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

It took a few months to rebuild what had been destroyed and to clear away all of the rubble. Mina saw to it that our expenses for injuries sustained and property damaged during our escapade were paid for by Sector Security. The bridge was finally built to connect Satellite to Neo Domino City, utilizing all sorts of technologies to allow for Turbo Duels without interfering with normal traffic. Taxes were high for a while, and some of the more conservative elements in Neo Domino were angry, but they quieted down when they discovered that Turbo Duels would no longer interfere with traffic.

Akiza and Yusei were a couple. We all knew it, and we didn't make a fuss about it because neither of them made a fuss about it. There just wasn't anything to make fun of there, no ammunition at all.

Apparently, the Dark Signers were brought back to life, except for Goodwin and Roman, and had gone their separate ways, assuming that their time under influence was nothing more than a bad dream. Kalin had gone off to who knows where, and frankly I didn't care. He had become a monster long before he was a Dark Signer, but the rest of the guys had left the week before to find him and try to bring him home. Carly, the reporter, went back to her career, though it had taken a blow that she may never recover from, but it seemed alright; Jack treated her with a reverence that none of us had ever seen from him before, and apparently one that Carly had never been treated with before, and she thrived like a flower in full bloom. Crow tried a couple of times to poke fun at Jack's expense but it just wasn't the same as it could've been. Instead, they got into fights over other things like their favorite flavor of ramen. I didn't really know much about the rest of the Dark Signers, so I just assumed that they found something akin to happiness again.

The hardest thing was how to deal with myself. I had killed two men and it was still difficult to sleep at night. But every morning Anna would be there, either waking me up from a long nightmare or at the breakfast table in Martha's home, ready to listen and comfort. We weren't sleeping together, she still slept at my old house where apparently I was no longer allowed, but more importantly we stuck to the promise that we'd made a long time ago, nothing like that before marriage, and I wasn't quite ready for marriage yet, even if she'd apparently been waiting for me for over a thousand years.

Really, she deserved better than me. I'd killed with malicious intent. I had Goodwin at my mercy, and something in my conscience told me that it was wrong to kill when he was like that. And with Roman… That one scared me even more, as I hadn't even hesitated, it just sort of happened. I sensed something wrong and suddenly my sword was hilt deep in his chest. What if I sensed that with Anna, or with one of my friends? What if I murdered one of them?

I started pushing everyone away from me. With Yusei it was easy because while he hadn't told anyone else that he knew I'd killed, he hadn't hidden his generic fear of me either. Jack and Crow backed off if I snapped at them, and they were more busy with annoying each other than dealing with me, and I was ok with that.

Only Anna hadn't let me do that with her. She stuck by me through everything, despite my attempts to protect her and get her to go away. Sure, she would go on shopping trips with Mina, Luna and Akiza and a few of her other friends, and sure she'd go away and have fun just like she always did, but whenever I needed her she was there, even if I wouldn't admit needing her.

And by Obelisk I loved her. That was why I wanted so desperately to protect her, but she wouldn't listen to my reasoning, no matter how I spelled it out.

She'd just say, "Wilhelm, you're a warrior, and you protected all of us. Don't be ashamed of doing your duty."

One day I finally responded with something other than tears. "Was it really my duty to kill them? All the rest of the Dark Signers came back except for the ones that I killed. They could've been reborn, they could've found happiness like the others, but I took that away from them…"

"Every man or woman who dies is someone's son or daughter. No one deserves to bury their children, and no one deserves to be stripped of happiness, but I've checked, and they had no parents and their conversion to Dark Signers was different than the rest." Anna told me.

"What do you mean by that?"

"They chose their fate. They knew exactly what they were doing. Roman gave up his chance as a Signer to be a Dark Signer, though he did have good intentions in mind."

"Then I killed a hero. Great."

"Sure, a hero who killed Yusei's parents and was behind the rift between Satellite and Neo Domino before he became a Dark Signer," Anna said sarcastically.

"So what am I supposed to do? Justification won't make the guilt go away."

"You live with it, Willie, just like every other warrior, just like me," Anna said quietly.

I looked up at her. "You've killed?"

"In the Spirit World, not here," she explained. "And usually they'd come back eventually, but they'd never be the same, they'd be someone new's Ba and so a slightly new personality would come of it."

"Then they never really came back, did they?"

"No," Anna said quietly.

I got up. "I suppose that I still have a job to do, don't I?"

"Well, you have your orders to be ready for the Light of Destruction when it eventually rears it's ugly head again, but aside from that you don't owe anything to anybody," Anna said, getting up from the breakfast table with me.

"No, princess, I have a duty to you. I owe you too much for what you've done for me and for any assistance you'll be giving me in the future. It's time I paid you back." I said. Then she kissed me, and like every other time that she did I nearly melted and felt my troubles fall away.

"Then let's get you a job. I wanted to marry rich, remember?" Anna said jokingly.

"Yeah, yeah. Any recommendations?" I asked.

"Kaiba Corp. I think that they'd love to have you work with their Duel Disk tech," she said. "I'm sure that either Trudge or Mina have some sort of connection to an executive or two. There must be some level of coordination between them with regards to Sector Security tech."

As it turned out Anna was completely right. Mina was able to get me an interview with the head of their Duel Disk R&D department. The interview went well enough, he had me assemble and modify one of their most recent disks, nothing outside of my norm. He seemed impressed, however, when he saw the custom disk that I'd used back with the Enforcers and the Militia. Apparently, the code for the disk destruction wasn't supposed to have been translatable into an older disk, especially one that used a different and more primitive operating system.

He called me the next day to offer me the position of assistant to the V.P. of custom disk design. It sounded like a phony department, but I quickly learned that it one one of the largest and most important. Mass produced disks were always available, but Kaiba decided a long time ago that the best way to undercut the industry of custom disks from competitors and third parties was to head the industry himself.

There was always someone rich enough to want a custom disk, and there were always weird Duel Runners that would need the Disks to be designed a little differently for it to work.

To be honest, it was fun. We'd get a new request and it was my job to figure out how to make it work.

A few years went by after that. Anna took to a motorcycle shop in Neo Domino, and eventually, she too was hired by Kaiba Corp as a subsidiary. We would work together in a professional setting, doing full custom Duel Runner jobs.

The Signers dealt with a few other world-saving situations, but I recused myself from participating. Anna would help out sometimes, and I heard plenty about it from Jack and the others. Yusei and I still wouldn't talk very often, but we were still friends. We'd had a few conversations, and he seemed happy with knowing that I regretted what I did a little bit. He understood that I was afraid of killing again, and so he wouldn't ask me for help like the others did when they encountered bad situations. Mostly he and I would talk about Duel Runner designs and how to shape a Disk, and he was always willing to help Anna and I brainstorm when we'd be flustered with a customer's request.

When they finished that life Yusei became an engineer at the local EnerD reactor, trying to restore the renewable energy system that had taken the lives of his parents. He and Akiza separated for a while so that she could go to Europe and get an education to be a doctor. Like me, she didn't want to hurt people but instead wanted to save them. Crow joined up with Sector Security. Jack went back to the pro dueling circuit. Leo and Luna started finishing high school.

The nightmares never stopped, but they calmed down after the first year. Anna, however, was always at my breakfast table every morning. When we'd both moved to swankier apartments in Neo Domino we'd exchanged keys. She could stop in anytime she wanted to, and I could too, I guess, but I never did. I nearly bought her a ring a couple of times, but the old fears would come back, and early twenties still felt a bit young to me.

But just as everyone else started settling down I had to open the lockbox on my Deck.

I'm a soldier. I don't shirk my duty.

Once again, thank you to everyone who has shown their silent support. I understand that this was by no means the most popular 5DS fanfic, but I enjoyed it, at least. I have no interest in going back and clearing certain plot holes. I know that they exist, but I'd rather deal with them in a sequel if there ever is one: like the voice when Wilhelm touched the Lightsworn Monster, or whatever it is that happened to Dark Witch. Any sequel would be a storyline entirely my own, there was only so much I could do with the official in-game mess.

However, I can't do Yu-Gi-Oh right now, or for a while. I need to clear my head and go back to topics that I know better, and stories that already look infinitely better than this one. I'm currently planning a RWBY fic, and have written initial chapters for A Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Story and a Person of Interest/Power Rangers crossover. All are based completely on OC's. If you have any opinions on which story I should entertain and release my work on first, please let me know. As such, I have also made a poll on my Profile Page.