Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds: The Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
A/N: Normally I just use italics for flashbacks but the last part is over a page long and I didn't want to possibly hurt eyes. So I didn't use them I just put an indicator...
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"The message was a picture in a frame. Superia carried it down from the throne and placed it in my hands. At the base of the frame was a name and that's when I woke up, and I'm not one to remember as many details as I do from that dream." Malik explained, "I went online and looked the name up and wouldn't you know it? She was selling that exact landscape piece, so I bought it and every other she put up for sale. I got to know a little about her, that she was trying to buy the figurines your uncle had commissioned."
"Father was livid when he saw them... The set she got were fake..." Ryu recalled shaking his head. Father yelling was not a sound he liked... father making not a sound was even scarier.
"Sounds like Yugi. It would get Mokuba's attention if it was 'fake'. If he was making truly new figurines your father probably would have just ignored it as luck." Malik noted while Zalinka sat there increasingly feeling lost.
"But you said there were three Yugis at this point, if he knows this is his reality why not come back? If he doesn't know if its his, why get involved at all?" Zalinka asked trying to keep up with the other two. Given that Ryu didn't know Yugi either...
"No idea, but you have a good point, he showed up in the elevator for the twins, and he's appearing at the hospital..." Ryu agreed as he turned his screen from the children and teens and back to the search engine he was using.
"Yugi is able to see all of time..." Malik explained slowly, he thought back to he explained how Yugi saw his divine self and his involvement in the world. "Its possible that he sees something happening in the timelines that is worrying him. If your neighbor is in distress but you can't hear them you don't help them. I suspect he's seeing something that has worried him into trying to interact."
"Worried all of them," Zalinka corrected, but her father just shook his head.
"They're all one person really, Yugi himself is like a figure on a playing board, its just how he uses it to communicate. He's part of a much larger whole and transcends anything we can comprehend."
"But he's also the part that cares about us. Isn't he, Uncle Malik?" Ryu asked quietly before looking up at the ceiling of his office. Counting the tiles again, "because a being as great as he could just wipe us all from the universe and start over at his leisure. He cares enough to let us live."
"Very much so, Ryu. But even he has his limits and he's capable of being pushed like any other mortal person."
"And that's when things get dark, father..." Zalinka pointed out before sighing.
There was a weight to the trio as they sat around Ryus' desk. Shadows continued to creep around the office causing the automatic lights to start warming up, illuminating the room very lightly. Information on this missing 'Jesses' identity was still being searched as Ryu finally voiced a darker thought.
"What if he's gotten bored? I mean he's stuck outside of time, he doesn't want to mess with us in our own timelines if its not 'his' timeline. So what if he's just kinda bored and causing a bit of mischief as he's going about?"
"Yugi wouldn't..." Malik began, but Zalinka cut him off.
"But they're not all 'our' Yugi, no one can say what life was like for each of those Yugis. Someone just 'might' have a malicious or mischievous streak and we wouldn't know it."
Malik turned to argue, but Zalinka had pointed out a fact that caused him to grow quiet and thoughtful. "I don't... want to believe Yugi had any type of life where those options are on the table. But he did get bullied back before the whole Sennen Items situation began. Due to how he died originally he was sealed to appear like a 10 year old for years. Obviously none of us knew what his other lifes went through either..." He confessed as he began to stroke his beard as he sat there growing deeper in thought.
Conflicting shadows crawled along the desk, a screen illuminated part of the room as it searched for a missing person on a global scale...
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"So the pair are just... gone?" Crow asked as he leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling in the twins condo. "And we're not allowed to help?"
He lowered his gaze down the pale walls of the twins home, lit up by the internal lights as the twins sat at the dining table and worked on their homework. Yusei's cooking could be smelled from the kitchen and Crow could remember the previous times Yusei would cook. Living on Satellite meant that seasoning didn't exist, or even true 'meals'. Now though it smelled as though Yusei had taken up a bit of cooking.
If Crow's mouth watering was any testament to go by.
The air was slowly filling with this seasoned scent that, garlic to be exact, given that Yusei was making spaghetti. Home made spaghetti with fresh herbs and bread that he picked up and Crow started to grip his knees to keep from charging in there. Dinner at Carly's was nice, but she wasn't rich and Jack's portions kept her dinners modest. The twins on the other hand...
"Yes, Aki hasn't seen Judai at all and where ever Jesse came from? His Rainbow Dragon hasn't been able to locate him either." Yusei called out in answer, his voice carrying a mixture of grim worry and distracted concentration.
"And this 'Gentle Darkness' is the guy who was hitting on Aki..." Crow shook his head. "But why not get involved?"
"Ancient Fairy said something..." Ruka offered from her seat, her voice tense as she spoke to the table she had been working on. "She said that Trueman was told to go after Yusei..."
"What?" Rua looked mortified as the delicious smells from the kitchen was lost on Crow as he studied Ruka's bug like hair style.
He stood up and walked over the length of the wooden floor, past the table and couches. When he reached the kitchen entryway, Crow looked in to observe Yusei nose deep in a book with a sauce stained wooden spoon in hand. He frowned as he turned to face Ruka again and how her steady posture and writing had turned stilted.
"Go after... how?" Crow asked. 'Ancient Fairy isn't cruel, 'going after' can mean a lot of things that she could mean. Hurt? Capture? Those sound simple, but... has Trueman been given a kill order?'
It was clear that Ruka pieced that much on her own as well, young but not naive that pair, as Rua looked at Crow in mounting alarm.
"She didn't say, she said she heard a voice behind Trueman telling him to go after Big Brother..." Ruka began as her fingers curled up on the table before she hid them under the surface.
"But no one has, right?" Crow asked, seeking clarity while he tried to hide the unease in his voice.
"No," Yusei was the one to answer from the kitchen.
"Well that's good, he's not dumb enough to go after someone that Aki is close to. Unlike us, she 'can' make it costly!" Crow answered in false relief before deciding that 'that' topic was meant for the older dragons.
"Yeah!" Rua answered with forced cheer while Ruka nodded and lifted up her head to study the others.
"Its just... with the two Captains gone, its worrying. Ancient Fairy wouldn't explain anything else and..."
Crow walked over and rested his leather gloved hand on her shoulder, "have faith in your elders, Ruka! We won't let something happen to big brother Yusei and you know it!"
Her smile was watery but she tried to show courage as the unbidden image of Ancient Fairy came back to her mind. The somber colors, the slight lowering of the ear fins, while Regulus refused to look at either spirit or human. 'Regulus' refusing to look at them! The older wiser version or the younger less experienced version...
"So how is Momoe and Junko?" Crow asked with an almost airhead quality to the question. Almost, but he did care and he had seen the pair in the hospital. 'Yusei was seen probably going into the Duel Spirit world with this Judai and Jesse pair, even if Security didn't 'see' the portal. So logically he would be the top person the parents are going to look for regarding the missing teens.'
It wouldn't be good either, Yusei was told not to get involved with whatever happened to Judai and that mess. As Crow pulled out a chair and sat down to listen more closely, he was aware that there was a high chance that Yusei was needed for something else.
"Yeah, they're doing better, so long as Big Sis upkeeps with their 'treatment' of sorts." Ruka explained while Rua followed up.
"The guys are kinda nervous, they're afraid of how fragile the two captains are. Big sister Aki can tell you more when she gets here. She's not having dinner, but she's going to stop over a bit before going home."
"She went to look after Momoe and Junko," Yusei elaborated, his voice measured and calm as it slightly echoed from the kitchen.
"Patti told me to thank you for helping look after her grandmother!" Ruka added, some of the gloom of the conversation shaken off as she sat up straighter. Her eyes lit up with a renewed energy as she continued. "Her grandmother loves the music box, and since you can speak English so well she's begun to settle down better. Her doctors were encouraged by it even!" Ruka's head bobbed in this child version of mature resolution.
"Well I'm glad to help! She does help me with my English as well," Crow replied as he began to scratch the back of his head in embarrassed pleasure. "Its interesting getting to talk to people from before Zero Reverse and hearing about what happened in other countries. Especially after that whole fake volcano that Aki and the other teens encountered in China."
Conversations danced in the dining room while Yusei stared daggers into the cookbook. It was a simple recipe and there was a small bit of satisfaction at the smell that rose up from the pot bubbling on the stove. Yet the food wasn't enough to bring Yusei back to focus on it, the simplicity of the meal had allowed his over active mind to focus on another problem.
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Judai was missing and he didn't know where Jesse even 'came' from. Speaking English didn't narrow things down at all, save that Jesse didn't speak Japanese. A great deal of Europe, all of America, Canada, South America, English was such a wide spread language. So much so that anyone reporting that their child was missing would take time to be discovered.
"Well its a male name, and that's a good thing." Ushio began as he sat at his desk, thoughtfully staring at his computer screen. "If it was a girl, it would be possible that you were given a nickname which just makes the number of people we're searching through bigger. But 'Jesse' and male?"
"Is the name popular?" Yusei asked, wondering if that would be a good way to nudge Ushio to be a little more focused.
"Its not just a matter of being popular, its also a matter of how long it takes before a person is listed as 'missing'." Ushio explained, "There's no global standard, and his family may or may not even care that he's missing and not even report it. Depends on the part of the world," Ushio explained while they sat there. It wasn't just the two of them.
He had brought Yusei to the station so Yusei could give a description of Jesse for the Sketch Artist. Which the person was busy working away with their tablet, the visual representation appearing on a window on Ushio's screen. The building was noisy, as always, a few criminals were cuffed to their seats and they were all eyeing Yusei, with his Mark and his clear lack of restraints.
"He spoke only English, I don't think he understood much, if any, Japanese." Yusei pointed out to the Sketch Artist. The man was sitting there shifting through all possible eye types that could fit Yusei's 'description'. Which was already pretty weak when taking into account the pair met at early evening, and Yusei was never in a situation where he could give a full positive id of the teen. Vaguely recalled hair color, some awareness of clothes. "But I was told that schools require attendance. His parents may not 'want' him, but wouldn't the schools demand an explanation as to his absence?"
"There are ways around it. If he's a runaway then he would be listed as missing for some time before you met him. Without knowing when he went missing it would only put more pressure on the system to find him." Ushio acknowledged, from there the conversation had whittled down to nothing. Save discussing the various features that Yusei recalled about Jesse.
Discussing the events in the Duel Spirit Would would come later, had to come later.
"So a pale white kid," Ushio noted thoughtfully as he watched the work up, "eyes look white too so not mixed with Asian..."
"So someone who doesn't spend a great deal of time outside since he lacks a tan of any sort," Yusei acknowledged. "Nice guy, he doesn't have the edge of a street kid, probably a wholesome family, stable...The clothes weren't street kid either, soft, clean, his family will be worried and looking for him. I didn't feel any reason to think he had been abandoned."
"Is that something that is picked up in Satellite?" The Sketch Artist inquired as he worked on the facial structure.
"Anyone can, if they take the time to observe people. He was nice, concerned for the safety of others despite the danger to himself." Yusei pointed out and watched as the image of Jesses' eyes softened, as was the structure of the mouth, giving an increased expression of kindness. And earning Yusei's nod of acknowledgment.
It went on like that until there was, by Yusei's standards, and adequate depiction of Jesse on the screen for Security to use. From there Ushio began the submission process for the Missing persons search and the pair were allowed to sit and just converse as the Artist was called away...
"Soo Duel Spirit world?" Ushio began though his eyes didn't leave the screen of the computer.
"Yeah, he used it to reach us here in Japan, from what I got from the Spirits he's strong enough and he's got a strong bond with his spirits. That's what allowed for him to realize the situation at the time and get involved."
"And Yugi doesn't want you involved in any of this.." Ushio added, his mouth a straight line and his brows furrowed... For someone who tended to be a bit of the goof even for a Security officer, it was enough of a change to make Yusei more weary.
"Yes, what about it?"
"Just be careful of Yugi..." Ushio replied, with a serious tone and the fact that 'Ushio' who had no reason to even say that was... "I went to school with him, bullied Jounouchi and Honda and he got in the way. Yugi isn't a bad guy, he's super nice to everyone, but he does have his limits and you don't want to test them 'ever'."
Yusei blinked, taken aback completely now by the dead serious, haunted even, expression in Ushio's eyes. It put a chill down his spine that froze his limbs despite his jacket and the thick leather boots and gloves he wore. "What he do to you?"
"He drove us insane, all of us, various reasons I've learned over the years... I'm telling you Fudo, if Mouto, Yugi tells you 'no' you listen. Or you could spend years of your life trying to claw your way back to the world."
Stunned silence struck Yusei, the notion of insanity was alarming, and Ushio had been driven insane? "All of you?"
"I'm the second person. The second to ever recover that he struck down, he doesn't have to humor us with the concept of 'mercy'. Madness is his only form of punishment that we can come back from. Just do as you're told Fudo. Don't cross the King of Games. You got people depending on you, its not worth abandoning them just to piss him off."
Aki, the twins, Jack and Crow, Martha, Carly...
Yusei found himself swallowing a lump in his throat as he nodded. "Have you seen him? Since he punished you?"
"He left us all before I found my way back. But if he can come back. To hell with me pissing him off again."