【70 - Where Do You Run When The World Becomes Your Enemy?】


Heidi knew she was dreaming.

She was peacefully floating in brightness, and she was being visited by one of Hillary's angels.

What were angels if not strict adherants to a specific faith? Heidi had learnt a plethora of names tossed around by Hillary which had jarred her. Not just light-beings or ascended masters but fairies and dragons. Not the creatures from Duel Masters either, but bizarre daydreams actually existing on some psychic plane. It was kooky. Yet people actually believed in this stuff - some of them high on psychedelics - and here she floated. She wasn't in space like in her prior significant dreams, but facing a glowy being in its blissful realm.

Heidi, it spoke telepathically. You have to forgive to release yourself.

"Forgive, everyone?" She felt its confirmation, "No way I could ever forgive Urobach. He's done too much!"

You have to forgive so you can ascend further, it pushed.

Heidi considered it for all of a second before the fires of hate filled her. Urobach had killed her friends, murdered over a million people without a care. He'd thrown all of Aurellia out of balance.

"No way!" Heidi yelled.

Then I'm going to knock your chair over.

Before the bizarre statement sunk in Heidi was snapped awake, tipping over in her chair and hitting the floor. She felt bewildered at her sudden alertness and clutched her sore elbow.

She was strangely anxious. What had she been dreaming about? She remembered the warm light that always filled her dreams now. It also filled her, the feeling of Hillary's angels around, invisible and comforting in their way. But even that couldn't quell her anxiety and she decided to get a drink of water to relieve herself.

It was dark and everyone else was asleep. Or so she'd thought. After filling her canteen she sensed movement and turned around, walking to the corridor and peering out. A shadow disappeared up the steps.

Heidi followed until she found Hillary.

"Where are you going?"

She turned and froze, "Go back to sleep," her eyes were big and face flushed.

Heidi repeated the question, both girls talking in quietly hissed voices.

"Oh alright… I sensed my soul flame. He's in a village not far from here. I have to go."

It sounded like madness, but so did all of Hillary's teachings. Instead of Heidi feeling crazy for believing the New Age stuff too, she started to feel crazy for not being fully convinced. She'd seen Hillary's psychic gifts and divination, felt the light beings inside her, and somehow she still wanted more proof. Proof of what, exactly?

"Take me with you," Heidi said and noticed Hillary deliberating, "I don't care if it's unsafe. You shouldn't be travelling alone."

Hillary knew Heidi wouldn't back down. She was also running on some kind of high, desperate to meet the man who'd hurt her so. Their strange and spiritual entanglement still didn't make sense to Heidi, so she hoped to learn more about that also.

After Hillary nodded they both left the shelter of the tomb. It was cool and desert wind gently tossed fistfulls of sand against their backs. They climbed into one of the rovers and Hillary started it up. Soon they were driving across the endless expanse, stretching flatly away from them in all directions. There was a compass fixed to the dashboard, and a map weighed down by Hillary's canteen, its edges battering in the wind. Hillary touched the wheel to dodge the odd cactus, darkened silhouettes under the starlight. Heidi was sitting up on the headrest of her chair, with no roof she was getting a full frontal of the cold winds. She shivered beneath her headdress and tunic, but it was nice. She held on with both hands as they rolled over the stationary waves of sand.

A loud noise above lifted their gazes.

It looked like a fast-moving jet, very high up, only it was trailing smoke. The noise was a thunderous sky rip. They didn't stop driving but they kept staring. It took a few moments before they could come up with a guess.

"...Is Solvus City doing a flight drill?" Heidi proposed.

"All the way out here? Maybe…" Hillary answered.

At any rate, it wasn't moving toward their base and it arced across the sky before disappearing from view.

An hour or so later their destination was in sight. Lights of a primitive village in the distance; Heidi slid down with her knees up. When they got close enough to see large tents and campfires, Hillary directed the rover toward a couple others and parked. They got out and after ensuring they were properly disguised, entered the camp. There were market stalls that Heidi could imagine bustling in the day. Some odd figures were about, drunks maybe. They stood stiffly with heads bowed and talked quickly.

"How are we going to find him? Can you sense him now?" Heidi asked.

"Not now," Hillary stated but walked confidently forward, as if she expected the problem to solve itself.

That was how it felt when Hillary did something that seemed like magic. She wasn't a tribal shaman or wicked witch. Aside from her genuine altruism, she never seemed like anything more than a regular girl.

When it seemed impossible that something should happen, suddenly the room would shift. Everything felt a little less real, like reality itself was called into question, and suddenly Heidi felt like the impossible could happen, quite easily in fact, and then it did. There was delight but no surprise. Heidi supposed that was how manifestation was supposed to work.

Surely enough as they approached an old well, yellow-white like their surroundings, their problem was answered with casual ease. A man was facing away from them, filling his bottle.

"Ijiwa?" Hillary spoke his name.

He turned, and further adding to the surreal situation, recovered quickly to seeing her. As casual as the moment.

"Hillary..."

It was too dark to see much of him, but Heidi could make stuff out. He was attractive. Sweet-faced with long lashes. His features and expression were so innocent in fact that Heidi was sure he didn't have one decent bone in his body.

"Why are you here?" Hillary asked, sounding serious.

"Work sent me. How about you and your friend? I'm assuming you've heard the news that's got everyone so upset?"

The faint voices became more noticeable. Heidi could tell that there were more people awake than she thought, and they weren't drunk either.

"What news?" Hillary asked.

Ijiwa thought it best to show them. He led them along to a crowd of people, all huddling silently around a small TV.

The news broadcast was frantic, reporting that fifty-two nuclear missiles had been launched, and counting. The capital city, which Heidi had first travelled to after leaving Duextra, was already wiped out. Millions of people had lived there, along with everyone Heidi had ever met at the DM Academy. Her sister Tailee, who worked at the space observatory would be among the casualties. Radiation hotspots were expected to contaminate a third of the main continent's landmass. Regions that hadn't been impacted included Solvus City and isolated vagabond settlements like the one they were in now.

Aurellia had begun its first world war, and it was attacking itself. The enemy: people.

The viewers were stunned into silence. They couldn't see much at the edge of the crowd, but they heard everything. When the channel fizzled to static - either because a TV tower or the crew themselves were nuked - someone pressed buttons to flick through channels before landing on another reporter, someone filming themselves in a van in the outback. They watched for a while longer before the screen changed, and there was Urobach in his grey uniform with arms behind his back.

"Hello, people of Aurellia. To those of you who've survived anyway… Welcome to the New World," a smirk rose up his ugly, scarred face.

"Your chosen duelists have failed to stop me in time. As for the meddling water chosen, he has finally been outplayed by a hacker subordinate of my own. With his constant spying and jamming my technology, I've had to forgo long planning and opt for a spurious approach in the brief window of time afforded to me. As such… I, General Urobach, have chosen now to proclaim myself as the new ruler of this world!

"I was already in control of your government and military, but I've chosen now to step out of the shadows. I'll keep this message brief, and give you all time to accept the new reality. I expect complete cooperation from all, immediate execution being the punishment for all who fail to comply," again he cracked another smirk, "how's that for honesty from a politician?"

The screen flashed back to the spokesman in his van. His mouth was agape and the microphone slipped from his hands, hitting the ground and emitting an ear-piercing screech through the audio. The crowd began to get frenzied. Ijiwa shepherded Heidi and Hillary away, they walked in silence for a while. Heidi could feel her brain stop-starting.

"This isn't real. This can't be real…" she stopped and reached for Hillary's sleeve, halting her as well, "Your angels said there'd be no war! All is well! You were certain this wasn't going to happen!"

"I…" Hillary shook her head, just as dazed, "You're right. It can't be real."

"You both think those broadcasts were faked?" Ijiwa asked.

"They had to be," Heidi grabbed her head with both hands and paced in circles. In her mind she saw the map of Augus as shown on the news, the way those circles had spread to depict the radiation poisoning so much of the planet. Like how blood stains grow beneath cotton. "I know! This all happened because we were lying low. I'll just grab Kanoa and Sinan, get back into Solvus City to find Amira again, then none of this has to happen…"

"...That wasn't a jet we saw on our way here. Was it a missile aiming for the next big city?" Hillary couldn't accept it. Heidi stopped, sobering to the fact the tragedy had already occured. "But I felt so clearly… that there wasn't going to be a war."

"Well what are you feeling now!?" Heidi screamed, rage in her voice.

Hillary couldn't even flinch, the way she was now, "I don't feel anything. Just them… looking at me."

"No no no! This can't be happening!" Heidi shrieked then fell to her knees in despair, the tears falling.

She could still feel the presence of those things, their peaceful energy inside her now sickening. The sweetness had soured. She wanted to mentally push them out or rip them from her, but whatever the girls had let inside wasn't leaving. Heidi sobbed. The chaotic indifference to everything offered to loosen itself. It'd caused Heidi's psychotic rampage on the island the last time she'd experienced trauma, but she'd since tapered it down with the new spiritual healing. The training meant Heidi now had a choice, and while letting that side of her out would be an escape from the pain, it wouldn't help her work with the others to stop Urobach.

To save what was left.

Heidi fought against her mind tipping over again. She looked up at Hillary who was breathing faster, beginning to panic while Ijiwa stood still.

"Your spirits made events take place in our lives for past life karma," Heidi recited, "You said they intended for you to meet and train us chosens too."

"They… I… We…" Hillary was gasping at a realisation that could not compute: her psychic senses had been wrong. Terribly wrong.

"You know," Ijiwa began, and Heidi could finally see a light behind a tent flap illuminating half his face, and a featureless forest-green eye, "I never put much stock in that soul flame stuff anyhow."


Amira was sitting on the edge of a skyscraper, staring down at the bedlam below. Traffic had come to a grinding halt in a formerly, perfectly efficient city. Car lights were flashing and there was confused honking from people who hadn't yet learned that half the world had just exploded. Of course in the two weeks since the sandstorm, Solvus City had returned to being spotless and all infrastructure had been mended.

Amira was deeply troubled, but part of her mind couldn't help noticing again the contrast to her old home. Both had been cities, but one was broken-down and filthy, and the other an unnaturally clean utopia. The only prisons here were of the mind…

Old Amira back in the Coal Province City would feel sick at sitting on a ledge, hunching over such a dizzying height. But currently she didn't even notice it, so wrapped up in her own emotions. If she wanted she could let herself slip off, sky-dive without a parachute and teleport just before hitting the street. But even New Amira wasn't that brave. That, and the fact that teleporting didn't negate your momentum.

She knew the Gatekeepers couldn't be stopped. Aurellia was doomed, and even though her old phoenix refused to communicate with her now, she had a feeling he'd always felt the same way. Still, all the horrible 'unavoidable' deaths jangled inside Amira and had her feeling a type of way. Weird how she mentally put quotation marks on the word unavoidable. Doubly weird that she was feeling off after never once questioning any action she took that was meant to keep her safe. She'd written an apology on a piece of rubbish for Heidi before running away because she was sorry to have hurt the girl's feelings, but disappearing then hadn't been a hard decision to make by any stretch. Amira had never felt regret at doing or not doing anything.

Until possibly now.

Amira heard the sizzling of Urobach's black fire behind her and rolled her eyes. It was like comparing dial-up internet to a perfect 5G signal. Amira could teleport in almost the blink of an eye. With Urobach she had the time to turn her head and face him before he came through the blackness.

"He told me you liked the roof," he looked cross with her, as usual.

"Shouldn't you be with the military top dogs right now, overseeing the destruction?" Amira asked boredly.

"There are more pressing matters."

"Must be if you're not drinking scotch and getting your rocks off at more mass death."

"Shut up," he spat and Amira scowled. "Henka seems to have died somehow so I've got Ijiwa checking around the settlement she went to after leaving her post. He told me some disturbing news, you are still in possession of Supernova Mars Disaster?"

"Yes."

"And Supernova Pluto Deathbringer?"

"...Yes."

"Now I wasn't even aware you had Mars in your possession until I saw the stunt you pulled with the fire chosen. Why, pray tell, have you not destroyed that card?" He was curiously reddening to his neck with fury. "Pluto was supposed to help you track the other chosens, which you haven't done anyway, so why do you need Mars? It should be as easy as tearing paper, and ensure that the five phoenixes won't ever unite with a team of five. So why haven't you destroyed one of those cards?"

"Well…" Amira stood and turned, almost matching his height on the ledge, "The chosens might still change their minds about helping you, right?"

"I don't care! I gave them an ultimatum, remember? It was very generous and now it's expired," he held out his gloved hand, "You tried to use Mars to break Heidi and it didn't work. Now give the card to me."

Amira stared then unzipped her jacket pocket. She pulled out Mars, slowly turning over the card. But then, she changed her mind and retracted her hand, zipping it back up before Urobach could step over and swipe it.

"On second thought, no," Amira decided.

Urobach restrained himself and asked through his teeth, "Why?"

She was feeling irritable and uncooperative, "Cause of nunya."

He shoved her with both hands and she fell.

Amira was too shocked to teleport immediately, so she'd already fallen a few feet before appearing behind Urobach and hitting the ground with a painful thud. Urobach turned and snapped fingers - a storage crate appeared a metre above Amira but she was gone before it came down and buckled the cement.

She appeared standing behind him, hand on his shoulder. They both teleported a few blocks away in mid-air. Amira left him to fall. Due to his slower teleporting powers Urobach had a hard landing on a different roof, turning on his side, winded and gasping.

Amira appeared standing over him.

"Can we like, have a time out and pretend this never happened? I still want to be saved from the gatekeepers, and you don't want to be dropped in mid-air again. So truce, please?"

Urobach got his breathing under control, "...Fine."

"Cool," then as an afterthought she added, "I'm still going to hold onto both phoenix cards though." Then she burnt up and left him.

Urobach turned over onto his stomach, "Bitch…"


After appearing elsewhere Amira decided to teleport to the other edge of the city, for good measure. If Urobach wanted to wipe her out with a bomb blast she would thus have a few extra seconds to teleport across the desert.


"You're telling me, my soul flame is a lieutenant?" Hillary was about to lose it.

"I'm asking how is it possible?" Heidi shouted at the blonde who was watching the walls of her life crash down. "All the lieutenants working for Urobach are sadistic psychos!" While Henka seemed like an odd exception, there didn't seem much point in discussing that now.

Ijiwa watched them with a smile, enjoying their distress.

"I… don't…" Hillary blubbered.

"I'll tell you!" Heidi yelled passionately, "Because your connection to this man was fake! You said that soul flames had a 'runner' and a 'chaser' and it teaches us lessons. What if it doesn't!? What if this force just attaches people to terrible ones, all to break you down so it can hold us and spread through into others like a virus!"

"Heidi, I can't accept this right now," she stared with big blue eyes, "I can't. It's gonna break me."

"So you are Heidi?" Ijiwa spoke up, "I thought you might've been her when you were listing off the other chosens."

Hillary pulled his attention back to her, "Lots of other psychics, mediums and card readings all confirmed that we had a connection. They said you loved me, but that you ran out of fear of our connection. The story was always the same."

"I never loved you."

That statement was like a gut punch, and she fell to her knees. Such was the obvious distress at what had been some kind of terrible brainwashing.

Ijiwa smirked, a sadistic expression on that sweet-looking face, "But it sure was fun to make you obsessed with me. You weren't the first love I involved myself with just to watch them crumble."

"You're disgusting," Heidi remarked as her fist blazed with red energy. "Even if somebody did that to you, that doesn't give you the right to do it to others!"

"Heidi, let me!" Unexpectedly, Hillary pushed the other girl back and found her feet. Her hand then burst with a white glow.

"Yes, Heidi. This is between us," Ijiwa agreed.

Heidi was reluctant but stood aside as the two backed away from each other to make room. Tent flaps battered in the night air.

"I wonder, can you really hurt me?" Ijiwa asked, "The man you had a soft spot for after all this time?"

"...I never truly loved you."

"Now that hurts my feelings."

"When we did see each other between the long breaks, at first I could tell you were different to the version of you in my head. The Ijiwa who actually cared about me."

The tables were solid by this point and the shields deployed.

Ijiwa charged nature, enjoying the fragility of his opponent.

Hillary charged water, fighting to keep her determination.

"I summon Jasmine, Mist Faerie and sacrifice her to boost mana." The green-haired fae appeared and just as promptly exploded.

"I summon Cosmo Politan!" Hillary's splash queen drifted down, a diva with jellyfish accents.

"I summon Ochappi and add Jasmine to my mana. Turn end." A nature girl rivalled against it.

Hillary charged her third mana but didn't have Marshall Queen in hand. She needed it to get the ball rolling. "I summon Cassis Soda and end," another diva landed beside the first with its transparent hair in a ponytail.

"I cast Hakumai Danshaku, boost mana and end." He had seven mana already, something was coming.

"I cast Everyone Who Supports Me Gives Me Energy," the spell side of Cassis Orange shone and she drew 2 cards. There was her Marshall Queen, and everything else she needed was ready too, "Turn end."

"I charge and pass turn. So when does your attacking start?"

"Right now! I evolve Cosmo Politan into Marshall Queen!" It shone blue before becoming the majestic mermaid creature, rising in a wave and flanked by dolphins with gold head-plates. "I can put up to three cards in my shield zone and take three back, using shield trigger. So I set three cards and take them all right back again! They're all shield triggers!" Three panels expanded before dissolving, appearing in her hand with a flash.

Ijiwa lowered his head but said nothing.

"First shield trigger, We Will Give Everyone Energy! I take Cassis Soda back to my hand and bounce Ochappi." Electric sonic blasted both cards back into their player's hands. "Second, I summon Jelly, Electro-Dazzling Princess and draw. Third, I evolve Jelly into Ryevermouth Bitters!" The larger dragon version of Marshall Queen entered play. "It has the same effect as Marshall Queen, only I can use it every time it attacks, so now I'll attack!"

This time Hillary set two cards down and took one of them back alongside a different one, "Both triggers! First, Hyperspatial Surprise Hole to bring out Martini, Temporal Dancer!" The psychic water blob emerged from the spacial tear. "Second is Kernel, Blue Stagnation Dragon Elemental. Since it's a blocker that costs five the awakening conditions for Martini are met and she becomes Julia Matini, the Awakened Diva!" Shockingly the water creature became light, it could grant her an extra shield every time it blocked.

"As Ryevermouth's attack continues… revolution change! Miracle Star, Heaven Revolutionary Knight!" Those cards bounced to her hand to be replaced by the light-water angel. Despite Hillary's confusion, and her horrible certainty that there must be another lesson in this somewhere even though she couldn't see it… she still felt comforted by the presence of an angel command. She'd been conditioned. "As it double breaks your shields the cards are revealed to me and I can use the spells instead of you!"

A Jasmine spun around along with, "I'll use your guard strike Faerie Life to boost my mana!"

Ijiwa's eyes darkened but he still said nothing.

Hillary continued, "Marshall Queen also breaks a shield!"

"No trigger."

"Then I end my turn here..."

On the sidelines Heidi was glad. Ijiwa couldn't do much at this point, even with all his mana.

Or so they thought.

"You wouldn't really hurt me, would you, soul flame?" at his tender words Hillary trembled.

Heidi noticed and her rage exploded, "Don't you dare give up! He's evil and he's got to be stopped!"

"I can't... I just can't..." Hillary fell to her knees once more, leaning against her table, "This is too much..." Heidi felt her face grow pale.

"I cast Faerie Gift. Now I can summon Chainrex, Super Chainkind!" The colourful dinosaur roared and attracted a few curious onlookers from tents. Most people weren't asleep as they'd first thought, but were crowding the few shops that had little TVs. "From my mana I neo evolve Great Grasper on top! I send Miracle Star to your mana." It was a great loss but the surprises didn't stop there.

"Great Grasper attacks and from my mana I summon another Chainrex, Super Chainkind. Then I put another Great Grasper on that. The card I send to the mana zone next is my first Great Grasper. Now my second Great Grasper attacks, and from my mana I summon Myscu Mirage," it was a bird-shaped totem appearing beside the caped grandsect, "and this creature sends my other Great Grasper to the mana zone, I then evolve Myscu into Great Grasper again."

This kind of looping was complicated, the creatures disappearing-reappearing strangely. Heidi had never seen anything like it.

"I attack and call out another Chainrex, Super Chainkind. I neo evolve Great Grasper and send the other back, and this time I bring out Sasoris Rage and equip it with Fanbai, Dragon Flower Fan!" It was the new version of the masked green squirrel, a draguner in Kanoa's deck, but the dragheart weapon summoned was from the water civilization. "I then neo evolve Great Grasper on top of Sasoris Rage, and send it back, milling your deck by one." A blow from the fan flipped over a card from Hillary's deck and it fluttered down into her graveyard.

Suddenly the purpose of his looping was evident. He wasn't bothered with Hillary's shields or her blockers. He was going to continue along this vein and remove all cards from her deck, resulting in a loss by deck out. Hillary would never even get another turn.

She stood up dazedly, watching as Ijiwa carefully worked on his loop, filling up her graveyard. The only other loss Heidi had seen that didn't come from a direct attack resulted in the loser's table exploding. Upon remembering this Heidi ran to Hillary and yanked her away from the table, just as Ijiwa was getting to her last card. They got some distance and then BOOM, there was the explosion and Hillary's deck scattered in the sand.

"You survived?" Ijiwa noticed them unharmed as the smoke cleared, "That's no good, I'd better call the guards."

"Grab your cards, hurry!" Heidi prompted and they both dived down to collect them all. Then they ran.

"What do we do?" Heidi yelled, "If we go back to the tomb we could lead Urobach to everyone else!"

"Then it's probably time we all left and took the saucer with us."

They huffed to the truck, but incredibly it wouldn't start. Of all times the engine chose now to choke up and die. What was worse, Heidi was pretty sure the men running toward them were soldiers.

This all felt wrong.

Tangibly, viscerally wrong. In the same way strange powers had brought Hillary to Heidi and Kanoa, and helped her find Ijiwa, now they were betraying them. It was as if the world itself was against them.

"Hillary, can you tell how wrong this feels? It's gotta be them!" Heidi insisted but could tell from Hillary's face that she still hadn't, or couldn't, accept it. Heidi noticed the other cars nearby, "Come on!" They jumped out and tried another vehicle.

Maybe nobody stole cars where there was nowhere to hide them, but the keys were in the folded up sun shield, so they started up the black sand buggy and took off in a wide U just as a group of soldiers slowed to a stop on the settlement's edge.

They drove off and the sky began to blue slightly, but dawn was still a while off.

When they were halfway back a tire blew.

It was no good - Heidi could feel angry static around her body. Somehow the 'angels', or whatever they were, were interacting with their surroundings. They could still drive but had to force the steering wheel to the left and the car was fighting them. Hillary broke down into tears finally and couldn't seem to stop.

When Heidi first felt this New Age force, it had been all love. And yet now that the mask had slipped, these 'evolved' beings felt like angry children. Bizarrely petty, arrogant - she could tell by their disbelief that they'd been seen through. These beings were angry at Heidi, she could feel their eyes like invisible daggers, and it frightened her. It led her back to rational thinking. What does altruism do in itself? Lead you to another mystical place where the rules of life as we know them are backwards? Where basic human tactics like manipulation and cunning and striking first to win, don't work? It seems there's no bigger value to altruism after all, aside from using it as a farce to manipulate followers, as they'd discovered.

Is that what light was? The truth of that elusive element and civilization?

A place that breeds hypocrisy. A thing of illusion, that hides the truth of the starry universe under a blue sky. That blinds, that judges, that controls.

This then brought Heidi, who too was silently despairing, to a similar line of thinking as Sinan who remained imprisoned and forsaken by his god, who he'd shone utmost devotion to.

Where do you run when the world becomes your enemy?


AN: Since I last updated, Shuriken has finished Nature Arc and even read chapter one of Light Arc. That's over ten reviews that I couldn't possibly respond to here. Was hoping Nature would become your new favourite, but at least you enjoyed it. I'm hoping that in being religious, you won't see any of the sentiments throughout this arc as attacking religion, but as someone expressing their own experiences. Serious topics are not usually associated with a children's trading card game but I guess this fic is just a trailblazing icon. I won't be able to update again until after my exams. At least I reached the arc's halfway point!