#5ds fic

....

“Kaiba Corporation! Bringing about the next wave in advanced technologies! From the everyday essentials that every duellist needs to the state of the art equipment making strides in new ways every day!”

What appeared to be a boy in his late teens replaced the KaibaCorp logo.  He had dark hair, streaked with blond, a black tank top with a red design on it, and a blank expression, regardless of how he was looking around from side to side.

“Built for the express purpose of testing out the latest in holographic and solid vision technology, this model of android has within it the capacity to duel – and not only that, but soon, this won’t be the only model! More are on their way, and…”

The businessman turned the TV off, before they could show off more of the damn thing’s functions.

He wasn’t interested. He had a steady nine-to-five job that paid well enough to keep him steady, and his wife had worked part time too. They were normal people, with a normal son, and they didn’t need any of this ‘duelling’ business.

Just because the game had taken off and even major players in the industry played it, didn’t mean that everyone did. He appreciated that you had to know the rules and all – otherwise you’d be left behind – but that didn’t mean he wanted anything to do with it.

He didn’t like how so much money was being spent on these new, dangerous technologies, either.

Something was going to go wrong one of these days. He just knew it.

A quick search turned up a hairband. His hair was difficult like that – left short, it actually looked less professional than if he simply outgrew it and tied it back and away from his face.

Breakfast was a short affair of eggs on toast, careful not to get anything down his suit before he left.

Then it was time to pick up his suitcase, bring out his keys, and head for the car. Work wasn’t too far away, just a twenty minute drive, not much more in the morning traffic if he was lucky, but it was far quicker than taking public transport or walking.

He ran into a man during the lunch period, when he left to find the café where he usually stopped to eat. They looked rushed, harried, panicked even, as they’d almost knocked him off balance.

“Sorry,” he’d said, frowning. Even though what he’d wanted to say was to tell the man to watch where he was going.

All he got was a wide-eyed stare in response, and he realised that the stranger was wearing a white coat, and the hair was vaguely familiar.

That was all though, because the next moment the man was running again.

He was sure he’d caught a faintly guilty expression before he’d run, though. He was sure.

He stared for a moment more in the direction the man had gone in but decided not to pursue the matter. It wasn’t worth losing his lunch over.

He ordered his usual sandwich and sat down to eat. The odd occurrence didn’t leave his mind. Something was off. He could feel it. He wasn’t any kind of duellist or anything, but he did try to pay attention.

And what had been going on in recent history told him that weird things, whether he liked it or not, happened.

He raised his hand for the waitress to bring him another coffee, and instead the windows smashed inwards, the blast momentarily deafening him, ears ringing, body sore from where debris had hit him, arms stinging from where the glass had sliced at him before shattering onto the floor and counter.

His first thought was that it must have been a bomb – some sort of explosive. But then, something about that didn’t make sense, even though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Getting home took several hours. It was all he could think about – never mind work, never mind anything else, what about his wife, his son, what about them – but there were things in his way, like the emergency services coming and treating him, and after that, having to find his way home without his car, since his car had been damaged in the incident, and the way was blocked almost wherever he turned.

 He must look odd – if odd was the right word for it – walking down the damaged streets in his suit and still carrying his suitcase.

His phone wouldn’t work. Or at least, that was what seemed to be the case, since no matter how many times he tried to contact his wife, he couldn’t get through.

Perhaps that was what they called madness. Trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

But if there was a chance, even just a small chance-

He was willing to be as mad as it took.

The drive of his home had never been as welcoming as it was when he turned the corner and walked down the path, taking his keys out. For a moment, if he ignored the state he was in, he could pretend it was just another day. He was coming home.

The house was empty, though, with no wife and no son. He hoped that he’d be able to find them, even just a sign that they were all right, alive.

He’d heard there were fatalities.

He made to go up the stairs. Something fell out of place in the living room.

Slowly, warily, he came off from the bottom step. Moved himself into the room steadily, hoping that with no loud noises he wouldn’t startle what could either be a wild animal or a human, trying to take what they could in a disaster.

Nothing happened. In time, he got more confident. He’d been on edge. He still was. He’d overreacted. That was all.

Which was why his heart raced and his blood ran cold when he finally noticed the too-familiar boy sitting on the floor next to the sofa and against the wall. As if trying to hide, but not very well.

He had dark, blackish-blue hair that had blond streaks. Blue eyes that stared into him intently, rather than vaguely at the room in general. A black tank top could be seen through a white coat that could have belonged in a science lab. Overall, he looked like he could have been in his late teens.

It was the boy from the advert he’d seen that morning.

“I’m.”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar – as though he’d heard it somewhere before. But then, it also, even with just that much said, sounded stilted. As though it wasn’t finished yet.

The ‘boy’ shook his head.

“It hasn’t finished. It’s my fault, and because I was created, this was allowed to happen. It isn’t over yet. Sorry. I’m Sorry.”

His own thoughts from earlier that morning – had it really just been that morning? – came back to haunt him.

Something went wrong. They were toying with dangerous technologies. We all knew that.

The question was, what did he do now?

“I – I need to find my family,” he said at last. Conspiracies and dangers be damned.

“I’ll try to help.”

He found himself staring at the ‘boy’, not knowing if this was a good idea or not. Not even knowing what to call it, or even if it could be classified as male, or human. It was technically an android of some sort, wasn’t it?

He ended up nodding, though. Any help was still help.

“I will need your name.”

He blinked, and searched inside his coat pockets until he found a business card, and held it out, wondering what the boy… person… would be able to do.

“You can give me something to call you too.”

A hand snaked out from beneath the lab coat to pick the card from between his fingers, and he realised as it did so just how well made those hands must be. Then again, they’d been specifically made to handle small pieces of card just like that one.

“Fudo. Godwin. Those were the ones who created me.”

“Well, I can’t just call you that.”

“Then the planetary particle. As Dr. Fudo suggested.”

He shrugged. In the end, it was this ‘boy’s’ choice, whatever name it took. If that wasn’t somehow blasphemous, by allowing the android to play god. And the scientists by extension.

...

“Ah, Kiryu-san… are you… are you sure this is safe?”

It took the man a minute to respond, and in that time Ruka wondered if he’d even heard her, concentrating as he was on wires and cables.

Then, he turned around. Just a slight movement of his head, golden brown eyes – ones she still remembered from when they’d looked at her and the rest of her group with such hate and evil intent, but now were softer, hardened only in concentration and worry. It was a marked difference.

She bit her lip, and looked away.

“Not really, no. I’ve done this before, but it was a long time ago, and…” he trailed off. Stared into space for several seconds. Shook his head. “Things have changed since then. A lot of things have. But I’m going to give it a go, and that’s better than nothing.”

She nodded, hesitantly.

“Do you think Rua’s going to be okay?”

She more felt rather than saw him scowl, with his face turned away from her again.

“He damn well better be. If he’s not awake again soon… I can’t duel properly if I have to be carrying him.”

“Y-yeah…”

“Hey, don’t worry, though – I’ll get us out. All of us.”

Ruka smiled, and held Kuribon closer as it crooned in reassurance.  No one could have expected things to turn out like this on a friendly visit, but then… with their history, why not?

“I know,” she said. “I’m helping, too. Whatever I can do! I know I can’t do much, but…”

He clicked the cover of the panel shut, and stood upright, brushing off his hands on his coat. Then, he took the two paces needed to get back to the far end of the room, and Ruka followed him, not wanting to be caught in the blast.

The explosion was small and contained, but that didn’t mean that neither of them sighed in relief as the door’s mechanism unlocked and opened.

Kiryu bent down again and this time, it was to pick her brother up, putting him onto his back and making sure he wouldn’t slip or slide off.

He nodded to her, and started to the door. Ruka bit her lip again – the others were here too, so things were far from over.

But they’d made it this far. They could make it further still. She wasn’t that weak little girl any more – she could help, she could fight, she’d protect Rua, the others – she’d do things she never would have dreamed of, before.

...

In a world full of harsh lines, dirty floors, sharp words and laughter, a hard reality, she was… soft.

That was the first word that came to mind. Not that he would have said so to anyone, either then or afterwards. Although he might, perhaps, have said it to her, if he remembered, and if it came up.

There was nothing of vengeance about her the way there was with the others. No determined scheme. It chafed, but if he looked, actually looked at himself, he’d realise that it was because he was jealous, and wished he could have some of that same lack.

She cried, too. The sounds drew his attention, and he hated them. Hated them because they were soft, and soft meant weak. He was stronger than that. He’d learned not to cry, learned not to show he was affected by the words and violence of the world. Life messed you up, chewed with you and then spat you out a changed person, and he knew that.

She didn’t, though, that or this was just so much more than she was capable of coping with.

When he realised it was the latter, that she knew the world was cruel and just preferred not to focus on that as much as she could, when she looked at him and saw a person, he found himself sitting beside her the next time he heard those soft sobs coming from behind her door.

She looked up, and there it was again. Soft eyes, out of focus from tears, looking at him like she was some kind of beaten dog, or cat.

He huffed and just drew his knees up to his chest, and pointedly stared at the wall.

When she first hurt herself due to falling off of her bike, she winced and touched the areas gingerly, no matter that they were both already dead. Limped when her legs ached.

Soft, soft. She should be stronger than that!

And yet when she showed that it was just inexperience when she kept going, he saw it as her strength. She got back up, kept on going, kept pace with him.

When he helped her back up, she was soft. Soft like the puffed out feathers of the small birds that he’d seen from time to time, trying to pretend they were giants.

...

Walking through the hallways, his footsteps echoed back at him, almost as though there were other people in the building sometimes, but never quite. Not unless one of the others happened to be coming toward him, wandering nearby on their own business, and when they were he could always tell, by now, who was who by the sound of their feet.

Rudger walked fast, powerful and long strides as though he wanted to look like he was in control but didn’t want to linger anywhere too long. Much as he didn’t like their esteemed ‘leader’, he couldn’t blame him. He let on too easily how familiar to him the place was.

Misty treaded carefully. At one point he would have disdained her for it – they had an easier time in Old Momentum than most out in the better parts of Satellite as a whole – but after getting to know her better, he realised she wasn’t a bad sort. She just wasn’t used to it.

When he came, Demak’s steps were those of one who knew harder terrain. As a result, sometimes they were slow and steady and powerful, but other times you could hardly hear him at all.

They made an odd bunch. It took a good long while to learn to work together, with most of them preferring to work alone, and all having their own agenda.

The ‘team’ was just as much an echo as their footsteps were, and Kiryu tried not to dwell on it too often.

When he did, he was reminded harshly of the team – the real team – he’d left behind. Yuusei, Jack, Crow. Four people for four people.

If he’d had the heart to, he would have laughed at the irony. Sometimes, he almost felt like it, but always he realised that the danger in laughing was that it would open him up to other emotional responses, and he wasn’t ready to face that yet.

He’d left them behind, and all he had left were echoes.

Echoes of the team, echoes of their goals.

Maybe if he ever let himself laugh, he’d end up laughing at however the gods expected a bunch of broken misfits who’d turned their backs on the world to save it.

...

The idea started in a small room, partway through the construction of the new bridge. Crow had just come in, while Yuusei and Jack were already there.

Tired, and in more ways than one, he had collapsed into one of the familiar chairs of his childhood, content that he could show it rather than pretend he was alright as he would for anyone else.

Maybe if it’d been another time, or another place or even another subject, he might still have put on a cheerful façade until he felt comfortable with himself enough to share. Right then, so much had happened that he simply hadn’t the energy to.

“You staying here tonight, then?”

Crow nodded, and Jack, who’d asked, huffed.

“Any particular reason?” Yuusei looked up from his book – something about science that he’d taken from Godwin’s library in the mansion, probably – concerned. “Things didn’t go badly, did they?”

“Nah.” He shook his head, the sudden turn of the conversation confusing Jack.  “Didn’t think he’d actually open up about any of it, though. But he did.”

“Ah,” said Yuusei, smiling and going quiet again. “That’s good.”

“Would either of you explain what’s going on?!”

Crow laughed, aggravating Jack further, but although he could have taken it further, he gave in. After all, he’d had Jack, Yuusei, Martha and the others far longer than anything he’d found out more recently. They were family. They deserved to know.

“Suzume.” Jack stopped as he was about to go on a tirade or take Crow by the shirt, perplexed. “I figured if I knew about one, I should know about the other. So, I asked.” He laughed at himself. “Kinda didn’t expect to get anythin’ out of it at first, though.”

Jack sat down again, apparently moody. But a few minutes later when he spoke up again, he just sounded subdued, rather than upset.

“I… never really thought to ask. All of those tournaments and trophies – I never realised they didn’t somehow try and remember them. They just tried to forget.” The last word was said like a curse. “And I didn’t say anything.”

Yuusei, who hadn’t turned a page for a while now, put something between the pages to act as a bookmark of sorts, and closed the book, putting it down.

“Then maybe now’s the best time to. We’re starting anew. Besides – they were the people who could afford to forget. We never could. Let people believe what they want about what happened. But the least we can do is to remember the names.”

…

What had started with one name became a list. One page became ten, became twenty, became a database stored on the twins’ computer system.

Each name was attached to a story, even though all they could take was the name.

Crow’s mother was at the top, along with Yuusei’s parents, simply because they were remembered, not just because they were among the first to die.

They were originally after anyone who’d died during the event just over seventeen years ago now, although gradually there were additional lists created, for those who had died not immediately, but sometime later, directly because of it. Injury, illness, heartbreak.

When Rex Godwin found out what they had started, more names were added to the list. Some, they realised, should have been on it from the start. Others were entirely new to them.

Rudger. Hana. Watsuki. Kazuki. Yamato. Fujiwara. Patrick. Mitsuki. Richard. Michelle.

The list went on.

With more names, more people became aware of what was happening. More understood that this needed to not just be fixed with the bridge and the reconstruction work, but remembered. So that down history, no one could say it hadn’t been important.

Too many had died on that day for enough graves to be dug. For many, the cracked earth and rushing in of the sea had been all they would ever get.  For some, even their name was forgotten.

But when the walls of the bridge became the memorial itself, engraved with each name, when they were remembered, when Carly wrote articles and they all noticed people talking with each other, knowing that they had something in common through old losses…

“Hey, I’ve got stuff to do over the water, you guys! Be back in, uh… well, however long it takes me!”

Crow had several comments from the room – mostly bidding him good luck with whatever it was this time.

It wasn’t even the first time he’d been back to Satellite, although it got easier and less awkward with every trip. Travelling via private helicopter had never been something he’d ever planned – or dreamed – of doing, especially not just to pick up some occasional bits and pieces.

Yet there he was, getting ready to head out again, prepping the Blackbird for another hard landing onto the familiar tip sites of Satellite. Home sweet home. Rather, what used to be his home.

He gave the area a good once over to make sure there was no one watching for him to let his guard down, or who’d attempt to follow him and make ready for an ambush after seeing him arrive in style, but after nothing came up – he picked his landing sites carefully, thank you – he revved the bike and headed on out.

He spent the day flitting from place to place, sticking to the shadows and the safe spots he knew so well. Speed wasn’t necessary this time – it was precision, and knowing not only where he was going, but where he was, and where the best place to stop was so that he could be close to the mark and also not have his bike stolen.

Five spots down and he was thinking he was doing pretty well. Three more, and he was humming. Another two, and he realised that it was getting dark, and he had two choices – call for a copter to take him back to the mainland and risk being mobbed while it landed, or stay the night here.

It wasn’t a hard choice, really.

After the too-soft beds of both the hospital and then first the penthouse and afterwards the mansion itself when it was realised that the penthouse was actually drawing more attention than it was worth – regardless of what Jack thought – the familiarity of his hideout, still as yet untouched by the restoration project that was only just being born, was a relief and a balm.

Sleep, as it were, came easily.

Dreams, however, did not. Perhaps his subconscious had picked up on how despite the fact that he was home, his kids were not there, and the similarity to that night was a little too much.

He dreamed of flying, and falling. Of monsters, and of gods, and of little whispers at the back of his mind that in his waking hours were gone, long gone.

He woke up with tears on his cheeks, damning himself for dreaming such things, and with aches he’d almost forgotten had always accompanied such a stiff bed.

A throat cleared, and he spun to face the threat, flowing instantly into an easy fighting stance, but it turned out there was not really any need.

Redfaced, he realised that he was face to face with Rex Godwin, and relaxed his stance, even if he was angry at being caught out like that.

“The hell’re you doing here? Don’t you have people you get to pay to go make measurements and stuff like that now? Or are you just here so you can babysit me?”

Crow did his best to pay the man – his father, and that was a thought that’d take some getting used to – as little attention as possible as he picked up his things.

At first it was just the few things he’d come with. Then, he realised that this might be the last time he got the chance to take anything, and spent longer deciding what would stay and what would be going with him.

“You didn’t come home last night, and you didn’t call to say why.”

Home. It was weird, in a way that made his insides turn and made his feet want to run, but more oddly still made him feel safe. It was the safe feeling that scared him the most.

“I was picking up some odds and ends. Nothing you need to worry about- hey!” Godwin had started to open up the Blackbird’s ‘hidden’ compartments, revealing first one not-so-legal item after another. “Those are mine! Mine an’ the kids’! I don’t what kinda clout you’ve got, you don’t go taking my stuff!”

He realised that he probably wasn’t going to get very far just by brute force when his hand, which was going to yank Godwin’s own off of his things, came down onto the man’s metal arm. But he wasn’t going to let that deter him.

All he got for his troubles, however, was a mere raised eyebrow and… was that supposed to be a smile? If he hadn’t known Yuusei, he of the rare smiles and subtle expressions for so long, then he probably wouldn’t have noticed it, or recognised it for that matter.

“Perhaps you may have forgotten, but the way that those of Satellite live life is not entirely foreign to me.” He gave Crow a considering glance. “I do hope, however, that this does not mean you intend to continue such practices in the long term now that something is being done about the situation here.”

He let go when it was obvious there was no intent to actually take anything, and straightened everything back up the way it had been, both stolen decks and ruffled feathers.

“I found these, thanks. Fair and square.”

He didn’t see Godwin’s expression, but it had to be an interesting one.

“And if Security wasn’t clever enough and careful enough to protect them from you, then that was hardly your fault… am I right?”

“What? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. None at all.”

He looked back for an instant once he’d picked up a blanket – more for sentimental value than the idea that he or the kids would ever actually need it ever again – and paused, blinking, wondering when on-edge sniping back and forth had turned into banter.

“…Is that everything?”

He was getting too used to this if he could figure out the difference between ‘normal’ and ‘amused’ and ‘banter’ and ‘awkward’. Definitely too used to it. And that one just there definitely had ‘awkward’ in it.

Crow considered his options. He hadn’t just hoarded away cards in this trip and the last few, but more or less anything he could get his hands on that he’d regret leaving behind.