Opening.

In the pitch darkness he counted his breaths. "One, two. One, two. One, two," he counted in his mind, until the numbers stumbled over each other, ran together, and became lost. His breaths quickened.

The nightmares were coming again. The same nightmares, every night. In his mind he beheld an empty room, moonlight falling in wide slats through the windows onto the dark floor. It was like a little theater, a drama. The villain, nothing but an ominous silhouette, strutted over to the desk, where a man sat gazing at a card, his face clearly lit by the moon.

It was Edo's father, and his expression was full of anguish.

The figure started toward Edo's father with a snicker. Edo's father turned and cried out.

The dark figure's voice was sneering, malicious. "You seem pleased with your handiwork."

"What are you talking about?" Edo's father said, his voice painfully familiar. Edo began breathing harder, and his fingers trembled. "How did you get in here? Get out!"

"You know what I'm talking about," laughed the figure. A finger stretched out and pointed at the card. "That card! The Ultimate-D card! The card of absolute power, of absolute destruction. You must feel like a god, creating such a card."

"No, no," said Edo's father wildly. "Get out of here!"

"How does it feel like, being a god?" said the figure. He laughed, a laugh that sounded like a hoarse cackle. Then his voice suddenly hardened, became threatening. "Give the Ultimate-D to me."

"Never." Edo's father had gotten up at this point of the little drama, the tragedy. He staggered toward the doorway, his hand closed around the card.

The figure advanced. In Edo's imagination the villain was hulking, enormous, though still nothing but an indistinct black shape. Edo didn't have the faintest idea who the man who had killed his father looked like. For this, he was angry with himself. For this, he was regretful.

"Tousan…" he whispered. The word shook him, and his whole body trembled violently.

"Get away!" screamed his father. The villain, with a mad laugh, lunged forward and seized his father by the neck. His father cried out in pain, a hoarse, terrible cry. His pain was terrifyingly clear to Edo. He saw every writhing motion of his father, heard every frightened whimper, saw in dazzling detail the pale face contorted in pain.

"Give me the card," hissed the figure.

"N-no…"

The climax of the act was coming. Edo was riveted, watching with horrible helplessness as the villain's other hand closed around his father's neck. The hands twisted, then jerked forwards sharply. A minute crack! filled the room. Then his father slumped forward, neck broken.

The villain tilted his head back and roared and laughed simultaneously. His father's limp body dropped to the floor, and the Ultimate-D card slipped out of his loose hand, landing on the floor as well. In Edo's imagination, the card, the terrible potent card that had become the center of his entire life, glowed faintly white as it fluttered to the ground.

The figure, still chortling, knelt and lifted the card…but Edo couldn't hold the nightmare after that. His father's dead body was too horrible, too awful to behold. The fanciful vision he wove quickly collapsed and he started to see real life, scenes even now he could not forget. His little six-year-old self stepping into the room with the open door, seeing the body of his father spread-eagled on the ground. The cards scattered all about his father's body—the D-Heroes, the last creation of his brilliant father. The tears burned in his eyes, both in his memory and in real life. His father's body…he couldn't look anymore.

"Tousan!" he cried out. The guilt was overwhelming. Nearly ten years, and he hadn't come any nearer to finding the monster who'd killed his father. He hadn't come any nearer to that vision of heroism that he held so dear to his heart.

"There are no such things as heroes," a voice echoed in the darkness. "Heroism is a silly ideal, a selfish ideal. Save your pretty pictures and face the truth."

The voice—like the drama of his father's death—came from nowhere but inside Edo's head. It was a figment of his mind—in this case, of his memory. Once upon a time a man had spoken those very words to him, and they'd hurt him so much because this man mattered, mattered just as much as his father had mattered to him.

"Saiou, you motherfucker," he said to the air.

Middlegame.

Saiou Takuma had changed drastically in this last year. Edo watched the change with silence, noticing it but at the same time doing his best to block it out of his head. It was an unconscious process, this denial of Saiou's sudden and strange transformation. Some nights—less often than he should have, he realized later—he lay awake while Saiou slept beside him and thought about what Saiou had said to him when they were younger. Something about being tempted…and falling…and Edo being his salvation.

But Edo, for the most part, remained quiet as he drifted further and further apart from the person who had taken him in, sheltered him after the death of his father, held him and given him hope. He was too busy with his pro duels, and muddled with guilt for not having gone any further in the case of his father's murder. He simply hadn't been spending as much time with Saiou as he had before.

This was hardly justification for not stepping in sooner to save Saiou, he realized to himself later. But at that time he just thought Saiou was becoming a creep. Dressed entirely in white, with a white hood covering the piercings he had recently added to his forehead, and sitting in a whitewashed room with a table scattered with tarot cards before him, Saiou, Edo thought, was just becoming weirder than he had been before. He certainly looked the part—his bizarre white obsession notwithstanding, his purple eyes had lately become feverish and bright with a half-insane light, his face became pale and sallow, his cheeks sunken and hollow.

On this day Saiou read. Edo stood by the doorway of Saiou's piano room, where the white grand piano Saiou so enjoyed playing sat, and where the walls were covered with bookshelves stuffed with books. Saiou stood in front of a bookshelf, held a book, and read casually.

Edo was waiting, really, just to kill time before his next duel, which Saiou had predicted he would win (of course). He wanted to talk to Saiou, not because he had anything to say but because he just wanted to talk. Seeing Saiou standing there, almost deliberately ignoring him and cradling a book, pissed him off for some indiscernible reason.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"It's very interesting," Saiou said, after a silence, "and relevant to you, I think. It's a passage about heroism."

"Heroism," Edo repeated. He smiled sarcastically. "What's it say?"

"It says there's no such thing as heroism," said Saiou. He laughed and put the book back in its space on the wall, then turned around and clasped his hands behind his back. Edo was confused.

"How can it say that? Of course heroes exist," he snapped.

"Your evidence?" Saiou said, almost playfully. "The burden of proof lies on the accuser, not the accused."

"My evidence?" said Edo. "I don't need evidence. It's just true. There are heroes in the world. I know…I know because I'm destined to be one."

He stood tall and straight and glared levelly into Saiou's eyes. Saiou lowered his head and smirked to himself.

"Actually, I happen to agree with our author here," he said.

"Why?" Edo said.

"Because…" Saiou paused, seemingly lost in thought. Then he gave Edo a bitter smile. He said something under his breath, so softly that Edo couldn't catch it at all. Only when he thought about it later did Edo realize what Saiou had said: "If heroes existed, one would have saved me already."

Only Edo hadn't heard then, and he said peevishly, "What?"

"Because it's a ridiculous concept," Saiou said louder.

Edo was infuriated by this vague answer. "You're wrong! There's nothing ridiculous about being a hero. I'm going to be one. I'm going to find the man who killed my father. I'll find him and bring justice to him, and the world. That's what being a hero is all about!"

"Don't raise your voice at me," said Saiou, as if reprimanding a schoolboy.

Edo opened his mouth. Saiou's words had touched something deep and painful within him—he couldn't name it then, but it was the sole hope he clung to: the hope of becoming this hero, this thing that he admired, the overpowering feeling that the only way he could avenge his father was to become strong enough to be a hero. Hearing Saiou dismiss heroes, just like that, shattered his calm demeanor almost instantly. He was ready to scream at Saiou.

"There are no such things as heroes!" Saiou shouted, cutting Edo off. "Heroism is a silly ideal, a selfish ideal. Save your pretty pictures and face the truth."

"Don't be angry with me," Saiou continued, practically screaming. It was as if he was afraid Edo was going to start screaming as well, and he wanted to stop that before it started. "You're a hopeless idealist, Edo, and I hate your idealism. What's idealism ever done for people? I'll cleanse this Earth, and I can think of much better things to do it than a bunch of rosy idealistic shit!"

Edo stared at Saiou, trying to force words out of his mouth. But this was the first time he'd ever seen Saiou so angry, the first time Saiou had ever yelled at him like this before. He was shaking, and when he spoke his voice was not a scream, but a quavering near-whimper.

"What's gotten into you, Saiou?" he said. "You used to…we used to…you were an idealist, too. Now…what are you talking about…cleansing Earth…what…"

Edo broke off and turned away. He felt like an idiot, a fool, and he wanted to scream and curse in Saiou's face and punch that stupid grinning face but he couldn't. He could only stand here, on the verge of tears, and he hardly knew why, why Saiou hurt him this much…

"I'm going," he said sharply, turning and heading out of the door. But then Saiou was suddenly behind him, and his hand closed around Edo's.

"Stay," said Saiou, his voice no longer savage and now even a bit apologetic. Edo stopped but didn't turn.

Some part of him wanted Saiou to apologize, but even now he'd forgotten for what. But he had the feeling…if Saiou just said "I'm sorry", it would all be better. It would all be better, and they would all be friends again, just like it had been when they were children, comforting each other, supporting each other…when they were oh so innocent, and they were not just manager and duelist nor were they just sex partners but they were friends.

For the first time, Edo realized how suddenly, how brutally, and how much Saiou had transformed.

"Stay," Saiou's voice whispered, and this time the word sounded more like a command. One sharp-nailed hand tilted Edo's head around and Saiou's lips caught Edo's in a rough kiss. Edo stood slack, letting Saiou kiss him. He ignored the pinpricks of tears in the corners of his eyes.

Then he broke away from Saiou. All he could of was how desperately he wanted Saiou to apologize, how he so longed for Saiou to make things right again…

He straightened up and walked down the hall. He felt Saiou's gaze burning into his back, and that just made him straighten up even more, and walk with even more pride, down the hallway. And away from Saiou.

Endgame.

"One, two. One, two. One, two," he counted. Saiou's sleeping form rose and fell beside him, oblivious to the late night cries of his young protégé. It was hard to breathe. Edo Phoenix was a strong person, a strong duelist, a strong spirit, but at night it all seemed to fall apart. Late at night all he could see was his father dying…and all he could hear was Saiou laughing at him, mocking him, telling him heroes didn't exist.

Telling him that nothing he did would ever make up for letting his father die.

Once more, he couldn't count again.

"Jerk, jerk, jerk," he whispered to himself. He was talking about Saiou.

Tomorrow he would duel Yuuki Juudai, for the second time. This time, Saiou had assured him he would win. This time, he would go all out and destroy that laughing idiot, that happy idiot who thought he was a hero. What kind of hero was he, anyway? He took nothing seriously…he thought life was a goddamn playground…he couldn't save anyone. He was a disgrace to all heroes. While Edo…Edo stood for justice. True justice. He was an avenging hero…a hero…

Somehow he found himself struggling to remember what a hero even was, anyway.

His hand found Saiou's hair, the long navy sheet trailing down Saiou's back. As he rested with his hand in Saiou's hair, feeling Saiou's rhythmic breathing, he could only think of how much Saiou had hurt him on that day long ago. And Saiou would never understand…

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, destiny was on his side. That's what Saiou had told him. He was the stronger hero than Yuuki Juudai. He would win. Maybe he didn't believe in heroism anymore. Part of him, at least, didn't believe in it anymore—maybe his whole self now could not believe. But he could still win.

He could still win.

Finale.