A/N: I didn't say this in the last chapter because I forgot, but was I the only one crying during the Hidden Treasure Deck episode? That was so sad! Just looking at Yanagi's sad face and he was crying and I was crying and ugh! I just want to say how sad it was... Anyways, sorry to keep you! Enjoy!


"87, you stay here. We'll have time for you later." The guard's tone is ominous. He stalks behind his colleagues who drive Yusei through the double doors of the gymnasium.

What will they do to Yusei? What will they do to me?

"Girly," Himuro starts. "Your boy was caught for illegal trespassing?"

"My name is Pinoko." But I nod anyway. "Yeah. Yanagi's the same. Yusei and I were caught in the same trespass."

Himuro has a thoughtful expression when he next speaks. "Isn't it strange? The investigation was completed before you kids were brought here. So what are they investigating now?"

It must have something to do with that mark. Yusei's glowing eyes, Jack sharing the mark, the red dragon... It's all too much to be a coincedence.

More than two hours passes before the doors open again. The guards have returned. They're alone now.

"Number 87! Get over here. We have some questions to ask you." I begrudgingly near the boastful guard.

"Yes?" I grit.

"You're coming with us. We're going to have a little chat." Himuro and Yanagi glumly watch me go.


They manhandle me into a chair in a room with little else. The ample space allows the guard to circle around me while another stands by the door.

"The cheif is talking with your little scum boyfriend. That leaves me with the pleasure of getting answers out of you. What do you know about number 88?" My pupils dart back and forth. There's a rolling cart to my right with many potentional torture devices. If I were tall enough to see over the lip, I might lose it at the sight.

This is going to be rough. Please let Yusei get returned to us unscathed. The only way we can survive this is if we lean on one another. Yusei is strong enough to do this without me but I'm nothing if I'm alone. Abandonded. Forgotten.

"I, we met over a month ago." If I give them useless information maybe they will lose interest. "He saved me a lot of times from getting robbed or getting hurt. He's a good-"

The slap rings across my ears.

"Not the answer I'm looking for, trash. How did he summon the Crimson Dragon?"

"I-I-I don't know! He was just dueling like he normally does!" Although this is the truth, I recieve another slap for my answer.

"Tell me honestly, where is his mark? It glowed red, we know it was there. Where did it go? We've checked him all over. We know you saw it. We know you saw the mark of the dragon. And we know when you're lying." With menace, the picks up a positive lead and a negative lead, the kind you'd use to jumpstart a car.

"No, please don't! I-" The negative lead is clipped onto my right shoulder. The tight grip of the alligator "Ngh! I don't know! Whatever you want, I-"

My brain is scattered. They're going to electrocute me. Nothing I say will give them pause, yet my mouth keeps running.

"Please, please, please, I'm telling you what I know!" The red clamp is placed on my calf, finishing the circuit. Once he flips the switch, I'll be in a lot of pain. I attempt to keep my tongue out from between my teeth. It still ends up bitten as electricity runs through my body, hot and cold at the same time. Drool and blood starts to leak from my lips. In the edges of vision I catch glimpses of the man turning a dial on the cart. Light flashes behind my retinas, leaving dark spots in my vision.

"Gh! Ngh!" Strangled noises tumble from my lips.

"What happened to the mark?" He demands. My teeth clench so hard I'm afraid they'll crack. My body feels cold, frigid like I'm stuck on top of a snowy mountain yet my trembling has no relation to my body tempature. The pain subsides suddenly. "That'll be enough for now, I guess. We don't want to break you yet. I'll be seeing you back to your cage, trash." I don't hardly catch what he's saying, only bits and pieces.

Break.

Answers.

Cage.

Trash.

I numbly recognize the feeling of my knees scraping concrete. The tapping of feet invade my ears, dark halls shrouding my still splotchy vision. As I'm tossed to the ground, I can make out two shilhouettes against the wall in front of me. The barred window rests at their back.

"Pinoko!"


Her eyes are distant, unresponsive. Her body is battered, bruises on her face and leg, the tell-tale purple peeking from the loosened collar of her shirt.

They hurt her. Why? Did they think she would tell them something I wouldn't? Or were they just trying to get to me by harming her?

"Yusei...?"

"Yes. It's me." A weight lifts from my shoulders hearing her voice. She's awake at least. "I'm sorry. You were hurt. Jii-san," His eyes swiftly refocus on me. "Help me put her on the bed." She looks so small like this. The pleated skirt does nothing to hide the dark bruise on her calf where the skin split open in the center. With the condition I'm in, I can't lift her myself. Today has been hard for us both, that much is obvious. I attempt to mask my struggle lifting her feet. The interrogation had left every single one of my muscles flare and that translated now into soreness. Every part of me groans with the effort, though it would normally be a simple task to carry her weight single-handedly.

Seeing her this way makes me worry of course, but it also makes me uneasy about the mark of the dragon. Why in the world would Cheif Takasu and the Public Maintenance Bureau be so determined to find it on me?

She blinks rapidly, her head tilting around on the pillow.

"You're back... Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" I sit on the bed, careful not to jostle her.

She's so vulnerable in this moment. So fragile. The way she's looking at me, like she's afraid for me. Like she needs me to be unharmed.

"No more than they hurt you. It looks like we had similar treatments."

"Yanagi." Her eyes redirect, looking behind me. "Are you-"

"Don't even think about it, missy! I'm fine, we're just worried about you." I can sense by his tone that he's moments from tearing up.

"I'll be okay, I think. We all just, probably need some rest." Although she assures me, I worry that our experiences weren't exactly the same. I stroke her hair.

"Okay." I take a deep breath. "Okay. Let's go to sleep. Goodnight, Jii-san."

"A-Alright... Goodnight, Pinoko, An-chan." His concerned demeanor doesn't change, but he tries to look strong for the girl in bed.

Our bed. If, if they touched her... No, it's no good to assume that.

I'm surprised with the speed at which Yanagi dozes off, but it's understandable with the day we've had. I stumble to the foot of the bed and raise both hands to begin untying her laces. Both boots come off easily. Rocky had since relocated into Yanagi's kimono sleeves. I'd been relieved to hear the approaching footsteps of the guards..

When I didn't see Pinoko in there... It terrified me. To not know where she was... But I must stop thinking like that. She's alive, I know that now.

I remove my own boots and outerwear, facing the girl from Satellite. "Where are you hurt?" I question, examining her left calf. I'm careful to keep my voice low so as not to wake our roommate. She flinches at the light touch of my ungloved hand. "What happened here?"

The glance she throws my way is embarrassed. "Th-they hooked me up to some kind of b-battery. They asked me questions about you and the mark on your arm. They said th-they couldn't find it on you anywhere."

It takes me a moment to answer her, drinking in her countenance and the proof that she was still breathing. "Yeah. They stripped me down and looked everywhere." My fists tighten, body going stiff. "Did they, do that to you? Did they put their hands on you?" I can't look at her. I can't look because I'm afraid of what I'll see in her eyes.

"Yusei, no. No. They didn't do anything like that, I was just thrown around and, and shocked, and I've bruised easy ever since I can remember. Don't put this on yourself." I'm impressed at her composure. Wincing, she grabs my shoulders, tugging me to lay at her side. She mirrors me, taking up the side furthest from the door. "I don't blame you, you know that. I could never blame you for this, so don't go blaming youself. I'm serious, they didn't do anything like that. I'm sorry, for what you went through." Small, ice cold digits wind around mine.

I pull the threadbare sheet over our bodies. The surface is just wide enough to fit two adults very snugly. We have to lay on our sides to be in somewhat less intimate contact. Our joined hands rest between us as we face one another.

"When I," she begins, but I can sense she's battling with herself. "When I was born, my Pa was already gone. I never knew him and my Ma never told me his name, but she told me he was her one love. I didn't believe her when she said he built the Daedalus Bridge, that he was the legendary D-Wheeler, I thought she was rationalizing him leaving us. Nii-san would never speak of him. She was taken away on suspicion of drug use, got uh, got her put in an asylum. She OD'd on something she snuck in, but we weren't allowed to see her when she was alive either. My older brother ended up as my caretaker. He was 18 when she got picked up, and I was just 3. S-so he worked whenever he could. Trash recycling, odd jobs, you name it. He loved to-" She forces herself to stop and breathe in a trembling gasp of air. I softly stroke her hand, thumbing over her knuckles and the back of her hand. My other hand lifts, holding her cheek to brush the droplets away from her high cheekbones.

"He loved to duel. But he never spent time doing it, not when he could be spending time with me. I want... I wanted him to live his dreams too, so I asked him to teach me. The facility he recycled at, they had a lot of overtime opportunities, so I was usually just minding the house in the day. I'd try to play with the other kids sometimes, I'd always, always lose. It hurt that I couldn't keep up with Ryuga, that he had to go easy on me. But before I was ever good enough he-he-he just..." It pains me to see her like this, distraught with emotion. I'll listen adn accept this emotion, I will be the one she can confide in. "The smoke f-from the factory is what did it. Lung cancer. And he just didn't stop, he said he had a duty as my older brother, to provide for m-me and keep me safe. I got the call three months after we found out, he'd collapsed at work, some friends took him to the hospital. And it was like he just-just vanished."

Tears are streaming down her face. I press her into my neck, holding her tight.

The shoulder you can cry on, the one who will be there for you... I will give you all the things you have given me.

She is, undoubtedly, special to me. I can't tear my eyes from her face once she calms down. "After he was gone, dueling just wasn't the same. He was my guiding light, my guardian... my big... brother..." She'd clearly been worn out not only by the guard's tactics but stress as well. Her sleeping face, though stained with the tracks of her tears, now looks relaxed, at peace.

I want to give her back that peace. The peace that I took away with what Yanagi calls the mark of the dragon.


EDIT 08.26.2022: So y'all I fixed some typos in ch 5 again yesterday, and I adjusted Pinoko's height. She is 144cm which is a bit less than average for a Japanese female. I was trying to find accurate stats about the Japanese average height and I guess I got mixed up somewhere lmao. It's important to note she is also 20 yrs old. Pinoko is 2 years older than Yusei. This has plot relevance later which you've probably sussed by now. Anyway I got bit by a dog on my pinky a few days ago so my typing speed has decreased. I hope y'all understand! Also, while working on this rewrite, I'm realizing I'm gonna need to rewrite every single chapter, so stay tuned for more!