Chapter o3 : You Will Be Mine

Seventeen long years passed. Hakase had continued to live with that wretched woman Hana in a manner I would describe as being "roommates" than anything else. He continued to be faithful to her, he became a devoted father to Yusei, and he pushed aside all of his feelings he had to me as deep as he possibly could within his heart. One word could describe him : miserable. That man kept up his happy smile after our confrontation, and it sickened me each time that he would come to work only to lie to me. Until the day of the Zero Reverse, he lived that way. The only one who had made it out alive of that incident was my younger brother Rex, while I and Hakase passed away with it. I chose the path of becoming the world's first Dark Signer, while Hakase ... up until that fateful day, I assumed he had died as well and remained dead. I thought his spirit went off to heaven or whatever afterlife there was for benevolent spirits, I didn't know how wrong I was.

The area of the Dark Signer based was not too alluring at the first glance. Then again, Satellite was not a picnic to begin with. It was run down, dreary, every building was broken down in some way. Just so I would have something to do, or perhaps find another canidate to be under my control to send against those pesky Signers, I wandered down the dirt pathway nearing a junk yard. There was a figure standing at that junk yard, dressed in the attire of a Dark Signer such as myself. I assumed it may have been Kiryu or Demak, though I soon abandoned that thought upon noticing that his clothing was lined with gray. Kiryu's clothing possessed blue accents while Demak's was yellow, this person obviously was neither of them. The man began to walk off, so of course, I called out with : " You! Who are you? " I was the leader of the Dark Signers and thus, had authority over this person if he was one of us. The possibility of him being one of our followers crossed my mind, it could have been one of those meaningless humans.

" The servant of Cchalryuua, " his voice was smooth, yet calm, not to deep yet not to high. It was very familiar to me, yet I brushed aside the one possibility that came to mind. Cchalryuua? I had never heard of that Earthbound God before. It left me wanting to search for more answers of this man.

" And who, pray tell, is that? "

" The basilisk. The most powerful of all the Earthbound Gods," the explanation was simple and blunt in the beginning, however, he soon elaborated further to satisfy any more curiosities I might have. " A basilisk can kill someone with just letting its eyes meet theirs. My God is just as powerful as that, it can take out any enemy with minimal effort. No one can defeat him, " with the explanation out of the way, the man began to walk off once again yet I followed after him. I reached out a hand in order to pull down the hood that was keeping me from seeing his face, tugging it off of his head to find something familiar in that simple of a motion. That spiky black hair, that voice ... it was ...

" Turn around, " I told him in a voice that indicated that I was telling him to do so instead of requesting.

He had no problem in complying with my request and turned around to face me. Those blue eyes that once sparkled with happiness and kindness now were filled with darkness, the whites being as black as the darkness of the Underworld. There was a jagged pair of red lines along the right side of his face, it went from his hair line, interrupted by his eye, and trailed down his cheek to his jawline. It reminded me of the marking criminals received in the Facility, to be honest. Though I knew who this person was, I just had to ask : "What is your name?"

" You already know who I am, Rudger, "

" ... It's you ... isn't it, Hakase? "

" Who else? " he smiled. It wasn't like any smile of his I had seen before, it was sadistic ... it was evil. It was almost comparable to Kiryu's insane grins. Uru even knew that Kiryu was as insane as they came. " Aren't you happy, Rudger? I can still be here with you. After all these years, you found me. I've been waiting for you, " This wasn't Hakase. This wasn't the man who rejected me for the sake of his family being happy. Then again, Hakase did not have a family any longer. Hana was dead, and he had forced to send Yusei away for the sake of saving the infant's life. He had nothing to lose, yet everything to gain. Even with the darkness flowing through my veins, I did not give into the temptation. I didn't want him, not like this.

I didn't want this Hakase, I wanted the real one. Not this one ... anything but this one. " Why ... ? Why did you become like this?! "

" I had something I needed to accomplish. And I'm going to do it right now. Rudger Goodwin -- " he pointed a slender finger in my direction, " I challenge you to a Shadow Duel, "

---------- H a k a s e `s POV

With the power of Cchalryuua at my side, I could not lose this duel. If winning was my actual objective, I could swear to every Earthbound God, to the Crimson Dragon itself that I would win without half of my life points being taken away. Turn by turn, we dished out pain to one another. It was as if it were a regular duel, neither of us screamed in pain, though at one point I think I had ended up moaning. Oops! I couldn't help it that I enjoyed how it felt, Rudger knew that I was always the type to like it rough. That little moan had been enough to make Rudger blush and I found it to be oh so cute; it was difficult to make that man turn red and when I did make him do so, I took great pleasure in it.

As expected, our Earthbound Gods were eventually summoned. What was a Dark Signer duel without the summoning of the creatures that granted us a second chance at life? Uru was this humongous black spider with red markings adorning it's body, Cchalryuua on the other hand, was a large, vicious snake with dark gray markings covering it's black body to make it look all the more menacing. They were in equal match in attack points, however, my creature's special effect allowed me to reduce Rudger's Life Points to one if I gave up one thousand of my own life points in return. It left me with 1600 life points and Rudger with only one, however, I knew what he was going to do. He was going to attack me directly with his Earthbound God, as was Uru's special effect. But ... Rudger was hesitating. It wasn't in his nature to hesitate like that. Rudger was always sure of himself, he did not hesitate in speaking his mind or in committing any action. It wasn't like him to behave this way. Had this two decade long life as a Dark Signer made his spine weaken?

" Attack me, you coward! Get it over with! It's about time you grew some hair on your balls! " It wasn't in my nature to speak that way, even now as a Dark Signer, my language had always been polite and modest. Even as an insult, I said something like: "You can open up wide and suck on the Big Bang Theory". Phrases like "Fuck you" or "Go to hell, you bitch!" was something I always found to be too vulgar. Rudger also knew this about me, it was displayed with the look of shock on his features at my sudden order. I wanted him to attack me. I wanted him to put an end to this seventeen - year - old life as a Dark Signer. I hated it ... being forced to take the souls of every human that touched that purple mist whenever I dueled, being accountable for so much destruction ... I wanted him to do that before I was forced to go against my own child, my son who had since grown into a fine man. I wanted it all to end.

Rudger set me free. He freed me from this wretched life as a Dark Signer.

Despite the fact that I had a trap card on my field to stop that attack, Uru attacked me directly and reduced my life points to nothing. If I activated that card, I surely would have been the victor ... but, I didn't want to win. That was never my objective. Rudger held me in his arms, much like he had done that first and only time he made love to me, he held me tight and showed no hopes in ever letting go. Noticing the card that had been on my field the entire time, Rudger looked at me with shock " You ... you could have won, Hakase! Why? Why did you throw the game? "

" It's always 'why' with you, " I chuckled lightly as I turned my gaze up to his mark - adorned face. My eyes has since lost that black hue and returned to how they once were when I was human. " I never wanted to defeat you. All these years I had been waiting ... I always wanted to tell you what I was too afraid to seventeen years ago. I wanted to tell you how I felt since you began working for me, but I was too much of a coward, " I smiled weakly. The life was draining out of my body, I knew that soon I would be nothing but a pile of dust to fade into the wind. " I love you. I'm sorry I lied to you before ... you are enough ... rejecting you made me so miserable, I couldn't imagine going on without you there loving me. I wished I handled it differently but ... " I trailed off for a brief moment, " I love you, until my soul fades away, I always will, "

Even if my soul faded away, nothing would change my feelings for this man ... I loved him more than I ever loved another person in my life. I couldn't even imagine loving Hana nearly this much. Rudger was the one I wanted to be with. If only I came to realize that sooner.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
---------- R u d g e r `s POV

This was supposed to be a dream come true. I was supposed to be happy that I finally heard those words leave Hakase's lips after so many years. It gave me dread instead. For just moments after he proclaimed his love for me, he faded into dust as we shared a brief, yet sweet, kiss. He was gone. Hakase was gone from my life forever. I would never see him again, I would never hold him in my arms ... he will never be truly mine ever again. " ... I've always loved you. Don't you ever forget that, " I spoke out loud as if Hakase could hear my voice. I rose up to my feet, my gaze settling upon the sun that was now rising up in the usually smoggy sky. He was up there, in whatever afterlife there was. Oh, how I wish I could join him ... just getting a brief look at him would give me joy to last centuries.

I found myself smiling, yet tears came to my eyes. " ... We'll meet again one day. Then you truly will be mine, " I knew that sure enough. Finally, I had the chance to bring happiness to that man as I had always wanted to do in the first place. Nothing would be in the way to stop me this time, I would never let anyone stop me.

One day, I'll see dear ol' Professor Fudo again, and he surely will be mine.

The End.