest' was missing. That's a Spirits' name I'm sure, but that doesn't sound like it fits in any of their decks."
"He is a spirit, but its not my story to tell. I know about him because he confided in me, but if I'm going to talk about him. I think I need to get permission from someone first."
"Someone? Not his partner?" Jack asked, his booming question causing several of the people around the table to jerk their postures a little straighter in response.
"No... actually..." Aki looked down at her folded hands. 'I haven't seen Honest, and apparently the spirits have yet to come across him. The decks are all dead, his card isn't among them but is he dead too?' That part hurt as well, Fubukis' warning implied that it was the real Yusuke that had done this. That Yusuke 'killed' his duel spirit partner along with all the others.
"'Actually what?' Ms. Izayoi, if this could help the case..." Mikage began only Aki shook her head again.
"Honest didn't explain everything to me, just enough to..." She sighed quietly, "Honest lost his partner and he was trying to find a way to get his partner back. But that's all I really know, because his methods included hypnosis. No one here has seen Yusuke, he's been gone for years, the 'Yusuke' everyone here 'knows' is actually Honest. He just didn't want to use hypnosis on me because he knew how my mind... works..."
"So that was... wait..." Carly's head snapped up as dots started to have a line dance between point to point. "So Mr. Jounouchi died, because Honest, not Yusuke, went off to China?"
"Wait... People 'died' already because of this duel spirit?" Mikage asked growing alarmed as her expression hardened as it focused on Aki.
"That's what I don't know, did he want to talk and it escalated? Was it a fight from go? I don't want to give a false impression about what happened. But it sounds a great deal like he might be dead too, because I don't know how he was appearing in the human world to start with. He had no partner to tap into and he was interacting with people on a daily..."
The door to the break room silenced Aki as a knock echoed across the room. Startling everyone into turning to face it with Mikage calling out for the person to enter.
Another tall, stern face Security officer stepped into the room at his side was the younger Kaiba, Ryu in his sharp white business suit hidden in the protective shadow of the officer. Said officer saluted Mikage before before he gave a simple, "Young Master Kaiba was found arriving at one of the victims rooms. Also one of said victims, a Ms. Tenjoin is awake."
Mikage nodded even as Aki stood up, "Thank you, did the doctors she could have visitors?"
"Yes, ma'am," the man answered briskly. "However the victims' parents are currently with her."
"Thank you, you are excused," Mikage replied, allowing the Officer to step out of the room with only Ryu left standing in the room. For which his presence was sudden, unexpected, and wholly strange.
"For what do we the honor of your presence Young Lord," Mikage asked as the young Kaiba looked about before walking uninvited to the table pulling out a seat for himself.
"Well, considering who I was going directly to see, I think we all know," Ryu answered simply.
"Have you ever considered talking your age?" Crow asked, leaning his elbow on the table and his head against his fist in amusement at the kids' moxy.
"Sure, how do kids my age talk?" Ryu asked with polite cheer, "I've been a Vice President for so long I may have gotten a touch rusty."
Jack buried his head in his hands at the back and forth, then sat back before giving Crow a sour expression.
"So we have an idea about how you would have heard about what happened, but are you here on official business?" Yusei asked coolly, the young Vice Presidents' arrival causing Aki to go back to her own seat and settle down again.
"I was scheduled to hang out with them today, but there was a mishap at work that resulted in an emergency meeting." Ryu explained. "So you can imagine my surprise when I called to check in on their day and," Ryu raised his hand to wave at the hospital in general.
"What were you supposed to be doing together?" Mikage asked.
"Well Judai won a contest when he was little and he had a card that was sent off into space. Don't ask. I found the records about it and the idea was to go to the Duel Spirit World and see if that card developed a duel spirit of its own or something. I couldn't go obviously, so what happened without me," Ryu shrugged before adding thoughtfully. "I can only imagine that they went regardless of my presence and something went wrong."
"Very wrong." Yusei answered quietly, "All the duel spirits were killed save two."
Ryu froze in shock, the kid blinked slowly, but Yusei could see the quick mind behind those eyes. "But uncle Jounouchi gave his deck to Fubuki... his spirits... They're ok right?" He shifted his gaze hard over to Aki in growing alarm. "Panther Warrior? Baby Dragon? The Dice?"
Aki blinked and seeing a kid who had essentially been the cool, collected young man for so long start to be... well a kid undid her. She couldn't face his mounting desperation, and lowered her gaze to the table as tears began to prick at his eyes. "I'm sorry..." was all she could find the courage to say. Crow lowered his eyes while his lips were a straight line and all the others shared similar expressions of sympathy.
"At least you weren't there, as the youngest who knows what might have happened when the fighting started. You'd be staying in the hospital at best as well," Ushio noted quietly, though his 'quiet' still fairly boomed through the room.
"I just didn't even get a real chance to say 'hi' to them, now they're like uncle, they'll never see Uncle Yugi either..."
Silence swallowed up the room as a lethargy of sorrow consumed them. "So we still need to talk to them about what happened in the Duel Spirit world, which means waiting until Asukas' done seeing her parents." Yusei finally took lead while Ruka spoke up.
"What's the point of being a Dragon if we can't save anyone though..." She asked looking down at her folded hands in frustration.
"Uncle Yugi never liked the idea of one person or a small group being responsible for the lives of the world. Father used to say that Uncles' opinion was that if the people of the world would not protect the world. Why should the burden be forced on a small group? He came to see it not as a heroic act of the few, but the irresponsibility of the masses." Ryu explained through a tight voice. "I suppose his opinion would have been that the actions of the Duel Spirit World are things that the masses could do something about. Unlike eldritch horrors that few have the ability to deal with. You're not meant to be the Security officers of the world Little Ruka."
It was a sound thought, and it helped dissolve all of them back into silence as the energy to go see the others was sapped out by sadness.
"A duel spirit that chose to live kind of like a human," Rua repeated clearly ruminating on the idea. But he wasn't Aki and there were no spirits save the Fairies in the room, "can spirits do that? Have you ever heard of such a thing?"
"Sure, Uncle Mahaado, he's the original soul of the Dark Magician, and Uncle Yugi fairly kept Uncle Mahaado at his side at near all time."