Kiryu is silent as we ride towards his new hideout. I'm slightly puzzled as we enter the B.A.D., I ask him where we are going. He tells me that his new hideout is within the old Moment Reactor, which confuses me. Surely that reactor would be too dangerous to live in, then again, I feel like that red marker has something to do with it. I doubt that even the hardest criminal would think of even going near the old Reactor. Something is clearly amiss here. I can sense a strange aura off Kiryu, which shouldn't be possible, since I was under the impression that only psychics have auras. I'll have to ask Kiryu later, I don't think that revealing my psychic abilities to him will be a big deal since he's my friend after all. As we approach the Reactor, I can feel the overwhelming power coming from it. It almost feels like the same energy that came from the Crimson Dragon, only weaker. I'm confused as to why I'm feeling this, I thought the Reactor was no longer working. I shrug off that thought as Kiryu and I reach the Reactor. It's silent as we descend down the stairs into the heart of the reactor. I suppose he is waiting until we're in private and no one can hear us. I stay a few paces behind Kiryu to get a good look around the old Reactor. It's cold as a tomb. I honestly expected silence, but the building seems to ache and creak under its weight. This makes me question my safety, but seeing how Kiryu seems to be fine, I let it pass. Worst of all is that the dust down here is worse than outside. My chest feels as tight as the corridors. At best, the corridors are dimly light and dingy. My senses are heightened in here; I hear every little sound. I still haven't figured out what the energy is coming from. It almost feels like the energy from the Reactor still hangs around in the air.
We start passing some doors before Kiryu stops to open one. He lets me in first. I imagine that the room was once an office judging by size of it. Now, all it holds is a bed, that looks rock hard. I turn back to look at Kiryu.
"You can sleep here." Kiryu gestures towards the bed, which on closer inspection looks a bit mouldy. I look back towards Kiryu; he looks like he's about to turn to leave the room.
"You're not leaving until you answer my question." I try sounding tough in order to get his attention, then my voice softens. "You said you'd answer me when we were in private, now we are." My hands have started shaking, I take a seat on the far edge of the bed. "What happened to Team Satisfaction?" Kiryu scoffs offhandedly and sits on the edge of the bed beside me. This isn't a good sign of things to come.
"It started after you disappeared. As we took over more and more of the Satellite, things began to change." Kiryu isn't looking at me as he talks. I'm starting to imagine something serious happened than them simply drifting apart.
"What changed?" My voice is shaking.
"Yusei." I freeze. Yusei? Has Yusei really changed since back then? "As we gain more territory, Yusei became power hungry." Yusei, power hungry? That's not the Yusei I remember at all. "When we finally took over all of the Satellite, everything changed. Security started looking for us. One day, they arrested me because I was the leader. When I was being arrested, an officer walked over to Yusei, put his hand on Yusei's shoulder and smiled. Do you know what that means, Yuuka?" Kiryu looks me in the eyes, his sclerae are pitch black. I'm shaking. "He's a traitor, Yuuka! He just let me rot in the Facility!" I quickly turn my head towards the floor and squeeze my eyes shut. Is that really true? Would Yusei really do that to Kiryu? I slowly look back towards Kiryu. His eyes are cold and filled with hate. He's not lying about Yusei being a traitor, I can tell that from the raw emotion in his eyes. It's strange, despite Kiryu having an aura, I can't get a good read off him. No distinguishable emotion, it's all just a dark mumbled mess.
"Is that why Yusei entered the Fortune Cup?" My voice is nothing more than a squeak. I almost don't want to believe what Kiryu is saying but I have nothing to disprove him.
"Of course it is!" He chuckles, but with how maniacal it sounds, it's almost like a cackle. "Why else would he steal the title of King from someone he used to call his best friend?" I must admit that's a believable reason for Yusei's puzzling appearance. Thinking of that title match brings back to mind the Crimson Dragon and the 'Signers'.
"Yusei is a Signer apparently. Do you know what that means?" I look right into Kiryu's eyes, the pure black sclerae are frightening. Surely if anyone knew about this, Kiryu would, since it affects both Yusei and Jack.
"Signers are the servants of the Crimson Dragon. That Crimson Dragon will destroy the world. Yusei's gone so power hungry that he'll stop at nothing." Kiryu's eyes are wide, I feel like they're going to shallow me whole. Bommer said that Rex Godwin is trying to revive that Dragon. Yusei is a 'servant' of that Dragon, making him affiliated with Godwin. Is that why Yusei was at the Fortune Cup? Could it be that Godwin fixed the title match so Yusei would win? Is that why people are saying that Yusei and Jack couldn't be seen on the track at the end of the match when Yusei won? Given the fact Godwin pens this as a 'fault in the projection mechanism' makes this more believable. Is Kiryu right? Has Yusei really become power hungry?
I'm staring back into Kiryu's eyes and that one question is still burning in the back of my head. A part of me has given up on finding Yusei. A part of me wants to confront him with what I've learned. Another wants to just run away and cry, I'd run back to Raiden but he said that he didn't want to deal with my tears.
"Did you guys forget about me after I left?" I know Kiryu is going to tell me what I don't want to hear, but I ask anyway.
"I didn't but," he pauses and I feel like my heart stops. "they did." I can almost feel my heart beginning to break as tears come to my eyes. Kiryu puts his hand on top of my head as the tears begin to fall down my face. Despite how much Kiryu seems to have changed, this hasn't changed. Though the gesture was more to annoy me back then. We stay like this until the tears begin to cease, somewhat.
"I have to go take care of some business, I'll be back. Get some sleep." He gets up immediately, not looking back at me and leaves, closing the door behind him.
As the heavy door slams shut, I'm annoyed at how Kiryu expects me to sleep. I imagine if I was outside, the sun would be starting to rise. Everything Kiryu has told me keeps swirling around in my head. Could what he is saying be the truth? I'm torn between what I believed and what I was told. I've basically given up in the pursuit of sleep at this stage. I got a couple of hours sleep a while ago, I can survive off that for a while at least. It's so cold that I have to stay in a foetal position on the bed to keep warm. However, that doesn't really surprise me since I'm pretty sure that I'm underground right now.
Lying there, I become so tired that reality is starting to blur. I could be having dreams, or reliving memories or just plain hallucinating. I'm starting to feel like my life is playing before my eyes. The day my mother died stands out in my head. The details of the day have since faded. She had fallen sick sometime before that, now I realise that she had probably caught pneumonia. She went untreated because medicine is a limited resource in the Satellite. She had been confined to bed in the days leading up to her death. At seven years old, I had to go the market every day and get some food that didn't require cooking. One day, I returned from the market with a loaf of bread to find that she wasn't breathing. All I remember was crying for hours on end. I ran back to the market to get help. They never told me where they buried my mother. That image of me standing in the doorway, looking at her unmoving body in her bed had always stuck with me. It took years before I stopped seeing it in my dreams.
I reckon I was a few weeks on my own after my mother's death. I went to the market every day in hope of someone giving me food. I always went just before they closed for the day. Every couple of days, I got some food that would have be rotten by the next morning. I must admit I was very clever for a seven-year-old. That last day I ever done that was probably the luckiest day of my life. I hadn't eaten in a couple of days when I went to the market. I stepped forward towards one of the stalls, only to hid at the corner when a woman walked up to it. Something drew me to her as I kept glancing at her from behind the corner. She caught my eye and smiled. She asked the man at the stall if I was his daughter, he told her that I was 'just some stray'. Once the woman had bought what she needed, she walked over to me and crouched down so she was nearer my eye level. She asks me where my parents were. It took all of the seven-year-old me to not burst into tears on the spot, it almost worked. I told her I had none. The woman told me that her name was Martha and that she takes care of kids like me. I remember being really scared, but her warm smile told me I could trust her. Martha asked me if I wanted to stay with her. I hesitated for a good few seconds, not looking her in the eye, but I agreed.
My first walk back to Martha's house was probably my most terrifying. Even back then, my hands shook. Martha tried to keep me calm by asking me questions about myself. I remember being really excited when Martha told me that there were other kids that liked dueling at her house. As we walked into the house, I started to hide behind Martha as she went in. At this stage of my life, I was terribly shy. She called all of the kids over to introduce me to them. This only made me try to hide more. As Martha moved into the kitchen to make supper, I tried to follow her. She told me that I should try make some friends. Not the easiest thing for me in the world, mind you. Given the fact that this woman had selflessly taken me into her house without me even asking, I felt indebted to her.
I stood next to the kitchen in the hopes that I would, eventually, build up my confidence. Luckily, I didn't have to. A boy my age, a little bit younger, walked up to me and asked if I liked to duel. He was so energetic that I couldn't help a small smile breaking out on my face and I nodded. The boy, called Crow, challenged me to a duel on the spot. I lost the first time I ever dueled Crow. Though that was to be expected, because I had never dueled many people apart from my mother. Even then, I hadn't talked to many people my age at all at that point of my life. I learnt that Crow wasn't long at Martha's house before I arrived. Crow, looking back, was my first real friend. Crow dragged me by the arm after our duel to introduce me to his friends, Yusei and Jack. Though Jack claimed Crow wasn't actually his friend, but someone who just followed him around. Even back then, I could see through Jack's ruse. The four of us never really separated after that, even as we became teenagers and as we left Martha's house. As much as I want to look back on these memories fondly, I can't help but feel a twinge of melancholy. The more time passes, the more I feel like we can never go back to that. Time changes people. That dynamic will change, gears never quite turning the same way.