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When Yusaku had once set out to uncover the truth behind the Lost Incident, he'd hoped to rid his nights of the nightmares haunting them by doing so. That hope was ultimately never fulfilled.
Instead, now, more often than not, it weren't just his own terrors that would jolt him awake at night. Too many times he'd already woken up to a frighteningly small, distorted whimper, only to find that it was coming from the Duel Disk by his bedside. Sometimes the whimper was sobbing. Sometimes it was a single, piercing scream.
He'd found Roboppi trying to use a scarf to ‘tuck in’ the Duel Disk a few times in the first few days after they'd returned from their battle with Bohmann, and while he knew from experience that the gesture wouldn't do much, especially because the Duel Disk didn't have any sensors to ‘feel’ the additional pressure applied, he couldn't bring himself to tell the little household robot to stop. At least it was trying to ease Ai’s pain. That was more than Yusaku had had when it had first started for him as a child.
As much as Yusaku wanted to soothe Ai’s nightmares, he had no idea how. After all, he had never been able to get his own under control. The most he could do was carefully wake Ai by activating the Duel Disk without drawing attention to the reason. He would just claim that he had remembered work he had left to do for school, turn on his Desktop PC and pretend to type away on card-related homework that he'd finished days ago.
Sometimes Yusaku wondered if Ai was catching on to what he was actually trying to accomplish that way. He knew that the Ignis could be a lot more perceptive than his demeanor often let on. It didn't matter much either way. Ai had woken Yusaku from his own night terrors with stupid jokes or seemingly random demands to look at funny internet cat videos at 3am many times in the past months. This was the least he could do to repay him.
Yes, they could wake each other from their nightmares. But they couldn't stop them. They couldn't prevent the seeds of disjointed, negative thought planted by them from taking root and festering throughout the day, draining their energy and ability to properly socialize like a parasite. None of the anxiety-relieving techniques the therapists had shown Yusaku when he was little had ever helped him cull those weeds. He knew they wouldn't help Ai either. And yet, he still wanted to do more to give his friend reprieve from those fears and memories. It broke him up to just imagine that Ai - cheerful, silly, happy-go-lucky Ai - was now suffering the same agony he had for all those years.
Except, maybe it was even worse. As much as the Hanoi Project had broken his life, the people he had known, however distant they were from him, were all still alive and well once he returned from the awful white room. Ai, on the other hand, had to helplessly watch everyone he'd known before coming to the physical world die. He'd watched Earth, Flame and Aqua die twice each, even. For him, there was no voice reminding him of ‘three reasons to push through until it is over'. This wouldn't be ‘over’. They weren't coming back. They were gone .
If Kusanagi and Takeru hadn't come back after all of this either, how many new, even more disgusting colors would Yusaku's nightmares be painted in now? He didn't even dare imagine… Maybe, he should've asked Takeru for advice. After all, he'd lost his parents in the Lost Incident and been just as close to Flame as Ai. If anyone would understand, it would be him. But… no. Yusaku had no idea how to even breach the subject. Much less without ripping open old wounds even further so soon after Flame’s passing. Yusaku generally didn't feel like he was any good at talking… about any of this.
So instead he did what he could during daytime hours. Made a habit of taking his Duel Disk outside to visit Kusanagi's whenever it looked like Ai was doing well enough to socialize. Made sure to give him space when it didn't look that way. He kept the drawer with the DVDs and old CDs unlocked for Roboppi's and Ai’s free use. The lock program on the Duel Disk hadn't been engaged in weeks. Ai could roam the flat freely when he felt in the mood. Yusaku just made sure that Ai and Roboppi didn't look at news coverage or discussions of the recent events when they were online. For that reason, he'd also taken to switching off the internet router when he left the home without Ai.
Above all else, he wanted for them to finally , after all this time, learn to enjoy dueling. Both of them, Ai and Yusaku himself. Kusanagi had been right all along. The legacy of Hanoi had cast its shadow over this game for Yusaku for far too long. The first step to moving on from what had happened would be to finally make this game their own to play on their own terms, not to survive or to struggle and protect, but to have fun . That had to be possible, right? Takeru had said that he hated the game for years, and now he always dueled with a bright smile on his face.
He decided to have them start small; Traditional tabletop dueling, without holograms or other tech equipment. Just two decks, a coin and a die. Ai didn't seem like he understood what Yusaku was trying to accomplish when he invited him to play, but he also didn't have the energy to refuse, so he cross-leggedly sat down on the small dinner table across from Yusaku and clumsily started shuffling the much too large stack of paper cards in front of him. Neither of them would be using a Cyberse deck. Yusaku had gotten two ancient starter decks, still in box, off an auction site. They were old prints, without integrated card data or Link Monsters. Anything to make this as different an experience to the duels they had fought together up until now as possible.
Tabletop duels quickly became a daily ritual between them, and while Yusaku wasn't sure if Ai enjoyed ‘game time’, as they'd started calling it, it at least seemed to keep his mind occupied enough to prevent him from drifting off and staring at the wall emptily as he had done so often lately…
It was one evening, during one such ‘game time’, that they were interrupted by an unexpected knock on Yusaku's door.
“Hm? Did you make plans with anyone?” Ai turned to the door and laid down the far too large set of hand cards in front of him, face up for the world to see. Not like Yusaku cared about peeking.
Yusaku took a quick look at his duel disk. No new messages. “No, nobody asked to come by… This is odd.”
His eyes sharpened. He didn't usually have guests, especially not the kind that would come to visit unannounced. His gut told him to be on guard.
“Uhuh… Uh, so…You should probably still get the door, though?”
“...”
Yusaku quietly went through the possibilities in his head for a moment. This could be the landlady, a misrouted food delivery, some sort of solicitor… or…
The knocking continued.
“Ai, Duel Disk.” Yusaku hissed, and Ai, without any questions or clever quips dove away into the display of the device.
(Ai’s quips had become far less frequent, too, Yusaku bitterly noted to himself.)
With the A.I. hidden away in the device on his wrist, Yusaku finally went to answer the door.
The stern face of Ryoken Kogami showed up behind it.
“Ah- Revolver…” Was all Yusaku said as a greeting. This person had not been anywhere close to the top of his mental list.
“Were you busy?” Ryoken caught a glance at the cards laid out on the table behind Yusaku. “You took longer to answer than I expected.”
Yusaku furrowed his brows at the question, still not sure what the older boy was doing here in the first place. Still, he shook his head, “I was just having a mock duel with Ai.”
“With Ai… I see. Where is he now?”
Yusaku pointed at his Duel Disk.
“...You know, most people give a heads up before they show up at someone's door. Just saying,” the expected voice piped up from the crackly old Duel Disk speakers.
There wasn't nearly as much pep in that complaint as there would've been once upon a time, and, somehow, Yusaku could tell that Ryoken was taking note of that fact.
“Let him continue playing by himself,” Ryoken’s words sounded more like a demand than a suggestion.
Yusaku raised a brow, “We both know that that's not how the game works.”
Ryoken narrowed his eyes, “Get him out of your Duel Disk. I need you to let me take a look at it. Alone.”
“ I would love to play with Bro in Master’s stead!” Roboppi’s synthesized voice chirped happily as the little cleaning robot came rolling -almost skipping- towards the door. They had been waiting for a chance to be helpful all day.
Yusaku gave it a brief thought.
“Ai, go duel Roboppi.”
“ Wha- Can they even hold the cards?!”
“That hasn't stopped you, has it?”
“ I have actual fingers! I bet they don't even know the rules!”
“You can teach them.”
“ Tsk… seriously. What is this all about anyway…?” Ai was grumbling - to himself, but really, to everyone else - as his form manifested again and he climbed out of the disk. “Get in the disk, get out of the disk… hmpf…Hey! Revolver! You'd better not do anything weird with that ol’ thing, okay? I live in there now! If you mess with it, that's basically a home invasion!”
Yusaku caught himself feeling a little pleased with Ai talking so much and loudly. It was this odd bit of normalcy that showed itself every now and then that eased his worries a little.
The normalcy didn't last long. Just as Ai leapt off the Duel Disk and touched down on the floor of Yusaku's flat, Ryoken spoke again.
“Say…”
There was a beat of silence. It took a moment for Yusaku and Ai to realize that Ryoken was addressing Ai.
“...Yeah?” Ai, apprehensively and with furrowed brows, turned around to look up at the human. “What is it…?”
He clearly felt weirded out, being directly involved in the conversation by Ryoken. Yusaku couldn't blame Ai. It really felt… abnormal.
“...How have you been feeling lately?”
And now it felt like they had entered a parallel universe where up is down and left is right. Sure, this wasn't the very first time Ryoken had addressed Ai as a person, but Ryoken - Revolver never openly worried about others’ well being. Least of all that of an Ignis.
Ai froze up at the question. As if it were a multi-Terrabyte file that first needed to buffer properly through the RAM available to him before he could even process what had just been said to him. It wasn't even just who had asked the question. Its contents on their own were enough to block his mind.
Yusaku knew that, because it was the same question that he had heard over and over again after he had first returned from the Lost Incident. A question that each time had caused him to fall silent and shut down without fail.
“I…” was the first sound that Ai’s voice produced after what felt like minutes of buffering.
“Revolver…” Yusaku made an attempt to shove Ryoken to the side so he could close the door behind them and cut this conversation off right where it was, but Ryoken stubbornly kept his feet grounded, waiting for an answer.
“I… I dunno. What’s it matter…?” Ai wasn't looking at anybody. The characteristic light in his eyes looked faint and dull. “Anyway, didn't you have something to talk about with Yusaku? …Go do that already.”
“...I see.”
That non-answer apparently held all the information Ryoken had wanted from his query. Without any further resistance he stepped aside and nodded for Yusaku to close the door.
“...Why did you do that?” Yusaku asked once he was sure they were out of earshot, glaring at Ryoken.
They couldn't go too far - as an A.I., Ai was still reliant on the wireless tethering functions of the Duel Disk to keep his form stable and supply himself with energy as long as he didn't decide to jump to a different device - but the reach was enough to allow for them to talk down the hallway and around the corner.
Ryoken crossed his arms, “A simple status check. I needed to assess the situation.”
“The ‘situation’ is that he needs more time before having this conversation.” Yusaku spoke firmly. “Is that why you showed up unannounced? So you could see his unprepared reaction to that question?”
“Partially.”
Yusaku's hands balled to fists.
“Enough. His mental state isn't observation data for you to collect.”
“But his mental state is my concern. And it should be yours, too.”
Yusaku backed away a little. As much as he hated the direction the conversation had gone, he wanted to give Ryoken a chance to explain.
“Has he been like this the entire time since the battle against Bohmann?” Ryoken asked.
Yusaku looked away. “It varies. He has better days and worse days.”
“But more bad days than good days, I assume?”
“What do you expect? He lost everything in that battle.” Yusaku looked up. “He is a victim of the damage done by Lightning.”
“Yes.” Ryoken closed his eyes “No doubt about that.”
Yusaku's eyes widened a little. He hadn't expected affirmation from Ryoken, of all people. This conversation continued to be bizarre.
Ryoken held out a hand, “Let me take a look at your Duel Disk.”
“...” Yusaku tensed up a little.
“If I wanted AI I wouldn't have asked for him to stay behind. I just want to look at the recent error logs.”
He stayed reluctant for a bit, but eventually Yusaku unclasped the device from his wrist and handed it to Ryoken. The entire time that the older boy used it, Yusaku watched every single button press like a hawk.
“...He has been dissociating frequently.” Ryoken noted, and Yusaku blinked.
“You can tell from the logs alone…?”
“The Ignis algorithm marks processing issues related to the consciousness data of its programs with especially designated error codes. These logs tell me his processes are disordered. Trains of thought starting and stopping with little input… High stress levels even in what are supposed to be idle phases-”
“Maybe that is just what it means to have free will and consciousness…” Yusaku cut him off “...and endure what we had to these past weeks.”
Yusaku's hard glare was countered by Ryoken with equally stern eyes.
“Let me make myself clear. I am not here to persecute your Ignis. In the end, he was not the threat that doomed a successful human-Ignis coexistence to collapse. I acknowledge that.”
“Then, why are you-”
“Because ‘was’ and ‘will be' are two separate things.”
Ryoken handed Yusaku his Duel Disk back. Having done so, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a data card that he then showed to Yusaku, who stared at it. ‘DOR.bat’ , the label on it read.
“What is that?” Yusaku asked.
“Even if your Ignis only held goodwill for humanity in the past, we can't be sure that this won't change now,” Ryoken began to explain. “Yes, free will and consciousness make the Ignis’ psyches similar to ours to an extent. But that fact itself can pose a danger. Trauma, despair and grief can drive people to irrational, destructive actions. I know that better than most. Except… a single human is physically limited in the damage they can cause in their disturbed state of mind. Your Ignis, on the other hand, has the power to freely manipulate immense amounts of data in the blink of an eye. What would be a self destructive tantrum to one of us, could easily destroy the entire network should it occur to him. If not do worse.”
Yusaku tensed up, “And this card…?”
“It is a program I have written to prevent just that. A patch to the Ignis base program. It adds an additional background process to it that scans the A.I.’s thought processes for anything that could be potentially hostile to humanity. If such data is detected,the thought process is terminated and deleted from memory.” Ryoken held the card out to Yusaku, motioning for him to take it. “Install this while he is in standby mode at night. There will be no more doubts. No mulling over how ‘unfair’ it is that only humans were saved and not the other Ignis, no potential thoughts of revenge, no wondering if Lightning’s philosophy might have been based in truth. He'll continue to act benevolent towards humanity, regardless of his trauma. And, in time, his despair will resolve and he will be able to move on without incident.”
There was a short silence as Yusaku let Ryoken's words sink in. The promise, and the implications of it. After the moment had passed, Yusaku reached out his hand. He took the DOR.bat card, looked at it-
-and, without hesitation, snapped it clean in half.
“ Wha -!?” Ryoken took a step back, exasperated. It clearly took him effort to not start screaming in Yusaku's face.
“You must not understand what ‘free will’ means, if you ever thought this would be an acceptable option,” Yusaku, too, was speaking much louder than he usually did in the real world. “Ai is my partner , Revolver, and I will never take away his freedom to make his own choices. I trust him to make it through this, and I will stay by his side as long as necessary for him to do so!”
“You are distracting it with games! You acted as if I were committing a taboo when I asked for its status!” Ryoken snarled. “How is that any different from eliminating the problematic thought data as it occurs?”
“You are treating him like a machine that can be fixed by swapping out parts that you don't like on the fly!”
“It is a program!”
“He is a person !”
The two of them glared at each other silently for a while, until Ryoken started grinding his teeth in frustration. He closed his eyes.
“So… You would really risk the safety of this entire world over some worthless sentimentality. I expected more from you.”
“I know very well that despair can make people do things they are bound to regret. But should it really come to that, then I will be there to stop Ai. That is the responsibility I chose. As his friend, for his sake as much as anybody else's!”
“Tch…” Ryoken could only give a bitter chuckle at that “Why do I feel like you are going to regret those words sooner than you would like…?”
“We are done talking.” Yusaku attached his Duel Disk to his wrist again and turned around. “It would be better if you left, Ryoken Kogami.”
They parted without sparing each other another look, a bitter taste on their tongues. Yusaku wasn't sure what he had even expected. In a way, he felt betrayed. Had it meant nothing at all when Revolver had told him and Ai that he entrusted the future to them? Maybe with his brain free of the adrenalin generated by his duel against Lightning, Ryoken Kogami had reverted to the cold, uncompromising man obsessed with the past that he'd always been…
The past, yes. Not the future. Yusaku reminded himself of that. All that Revolver was afraid of was based in simulations made of data from the past. It wasn't reality. It wasn't the future. The future was still in their own hands, with nobody else allowed to decide for them. He would make sure of that.
“...So…What did Revolver want to talk about…?” were the first words Yusaku heard when he came back to his flat. Ai’s voice sounded small and hesitant. It hurt.
When Yusaku walked over to them Ai and Roboppi were sitting on the floor messing with the cards. Whatever was going on on Roboppi's side of the ‘field’ could barely be called a duel. The little thing had clearly made an attempt to summon some monsters and use spells, but not in any way that was well ordered and made sense. Then again, for a household A.I. it was surprising that it seemed to grasp the difference between card types at all…
“He wanted to discuss security measures In case of a possible future reopening of Link VRAINS or a similar VR environment,” Yusaku answered Ai’s question. “I rejected his offer to contribute. I have no intentions of going back to being Playmaker any time soon.”
“...Oh... Okay…”
Something in Ai’s tone told Yusaku that Ai knew that his response wasn't truthful. But why? Was it just a hunch on Ai’s part, or…?
…Yusaku's mind briefly wandered to the ratty, old on-board microphone of his Duel Disk and the possibility that Ai could've activated it and requested its input data remotely, but he dismissed that thought with a shake of his head. Not because it was unlikely, but because he didn't want to consider it. If Ai really had eavesdropped on that entire conversation, then-
“Yusaku…?”
He was on his way to the fridge to get himself a cold bottle of water to drink when he heard Ai’s voice again. Yusaku turned around.
“...Thank you,” Ai muttered.
“For what?” Yusaku asked.
“Just… for everything,” slowly Ai looked up. “Everything you’ve done for me. Letting me stay, spending time together… Don’t think I haven’t noticed how hard you’ve been trying to make things better for me ever since… y’know. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you so, so much…”
Somehow, hearing so much sincerity from Ai made Yusaku’s stomach knot up. It was a foreboding feeling.
“Where’s this coming from all of a sudden?”
“Dunno. I just… kinda felt like I should say it. Y’know?”
Yusaku didn’t want to respond to that. He felt sick. Felt like there was a hidden meaning in Ai’s words of gratitude. Something he didn’t want to hear.
And yet, he tried to smile at Ai. Tried to look and sound as reassuring as he could.
“You’re reading too much into things. We’ve been fighting hard together and deserve some rest now. I’ve done nothing but what is natural considering that.”
“...Yeah. Makes sense…”
It sounded less like a ‘ what you say makes sense ’ and more like a ‘ makes sense that you would say that ’. Maybe Yusaku was slipping too far back into old habits. He took a deep breath and tried to speak a little more frankly.
“Ai… We’re partners. Okay?”
Ai looked up at him, big, yellow eyes looking so much lonelier than they should ever have.
“Yeah…” he nodded. “We are, aren’t we?”
And in just that moment, despite Ai’s lack of the features needed to do so, Yusaku felt as if he was trying to smile back at him.
-
They didn’t speak much for the rest of that day. Yusaku had a cup of water as he watched Ai and Roboppi finish their game (for a household A.I., Roboppi really had caught on to how tribute summoning worked surprisingly quickly…) then helped them put away the two starter decks and prepared for bed. Rather than on the nightstand, he kept his Duel Disk next to his pillow that night. Just in case , he thought. Just in case .
“Y’know… Maybe it would’ve been better if you’d taken Revolver’s offer,” Yusaku heard Ai mumble from the Duel Disk as he was lying down.
He shook his head, “I won’t go back to being Playmaker unless I see an actual need for it.”
“Yeah… Okay then.”
But they both knew that that wasn’t what Ai had been talking about.
“Get some rest,” Yusaku said. “Good night, Ai.”
“...Good night, Yusaku.”
And with that, Yusaku drifted away into a surprisingly dreamless sleep.
-
The next morning, he woke up to the words ‘ I’m sorry ’ in the form of a status message on the Duel Disk's display and a deactivated Roboppi leaning against the nightstand like a broken toy. Ai was gone and hooking up the USB data cable to the cleaning robot revealed that Roboppi’s entire program had been transferred out of the machine.
The nightmares haunting his bedroom once again belonged to Yusaku alone, and there was nobody around to wake him.