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scratchface · 6 years ago

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Down For Maintenance

The full one-shot is finally here! Check it out on Ao3 or under the cut!

Summary: Revolver is certain of three things about their current situation: 1. They, and hundreds of others, are trapped in VRAINS, 2. Their only option is to wait for outside rescue, 3. It’s been days, but Playmaker has not been sleeping. One of these somehow seems more important than the others.

Admittedly, things had not gone according to plan. Rarely anything did anymore, not since their prey of five years was snatched from right under their noses. Ryoken did not intend to get trapped in the network with the rest. But one miscalculation led to another, a few misjudgments of priorities, and he found himself unable to log out alongside the hundreds of other players. A mild inconvenience, at worst: by their calculations, the same program that trapped their minds here induced a dream-like state. What felt like days, even weeks, would be mere hours in reality.

Every duelist stuck in unconsciousness would be fine, but that didn’t keep the fools from panicking. There was chaos in the streets and skies, at first, until someone decided to take charge. Go Onizuka had gathered most of the victims together in the main plaza, where they wandered around and demanded answers from each other. What’s happening? Are we going to die? Who did this?

Various Charisma Duelists were gathered on the stage, struggling to catch the crowd’s attention. They wanted to take charge clearly, but what they actually planned to do with it was a mystery. There was little they could do, as the full repercussions of whatever had happened to the server were still unknown. With little other recourse, their only option was to wait for outside rescue.

Ryoken kept to himself, watching the crowds from above on a skyscraper. For the most part, the gathered duelists were too panicked to look up, and were instead entirely dedicated to the essential task of flipping out. The few that noticed him watched with terror-stricken eyes and then scrambled off into the milling horde. Some, the pathetic, simpering ones, probably even thought he was the culprit behind their current situation.

Ryoken snorted in derision. He hadn’t even come to cause an incident; his only interest was in observation. All he wanted to know was how he would handle this.

Right on cue, there was a collective gasp rippling through the crowd, duelists pointing and yelling at the sky. Ryoken followed the disturbance to its source.

There you are.

“It’s Playmaker!”

“Playmaker came!”

Playmaker hovered over the crowd on an altered board, carefully keeping his distance from the enraptured masses. Their excited voices echoed all the way up, but as he descended, they started to hush. It was odd enough for Playmaker to appear before such a large group of people that the crowd was reminded of their earlier unease. Playmaker didn’t usually bode well for anyone, even if he was solely focused on Ryoken’s Knights. As an online vigilante, he only ever appeared where trouble was brewing, and semantics aside, that was all too much like being a harbinger of doom. The results were always the same: deleted accounts, lost data, server maintenance.

Ryoken narrowed his eyes and made his own way down, gaze set unwaveringly on the lines of Playmaker’s svelte back.

“You all need to leave.” Playmaker’s voice was sharp and demanding, cutting through the nervous muttering of the crowd with ease. “This area isn’t safe.”

Following such a grim declaration, the anxious questions that erupted were inevitable. Even Ryoken was taken aback.

Even they knew little of what was going on, but there had been no signs of any imminent dangers yet. The network was unstable, all reports claimed, but not to the point that they were expecting anything dangerous.

But even if it was contrary to his own knowledge, Ryoken was inclined to believe it. Playmaker must have known something the rest of them didn’t.

Both unnerved by the command and frustrated by the shift in the crowd’s attention, the Charisma Duelists onstage began to act out. Playmaker landed among them, a serious look darkening his features. The Charisma Duelists looked back with equal levels of distaste, but mostly held back and immediately quieted, like herbivores recognizing the presence of an apex predator at the watering hole.

Blue Angel was bold enough to step forward, her lips forced up in an artificial smile, but GO Onizuka cut her off before she could even open her mouth.

“Why? What’s going on?”

Ryoken wanted the answers to those questions too. It was possible that Playmaker had a better idea of what had gone so wrong with the network and the VR technology than them, but the idea had him frowning.

He hated being one-upped.

Playmaker did not even say a word, merely lifting a hand and pointing into the distance. At first glance, there was nothing unusual, but looking closer, the problem became apparent. A data storm was brewing, the winds picking up and the baleful streams of data thickening into solid masses of whirling blues and purples.

There was no telling what would happen to someone if they were caught up in a storm now, because they couldn’t log out. In all likelihood, anyone unlucky enough to be caught by those winds would be torn to pieces, their data scattered beyond retrieval: not entirely unlike what his father theorized the Tower would be capable of in its final stages.

His point made, Playmaker promptly tried to make his exit. GO Onizuka seized him by the arm before he could leave, and the legendary duelist tensed like an aggravated animal. Watching carefully, Ryoken carefully stifled the age-old protective, entirely unnecessary instinct rising in his chest. GO didn’t seem to have realized that there was a dangerous ferocity in the slant of Playmaker’s brow. Everyone else had gone quiet and still, sensing the sudden tension. “Give us a hand,” the top Charisma Duelist said, motioning out towards the milling herd of frightened duelists. “They’ll all listen to you, and you know it.” Scoffing to himself, Ryoken watched Playmaker’s face twitch. Admittedly, GO had a point; bizarre as it may have seemed: within Vrains, Playmaker was the highest authority. The worship the sheep duelists of virtual reality lay at his feet elevated his every word (however few there actually were) and his every action.

Ryoken, of course, knew better. Playmaker was just as easily misled as the rest of them; his misguided partnership with the Dark Ignis was evidence enough of that. But for the moment, his influence may very well have been their only recourse, as the only thing that could bring the terrified masses together.

Forcefully shrugging GO Onizuka’s arm off, Playmaker snarled. “Not interested.”

And just like that, he was gone in a flurry of pixels, reappearing half a block down on his board and taking his leave. Snapping out of the stupor, the crowd rushed to follow his lead, chasing his disappearing silhouette away from the rising winds.

By the third day, Playmaker had ditched the skintight catsuit, to Ryoken’s slight dismay, for something more comfortable for daily life in a virtual reality. And to Playmaker, comfortable apparently meant a sweatshirt two sizes too big and dark jeans that were shredded at the knees.

The fans were devastated, of course, because Playmaker wearing anything that didn’t show everything was apparently a national tragedy on par with thousands of people getting trapped inside a video game.

Ryoken couldn’t say he wasn’t a little disappointed as well, but the casual look certainly had its own appeal. After all, it did technically show more skin, and there was something tempting about how the oversized sweater hung from Playmaker’s slim frame.

He possibly spent too much time debating the pros and cons of each look, but there was quite literally nothing better to do. Contemplating the theoretical existence of Playmaker’s collarbones passed the time in something other than excruciating boredom, at the very least.

(Searching futilely for the Cyberse had gotten tiresome after the first two days.)

But that wasn’t the only change in Playmaker. The normally unrelentingly focused duelist had been almost lethargic, lingering in what few unpopulated places of the city he could find with dull eyes and tight shoulders. Apparently even Playmaker lost his intensity after more than twenty-four hours of the same soundtrack on repeat.

Ryoken suspected that it was because nowhere Playmaker went stayed unpopulated for long. Crowds gravitated towards him, despite his best efforts to avoid them, begging for duels, conversation, comfort, and other things that had Ryoken’s mouth twisting in disgust. But the masses flocked to him for another, more practical reason too, one Playmaker didn’t seem to have the heart to deny them: his uncanny sense for the wandering datastorms. The wayward whirlwinds of data and destruction had only been increasing in size, power, and unpredictability the longer they remained trapped, and were starting to become a considerable threat to the safety of the unobservant duelist. Nights were particularly risky; settling down in the wrong place too long could mean death.

Playmaker had been reduced to something of an early warning system.

By the end of the first stress-filled week, the cleverer duelists quietly inducted themselves into the Knights of Hanoi and found refuge in the Headquarters, which no datastorm would ever be able to touch. With SOL to blame for their current state, and frustrated by the persisting lack of rescue, the sheep were primed for recruitment. The longer things went on, the more duelists flocked in. Even those that were too stubborn to join negotiated for safety with their best cards. All gave up their account data, trading everything for the promise of escaping this digital nightmare.

Ryoken welcomed their surrender, watching the Headquarters’ spare rooms fill with tired and strained duelists. As VRAINS continued to fill with rampaging whirlwinds, he was the only safe haven for the stranded.

On the tenth day, even Playmaker’s flock abandoned him and threw themselves at his feet. But Playmaker wasn’t among them, obviously. He was still out there.

Watching a storm carve its way through the Coliseum Area, reducing intricate code to scrambled flecks of data, Ryoken couldn’t put that knowledge out of his mind. His feet were moving of their own accord, towards the exit.

“Where are you going?” His father asked, stopping Ryoken in his tracks.

“To search.” He doesn’t specify for what, and let his father draw his own conclusions as he made his way out of the Headquarters.

“Be careful.” His father’s voice warns him as he steps onto his board. Normally, Ryoken would appreciate the sentiment, but he wasn’t exactly heading anywhere dangerous. The others could handle the matter of the Cyberse for a little while, and in the meantime, he had his own matters to attend to.

It wasn’t easy to find Playmaker, even in the empty, collapsing city, but it could only be called a trifle in comparison to five years of hopeless scouring. It was harder to track him without the trail of fans, but with so little of the city left standing and the rest well on its way to collapsing in on itself, it didn’t take many leaps of logic to determine where he couldn’t be.

Though Ryoken certainly didn’t expect to find his rival about to climb into a manhole. “Are you going to hide in the sewers?”

Playmaker turned to face him, posture oddly reluctant, and a strange feeling of worry curled unpleasantly in his stomach. It was not that Playmaker looked tired, because the avatar was the same as ever: sharp angles, perfect eyeliner, and tousled, fiery hair. But the way he stood, the unsteadiness of his gait, the way he blinked slowly, as if his eyelids were almost too heavy to lift...

It was not obvious, but it disturbed Ryoken on a level he didn’t fully understand. He supposed it seemed too familiar: those green eyes dull with exhaustion, that skin pallid, all coupled with such shaky posture.

“What’s wrong with you?” He blurted out, before his mind could catch up with his mouth, and Playmaker winced slightly, curling in on himself defensively.

“Nothing.” Playmaker muttered, and his voice was rough and strained in a way that was completely unfamiliar but had Ryoken’s stomach twisting. “Go away, Revolver.”

Behind his avatar’s mocking smile, Ryoken frowned. “What, not even going to challenge me? What happened to your revenge?” Playmaker threw him an aggravated look, but only turned away, back to his stupid manhole. Which was just wrong, because Playmaker always faced everything head-on. Strangely agitated, Ryoken circled around his side and stepped in between him and sewers. “You’re oddly subdued.”

“Shouldn’t you be off terrorizing something?” Playmaker drawled back, his voice uncharacteristically tight. His shoulders were rising up to his ears, matching the aggravated glower settling on his face.

“VRAINS seems to be doing that job for me right now.” With the network happily tearing itself to shreds, most of their plans had become practically obsolete. “So, lucky you. I’m free.”

Playmaker held his gaze for a moment, like he was deeply exasperated but also very accustomed to the feeling. Then he looked away, towards the hurricane of data filling the sky in the distance. The rising winds caught his hair and it rippled around his face like a flickering candle.

Behind the wayward sweep of yellow and pink, Playmaker’s vibrant eyes looked dull. As the wind pressed against them, roaring in their ears, Playmaker curled into himself like he was too tired to put up a fight.

“Have you been sleeping?”

The silence that followed his question, solemn and heavy, was telling enough.

Frankly, he should have recognized the problem sooner. The anxious duelists that had been plaguing Playmaker’s footsteps probably hadn’t relented at night. And considering Playmaker’s personal history, that was likely a problem in and of itself.

“Do you have nightmares?” Ryoken asked, already knowing the answer. Some part of him thought of Spectre, and how he haunted the mansion halls at night, a restlessness so deeply set in his bones that not even the passing years could cut it out of him. The rest of him struggled to not think of a little boy that had cried himself to sleep at night, only to find that not even dreams could offer him reprieve from the horrors of his reality.

Being followed around was already probably wrecking hell on Playmaker’s nerves but being responsible for the safety of so many was a different sort of stress. Even Ryoken had been hearing the whispers in his own halls, refugee duelists placing their hopes on the only hero they knew. Playmaker will get us out of this, right? For most, their only comfort in this collapsing world was the knowledge that Playmaker was there with them. What would they do, knowing their great hero was nothing more than a scared little kid inside?

And as standoffish as Playmaker was, he couldn’t put them at risk by chasing them off. Pushed to the end of his rope, Playmaker had finally been left alone, but it was too late. There was nowhere left to go.

Green eyes glared balefully into his own, and Ryoken resisted the urge to sigh. Nothing was ever easy with Playmaker—with the sixth test subject. So many years had passed them by, and yet he still couldn’t abandon those eyes.

“Come stay with me.” It was, by far, the worst idea Ryoken had ever had. “I have private rooms. No one else even needs to know.” It was snitching-on-his-father levels of stupid, and just as risky. “Not even my Knights.”

But Ryoken had wanted to shelter this person once, had wanted more than anything to be the shield and comfort in his time of need.

Ryoken wanted to be a hero—his hero. And though that had already become completely impossible, the temptation of it dangled before him once more. It could very well be their last chance to change their fate.

And something worse than any storm, something more damning than any confession, was lurking in those sewers.

“Like hell.” Playmaker snarled, coiled like a bristling wildcat, as expected. Playmaker had an infinite number of reasons to doubt him, and none at all to trust him. Ryoken knew, on some level, that with just a few words he could change that. All he need to say was three things, but none came. His tongue dried in his mouth, some pathetic part of him terrified of tainting the savior in Playmaker’s cherished memories with the ruthless, black-hearted man he had become.

His coat whipped against his ankles. Not even Playmaker would be able to ride winds like these.

“Do you really have any other choice?” He extended a hand mockingly, and then snapped his fist shut. “Better take my offer while I’m still playing nice. Waste any more of my time, and I won’t be so accommodating when you’re forced to my doorstep later.”

Playmaker’s face dipped into a murderous scowl, his pretty features contorting as the VR system struggled to process the intensity of his hatred. Shrapnel shot between them, just barely scraping past Playmaker’s shoulder.

Out of time and out of options, Playmaker stepped towards him. Not wasting a moment more, Ryoken seized him and manifested his board. Gripping Playmaker by the wrist as the fierce wind buffeted them, he dragged Playmaker up onto his D-Board. “Hold on tight.”

Playmaker glared, snatching his hand back and maintaining a careful distance between them. Ryoken intended to fix that, coaxing the board into a lurching, sharp takeoff. Playmaker shifted expertly along with the sudden tilt, but Ryoken had more tricks than that. All it took was a mental nudge to the data sweeping around them, and the storm hit them with a gust powerful enough to have them both teetering. Playmaker’s fingers scrambled for purchase at the back of his jacket, struggling to grip the sleek fabric. Another fierce gust and Playmaker’s slender arms were forced around his abdomen, clinging for dear life as the board struggled against the wind.

Satisfaction curling in his gut, Ryoken couldn’t stop a chuckle from leaving his lips.

Playmaker hissed in his ear, his cheek pressed against Ryoken’s shoulder. “Shut up.”

“You need to change your avatar for a bit.” Ryoken said as they approached the Headquarters, pressing a data-card in between Playmaker’s clenched fingers.

“Why?” Playmaker’s voice was a resentful murmur, his hot breath tickling his nape. A little helplessly, Ryoken shivered.

“Because a masked Knight following me through the base will raise a lot less questions than Playmaker will.” He could all but feel Playmaker’s suspicious gaze, but the card activated with a soft hum. Playmaker’s form vanished in a cloud of static and pixels, temporarily overwritten.

He had considered, for a wistful moment, using Playmaker’s real appearance. No one would recognize it him as Playmaker, at the very least, but that was not a card he wanted to play yet.

Instead, the standard Knight avatar took over as they landed on a balcony, the Headquarters’ defenses splitting open for him. The Knight stood stiffly, staring down at his gloved fingers with what Ryoken imagined was horror.

“Say nothing, do nothing. Just follow me, got it?”

Jaw clenched shut, the Knight gave a reluctant nod.

It was… weird. Disconcerting, on a psychological level, he supposed, to have his greatest enemy in the form of his average subordinate. Something about it made him deeply uncomfortable, which was not at all how he expected to feel.

He really hoped his father didn’t notice. Or Spectre, for that matter.

Tension filled the air of the hall as they walked, almost like electricity prickling Ryoken’s skin. But by some miracle, they make it to his quarters unhindered. Playmaker followed him in, dropping the disguise the moment the door slid shut behind them. He peers around warily, but even that seems like more strain than he can handle.

The rooms are sparse and, until they got trapped, almost entirely unused. But over the week Ryoken had killed a few hours by programming himself some decent furniture, including a comfortable couch and a large bed. Though the room was bereft of windows, he had taken the time to program some natural lighting that shifted with the hours. It had been a whimsical trifle; he did not need to wake to the gold of dawn and didn’t need Stardust Road blazing in the distance when he closed his eyes at night.

He wasn’t a child anymore. He didn’t need any stupid nightlights.

But the flight of fancy bore fruit. The hazy blue of twilight softened Playmaker’s features, his silhouette of sharp angles and fierce lines turned indistinct and round. For a moment, with his red hair tinted with the cool light, Ryoken could see a more delicate face under the avatar’s mask, gentle and innocent.

It was nothing more than a trick of the light, but it brought him to a standstill all the same. He knew better than to look for the ghost of his lost ingénue in Playmaker’s shell, to chase the same visions that led him astray before. And yet, so treacherously, his heart seemed too big for his chest, and something heavy settled deep within his gut.

Just what hell was he doing?

The first night, Playmaker took his couch. The atmosphere between them wasn’t comfortable in the least, awkward and charged, but Playmaker was too exhausted to remain awake for long. Sitting on the bed, pretending to read the displays set before his eyes, Ryoken saw the tension drain out of Playmaker’s still form, muscle by muscle.

Ryoken intended to watch over him as he slept, for old times’ sake. A sort of vigil, maybe, for the people they used to be, for the two naive children they had carved out of their hearts and abandoned somewhere along the way. He hoped, in some way, that in doing so he could maybe, just maybe, finally lay those memories to rest and move on. The ties of fate that bound them together had held Ryoken back for more than long enough.

A harsh sound cut through the air, somewhere between a gasp and a shout even as Playmaker’s teeth snapped shut around it, choking it back down. He thrashed, briefly, and then went still, the rigid lines of his body jagged against the soft give of the couch.

Ryoken was on his feet, standing over him in an instant. He stalled there, lingering uncertainty over the back of the couch, and wondered if he should wake Playmaker up. It would defeat the purpose of bringing him back to Headquarters if Ryoken interrupted his rest now. And better Playmaker had his nightmares in Ryoken’s room, where it was safe and the walls were sound-proofed, than anywhere else.

But Playmaker’s face was twisted with a familiar agony, an expression Ryoken had hoped he’d only have to witness again in his own night terrors. He couldn’t bear to look at it, the familiar taste of his own guilt rising up his throat. He choked on it.

Ten years had gone by, and yet he was still so useless. More useless, because at least back then he’d found the backbone to do something, even if it was wrong. How had he even had the courage to make the mistake he didn’t know, because the fear of ruining everything all over again froze him solid.

When morning arrived, he still had not slept. He just stared at the ceiling, unable to process the muffled cries and gasping breaths that filled the room.

He came to a decision, then.

He kept Playmaker in his rooms. Or rather, the storm that roared around the Headquarters and ravaged the rest of VRAINS did. With nowhere else to go, Playmaker was stuck in his quarters for the foreseeable future.

It wasn’t as awkward as Ryoken feared. A bit like keeping a bristly, bad-tempered stray cat. Playmaker was very quiet, and when he did speak, it was with barbs. But that was fine, almost pleasant, even.

Meanwhile, Ryoken tried to maintain his normal schedule. Even though there wasn’t much for him to do, making token appearances around the base was better than anyone coming looking for him and finding the unfriendly vigilante he was hiding.

But when evening rolled back around, Ryoken knew he couldn’t go another night without sleep. Playmaker may have been able to function for days without rest, but Ryoken was a normal human being with normal needs.

So, he had to bite the bullet. “Sleep with me, tonight.”

From where he was perched on the couch, Playmaker glared at him, wide-eyed and offended.

“What? No way in hell.” The rejection was immediate. “...Why?”

Because there was a fair chance sleeping on the couch, trapped in a windowless room on enemy territory, was too reminiscent of sleeping on the floor in the similar, but far worse circumstances. The bed, and the presence of someone else in it, could very well break some of that association; the children were completely deprived of comforts and company in their forced isolation.

Playmaker would likely never admit it, but Ryoken knew this could help.

But he couldn’t exactly admit that either, so he avoided the question. “That wasn’t a request. Or, would you prefer to sleep outside?”

With a few uncharitable taps on his interface, Ryoken deleted the couch.

Suddenly left hanging mid-air, Playmaker landed on his feet, but only barely. With a fearsome scowl, he glowered. “What’s your angle here?” The question hung between them for a moment, but Ryoken’s only answer was a smirk. Playmaker narrowed his eyes. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“I can delete the floor too, you know.” Ryoken motioned to the luminous interface hanging in the air by his hand. “Relax, I’m not going to try anything.” Playmaker still lingered, his hands buried in his pockets. He never looked so uncomfortable before, not in front of his enemies; Ryoken almost wanted to laugh at him. “Are you afraid?”

“Of you?” Playmaker scoffed, but there was a nervous edge to his voice. Would he be so hesitant if it wasn’t a Knight of Hanoi inviting him in, or was this the reception anyone would get: prickly and skittish?

If he knew the truth, what kind of face would he make, really?

Ryoken changed his avatar, switching to the sleepwear he chose on the first night; sweatpants and a simple tank, not unlike what he would wear at home. The mask dissolved from his face as well, and Playmaker stared. “Like what you see?” Ryoken prompted and got a familiar scowl in return.

“Have you seen your own avatar?” Rude. Ryoken didn’t dislike that.

“You should change too.” The night on the couch, Playmaker slept in jeans. But Ryoken was choosing to assume that that wasn’t normal for him. That would be far too much power in the hands of a single psychologically-damaged teenager.

When Ryoken glanced back, Playmaker was tugging at the hem of a T-shirt, felt pajama bottoms clinging to his narrow hips: blue, like his real hair. The sight did some strange things to his stomach, a warm sensation spreading through his body. It was humanizing, he supposed, to see Playmaker looking so mundane. Soft, even. Like the weird hallucination before, it knocked him off-kilter with a just a single look.

Playmaker approached the bed like a skittish cat, big eyes set on Ryoken and waiting for the first sign of a hidden threat. At the very edge, he stalled for only a moment, before getting on.

The sight of Playmaker crawling onto his bed on his hands and knees was far more powerful than all the others combined. Ryoken’s stomach lurched, anticipation making his heart beat fast. He felt like an overly excited teenager with his first girlfriend.

He was a teenager with his first—first—

Ryoken wasn’t going there. He wasn’t touching those thoughts. There was some dangerous revelation there, and he was much safer just lingering on the cusp of it. It had been a bad idea after all, to needle Playmaker into this. At least losing sleep over the sixth test subject was familiar, but he just had to force them onto uncharted ground.

As if to break the tension suddenly building in Ryoken, Playmaker flopped right onto a pillow and turned away from him. That was for the best, probably, Ryoken decided as he forced himself not to stare at the dip of Playmaker’s waist.

It was terribly quiet, as dusk passed them by. He tried to get work done, too hyper-aware of the weight settled on the other side of the bed to sleep, but only found himself listening to Playmaker’s breaths.

He was expecting tossing, turning, hyperventilating, maybe even a little screaming. He had mentally braced himself for it, shapeless anxiety twisting in his chest, but he also hoped it would be less dramatic than the night before.

But as minutes became hours, Playmaker slept peacefully, silent and still as he curled up on his side. At some point, he rolled over to face Ryoken, and he found himself staring at a peaceful face illuminated by artificial moonlight. There was not so much as a twitch in his curled fingers, just soft breaths in between parted lips.

Ryoken watched him for a long time. It made him feel young again, but differently than before. He suddenly remembered, vividly, the days he watched over the child, both terrified to his very bones and yet so desperate to guard the little moments of peace that eased the pained stress etched into the boy’s face. It brought him back all the way, to the determination that had him going behind his father again and again, because he was going to save that boy no matter what.

So many things were different since their fateful encounter ten years before but the way he slept hadn’t changed at all.

Seeing that, it wasn’t that hard for Ryoken to finally close his eyes and relax.

Yusaku was, in simple terms, completely disorientated. And not just because Revolver, international cyberterrorist, had all but dragged him to the Hanoi Headquarters. Or because Revolver bullied him into sharing the bed, for whatever reasons. It wasn’t because he was trapped in a virtual reality, either.

With an immense amount of effort, Yusaku had been taking all those things well, in his own opinion. It wasn’t easy to put aside the fury that erupted inside him every time he thought about the organization and what it had done to him in the past, nor was it easy to ignore the tightness of his throat every time it registered that he was trapped.

It was just that, in truth, Yusaku couldn’t remember the last time he got a full night’s worth of sleep. He didn’t think he had ever slept so deeply before. Nights were rough, so he caught up with naps during the day, when the presence of people eased some of his paranoia. Fatigue had become something of a staple in his life; he didn’t quite know how to feel without it.

When he woke that morning without his heart pounding in his chest, it had been too bizarre for words.

But there were more important things to think about.

Yusaku had accepted Revolver’s absurd offer for three reasons:

To obtain all of Hanoi’s information regarding their current situation.

To investigate Hanoi’s upper echelon.

To find any available information regarding his savior.

For that, the avatar skin Revolver had lent him was useful. Though, in all likelihood, it wasn’t intended to be. From its coding, it was supposed to be one-time use, but it had been simple enough to copy and alter the disguise program.

But while the first two were straight-forward enough, the third was so far a dead end. It didn’t take long to realize that Hanoi knew even less than Ai did, and the artificial intelligence was simply monitoring the situation from Kusanagi’s servers. The mysterious generals he’d heard conspicuously little about were absent. They had probably not been logged in when the data material was corrupted and the networks connecting VRAINS to thousands of individuals crashed simultaneously, and could no longer risk it.

There was someone else, some higher-up that simple grunts didn’t have clearance to meet. Someone that Revolver notably avoided mentioning or alluding to in their few, stilted conversations.

Could they be the person he was looking for?

He had little to go on, but not nothing.

The person he was looking for had to have been related to the Hanoi Project ten years ago, and old enough to speak eloquently. They had not been among the five other victims released.

But the child he met that day, the boy with the white hair, hadn’t been either.

Were they one and the same? It was possible. That boy had to have been either a child of one of the kidnappers, or an unreported victim, who had been used to lure in other children. But if he was also the one who spoke to him back then, then he could not have been kept imprisoned like Yusaku was. A subject of a different experiment, or a particularly young accomplice?

His savior hadn’t ever sounded strained, or terrified—mournful, and burdened, his voice tight with urgency and expectation—but never brittle. Yusaku wanted to believe he wasn’t being tortured, not like they were.

There was no guarantee that his savior was even still with Hanoi. But—

But Revolver.

Revolver knew about the Hanoi Project. He knew exactly what Yusaku was referring to when he brought up the incident, and even accidentally revealed SOL’s own part in it. That information had led Yusaku directly to the perpetrator, Kogami Kiyoshi. Revolver had already known who was responsible, and in hindsight, it seemed like he even knew something had happened to Kogami afterwards.

Kogami couldn’t have done it alone. He must have had assistants and accomplices, and he had the boy. Any of them could know that information.

Revolver, and his savior, could be any of them. There was no reason to think that they were one and the same.

But Yusaku had slept so easily, in his presence. More easily than when he was on his own, more dreamless than when he dozed in class or in the truck. As if he didn’t need a dream of the voice to comfort him or remind him.

As if the person he was looking for had been found.

Was it his imagination? Wishful thinking?

Did he want Revolver to be the one he’d been searching for?

Or had there been something familiar about Revolver from the start? Something he recognized behind those alien eyes, lingering under layers of disdain and condescension? The way he spoke, each word coated in the expectation of obedience, freely given or not. The way he equated thought with life, directly borne of Descartes.

The way his face fell at a list of three.

Yusaku never felt safe around anyone so quickly, so easily.

For months, he had struggled to relax in Kusanagi’s presence, always keeping on his feet with his hands warily tucked away. A year had passed before he felt secure enough to doze off there, and even then, trust was a word he’d hesitate to apply to it. It was confidence, the gradual certainty that he could handle anything that could happen, not faith that nothing would.

Revolver was honorable, for a terrorist. He preferred to settle with matches, even if those matches weren’t always fair, than with other means. Their first duel had made that evident, and after it, anything less than an honest one-on-one would just be like surrendering: admitting that he couldn’t take Yusaku on.

Revolver was too proud for that.

Knowing that, Yusaku knew why he felt secure in his decision to risk taking shelter in the Hanoi base: it was simply logical.

But logic didn’t dictate the subconscious. And Yusaku’s subconscious seemed to have some questionable ideas.

The doubts plagued him for hours, until he had to return to the rooms to beat Revolver back. Even then, his mind ran in circles as he leaned against the back wall.

The door slid open, and Revolver returned.

Yusaku forced any lingering turmoil out of his expression, settling his face into a scowl as yellow eyes turned his direction.

“The storms seemed calmer today.” Revolver reported, something like satisfaction curling his lips. Whether he was pleased by the virtual weather or Playmaker’s seeming obedience, Yusaku could only guess. “SOL seems to be getting control of things again. It’ll probably be safe outside soon.”

The sooner the mess outside cleared up, the sooner Yusaku could leave—and go back to not sleeping.

But that meant leaving the matter, the mystery that had haunted him for a decade, behind again. He’d have to leave, without knowing.

Just ask.

He’d always been a direct person after all. Revolver already knew he was looking for someone, so what could it hurt? Even exposing that kind of weakness was a moot point; Hanoi had used a hostage against him before, and he suspected they would again. He would handle it, like he always did.

“Were you there, ten years ago?”

Revolver went still, the confident smile sliding off his face.

Silence.

Someone who wasn’t there would just say so.

“Three things. Three things to live. Three things to go home. Three things to win.” Years later, that mantra was still carved into him. They were important to him, but to others they wouldn’t mean much. Not enough to make Revolver’s shoulders tense, to make his fists clench. “Are those your words?”

“What will you do if they are?” It was a question that may as well have been a confession.

“I don’t know,” He said, honestly. But the tension bled out of him. It didn’t matter that he was alone in enemy territory, or that they were trapped in a virtual reality. What mattered was that he was finally alone with the person he always wanted to meet.

Yusaku felt himself go soft. In a few steps, the careful distance he kept between them closed. Revolver wasn’t looking at him, his flat yellow eyes settled on something in the distance, but Yusaku stepped in front of him. He peered through the glass mask and tried to imagine the person underneath.

The boy with the white hair came to mind.

Slowly, he lifted his hands to Revolver’s face. Revolver made no move to stop him, his hands kept clenched at his sides, statue still. The mask came off easily, only to dissolve into pixels in his hands.

“There are many things I want to say.” He admitted, but Revolver still wasn’t looking at him, eyes stubbornly set anywhere but his face. “And many things I want to ask about.”

He took a white gloved hand in his own and steered Revolver back, towards the bed. Revolver allowed it, reluctance making each step stiff, but Yusaku did not stop until they were settled there.

“I…” Revolver’s voice was shakier than he expected, but Revolver steadied it quickly. He swallowed, and finally, his eyes met Yusaku’s. “You deserve answers.” He admitted, with the air of a man confessing his sins.

“The boy I met back then…” The boy who lured him to the van, who took him by the hand and led him to the worst moment of his life.

“Was me.”

“And the one who made the anonymous call…?”

“Me, again.” Both revelations settled within him surprisingly easily, like he always knew. But Revolver kept talking. “You were supposed to leave it all behind.” His hand, still clutched loosely in Yusaku’s own, slid out of his grip and fell on his shoulder. Revolver shook him, roughly, as the desolate, calm expression on his face cracked open. Underneath was something pained and raw. “You weren’t supposed to come back.”

“I couldn’t…” He hesitated for the first time, uncertain if the next words wouldn’t break something. But it was the truth, and he wanted to say it. “I couldn’t leave you behind. I wanted to find you again.”

The words did seem to hurt something. Revolver’s eyes slid shut, his brow furrowing. He looked like he didn’t know what to do.

Yusaku did. He closed the space between them, until they were nose to nose, and let his own hand slide up to Revolver’s throat. Underneath it, Revolver shuddered, and lurched all the closer.

Their lips met in the middle, soft and warm. He didn’t know what else to do but press closer, chasing the give of Revolver’s lips and the firm pressure of his body. A hand slipped up his back, leaving behind a trail of heat like nothing else he’d ever felt before, and curved over his neck. The gloved fingers were rough but tender on his chin, tilting his face to the side and back. It was easier like that, he discovered, more comfortable: like pieces fitting together. Revolver’s lips began to move, slowly for the first electrifying moment and then fiercely, intensity rising like the cresting tide. In its wake his thoughts seemed to be swept away, tumbling over one another, and stunned beyond his own belief, he parted his lips.

Revolver’s arms caged around him, firm but unsteady. As the wet heat of his mouth crashed into Yusaku’s own, his hand squeezed too tightly at Yusaku’s waist. The near bruising force wretched a protest from Yusaku’s throat, only for it to be devoured greedily between them. Still, Revolver’s grip seemed to flinch, and even just the few centimeters that opened between them were too much.

He could barely believe the raw edge to his own voice as he all but snarled, dragging Revolver back with fingers clawing at his back, in his hair. They met again, too hard and too fast, but the dull pain of teeth biting at his lips was nothing compared to that desperate lurch of his stomach when Revolver tried to pull away. The next time Revolver’s hands clenched punishingly around him, he gripped back just as savagely.

But despite the intensity of the sensations, the crescendo of emotion and heat and touch, he knew none of it was real. Revolver was nothing but an avatar, and Yusaku felt that difference keenly, like a word on the tip of his tongue: surely there but entirely impalpable. The person he was searching for wasn’t any closer than before. Even as they wound tighter and tighter around each other, the distance between them in reality couldn’t change at all.

It was the first time Yusaku ever resented how fake life in virtual reality was. It had never bothered him before, because VRAINS was nothing more than a mean to an end, the ideal battlefield for his last tumultuous death throes. He had barely dared to dream of such a moment like this, at the end of what could very well be a suicide mission.

But this was still nothing but a dream, even as Revolver’s lips stole his breath out of his lungs and snatched the moisture from his breath. It was just a taste of the future he’d been living solely to catch a glimpse of. And here that glimpse was, and he was finding it wasn’t enough, couldn’t possibly be enough.

He wanted so much more than this, but still Revolver’s lips left his. Suddenly bereft of the scalding heat that had scorched all the way through him, he was left teetering on the bed as Revolver withdrew.

Blank yellow eyes, no eyebrows, a sharp alien face—it was impossible to get a read on Revolver’s mood as they hovered in each other's space. The silence between them was agonizing, in a way he’d never known it to be.

But Revolver’s hair was in even further disarray than usual, tousled until it seemed more human. His lips were wet and red, even as he stared seriously into Yusaku’s eyes.

“We should talk.” His voice was gruffer than before, weathered like gravel, and Yusaku’s head spun with all the words he didn’t know how to say. But Revolver was right; this was their chance, maybe their only chance, to talk everything over before anything went too far. There was so much he didn’t understand: why would his savior enthusiastically give his strength to Hanoi, to the same despicable sadists that destroyed their lives before they even had a chance to begin?

When they were children, he knew his silver-haired kidnapper, with that guileless smile and those bright eyes, must have had no other choice. He had dedicated his whole being to rectifying that, to finding and freeing that person from what must have been an inescapable hell.

But Revolver was no victim. Yusaku had spent years following the breadcrumbs, piecing together the truth from hundreds of dead-ends. He knew the crimes of this person better than anyone.

At what point, he wondered, do we become responsible for our actions?

He didn’t know the answer. He was just sixteen, but he had taken his whole life in his own hands. No more facilities, no more caregivers, no more supervision. Every decision he made was entirely his own, and had been for a long time.

It chilled him, because he knew Revolver was the same.

The door opened.

The sound of it made them both freeze in place, but it was Yusaku that looked first. Revolver didn’t look at all.

But as the person in the doorway registered, Yusaku supposed he didn’t need to.

A white coat, a stern face, and grey hair above the coldest eyes he’d ever seen.

“Kogami.”

Yusaku was a hacker, first and foremost. In a world like VRAINS, that meant he made the impossible possible. He could directly bend the very rules of the game they existed within.

It had been a calculated decision, to make VRAINS his battlefield. He chose it because it afforded him the most advantages: a malleable world with the anonymity he needed and all the tools he could create.

For the most part, his deck was all needed. But it wasn’t all he had.

There were programs, for emergencies.

Faced with the man that had tortured him for months on end, the man that had ruined his life before he was even old enough to fight back, Yusaku felt that the moment qualified.

It was almost thoughtless, to activate the program he and Ai had worked on together. He felt numb, maybe, like his consciousness was somewhere between the virtual and reality.

Kogami’s face was almost comical. Blanked over with shock, he stared at them sprawled over the bed. A dead man, casually walking in on his accomplice and his enemy. They were all so still, too taken aback to even speak.

It wasn’t a trap, at least. But it was an opportunity.

Yusaku’s hand turned black, pixel by pixel, as his talon program initiated.

He lunged before anyone else even breathed. His reaction speed had always been good—the best, even. But it was still a whole room to cross.

Kogami stumbled back, not fast enough, but Revolver was faster. His weight caught Yusaku by the middle, and the crashed to the floor in the middle of the room. Kicking Revolver off, Yusaku was back on his feet and charging again, only to jerk to a stop.

“Wait!” A grip like steel around his wrist. Revolver held him back with all his strength, the rubber heels of his boots shrieking against the floor. Yusaku jerked on his arm with a snarl.

One swipe with the talon, and Revolver would no longer be a problem. Kogami was recovering from his shock already, his hand rising to tap out a few commands on the interface that sprung to life around him. Alarms burst to life, wailing and flashing.

It was Yusaku’s only chance, and all it would take was one swipe.

“He’s my father.” Revolver’s voice was ragged, the self-assured tone abandoned. He all but begged, struggling to drag Yusaku back.

You will plead for him. The thought was startlingly clear, even if nothing else was. Lights were flashing, red and white, and distant shouts were fast approaching. Yusaku stared in between Revolver and Kogami, and wondered, did you ever plead for us?

Had Revolver begged his father to let them go, to stop?

Of course, he hadn’t. Revolver had probably never begged for anything before in his life. But Yusaku had. He had begged his invisible captors through the cameras until his voice was hoarse, had begged the paramedics to take him home, had begged the police to tell him what happened.

Nobody had ever listened.

One swipe.

He couldn’t do it.

The program terminated.

What was he supposed to do? Knights were gathering behind Kogami, whose face finally settled back into dull assurance. Was Yusaku imagining the look of triumph in his eyes? Did the bastard even care enough to appreciate the victory he’d just wrenched from Yusaku’s hands?

He...probably wasn’t getting out of this. Took too much of a chance. It was inevitable, probably. One kid against an army.

Three things to live, to go home, to win. Just one of those would be enough.

He glanced back at Revolver, whose face seemed to have glazed over. His mask reappeared, covering his face like a layer of ice. He was steeling himself, Yusaku was sure, for what came next.

Revolver wasn’t going to save him this time.

And it wasn’t like anyone else would, either.

The world shuddered under his feet, and for a moment he thought something had hit him. A virus, a program? But when he looked down the world was shuddering, ripples of empty black data coursing through the floor, the walls. He felt the presence of something, data material but also something else.

Ai?

It wasn’t Ai, but it was similar. Like a punch, something seemed to strike the network itself, the impact vibrating through them, until they were all coming loose like dislodged puzzle pieces.

Everything went black, and suddenly, he realized his eyes were closed. Someone was shaking him, and with a jolt, he was sitting up.

“Yusaku!”

Kusanagi was in front of him, his usual easy-going demeanor almost wild with panic. Ai was staring at them anxiously from the computer consoles. He was back in the truck, logged out.

“You’re awake!” The relief in Kusanagi’s voice was palpable as he rocked back on his heels, releasing Yusaku’s shoulders. “It’s been hours! The whole VR network went haywire—are you okay?” A renewed note of terror in his voice finally broke Yusaku from his stupor.

His cheeks were wet, and his vision was blurred, hot tears filling his eyes. Wiping his face on his sleeve, he pushed away Kusanagi’s fretting hands.

“It’s nothing.” It wasn’t even a lie. The tears had already stopped.

What had he been crying for? He’d been cornered, but Yusaku wasn’t afraid of dying, and he certainly wasn’t afraid of going down fighting. He’d been upset about something, he was sure, before everything had gone dark.

What was it? He couldn’t remember.

“You sure?” Kusanagi asked, doubtful.

“I think it was a side-effect of being in VR so long.” It was an easy assumption to make; there was no telling what unknown complications could arise from such bizarre circumstances.

Kusanagi didn’t seem so sure, but he didn’t question it further. He turned his eyes back to the computers, probably to check the situation in VRAINS. As far as Yusaku could tell, something had forced the whole system to reboot, and all the trapped duelists had suddenly been forced from the network.

Checking his phone, he saw almost twelve hours had passed. No wonder he felt like shit.

Forcing his sore, cramped body out of the chair Kusanagi must have moved him to, he went to fix his rumpled appearance.

He checked the mirror, expecting the edges of his eyes to be red. They were, but something was...off.

Had his eyes always been a little yellow?

#yugioh vrains #vrains #ygo #datastormshipping #datastormdecember #yusaku fujiki #ryoken kogami

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