Sunlight can do different things to different people. It can create joy, lighten spirits or even cause intense sadness. For Crow Hogan, the shaft spearing into his eye through a gap in the curtains was searing his remaining functioning brain cell. Wiping the drool from his face, he tried to lever himself upright.
"Hey." Carefully stepping over his brother, Yusei slumped into a puffy armchair with a large cup of something steaming in his hands. "You look awful." Pushing himself against the end of a couch, Crow felt the almost solid odour of Jack's feet wash over his head.
"'Fuzzy." Was the only coherent word he could squeeze out as he looked about the room. It was Leslie's comfortable lounge. Jack was asleep on the sofa behind him, Leo on the one across a small table and Yusei was sitting in an armchair at the head of the table.
"You lost the sofa to Jack in a bet." It had involved crackers, a pint of soda and that was all Yusei felt he could safely divulge to his thick-headed friend as the memories slowly began to unwind.
Attempting to navigate across the city with what seemed like every reporter that had ever lived should have been impossible. Against their better judgement, the team was forced to rely on the sort of idea that only Leo's more immature mind could conceive.
"What a great idea this was!" Smiling through gritted teeth, Jack ignored the flashing red lights in his vision as pressure on his skull began forcing his eyeballs from their sockets.
"Yes, really helpful!" Adding an extra couple of exclamation points, Crow tried to keep his balance as a junction let a trickle of cars and a veritable motorcade of Duel Runners cross the road ahead of him.
"How do you move in this thing?" Tugging at the long coat that was constantly on the verge of tripping him up, Yusei resisted the urge to pick it up like a dress.
Realising that the three brothers would be instantly identifiable, they had struggled to concoct a plan that allowed them all to return to the relative safety of Leslie's without being spotted. By the time Leo's idea was finally accepted, Crow had tried convincing his brothers to call a fire engine and Yusei was considering violating international law to see if teleportation couldn't be cracked.
"Relax, you look great!" The only one still wearing his own clothes, Leo was carefully steadying whichever brother seemed on the verge of falling over next.
"I wish I had never heard of 'cosplay'. What sort of idiot would do this?" Balancing with his toes receding backwards into his feet, Jack was on the verge of cutting holes in Yusei's shoes to alleviate his agony.
From a distance of about two miles, the group looked perfectly normal. Anything closer than that and the oddities started cropping up. Jack was wearing Crow's headband, Leo's jacket and Yusei's boots. Yusei was exerting the full might of his intellect to control the billows of Jack's cloak as his feet narrowed to a tiny point in Crow's boots. Tying Yusei's relatively clean shirt around his face in a crude mask, Crow had left his chest bare to the wind beneath his own jacket and was relatively okay with Leo's shoes. Still the novice of the group, Leo's enthusiasm was perfectly selling the gambit as he resisted the constant urge to twirl in Yusei's jacket and was happily stamping in Crow's one size larger boots. Together, they looked like a wardrobe had vomited over them.
"Dudes, can we get a photo?" Dragging Leo in front of him like a smiling shield, Jack counted on the width of the grin to detract from his own sour expression. "Great costumes, man." Melting back into the crowd, the walking afro support probably had no idea she and her hippie partner had just taken a photo of.
"You can't deny it works." Trying to be as unobtrusive as he could, Yusei grabbed the insides of his borrowed pockets and lifted the hem to a manageable height. So far, they had avoided any serious encounters by pretending to be overeager fans dressed up as their teams. In a stroke of unorthodox logic, Leo had even managed to convince them to switch up outfits under the fictional reason of being unable to decide on any one person. It had worked but the resulting discomfort was almost more than they could take.
"Some people think prayer works." Starting to lose feeling in his toes, Jack was stumbling like a drunk as the group supported his sagging knees.
"Ah, so that's how you keep winning." Wrapping one arm about his shoulders, Crow was pleasantly surprised when Jack didn't throttle him to the floor.
"We're nearly there." Grabbing a piece of paper from his jacket pocket – currently sandwiched between Jack and Crow – Leo hurriedly punched in the code for the door to the apartment building. "Aaaannnddd open!" On cue, the heavy electronic lock disengaged and Yusei was able to usher the group inside.
"In case I didn't mention." Leaning against a wall, Jack immediately began pulling Crow's from his feet. "These shoes are really uncomfortable."
"Have you tried walking in this coat?" Pulling his arms free as quickly as he dared, Yusei backed his way through a door beside the antique elevators. Slowly walking the windowless stairwell, they gradually swapped clothes and shoes back as Leo led them towards Leslie's apartment.
"Any troubles with your challenges?" Hopping up the stairs as he regained his shoes, Crow was suffering no aftermath from his acrobatic exertions. Unlike most men who worked solely on strength and endurance, Crow kept a certain level of flexibility in his exercise routines.
"They wanted me to win a chess match in one move." No comment was passed when about how Leo was the last one to finish his test. "What about you guys?"
"Swimming race." Regaining his coat, Jack felt like a part of his identity wasn't present unless it flowed about his shoulders. "I might have made a few people angry."
"Logic puzzle." Unwinding his shirt from Crow's head, Yusei swapped them back and regained a fraction of his pride.
"How many teams do you think got cut?" Seventy percent were taken from Jack's challenge, only a small fraction had passed from Yusei's group, barely a handful of Crow's counterparts had made it and there were some from Leo's test who had been either committed or arrested following their ordeal.
"The real question," Reaching the floor ahead of the group, Yusei carefully peeked down the hallway first. "Is who made it." Standing at the end of the corridor, Luna and Akiza were standing in the doorway to Leslie's flat having a very controlled conversation with the armed occupant.
"Leo!" Sprinting the length of the corridor, Luna threw herself at her twin.
"Luna?" Grabbing her tight, the pair swung around in a controlled embrace. "I thought you," Again, the differences in their methods of thinking stopped him from comprehending the detailed reasons she had given. "Were busy."
"Misty gave me some time off." Holding him at arm's length, she gave Yusei a knowing look. "Somebody called her up and asked for a personal assistant for a few days."
"I had nothing to do with it." Switching out for Leo, Yusei gave her a brief squeeze before being exchanged for his brothers.
"If I had to endure this nightmare." Grasping Leo in one arm and Jack in another, Akiza waited for Luna to move away from Crow. "I thought it might be nice to have somebody sane to talk with." Grabbing Crow in a crushing embrace, she completed the reunion eight years waiting.
"You're working with Misty?" Letting Leo explain the situation to a sceptical Leslie, his twin suddenly found herself the centre of attention. "I didn't know you were into fashion."
"Humanitarian aid." A collective breath went out. Friendships were difficult to keep current in such a fast world and the three men would have hated to realise they had lost touch with such a pure soul. "We use the money from her business to fund the efforts."
"Humanitarian, eh?" Folding the gun over her arm, the short-sighted woman seemed ready to accept the group into her home. "I have a leaky pipe in the bathroom. Think you can let me borrow one of your," A trained eye evaluated the group of newcomers and drew certain conclusions. "Fine young men to fix it?" Eyeballs prickled the sides of Yusei's head as his friends stared at him from all angles.
"It would be my pleasure to take a look." Yusei understood the situation perfectly. In exchange for helping him stop Yliaster from gaining untold wealth, privileges and power, he would be their errand boy for the foreseeable future. Not for the first time – in a purely ironic sense – Yusei was looking forward to his early demise. Other triggers that caused such anticipation included seeing vast stacks of paperwork, calls from Trudge, news of Din's latest 'incident' and the occasional explosion/fireball from view of his window.
"Tell me," Handing a shocked Jack her live shotgun and grabbing Crow's arm to use for balance, Leslie struck up conversation with Luna as easily as if they were old friends. "Where have you been recently?" Ushering them all into her home, she directed the boys towards the kitchen and seated them both down on a luxurious couch.
"How we let the boys get everything sorted and you can tells us all about your work?" Dragging the ladies' suitcases through the front door, Akiza directed them towards the spare bedroom she and Luna would inevitably be sharing.
"Where did you find her?" Unsettled by being both held at gunpoint and offered cake by the same person within five minutes, Akiza was concerned for Crow's method of meeting people.
"She's an old friend of Martha's." Despite living on entirely different continents, it was not that big a stretch for his adorable adoptive mother to find them lodgings in a remote city during a housing crisis. Male scientists have long been baffled at the feminine ability to maintain a complicated web of contacts across the globe as equally as female scholars have been mystified at the male ability to not.
"Does she know any embarrassing stories?" Living in the same city as Martha meant that Yusei was subjected to an unfair amount of emotional torture. It would be refreshing to uncover a conspirational nugget from her past to hold his own with.
"Oh, yes. Martha has been... unnecessarily explicit." Leslie's opening statement to Crow had cost him a small fortune for Leo to never repeat. Even so, he would inevitably tell his sister who would mention it to the rest of the small circle.
"I don't suppose she knows about the...?" Crossing their arms, Jack, Crow and Yusei avoided one another's gazes.
"I think." Carefully diplomatic, Jack tried his best to restrain fear. "That we should be exceedingly polite." And they were, for their entire stay. Even when Leslie started a story with 'back when they were still little darlings' over dinner and made Leo choke on a chicken bone through laughter.
All this and more slowly came back to Crow as the other two men slowly awoke and Luna silently crept into the ktichen in search of coffee.
"Leslie is still asleep." Pulling the door to the living room closed, Akiza appeared only mildly exhausted by the dramatic shift in time zones. "From the amount she drunk last night, it will probably be a while before she wakes up." As participants in the Legend of Duellist Kingdom, the boys had shelved their alcohol in favour of soft drinks and neither Akiza nor Luna wanted to spoil their memories of the competition through the haze of a hangover. Leslie had more than made up for their sobriety by guzzling more than a hardened partier.
"That should give us some time to talk." Flopped in a padded armchair, the leader of their group was nursing his thirteenth cup of coffee. Sensing the severity of the moment, they slowly settled about the room in comfortable poses. Even Crow levered himself into a more presentable pile.
"Plan: we beat Yliaster again, teach them not to crawl out from under their rock and get back to our lives." Laser-focused and refining his plan down to the base elements, Jack voiced what they were all thinking.
"I like it." Still the faithful acolyte, Leo was quick to board the bandwagon.
"Sounds good." In perfect step with her brother, Luna leapt aboard.
"Kill me." Wiping the drool from his mouth, Crow flopped against an armrest beside where Akiza was sitting. "Also, agreed." It was heartening to see his friends so willing to pull themselves into a fighting force so quickly. But Yusei knew from his experience with Akiza that it would quickly change for the worse.
"It's not going to be that simple this time." Finishing off the last dregs of coffee, Yusei gagged on the cold muck as the caffeine set to work on his system. "For the last six years, I've been in contact with a man we've come to call Nanashi." His use of 'we've' went partially unnoticed. A couple of them thought that maybe Akiza had known in advance before giving her the benefit of the doubt and assigning the plural to Yusei and his mystery man. "Until recently, he was in complete command of Yliaster."
"What happened?" Fully awake now, Crow was listening in with fresh ears.
"A civil war broke out. Certain factions were displeased with our arrangement and began working towards their own agendas. Recently, they began unifying under somebody new. Whoever they are, this person is very much against there being any peace between us and Yliaster." Grimmer news could not come at a funeral if only because people were already dead. "Members of the rebellious factions have infiltrated the Legend of Duellist Kingdom to secure the top places for themselves. Nanashi mentioned they could have Shadow Cards or be working through proxy teams. At their highest, there could be more than a thousand teams being controlled by the rogue factions, directly or otherwise."
"Hang on," Still haunted by dreams of being chased by smartly dressed crustaceans, Leo was struck by inspiration. "But a lot of teams have already been cut from the tournament. Isn't it possible that they're all already gone?"
"Even if they are," Stoic to the last, Jack was keeping a question for himself. "We can't take the risk that a few didn't get through. Even one Shadow Card could get a weakling team to the last rounds." They had seen it before and knew it was more than a possibility. Hook the Hidden Knight had almost killed their friends in Team Unicorn and attacked both Crow and Akiza. A fraction of the competition wielding Shadow Cards could mean the difference between a fun tournament and a bloodbath.
"What happens if we win?" Leo had asked the question in a self-serving sense the day before but Luna meant it in the other way.
"Nanashi believes that with their efforts bested – again – by us, the factions will accept his leadership once more." And probably be hideously punished, not that he had made such details clear. "This could very easily be a lost cause. Not only Yliaster but every other team that makes it through will be running at us. If we get taken out of the competition at any point, they win."
It was a sharp turnaround from the World Riding Duel Gran Prix almost a decade before. Back then, only a handful of elite teams had been invited. Now, every novice and amateur had merged with the professional ranks. Skill could do amazing things but luck could still play a decisive role in any Duel. A weak card at the wrong moment would spell their victory or defeat at the hand of Yliaster.
"If we win, Nanashi has agreed to let us go our separate ways for now. In five thousand years – should the Dark Signers rise again – Yliaster will make an attempt to control them." A classic example of 'if not this live, then the next'. "It's not ideal but it's our best chance."
"What arrangement?" People tended to think Jack unobservant but he played that to his advantage when it suited him. "You said these rogue factions didn't like your 'arrangement' with Nanashi." Everyone else had been too focused on the fresh danger in their lives that it had eluded them. Only Jack – who lived on the edge of his seat – had been wary enough to notice.
"Six years ago, a victim of their activities managed to find me." Locking eyes with his oldest friend and rival, Yusei let the full force of his guilt burden the gaze. "To save the lives of anyone who hadn't done anything more than find a few strange indications, I agreed to help them with science problems from time to time." Where she was seated beside Luna, Akiza just stared at her hands curling on her lap. "Every puzzle I helped them solve saved another few lives. Fifty-seven problems and I don't know how many people who got to live for it."
"Our lives..." Staring at a spot out through the window, Crow's mind seemed to be somewhere far away. "Did your deal include us?" Noticing the look in his brother's eye, Yusei drew some wildly inaccurate conclusions.
"As far as all of you were concerned, Yliaster was never meant to meddle with your affairs." Hands of a clock ticked the seconds away, edging closer to a reasonable nine in the morning. "Whatever happened to you was nothing to do with them." It was the wrong thing to say. There was no way for him to know at that precise moment but Yusei had just made an already complicated part of Crow's life that much worse. Any hints were missed as their phones went off in tandem, Yusei the first to reach his and begin reading the message aloud.
"Congratulations on passing the first round. You and your team are now official participants in the Legend of Duellist Kingdom." It was a confusing choice of phrase. Their previous challenge had been officially controlled following their registration. To any reasonable mind, those who had participated should have counted as part of the competition. "Over the upcoming week, all participants will be required to take part in a physically and mentally gruelling endurance phase of the competition." Neither of those categories sounded pleasing. "For the next twenty-four hours, you may gather and collect whatever supplies you deem necessary but no more than you can transport unaided." Horrible suspicions began blooming inside the minds of the professional Duellists. "Following the current preparatory phase, Duelling Teams may only consist of participating members – no support staff are allowed." In the streets outside, shouting was starting to sound as the news spread. "Once your preparations are completed, ensure you have arrived at the attached destination. Any Duellists who arrive late will not be allowed to further participate. Good luck!" Closing his phone, Yusei looked at his friends as the clock struck exactly nine.
"This is it. If anybody has any objections, now is the time to speak up."
"I have one." Emerging from the kitchen with a stack of cans in his arms, Crow looked ready to tear the world apart. "Why are you all just sitting there? Time's wasting." Shrugging on his jacket, Jack seemed infused by the same spirit.
"Are you going outside?" Emerging from her bedroom with a slight wobble, Leslie clutched at the doorframe with one hand. "It's dangerous out there. You should take one of these." As she raised her other hand, the people in her living room instantly dived for cover.
"Leslie?" Piled behind the sofa and the shivering body of Crow, Leo tried to keep his voice as calm as the ginger had the day before. "Can you put down the revolver?"