I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of its characters.

"With the power of the Wicked Gods and the Crimson Dragon, I have become the Almighty himself!" Goodwin roared above the screaming Duel Runner engines. I, of course, was about halfway up the steps. I looked up and saw that Goodwin had found some way to get the glowing symbol of the Crimson Dragon on his chest.

I saw that Crow and Jack had burned out and crashed on the purple glowing, ascending raceway. Only Yusei was pressing forward, and it was obvious that he had taken some damage along the way.

I mumbled "Slifer" under my breath before I realized that was the wrong red dragon.

"We don't have any time to waste, Pitch. Any ideas?" I asked aloud.

Super Polymerization.

"What?" I wondered.

Activate Super Polymerization. Fuse with the Crimson Dragon.

"You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?"

No.

"Don't I only have one fusion monster?"

No.

An echoing scream pierced the sky as the Crimson Dragon circled in the sky.

"What? What is this?" Goodwin yelled. Apparently, the power of the Crimson Dragon had left him.

"Well, that option is no longer viable," I said. At this point, I was about two-thirds of the way up the steps.

Is it even our place to interfere in this fight?

"It is my duty to do good by my friends. Fly up there and get Jack and Crow down. I'll continue my ascent." I ordered Pitch.

Understood. I distantly heard the revving of an engine before I heard the collective gasp from the assembled Signers below as Pitch-Black Dragon spread its wings and took off. I just reversed the grip of my twin blades and kept running up the stairs, ignoring their shock.

I was only a few steps away from the top when I realized that all this time Yusei and Goodwin had been having a debate about the power of friendship. In truth, it only served to make them look pathetic. Just as I felt Pitch tell me that Jack and Crow were safe my instincts told me that Yusei was about to turn the duel around.

Unfortunately for him, I'd grown tired of waiting for instinct to be right.

As Yusei summoned a more powerful variant of his Stardust Dragon I pounced on the unsuspecting Goodwin. I forced him to the ground and held a blade to his throat.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you," I growled. Goodwin's eyes went wild with hysteria.

"Don't you want this cycle to end? Don't you want to see a better world?" He asked me with the most sickening grin I'd ever seen.

"None of that is going to happen at this point! You miscalculated, and now the whole world will crumble because of that thing you tore out of the Underworld!" I pressed the blade into his neck a little more and a small trickle of blood went across the edge.

"Wilhelm!" I heard Yusei yelling. "Don't do it! There's another way!"

"No, Yusei. You're wrong." I yelled back, keeping the edge pressed up against Goodwin. "Look into his eyes and see what he is! I'm the monster here, and I see nothing redeemable in this man!"

"Wilhelm, whatever you are, whoever you were, you don't have to be that man anymore! You can be better than he was!" Yusei made a valiant attempt.

I thought hard as Yusei kept racing in the background. I had Anna. I could make her happy. I could save lives. I was already a better man than I could ever possibly be. I didn't even remember what I used to do or what type of decisions I used to make, but this one was the clearest that I had ever considered.

Goodwin's Condor gave me an empty stare. I knew it's attack power and everything else, and I wasn't worried. The biggest negative side effect of Metalsilver Armor was that I suddenly became everybody's target, but I'm Dark Blade: I fight and win.

"I could order it to kill you right now." Goodwin laughed, making the cut go even deeper and causing the black ooze that I think was his blood come out even faster. "Don't you realize, I'm already dead! The threat of death does not concern me!"

"Then be afraid of the True Darkness, the Gentle Darkness," I whispered to him as I prepared the second blade on the other side of his neck. Suddenly his eyes were frantic.

"But you aren't the Supreme King! This isn't even your war!" he whimpered. The fear in his eyes was intoxicating.

"You made it my war when you threatened my friends," I said. "I know that no ordinary person could ever end you. But luckily for me, I'm not ordinary." My swords made an X above his neck, and then his head was separated from his body.

The Condor screamed and tried to attack me, but it had already turned into ash and dust before it could come close to reaching me. The echoing cries in the air were than those of the Crimson Dragon. It chose to make itself manifest to save Yusei from falling to his doom, but that was the extent of its power. I saw it dissipate right after that.

We still need to deal with the King of the Underworld. Pitch reminded me.

"Then get up here," I said. Within moments Pitch was on top of the temple next to me. I mounted the Duel Runner and off we flew.

What's the plan?

"I attack it with my swords and kill it."

You know that won't work.

"Then what will?"

The reason why the Gentle Darkness within you has been capable of ending Dark Signers is because their Corrupted Darkness came into contact with your blades and was given one of two options: purify or flee.

"Which did they choose?" I asked as we got closer to the maelstrom of destruction.

Flee.

"Then how do I make something that big and mean flee? I'm not that powerful!"

Don't give it the option to flee.

"What?"

Purify it. Only that action would truly end this cycle that will plague your friends and future generations.

"How?"

Super Polymerization. And look again, we're racing against your friends now.

I looked down and saw the Signers, who now apparently included Crow, working together and summoning the Crimson Dragon.

Yusei and the others think that they can save you, that you won't have to face this demon alone.

"I can't let them do that. I can't let them risk the future because they fear for me. The Crimson Dragon cannot defeat the King of the Underworld. It never has, not completely." I sighed. I put my hand to my deck and drew a card, already knowing exactly which one it would be. For the first time, I saw this 'Super Polymerization' card.

We'll get one pass at this. One attack run. Pitch said as we got closer.

"I know," I said as I drew one of my swords. "When we get close enough, throw me off, towards its head."

Are you sure? The arms could annihilate you before you get close.

"Then you'd better get me close enough for it to work," I said.

Yes, sir. Pitch effectively stomped the accelerator and we flew towards the King like a bullet, narrowly evading the arms. I slapped the card on my sword just before I was thrown.

As I descended towards the head I yelled, "I activate Super Polymerization, fusing together Dark Blade and King of the Underworld!"

There was a satisfactory sound as the sword slid into the creature's skull and it screamed. Then everything flashed black and it felt like I was being torn apart. At the same time, I could feel myself becoming stronger, and I felt an immense desire to destroy. But I remembered Anna's face, and I remembered the reason why I was being torn apart and assimilated into something greater. I started projecting as much calm as I could into the maelstrom, and I felt massive amounts of energy surge through me.

I'm sure that the visual effect of what was happening to me was awe-inspiring, or terrifying, or something. I couldn't really tell. I was too busy doing my best not to scream my head off. All I knew was the pain, and it took so much effort to calm it down and withhold the need to destroy.

Eventually, it was over. I was on the ground at that point, and my armor felt heavier than it did before. I saw Pitch-Black Dragon's outline looming over me.

"I'm not dead, am I?" I asked.

"No, sir, you are not." Pitch's voice rumbled through the ground.

"Weren't you a Duel Runner?"

"Yes, sir, I was."

"And you aren't now because…"

"Because you are infinitely more powerful now than you were before. I can materialize nearby you, now. If you willed it, you could destroy the asphalt on which you now lay." Pitch informed me.

"But I like this place. It's where I keep all my stuff." I tried to laugh but soon found myself curled up in a ball from the pain of it.

Anna was the first one to reach me. Still in her battle armor, she fell to her knees beside me and started pounding her fists against my armor.

"What were you thinking! You idiot! You promised me that you would come back, so how could you do something so dangerous?" She yelled.

"To protect you." I groaned.

"Not good enough, Willie!"

"Hey, Wilhelm, are you alright?" I heard Jack ask from somewhere.

"I don't know." I coughed.

"You will be fine, sir." Pitch boomed. "But your mortal frame is not meant to hold the power of a god. The armor is barely containing it."

"Explain," I ordered hoarsely. Everyone around me seemed to just be rolling with a talking shadowy dragon, so I didn't bother explaining. Besides, it was no weirder than everything else that we had been doing.

"Sir, even purified darkness is still immense power, and I fear that you will either explode within the next hour or you won't be able to move a muscle without destroying a building. Just that spasm of pain from laughing was enough to form a three-meter deep crater."

"Then how do I siphon it off?" I asked.

"I will open a portal to the Evil World. If I'm right then the power will drain from you like iron filings to a magnet, and Gentle Darkness will make rivers where there were streams and fields where there were deserts. Our realm will be beautiful." Pitch said, readying a glowing claw in the air.

"And if you're wrong?" Anna asked.

"Then we're all dead anyway," Jack said somberly.

The portal opened, and just like iron filings being sucked out of me it hurt, badly. I felt hands pressing down on me from all sides as I screamed, but soon that too had passed. Pitch was gone. There was no portal, and we were still surrounded by the wreckage of Neo Domino City.

Anna laid down beside me and by the way that I could actually feel her touch I knew that my armor was gone. The lack of cold metal pressing into me told me that hers was gone as well. I heard the sound of boots running and opened my eyes. At the edge of the crater was Yusei, the look on his face a mixture of horror and relief.

"What took you so long?" I asked him.

"A discussion with cosmic entities who didn't know what to make of you." Yusei sighed. "Most of the Dark Signers will be returned to life in full, only remembering their time as Dark Signers like a hazy dream."

"Good." I heard Jack say.

Personally, I couldn't have cared any less than I already did. I was tired. Even as Anna helped me to walk into our home after a long chopper ride I still couldn't make myself care.

As Anna put a blanket over me I asked, "Did I do a good thing today?"

She kissed my forehead and said, "Yes, Willie. Today you were a good soldier. Never let anyone tell you that what you had to do was wrong."

"Did I really kill two people?" I asked.

"I don't know, Willie, but I think they were already dead. Their souls were being held captive by the corrupted Darkness. They were probably thankful." she said softly.

"That doesn't make the guilt go away." I shed a tear. "In the moment is was so easy, it was like I only knew how to act and do what I thought was necessary, but I regret it so much. I never wanted to kill people."

"I know, Willie. I know. But I'm proud of you. You saved a lot of people today because you didn't hesitate."

"I love you, Anna." I reached out a clutched her hand with all my remaining strength.

"I love you, too, Wilhelm Jernigan. I'll see you tomorrow morning," she said. Then I was asleep.