Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds: The Judgement of the World

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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Despair rose from the opening a stench no one had a name for. Being from Satellite, the guys knew what a corpse smelled like. But this wasn't the rotting contained stench of a corpse. It was enough to make Jack's eyes water as he grabbed Yusei by the back of his jacket and ripped the guy off his feet and tossed behind him. Allowing Jack to take the first step. The path was crafted via small bits of stone, not the elegantly picked stones that made for cobblestone paths, rather the tiny pain inducing rocks that came from the dirt of the earth.

It wouldn't bother their thick booted shoes, even Aki's platformed dress shoes would be fine descending on these steps. The twins on the other hand, with their upscale sneakers would likely feel every sharp corner that the stones had. While the walls looked to be held back by the Black Garden that Aki carried in her deck. They held back the dirt as Jack took his first fake confident steps downward. The steps were wide enough for his feet, but there was no light.

"Jack!" Yusei cried out in sheer annoyance as he tumbled backwards, and caught himself just from experience.

The sky was so bright, morning was established allowing this beautiful blue dome over here. Breathtaking really when they had spent so much time with that slot of black, that 'snake eye', staring down at them. Dream like really to see the beautiful blue from horizon to horizon once more, the sun rolling by, not even a cloud marred the sky!

For all that beauty of a sun and blue sky day, nothing could really enter that passage.

All because of Jack

Yugi tightened his arm around Queen as Jack came tearing out of the tunnel.

"Jack what..." Yusei's voice lead the echos of alarm from the other Dragons as Jack began trying to drag shut the entrance. The twins began clinging to each other then moved as one to Aki for reassurance. Jack wasn't white faced as though he saw something scary, he looked angry, focused and determined.

Yusei rushed through the entrance, just slipping past Jack's desperate grasp. He ignored the steps, the walls and focused on what was ahead. Illuminated by the headlights that served as PowerTools' eyes, which were piercing through the darkness. He saw the light bounce from the ground when he started closing in on the bottom. The smell didn't matter to him any more, that Jack was upset and trying to seal this again made it only more important for Yusei to see. Even as Jack began shouting for him to come back out.

That colorless light that PowerTool emitted revealed shadows reaching the darkness, cast by the roots of roses. Roots that were branching out into this complex web spiraling down into the shadows that danced just out of PowerTools range.

A doll greeted his view, covered in dirt and dust on her glass eyes. Just staring empty ahead in a victorian gown that made Yusei think of Witch. Not that it was her, the hair under the bonnet were these large round curls of blond hair though now dirty. Her gown might have been red or purple he couldn't really tell. But it was a grim hostess, one that made him wary to just stride on down. While not far from her he saw was a discarded hair scrunchy girls used. It was a dark color, maybe blue or green he couldn't tell. It was resting hanging trapped on the stem of a dried rose that had long lost most of its petals. With each step he took less of PowerTools' light reach him.

But the 'room was a disaster as everything was thrown against the wall. From toy dolls, to childrens' tea sets, a children's play kitchen pieces the closer he got the more it looked like a messy childrens' room. Further into the room he saw hair brushes, ties, shoes, purses, jackets, pants, skirts, the sizes getting bigger every so often. It had to be Queen bringing these things here and it had been hinted that the incident here happened when Aki was a child. So the children toys fit. Did Queen bring Aki's things from her life not understanding how death worked? Did she think that Aki would just return as though a spirit would from a casual game?

For a moment Yusei wondered if Aki was in a coma, if there was a medical bed in the area and Queen was bringing this to try and bring Aki out of where ever she put herself mentally. Maybe Aki died there and that was the cause of the stench but Queen didn't understand and kept...

Jack charged into him his hands grabbing Yusei's shoulders in a desperate bid to make his friend not see...

"Oh Aki..."

Yusei's voice was actually trembling as Jack forced his gaze away from the center of the room. One look had been far too much. But he felt Yusei try to walk forward, mesmerized or maybe, well with Yusei likely concern. Jack brought his gaze down to the little toy doll near the door, and his mind tried to claw its way back to Satellite. It would have been better than this.

For all Yusei saw 'was' Aki.

She was on her knees, her gaze fixed straight ahead. Her hair was brushed back, likely by Queen, but uncut. So it just grew down and down into a puddle around her body. It hid her form but the gaunt knees peeking out and the skeletal shoulders showed that Aki hadn't moved on her own in ages.

"Oh Aki..."

She was kneeling in her own filth, came into womanhood and just locked into this state of shock. Yusei wasn't even thinking when he took a step forward only for Jack's voice, the Proud King humbled, trying to hold power and stumbling.

"She was a kid, probably had her clothes cut off her body when she outgrew them... Given the clothes here. Queen probably tried to encourage her to move with the stuff she found..."

It wasn't personal.

Amazingly enough Yusei could divorce his own personal feelings for Aki and see her in the sense of her being a child who had suffered with loss and immense power. They were underground, but she was staring straight ahead so it was likely that this grave was built around and below her and she had once been above ground. But why?

No one was up there.

Maybe on another landmass? Maybe Korea or China, perhaps further out in America or England...

But she had been a child, a child so scarred that this happened?

Yusei pulled against Jack, he had to reach this lonely child.

'How are you alive?' was a question his mind couldn't grasp, he wasn't into medicine, machines were his skill set. But he understood the bare basics, people needed air, water, food, she was sealed away from all of that so how was she...?

"Why do you think there's a damn 'garden' up stairs Yusei!" Jack asked, still fighting to pull Yusei back.

"No... Humans can't..." Yusei retorted as his logic ran up against Jack's explanation in mounting disbelief. "Humans can't... they can't..."

"Humans can't summon spirits that lift the living up into the air and slam them down into concrete. But she can, she has... Yusei lets go back upstairs!" Jack argued as his step snapped a hair clip into fractured pieces.

Around them the branches and roots of the roses that hadn't move, started to stir in reaction to their Aki. If Aki had a reaction, she wasn't showing it even through her spirits or Black Garden. On the ground there was this bit of cut off sleeve and Jack was forced back into his thoughts. 'If this happened to Carly how would I feel', and the misery it brought to the forefront...

"She was a child, Jack. A child..."

A child with fully active powers by the fact that Queen was active and aware...

"She still is Yusei." Jack barely could force the words out. "Yusei stop it!" Alarmed he had turned to check on Yusei and saw the guy reaching out to touch Aki.

The brown leather glove pulled back on the few branches around Aki when Yusei realized that the branches were growing 'out' her! The most irrational, impossible possibility came to his mind and he fought the bile rising in his throat as he pulled on them. No blood came forward, but it caused a chain reaction.

It didn't matter to Yusei though, for him all he saw was the mess of hair that Queen tried to brush. Cut off strips of cloth from clothes that Aki may have been wearing at the time and grown out of. His very soul ached for the girl, her mind so far shut down and her body trapped in place by roots. While around him dirt shifted and began to rain on them while the roots around them began to slowly pull out.

'Is it Yusei? Can she tell its him and trying to react?' Jack was found pondering as he forcibly made Yusei turn around. Aki 'was' a kid, with likely all the emotional reactions to pain as her teen self had. But their Aki had self restraint that she hadn't bothered using, this Aki didn't even have 'that', she was just as likely to kill all of them as cry for help! The lifetimes' worth of desperate gifts intended to lull Aki out of her shell began shaking on the ground. A stuffed dog flopped over with an ear covering its eyes.

"We need to get out of here," Jack repeated biting off Yusei's name out of apprehension. If Aki heard Yusei's name it might cause her to react more strongly. After all she only knew Yusei's kid voice, and while Yusei didn't drop to a bass when he hit puberty, it was still his voice. The idea of a Yusei would a completely different voice couldn't even register to him.

A different personality? Maybe.

Voice? Nah, Yusei was always going to sound dead serious and focused.

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"Hey Ruka, is the ground shaking to you?" Rua asked as he looked down at the roses surrounding his feet. When he wiggled his toes in his sneakers the roses moved just enough that he could get a quick view of maybe a sliver of the ash gray top of one shoe. But that was it.

And decidedly better than how the roses were trembling before his eyes!

"Yeah," Ruka admitted as she wedged herself closer to Rua and Aki as she looked around. Aki's hand was close enough that she grabbed a free hand for herself while she looked towards where Yusei had gone.

"Is it safe... Rose? to stay here? Or if she should we move how far out?" Aki asked as she stretched her senses out to find 'this' Aki.

Silence was the answer, stretching for minutes that Aki's nerves began to grow taunt with anxiety. "Rose answer me, I know you're here I feel it." She called out louder now and drawing attention from the twins with how worried she sounded.

"COMING!" the voice shrieked into the living world, shattering the silence consuming the trio. Echoed only by the weighted sound of something being dragged along and Black Rose repeating herself.

"Coming!" Drag "Coming!" Drag...

Ancient Fairy Dragon materialized and with a flick of her fins she guided them to Rose as she flew off only to dive into the ground. Moments later she was rising again, her butterfly wings straining as she began pulling Stardust from the ground, the silvery white dragon appeared almost worm like in how limp he was.

"Rosie... Rosie's catatonic. She can't hear me! Rosie!"

Aki's frown was her only outward sign of mounting concern given that she had the twins with her. Going after Yusei was clearly going to be the worst idea so she turned her attention to the safetest and closest location she could find. Bringing the twins behind her as she headed straight for Crow and Yugi. "Am I, the me of this reality, here?" She demanded yet her firm tone affected nothing among the roses around her. While those further away continued to tremble, so many silky soft petals were rustling that they could have been a forest of trees in a stormy wind.

Crow looked at her before back at Yugi, uncertain and concerned at the quiet look on Yugi's face.

"You're the only person in this reality's earth so yes. You're literally right here in fact. Because no one is here to put you in the hospital. Or run one." Yugi explained while looking at all the possible realities and how the space grew.

Crow frowned as he recalled what Yugi said. "Whoever did this burned down Momentum and Yusei... Hey I know its always possible that the fire was an accident. But its weird that a screen 'just appeared' out of thin air in front of Aki." His voice was getting smothered under the rose petals leaving him muffled.

"Like how those robots?" Rua suggested his his gaze was captured by a lone rose petal floating up into the air that had a worm wait what?

"I need to go and check on the guys, everything is shaking like an earthquake is happening except here. And I suspect I know why, so stay with Crow for a bit," Aki announced passing the twins on to Crow before turning her steps away back to the looming passage of the dead. The earth wouldn't tremble under the feet of God, so it was safe leaving the three of them with Yugi. But Yusei and Jack were underground and somewhere here was Black Rose.

Blissfully obedient the twins didn't call out to her or make a fuss so she could worry over the guys and Stardust. Yusei's Dragon grieving so hard worried her greatly on how she would find Yusei. The nature of Stardust was self sacrifice in his Sanctuary move. A seven year old boy, willing to run into a fire? Yusei had a very giving nature, but it didn't sit right that he would just rush in.

At the same time, they had merely asked what happened, they didn't ask for details regarding the events that created this. So if someone took advantage of Yusei's giving nature and lured him into the building? Because Rua was right, a floating tv screen just appearing out of nowhere to show an already scared child someone dying?

Someone had to either be a Duel Spirit like Yubel or Trueman, or someone with time travel abilities.

It was a thought that ran in the back of her mind as she approached the stairs, after her whole life wishing she was just normal. Accepting the idea that someone could just time travel felt like letting go 'of' normality. No one would be friends or care about her because of her weird ability in the 'normal' world. The world of the Psychic's duelists would be in awe of her and leave her isolated because of how strong she was.

Now she was friends with gang members...

'Where did my life go wrong?' she mused as Jack's blond hair peeked out of the depths of darkness.

"Jack! Is everything ok?" She called out and watched as the blond looked up at her and seemed to relax.

"Now that you're here! I take it you're why this blasted cave stopped shaking?!" Jack bellowed heated in some form of bluster. He had seen something clearly, Yusei looked haunted at his side, and Aki was left sending her senses out. It 'was' Black Garden all around them, calm now at her presence yes but she could sense it. Something, likely the her of this reality, was trying to reach out, the power was generating behind the guys, anxious and alone.

Alone...

Aki settled her gaze onto Yusei and she could see the dirt clinging to trails left by tears, and that 'he' cried.

"Keep your eyes forward Fudo! Aki's in front of you and keep her in your sights, don't look back!" Jack ordered heart broken, mourning for a child pushed aside for the need to survive. To stay down there longer would be a death sentence for the pair of them! So he continued pushing Yusei along feeling the stones that had started to writhed under his feet settle down now that Aki was here. More experienced in the use of her powers, she was likely forcing this Aki back just by her presence. But if this Aki was strong enough to wipe out a world as a child...

Who knew the world held two global disasters at once?