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

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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Clacking feet on broken asphalt punctured holes into the silence as the Dragons sat on that thought.

'Program off.'

Ahead of them was this incredible field of roses, mostly red, but there was the occasional pink, white and if it wasn't a trick of the light, a few yellow. The work of this realities Aki, as wild roses were pink not red, which was the thing that was stopping Aki herself. All around them were these beautiful red roses, waving in the breeze and it was 'her' waving...

"You can't be serious..."

Everyone turned towards her, if not fully at least in part as she tried to process the field of roses. "This is her. She's what... connected to the flowers directly? I'm alive in this reality aren't I?" She asked moving to stand in front of Yugi. 'Just pretend he's what he was, a celebrity, and forget that he's God for a bit.' she told herself as she looked down at him.

He was sitting on something but certainly not a throne with his black leather outfit that he had been known for. Even any strong aura of power was absent, making him appear as perfectly normal as anyone else that could be walking on the street.

In a town with actual living people.

He was smiling up at her with this tired thoughtful expression, and that smile was encouraging her to go on with her line of though. "These roses are her expression, her way of saying she's still here aren't they?"

"I'm not answering that question," Yugi answered raising his hands to ward off the inevitable volley of questions he expected to be lobbed at him. "I am God, I am the Creator and my Word is the Final law. If I say yes or no either way it will be absolute. If we dueled right now and on my opening turn I brought out all three Egyptian God Cards. What is your move?"

It was so obvious that his smile just made Aki, and by extension everyone else, want to smack themselves.

"Circumvent, stave off the incoming attack with whatever I have in my hand." She answered and upon his approving nod they processed what he was saying.

"Big sis might be right, or wrong, but so long as we don't ask you we have a chance to make it so that she can be saved?" Rua asked nervously and brightened up as Yugi gave him an approving nod sending the boy clear over the moon!

"But how? We have nothing here, and we're a little busy with a guy sending robots with anti-matter canons into our reality!" Jack retorted, his outraged tone quickly choking down into a meek tone as Yugi glanced over at him.

"More like that and how? If she's connected directly to these roses wouldn't cutting her loose kill her?" Ruka asked quietly as she looked down at the roses. "She'd probably be shocked if we took her somewhere else... I mean there's a lot we need to think about."

"Well we could ask Queen right? She would know what sis is up to here," Crow pointed out as he leaned over to see past Yugi towards the spirit.

Which Queen just looked so lost that Crow felt a bit bad for the spirit and walked over to her. Dropping down to his knee so he was in front of her he put a hand on her knee. "You ok Queenie?"

She blinked at Crow, her eyes starting to glisten with so many emotions. "I don't want to lose my Aki... I know I let her down because I didn't save Yusei. I don't want her to die with this reality either..." Queen gave a choked sob as she dropped her face into her hands and began sobbing this deep gut wrenching sob.

Everyone grew quiet again letting the spirit sob while Witch of the Black Rose began to fade back into sight. There was this awkward struggle she faced trying to figure out who to talk to as Yusei looked deeply troubled by what he saw. Fair and valid. Jack was a moron. Also fair and Valid. The twins were kids and shouldn't have to worry about adult things anyway. More fair and valid... "Hey Aki..." She drifted herself over to her partner. "I mean if we're not ripping 'all' the roots out and we just leave a good healthy chunk with her..."

"Plant her? In the duel Spirit world, because I can't think of a place we could hide her on Earth," Ruka suggested cautiously.

"Plant her like she's not a human anymore?!" Rua blurted out at the same time his hands shooting out to cartoonishly gesture at the roses around them. He turned to look at Yusei, hoping for a reassuring expression, but Yusei looked...

Like he needed a hug.

So Rua shuffled his way over and latched on to Yusei, despite the dust from the dirt and ashes. Yusei brought his distant gaze back to their present and focused on Rua looking at this incredibly trusting, honest childs' face, covered in soot, dirt and tears and still so trusting.

"It wasn't your fault you know that Big brother. You were like my sister and me, a kid and what do you and big bro Crow always say?" Rua began with this firm determination that sounded so strange coming out of the more playful spirited twin.

Even so Yusei could see where the boy was going with that phrase, "a kids' duty is to be a kid." He recited with Rua before he patted the boy on the shoulder. He took a breath, breathing in that sweet scent of roses as he looked around. "Two Aki's in the same reality though..."

"If this is a reality with an Aki without an Yusei, maybe there's a reality where there's a Yusei without an Aki..." Ruka suggested encouragingly as Yusei seemed to be coming around a bit.

Witch floated up against Aki's upper body, wrapping her arms around Aki's neck as she stared hard at Angel Queen of Roses. "This Aki is miiiiiinnnnnnneeeeeee..."

Crow heard the hiss and shook his head in amusement, "man I don't know what you did to give her this possessive streak sis. But make sure you don't raise your kids to be like that. Not everybody's love language is 'body slammed into concrete'."

"You're never going to let me live that down are you?" Aki asked in annoyance at Crow's amused expression. Yet somehow his twittering comment distracted her enough from the depth of emotions she had regarding her counterpart and the whole fate of the reality they were in.

"I'll let you," Crow countered with a smirk before pointing at Yusei. "But I'm going to remind him for the rest of my life. I'll relive the tales to your kids through his side of it. 'So your dad. He likes physical pain.' I'll say!" Crow continued while Yugi's head sank into his hands.

"Is something wrong Lord Yugi?" Ruka asked innocently.

Which caused Yugis' head to lower a bit before he slowly began, "so when Seto created Virtual Reality with...!" Suddenly he lifted his head as his mind saw where their thoughts went. "yes! That's exactly what happened! Thank you! Thank you for saving me from having to try and explain!"

He sounded almost giddy with relief as everyone realized that he was hearing their thoughts. Causing the awkwardly embarrassed teens to hurried try to stop thinking about all 'their' thoughts on the same matter.

"You won't get angry if we try to find a home for this Aki?" Yusei finally asked, turning his attention back onto Yugi. There was a comfort in seeing that cascade of deep red shake in a 'no'.

"Of course not," Yugi turned to look over his shoulder at Yusei. "I rarely get angry, sad, yes, depressed, yes, annoyed, yes, a lot of emotions but I don't get angry often."

"Eh yeah I'd be terrified if we had a God who was always in 'smite' mode," Rua agreed though he had gone from being latched to Yusei in a hug to staying close as emotional support by the teens' side.

"I... need to get Rosie..." Stardust suddenly spoke up, materializing as this limp silver depressed dragon. While not a robust dragon like Archfiend the eternally slender form just made his sadness make the dragon appear even 'more' thin. Instead of a slender shooting star in the sky, he was more a limp silver noodle that had been shoved into a funnel.

"Isn't this a little extreme?" Crow asked finally as he sighed helplessly looked at Queen as though expecting an answer from her.

"Because Black Rose is the reason why Aki is able to survive like this." Queen explained causing Crow to shake his head.

"No, we, the guys and I, know what its like to deal with kids who experienced trauma and we're not qualified for long time care. This Aki is mentally a child trapped in a young woman's body. She doesn't need a reality with a Yusei to make her better. She needs time with a head doctor, someone who can find 'her', bring her back out and into the world. Which given her powers is dangerous alone for anyone to approach. We can't just uproot her like a flower and think its going to be fine," he pointed out as concerns grew in his thoughts. She had been a kid, she was now with hormones AND powers!

"No, nonono!" Queen got up, clawing at his hands in mounting desperation gripping them her expression desperate. "Don't abandon Aki! Please she's a good girl! She is! I swear!"

Crow froze up for a second in disbelief before he quickly settled down in front of Queen trying to calm her down. "No, I'm not saying we're going to abandon her! But we would be doing more harm than good if we just tossed her about like this! She can't make these decisions for herself, we have to and well..." Crow's face twisted into an apologetic attempt at a soothing smile. "We don't know her."

"So we do that when we get home but how do we get her out? Like grab a shovel?" Rua asked as he turned to look back at the entrance to were this realities' Aki was 'living'.

"PowerTool has, well, his hands," Ruka pointed out thoughtfully as she tried to figure out which of the duel spirits would be most helpful. While their Black Rose Dragon could do the same thing albeit with more aggressive violence given her... state. PowerTool would be in his element as a construction themed dragon.

Yugi sat in silence, and observed the group in all their versions that had made it this far. This one was one of those showing resolve to rescue Aki from her living grave. Their grasp of the situation wasn't terrible. But they didn't seem aware yet that their Aki was forcing the area to stay calm. She wasn't even aware of it herself, just exuding her own power over the roses to keep them from acting 'unrose like'.

But Yugi was aware, little Aki was screaming for Yusei in her own mind. She had sensed his presence and sadly not able to process that this wasn't her Yusei. She saw herself the same as a child, a little auburn haired girl in a cute little flower themed pink dress. Despite the Yusei here being a teenager she wasn't grasping that she wasn't a child or that he wasn't hers. He had been here by her side too, waiting every day for her to give up on Yusei coming back to her ok. Waiting for the day she gave up and died so he could ease her from her pain and let her have a new, hopefully better, life.

There 'were' options, but so very few had her recover fully. He had seen her die from this many times, seen her be abandoned by variations of Dragons, so much that just broke His heart over and over again. These children were working within their limited understanding of reality and made a difficult decision to try and save her. He could applaud their determination, but He could see the consequences if they didn't do this right.

"Ok," Jack finally barked out in irritation. "We just need to cut enough of the roots to bring her with us. SO," he turned to finally face Yugi, his posture so stiff he could have been a child trying to emulate Set. And for all that 'king' nonsense his fear was almost palpable. "How much do we need to cut her and Black Rose safely out?"

Yugi blinked and leaned back before he began clapping, the response startling everyone. The twins straight up backed up closer to each other and towards Yusei and Aki. Crow pulled Queen behind him in alarm taking courage and strength in her safely behind him. While causing Jack to have this naked look of fear on his face. His mind was screaming that he messed up and he began trying to think of how to back track his words without losing face.

"That's the key," Yugi explained proudly. "You didn't bother to remember about Black Rose in the other reality, you just ripped little Aki out and tore Black Roses' head clean off. The damage broke Aki and she lost her mind fully and the remains of this Reality's Stardust Dragon lashed out too. They died in failure."

Aki froze at Yugi's fairly casual, laughed out, remark about Black Rose's head. Sure, the Black Rose was a loud shrieking insane dragon that enjoyed beating everything in sight way too much. She was still a part of Aki, part of the her from ages ago that snapped when Yusei had been killed. Black Rose had, in a sense, been a human once upon a time. All Aki could see in her mind was Black Rose getting her viper wedged head just ripped off and falling dead. She tried to fathom this, but the world was too noisy, a crowd in the distance that just kept endlessly roaring. Or maybe that 'was' Black Rose?

It was Rua who took charge at that point, glancing up at Aki and seeing her blank expression and her face growing an alarming shade of white. He reached up and grabbed Yusei's hand breaking the teen out of whatever mental state he was in to focus on Rua who's own urgent 'look that way' head tilt and expression lead him to Aki. He patted Rua on the shoulder in gratitude as he pushed his feelings down and moved towards her. "Aki? Talk to me..."

When she didn't answer he grabbed her forearms and gave her both a squeeze and a shake worry filling him as goose bumps surged up his spine.

"Oh that feels weird..." Archfiend noted unseen as he stretched his wings out, but his surprise didn't mask his own concern. The Crimson Dragons' Marks were starting to burn but it couldn't be from the underground Aki. It could only call out to 'its' parts... Right?

"Yusei?" Aki snapped out of her inner thoughts to see his concerned expression fixed on her. Forgetting the world she wrapped her arms around him and dropped her head onto his shoulder as this barely suppressed sob escaped her lips. "I... I can't... Black Rose... She's suffered so much already... They tore..."

"Shhh don't think about it. We failed them in that reality, we 'won't' fail them here."

As he crooned at Aki to calm her down, Ruka stepped up in concern as she turned to Yugi. "So... where 'is' Black Rose Dragon? If they tore off her uh head... where is she?" Ruka asked while gesturing with her hands various general shapes. Yugi recognized Ruka was trying to figure out where Black Rose laid.

Yugi answered by standing up towering over her before walking to her. Kneeling to the ground before Ruka he took her right hand into his right hand, then brushed his fingers against the roses they stood among.

"aKI!"

"Black Rose is the soil that these roses grew from as they partook of her flesh so they became her." Yugi explained causing Crow to yelp in alarm as he, then the others hurriedly pushed the roses out from under their shoes.

Which explained how the other 'them' had killed Black Rose, if they never bothered to ask Yugi and just went straight to digging...

Aki's resolve shattered and she began to openly, though quietly, cry into Yusei's shoulder.

"So what do we do with that lunatic? I mean, this is worse off than the kid in the cave! Black Rose is literally a garden," Jack demanded as he leaned forward in a way that said he was about to stalk march his way to Yugi. Only to remember in the last moment that the roses 'were' a dragon.

"She's loyal to Aki!" Queen argued when Black Feather Dragon clacked his beak from above them.

"I'll admit I don't know you, but that's a little insensitive. Sure Aki's kinda not here in any manner but Black Rose is. Just ask her yourself." Black Feather pointed out with his flowing mane waving as he shook it out.

"Black Rose?" Aki echoed the name, not really 'calling' for anyone but the desire to check on this realities' Black Rose tinged her voice.

Stomachs dropped as the roses below Aki turned black instantly, the sea of red dove into darkness in a single wave into black. Petals were consumed making the ground and area just that much darker despite the time of day.

Rua rushed to his sisters' side, grabbing her hand as the stems began to slither towards the sun where it began swelling into the sky, just hundreds of thousands maybe millions of stems and dead black petals churning into a shape.