Nobody really understood exactly what was going on. Every shift Akiza could get at the SRC was focused on trying to uncover whatever she could but even Din's raging temper could only get so far before security guards showed up and closed them down. Crow was tracking down every possible street rat who had ever been able to claim to 'know a little something about a little something'. Far from a political genius, Jack was simply walking into every public office of every government department and shouting at every lackey and middle-manager until they either directed him elsewhere or gave him an excuse for ignorance. It was an interesting tactic that was letting the trio feel out where they should be looking by who circled their wagons tightest.
There was little Leo and Luna could actually do to help so Leo was doing his best to start a movement in the Duellist world to focus public attention on the case and Luna was trying to reach out to any contacts she had made over the years. They were mostly superfluous jobs – just about every Duellist in the world was rattling their sabres when the King of Games was taken away and Luna's contacts generally operated in goodwill or humanitarian circles.
Their evening was spent comparing notes and cooking up new plans. Newsgroups were camped outside Poppo Time every hour of every day and police had been called out no fewer than three separate times. Backup had been ordered on the latest instance after a smashed camera had been personally owned instead of loaned from the station. A small riot had started and it was this scene that Akiza came home to.
"Back, back you parasites!" Every other weekend for the past decade, the kindly old woman who had raised Yusei Fudo met up with the kindly old lady who had sold him the residence at Poppo Time. The last time that they had met was the day before his arrest. Both had been doting over their favourite young gentleman Duellist. With the media trying to storm into her shop without even the pretence of buying one of the many beautiful clocks, Zora had reached for the broom when they refused to leave. Crow had advised Jack to stay inside until the situation abated. Then Crow had ordered Musume to make sure he had stayed inside.
By the time he had reached the shop portion of the building, a small group of huddled figures was being forced back out of the ornate doorways. Zora wasted no time. "I said get out!" Another swipe had people falling over to avoid the bristles.
"Hey, you can't do this to us. The press has a right!" One frustrated reporter had broken a nail when he fell and that perfectly combed haircut was ruined for the photo opportunities.
"Which right would that be?" Bulbs flashed as Crow stepped between the crowd and their attacker. "Would it be the right of a business owner to refuse entry to those they deem potentially harmful? Or what about their right to privacy? Just because this shop is open to the public," Crouching down, he made sure his smile was easy and unthreatening to the figure on the floor. Just condescending. "Does not make it a public space."
"Nice speech." With all the attention focused on Crow, nobody had noticed Akiza sneaking up from behind. "Shop's closed. Come back later." Stepping inside, she shut both doors before anyone could swivel cameras in her direction. "Zora, you're a treasure for putting up with them as long as you did."
"Let me out there and I'll sort them all out!" Still wielding the broom like a spear, a hardened warrior could barely match the righteous fury trembling through her body. "How dare they come in here and accuse our Yusei of being a crook. How dare they!" Crow had come to make sure that Zora didn't get in over her head. Carefully placing himself between the trembling bag of fury and a massacre of the scale that would shame a small army, he tried to gently disarm the deadly old lady. "And you can pry this broom from my cold, dead fingers."
"I think that maybe you should go and check on Jack." Carefully moving Crow to one side, she saw how the trembling was moving from tightly controlled towards bigger shakes. "Now then," Waiting until he had left the room, Akiza gently placed one hand on the trembling shoulder. "Zora, I want you to go and stay with Lyndon for a while." Her son was renting a small apartment in the city in those days. Nothing fancy. Just a bed, shower and space enough to work on his clocks. Despite the digital advent, there was always a market for carefully crafted mechanisms and he was making a tidy living from the work. "We'll take care of the shop until everything is sorted out."
Taking a deep breath inwards, Zora composed herself. There was little that could make an impact for long after eighty years of experiences. "Take this." Thrusting out the wooden broom like a spear, she offered the weapon unto Akiza. "It's not just a silly tool. My dear husband carved it himself from a piece of oak." Solemnly taking the branch in one hand, she could feel the heft to it. A heavy piece of wood that had kept Zora in good health with the exercise needed to move the brush at the end. "If anyone breaks in, a few licks of this should set them right."
"Any reason why you never mentioned this when Jack and Crow were living here?" Carefully examining the wood, she lifted a curious eyebrow over the curve of the line.
"It's wood." Zora uttered in a haughty tone. "Hardy yet definitely not as indestructible as those heads of theirs." In the midst of the rabble still thronging outside and the idiots still waiting in the back, it was a necessary moment of joviality.
"Oh, Zora." Keeping the broom in one hand, Akiza wrapped both arms around the older woman. "You really are a treasure. Give my best to that son of yours." Collecting her few possessions, the seemingly vulnerable old woman literally beat a path through the crowd with her handbag as Akiza locked the door behind her. Then – broom still in hand – she headed through to the main rooms of Poppo Time. When the majority of Team 5D's had returned from America, she had been presented with a freshly refurbished Duel Runner from the local Duel Academy. Maria Bartlet had personally supervised the final reconstruction by her class before it was returned. Said that 'it was time she got it back'. It was standing when it had originally stood, right beside the ramp leading to the exterior doors. Jack had been out on a few rides to reacclimatise to the city again and stored his Runner at the opening to the garage. Filling the empty slot where his had previously lived was Dilucesco, sandwiched between Crow and Akiza's rides. Yusei's Runner was still untouched where he had left it. That was their singular clue towards the reason for Yusei's arrest – that it wasn't Duel-related. The police would have been quick to confiscate the Duel Runner otherwise.
Wasting no time mournfully staring at the piles of metal, she walked up the stairs to where the exhausted trio had convened. Jack had consumed more coffee in the last thirty hours than most people consumed in a week. While that was true most days, he also hadn't slept between cups this time. Crow was tapping one foot against the floor as he leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs. Wrapped up in more blankets than any of the three thought necessary to even own, Musume was still shivering on the couch with the appearance of a thick burrito. Like all of them, she hadn't slept. Unlike the others, it wasn't out of concern for Yusei. Akiza wasted no time in cutting to the chase.
"So we've got nothing?" There truly is no evil like a governmental system. Stand against them and get crushed. Move against them and the rules suddenly seem to be less about punishing the guilty and more about protecting the powerful. Even all the lawyers at SRC were failing to make any serious progress. Between fielding calls to the legal department, she had also helped Din care for Vella. The mild electric shock had dome serious damage to the bird yet nothing that would last.
"More or less." It had taken three showers to get to the point that Crow could stand in polite company without people instantly smelling something suspicious about him. Certain places smelled of criminal and those scents – fear, desperation, greed, stale urine – tended to get picked up if people spent too much time hanging around those places. Crow had been hanging around too many of them to be accepted by polite company.
"Less." It would be politically unsound to arrest Jack so soon after taking Yusei away under unexplained circumstances. Standard protocol at a number of buildings were now in a groundbreaking state of cooperation and alerting each other as soon as Jack was spotted. It gave the others a chance to lock their doors in advance. "Either nobody knows anything or nobody is talking."
"It's g-g-g-government." Forcing the words through chattered teeth, Musume had maintained a fully human appearance for almost sixteen hours now. Not enough to tell if it would hold permanently but she was getting hopeful. "Probably both."
"How are you doing?" Although not the most pressing issue on their plate, Akiza was still greatly concerned about whatever was happening on the ratty old couch. Musume had gone through burning temperatures, intense itching, muscle spasms, sensory alterations and vivid hallucinations. Freezing sweats was just the latest addition. All of it had been accompanied by intense pains that shot through her body like lightning and stayed in the same place just as long.
"Fantastic." Sarcasm dripped from the word. "S-s-still not on solid f-foods." Jack had noticed the dramatic changed when a slip of control had resulted in the eruption of a very particular tail. Without saying a word, he had silently brewed a fresh cup of coffee and placed it just within her reach without getting that close himself. Beside Crow giving her a cup of soup when passing through to pick up a bit extra 'favour money' – having wisely decided not to store cash where anyone could simply steal it – she hadn't had anything since returning from Paris.
"You appear to be through the worst of it." Pressing a hand to the damp forehead, she could no longer feel the lingering cling of her hand sticking to Musume's scalp. It had dropped from being freezing to simply chilled. "Feel up to another lecture on how stupid you both were?" A mournful look told her Musume was clearly too ill to be chewed out again. Midway through the flight back home, she had sneezed twice. By the time the plane had landed, a full-blown fever was already underway. Whoever Crow had spoken with had arranged for customs to only exist on paperwork. He could have smuggled a stolen Picasso right past the security gate without any guards around to see what was happening. A waiting car with tinted windows had allowed them to sneak in through Poppo Time's alleyway without the media capturing a glimpse of them. His new friends had thought of everything.
"And you're sure that they didn't say anything else?" This last was directed at Crow as she habitually pulled open one of Musume's eyes to check for any medical clues present. Seeing liquid gold staring back at her only mildly disrupted her train of thought.
"No. Since the last time you asked, they haven't magically gone back in time and changed the conversation to include their full evil plan." In a stroke of simple genius, Crow had taken advantage of the ongoing intensity to explain just the essential parts of their recent trip to France – Paris, tunnels, that Musume may have grown a pair of wings and a tail, how he made a deal with the Yliaster faction that had sent him to the Underworld, oh look a pretty bird, gotta go, bye – before simply leaving to do his part and letting Akiza and Jack process their emotions without him around to actually shout at. He had chosen to leave his last interaction with Sherry for a time when the whole family was together and he could fob Yusei off with the distraction. "They just said that Yusei was about to get into trouble because of something he had done."
A slight raising of voices came from outside. Using the media like so many starving guard dogs (and the analogy was painfully accurate from Crow's experience) the group could easily be alerted to the approach of anyone towards Poppo Time. Hearing a knock on the side doors was almost superfluous. When Akiza reached the ramp, she could even recognise who was waiting on the other side purely by their outline.
"Trudge." Looking up at the looming figure, she was out of sight of the cameras in the square.
"Izinski." As he was under observation, the grizzled cop was avoiding casual conversation. Being seen talking to close associates of an accused criminal was asking for trouble. "May I come inside?" Every word was carefully staged in order to avoid the implication that they were anything other than two professionals having a professional conversation.
"Of course." Opening the door slightly wider, only years of trust were giving Trudge the benefit of the doubt. He might have only been doing his job but giving more than a few seconds warning would have gone a long way to lessening the sting of betrayal. Closing the door from behind – in order to stay out of shot of the cameras – she led him up to stairs to a frosty reception. Nobody exchanged greetings, no smiles were sent, no harsh words levied. Noting the trembling figure wrapped on the couch, Trudge let a moment of concern precede the main topic of conversation.
"What's up with Sparky?" As soon as he had seen Musume climb up on stage with her family, Trudge had spewed half his coffee across the room. Decent sight had let him see where she was situated between Crow and Akiza, having half a brain still functioning had connected the dots and he suddenly realised where she had inherited the nerve to steal his Shock Baton, zap him and steal his wallet from. Even eight years removed, she was almost exactly the same as she was back then. As with many situations relating to the Signer clan, Trudge could detect the distinct whiff of strangeness and decided not to pry too closely.
"Under the weather." Reaching one trembling hand out from under the blankets, Musume casually flipped Trudge off as her suffering continued. "Where have you been for the last two days?" The first angle that Akiza had tried after watching the mob had driven the police off SRC grounds was going directly after Trudge. First through his phone, then his office, then Mina. It was as if he had simply vanished into the same hole as Yusei.
"Same as you." While Jack had been trying to confront the system, Akiza trying to get into the system and Crow attempting to get around the system, one of their friends had simply gone ahead and used the system the way it had been built. "Trying to figure out what happened to Yusei. As far as I can tell, he's still in secure holding at The Facility." A prison for Duellists seemed like an inappropriate place to hold anyone being convicted under international law. What many people didn't know was that a handful of cells had been altered specifically to contain supposedly unstoppable people until they could be moved to more permanent accommodation. Psychic Duellists, escape artists, professional confidence tricksters. "Where're the twins?"
"We gave them the codes for the Tops penthouse and told them to stay there." Both could just as easily work their connections from up in the sky as they could in the streets. With the enhanced security the Tops apartments keeping out unwanted visitors, it also kept them from the stress of facing the mobs of reporters. "And what do you mean 'as far as you can tell'? Can't you just go in and look?" And then Jack registered the looked on Trudge's face. He had seen that look before, usually staring back at him over a sink. Betrayal of friends, guilt over betrayal, confusion as to how making the right choice had backfired so badly.
"Whatever this thing is, it's classified all the way to the top." People at Trudge's level of authority usually had a few unofficial channels that they could employ to get a feel for sensitive situations. Not only were his contacts unable to tell him what was going on but the contacts of his contacts were declining to take calls. When the people near the top of the ladder were afraid to speak, it was because it was the people at the top were keeping them quiet. "Mina's a lot better at this thing than I am but she said not to expect anything in a hurry. Only reason that I even think Yusei is still safe and tight in The Facility was because I was up all night making sure that no transfers had happened and checking footage in case someone 'forgot' to fill in the paperwork."
"What's he being charged with?" Classified international laws were nobody's particular area of expertise. A 'friend of a friend' of Crow's might have been involved in a few things that nobody could really confirm. Two steps from foil hats, they had uncovered a few bits that indicated any classified international laws did not work well for those who knowingly broke them. By the time that modicum of information had reached Crow's ears, the paranoid person had already fled the city.
"Not sure." As the old military saying went 'I don't know but I've been told'. It generally translated into 'I am too thick to ask any questions and blindly follow orders instead'. There may have once been a time when Trudge had been like that but not since that fateful day Yusei had called him for help. One question about Goodwin followed another until he had turned into a methodical crime-solving machine that had been let loose on New Domino City. "Orders came directly from Lazar. I went right over to see him to make sure it wasn't a hacker playing a twisted joke. He wasn't happy about it but the orders are coming from above even his paygrade."
Until that moment, they had been holding out a vain hope that Yliaster might still be behind it all and they could force the corruption into being revoked by authorities. Lazar – like Trudge – was a trusted person in a position of authority. Like Trudge, he would have investigated the orders as far as he could. Whatever Yusei had been caught up in, it was almost certainly legal.
"Can you get us a meeting with him? Make sure he's alright?" Fine. If Yliaster – either of the two competing factions – could be eliminated from the running, it only freed up their resources to pursue other angles. Being held before trial meant that they could arrange visits for legal advice, check on the conditions Yusei was being kept in, any number of reasons. Crow knew a few tricks from his time tangling with either side of the law.
"Not a chance." Scowling in his helplessness, Trudge was every bit as committed to the group as he was to Mina. "Like I said, the only way to tell that Yusei's still in The Facility because there's no way that he could have left since I dropped him off yesterday. Setting up a meeting is out of my reach." Being back in the same jail that he had been in on baseless crimes before would have fazed the normal person. Yusei just took one look around and nodded his head at the sight before being calmly escorted to his subterranean cell. "Look, I only stopped by as a courtesy call. Any longer and word gets around that I'm tipping you off. I'll send someone if there's any developments on my end. A few of my old informants still owe me favours. Better to keep a bit of distance between us while this is going on."
"These old informants of yours." Sensing which way the wind was blowing in advance, Crow had a premonition of needing extra showers in the near future. "Any chance they like to work in upscale establishments?" Two bars where the difference between what went in at one end and what came out of the other was mainly location, a shop that served viewed expiration dates as advice and a slightly shady parts shop were not as awful as he would have expected.
"Shit." Knuckling her forehead, Akiza could feel the insanity building behind her eyes once Trudge had safely departed. "First there's two Yliasters and now we have to put together a legal case against we don't know what." If that unmarked phone in Yusei's office had a link to Nanashi, she would have called it. If Crow had a way to contact those shady figures from Paris, he would have reached out. They had collectively worn out all of their official contacts, scared off their unofficial contacts and failed to make any sort of headway. "I don't think that this could get any worse."
There was a wall at the SRC. After one of many fruitless experiments to research a cure for Yusei's condition, Din had knuckled his way down to show it to Akiza. It had started as a sort of joke. Famous last words before events had turned bad. Terms like 'how hard can it be' or 'what's the worst that can happen'. Every time that an experiment went awry in ironic circumstances, the words were immortalised one that wall in a list of languages so that everyone knew what to avoid saying. Because certain sentences always seemed to attract the wrong sort of attention. Sentences like 'I don't think that this could get any worse'.
A gentle buzz sounded as Akiza's phone vibrated inside her pocket. Buzz-buzz. Here comes trouble.
"Who is it?" Everyone at the SRC except Din had called Akiza at least once to see what they could do or check up on her progress. They had backed down after she told half of them to get back to work and the rest to start doing something themselves.
"I don't know." All of Yusei's employees were gifted with immunity from scammers and drops calls. Any and all callers were automatically vetted by the vast security systems each phone was linked to before they were allowed to establish a connection. As an added treat, any publicly available record of their numbers was stripped unless asked otherwise. Akiza's number was about as private as it could be.
"I thought that was impossible?" Crow had once tried using a payphone to call Yusei only to be disconnected before they could talk.
"It could be a wrong number." Private numbers were still allowed to connect in case they were new acquaintances but they could easily be blocked after the first call. Flipping open her phone let Akiza preview the message. It started with three words designed to get her attention.
Is Musume there? Whoever had sent the message clearly knew what they were doing. Using the preview to get her attention without giving anything away. Most worrying was not that they knew Musume's name – anybody could have heard and spread it during the Pegasus Trinidad Tournament – or the link to Akiza but that they would be together.
"Who is this?" Akiza had fallen silent and her family instantly knew there was something going on.
A Nobody. A friend. It was the worst attempt at subterfuge any of the Signers had ever come across. Probably because it wasn't subterfuge. At least, not subterfuge in the way they were familiar with.
"Who is it?" Musume had been useless all day without connections to call on or leads to chase. She was at least able to tell trouble was brewing.
Have you found a way to talk to him yet? Another message arrived as Akiza wondered how to answer Musume's question. There was no question as to who 'he' was. It could only be Yusei.
"Somebody wants to know if we have a way to talk with Yusei. They say they're a friend." It was ironic that the person who had the most contact with the person at the other end of the conversation was the one locked away. Yusei alone had even seen the dark figure in America. Although Musume had been gifted with Dilucesco, she didn't even know her generous benefactor existed.
"Hey, this isn't on me. Probably." All eyes had turned to Crow when talk of a mysterious friend rang too much like his new associates. "They said they'd get in touch with me if they found anything that would help Pearson. This has to be someone else."
"What do you want with Musume?" Muttering out the words as she typed them out, an answer was quick to reply.
Can you get Musume to promise not to hunt me down? Finding out if Musume was present seemed to be only in order to avoid her rage. Whoever was on the other end of the line clearly knew far more about the Signers than the Signers knew about them. Well enough to know that Musume had a temper.
"They want to know if you'll agree not to go after them." One eye glowed malevolently as it mulled over the promise. She had no particular affection for Yusei but nobody went after her family and got away with it.
"For now." It was still unclear who was on the other end of the line. If they ended up being a friend, she would keep to her word. If it turned out to be Yliaster, wings, claws and rage would be on the way. Once her sinuses cleared up a bit.
"Okay. What do you know about Yusei?" Hidden nearby, a sinister grin formed. Nobody believed in something for nothing. This meant that Akiza was curious enough to play along.
Enough. Reading the text aloud, she kept the entire room included in the conversation as it progressed. If I can tell you a way to talk with him, what would I get? It was a long shot but nothing they had done so far had come close to even confirming if Yusei was still in New Domino. Trudge may have gone through all the available footage but that didn't rule out the possibility that a few minutes here and there had been swapped out to hide the removal of a prisoner from The Facility.
"Name your price." She didn't need to check with the group right then. They needed this person and there was no damage in seeing what they wanted. Asking for a price was not the same as handing over a blank check. It was a good thing that she hadn't agreed to anything upfront because the price was beyond extortionate.
Red Dragon Archfiend. Akiza immediately put a hold on the conversation without voicing that last entry. Seeing the ludicrously high price had been enough of a shock that she finally picked up on what she should have seen from the beginning: why the number seemed so familiar.
"Crow, let me use your phone." Keeping her own phone in one hand, she scrolled through the list of contacts in Crow's phone. There was one number they had in common that she would never save on her own phone. "That's weird." Looking back up with a crinkled brow, she tried to figure out the facts staring at her in the face. "It's my number."
"What?" Taking the handsets for himself, Crow carefully looked over the strings of numbers in confusion. There was no doubt that the pair were identical. "Could they have cloned your phone?" Copying a phone was a simple matter for a company. Cloning an encrypted handset without setting of dozens of alarms was more difficult.
"Maybe they're just spoofing the number." Eyes turned to Jack. Computers were far from his area of expertise. "It's like Crow pretending to be a professional dancer. Looks good on the surface but it's only on the surface." Under different circumstances, they would have pressed the point a lot further. Instead, Jack only made one joke about Crow in a tutu, took a despairing look in return and they moved on.
"So what do they want in exchange for setting up a meeting?" All Duellists could spot a delaying tactic from a mile away. Shuffle the cards a bit slower, take slightly longer playing moves, deliberate over which monster to attack. Divert with seemingly important questions. Akiza was clearly trying to stall.
"Focus on a happy memory." While checking over the spoofed number, Crow had read the last message. Remembering the advice Jack had given him in Paris, Crow repeated the words back to him. "Take a deep breath." Placing a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder, Crow received a stare so intense it was possible to fear for the safety of his arm. He carefully ended the contact. "Promise not to kill me?" An agreement had already been levied in order to keep Musume from losing her cool. Another was extorted from Jack before the triggering words were let out. "Red Dragon Archfiend."
Jack erupted upright so fast that the chair smashed into the wall four feet away. It was possible to be heard from outside and less reputable outlets would report it as emotional trauma related to Yusei's imprisonment. There was no way to tell how true that was. But Jack's outburst wasn't entirely on behalf of being extorted. Red Dragon Archfiend was the central point of his Deck. Giving it up wasn't simply relinquishing a powerful Synchro but all the offshoots that came with it. Many of his strategies would be rendered useless without the final monster to execute them.
"No. Not a fucking chance. It's too dangerous." Jack hadn't tried summoning Red Nova Dragon since that fateful Duel just before the team had gone their separate ways eight years ago. It was possible that it had been a one-time fluke with residual energy left behind after Musume had siphoned away Red Nova but there was always a chance that he could still call forth the mighty beast. There had never really been a need to try.
"Only t-t-the Legendary S-S-S-Signer can do it. Right?" Still freezing beneath her many layers, Musume was playing a literal Devil's Advocate. With the spirit now trapped inside her, it was possible that she might be able to call forth the demon enhanced dragon as well. But she respected Jack too much to ask for Red Dragon Archfiend to try. She also understood the struggle that he was facing.
"Jack, this might be our only chance." All of them had seen at least one bad conspiracy film. Black vans, bags being put on heads before the camera cut out. Every hour that went by was a dozen more where a shady government agency could spirit Yusei away from the city. Neither Crow nor Jack were willing to let their brother vanish. The only question was how far they were willing to go. Crow had allied himself with Yliaster. How far would Jack be willing to go?
"If – if – they manage to get you in to talk with Yusei." Both fists were clenched and Jack's back was trembling with his inner struggle and anger at being had over a barrel. "Legally and face-to-face." It was an impossible choice to make but Jack took his pride and reigned it under control. "They can have it. After you make sure he's alright." It was a major point in Jack's life. To say you would do anything for another person was easy. To actually do it was the hard part.
"Jack, I... Thank you." Akiza's disbelief was rivalled by her amazement that he had agreed. Turning back to her phone, she delivered the news. "You have a deal. If you can arrange a legal meeting, you can have Red Dragon Archfiend. Only after Yusei goes free, not before." Elsewhere in the city, a figure leaned back in amazement. It had been a bluff. Not to ask for anything else but just to see what would happen. They had never really expected the insane request to be granted.
Agreed. Thinking it over had taken less than a second. It was more than a fair bargain for the less important side in the conversation.
"What have you got?" Even though they had managed to reach an accord, the invisible party had recognised the catch Akiza had tried to sneak in. Red Dragon Archfiend was only handed over if Yusei went free. Which meant their deal could easily go unpaid. Fair enough. It wouldn't matter if he ended up going to jail.
Granting an audience is beyond my power. But not yours. It was incredible that this person at the other end of an unexpected conversation could have so easily discovered what had eluded them all for days.
"What do you mean?" A thought went towards how anyone could arrange for Akiza to meet Yusei without revealing themselves while Trudge had been unable to even confirm that he was still in the jail.
Are you aware of the IA2-48 evaluation? Akiza flashed back to America for an instant. It had been a passing concern that she had shelved for later and knew little about. Was it possible that it could somehow be a key to let her see Yusei at least one more time?
"Yes. It lets me live at the same address as Yusei." There was a lot more to it than that but Akiza had no idea just then. "What about it?"
Play them at their own game – human rights. It was a loaded term with their friend in prison but Akiza was paying attention. Right up until she read the next – and final – two words of the conversation.
Mind racing through the possibilities, Akiza was forced to recognise that maybe it was possible to talk with Yusei. "What did they say?" It would just rely upon a tactic that nobody else would have thought of in time. Or possibly at all. "It had better be worth it." Even now, Jack's enraged face was on the verge of going back on his word. Only the idea that they could possibly clear Yusei's name was reigning him in.
"It might work but it'll be deeply unpleasant." Whilst recognising it might be her only chance, the actual idea was giving Akiza butterflies in her stomach as she closed her phone again. "I'll need to get a few things out of storage at my parents." Part of her mind had already picked out exactly what she needed to pull it off. The rest was still in shock.
"What was it?" Thankful that neither of the twins were present to hear the words she was imparting to Yusei's brothers, Akiza watched as Crow laughed hard enough to grab a chair for support as even Jack's demeanour became less thunderous. Musume leaned over and actually vomited upon hearing the words, wings sending blankets flying as she momentarily lost control.
The other invested party allowed itself the luxury of a quiet laugh. There had, of course, been a few other ways but only one that was as effective and none that were even nearly as funny. Still smiling slightly, they slipped away unnoticed as various wheels prepared to be set into motion.
If no one else can help and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team (to write a review because we would love to see how Murdock reviews literally anything).