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

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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It was late, the sky had gone black with pale white stars and the buildings were lit up with people home or working late hours. It was enough light to signal occupancy, but not enough light to color the walls, just dots of hazy illumination all through out the city. All of this framed by a hospital room window, a rectangle of glass that gave a very limited view of the city they called home.

The hospital room was now solely lit by the lights above, giving everything around them this tired clinical light where white wasn't white. It was a tired white with muted gray aura if that was a term to be used. Food trays had been removed and the gang mostly sat in Junko and Momoes' room, Fubuki was sleeping and Judai was so down he hadn't even eaten. So Junko and Momoe's room it was with Asuka, Ryo and Kazu both sitting in barely comfortable seats around the sectioned room.

Everyone sat in this rough circle, lacking the strength to move furniture to make it a proper one. As well as the emotional fortitude that Asuka lost the moment she had walked in on her friends. Momoes' face was bandaged up the side, while her hair had been badly singed. It was still there, uncut but it was curled twisted and knotted from some intense flame. While her hands kept dancing along the bandages, her one visible eye trying to focus on a distraction.

Junko's head wasn't covered but her arms was wrapped up with bandages one leg was lifted on a sling with a thick cast resting on it. Her eyes held a story though, haunted with new memories that she was able to ignore in favor of the gang. The smile was snowflake fragile, melting even as Asuka walked into the room. Ryo had been been protected by a multitude of his dragons, leaving him with bruises and severe burns through his clothes unseen due to his hospital robe. But it made sitting or laying down difficult and standing tiring as he tried to avoid doing either.

Kazu just... looked broken.

Kazu, Junko and Momoe all had only the one Duel Spirit, with Kazu's Queen getting her back horrifically snapped. But Ryo was keeping Asuka from asking questions, just a firm glance from her friend and she had backed off. Trusting Ryo to speak with Kazu until the guy was able to get up on his own and pretend to be normal.

Her eyes drifting from one well recognized face to the next and the next, counting in the back of her mind all her friends. 'Junko, Momoe, Ryo, Kazu, brother is in our room, Aki is home... Junko, Momoe, Ryo, Kazu, brother is in our room, Aki is home...'

"So... Yusuke... was a duel spirit?" Kazu seemingly asked the air around them, his voice and emotions were so monotone.

"And he had... wings?" Momoes' nose scrunched up as she tried to process this information. Her mind felt as scrambled as her body at the moment, with her multiple bruises and fractures, both in body and mind. She tried to remember Yusuke, his blond hair, his sharp, but not pointed features only... Feathers were cropping up in her memories. Sitting at the table discussing the trip to the duel spirit world and she saw feathers slipping in.

"Hypnotized into believing that Yusuke never left." Ryo re-elaborated his voice low and tense. "My head hurts just trying to figure out... So we got hypnotized by Yusuke's Duel Spirit so we wouldn't forget Yusuke. Then got hypnotized 'again' by some guy who drove out that Duel Spirit..."

"Honest, right or wrong he has a name and... and..." Junko corrected as her voice cracked. "He's dead. That guy, duel spirit, human whatever... he's 'dead'... Like not even 'ok go to the graveyard and retrieve the card...' type dead..."

"Doesn't matter who he was, he stuck with us, he was our friend even if what he did was shady... My head hurts too..." Kazu let his head drop into his hands as his memories swam. Clear memories only to get a stone dropped into one portion of these mental pictures. Ripple effects that couldn't decide how part of the frame was meant to go.

"He went to my birthday party..." Momoe reminisced softly as her eyes weld up with tears as her gaze followed the edges of the hospital blanket. "How could Yusuke kill his.. our... Why? Honest was doing this 'for him', how could he betray his duel spirit?" Momoe asked as hot tears began to drip onto her hands.

Every comment was a soft heated breath that somehow managed to weigh down the air in the room. Words were links in a chain that yoked them to the floor as they realized just the enormity of what happened. Memories of one person who was actually someone else.

"This infuriates me," Ryo rubbed his eyes. "No one has a right to tamper with anothers' mind or memories. Its not right with Aki and it's not right to do to us, but it has. I have memories, moments of my life that I 'thought' happened and probably did. But not with the person I thought it was... Is this how Aki felt when she was freed from Isao? This sick violation of the right to our own thoughts? Its bad enough age, or illness can take our minds from us but to have a, admittedly well intentioned duel spirit, do it." Ryo paused to take a few barely calming breaths before he tried to get his thoughts out.

"Who am I supposed to direct this anger against? Yusuke? For giving up on us and running away? Was our friendship so meaningless? Not good enough? Do I get angry at Honest for not just stating what happened, giving us a chance to try and talk to Yusuke. Instead of just posing as him and then luring Fubuki away? I may not be as devoted to the idea of 'Duel Partners' as some, but I've seen the school when Aki let her powers go. All those kids... There's this magic to seeing a duel spirit that lights up their eyes. Honest did this for Yusuke, and Yusuke turned around and let him die. If Yusuke could see Duel Spirits?" Ryo shook his head as though he was trying to shake water off.

"I wonder what school is going to be like?" Junko pondered aloud as she sat back and stared at the tiled ceiling. "We're not an exception, he pulled this off on the whole school. Everyone is going to have questions and we have no answers." She gave a short snort of mock amusement, "can you imagine explaining to the teachers? If everyone's memories are adjusting like ours, there's going to be a field day as everyone starts..." She paused as she realized the reality of the situation before continuing. "coming to realize, that there was a duel spirit among us the whole time."

Heavy and demoralizing the group found themselves drifting off into their own little worlds. Momoe shivered and hugged herself as she tried to imagine Sky Scout holding her. His feathers keeping her warm then hot as they ignited in the blast. Burning up from...

Asuka dragged herself to her feet as she moved over to hold Momoe as a low moaning cry started coming from her friend. Momoe began pawing at the bandages that were wrapped around her arm so Asuka rested her hands over them. Gently tugging at Momoe's curling fingers to get her to stop.

"Let me go Asuka, I need to see... everything is burning its so hot!" Momoe begged while Ryo painfully dragged himself to his feet. Muscles protesting as he forced himself to walk across the room and help Asuka hold Momoe back.

"Djinn, my queen..." Kazu whimpered, free of anyone's notice he began to cry into his hands. He could see her crumble as her back was snapped leaving her front legs kicking while her backlegs just... laid there... Wild desperation to move, to fight, to save herself from...

He would have felt or heard his blood pumping in his ears if he had been able to pull himself from the waking nightmare. That monster that couldn't even figure out what it wanted to be laughing as it unleashed that burning flame! Then gold feathers, gold feathers that ignited and he could hear Yusuke. No, Honest. He could hear Honest screaming for Yusuke to stop, dying and screaming. Screaming and dying... He smelled burning flesh and feathers, cloth and grass... "I need help... I need help..."

Ryo turned, the weak whimper somehow managed to reach his ears even as Momoe began spiraling down herself. Junko reached out with aching arms, only to be trapped in her bed and looked up to him in desperation.

He was their leader, and he needed to lead.

On the side of the beds were buttons to call for the nurses station and after a moment to decide he pushed the button. 'I'm not prepared for this...'

"Hello? Is something the matter?" A middle aged womans' voice asked, her voice professional in inflection.

"My name is Marufuji, Ryo, I came to this room to visit my friends. I think two of them needs something to help settle their nerves." He reported and waited as there was a slight pause from the other side.

"Understood, we have a nurse coming down there to run an assessment." The nurse replied, allowing Ryo to uselessly nod his head.

"Thank you."

Asuka forced her fingers between Momoe's fingers and her bandages while Ryo hobbled his way over to Kazu. For a moment the guy looked up at him, his eyes wide, red rimmed and shimmering with tears that were falling. Kazu's mouth kept moving in these awkward jerking moves as though he was trying to form words and failing.

"Its going to be ok Kazu," Ryo began as he cursed the bruises that had been burned into his skin slowing him down. He might as well been silent for all the response that Kazu gave him.

Somehow the time just getting from Momoes' left side of the bed and to Kazu's chair was so painstakingly long. That the nurse was able to make it from her station to the room, simply reinforced how battered they were.

She moved first to Momoe, checking the bandage then the computer screen. They weren't humored with the muttered assessment of her status, unlike what television shows would have you believe. But she did let Asuka stay by Momoe's side, and lightly rested the blonds' hands on her friends arm. A silent signal that it was necessary to hold Momoe back.

Then she moved to Kazu, checking his eyes with a small flashlight, pulse, everything was quiet observations before she stood up and faced the pair. "Once I get some assistance in here it might be best for both of you to return to your rooms."

Asuka blinked before looking down at her friends and closed her eyes briefly, worry and concern began to worm an idea in the back of her thoughts. "Yes, ma'am," was all she could say while Ryo quietly nodded in answer his expression lost to her with his back facing them.

With that the black haired nurse left them to go and do whatever she had in mind. Asuka placed one hand over Momoes' bandaged arm as a deterrent, while her other hand held Momoes'. "You need to let the wounds heal Momoe," she pointed out gently. A morbid question of what was under those bandages nudged its way into her thoughts. It was a morbid series of thoughts, but it was the only other thoughts she had.

The main one concerned the original King.

Yugi could come back...

There were stories of Yugi yes, but what she had gathered from the conversation. That Yugi could walk outside of 'time' itself, that he could respond to prayers and return... And prayers weren't hard, it wasn't a prayer that required a miko or priest, right?

Momoe watched as Asuka's gaze turned self directed and she realized that Asuka wasn't paying much mind anymore. Slowly she pulled her hand free and gently found and managed to unhook small metal tabs that kept her bandage on. Tense wraps relaxed allowing her arm to feel like it could 'breath' or rather let blood circulate again.

'Stupid bandages are so tight how do I heal when they're like this?' she thought in a haze. There was a logical reason why it was so tight on her, and yet she couldn't grasp that thought. Instead all she thought about was the comfort of her own skin over the alien feeling of all these coarse bandages. So she began to firmly tug down the upper part of the bandage while keeping a sharp eye on Asuka's expression.

Not that she could keep sharp 'eyes' on Asuka, because there were bandages on the side of her face. Momoe took in Asuka's bruised skin, there wasn't a blemish still on her Captain's face. Her gaze was pulled, seemingly by a magnet, to Ryo and Kazu and their bruised exteriors. Ryo moved like an old grandpa each step slow and pained. Burns and bruises, but nothing physically visible, so she couldn't be 'that' bad right?

Probably need to be careful when she washed her hair right? Which probably looked a mess...

She felt the bandage peel along her skin causing her to look down sharply as the pink gauze pulled away from her tugging. Revealing bright red skin under it, there was little blood and scraps of dangling...

"Momoe! No!" Junko's voice smacked Asuka like a 2x4, forcing their leader to notice her. Asuka quickly placed her hands on the bandage trying to cover the injury back up.

"My skin..." Momoe blinked, dazed as her mind tried to wrap around this reality. "I'm going to have scars now aren't I?" Her lips trembled as nightmares started to fill her thoughts. "Who wants an ugly, burn scar cover-"

"No, you're still beautiful, Momoe! But you must let them heal!" Asuka replied, forcing the most stiff and lifeless smile she had ever felt on her face. Desperation filled her as she pulled Momoe in the way Aki had held her.

Junko looked down at her own hands as she sat there, her eyes followed the lines of her fingers, to the thin blanket down her body to her raised up leg. 'Its not that I don't understand..' She thought as their futures felt increasingly bleak. Their grades weren't like Asuka's, but why did it need to be? The plan to be a housewife... Work an office job until they found themselves husbands and then live the usual traditional dream.

Her stomach twisted as she thought about the enormity of the situation, "if I didn't know they were spirits, that they were 'alive'... especially because of me, then..."

Her eyes felt tight with unshed tears while Ryo rested his hand on Kazu's shoulder. "We're going to wake up right, Captain? This is just a nightmare and I'm going to wake up home in bed?"

Asuka choked at the question, burying her face in the bandages on Momoe's head as hot tears began to drip onto the course fabric.

They never got the chance to answer her question, as a sharp rap from the door caused them to turn in response. In walked the nurse from before holding a tray in her hands with five small paper cups and larger plastic lidded mugs. She eyed the room with a clinical eye, that zeroed in like a hawk on the loosened bandage wrap one patients' arm.

"You three need to go back to your respective rooms, I realize that there is comfort in being together. However; I think its pretty obvious that you need to rest more, your injuries need time to mend." She gave Ryo a stern glance, her gaze clearly darting through his chest, and the burns on his back. The air of the room had all the mood of kids dragged off a battle field and it forced her to shore up her feelings so she could look after them.

"I can't leave them as they are," Ryo replied, just as stiff in tone for his defense of his friends as the leather stiffness of his back and thighs.

She shook her head resolute in her stance, "I understand, and I'll leave a message to see if the doctors are ok with you having some social time together. Honestly I can't figure out how you're able to walk given the situation you came in at..." Placing the tray on the small rolling table she walked over and took over for Asuka. Wrapping Momoe's bandages back into place, her expression professionally neutral. Leaving the girls unable to tell if what she caught sight of was good or bad.

Yurika worked quickly as she saw the bright pink skin that had been exposed. There had been extensive burns on the group, the labs hadn't been able to really nail down 'what' burned them. It had been worded oddly regarding if it was fire or oil. Once she was finished she returned to her tray and made an eye check of the sedatives and pain relief that had been put in them.

"I'll walk all of you back to your rooms and these pills are to help you rest." She announced...

"I don't want pills. I want these memories to disappear," Kazu muttered and felt the sharp pain as his skin was forced to bend under Ryo's understanding hold. It shot through his shoulder and to his spine, ricocheting off to the rest of his body. Leaving him in pain that probably would have hurt if he wasn't lost to his mental pain. Instead it left him too numb to move, to think...

"I understand..." Yurika answered, her professional tone dropping into a sympathetic tone as she saw his eyes.