Sep 22, 2018
Day 6- Spirits
seen from Türkiye
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Yemen
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Vietnam
seen from Germany
seen from Estonia
seen from Australia
seen from France
seen from Malaysia
Day 6- Spirits
Arc V Angst Week: Day 4, Separation
waiting for Yuuya to come home is... hard
Day 5 - Society
Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V Angst Week // A Stacked Deck
AN: This will make more sense when I publish tomorrow’s promot
Society is just.
That is what Yuri believes. The world he was brought into, the world he had always known, was just. That is what Yuri believes. The strong eat the weak and the weak starve. That’s just how it is. How it is in nature: among the plants and animals of this world. And thus, that is how it was among the most disturbing creatures yet, humanity.
Society is healthy.
That is what Yuri believes. He believes that there is no other way to govern the realms he knows except than that of an iron fist. He believes that mercy for the fools is pitiful and they should not be spared the cruelties of the world if they wish to believe in such flights of fancy such as compassion or entertainment.
Yuri is the top of society.
That is what Yuri believes. He believes that he is something a prince. Someone worthy amongst the worthless. That is what Yuri believes and that is how he carries himself. He keeps his shoulders back and his head up. He has no weak spot and even if he did, he would not allow it to surface upon him: bedecked in extravagance and oozing with charm.
However. If society is just and if society is healthy and if Yuri was at the top of society, why is that he feels so sickened?
He doesn’t understand. He has no idea as to why he feels this way. Which in turn, leaves him without theories that he can apply to this wound like stitches. But, all he knows is that society is just; society is healthy; and he was the top, so deservedly, of society.
Day 4: Separation
Rin felt empty. For the first time in her entire life, she was alone. She had always had her best friend by her side. She and Yugo had been inseparable for as long as she could remember. They’d known each other since they were babies. They had grown up together, they had dueled each other multiple times over the years in order to perfect their skills. They relied on one another in order to get through their day-to-day lives.
But then she was kidnapped. And now she spent the entirety of her days wondering if Yugo was all right on his own out there. Was he eating? Was he sleeping all right? Was he bathing? Had he gotten into trouble now that she wasn’t there to keep his mouth in check?
It killed her not knowing any of this. Was he upset? Was he angry? What was he doing? She knew him well enough to know that he was probably upset about her being kidnapped, and she also figured that he was doing everything within his power in order to find her. After all, if their roles were reversed, she would be trying to find him.
Tears pricked at her eyes. But how would he find her? She didn’t even really know where she was. All she knew was that she was locked in some sort of tower on some island somewhere. How was Yugo supposed to get here? Would she ever see him again? Would she ever hear his voice again? Or see his dopey grin? She could certainly use one of his reassuring hugs right about now.
But he wasn’t here. And she wasn’t there. She didn’t feel complete without him beside her. She hated to admit it, but she was scared. She was truly afraid. She was kidnapped for a reason she did not know and now she was without the one person she cared about most in the entire world. And while she was afraid for her own wellbeing, she also feared for his.
“Oh, Yugo,” Rin whispered as a single tear slid down her cheek. “Please be all right. Please get here soon. Please...you dumb jerk.”
~DGG
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Reira has never known what home is.
Arc V Angst Week, Day 7: Home
Arc V Angst Week Day 2
Awakened
“Ruri?”
Yuya repeated the name back to Yuzu, who stood before him confessing the name of her apparent doppelganger. It was almost too absurd to believe but Yuya had just met a boy with his own face too, after all. It had to be true.
“Yes,” Yuzu continued earnestly. “I look just like her, according to Yuto.”
“Yuto…” The name brought the events of that night to his mind in a pulsating flash, but what’s more was how strangely familiar hearing his and Ruri’s names felt. He’d heard them before, of course, but perhaps the events of that night just made the matter seem way more personal now.
“What’s wrong, Yuya?” Yuzu could see the tension growing in his head from where she stood.
Yuya’s thoughts were still a hot mess in his head as he tried to shake off the picture of the two other hims that showed up that night from his mind, but still… something was clear now. That both he and Yuzu look just like Yuto and Ruri meant that they would have been involved in this conflict sooner or later. Yuya looked up at Yuzu sternly.
“We have to find Kurosaki.”
()()()
Finding Kurosaki was apparently much easier said than done, and eventually they wound up putting the task on hiatus. Being in the middle of a tournament demanded that, though either way they figured it was very likely that they’d bump into Kurosaki sooner or later given that he was a participant as well anyway.
Right now, Yuya’s focus fell on his next opponent, the infamously violent Kachidoki. He was a duelist from the Ryozanpaku Martial Arts school, and very much Yuya’s exact opposite. Yuya had witnessed his prior duel against Toudou Yaiba, when he’d sent the poor up-and-coming LDS Synchro star out the stadium on a stretcher by the end of their duel.
Facing him on the Action Field now, Yuya felt a nervous stream of sweat begin to crawl down his spine. He heard the cheers from the crowd and his friends, urging him to deliver another of his best performances, which he’d already planned for anyway. He heard Yuzu’s encouraging voice in his head giving him the guts to teach Kachidoki a lesson. Make him smile, Yuya, she’d requested, and he’d promised her he would.
As he took his first set of cards in his hand, he tried to keep her words and his fans’ expectations in mind, but more than anything he couldn’t shake off this confusing feeling he got whenever he looked back up to face Kachidoki.
He was mad. And afraid.
It was strange having to sort out his feelings amidst battle but he thought to make peace with them now as soon as possible so he could focus on the duel.
Mad, he understood. After all, Yuya would never accept Kachidoki’s violent dueling style.
But afraid? Sure, performing was always nerve wracking, but he had grown used to that by now. And he’d already been bullied enough before that, really, any pain Kachidoki could inflict on him in this duel wouldn’t be anything new.
So why was he afraid? Of what?
Or who?
()()()
Darkness… darkness…
Within the haze of the darkness Kachidoki had worked so hard to submerge him into, he lost himself. The only other thing he found amidst it besides nothing was his own face.
And then he snapped out of it.
He was standing in the middle of a field, an announcer’s voice the only commentary carried throughout the stadium. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was, but then it all made sense to him again when he turned to look at the crowd and found Yuzu’s face among it staring at him in near horror. He stared back at her in his trance, unblinking, and drew his card.
It was his turn again, he supposed. But this time it wasn’t just in his head.
Kachidoki had called for darkness, the crowd called for entertainment.
Fine.
He was sick of this all already anyway. He would put an end to this, and then…
He dropped his gaze from Yuzu finally, and turned his attention back towards the duel.
“Y...Yuya…” Yuzu whispered to him, but over the roaring shrills of that pitch-black dragon, her voice couldn’t reach him anymore.
()()()
The duel ended with Kachidoki’s humiliating defeat.
The crowd rung silent.
The skies let out their own blood-curdling roar accompanied by fast-falling tears.
This wouldn’t make anyone smile. Not the crowd. Not Kachidoki. Not even him. He knew that.
It didn’t matter.
None of this mattered to him. Absolutely none of it. The only thing to him that mattered…
He turned slowly, head tilted slightly, eyes narrowed just a bit. His eyes couldn’t care for anyone in the crowd, nor his ears or mind for what they thought of him. He just directed his attention straight to Yuzu.
Meeting his eyes from across the stadium sent a cold shiver down her spine. They were inflamed and wild, almost threatening to leap at her and close the distance between them in a mere second.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he breathed in deep, and steadily began to head back to his seat amongst the crowd. The very seat Yuzu had saved for him to come back to after he’d won the match with a smile.
She watched him closely as he made his way back to her so coldly and so calmly. So… relaxed.
This… this wasn’t him.
This couldn’t be him. This couldn’t be him. This couldn’t be him. This couldn’t be—
“Yuzu.”
She breathed deep, trying to call him by his name to bring herself back to reality, lest she’d lose all sense of the truth in that instant.
But she was too late. He continued before she could say anything. Before she could possibly bring him back to himself, at least.
“I’m tired,” he let out with a tense sigh. “I’m going back—”
Yuzu practically slapped hold of his arm before he could stride off. “Hold on! What…” She didn’t know what to say, really; Yuzu felt she was about to burst into tears. Instead, she swallowed the lump in her throat to clear the ache in her voice. “What about Kurosaki?”
She felt him begin to pull away gently, so Yuzu finally released her hold on him, leaving a print on his arm the shade of his hair where she had grasped desperately.
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” he said simply, looking Yuzu in the eye the same way he had before declaring their search for Kurosaki.
She didn’t understand.
Had she just been dreaming that duel just now? No, wait, that was a nightmare. But, was it ever going to end? How much more could this go on for? The look in his eyes felt as if he had been peering into her soul for an eternity already. With this… Yuya standing before her, could she ever even awaken?
She had to try.
As he began to make his way towards the exit again, she swallowed the lump in her throat once more and spoke.
“I’m worried about you.”
He froze in his path, turning only to face her with a blank expression one more time.
This is it. He’ll come back to me this time for sure, she thought, awaiting his response eagerly. The wake up call to her nightmare.
But all he did was smile.
AN: Was distracted by working on the next prompt so sorry I posted this so late today ahaha...
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Will you participate in the auditions? Will you awaken the power that lies dormant inside of you, Sakaki Yuya?” The hippo tilts its hat at Yuya, and winks.
arc v angst week day two: awakened
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Crow Hogan/Shinji Weber, Jack Atlas/Shinji Weber Characters: Shinji Weber, Jack Atlas Additional Tags: Angst, AU where no one gets uncarded, Leo Akaba is mentioned for like a sec, moderate sexual content in like the first three paragraphs only, Shinji copes badly, Where are the kids in this AU? We just don’t know, arc v spoilers Summary:
After the war, Neo Domino recovers. Shinji does not.