- we will become one -

His consciousness is fading, no, blending. The edges of his self are bleeding over, mixing and mingling, running together like too much water mixed into the paint and defiling the canvas of their souls. The red of anger, the grey of despair; their emotions surge violently beneath the dark aura that wraps itself around them like a shroud. Thick and vivid enough to choke on. Painful. Disjointed.

The darkness crawls up all around them, closing off their hearts, their senses, one by one until nothing of them remain. Just before the end of everything, is one last thought. One last burst of emotion, synchronized across four boys who had crossed beyond anyone's reach. Beyond time. Beyond space.

horror,

grief

loss

and above all, regret

I wish…

I wish I had another chance

They think as one before everything is dyed in white.

Yuuya awakens to more pain; it pulses through his chest like a monster clawing at his insides and sending fiery lances through his spine. He doubles over, hands scrambling against his ribs as if his agony could be abated by such futile actions. Tears spring to his eyes, unbidden, as he gasps for breath, his lungs burning from the chill of the evening air.

Slowly, his senses return as if sloughing through molasses. The formless blurs before his eyes coalesces into an unnervingly familiar sight.

He nearly cries out, limbs trembling as he lifts his head up to take in his surroundings. The little parkette in the vibrant city where he was born (was placed?), dyed in shades of twilight. He remembers the gentle swaying of leaves, the children's playground in the corner and the long hours he and Yuzu had spent there. And there is a lamppost, bent and discarded on the concrete.

It is as if not a second had passed since that fateful day where the cogs of his cruel destiny started to turn.

Destroy, everything!

Burn it all to ashes!

A deep chill penetrates his bones as he gazes upon the other two, eyes aglow with a sinister flame, their expressions twisted with malice until their faces are almost unrecognizable.

Gentle, sad Yuuto, scarred by the horrors of war and tired of hurting.

Brave, lonely Yuugo, who crossed dimensions and fought alone for so long.

(And Yuuri, skulking in the shadows. Twisted, corrupted, but possibly just as sad, just as lonely beneath the madness that engulfed them all.)

For a moment, he thinks he's seeing a nightmare. How many times has his tortured mind replayed this exact moment over again? He recalls every detail with vivid clarity; he remembers Yuuto's fluttering pulse, the gentleness of his smile and the unmistakable tremor in his hand as he holds up his prized dragon with all his remaining strength. To pass onto Yuuya his legacy.

If it's you, you'll be able to do it.

Yuuto has left him with those words. That unbending faith in a power that Yuuya himself didn't believe he possessed. He'd clung to them, repeated the mantra in his head until he recited it in his dreams.

Duel to bring smiles. Bring joy. Put an end to this horrible, senseless war. It seemed like an unimaginable, unreachable goal. But he had to do it.

There was never any other option. Yuuto had died.

He remembers pressing on, refusing to accept any other possibility. He had to believe in his efforts. To believe in his ideals or everything would crumble to ashes around him. In the face of everything, he had persevered, even when friend after friend around him fell. The names of the dead continued to pile up as the accumulation of his sins.

Hokuto. Michio. Hikage. Tsukikage. Dennis. Crow.

His own father.

But somehow, against all odds, in spite of every fear, every doubt, he had persevered. He climbed every obstacle. Beaten every enemy. He had saved the world… or so he thought. Instead, in the cruelest possible irony, he had become the very disaster he sought to stop. The scourge that will envelop the world in chaos and destruction. It makes him want to laugh. To throw his arms out and laugh like he had never laughed before. What was the point? For what reason had he fought? Everything he did, everything he suffered… all so he could lose everything he tried to protect.

Is this some kind of sick joke? The urge to yell bubbles up inside him even though he knows no one can hear him. This was just another nightmare. A ploy, he thinks viciously, from the mastermind behind everything to keep them weak. Subdued.

After all, he had seen this damned dream so many times before and it always ended the same.

" Attack Clear Wing Synchro Dragon!" Yuuto snarls, his face twisted with such foreign rage and hatred that it physically pains him to behold. Without the luxury of thought, his legs are already moving, running, the soles of his sneakers pounding against the concrete just as his heart pounds in his chest.

The first time, he had been so naive, so stupid. He thought if he yelled enough, if he could just get through to people, he could change things. He had known nothing about the war, about the circumstances of the people he tried to reach. By the time he finally understood, it was too late. Far, far too late.

But what choice did he have? What other tools did he have at his disposal?

He was just a kid. They were all just stupid kids.

Just like before, he throws himself between them with arms spread wide.

"STOP IT!" he screams. A denial. A rejection of the twisted world that Zarc had created. "Just stop! This isn't right! None of it is! A dimensional war? Kids killing kids? It doesn't make any damn sense! Why did so many people have to suffer?! What was the point? It isn't fair. ..!" His voice breaks on the last word, frustration and loss and despair mounting until he can hardly breathe.

"It's not fair," he repeats, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his ears to shut out the world. He expects to either feel the heat of Dark Rebellion's flames or Yuuto pushing him out of the blast's range. In all versions of his recurring nightmares, one of them always burn.

But this time, there is silence.

Yuuya slowly opens his eyes. Both Yuuto and Yuugo stare back, frozen in place.

"Yuu… ya?" It is Yuuto who speaks up haltingly, a hand reaching up as if to clutch at his head as the glow in his eyes flicker. Across from him, Yuugo is groaning quietly, bent over his bike and trembling. But behind his coloured visor, Yuuya can see that terrible light in his eyes is also fading, giving away to clear blue irises.

He watches with confusion as Yuuto reaches up for his duel disk and deactivates it. Duel interrupted, Clear Wing and Dark Rebellion give one last furious roar before disappearing in a shower of sparks.

His dreams never went like this.

Yuuya's heart beats faster as he gazes at the two, feeling like time had slowed to a stop. For a long, tense moment, they stare at each other in awkward silence with three pairs of near identical eyes.

Yuugo is the first to speak up, breaking their strange stalemate. A fierce scowl settles over his features, displacing the momentary disorientation.

"You!" he snarls, jabbing an accusing finger at them. "Where is she? What have you done with her? Where. Is. Rin?!" But beneath the anger that had convinced everyone he was an enemy, Yuuya can see it now. The fear, the loneliness.

Rin. He was searching for her just as desperately as he had searched for Yuzu. But even in his darkest moments, Yuuya had his friends with him. Gongenzaka, a steadfast presence at his back. Even Sawatari. Who did Yuugo have?

Yuugo's hand is inching towards his duel disk again, hackles raised like a cornered animal. He's clearly outnumbered but the stubborn set of his jaw tells Yuuya that he's not going to back down. Without Yuuya realizing, Yuuto had come out to stand beside him, also reacting to Yuugo's unspoken threat. But there is a strange hesitancy in both of them now; both clearly shaken by what had happened. Later, Yuuto had admitted to Yuuya that he hadn't been able to remember much of the duel with Yuugo. Only that a foreign rage had taken his senses hostage and blocked out all rational thought.

"What are you talking about?" Yuuto growls back, expression tightening. "I'm the one who has questions for you ! Where is Ruri?"

Yuuya doesn't know what has changed or why this dream had gone wildly off-script. Yuuto is still here, still alive, and Yuugo is glaring at them with lucid eyes. Everything feels so vivid. It's hard to believe that this is just another dream.

He takes a step forward, his heart racing with an odd sense of trepidation. Even if it's not real, even if it's just another grand illusion, what's the harm in playing along? "Yuugo, we're not your enemies! We didn't take Rin! Akaba Leo is the one behind this! He's the one who destroyed Yuuto's homeland. You were there, weren't you? In Heartland-"

Yuugo cuts in, looking absolutely infuriated. He slams a fist down against the dashboard, looking furious enough to kill. "I said, it's not Yuugo [, it's- Huh?" The mask of fury evaporates and a look of blank confusion settles over his face and the three of them are back to staring at each other in silence.

Then, Yuugo's face flames a bright, embarrassed red and he seems to struggle for words. "It… is Yuugo. I mean, I'm Yuugo. My name. That's my name." He looks so completely flummoxed that Yuuya suddenly finds himself bursting into peals of laughter in spite of himself. He laughs until his chest hurts and his lungs burn, all the while as Yuuto looks on in concern and Yuugo's face grows redder.

"Yuuya?" Yuuto speaks up carefully. "Are… are you alright?"

If anything, that only fuels his hysteria and makes him laugh harder. Everything suddenly seems hilarious. The funniest, strangest, most terriblehing that has ever happened to him. "I… I can't believe it!" Yuuya wheezes between gasps of air. "All this time, all of this is because Yuuto got his name wrong!"

Now it's Yuuto's turn to colour. His cheeks turn a pale, dusty pink as he opens his mouth as if to protest, but the only thing that comes out are sputtering denials. "Yuuya, it wasn't- I wasn't-" Of course he would be embarrassed to have jumped to such devastating conclusions, Yuuya can't help but think. If Yuugo had been a little less worked up, if Yuuto had been a little better at explaining himself, maybe all of this could have been avoided.

Maybe. Or maybe none of them ever had a choice.

Yuuya just can't stop laughing. Or maybe he's crying; it's difficult to tell. But either way, Yuugo looks increasingly unhappy. He balls his gloved hands into fists and flings himself off his bike. "Stop it! Stop laughing at me!" he cries as he stomps towards him. Yuuya can see little, frustrated tears beading in the corners of his wide, expressive eyes and a tiny thread of guilt rises up. He gasps for breath, trying to force the hysterical laughter back down with limited success.

Unfortunately, it isn't enough to appease his counterpart because Yuugo seizes him by the collar of his shirt with both hands. "You bastard !" he snarls and Yuuto immediately comes to his rescue, grabbing onto Yuugo's wrists to dislodge his grip.

"Let him go," Yuuto demands. "Yuuya's got nothing to do with this-"

"Why don't you let go, you… you caped-weirdo! What does this have to do with you? If you hadn't attacked me with your big dumb dragon, this wouldn't-"

"-You're the one who attacked us! And what else were we supposed to think, showing up in the middle of a war zone ?"

"Well, you should have said something if you weren't the one who took-"

"-You weren't even listening, you thick-headed-"

"No! You weren't listening, you pineapple-brained, jerk-faced son of a-"

" Guys," Yuuya cuts in desperately, finally composed again, now that Yuugo is slowly cutting off his air supply. "Look, I'm sorry I lost it, okay? I wasn't to make fun of you, I swear!" But his words seem to fall on deaf ears as Yuugo and Yuuto continue to bicker like petulant three-year-olds. Yuuya had always thought of Yuuto as the calm one, but Yuugo seems to have a talent for riling people up. He heaves a deep sigh, but for some reason, his lips can't help but twitch up as the scene is strangely nostalgic.

"Hey," he tries again, exasperated as he reaches out to grab onto both of their arms. "Why don't we all just take a deep breath and-"

"Yuuya!" Yuuya stills, eyes widening in shock when another voice suddenly echoes through the empty park. A sweet, high soprano, brimming with worry. The voice of the one he had tried to desperately to save. His best friend.

"Yuzu-!" he gasps, turning with a desperate look in his eyes as he strains to catch a glimpse of her. For a moment, he completely forgets that none of this can possibly be real. That he's most likely just having some kind of lucid dream. A hallucination. But even if it is a dream, even if it's just an illusion, he needs to see her again. "Yuzu, I'm-!"

But the last things he sees are Yuugo and Yuuto's horrified faces as his voice, along with the rest of his surroundings, are all swallowed up by a maelstrom of blinding light.