(Yubel's Pov)

I turned away from him, fighting down a blush. His hand easily let go and fell back to his side as another silence filled the…uh… place. I 'got to my feet' and Astral did the same.

"Why don't you explain everything, now I'm here anyway," I decided to say, dusting some imaginative dust off.

Astral nodded. "Yes, come with me," he said, gently grabbing my hand and he started leading me through the golden structure. I suppressed another blush. What's wrong with me? Stop acting like a sissy!

I shook it off and took this as my opportunity to ask about the number cards. "Astral, what are number cards?"

(Astral's Pov)

I turned around to face Yubel when I heard the question, still holding her hand. "A special and powerful kind of xyz monsters," I said, I would explain furthermore once I can show her them.

She raised an eyebrow in response "Ekseece?" she pronounced, sounding confused.

I couldn't help but chuckle a little. "No, x-y-z, xyz." I repeated, a bit slower.

She closed her eyes, taking it in, or so I assumed. I looked at her, her interesting body seemed to enchant me, just like everything else about her. From her teal blue eyes to her wings, from her double colored hair to her elegant and strong hands, her body structure, I loved simply everything. I'd like to explore and every part of her beautiful body…

"Astral?" her voice sounded.

I dismissed my thoughts and concentrated again. "Yes?"

(Yubel's Pov)

Xyz he? I closed my eyes, thinking. The new type of card reminded me of that other kind of card that was released before it, synchro. And then there were those turbo duels… A shiver went down my spine at the memory.

(Flashback-ish)

I had been travelling from owner to owner, nothing too special, when it happened. Zero reverse, even I felt it. I immediately came to look, only to find a concrete wasteland of what was once domino city. However, when I looked around, there were no bodies, they were probably destroyed by the explosion. The only reason why I was still alive, was because my card was kept into a thin box, which had seemed to survive the blast. I flew higher to get a better look at the area, but everything within my eyesight was just wasteland.

A couple of months later I was found, finally, as they were rebuilding the city, I got another owner, and that's where the hell began. They had come up with a new dueling style, turbo duels. The first time I was summoned during those, by the time I knew what was going on, they were already mile further, and I had to catch up with them. I was never an active person, so I hated them. At a certain moment, I had just taken a seat at the back of the guy's duel runner. How amusing their faces were about the 'malfunction', it was never something I liked to do.

(Present)

When I opened my eyes, I felt a gaze looking at me. Was he staring at me?

"Astral?" I decided to ask, a little uncomfortable.

His eyes focused again. "Yes?"

"Let's continue, shall we," I said, pushing away the feeling of discomfort.

"Yes," he said, and started guiding me again. As we moved forward, he explained what had happened since he arrived in this world. The way he explained everything was very amusing, to be honest. The way he looked at everything was so different. I think that if you'd ask a small child to explain the world, only with bigger words. It was funny how little he understood about humans, not that I completely understood them, but I came close.

When we stopped, we were in a bigger uh… I guess I can call it a room… Anyway, it was much brighter than the other 'rooms' and 'halls', and when Astral moved next to me, I could see why. Black cards, floating, shining a light blue color. Numbers.

"To know what I must do, I need to collect all 100," he said.

I came a bit closer, to look at all cards separately. Each of them were different, the only thing that connected them was that 'number'. And then I noticed one that glowed in a darker color. It didn't look out of the ordinary compared to the others, just the dark glow. I reached out to touch it, but then a hand grabbed my wrist, stopping me.

"don't," he simply said. I dropped my hand and he led go. "Black mist is a dangerous card, releasing it will cause a lot of destruction," he continued.

I nodded, understanding him.

However I couldn't see the memories, he explained them to me. We talked a lot, about so what every subject that came into us, about Yuma, and this time, to which we were both a stranger, we even discussed dueling strategies. Finally, after all that trouble, I could finally consider Astral my friend. It made me happy, but I felt like there was missing something… I wanted to be more than his friend. How much I could and would deny that fact, it was the truth, the cold, hard truth.

The next day the Carnival began. Yuma was able to get a 'heart piece' to participate (thank god I don't think I would've been able to stand him whining like that for another minute) and to say, the festivities were huge. But something was of, something told me something bad was going to happen.

"So let the duels begin!" Heartland's voice sounded, snapping my attention back to reality.

"I wonder who'll make the first move," Tori said, sounding quite enthusiast even though she wasn't participating herself.

"Yeah, and who's that person gonna challenge," Yuma agreed.

"Hey kid!" a voice came.

Yuma turned around to the voice, dodging a ball that flew by by a hair.

"Hey! Watch it!" He yelled angry.

"Sorry," a boy speaking with a British accent said, running past him, after the ball.

Yuma turned his head again to the person who had called him, which turned out to be a girl around his age with long blonde hair and blood red eyes.

"Are you Yuma Tsukumo, brother of Kari Tsukumo?" she almost yelled.

"Uh… yeah, that would be me, why do you ask?"

"Because you have something that's mine!" her voice suddenly sounded distorted, as if she and another, very deep and dark, voice talked at the same time. She showed him her heart piece "I challenge you to a duel!" she yelled, her voice being normal again.

A spirit formed next to the girl. It was a man in armor, his helmet in the shape of a skull with horns and an axe in his hands.

"Long time no see, Yubel…" he spoke, his charming voice spoke.

"Not long enough if you ask me," I said, my voice dripping with disgust.

"Why so angry? You know, we used to be friends, partners, remember?" he said, still trying to sound nice.

"What do you want, Demise?"

"You to be back by my side, dear."

"Don't call me dear" I spitted out. "I've never been your dear, and I will never be."

"Such harsh words, I'm hurt. Anyway, I will get my way," he chuckled and looked at the girl and Yuma, who were just about to start their duel before disappearing.

Demise, king of Armageddon, I hereby accept your challenge.

AN: OMG I'M SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING! I've had like the biggest writer's block during my holidays and I was busy with school… PLEASE FORGIVE ME! *sobs* my heart breaks thinking about how I let you all down...
Anyway, since I'm not sure how to make this a very long story, longer than 15 chapters, I want you guys to give some suggestions about what could happen, some kind of side events, next to the original story. Also, like you see, I'll change some things about the original Zexal storyline and my writing style has changed a bit.

So stay tuned and see ya!