Yamada, Mamoru (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thestudyof) wrote2017-09-20 12:52 pm
thestudyof) wrote2017-09-20 12:52 pm
[Short Stories Collection the Sequel]
[??]
He's gone.
She couldn't handle that thought. He's gone. He's gone. She's alone now on this assignment. He's gone. He was her superior. He was the one she took orders from. Does she stay? Does she go back?
The plan was to take care of the database. Then grab their Lady, and go back. But he took a detour to handle that terrorist-- or at least the one Academia called a terrorist. Whether he was or not, he was a menace to Academia, so it was understandable why he went after him.
But she didn't expect him to lose. Not him, an elite of Academia, someone who was poised to become a General after this mission was complete. Even being associated to him by proxy would've been even a slight boon for her.
But... she wasn't ready for this. To handle this alone. By the time he'd come back, it's likely the main force would be on their way too. If she wanted to make any impact, she'd have to show results.
Their Lady. The shining star of Academia. She had to track her down. That girl with the pink hair, who looks so much like her... what if they're really just one and the same? The timing for her having attacked her... "rival", was uncanny especially.
It wasn't certain, but it was something. She'd have to begin trailing her.
She didn't want to keep being looked down on for what she was, when she could offer so much to her home.
[SHINJI]
He focused momentarily on his hand, as a card appeared from it-- Numbers 10: Illumiknight.
It then vanished, as he focused again. A new card-- Numbers 11: Big Eye. It vanished as well.
He'd been going through all of the cards he could materialize. He did it regularly, to make sure it was still there, the card that had been inserted into him. Number 78: Number Archive.
It was such a strange card. He knew they shouldn't have put it into him, honestly. He knew it wouldn't be able to be removed. He knew it'd stick. But it still happened. Even though he knew that it was a card that had a different purpose, he was stuck with it, now.
He made a new card. Numbers 12: Crimson Shadow Armor Ninja. He made it vanish. At the least, the cards he could create seemed to be very accurate-- they visually had the strange text that Numbers usually had, but he could read it just fine. He wasn't sure if it was due to his innate knowledge, or the Archive at work. What he knew though was that he could understand it.
13, 14... Sometimes when he made a card, it took more effort than normal. Legendary-- that's the word that would come to his mind when he thought about them. They were "Legendary" Numbers. A few of them would refuse to be created at all-- why is it? Is it because his own power tied in to this? That there had to be knowledge of the Numbers in human memory to form it at all?
Sometimes he didn't understand just what the logic was to how they were created. Or why he could access them so freely.
Sometimes he felt a bit bad, such as when he hit Number 39. Hope. That was Yuma's card, and he always felt a pit in his stomach when he made it. Why? Is it because of the bond that Yuma shared with the card? Did he feel like he was encroaching on that? Or was it some other reason than the sense of sentimentality?
He shook his head. For all of the knowledge he had access to, there were still a lot of things that he didn't know.
[LUCIUS]
Well, it was sure too late to turn back now.
They didn't know what Eidos had written, but they just knew that he had left something. Something to those people who were legally considered to be their guardians. All of their belongings of worth were stored away in a digital space, and it was like a weight was off of their shoulders.
But at the same time, it was replaced by anxiety. They left. They had no intention of going back. What could they do? Where could they go? How can they live like this? They can't go back. They can never go back to those days. The days where one slip-up could have them locked out of their own home, or barred from leaving their room, or denied meals. They can't go back to that anymore. Being called useless-- and then when they fixed that-- being called creepy instead. Disturbing. Possessed. Unnatural.
It was too much. There were no more happy memories, not even of their real parents. There was no more point in staying.
... They did consider it though. Going back. Trying to save them, their birth parents, before they died. But it wouldn't matter for them. They couldn't do anything about themselves. They were stuck in this, no matter what. They were gone. And trying to change that...
... well, there isn't much they can do for themselves. Maybe for their younger self, it was possible... but it was so hard to focus on caring about that.
So what could they do?
Well... there was only one option they had to turn to, for help. Someone who would have an understanding of this situation, and be in a position to at least offer assistance.
Wakahisa.
[BRIGHT]
She wanted to go to the Festival. But she couldn't.
Much as she kept thinking about it, she knew she couldn't. She couldn't go have fun, see the city, see any of the duels-- none of it. She couldn't experience it at all, outside of recorded videos. She knew this, and accepted it.
But it was starting to get overwhelming for her. She really hated that she couldn't move from this island. That she was trapped here, for who knows how long, and how much longer still.
She did try. Every time she'd try different ways of doing it. By boat. Monorail. At one point she even tried to swim out to see how far she could go.
It was always the same result. Something would block her, and she'd "pop" away, back to the shallows.
She hated it, but she didn't know how to really fix it. She was cursed like this.
[???]
"... You never speak over video, anymore."
The voice on the other side of the line paused, audibly. He could already sense the hesitation and exhaustion, but it didn't matter. His uncle's been weird for quite a while now, and it was starting to bother him.
"... I just haven't been in the mood to speak over that. Talking on the phone's been fine enough for working out these details, right?"
"I know, uncle, but it's going to be weird at this point when I finally come by." That's what was being worked out: He was going to visit his uncle for a while. Take part in extended tests and agreements with LDS's AI system, which he had agreed to and signed the papers on prior to this. Though whenever he tried to ask about how the first tests went, his uncle always resorted to awkward silence and changes of topic, which bothered him.
A lot of things bothered him, really.
Once the awkward silence ran it's course (again), he finally sighed. "You know, dad's been pretty anxious about this. He keeps thinking this is a bad idea. Going to stay with you." He heard the vague mumble of "what else is new", before his uncle answered.
"I guess I can't blame him... I haven't really helped things, have I." No, not really. What with cutting off most familial contact, the reports about him having gone berserk, the depressive spiral... no, it didn't help. But he didn't really care about a lot of that. He liked his uncle, and even if he sounded... sadder, he was still him.
So he put on a brighter tone, "Don't worry about what dad says. I made the choice to come and stay with you for a while. We've planned this so far. It'll be fine.
Besides, I'm really excited to see what Domino City looks like, and what you've been working on, uncle."
He heard a sigh-- that sound of realizing that he was trying to be cheered up, but still having that permeating sadness surrounding him. Well, small steps.
"You'll be coming by train, right? In two weeks, now?"
Of course, it was all sorted out. Ticket bought, things in the middle of being packed...
"Good. I'll see you in two weeks, then. Long as you don't change your mind about coming."
He couldn't help but laugh a bit at that. "Nothing in the world would make me change my mind, uncle. See you then."
"... of course. Goodbye, Akira." He heard a click from the other line, as the call ended.
The boy, Akira, laid back in his bed as the thoughts ran through his head. Two weeks. Two weeks until he'd be in Domino, any issues nonwithstanding. Admittedly, he wished he could've been going now, with the much touted Duel Festival happening-- but appropriately enough, it had only made it harder to get tickets to the city. So he had to wait.
Just two more weeks. Just two more weeks.
Nothing would make him change his mind.
[MAMORU]
Mamoru hung up the phone, before letting out a slow, long sigh, his head in his hands.
He felt awful. He was sure his nephew noticed it, even just by his voice. He could tell the slight sad, disappointed tone he had, even as he tried to look at things positively. Though the fact that his older brother was worried did... sting a little.
Perhaps it was strange. Thanks to how old his brother was, the gap between him and his nephew was actually smaller than his own sibling-- though only by a little bit. But it did create a closeness that might've been otherwise unusual. He was in the middle between them, looked at as a rolemodel by his nephew, something that his brother had originally encouraged.
It sounded like he was regretting that choice, though. Which, how could he blame him? He was a mess. He's been a mess. The only thing he had going for him was his job at LDS, and he couldn't even begin to explain why he had switched career tracks so massively without getting into the whole... possession mess.
Heck, he was a bit worried himself about that. About Akira ending up in the middle of this particular mess when it came to this. Sure, right now, that card was still blank. The ones seemingly related to the incident were keeping their distance. But... he felt like soon enough, the other shoe was going to drop. He could still feel the ache in his chest sometimes-- the same one he felt when he had summoned that monster, White Rider. He was told pretty quickly after that to avoid doing that again, and he had no objections to it.
And yet, he couldn't see himself discarding the monster. He wasn't sure what it was, in a variety of definitions. But he'd feel worse if he had just ignored it. He didn't know why.
He'd be better off just focusing ahead on things. It seems like Akaba's heading for what he's been planning, at the end of the Festival. He had to be ready instead of focusing on his personal problems.
He couldn't help but be grimly amused, though. A part of him saw a bit of his nephew in Akaba. Maybe that's why he was willing to go along with this. Why he got concerned when he saw his employer driving himself into the ground for this.
It'll be better for everyone once this was all over. And that would hopefully be soon.
He's gone.
She couldn't handle that thought. He's gone. He's gone. She's alone now on this assignment. He's gone. He was her superior. He was the one she took orders from. Does she stay? Does she go back?
The plan was to take care of the database. Then grab their Lady, and go back. But he took a detour to handle that terrorist-- or at least the one Academia called a terrorist. Whether he was or not, he was a menace to Academia, so it was understandable why he went after him.
But she didn't expect him to lose. Not him, an elite of Academia, someone who was poised to become a General after this mission was complete. Even being associated to him by proxy would've been even a slight boon for her.
But... she wasn't ready for this. To handle this alone. By the time he'd come back, it's likely the main force would be on their way too. If she wanted to make any impact, she'd have to show results.
Their Lady. The shining star of Academia. She had to track her down. That girl with the pink hair, who looks so much like her... what if they're really just one and the same? The timing for her having attacked her... "rival", was uncanny especially.
It wasn't certain, but it was something. She'd have to begin trailing her.
She didn't want to keep being looked down on for what she was, when she could offer so much to her home.
[SHINJI]
He focused momentarily on his hand, as a card appeared from it-- Numbers 10: Illumiknight.
It then vanished, as he focused again. A new card-- Numbers 11: Big Eye. It vanished as well.
He'd been going through all of the cards he could materialize. He did it regularly, to make sure it was still there, the card that had been inserted into him. Number 78: Number Archive.
It was such a strange card. He knew they shouldn't have put it into him, honestly. He knew it wouldn't be able to be removed. He knew it'd stick. But it still happened. Even though he knew that it was a card that had a different purpose, he was stuck with it, now.
He made a new card. Numbers 12: Crimson Shadow Armor Ninja. He made it vanish. At the least, the cards he could create seemed to be very accurate-- they visually had the strange text that Numbers usually had, but he could read it just fine. He wasn't sure if it was due to his innate knowledge, or the Archive at work. What he knew though was that he could understand it.
13, 14... Sometimes when he made a card, it took more effort than normal. Legendary-- that's the word that would come to his mind when he thought about them. They were "Legendary" Numbers. A few of them would refuse to be created at all-- why is it? Is it because his own power tied in to this? That there had to be knowledge of the Numbers in human memory to form it at all?
Sometimes he didn't understand just what the logic was to how they were created. Or why he could access them so freely.
Sometimes he felt a bit bad, such as when he hit Number 39. Hope. That was Yuma's card, and he always felt a pit in his stomach when he made it. Why? Is it because of the bond that Yuma shared with the card? Did he feel like he was encroaching on that? Or was it some other reason than the sense of sentimentality?
He shook his head. For all of the knowledge he had access to, there were still a lot of things that he didn't know.
[LUCIUS]
Well, it was sure too late to turn back now.
They didn't know what Eidos had written, but they just knew that he had left something. Something to those people who were legally considered to be their guardians. All of their belongings of worth were stored away in a digital space, and it was like a weight was off of their shoulders.
But at the same time, it was replaced by anxiety. They left. They had no intention of going back. What could they do? Where could they go? How can they live like this? They can't go back. They can never go back to those days. The days where one slip-up could have them locked out of their own home, or barred from leaving their room, or denied meals. They can't go back to that anymore. Being called useless-- and then when they fixed that-- being called creepy instead. Disturbing. Possessed. Unnatural.
It was too much. There were no more happy memories, not even of their real parents. There was no more point in staying.
... They did consider it though. Going back. Trying to save them, their birth parents, before they died. But it wouldn't matter for them. They couldn't do anything about themselves. They were stuck in this, no matter what. They were gone. And trying to change that...
... well, there isn't much they can do for themselves. Maybe for their younger self, it was possible... but it was so hard to focus on caring about that.
So what could they do?
Well... there was only one option they had to turn to, for help. Someone who would have an understanding of this situation, and be in a position to at least offer assistance.
Wakahisa.
[BRIGHT]
She wanted to go to the Festival. But she couldn't.
Much as she kept thinking about it, she knew she couldn't. She couldn't go have fun, see the city, see any of the duels-- none of it. She couldn't experience it at all, outside of recorded videos. She knew this, and accepted it.
But it was starting to get overwhelming for her. She really hated that she couldn't move from this island. That she was trapped here, for who knows how long, and how much longer still.
She did try. Every time she'd try different ways of doing it. By boat. Monorail. At one point she even tried to swim out to see how far she could go.
It was always the same result. Something would block her, and she'd "pop" away, back to the shallows.
She hated it, but she didn't know how to really fix it. She was cursed like this.
[???]
"... You never speak over video, anymore."
The voice on the other side of the line paused, audibly. He could already sense the hesitation and exhaustion, but it didn't matter. His uncle's been weird for quite a while now, and it was starting to bother him.
"... I just haven't been in the mood to speak over that. Talking on the phone's been fine enough for working out these details, right?"
"I know, uncle, but it's going to be weird at this point when I finally come by." That's what was being worked out: He was going to visit his uncle for a while. Take part in extended tests and agreements with LDS's AI system, which he had agreed to and signed the papers on prior to this. Though whenever he tried to ask about how the first tests went, his uncle always resorted to awkward silence and changes of topic, which bothered him.
A lot of things bothered him, really.
Once the awkward silence ran it's course (again), he finally sighed. "You know, dad's been pretty anxious about this. He keeps thinking this is a bad idea. Going to stay with you." He heard the vague mumble of "what else is new", before his uncle answered.
"I guess I can't blame him... I haven't really helped things, have I." No, not really. What with cutting off most familial contact, the reports about him having gone berserk, the depressive spiral... no, it didn't help. But he didn't really care about a lot of that. He liked his uncle, and even if he sounded... sadder, he was still him.
So he put on a brighter tone, "Don't worry about what dad says. I made the choice to come and stay with you for a while. We've planned this so far. It'll be fine.
Besides, I'm really excited to see what Domino City looks like, and what you've been working on, uncle."
He heard a sigh-- that sound of realizing that he was trying to be cheered up, but still having that permeating sadness surrounding him. Well, small steps.
"You'll be coming by train, right? In two weeks, now?"
Of course, it was all sorted out. Ticket bought, things in the middle of being packed...
"Good. I'll see you in two weeks, then. Long as you don't change your mind about coming."
He couldn't help but laugh a bit at that. "Nothing in the world would make me change my mind, uncle. See you then."
"... of course. Goodbye, Akira." He heard a click from the other line, as the call ended.
The boy, Akira, laid back in his bed as the thoughts ran through his head. Two weeks. Two weeks until he'd be in Domino, any issues nonwithstanding. Admittedly, he wished he could've been going now, with the much touted Duel Festival happening-- but appropriately enough, it had only made it harder to get tickets to the city. So he had to wait.
Just two more weeks. Just two more weeks.
Nothing would make him change his mind.
[MAMORU]
Mamoru hung up the phone, before letting out a slow, long sigh, his head in his hands.
He felt awful. He was sure his nephew noticed it, even just by his voice. He could tell the slight sad, disappointed tone he had, even as he tried to look at things positively. Though the fact that his older brother was worried did... sting a little.
Perhaps it was strange. Thanks to how old his brother was, the gap between him and his nephew was actually smaller than his own sibling-- though only by a little bit. But it did create a closeness that might've been otherwise unusual. He was in the middle between them, looked at as a rolemodel by his nephew, something that his brother had originally encouraged.
It sounded like he was regretting that choice, though. Which, how could he blame him? He was a mess. He's been a mess. The only thing he had going for him was his job at LDS, and he couldn't even begin to explain why he had switched career tracks so massively without getting into the whole... possession mess.
Heck, he was a bit worried himself about that. About Akira ending up in the middle of this particular mess when it came to this. Sure, right now, that card was still blank. The ones seemingly related to the incident were keeping their distance. But... he felt like soon enough, the other shoe was going to drop. He could still feel the ache in his chest sometimes-- the same one he felt when he had summoned that monster, White Rider. He was told pretty quickly after that to avoid doing that again, and he had no objections to it.
And yet, he couldn't see himself discarding the monster. He wasn't sure what it was, in a variety of definitions. But he'd feel worse if he had just ignored it. He didn't know why.
He'd be better off just focusing ahead on things. It seems like Akaba's heading for what he's been planning, at the end of the Festival. He had to be ready instead of focusing on his personal problems.
He couldn't help but be grimly amused, though. A part of him saw a bit of his nephew in Akaba. Maybe that's why he was willing to go along with this. Why he got concerned when he saw his employer driving himself into the ground for this.
It'll be better for everyone once this was all over. And that would hopefully be soon.