Part 7: Escape the City
As the four rode on among the throngs of bowler-hatted businessmen and floral-dressed businesswomen, Kyo took the opportunity of calm to examine the city he'd probably not see again. The whitewashed buildings stood proud and tall, unaware of the darkness presumably surrounding half of the city - a half that Kyo hoped was far away, and it probably was considering that it took a night for the celestial being to reach the third portal into the city. Should the darkness cover all four portals, it would be able to enter and take over. But he wasn't going to let that happen, not while the possibility of obtaining the three God cards to defeat it remained.
"So how did you discover this place?" Kyo asked Akita, riding ahead to meet her, shouting over the wind. However, the shout was unnecessary. Inside of their helmets, the riders had a microphone built-in, which sent their voice to all of the other rider's earpieces within their helmets. Akita raised a hand in pain, but returned it swiftly to her bike's handlebars.
"You don't need to shout, we can hear you just fine!" Akita remarked back. "Regardless, it's not something we can tell you about right now. The long and short of it is that a company saw our skills as being useful, and invited us in." She looked over to Kyo. "But we had to leave behind many things."
"Many things?" Kyo asked. But before he could inquire for more information, Logan and Hattori sharply turned into an alleyway to their right, between two skyscrapers. Akita nudged her head, and followed. Kyo did the same, leaning on his bike to steer it. The four thus rode down the alleyway, the sound of their bike echoing against the walls, mere meters apart. The end of the alleyway, the more Kyo looked at it, seemed to drag itself further and further away. Was he growing tired already? Did he just have a bad night's sleep?
Pressing the brakes on his bike, Kyo came to a crawl, then stopped, took off his helmet and clutched his head between his hands. Akita heard the sounds of Kyo's actions through her earpiece and so stopped too. Logan and Hattori looked back to see what the hold up was, and brought their bikes to a halt.
"Are you alright?" Akita asked, taking off her helmet. She walked the short distance between her and Kyo, placing a hand on his shoulder. Kyo looked up groggily.
"Something's not right..." He muttered. "It feels like something is pressing against my skull or something."
"Do we need to get you to a hospital? Do you need medicine?" Akita asked, furrowing her brow.
"No, no, I'm not on any medication." Kyo chuckled weakly, picking up his helmet again and carefully putting it on. "It's probably nothing, I might just be tired."
"We'll stop off at a hotel on the way." Akita smiled. She put her helmet on and began walking back to her motorbike.
And that's when disaster struck.
The ground began to rumble, and Kyo grabbed his bike to stabilize himself. Akita gasped, dashing back to her bike, just before the Earth appeared to explode, leaving a giant chasm in between the two, spewing out blackness and heat. Revving his bike, Kyo span his bike around, riding away from the blackness, but Akita stumbled on the way to her own bike from the force of the explosion. She rolled over on the ground, scratching her shoulder. A hand clutching it, she felt the blood pouring between her fingers. It'd likely leave a scar, but that was the least of her concerns as blackness poured fourth from within the chasm. Crawling backward with her injured shoulder's hand, she had her back to her bike.
"Akita, hold on!" Logan cried out, his bike speeding toward Akita, racing the ever-growing blackness. His clothes and duel disk whipped in the wind, but Akita was more important than a replaceable duel disk right now. He screeched to a halt next to Akita, jumping off his motorbike as the shadow was a mere ten meters away and this distance quickly decreased. He put his shoulders below Akita's wounded side, putting her arm around his body. He helped her back onto her motorbike, which she ensured him that she could drive with one hand. But all the while, Akita kept looking over the chasm.
"Are you looking for Kyo?" Logan asked, running back to his bike and stepping on. Akita nodded back, pausing for barely a moment as the shadow began to descend on her, then she sped off.
But a cry echoed from the other side of the chasm. It was a cry of victory, something of defiance. Kyo and his motorbike smashed into the chasm's upturned side, launching into the air, wheels spinning as it went. With the height, Kyo couldn't keep silent - he yelled all the way as he flew upward, and then downward, landing heavily on the ground and almost spinning out of control. He quickly regained it however, and not a moment to soon as the shadow flicked at his bike, but was kicked away by the spinning wheels.
"We thought we'd lost you!" Akita called back, by now almost at the end of the alleyway with Logan and Hattori.
"Yeah, well - I had to get some speed to be able to launch over that thing!" Kyo replied, biting his lip from saying more. So that's truly how they felt - he was a mere commodity, nothing more than some help. But they could probably do their mission alone if they needed to. After all, even if each god-card-staked duel wiped out one of the three duelists in their victories, they'd still probably be fine... But there was still the issue of someone having to take the three gods back to the city, wasn't there? Their casualness about the whole situation seemed to suggest that this hypothesized suicidal approach wasn't the case, and they'd actually be fine. However, how was Kyo to know until he'd been in one of the duels for himself?
Light turned to darkness as the four broke through the portal on the other side of the alleyway. With horror, the duelists looked around themselves. Barely any sight remained of Littleroad City, with buildings reduced to rubble and desolation. Their strongest frames remained, particularly those of any earthquake-proof buildings, but it looked as if a nuclear bomb had hit the place. Nobody was in sight - the city was just black, bleak, desolate and looked as if it was shrouded in fog.
"Has the entire city been taken?" Hattori asked, his voice echoing throughout his body and helmet. Logan brought out his PDA, checking its status.
"Not the entire lot, but it seems like the celestial being was able to break into the underground network of train tunnels... and that's how they were able to break into the portal midway. It seems like its influence has stretched over here, though - even though it is not actually present." Logan replied, with a heavy sigh. "But we should leave anyway. If we can get to the first museum within the next day, we should be able to make good progress to come back here..."
"What about all the damage?" Kyo asked. "Will it stay?"
"I honestly do not know." Logan replied. Akita meanwhile, spent her time looking around at the disaster rather than asking questions. As soon as Logan had given the order to move on, she followed.