Last Day Without You

Masumi awoke that morning with a horrible taste in her mouth and a tremble in her fingers as though some dream had decided to cling to her even in her waking moments. The dream, however, refused to be remembered, and she only lay there with a growing feeling of dread in her stomach for about five minutes. Then she growled under her breath and snapped to sit upright. No. Those emotions would not have any sway over her today.

Still, the feeling of uncertain dread clung to her for the rest of the morning as she shoved clothes into a small bag, strapped her Duel Disk to her arm and loaded the cards inside. Was it just because of what she was planning to do this morning? Was that the reason for her uncertainty and her nervousness?

She slung her bag over her back and tiptoed to the top of the stairs. Her ears strained towards her parents' room.

Quiet. They were asleep.

She sent a silent apology their way before slipping one careful step at a time down the squeaky stairs, trying to cling as close to the wall as possible so that she wouldn't make any sound.

Yaiba was waiting where he had said he would be, on the bench across the street that was mostly hidden from her parents' window by a low hanging tree. Masumi let the door fall quietly behind her, and turned to face him.

She hesitated for a moment, breathing out. Her breath condensed in the air.

Snow's coming early, she thought. Very early.

It was like the world itself realized how topsy-turvy everything had become, and Mother Nature was altering to fit that. She clenched her hands around her backpack straps. Swallowed thickly.

Then she stepped off the sidewalk, and crossed over to Yaiba.

He looked like some kind of dragon with the breath curling from his lips, wisping past his shaggy hair.

"Are you totally, totally sure about this?" he asked, every word coming out like a puff of smoke.

She raised an eyebrow at him. He rolled his eyes.

"I don't know why I bothered asking," he said. "All right, fine. But we're going to get into so much trouble if they find out."

"Don't tell me that you don't want to get some revenge on them for Hokuto," she said, shifting her bags. "Or for Marco. Or the others that they killed during the tournament."

Yaiba's hand tightened on the back of the bench. She saw his jaw clench, and his hand flicker towards his breast pocket where he was probably keeping the card that held Hokuto. They had sneaked into the headmistress' office just a few days ago to steal it back. They hadn't been able to find Marco's card, but the cards of the other lost duelists from the tournament had all been laid out neatly on a table, like a miniature graveyard.

Both of them had agreed that Hokuto had the right to come along on this mission of theirs, in one form or another.

Besides, Masumi thought with a rush of vindictive fury. If I find any of those Academia bastards...I'm going to beat out of them how to get everyone back to normal.

She sucked in a deep, thin breath, the cold burning at her throat.

"Let's go," she said.

She started walking without waiting for Yaiba to stand up. She heard him swear under his breath as he grabbed his bag and hurried to keep up with her.

The walk to LDS took under two minutes, but Masumi's heart was pounding in her chest so loudly that she could hear it drumming in her ears. This was the tricky part.

Masumi and Yaiba hid themselves behind a couple of bushes, crouching low and close, their breaths beginning to swirl together into the sky. There was no less than five Special Ops officers standing in front of the LDS building. They had two options—go over and pretend like they were there on an errand for the headmistress, like they had last time (which probably wasn't going to work a second time, by now they probably realized that the headmistress hadn't sent for them at all) or...

She lifted up her duel disk. Sucked in a steadying breath.

"I activate Fusion," she whispered.

She angled her Duel Disk to project the Solid Vision as far to their left as possible, and then slipped the card into the slot. The generic fusion monster she had pulled from a pack swirled into life with the telltale symbol of swirling blue and orange. The flashing of lights immediately drew the attention of the five guards. Masumi heard a chorus of swears—anger and panic all mixed into one as more than one Duel Disk activated.

Masumi whispered a brief direction to the fusion monster through her disk, and the dog creature went loping off down the road and darted into an alley. Masumi chanced a glance over the bush.

Perfect.

All five of them had given chase. That was something of a security breach there, but Masumi couldn't be bother to let them know how tactically stupid they were right now. She just grabbed Yaiba under the shoulder and they bolted for the doors.

Remarkably, their LDS badges still worked to unlock it, and they tumbled inside.

There was no time to enjoy the lavish lobby. They had gotten lucky again, the hall was empty.

The pair bolted across the marble floor and streaked down the hall. When they reached the door at the end of the hall, Masumi ripped open the panel and jabbed in the code that she had stolen off of a special ops officer the day before. The door slid open—code was still good, thank god—and they hurried inside.

Masumi didn't pause to stare at the lab equipment or the glowing screens like something out of a science fiction movie. She was looking for one thing in particular—

There it was, hanging from a pair of robotic arms, paused in the middle of some kind of analysis. They had timed it right, no one was in the lab this early in the morning. Masumi bolted forward and yanked the Duel Disk free. This was it—it was definitely the same Duel Disk used by the mysterious young man with Yuya's face but XYZ's power.

An alarm screeched through the room. Yaiba swore.

"Masumi, I hope you know how to use that thing!" he said, whipping around towards the door with his Duel Disk out.

Masumi jabbed at the Duel Disk and brought it online.

How does it teleport? How do we go where Yuzu went?

For a moment, panic gripped her. She didn't know what she was doing. There could be a million and one dimensions for all she knew and she didn't know how to get to even one of them. She didn't know which one Yuzu had gone to, even! Was she in the Fusion dimension with the invaders, a prisoner? Was she in another dimension, dropped off by accident during the chaos?

Was she a card somewhere in the city where Masumi hadn't searched, and she was already long gone?

Frustrated tears bubbled in her eyes. She pushed her forehead into the Disk.

"Masumi!" Yaiba said.

There were footsteps pounding down the hall, but all Masumi could do at that moment was shake and cry silently with her head leaned against the disk.

She was stupid. This was stupid. She didn't know what she was doing.

She just—she just wanted to see Yuzu again.

She felt the Duel Disk hum.

Her hands snapped it back down so that she could stare at it. Had she hit a button with her forehead? There was something flashing across the screen—Transfer to Synchro in 3...2...

"Yaiba!" she screamed.

The Duel Disk was glowing, she felt something like fizzy bubbles running all down her skin—or no, becoming her skin—and everything around her was starting to blur.

Yaiba whipped around and flung himself at Masumi. She reached for him, managed to grab his wrist as he grabbed her shoulder, and then he was becoming bubbles and sparkles too and the entire world was disappearing as the door smacked open to reveal a bunch of special ops—

And then they were gone.

Masumi stumbled and dropped to her butt. She shuddered, hands still clutching the Duel Disk like it was a lifeline in the middle of the ocean. Yaiba managed to keep his feet, although his eyes were wide and his mouth hung open.

"Did we...make it?" he asked.

Masumi's heart fluttered.

Yuzu. Yuzu, I'm here.

She scrambled to her feet. She shoved the XYZ Duel Disk into her bag—they would need it to get home later. They had made it—they were here. Perhaps it was the disorientation and nerves, but there was no doubt in Masumi's mind that they had indeed made it to where Yuzu was. Yuzu was here. She had to be. Masumi could almost taste it.

"What now, Masumi?" Yaiba said uncertainly, looking up and down the buildings and turning in a slow circle.

Masumi buzzed with anticipation and adrenaline. This place was not Maiami—it was different, so different. There seemed to be a city rising over the top of this one, and this one they stood in was a place of low buildings and trash blowing in the wind, dark alleys and at least one man in shabby clothing hanging out at the far street corner. Masumi hoped he hadn't seen them jump out of thin air—but then, who would believe him if he had?

Masumi stared up at the sky and was surprised to see something like roads cutting across it. She could see one just to the side of them, and if she stretched, she could sort of see it at an angle where people on the road were visible, zipping past on...motorcycles? Yes, that was it. Masumi squinted. One of the motorcycles was huge. She had never seen anything so ridiculous. The other was too small to see clearly, especially in relation to the other one. Masumi winced as a helicopter zoomed past, clearly followed the pair. She squinted again and realized it was a news helicopter, flying low to catch the pair of motorcycles on television.

"What is going on up there?" Yaiba asked, squinting.

Masumi's heart jumped. Before her brain could comprehend it, she knew it. She knew who was up there as certain as she knew that snow came in winter.

She opened her mouth, tears bubbling in her eyes.

And then the smaller motorcycle crashed into the bigger one.

Masumi's world froze like ice. She saw it happen in slow motion, through the haze of frost on a window pane, saw the tiny figure go flying from her motorbike, flung like a rock from a sling shot off of the lane and crash—smoke billowed from the side of the building where the motorcycle had struck.

And then the ice of Masumi's world shattered and she felt herself shatter into tiny pieces inside.

"YUZU!"