WRGP: Start Up!

"Something new?" Shuho said as he looked at Shane, completely missing the first part of what they had said. All he heard was that Shane had something new and exciting for them.

It didn't take long for them to reach the building, nor was there any resistance once they arrived. For what had happened the day before, Security was surprisingly low. Takuro was in his office, the same as usual, but he seemed like something was off from the last time, like he wasn't his best at the moment.

"Hmph! At least I didn't die more than once!" Shirei pouted, turning way from Shane as she crossed her arms.

They finally made their way to his office. Zeiya lift her hand to knocked on the closed door, but paused and turned to Darren.

"Umm...is it ok if I go in alone?" She said with a hesitant tone. "I won't do anything like Shuho did...but I kind of wanted to talk to him alone."

"Grrrrrrr! Man why do comebacks suck in this part of the world?" Shane laughed, leading the two boys into the garage. "Ok, so I got some good news and some really, really, good news. Which do you wanna hear first?"

Harley couldn't help blurting out "GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS!" he then stopped, looking to Shuho, then back to Shane who rose his eyebrow at him. "Uhhh....sorry, yeah, good news first."

Shuho was just as excited as Harley, but he kept his composure and calmly said, "Good news, then we can have the Really really good news."

Darren crossed his arms, skeptical about the whole thing, but he knew Zeiya wasn't a fool. He nodded lightly and said, "Alright... you can go alone and I won't listen in. Just don't do anything stupid."

"Thanks, Darren." She said as she turns back to the door. Hesitating, she gulped before knocking on the door. Her hand went to the door knob, finding it unlocked. She slowly opened the door and peeked her head inside. "T-Takuro? Are you here?"

Takuro had an annoyed look to his face as he saw Zeiya walk in. "Oh, its you..." he said coldly. "I had a feeling I'd have a pest in here. So you know, Seiki's gone to compete in the qualifiers. I can't join thanks to your little boyfriend but the number three guy's taking care of that. So, you come to take me out? Sorry, but I'm really not in the mood for that."

"..." Normally, Zeiya would have immediately made a comment on the little 'boyfriend' thing, but she wasn't in the mood to do that. She wakled inside and closed the door behind her as she walked up to Takuro, stopping just short of his desk. Just being in the same room made her nervous and she did all she could to prevent Takuro from figuring that out.

"I...I just came here to talk." She said, her voice just barely shakey. "Is that...all right?"

Takuro gave a small grin as he looked at her, seeing her fear. He leaned into his chair and said, "Isn't there something a little more important you should be doing right now? Aw, what the hell. You wanna talk, I got free time. Just make sure you don't waste it with stupid questions. I know its hard for you, but just try your best to... not be you for about five minutes."

A shiver went up her body as she saw him grinning, determined not to show it. She took a deep, shaky breath as she looked at him.

"Can you tell me...what you did to Seiki?" she said. "I know you didn't brainwash her...but the fact that she doesn't remember us means you did something."

"And here we go with the stupid questions..." Takuro said as his hands all but slammed onto the desk. "I could just kick you out without saying a thing but... oh, what the hell. You already know that this timeline and reality isn't the only one around. There's a shit load of others, and each one has a possibility for what each and every one of you COULD be. I don't exist in any of those... And I've got Chaos Power straight from the source of the gems Kariya used to get here. That means I can go into the other realms and fuck with whatever I want. She ASKED me to change her memories so that she never met you, so I connected her mind to the mind of a version of her that never saw you before. Its that simple. Seiki is still Seiki, but the TRUE Seiki that she would have been if shit didn't get messed up, and she CHOSE it. She all but begged me to do it. Even helped me kill the Director and weaken Kariya so I was strong enough to do it."

"So that's what happened?" She replied, strangely without wavering her voice or expression. "I kind of figured she'd ask you to do that..." She tilts her head down. "She...never really could forget you. Seiki always carried around a picture of you...well...'Divine' and her in her bag. Whenever I try bringing it up, she just snaps at me and changes the subject." she paused for a bit before looking up. "You know...you could have just attacked us at any time. If you know about that Chaos thing, you would have known Shuho could have teleported us out. Why did you just leave us in the ocean like that if you knew it?"

"Well, that's pretty straight forward..." Takuro said with a slight blink. "Well, truth is I wanted that Shuho kid so drained that he couldn't do a thing in the tournament, then his Light and Darkness Dragon would be easy pickin'. It was MEANT to stop his growth in his power of order, but the little bastard found a way to hyper accelerate it instead. Thanks to that, his Order negated a lot of my powers, but Seiki's Chaos cancels it out so well, that everything involving her was unaffected. If it weren't for that, he would have negated the Life Link keeping me here and taken me out without hurting your little friend at all. That's why he came here alone. He knew no one else had a chance in hell of doing it and he thought the Chaos was too weak to measure up. I knew better of course but... Oh, you wouldn't think I did that on purpose, did you? Why, sending the kid to all but kill himself because you freak out in water and your friend's got a temper problem and then assume his power would flare up and he'd come here to end me because he didn't want you two fighting in these battles anymore KNOWING that it amounted to jack shit in the end... Now I wouldn't think that far ahead, would I?"

Zeiya bit her lit, doing all that she can from shouting at Takuro for what a horrible man he really was. She gulped as she didn't break her gaze at the snake. "Sorry for the stupid questions." she muttered. "Just one last one...is Seiki...happy with you?" Her hands started to tremble and she had to hold onto each other to keep them from trembling. "I just want to know how she is."

"What's the matter? Still worried about your little forgotten friend?" Takuro said with a small grin. "Let me tell you something, in another reality, another possibility of the world, Seiki died in jail. She went there because her powers accidentally killed a guy, but why do you think she stayed there? With power like hers she coulda done whatever the hell she wanted, so why not bust out? She had no WILL to live, nothing to live for. You said yourself, she never stopped thinking of mean ol' Divine. I GAVE her something to live for, and here she is now. Seiki knows this and I've given her all the freedom to do whatever she likes. Sure she's gotta do a few boring things here and there as Director, but a kid's gotta learn responsibility some time. I'm practically a father to her right now, the family she never had! Of course she's happy! A hell of a lot happier then she was in that grease pit of a dump you call Satellite at least." Alright, Q and A time is up. If that's really all you wanted, you can just go away now. And go ahead and let the door hit you on the way out. I could use a good laugh."

She twitched at Takuro's last statement about Satellite, closing her eyes as she clenched down her mouth. "Ok...thanks." she murmured as she bowwed slightly and turned around, heading to the door before stopping. "Can you tell her..I'm sorry for being such a burden?" she asked. "I know it won't make sense to her, but I just want her to know..." With that said, she opened the door and left the room, closing it and pressing her back against the door before falling to her knees. Unable to take it anymore, she covered her face with her hands as tears fell down her face.

Darren placed his hand on her shoulder lightly with a smile as he said, "It looks like you had a hard time... I don't know if you got what you needed, but I'm here because the Qualifiers got announced. They're called by Duelist A B and C and the locations are all different. One's for near here, so we can make it in time..." He moved her to his shoulder, patting her back as he let her cry. "Let out as much as you want... Just let it all out. We don't have to do anything until you're ready."

The first round had been announced. Now Shuho and Harley had to go to their designated areas. No one had seen Zeiya, but Shuho insisted that it would be alright. "I have a feeling I know where she went," he said lightly. "Leave spot C for her. I think she's already close to there anyways. I'll take B. Harley, you take A and bring it home. I'll win mine and you take yours. That way Zeiya doesn't have to worry about it."

She shook her head on his shoulder, trying her hardest to wipe her tears away and not to let her voice out. She didn't want Takuro of all people enjoy her like this. She let out a small hiccup as she continued to rub her eyes. "I-I'm ok..." she said in a near whisper. "Let's just go...please..."

Darren nodded lightly as he walked her out of the building, holding her so that she wouldn't have to hold her eyes and walk at the same time. "I won't ask what happened, but did you at least get the answers you wanted?"

She nodded as she manages to rub away the tears. "I'll talk about it...after the Qualifiers." She said as she got on her Runner. "Where is it?"

Harley nodded, raising his fist slightly. "No way I'm losin' to these guys!" he ran it just under his bottom lip and gave a thumbs up. Since then, Harley had arrived at location A and was ready for anything. They had outfitted him with a match blue helmet to his runner, and he was more than ready to start, especially after what Shane had told them. "These buckets of bolts are twice their normal output and everything should be workin' a lot smoother. Oh, and the anti-bug I popped in there should make for some laughs".

The location of the Duelist A Qualifier was near the New Domino Hospital. Standing outside of it was a man with dark sunglasses and spiky red hair. He looked at the boy Harley and said, "Oh, so your the one I gotta beat to get to the WRGP. Too bad your just a kid though, I was hoping for a challenge."

The location of the Duelist B Qualifier was the docks. Shuho had chosen this location because he had dueled in this area before and didn't want Zeiya anywhere near it. He stopped the Duel Runner as he looked outward for his opponent. "Did I really get here first?"

Darren pointed downward as he lightly said, "The starting points are all landmarks of New Domino City. Duelist C's starting point... is the Sector Security Building. You're already here. We just have to wait for your opponent. In the meantime, do whatever you think you need to do to prepare. There's no way to know what you're gonna be up against."

"The water looks nice, doesn't it?" Shirei suddenliy said as she appears out of nowhere next to him with a grin. "Thought I'd watch your little duel."

"Okay..." She muttered as she just merely looked through her deck. There wasn't really anything to do to prepare, but she didn't wanna say anything.

"I was hoping for someone who didn't look like Ghost Rider, but I guess we both lucked out." Harley said back with a big grin, slaying his opponent. "If you want a challenge, you came to the right place!"

Shuho jumped back lightly as he saw Shirei appear from out of nowhere. He crossed his arms and said, "You've sure got a way of finding me. I thought only the contestants knew where these locations were, and I don't think you were fast enough to follow me. Do you have me chipped or something?"

The man gave Harley a sour face as he revved his Runner and called out, "You just made this that much easier! I'm gonna take you down, little boy!"

An engine roared as a man with a black helmet on his head rode down from the sky. He was wearing a black and white striped riding suit, skin tight. His Runner was long and black with white streaks and designs. It seemed to run on only two wheels though it was big enough to take more, and it was pointed at the nose and back. "So, you're my opponent..." he said, his voice muffled through the helmet, making it hard to tell who it was. "You are Zeiya from the Fortune Cup, correct?"

"Kahahahaha! You sure are simple minded." Shirei said, poking (more like jabbing) her finger on his forehead with a smirk. "How did you think I found you? Magic? Come on, let's get this show on the road."

Zeiya looked up as her opponent arrived. "Umm...yes." she said, blinking. "Who are you?"