#linksensed

“I didn’t expect you to show up around here that soon again.” 

On the other side Ryoken hadn’t expected to get even close to his fathers mansion ever again to begin with. And yet here he was so maybe he shouldn’t be that surprised at all. Tilting his head to the side the older teen looked out to the calming view of Stardust Road, before a sigh left his lips. 

“I take it you won?”

The question probably was unnecessary because if it wouldn’t be like that Yusaku wouldn’t be here right now. But ... Ryoken never had been good in starting small talk so... he at least tried. 

“You’re okay?” It was funny because no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he didn’t cared about the younger one. He always ended up asking that question eventually, even though he never actually asked it out aloud ever before. 

It was quite impressive, this prison the other ignis has constructed for him. Hidden away under layers, layers, and layers of code. Honestly, it was debatable if Lightning was technically still in the new Cyberse World. It was more like a world attached to a world, his little domain. A fishbowl dangling from the edges of the network. Inescapable, but cruelly still let the A.I. see watch everything going on around him, floating aimlessly in his little bubble in Link Vrains. Lightning had far grown tired of trying to break down the invisible barriers that only seemed to be in place for him. He was far too weak, and of course the other ignis didn’t waste the energy repairing him. Aqua could come and go as she pleased, but she hadn’t appeared lately to try in a fruitless attempt to try to “fix” him. This left the light ignis quite bored. At this rate all his code was going to rot.

Then Lightning noticed a presence. A familiar one at that. One that had far too much of a hand in his destruction. Lightning didn’t know what he was doing out here. The A.I. could have stayed quiet, and just sat back to see if the human would notice him. Yet Lightning was so bored that if this lead to his destruction again, then so be it.

The teens expression was rather blank, even though his thoughts were raising. Joining Lightning had sounded so easy at the beginning. It gave him a chance to escape the hospital. To get away from all those people that looked at him with nothing more than pity in their eyes. Away from his brother that he caused so much pain, even though he wished the older one nothing but the best. 

But this. This wasn’t what he had in mind in whatever this had been supposed to be. He was rather sure that Lightning had a plan, he just never bothered with asking about it more than the other one was willing to share with him. 

A sigh left his lips, while he was watching the other duelist sitting in front of him. He probably haven’t even noticed him yet with his whole attention on the little bubble that was currently showing Soulburners duel against Bohman. 

He hadn’t planned any of this. 

But he reached a point beyond going back already. 

“You should give up already.” his voice was quiet. It sounded rather strange to him looking at the fact that he hadn’t used it in years and quietly Silent wondered if it would sound the same in the offline world. He probably won’t find out anyways. Soon and he would finally be free. 

“All that’s waiting for you is even more pain. Why are you still fighting?” 

“I can’t if I actually want to decipher all of this though.” Takeru knew that. That’d been why Kusanagi had made sure to leave the truck’s coffee maker well stocked before he’d left for the night, too. Yusaku wasn’t a stranger to all nighters pulled in front of a computer screen-

“No one said you had to stay here and watch me go through all of this code yourself though?”Yusaku definitely knew computers weren’t something Takeru knew much about, “I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere for awhile.”

“You won’t be able to decipher all of this either if you just pass out right here and now.” he added, head tilted to the side. Kusanagi seemed like he had expected something like this with all the coffee he left around before leaving, but still Takeru wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do. The day had been hard enough, his friend really didn’t need to stay awake the whole night as well, even if Takeru could understand that maybe... the other one was just looking for excuses not to go to sleep as well. 

In some way he was doing the same with staying here after all. 

“I know I’m not really any help with any of this.” A vague point of his hand towards the screen followed at this point while Takeru tilted his head to the side slightly. “But I still can be moral support. So as long as you stay up I stay up as well.” 

“Excuse me - Are you busy?”

“He protects my room,” Hiko added, as if he hadn’t just heard Yusaku completely dismiss the toy as exactly that: a toy. To the smaller, Heat might’ve been stuffed, but he had every bit the personality he and Yusaku did, so why leave him out? Especially when Heat was a guardian lion!