Damn, it's so cold today…

I have watch duty with Yuuto today. I would be more excited about it, having not been on watch duty with him for a long time, but I'm having a harder time staying awake in the cold. Thankfully, the watch rotations are shorter in winter. We've already lost a lot of members to Academia in the last few months, we certainly can't have people dying of hypothermia and frostbite too.

Both of us are shivering under our thick blankets, even covered head to toe in as many layers as we've managed to find. If anyone were to see us, we'd only look like two piles of snow with goggles on them. I could even see wisps of warm air escaping from both of us as we breathed quietly, even through our thick masks and scarves. If both of us were younger or even slightly less mature, we'd probably pretend like we were smokers, or even like we were dragons that breathed fire and smoke rings into the air.

...No, it's probably best not to mention dragons around Yuuto. I don't want to…

I don't want to upset him. Not after… after what happened. It happened so long ago and yet…

Yuuto is, and always has been, my friend. He wouldn't hesitate to defend me, no matter where the threat was coming from. I'm more than willing to do the same for him. To me, he's no monster.

He's just… Yuuto.

Well, I'm probably going to be here awhile. Guess it's story time again. It'll keep me awake anyway.

I think I've mentioned it before, but, besides our group, there are other Resistance groups out there, some bigger, some smaller than us. They have their own rules, their own group dynamics. And we, that is, Yuuto, Shun, and I, were apart of a much bigger one than the one we have now. They called themselves the Resistance as well. They had managed to hole themselves out a safe haven in the old industrial district of Heartland.

It wasn't a bad little place at the time. We had been desperate then, having been on the run for weeks, all of us noticeably thinner than we had ever been. Ragged, starving, thirsty, weak, cold, sick; you name it, we were likely it. We had to abandon Mom's car a while back when we had finally pushed it to it's limit, burning all of the gas out of it and the exterior damage was too great. So, like when we had first left the schools, we were walking again, barefoot at that. In our rush to get away from the soldiers we had left behind all of our clothes, our shoes, everything.

In those few weeks, we did manage to find other clothes and shoes, but by the time we had, our feet were so scratched up, sore, and dirty, it almost felt like a waste to put on clean socks and shoes. At least we tried to clean up what we could of our messy feet, holding our hands over our mouths when we tried to use hand sanitizer to clean them, to keep us from screaming. And I thought having hand sanitizer on a papercut on your finger was painful, it was ten times worse on your feet that had countless little scratches and scrapes and mud caked onto them. I can only imagine what it felt like for Yuuto, his hand still having those bad scratches on them from before.

You'd think things would get better from there, right?

Sadly, no. It didn't get better, at all.

Food was becoming more and more scarce, and it was getting colder with the nights getting longer and darker as time went on.

Worse yet, I was starting to get a cough that just wouldn't go away, that cough only getting worse as time wore on.

We couldn't do anything about it. We didn't know where any place would have medicine at the time, and even then, we wouldn't know what would treat it. Everywhere we went, shops and stores were getting suspiciously emptier and emptier. The only thing we could do was keep a blanket around me at all times, trying our best to stay warm and dry. It started to get really bad one night as we were hiding in an old basement. It was dark, dank, but it was out of the rain. The boys had started a small fire, but it didn't get any higher because of the moist air. They were so worried, scared that they couldn't do anything for me. The only thing they could do was sit close, each having an arm around me to share their warmth, no matter how much I protested through the coughing. I didn't want them to get sick too, but they refused to let go. We might have fallen asleep like that, I think. Thankfully, neither Shun or Yuuto caught the cough from me.

No, it just had to escalate from there. Of course it did.

I remember waking up feeling weak and aching everywhere in the morning. I felt hot in some places and cold in others. I could barely move, and even when I did, I felt sluggish and slow. Shun and Yuuto had woken up before me, discussing and trying to figure out what to do. They refused to leave me behind, but I was getting sicker, that much was obvious. They were lost in what to do.

I remember weakly calling out to them then, my voice hoarse from coughing and sickness, but they were quick in coming to my side. They both noted how flushed my face was, Shun's hand coming up to feel my forehead and neck. His hand felt so cold against me, I almost didn't want him to remove it, but it confirmed all of our suspicions: I had a fever, and a high one at that. What's worse, we started to hear voices outside. We couldn't even take the time to rest here until the fever went down. Shun wrapped me into the blanket again, and pulled me onto his back while Yuuto gathered up our meager amount of supplies we had managed to find in our weeks of traveling. He was never far behind Shun, keeping an eye out for trouble. I remember reaching out my hand to him a few times, even tried to smile for him. He squeezed my hand when he was close enough, but he still looked so worried.

The coughing and chills only got worse the further we traveled. I felt so weak, even when we stopped to rest, I could barely stand up anymore. Yuuto even had to catch me when we stopped and Shun was letting me down. They were very on edge, being chased by some far off voices and there wasn't any real shelter nearby to protect us and I was getting worse, fast. We had no way of defending ourselves, I remembered. No Duel Disks, not even any sort of weapon. We were sitting ducks, helpless in the open.

Shun gritted his teeth and clenched his fist while he searched around for anything, anything at all, that could be used as a weapon. He didn't want to run anymore. While looking around, he told Yuuto to take me and run, to go somewhere safe, that he'll hold them off as long as he can. Yuuto and I protested, of course. We didn't want to leave Shun behind, but Shun yelled at him to do as he's told. 'Keep Ruri safe as if your life depends on it, Yuuto!'

Yuuto barely had me on his back when the voices called out again, closer than ever. Both of them got on the defensive. I was getting dizzy, losing my sense of balance. The tall surrounding buildings felt like they were spinning out of control. I lost my grip on Yuuto then, and landed on the ground, coughing so long and hard and barely a breath in between, I felt I could've coughed up an organ or two. Both of them called out my name, coming to my aid, but everything felt so hazy, it was hard to remember all of it.

Someone had called out again, asking for Shun and Yuuto to stand down, that they weren't the enemy. Shun stood up again, yelling something, I don't remember what it was, but his voice soon stopped cold, as if he recognized the voice. Yuuto wasn't speaking either, as if he was stunned into silence too. Everything was so hazy around me, I was breathing hard and shallow, barely even able to at some points, barely aware of what was going on. Next thing I knew, my blanket was being taken away to be replaced by a very warm, large coat and being taken up into a strong pair of arms. A soft voice was talking to me, but I couldn't understand what it was saying. It sounded vaguely familiar, as if I heard that voice a hundred times before, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out where I'd heard it before. It was an adult male voice, but it wasn't my Dad's voice, nor the voice of any of my teachers. I tried to open my eyes, to try and focus again and I did get a glimpse of something shiny, looking like gold in the dim sunlight, and a blob of dark blue or maybe black, with something pink or red, I can't remember. But, though every instinct within me was telling me to be scared or to fight back, I was feeling so warm, and not just by the coat or the arms that were carrying me. My bracelet felt warm too, like maybe it was reacting to something. What it was, I don't think I'll ever know. It had never reacted to anything before then, just acted like an ordinary bracelet.

By then I was too tired to try and focus anymore and lost consciousness after that, the last sensation I remember feeling was something touching my forehead, brushing my hair aside, almost comforting in a way. Mom used to do that too, brush aside my hair whenever I was sick in bed.

Off watch duty now and sitting by the fire now, trying to get warm. Even taking the precautions to cover my hair, it still manages to snow and icicles in it. Yuuto's trying really hard not to smile as I try to get the icicles out of my hair. He's got icicles in his hair too, so he shouldn't laughing at me. Jerk.

Anyway…

When I finally came back around, I was on a cot covered with a thick blanket. The room wasn't especially bright, but there was a fire going nearby, making everything very, very warm. A lady had been nearby, lightly humming to herself as she was dipping her hands into a bowl of water. My coughing alerted her to me finally being awake. She wringed out a wet cloth from her water bowl and came closer to me, putting the cool, wet cloth on my forehead. She asked how I was feeling, what my name was, how old I was, things like that. I tried my best to answer her, my throat was so dry and sore though. The best she could do was give me a cup of water and the promise of a cough drop after I ate something. And I wasn't about to say no to food, especially after weeks of barely having any. The lady was nice enough to help me to sit up and help me with eating, her talking to me throughout most of it. The only time she turned away from me was when she went to get some warm soup, a camp specialty, she told me.

She told me about the camp as she was getting the soup, about how her and her husband banded together with what was left of their friends and relatives and hid out here. It frustrated her husband so much, she said. He wanted so badly to fight against this enemy, Academia, but he had no way to fight against them. It didn't help that he had his family to think about, too. His growing family at that, she stated and as I had quickly noticed as soon as she said it. I was so flustered that I could barely get out a congratulations. She smiled and thanked me, soon continuing her story. Her husband wanted to fight the enemy, but he didn't want to leave them behind defenseless either. The only things he could do now was keep everyone together and survive the best they could. It reminded me of Shun and Yuuto, about how much they wanted to fight this enemy, but they still cared enough to not leave me behind, even if they could have so easily.

That reminded me to ask the lady about them, if they were around somewhere. Once I started to describe what they looked like, the lady's eyes lit up with recognition. Yes, she knew those two boys, the ones that were here every day since they came here, to check up on how I was doing. It was almost like clockwork whenever they came. If they weren't there together, it was usually one or the other coming to ask about me. There was even one night she had to leave for a moment and when she had came back, both boys had snuck in and had fallen asleep on the cot with me. She scolded them about it later, but she hadn't had the heart to wake them at the time, letting it pass that one time. Even put a blanket over all of us to make sure they didn't catch cold.

The lady laughed at my reaction to imagining the scene. Even now, it's bringing a bit of pink to my face just thinking about it… just… my brother… and Yuuto…..

No, it's probably best not to think about it. Stay on track, Ruri!

I was really, really lucky to have a quick recovery, much to the relief of everyone, especially Shun and Yuuto's. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't been found when I had been, by the lady's husband and their friend Haruto Tenjo, nonetheless!

By the way, the lady's husband?

It was former Duel Champion Yuuma Tsukumo.

No wonder Shun and Yuuto had been stunned into silence before. Their childhood hero, a Duel Monsters Champion at that, had been chasing after them to try and bring them into safety. I can only imagine their faces once he approached them and wrapped his jacket around me and carried me back to their camp.

What, I'm not blushing. My face is still flushed from the cold, that's all.

He's a married man and he has a kid, stop what you're thinking. Besides, I'm fourteen, heck, eleven at the time when I met him.

That's gross. Not interested in the least. Nope.

ANYWAY!

We fell into a routine at that camp, even finding some familiar faces from both of our schools there. It made all of us happy and relieved, to find those familiar faces, some that were our age that had survived the initial onslaught. They were with us just like old times, learning how to be lookouts and scouts, scavengers and quick thinkers. Yuuto and Shun certainly loved challenging Yuuma to duels in their spare time, the former champion more than happy to indulge. The old Duel Disks didn't work as well as they used to, nor did the D-Gazers, but they still worked well enough for our purposes. It still wasn't a weapon we could use against Academia, but it was a good way to blow off some tension. Shun and Yuuto always lost to Yuuma, of course, but they never did give up. He always had a big grin on his face whenever they challenged him. Matter of fact, when he wasn't spending time with his new family, he was being a teacher, helping us to improve our dueling skills, even if we couldn't fight against Academia just yet. I think he enjoyed it too, being a teacher to all of us kids. He was always encouraging us, to do our best, to give him all we got.

In a way, he was slowly building up my confidence more than any of my past teachers had. He had no previous training as a teacher before, as far as we all knew, but through his own stumbles and sometimes confusing messages, he still taught us to believe in ourselves. He even organized a training day for all us kids, where all of us could challenge him head on. Shun and Yuuto jumped at the chance, even challenging him twice, both individually and as a tag team. Yuuma still defeated them, both times of course, but they were so excited, they didn't even care that they had lost. Yuuma kept on going on down the line, everyone excited to challenge him. I was nervous, naturally, when he was coming closer and closer towards me. I hadn't even thought of my nervousness in classes for months. How could I with what had happened to all of us?

Still, that nervousness came back times a million. Everyone was cheering for me, to do my best, and even one to 'kick his ass into Sunday' from Yuiko.

I still have no idea where her then 13 year old self had learned that from.

Yuuma was encouraging all the way through the duel, complimenting me about my monsters and traps, even didn't mind when I messed up a Xyz summoning. He was patient throughout the duel, even smiling when I managed to knock down his Life Points down a few pegs, much to the excitement of the other kids, most of which were still yelling out encouragements to keep going.

Too bad Dueling couldn't have stayed like that, where your opponent was encouraging you, telling you relax and just do your best, your friends cheering for you, everyone was having fun and, best of all, no one was getting hurt or carded when they lost.

Unfortunately, we had to learn that hard way, that we couldn't always use Dueling as a tool for fun anymore. I wish that-

Whoops, being called again for watch duty. Didn't I just get off of watch duty? I think there's still icicles in my hair from the first round. Ugh.