XXIV
Leo Duel School
"They. Did. What."
To Masumi, the words sounded ten times more unbelievable, because she'd never heard her boyfriend sound so lost. Yaiba's body had gone completely slack—the Fusion Duelist could feel him gripping her hand tightly, for fear that letting go might send him to the floor. It took all the guts in her body to not follow his lead.
"The Ædonai attacked me last night," Akaba Himika repeated, somehow managing to look even more intimidating with three different bandages dotting her face, and even more of them swathing her arms. "And my daughter. And my son," she added, gesturing to a monitor behind her, and then to another. "And my husband."
The order to assemble in her office had come with Angel-IQ and the dawn. That had been more than an hour ago. Out of the entire LID, Masumi looked as though she'd slept the least when they'd gathered in the school lobby. Yaiba, Hokuto and Fuyu were freshly dressed, wide awake and alert; Li Shen was Li Shen, even after the night-long tribute he'd paid to his departed brothers; and both Hotene and Rika were in high spirits despite needing to massage the soreness in their bodies every now and then. Masumi had taken one look at their rumpled clothes and rumpled hair—and though she didn't press for details, she saw the bags in their eyes and the grins on their faces, and suspected the blame lay with something big, round, and bouncy.
The Lancers had beaten them to Himika's office. All of them were present—and this alone had told Masumi the news was bad. Each of them had been shocked to see the headmistress of their Duel School walking in with bandages all over her arms—injured!—and that shock had only intensified when Himika switched on the monitors built into the windows of her office, and launched into a story that had taken until nearly the top of the hour for her to relate.
Gongenzaka Noboru was grinding his teeth, biting back what might have been any one of a thousand curses, by the time Himika had finished telling of her ordeal with a Duelist she couldn't even see—who had stalked her and Reira like a sniper. Hotene and Rika, far from smiling, were perfect mirrors of each other's horrified shock when Himika described the tiny detail of a laser sight being trained on Reira herself. Li Shen, behind them, was visibly trembling where he stood—a clear sign to all who knew him well that he was furious beyond words.
Reiji's ordeal was just as unbelievable. Sawatari Shingo had nearly collapsed in a heap at the mere sight of the most imposing Duelist in Japan being reduced to a supine shell in traction; not even the added detail of that Duelist holding little Reira in his bandaged arms, with Nakajima standing faithfully by their side, seemed to matter to him. Kurosaki Shun could hardly draw breath throughout his tale of the Duelist-and-Duel Monster hybrids with which Reiji and Nakajima had sparred last night—and from whom both had received every last one of their wounds. Hokuto and Fuyu were each as blank and glassy-eyed as the other, having tried—and failed—to comprehend the sight of Reiji wrapped in so much plaster and gauze that he could scarcely move.
And Shiun'in Sora … Masumi felt a stab of pity. For out of everyone present, save perhaps the Akabas themselves, he had known Leo the longest. The half-gone lollipop he'd been licking had slid out of his open mouth and cracked on the marble floor, completely forgotten, as he gazed into the vacant, unseeing eyes of his former headmaster. Dennis and Sakaki Yūshō, from their perch on the center monitor feed—in between Reiji and Leo, and directly above Himika—both looked like men made hollow. The capacity to feel either anger or grief seemed to have been torn right out of Yūshō's body; his eyes looked near as blank as Leo's own as he stared at the broken body of his onetime nemesis.
"So Markus was sealed after all?" Dennis' normally frizzy hair looked flatter than ever.
Himika nodded. "Gwendolyn Grimm delivered his card to LDS last night. We still had her old records on file from when she posed as one of our employees. Both the prints on the card and the handwriting of the message matched."
"And Dr. Grimm attacked Leo, too?" Masumi knew this to be true, but could not resist repeating the question—or punctuating it with a very long look at Himika. I warned you this would happen.
"His body was airlifted to Maiami General—they confirmed it themselves." Himika met her gaze without flinching. "Vegetative state, minimal brain activity. Just like she did to Crowley—and just like she nearly did to you."
"Why?" Sora felt for the nearest chair and sat down, still shell-shocked. "Why in the world was Leo a target?"
"He was worried the Ædonai would try to silence him," Hokuto replied. "He must have known too much for them to leave him alone. You heard Leo, Masumi, that day we talked to him—he'd known from the beginning that Dr. Grimm would try to locate him!"
"But … " Sora seemed to be having trouble finding the right words. "But he was still Academia. They both were. He taught her so much—and this is how she repays him?!"
"It would seem the Ædonai found reason to doubt his loyalty." Himika's voice was a low hiss. "They determined who he might be more loyal to—and then, to ensure he had no other choice but to declare allegiance to them and them alone, they decided to remove those other loyalties. By force."
"'Operation Solitaire'," Reiji grunted from where he lay. "That was their name for last night's attacks: a calculated strike directly at the heart of the resistance within the Pendulum Dimension—in other words, the Akaba family."
"Louise Schmidt has already confessed that Markus Streiter was the one who ordered the strike," Nakajima added from beside him. "Public Security's Second Intelligence Department Section Five has arrested her and her associates, and seized their possessions. Questioning is still ongoing. Himika-san's … assailant … remains at large. The sniper's nest in Chūō City was located and searched. Very little of note was recovered. We assume he retreated to Fusion immediately after he lost his Duel against Headmistress Himika."
"Do you think he will be back again?" Noboru spoke up. "This man, Gongenzaka, would like very much to teach him a lesson in courage against cowardice!"
But Reiji waved him off. "He is no longer important. Neither is Louise, or any of her subordinates. They were only pawns in last night's events. What we have learned from them presents a far more pressing problem."
"Himika-san?" The intercom clicked to life just then. "Your nine o'clock is here."
The headmistress pursed her lips. "They're early," Masumi thought she heard her say. Then, a little louder: "Show them upstairs, Asakuma. Tell them to make themselves comfortable; I'll send for them when I'm ready."
"Yes, ma'am." The line clicked closed. No one was in the mood to ask. Reiji, for his part, had used the distraction to signal someone off-camera; seconds later, a nurse had walked up and winched him into a seated position.
"It is now clear to us," he said, resuming his speech, "that the Ædonai have kidnapped Sakaki Yūya and Hīragi Yuzu for the express purpose of reclaiming their counterparts of the Fusion Dimension. What this will mean for Yūya and Yuzu themselves, and the remaining counterparts inside them, I do not know—and intuition tells me we should not find out. By Louise Schmidt's own admission, it is not their intention to reconstruct Z-ARC—but I believe it to be in the best interests of our Dimension, and indeed of all Dimensions, if we do not give them the chance regardless."
"Wait a minute," Masumi cut in. "I thought Z-ARC was the product of Yūya and his counterparts. What good is separating them again if he's already gone? For that matter, how would the Ædonai even separate Serena and Yūri from all the rest—whether to resurrect Z-ARC or not?"
"The twins," was Reiji's answer. Masumi promptly closed her mouth. "I have read your report on Kiku and Kikyō, Masumi, and the abilities they displayed after their Duel against Markus Streiter. My thoughts in the time since—and, again, my conversation with Louise during our Duel—lead me to suspect that their power to access and siphon away the memories and senses of anyone they come into contact with is cumulative. In theory—and I must stress that this is only a theory—this approach could be used to forcibly strip Yūya's and Yūzu's counterparts out of their own bodies. Either piecemeal, or in their entirety."
He paused for a moment to stroke Reira's hair—still sleeping peacefully on his lap. "If my younger sister had fallen into the Ædonai's clutches as well," he added, "I do not doubt they would have used her as a vessel to that end."
Masumi was too disgusted for words. So were the rest of the LID—and a large chunk of the Lancers as well. Only Sawatari Shingo had the courage—or perhaps the stubbornness—to say what they were all thinking.
"That is … messed up."
"Quite." Himika's face was pale, and her lips thin. "The Ædonai's attacks thus far have proved one thing—they are well-placed to strike whoever they wish, whenever they wish. In the space of twenty-four hours, they have caught us unawares. They have kidnapped our friends, terrorized our allies, and struck at the very heart of our city."
Her nostrils flared, and her voice was iron. "No longer. As of now, we are taking the offensive," she growled. "We are taking Yūya and Yuzu back today."
Silence. Masumi could practically hear the spines of every person in sight and on screen stiffen.
"I will not conceal from you," Himika went on, "how tall of an order this is. However, I have faith that the Lancers will be able to pick up the slack and retrieve both Yūya and Yuzu from their clutches."
Shingo found his voice at last. "But—but we still don't know where they've been taken!" he spluttered. "We're no closer now than we were yesterday!"
Himika smiled. "About that." She switched on her intercom. "Asakuma? Send in my nine o'clock, please."
The Lancers traded glances. So did the LID. " … Who is this nine o'clock?" Shun finally asked.
The LDS headmistress was still smiling. "After my, ah … dinner plans were so unceremoniously ruined—and once I was out of range of the E-bomb that disabled my mobile—I made a few calls. And I can only assume they made a few calls of their own—"
She got no further; the door to her office had opened just then—and a veritable crowd of people had surged inside.
Masumi was only just able to recognize Hōchun Mieru among them, and then only because she was the first of them in line. Her small stature meant that even the curly red hair and dark purple dress that made her so recognizable in the Maiami Championship was soon swallowed up by the throng of people—which already looked as though it included a large number of entrants in that tournament. Most of them—she grit her teeth—wore the uniforms of Ryōzanpaku, and instantly her eyes were flitting all over the room, looking for Isao, though to no avail. Naname Mikiyo was the next one she picked out—the Idol Duelist's blonde-and-shocking-pink hair had been done up in her ubiquitous butterfly-wings coiffure. Nor was she alone: four of Mikiyo's partners in the Duel Girls Club flanked her, two on either side—one girl with blue hair, another with green, and a boy in a pale blue suit beside each of them—and all five looked like they'd rollerbladed right off the stage of their last concert, judging from the pink-and-white skates strapped to their feet. Masumi even thought she saw the hats of Tairyōbata Teppei and Tanegashima Yūzō somewhere in the thick of the crowd.
But it was the leaders of the pack that commanded the most attention—for the Fusion ace knew at a glance that they didn't go to any Duel School in this city.
There were five of them: two girls, three boys. The girl in the middle was about Masumi's age and slightly shorter, though her own black hair was several inches longer. The other, standing just to her right, might have been Reiji's age and height—and Masumi couldn't help but feel envious at how beautiful the young woman looked. Her dark blonde hair was thick and lustrous, falling near to her waist, and her skin seemed to shine even out of the sun. She couldn't even blame Yaiba for looking as thunderstruck as he did at this new face. With great effort, she tore her eyes away to focus on the boys—who could not have looked more different from one another if they'd tried.
One was the smallest of the five—only a head taller than Hotene—though his electric-blue hair added a few inches with the way it stuck out in every direction. Wide gray eyes blinked behind round pince-nez that looked a size too small, even for him. Behind him was the largest of the group—taller than Hokuto by a few inches, but nearly twice as broad at the shoulder. His beady black eyes, his large ears and almost swollen nose, and his short, bushy hair and eyebrows made him look like an overgrown koala bear—but Masumi's keen eyes had seen the hint of musculature beneath his shirt sleeves, and knew that this boy was far from being as lazy as any koala. The young man to his left was only slightly shorter, though his own muscles were far more toned in comparison—almost chiseled beneath tanned skin nearly as dark as her own. Black dreadlocks stuck out from underneath the bandanna he wore over his head, and a necklace of what looked like teeth—far too large and jagged to have come from a human mouth—clicked and clacked around his neck.
Each member of the quintet wore Duel Disks of different colors—though not of different styles. The comma-shaped design they all had in common was instantly familiar to Masumi; she had seen the twins wearing a pair just like it.
On the center monitor, Dennis' mouth had gone slack in shock. Sora was shaking his head. " … I don't believe it."
"—because, as you can see," Himika finished, having to raise her voice a little amidst the increase in noise, "there are rather a few people who believe Yūya and Yuzu have been away from home for far too long."
She now turned to the crowd of students—and the five in the lead in particular. "Is this everyone, Asuka?"
"I'm afraid so." The blonde woman bowed gravely. "We would have liked more time to locate Edo Phoenix and the rest, but we've heard nothing from them since the attack. Some of us have already assumed the worst."
"The attack." Masumi felt a pebble polish itself in her brain. "You're from You Show—in the Fusion Dimension!" And then, just as quickly: "I remember Yuzu talking about you after Academia fell—you must be Tenjōin Asuka!"
"The one and only." Asuka managed a small smile. "Yuzu never got the chance to tell me about you, I'm sorry to say—but our entire school was talking about you for a time, Kōtsu Masumi. I've wanted to meet you for a long time—I just wish the circumstances could have been better."
She made a quick little curtsy. Masumi, feeling her face redden at the notion that a whole school knew her name a whole dimension away, quickly returned the gesture.
By the time she stood back up, Asuka had swept a hand over her four cohorts. "This is my protégée, Saotome Rei"—the girl with the black hair waved with a brief smile in their direction—"Maeda Hayato"—the large boy waved too—"Marufuji Shō"—the small boy nodded—"and 'Tyranno' Kenzan." The dark-skinned boy made a jaunty salute with two of his fingers. "And as I said, we're the few who lasted long enough to flee the Ædonai's attack on our school."
Asuka now turned her gaze upward to the center monitor. "I answered your call as quickly as I could, Yūshō-sensei … and I'm sorry that I couldn't find more of us to answer it as well. It pains me greatly to say it—but to the best of my knowledge, the five of us, and you yourself … we're all that's left of You Show Fusion."
She bowed her head. So did Masumi. Five kids out of dozens—if not hundreds—of students and staff, blasted and sealed and vanished from all knowledge of the world. Her fist tightened, and under her breath, she cursed Markus, Dr. Grimm, and all the other Ædonai, known and unknown, for what they had done across the Dimensions.
"No." Kurosaki Shun had grit his teeth. He looked more furious than the rest of them. "I refuse to accept that."
He took out his own Duel Disk, and pressed a button on the underside. There was a long pause—and then, without warning, the voice of a young woman filled the office.
"Butterfly calling Blackbird. What's your emergency?"
Shun took a breath, feeling the eyes of everyone upon him. "Yūya and Yuzu need our help, Droite. As much as you can spare."
There was a pause. "I'm locking on to your signal. Give me a minute. Is anyone with you, Kurosaki?"
The Xyz native took a look around the room. A smile was playing about his lips. "Yeah. There's a lot of us."
"Then you'd better tell them all to stand back. Good luck to you all."
Masumi had barely entertained the possibility that maybe she ought to follow this unknown Droite's advice when—CRACKOOM—with a flash that made Hotene and Rika scrabble backwards for the nearest wall, and a thunderclap so loud it sent Shingo a whole meter off the floor, wailing hysterically, five bolts of lightning had sizzled out of thin air, ripping time, space, and all of reality apart for a split second.
It took about that long for each of the rips to shrink and fold into what the Fusion ace quickly realized was a human body. Not all of them looked the same—some were older, others were younger—but as the lightning winked out, and the echoes of the dimensional portal had faded into stunned silence once more, Masumi could see that almost all of them bore the same rugged design of Duel Disk as Shun himself, and knew at once that they had to be from the Xyz Dimension—the futuristic Heartland City, devastated by war.
The tallest and oldest of them looked uncannily like Yuzu's father—at least, if he'd been going to the gym for the better part of a year. He was tanned and muscular, with spiky, dark red hair that looked as though it might burst into flames any second—from eyebrows to sideburns—and purple eyes that glinted with the promise of a long, bloody fight ahead. The two boys on his left had enough alike in their faces that Masumi decided they must be brothers. One was tall and blond-haired, with the bangs over his blue eyes dyed a dark green that made him look like he was wearing a spiky crown. The other wore a bowl cut of sky-blue hair and something that Masumi might have called a backpack if it didn't look like it was made wholly out of metal.
He was noticeably paler, smaller and skinnier than his would-be brother—so much so that the Fusion ace stole a quick look at Fuyu, wondering if this boy had suffered the same sort of sickness that the Xyz Duelist had in his youth. She saw the same glassy look to his wide, unblinking gold eyes as Kiku's own eyes—and though she suspected this boy was not blind as she was, it was clear to her that he'd suffered some kind of trauma in his life. Possibly from whatever ailed him—and almost certainly, she thought, from the war he'd been caught up in.
The remaining two arrivals were a boy and a girl. Both of them wore the same self-confident smirk, but from there, all similarities ended. He was short, with spiky red hair of his own—though nowhere near as fiery or spiky of the man ahead of him—and was dressed in a purple-and-blue poncho that clashed with his teal eyes, and some kind of armored boots that Masumi had never seen before. The girl was more or less her own size, with golden eyes and a wide swath of hot pink-and-orange hair that made her think of a candle's flame blowing in the wind. But Masumi could feel the sheer fierceness that radiated from every pore of her body—fierceness that had less to do with the massive monstrosity of pink metal tubing slung over one of her shoulders than face value might have suggested.
"Is … is that a rocket launcher?!"
Yaiba looked as though someone had flung a heavy brick right into his face. He pointed helplessly at the teenager. "Did … this girl seriously just bring a whole-ass rocket launcher onto school property?!"
The girl had heard—and now fixed Yaiba with a glare that made Masumi want to leap protectively towards him. "This is not a 'whole-ass rocket launcher', short-stack!" she shot back at him derisively, hefting the heavy-looking device under one arm. "It's also a hovercraft."
Hokuto blinked. "'Also'?" With one leap, he was in front of Fuyu, blocking as much of his friend as his own body would let him. Shingo had already ducked behind a table. Rika and Hotene had ducked behind him. The black glass of Q's mainframe was dancing with crimson light.
"Simmer down, Anna." The boy in the poncho laid a soothing hand on his companion's shoulder. "We didn't come here to start a fight." He paused, apparently second-guessing his words. "That comes later."
The girl called Anna visibly seethed, but eventually relaxed. Masumi could have sworn she heard half the room breathe a sigh of relief as she holstered her hovercraft, or rocket launcher—or whatever it was—against her side. No one present looked more thankful than Kurosaki Shun.
But that did not last long. "You brought them with you, Kaito?" he asked the blond boy, with an apprehensive look at the boy and girl. "I can maybe humor you wanting to be sure that Haruto's in your sight"—he stole a look at the frail boy with the backpack—"but the Kōzukis?"
"We've got too many fires to put out in Heartland," the boy called Kaito replied. "They'll do much more good over here than there." A small smirk played over his lips. "Besides, I'd like to see how you could talk them out of this."
"We know how much you care about Yuzu," said the red-haired man. "Anna, Allen; Kaito, Haruto—all of us would have blasted a path for you to get to Ruri back then. We'd do the same for you again in a heartbeat."
Shun clenched his fist. "I know that, Gauche, but … " He sighed through his teeth. "Just tell me Droite knows they signed up for this. She wouldn't have let them go otherwise."
Gauche nodded once. "You used an emergency frequency to reach us, Kurosaki—to bring us across the dimensions. You've never had to do that in all the time you've been part of the Resistance. So she knows how serious you are about this—and Droite wouldn't send just anyone if she didn't have faith in them."
"She has a brother, too." The voice of the boy called Haruto—who alone of the five had been the only one who'd kept his silence until now—was so quiet that Masumi, again, could not help but think of Fuyu. He had fixed his gaze on Gauche. "Just like I still have my brother." His hand felt for Kaito's, and clutched it tightly. "Just like you still have your sister."
It appeared that Shun had no real reply to this. He could only turn to Kaito, apparently out of options.
"Droite's staying on the other end," he soothed. "Any one of us gets in any trouble we can't handle, she'll engage the emergency recall function on our Duel Disks, and pull us back home. It's a one-way trip, too—but at least it's a trip to a home that needs us."
Shun sighed. He turned to the girl with the would-be hovercraft-cum-rocket launcher, and jabbed a single finger at her. He did not say anything—but Masumi saw the look of warning in his eyes, and suspected that spoke plenty.
He spun around. "Well … these are my friends," he said to Himika. "Some of you already know Tenjō Kaito." The blond boy inclined his head before Shun moved on. "That's his little brother Haruto. You might not know him. Academia turned him into a card with the rest of Kaito's family during their invasion."
Sora was seen to cringe at this, but Shun had already swept a hand over the man of the group. "This is Gauche—he was the principal of our Duel School's Heart Branch before Academia got him too"—Gauche puffed out his chest and gave a thumbs-up—"and these last two are the Kōzuki cousins of our Clover Branch, Allen and Anna. It took half a dozen of the Obelisk Force to seal Anna when they attacked," he added—to which Anna smiled a wide, surprisingly toothy grin—"and as she very nearly demonstrated, she's still taking it a little bit personally."
Silence. Everyone was still eyeing Anna and her hover-cannon far too intently to greet the new arrivals.
" … So." Shingo was shuffling from one foot to the other. "We've gone from eight Lancers to about eighty in less than eight minutes. Is there any chance we could get eighty-eight?" he asked, daring to hope. "For extra luck?"
"The LID have their own mission ahead of them," Himika said, shaking her head in a very final sort of way.
But Shingo did the unthinkable—he waved her off. "No, not them. We've got a group from the Fusion Dimension, now a group from the Xyz Dimension. All we're missing is some Duelists from the Synchro Dimension! What more could Yūya ask for than a bunch of people from every single dimension coming to rescue him and Yuzu? He helped Synchro unite as a force against Academia—it's only right they help us against the Ædonai!"
"I don't cast doubt on your plan, Sawatari," said Himika, "but only your plan's execution. The survivors of You Show are only here because their dimension has the only stable inter-dimensional link to Maiami City."
"And even then, getting to it wasn't easy," Shō added, adjusting his pince-nez. "They had the Kingdom's primary transport hub locked up tight until Rei and Tyranno here broke it open for us. That kind of daring won't work twice."
Himika inclined a hand his way to lend more weight to his point. "And I can only assume your emergency signal is a one-off as well, Kurosaki?" Shun nodded. "So while your forces in Xyz might be able to bring them back home, you won't be able to bring them back to you."
"We don't often think of emergencies being times when Duelists want to Duel more," the Xyz native said flatly.
Himika turned to Shingo, satisfied. "You see the problem," she now told him. "Synchro has neither a door to our dimension, nor a man in this room to send us any Duelists of their own. And that's assuming the Ædonai didn't do enough damage to their dimension to hamper any effort to try. No … as much as I wish otherwise, we won't be getting any help from them."
BOOM.
Shingo nearly fainted a second time at the loud noise from outside. The reinforced Plexiglas windows rattled, and the images projected by the circuits inside flickered for a moment.
Himika jabbed at her mobile. "What was—?!" But before she could finish her question to Asakuma—or whoever it was on the other end—a loud roar sounded from outside the building. Masumi thought it sounded right outside.
Several of the newcomers had paled. The Lancers, she was quick to note, had not. Once Shingo had gotten over his nerves, he actually looked as though he was fighting the urge to laugh his fool head off.
"I don't believe it … " Slowly, his mouth twisted into a grin. He stole a glance at Himika. " … Wish granted?"
Himika didn't answer him. "Angel-IQ. Give me exterior view of sector AA-00."
The black glass of the supercomputer's mainframe shimmered for a moment. Then, as innocuously as if Himika had turned on the television, an image blipped onto the smooth surface. Masumi saw what she guessed was a camera feed from right over the front door to the Leo Duel School, and the slice of road beyond that had been clogged with traffic when she and the LID had showed up an hour ago.
No such traffic was present now. Where there ought to be cars, buses, and crowds of passersby, there were only five sleek, vividly painted motorcycles that had skidded to a halt in front of the school entrance only seconds ago. It had to have been that long because their riders were only just dismounting them: four boys and a girl, their faces hidden by the mirrored visors on their helmets. The one in the lead—tall and clad in form-fitting white and navy blue—was dismounting the strangest-looking bike Masumi had ever seen: a single, large white monowheel around the cockpit, framed by a nose that looked rather like a dragon's mouth. He must have been controlling the monster Masumi had heard earlier; his white Duel Disk was the only one activated amongst his comrades—though even as she looked on, he'd deactivated its blue blade, and whatever had made that noise was already nowhere to be seen.
"Are they from the Synchro Dimension?" Yaiba wondered beside her. He was eyeing the motorcycles, frowning. Masumi suspected he was looking to find out how they could work in a Duel, as he'd been told in the past.
Shingo, for once, was ready with a quick answer. "Hell yeah, they're from Synchro," he told them all boastfully—unaware of the looks some of the younger crowd had shot his way. "And who better to help us than a king?"
Recognition lit up Masumi's face like a diamond in the sun, and suddenly she was smiling, too. She'd heard of whom Shingo was talking about from Yūya himself—even though she'd never seen the man with her own eyes.
Himika, for her part, was already standing up from her seat, still talking on her mobile. "Miss Asakuma, would you please direct the new arrivals to sublevel two?" she instructed, looking around her already packed office and pursing her lips to thin lines. "It seems we'll be needing a change of venue … "
Maiami City Interdimensional Transport Hub (MITH)
Masumi had been in the sublevels of the Leo Duel School on two separate occasions. She knew from this previous experience that these clandestine facilities were not easily accessed, even by the few in the know. There were more routes to it from LeoCorp than there were from inside the school itself—and they certainly hadn't been designed for so many people to use them at one time.
So it had taken five trips down the service elevator—the LID, then the Lancers, followed by their extra-dimensional arrivals, motorcycles and all—and the better part of half an hour before Masumi, deep in the bowels of an electronic chamber whose surroundings barely registered even to her, amidst the motley arrangement of boys, girls, and adults who'd made the trek with her, was able to meet the riders of those bikes for the first time.
Half of them looked like the sorts of people Masumi didn't want to meet in a dark alley—even if Yaiba had come along with her. The tallest of them wore a vest that looked as though it had seen better days even before the sleeves had been ripped out, large jewels in his earlobes that stretched the flesh beneath until they were near as big as the ears themselves—and one of the weirdest hairstyles she'd ever seen, even for a Duelist. His vivid purple hair made her think of a very spiky lizard crouching on his scalp. More normal by comparison was his companion—shorter and stouter, though the swollen-looking nose stuck smack in the middle of his round head didn't do him any favors.
The boy in between them looked almost normal, even with the sleek two-tone of purple and green that framed his own face—but the Fusion ace saw the glint in his eyes and knew instantly he was not one to cross. I've seen kinder eyes in Kurosaki. The only girl of the group was a head shorter than he was—and hardly looked older than Hotene, which took Masumi aback. Either Synchro had very relaxed driving laws when it came to those bikes of theirs, she thought—or she'd gone and gotten her license early. Her jumpsuit was formfitting, wine-red against black ridges of neoprene that clashed impeccably with the twin puffballs of burgundy hair either side of her head, just over her ears. The Fusion Duelist's keen eyes thought she saw a store tag still stuck on the outfit, and fought the urge to laugh.
That urge died rather quickly when she saw the man who could only be their leader.
Yūya had told her plenty about Jack Atlas. But it was one thing to listen to the many, many stories that the Lancers had shared and spread about this legendary Duelist of the Synchro Dimension. It was quite another thing to see said Duelist for herself. His violet eyes seemed to look down upon them all in a way that had nothing to do with how tall he was—and his upswept spikes of blond hair only made him look taller still. The white tracksuit Jack wore looked impeccably maintained—even the plates of gray armor over his limbs, joints, and belt looked as though they'd been polished just this morning.
"A-Amanda?!"
Gongenzaka Noboru's jaw had nearly hit the floor when he saw the girl. "What are you doing here?!" he demanded. "Where's Crow? A man like him would never turn down the chance to fight a fight as meaningful as this!"
"Crow can't be everywhere at once," answered the girl called Amanda. "He and Chōjirō both have an orphanage to run, you know—and that orphanage is only getting bigger after what those Fusion freaks did to our City. But he's still been making Decks for us all to Duel with. And he says I've learned mine faster than the rest. So … I'm here."
"But—but isn't Frank older than you?"
"Not by much. Tanner likes his company more than mine, anyway," Amanda shrugged, "and Crow had to put his foot down when that little squirt wanted to party with the rest of us."
" … How exactly did you hear about this, uh … party?" Shingo wanted to know. "Aren't you guys supposed to … you know, not be able to contact us at all after the Ædonai stole your piece of the ARC-V reactor?"
"When the cries of kings in peril are heard on the four winds, other kings must rise up in arms to rescue them."
Such silence had fallen on Jack Atlas' words that even he seemed surprised to speak them. But he recovered quickly enough. "When I first met Sakaki Yūya, I was a king. A Duel King, for all that it matters, but a king all the same. Then—against a fight for the heart and soul of my own kingdom—I was cast down by a boy whose name I had only started hearing that week."
He clenched his fist. The leather of the gloves popped and cracked. "That Duel still resonates within my heart," he rumbled, every word building up in a crescendo. "And it always will until the day I face Yūya again—one King against another. As long as I follow that road to a new battle, Yūya will always be there to greet me. My heart and burning soul—my faithful Scarlight—will always lead me to him without detour, without fail. And I will not see these Ædonai rob me of the challenge I intend to lay before him on that day!"
His words echoed in the silent chamber. Everyone looked too stunned to break out in cheering.
Yaiba, however, leaned close to Masumi. "The crazy thing is, you kind of believe him," he murmured. She nodded.
Himika was close enough to have heard them. "Yes—very well put," she said, perhaps more out of a desire to break the silence than anything else. "And how, ah … convenient that your dragon can lead us to Sakaki Yūya."
"If you're having trouble grasping Jack's line of logic, I don't blame you," said the boy with two-toned hair, smiling wryly. "That's more than he gave us when he convinced us to come with him. 'Kings only need to explain themselves to other kings,' he said. If you knew him like we do, you'd know that was enough."
He put forth a hand. "Shinji Weber. Tony Simmons, Damon Lopez"—he nodded to the pudgy boy on his left, then to the purple-haired man on his right—"Crow Hogan's unofficial adopted little sister, Amanda"—Amanda waved at them all, a cocky grin on her face that wouldn't have looked out of place on anyone—"and if none of you know who Jack Atlas is by now, you're not the Duelists I thought you were. That's all I'm saying about that."
A few of the Lancers tittered. Masumi distinctly saw Sora cover his mouth to keep himself from laughing louder.
"I'll keep the rest of the introductions short," Himika jumped in, "since we have rather more of them to make, and rather less time to spend on briefing you all. You can familiarize yourselves with each other later on. I've spoken to several principals of our Duel Schools in Maiami City, and they have consented to lend a number of their most illustrious Duelists. Some of these Duelists you may already know when they were selected as Lancer candidates in the Maiami Championship—Hōchun Mieru, ace Duelist of the Unno Divination School; Naname Mikiyo, lead singer of the Duel Girls Club; the Fishing Duelist, Tairyōbata Teppei; Tanegashima Yūzō, ace of the Surprise School … and, yes, Kachidoki Isao of Ryōzanpaku."
Five hands raised themselves amidst the sea of Duelists in the chamber—or, Masumi corrected herself, four hands and a fishing pole. Two arms were small, slender, and distinctly feminine. A third arm was long and skinny. A fourth was lean, muscular—and distinctly more reluctant to show itself. Masumi heard Yaiba growl beside her.
"More of us you may have heard about in the rumor mill." Himika nodded to the LID. "Several of our students and Lancer candidates have distinguished themselves enough that they serve as defenders of Maiami City itself—LDS's Section of Investigation and Defense, or LID for short." She pointed at each of them in turn, bidding them to step forward, and they did so one by one. "Our senior circuit representatives—Kōtsu Masumi, Tōdō Yaiba, and Shijima Hokuto. Our Junior Fusion ace, Menoko Hotene—"
"The lean, mean trampoline queen!" Hotene belted out, grinning. Rika rolled her eyes. Several people laughed.
Himika was not one of them. "Yes—thank you," she sniffed. Then, without missing a beat: "Our Junior Synchro ace, Emina Rika; Li Shen, a graduate of LDS Shanghai; Rokkaku Fuyu"—Fuyu, alone of them all, stayed where he was, waving shyly—"and our, ah … technical expert, Angel-IQ." The hologram seemed to shimmer a little brighter as she bowed, and levitated a few inches into the air—just enough for the new arrivals to put two and two together.
"To business, then." Himika wasted no time, turning towards the center monitor feed in a heartbeat. "Yūshō—how are Kiku and Kikyō?"
"Much better," said the You Show headmaster from his bed. "Yōko's been looking after them since she showed up at the hospital last night. I think she wants to take them home to meet the pets," he added with a smile.
"Tell her she'd be better off finding a sitter," Himika said shortly. "You already know the situation has changed. The twins are no longer safe at Maiami General." She pursed her lips again. "I need to speak with them."
If Yūshō was bothered by the brusque words, he didn't show it. "Just one moment." He leaned off-screen. "Yōko, honey? She wants to talk to the kids."
There was a pause. Then, a few seconds later, the twins sidled up alongside Yūshō's bedside. Each was clad in pale blue hospital gowns that clashed horribly with their hair—Kiku's more so than her sister's—and they were holding each other's hand so tightly that even in the video feed, their knuckles were bone-white.
"This is Hamabe Kiku," Himika said, waiting for the blind redhead to finish waving slowly at them, "and her twin sister Kikyō." Kikyō managed a small smile, and the mute signed something with her free hand that Masumi could only guess was a simple Pleased to meet you. Nor was she certain as to what a beaming Asuka had signed back in kind. "Both of these girls are the reason why the Ædonai have attacked all four Dimensions without provocation."
It took Himika less than a minute to summarize all the information Masumi had learned from the twins' own mouths. It took somewhat longer than that before the uproar that erupted from the newer arrivals had died down—and even then the headmistress had had to raise a hand to instill some modicum of quiet.
"I have been told," she said, raising her voice a little, "that the Ædonai do not intend to use the twins to this end. It is part of their goals that the dimensions remain separate, but that their own Fusion Dimension must be superior above the others. But we would be fools to believe they intend to actively prevent Z-ARC from regaining physical form. They have already neutralized my husband, Akaba Leo, who led the old Academia. If they can turn upon their old allies so quickly, we can no longer assume they are incapable of anything. And so our mission is clear: Yūya and Yuzu must be recovered at any cost. We cannot let them be lost to us again.
"Which is where our new friends come in," Himika added quickly, flicking her eyes to Sawatari Shingo so quickly that the question Masumi suspected he'd been hoping to ask again had died on his lips. "Reiji?"
She stepped away, and yielded the floor to her son. He shifted Reira in his lap before clearing his throat.
"After you took the LID to visit Leo, Mother, you related the conversation to me in great detail," he began. "And I remembered something he said before you left for LDS: how 'Duel Monsters' origins in ancient Egypt linger still'."
At a gesture, Nakajima approached him then, and set down a laptop on the tray table of Reiji's bed. The aide began to rapidly type out commands; seconds later, data began to stream over the monitors that lined the chamber hall.
"With Nakajima's help"—Masumi privately thought the man must have had to do all the work for him, considering how bad his injuries were—"and the aegis of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice, we were able to recover some files from Miss Schmidt's computer that suggest the Ædonai have a stronghold in northern Africa—nominally the Fusion Dimension's version of Giza, Egypt. There is a strong likelihood that our friends are within its walls."
"How can you be so sure?" Tenjō Kaito demanded. "Taking something your father said in passing and using it as a basis to track down our missing friends is a stretch. Even for you."
"And we have to think about how the Ædonai have been acting up to this point," Shun cut in. "These bastards try to be everywhere at once. How do we know this isn't some ploy to draw our own forces completely out of position? How do we know they won't launch against Maiami City the moment we warp over to the Fusion Dimension?"
"First of all," Tenjōin Asuka said calmly, "I think we have to take both of those risks. It won't matter how many Duelists we send—they won't let us just walk up to the door and ask politely to give our friends back."
"Second of all," added Saotome Rei next to her, "I've got some more information to add onto what Reiji's saying—and I'm inclined to think he's right because of it."
She winched out a thin cable from her pink Duel Disk; Masumi just barely noticed the USB attachment at one end before Rei plugged it into a nearby terminal. Windows of data and images of what looked like heavily redacted paperwork spilled all over the screens for a few moments, too fast for Masumi to read any of them—only to freeze on one such image when Rei seemed to find what she'd been looking for.
"Before You Show Fusion was destroyed by the Ædonai," the girl explained to them, gesturing at a map of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, with many curving lines hither and thither over both land and sea, "I was able to secure an informant inside the Kingdom of Misgarth. I might tell the story later, if there's time. This informant had access to a number of classified documents—including supply manifests and cargo destinations." She tapped at her Duel Disk, and brought up a series of images that Masumi could only assume were the manifests in question. "According to them, there's been a thirty percent increase in transportation of troops and war materiel throughout Misgarth in the time between now and the Ædonai's invasion of the Dimensions—including the attack on Pendulum when Yūya and Yuzu were kidnapped. Almost every destination," she finished, "lists its point of arrival in the port of Cairo."
Yaiba's mouth was half open in astonishment. Masumi couldn't blame him. This girl wasn't much older than her—and yet had connections in government, if what she was claiming was the truth. I need to step up my game.
"Thirty percent." Hokuto, meanwhile, was doing some mental math, counting on his fingers all the while. "Asuka's right—they're expecting an attack. It's Duel Monsters 101—you don't commit to playing that many cards your first turn of the Duel unless you're prepping one hell of a defense."
Tyranno Kenzan snorted. "Bah. I've chewed through their defenses before." His voice sounded as harsh and rough as he looked: the gruff bark of the ex-military, Masumi thought.
"Assaulting a fortress isn't like breaking into a dimensional transit pad, Tyranno," Marufuji Shō chided him.
"And their guards aren't as tough as Ædonai soldiers. I know—I know," sighed Tyranno. Masumi thought she saw the points of filed teeth when he drew his lips back far enough. "C'mon, Shō —I'm tryin' to hype up the new blood here. Just give me that much, will you?"
"I know a little something about hype," Gauche said from across the room. The Kōzukis, Anna and Allen, flanked him either side. "Best time to do that is right before the big fight. We just got in the locker room, kid. At least wait till we're dressed up and ready before we show the crowds what we're made of."
His smile didn't look threatening. But something about how Gauche stood and projected himself—and probably, Masumi suspected, the fact that he was older, bigger, and more muscular than everyone in the room bar a special few—made Tyranno bridle where he stood. He nodded slowly, seeming to understand what the man was saying.
"Well—I'm convinced," Yaiba said, flashing the best winning smile he could. "When do we leave?"
"You aren't going anywhere." Masumi could almost hear the crunch of her boyfriend's hope being squashed by the Headmistress' voice. "If we send too many Duelists out into uncharted territory, we risk stretching our forces too thin. The LID will remain behind to defend Maiami City from any incursions, anticipated or otherwise. I will issue further instructions to that end when we are done here."
Masumi saw her steal a look at the twins before Reiji cleared his throat again. "Shiun'in Sora. Dennis McField. Step forward, please."
Sora was front-and-center almost before the lead Lancer had finished speaking. Dennis came into view on Yūshō's monitor a second later, scooting the twins aside and standing so close to the camera that his face filled half the feed.
"Given recent events, there have been some questions regarding your capacity to be an integral part of the Lancers," Reiji said to both boys. "Some of those questions have been your own to ask. However, you are the only people in this room—and indeed, perhaps even this city—who was not only a native of the Fusion Dimension, but was also counted among the higher ranks of Academia. The Ædonai are a dissident movement of Academia—but they are still a new enough movement that I doubt they have completely reinvented themselves from the Obelisk Force of days past. It will be on you to use your knowledge of their field procedures against them."
Sora nodded. "I understand."
"Very good," said Reiji. "As I am of … unsound body at present"—Masumi bit back another curse as Reiji gazed around his bound and bandaged body—"and as Reira may still be a target of the Ædonai, I will not be able to join you on this mission. I must make preparations with the remaining membership of the Fūma clan to ensure my sister is protected, and that I recover in a timely fashion. Since I am a target myself, I cannot do so inside Maiami City. Therefore, Sora, for the extent of your mission to recover Yūya and Yuzu, you and Mr. McField will take command of the Lancers, and all those who would follow them into battle. I tell you this"—he raised his voice over the murmurs of the others watching his screen—"because I trust you as Sakaki Yūya did."
His eyes narrowed. "I would urge you to remember that."
Sora was very still. Masumi wondered if he was weighing the chance of rescuing his friends alongside the chance of being brainwashed. Just because Markus Streiter had been sealed into a card didn't automatically mean his schemes hadn't been sealed with him. The entire Akaba family had learned that to their cost last night.
But she need not have worried; Sora nodded—though not without a heavy swallow. " … All right," he finally said.
Dennis echoed him. "We'll bring them back," he murmured. "We have to." And then—because he was Dennis—he grinned, springing into a salute so quickly he nearly karate-chopped himself in the forehead. "Orders, ma'am?"
Himika let his change in mood slide for precisely one second. "Find Yūya and Yuzu," she said, in the false softness of silken gloves concealing razor-sharp talons. "I don't care how many of the Ædonai you crush along the way. Get them back to the Pendulum Dimension—alive and uninjured. And when you deliver your report to me … "
She let the silence hang just long enough for everyone to grasp that she'd said when—not if. " … I want you to give me excruciating details. And I want those details to put a smile on my face."
The chill in the chamber was palpable. Masumi decided she was better off not asking what about any of this might make her headmistress happy.
Shingo looked her concern. "You—" He swallowed, and tried again. "This … this could lead to war, you know."
"Markus Streiter already made it war," Himika snapped. Her face had creased into a truly nasty expression—twisted by a desire to maim and wound through word or deed. Masumi had seen that look on her face once before, and had no wish to see it again. "'For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' He attacked my school. He attacked my family. Just because he has been sealed into a card does not mean that he has paid for what he has done."
The stare she leveled at Shingo was one of the fiercest she'd ever seen. "You will make sure that he does."
No one spoke for a while after that. Masumi couldn't blame them at all—if those orders had been directed at her, she would have had a hard time putting her thoughts into words herself. And not all of those words might be so nice.
"E-excuse me?" A voice she didn't recognize spoke up just then. "Can I s-say something?"
The sea of Duelists parted, slowly revealing the black top hat, white suit, and crimson cape of Tanegashima Yūzō.
Masumi had only seen the ace of the Surprise School once before, and not nearly so close. Yūzō had looked taller from her seat at the Maiami Championship—and more attractive, too, she thought, looking askance at the bowl cut of black hair that framed his narrow face and bucked front teeth. Yūzō had earned his fan club by the time he'd run into the wall that was Gongenzaka—but Masumi hoped that club had been founded on more than what his fans had seen in the stadium. Especially since he'd volunteered for one of the riskiest rescue missions she'd ever heard of.
She knew Himika was thinking the same thing, from the look on her face as her eyes roved over his figure. "Yes?"
Yūzō needed a moment to muster his composure. "Look. I'm not a stranger to surprises. It's what my Duel School does—we disguise ourselves, we transform ourselves. With masks, makeup, magic—whatever. But … I'm looking around this room. I've seen how you're changing us all, Miss Himika—one by one, bit by bit. And I don't know if that's a disguise I can just put on and take off like I can this hat or this cape. It doesn't feel the same as dressing up for a Duel. We're not just Duelists and Lancers. We're kids with a whole world ahead of us. And I think Yūya and Yuzu would want us to be kids while we still had the chance."
He gripped at a smooth black stick thrust into his belt. "I … I guess what I'm saying," he said hesitantly, "is that I can do what you're asking. I just … I don't want to feel like I'm one of your Lancers when it starts. I know what Yūya and Yuzu mean to you. But they mean a lot to me, too. They mean a lot more to their parents—and as much to this whole city, too. It's … because of them, that we can not only pick up a Duel Disk and a Deck, but use them in a way that lets us be … who we are. Lets us be ourselves. That's the one thing I won't ever change or disguise about me. Because I can't think of a better way to rescue our friends than by being the Duelists we want to be."
He reached beneath his jacket, and produced a wine-red Duel Disk. One click secured it to his wrist. Another click produced a bright blue blade. "So let's give these guys a little surprise of our own!" he grinned.
Hōchun Mieru bounded next to him. "What he said!" she whooped. A violet chevron was already blazing from her sky-blue Duel Disk. "My darling Yūya deserves a whole army to bring him back!"
"And any song without Yuzu's voice is no song at all!" Naname Mikiyo twirled once on her roller skates, conjuring a blue blade from her pink Duel Disk before coming to a stop. Her cohorts mirrored her movements in short order.
"Dinner's on me!" Teppei's grin was widest of all. His fishing pole almost seemed a living thing, jerking out a Duel Disk of gunmetal gray from his vest and activating its yellow blade almost before he'd clamped it to his arm. "I bet there's a lot of fish in the Nile just ripe for the catching!"
With every vow spoken, more and more raised their voice in support. By the time Teppei stood ready, almost half the Duelists in the chamber were giving such full-throated bellows of excitement that Masumi was worried they'd start crossing the Dimensions here and now. Not that she wasn't feeling inspired enough to join them.
But the other half had remained conspicuously silent—and it was only when the mass of Duelists turned as one towards Kachidoki Isao and his classmates that Masumi found herself wondering what all of Ryōzanpaku might possibly have to say about this.
Isao's eyes roved left and right. "What?"
"C'mon," Mieru wheedled. "You're not telling us you don't have anything you want to add to that?"
"There's nothing to add," Isao grunted. "Yūya and Yuzu are about the last Duelists on our minds right now. And just so that's out of the way," he added, with just enough menace to his words that the boys and girls who'd turned a stern eye on him—and very nearly a rocket launcher, in the case of Kōzuki Anna—averted it almost as quickly, "I don't mean to say that I don't want to bring them back. You have your own battles to fight, and as far as we're all concerned, you're more deserving to fight them than we are."
"So why are you here, then?" Yaiba blurted out, before he could stop himself.
It said something about the threats they had faced as a team, Masumi thought, that Isao's steely look didn't make Yaiba wilt where he stood. "You of all people should know the answer to that," he answered. "It's because we owe that much to our sensei. Because he made us swear to fight tenfold in his stead, where he could not. Duel Disk and Deck, hand and fist—it doesn't matter to us."
He cracked his knuckles. "Markus Streiter took everything from us." His voice was a growl. "He broke our school. He broke our sensei. He broke our dreams."
"And we broke him," Yaiba shrugged. "So we cheated you out of getting your revenge. What's your point?"
"My point is that you're wrong," snarled Isao. "As long as those Ædonai of his still exist, Ryōzanpaku will not be short of chances to get revenge. That's all we want now. That's all we're living for now."
He gazed around at the assembly of Duelists—and Masumi saw his gaze lingered longer on Himika than on anyone else. "You want us to go after Yūya and Yuzu? Fine. We'll do more than that, even—we'll lead the damn charge to them if it gives you faith in us. Just don't expect us to stick around for the homecoming parade."
Li Shen frowned. "You mean to say you are not coming back?" His question didn't sound like a question at all.
"No." And Isao spoke the single word so quickly, so viciously, that the redoubtable Synchro Duelist actually took a step backwards. "Not until the only thing left of these Ædonai is a bloody smear on our fists and our blades."
A single downward chop activated his Duel Disk—the same black-and-yellow shield Isao had worn during his brief stint with Academia, Masumi couldn't help noticing—and its violet swordblade sheared through the air so suddenly that the Fusion ace had an uncomfortable mental image of an executioner's axe, swinging for the kill.
"Ryō!" he thundered. With a roar, every single schoolmate alongside him (Masumi would later learn there were seventy-two of them, plus another thirty-five on their way to LDS—too late to join the briefing, but just in time to join the fight to come) raised their fists high, and the chamber suddenly became a sea of active Duel Disks.
"Zan!" they chorused. Masumi felt a chill. This sounded less like a pep talk, and more like blood frenzy.
"Ryō!"
"Zan!"
"RYŌ!"
"ZAN! PA! KU!" The Fusion ace heard a distinctly feminine voice mixed in. She didn't need much time to find the source: Kōzuki Anna was pumping her fist. So were a few of Synchro's Duelists, including Shinji Weber.
Masumi couldn't help it—she looked at Himika. Every inch of her face was pale … but she wasn't trembling. Nor did she even look scared, she thought. She was staring straight ahead, at no one in particular.
"Iacta, alea est," she murmured under her breath; Masumi would not learn its meaning until much later. "So be it," she said more loudly, after the battle cries had died down enough for her to be heard. "You have your orders."
She inhaled through her nose, breathed out from her mouth. "See them through."
And when Masumi felt the roar break over her face like a wave—despite all the unease in her body—even she and Yaiba couldn't resist cracking a grin.
Hokuto leaned close to Masumi. "Those Fusion bastards," he muttered, the beginnings of a smirk creeping over his own face, "won't even know what hit them."
» INITIALIZING
» PRIMARY USER INTERFACE ONLINE
» USER MOLOCH XI-GAMMA-223 (ΞΓ-223) RECOGNIZED
who am i
» WELCOME DUELIST RK_ΞΓ-223 MDL 27
» NEUROKINETIC RESPONSES NOMINAL
» GENE-SEQ DEGRADATION NOMINAL
what am i
» NEUR-AMP SYN-AMP ADREN-AMP STANDBY
» BOOTING PRIMARY SENSORIUM MATRIX
» CALIBRATING AUDIOVISUAL CORTEX
where am i
» CALIBRATION COMPLETE
…
it is dark
…
it is quiet
…
» CALIBRATING PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX
am i asleep
» CALIBRATION COMPLETE
[AM—I—AWAKE?]
{YES.}
» VOICEPRINT CONFIRMED DUELIST GG_Ψ-139 (LC)
» DUELIST GG_Ψ-139 RECOGNIZED PRIMARY CLASS TWO AUTHORITY
{GOOD MORNING, AGENT 223. I HOPE YOU SLEPT AS WELL AS I DID. WE ALL HAVE A BIG DAY AHEAD OF US. YOUR MISSION FILES ARE BEING PREPARED AS WE SPEAK. PLEASE REMAIN IN STANDBY MODE UNTIL THEY HAVE BEEN ISSUED.}
[YES, LIEUTENANT COLONEL.]
{HOW DO YOU FEEL?}
how
…
do i feel
…
how
…
can i feel
…
[QUERY UNDEFINED.]
…
why is she
…
laughing
…
{GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. DON'T WORRY. I MEAN NO OFFENSE. OH, AND THE CRYOSTASIS WILL WEAR OFF IN DUE TIME. YOU'LL HAVE A CHANCE TO SHAKE OFF THE RUST BEFORE YOU'RE PROPERLY OUTFITTED. NOW PAY ATTENTION.}
[YES, MA'AM.]
{SO. THIS IS MOLOCH'S NEW ATTACK DOG, IS IT?}
» VOICEPRINT CONFIRMED DUELIST SI_Σ-221
» DUELIST SI_Σ-221 RECOGNIZED SECONDARY CLASS TWO AUTHORITY
{YOU ALMOST SOUND DISAPPOINTED, BESTATTER.}
{THE ABOMINATION OFFENDS ME, GOLEM. IT HAS NO PLACE BEFORE MY EYES, AND LESS AMONG MY PEOPLE.}
…
» AGGRESSION INHIBITOR STABILIZING
…
{NONE OF THAT NOW.}
» VOICEPRINT CONFIRMED DIRECTOR KAGEMARU PRIMARY CLASS ONE AUTHORITY
{SHE IS JUST AS LOYAL TO ME AS YOU AND THE DOCTOR. UNUM IN MULTIS.}
[MULTI IN UNUM.]
{MULTI IN UNUM.}
she
…
I am
…
she
…
we are
…
loyal
{NOW. WITH OPERATION SOLITAIRE COMPLETED, WE MUST ANTICIPATE AN IMMINENT ASSAULT ON THE FUSION DIMENSION. THEY WILL TAKE OUR ATTEMPTS AT ELIMINATING THE AKABA FAMILY AS GROUNDS FOR RETALIATION AND POSSIBLY EVEN A DECLARATION OF WAR. BESTATTER, REPORT.}
{I HAVE FORTIFIED THE GIZA FORTRESS WITH THREE BATTALIONS, DIRECTOR. MY CHIEF OF SECURITY IS DEPLOYING THEM AS WE SPEAK. SAKAKI YŪYA AND HĪRAGI YUZU HAVE BEEN SECURED AND RELOCATED TO THE CATACOMBS.}
» QUERY: SAKAKI YŪYA, HĪRAGI YUZU
» SAKAKI YŪYA RECOGNIZED PRIMARY ASSET, HĪRAGI YUZU RECOGNIZED PRIMARY ASSET
» ALL OTHER INFORMATION CLASSIFIED LEVEL BLACK TOP SECRET
{VERY GOOD. LIEUTENANT COLONEL.}
{I'M READY, DIRECTOR. AND I KNOW JUST THE TARGET TO STRIKE.}
{REMEMBER. FOCUS ON THE L-I-D.}
» QUERY: L-I-D
» L-I-D RECOGNIZED SUBORDINATE DIVISION OF LANCE DEFENSE SOLDIERS (L-D-S)
» L-D-S RECOGNIZED PRIMARY CLASS ONE THREAT TERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE
{AGENT 223 WILL MAKE SURE YOUR PATH IS CLEAR. YOUR PRIMARY TARGET IS THE TWINS. MAKE SURE THEY ARE RETRIEVED UNHARMED. THE CRYBABY DOLL WILL DO FOR THE REST. I WILL NOT EXPECT YOU TO FAIL THIS TIME.}
…
why
…
does she cry
…
what is
…
doll
…
{I UNDERSTAND, SIR. UNUM IN MULTIS.}
[MULTI IN UNUM.]
…
{YOU SHOULDN'T ENCOURAGE THAT, DIRECTOR. I CAN TELL THAT NAME UPSETS HER. IT REMINDS HER THAT SHE'S BEEN BEATEN BEFORE. ONLY LEO HAD THAT PRIVILEGE UNTIL THE L-I-D.}
{I KNOW. I COULD SEE IT IN THE WAY SHE LEFT THE ROOM. IT WAS A POINT OF PRIDE FOR HER. BUT IT WAS ALSO A CRUTCH. NOW THAT LEO HAS BEEN DEALT WITH, THERE IS NO ONE LEFT TO STAND BETWEEN HER AND THE WISH SHE ASKED OF ME. SHE WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING NOW. NOT UNTIL THAT WISH HAS BEEN GRANTED.}
» QUERY: WISH
…
…
…
» Ø
{AGENT 223. BEGIN DOWNLOADING MISSION FILES. YOU DEPLOY AT 1400 HOURS.}
[YES, DIRECTOR.]
A/N: Wow did work get busy on me all of a sudden. I've been out of town for months on end, and each day I've been busy enough that I've hardly had time to string a lot of this chapter together. It's only recently that things have slowed down to the point that I can start getting back to my usual creative self—and even then I needed a mental health day with the girlfriend to really pull myself together.
So. A lot of characters introduced here—I actually think this is the most people talking I've had in one place. That, for me, was the hardest bit of the chapter: trying to be sure that everyone got their two cents in where it was possible. There'll be more chances for them to talk in the next chapter—this is just kind of a filler, meet-and-greet breather before things start heating back up.
Talking of: The last scene of this chapter was very experimental for me, and I'm not convinced on how well I pulled it off. That sort of POV is not one I'm used to writing for more than a few lines at a time, and I may end up toning it down somewhere down the line to keep it from becoming too off-putting of a narrative shift. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Until the next chapter—thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy! – K
P.S. Check out Rei's "origin story" in my companion piece, duel de c(œ)urs, if you haven't already.