Cardfight Training Area

Xat continued to look for an opponent to fight, having no luck finding the others. She sat down on one of the floors and looked at the bangle on her wrist. "This little thing must contain alot of power. I wonder if this is what the seeds use to stride?" She asked out loud hoping no one heard her.

After all of the awkwardness and the tension... And having his hand over Haruto's eyes, Seifer gave a shaky sigh sweat dropping. He'd never been so nervous in his life, and he was safe. Nouvelle Vague help him if she'd found out he was in here. Sad to say though, what she said after was a problem. He waited for several long moments before stepping out of the cramped corner, making sure Yukino was long gone. "I sometimes forget she can be intimidating..." Seifer mentioned, pointing out the differences when she was with Haruka and other times. The male was obviously quite terrified, more for... off... reasons.

Xat had a feeling to go back to were she started from. So she stood up and followed the path back to the start however before she reached the entrance she walked to a training field and saw someone sitting on the bench, looking deep in thought. She went over to them and as she drew closer she saw it was a male, however she had never seen this guy before.

Haruto was simply sitting there, minding his own business, he did not want to overhear the couple nor get involved in this current situation, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, something struck him as odd, why would Seifer cover his eyes? He is 16 after all, unless the couple were up to more than just a 'basic' moment.

"..Huh..well at least he's concerned, kinda funny though." he thought, as he stepped up from the corner.

As Haruto stood up and saw Haruka, he gave a smile as he saw the look on Haruka's face and the fact that he was re-united with his friends again.

"See Haruka, I told you that door will open, i'm glad you got what you wished for, anyway I need to be going now before Aniki finds out I came here, see you both soon." he said, as he jumped from the window landing on the ground as he began to run in order to arrive home before his brother returns.

"..This was the right thing to do after all..hehe." he thought.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsubasa was still in thought about which stride he would obtain for some reason no matter how much he thought he could not see any possible stride that he could obtain, until he placed his hand on the bangle and deck once again, he saw a glimpse of a dragon and a knight. They were golden figures that had no detail to them yet however there was something between them, something blue..however before the image could reveal itself more he was interrupted by a woman who appeared to be looking at him.

"..Something I can help you with miss?" he said, grabbing his deck and bangle.

Xat looked at him and saw the bangil. "I was wondering if you could cardfight me. I see that you have a bangel, so you must be trying to get stride, same as me. SO maybe we can train together and get stride." She said to him. She wasn't that good with talking to others but she gave it a try.

Tsubasa listened intently to the young lady's request and her deduction, he could tell that she was not that good at talking with others but what interested him is that she said it with such logic and calmness. It was not that she was uncomfortable or anything, this definitely interested him, her statement was above all simple logic.

"..I see, well you're right I have not achieved my new stride yet..sure why not I need the practice anyway." he said, as he put on the bangle and walked to one side of a fight table in the room.

Tsubasa prepared is starting Vanguard and was ready to start the draw process, but before that he decided to hold the deck and take a deep breath, hoping that him and his units will both unlock the strides with this experience. Placing his deck on the table he began the draw process.

"..Oh, where are my manners, my name's Tsubasa, Tsubasa Hayato." he said, drawing his five cards. "What's yours?"

Xat walked over to the other side and placed her deck on the deck zone when she got a vision of shirayuki only much older, she opened her eyes not noticeing she has closed them and looking at her deck understood what they were saying to her. When she heard his name she smiled. "Tsubasa thats a nice name. My name is Xateramusa." She said as she got ready to fight.

It was a long and hard battle both Xat and Tsubasa manige to stride 2 times. The battle kept going back and forth, though with each stride Xat's energy was weaken. Using shrayuki's skill she manage to stop most of the attacks each turn but her luck finally ran out when a brakeride happen. At the end of the match she fainted from all the energy used for stride, and fell into a coma. Though she was breathing her spirit wasn't fully there insted it was taken by the murakumo's to train.

Darren had decided to go on ahead of Noel, knowing she probably needed time to think about what she needed. He had done the same many times before. He was in the training area and he saw the battle between Tsubasa and Xateramusa. Xat's Stride was incredible and Tsubasa's equaled it. A unit with that much power and the ability to perform 3 drive checks. Daikaiser could do the same in a sense but not like this.

"No wonder Noel wanted it..." he said before he saw the final damage dealt. He was sad to see that Xat lost but what was worse was what happened after that. Seeing her pass out made Darren's eyes widen with fear. He rushed to her and said, "Xat!" catching her before her body hit the ground. Was this really the price of Stride? This much energy?

When Darren lefted Xat upsome, she didn't respond. Even though she was breathing it was like she was a lifeless corps.

The images of the Golden Knight and Dragon came clear to Tsubasa as he asked the bangle to grant him the power of stride, unlike probably most other situations Tsubasa was able to slowly recover from the strain probably enough to grant him stride as Diablo as well...nevertheless it was tiring, and Xat being a strong opponent did not make it easy.

"Generation Stride! Golden Dragon, Spear Cross Dragon!" he shouted as his final stride took form, shaking the training facility from it's core.

Xat's stride attacks and units from the Murakumo clan forced Tsubasa to stay on guard against her attacks, nevertheless he pushed forward with Gancelot Zenith and managed to take the win. However, Xat was unable to handle the strain and collapsed in front of him, thankfully Darren caught her midfall.

"We need a medic over here!" he shouted as several medics from the training facility came with a stretcher to help Xat out. "...Sorry this situation was not under the best of circumstances Darren.." he said, feeling sad that he allowed for this situation to happen.

"Its... not your fault..." Darren said as he lifted Xat onto the stretcher. He couldn't believe a power like that came at a price like this. For how strong it was, it made Darren feel like he should never try to obtain anything like it. No, that wasn't the way to think now. He had to be able to fight so Xat wouldn't have to... not like this at least.

"Humans aren't exactly ready for that power in that form right now. That's why you and I worked on a more stable answer."

"We had to do a lot of training to get to the point that I could even use it, and even now I can't say I've mastered it. The best I can do is bring it out in bursts, and even with that I know that if my body is injured I can't do much with it..." He looked at Xat with a sigh. "Whatever I have to do to make sure she doesn't have to fight... I'll do it."

Shirayuki telapthicly talked into both Tsubasa's and nova's mind as her card glowed.

"Do not worry she will be ok, the reason why she is in a coma is because she needs to do mental training, she wasn't ok after she was reversed it sort of took a major toll on her psych, and it just needs to repare. We took her to our home were she will be trained to be much stronger. She will be back and when she dose she will have the ability to use the bangil without losing lot of her energy." She told them as the glow from the card disspearred.

Darren sighed lightly at the words Shirayuki said. It was reassuring to hear that Xat would be okay, but knowing that wasn't much help to the current situation. He still wanted to create a situation where she wouldn't need to fight. The Reverse hurt her so badly that she needed to go this far to heal. As someone who was also Reversed, he understood what it meant.

"I'm going to master it then... whatever I have to do, I'm gonna end this for you, Xat..."

Hearing Shirayuki explain Xat's situation made Tsubasa calm down slightly, thankfully she was going to be okay after all that she has been through. Nevertheless something truly intrigued Tsubasa, the fact that her units are going to help her fight the reverse or rather heal from it, the entire idea made him smile in relief.

"..Don't push yourself, I doubt that she would want that for you, this fight is not for one person...<..ironic...>...it's our fight.." he said, as he placed his hand on Darren's shoulder. "I'll let Yukino and the medics take care of her in this facility until she heals, probably safer than any hospital."

With that Tsubasa decided to take his leave, he still had to attempt a few things as Diablo before he can continue his practice to take on the seeds and other opponents out there that arise from this war, and more importantly he needs to check up on Haruto.

It was probably time for Seifer to go, since Haruka looked like he was about to keel over at any moment. Shame, he'd of loved to talk to him more but circumstances pending, he could soon anyway. He'd just have to wait a little bit longer. Giving the other male a wave as he settled down for bed, the brunette tentatively checked the hallway for any signs of life, the light blinding as the sun, before leaving. There was quite a lot to now think about though as he wandered the hallways aimlessly. There was still something he was missing... Someone important. Why couldn't he remember? See her face? The struggle to remember brought tears to his eyes as he bit his lip, drawing a bit of blood. It was immensely important, he felt like it was. Why couldn't he remember?

Wiping the subtle tears with the back of his wrist, the crimson eyed brunette made his way to the elevator, pressing the up button and waiting. What was he doing really? What was he doing here? As the elevator door opened with a ding, the male walked inside, looking the buttons over. Almost like an automaton, his arm extended, his outstretched finger pressing the button labeled "Roof", and the doors slid closed. Where was he going? As the cab rumbled upwards, the male slid his thumb across the top of his deck case, eyes half shut. Try and remember... What is it that's missing. These words echoed through his mind, even as the elevator came to a stop and he ventured outside. It was brisk, almost unbearable on the top of the building, even given what he was wearing. But that didn't seem to bother him as he walked along the roof. There seemed to be a structure nearby... But, he wasn't really focused on that. Quietly he wandered over to the side of the building, climbing up on it and sitting down... His legs hanging off the side.

As he stared off into the distance, Seifer began to think even more. What was he even doing with the resistance? What worth was he? He lost once to the invaders, and then in the Stride test fight. Even with the future that came to him, he lost. He who held a god in his hands. To his credit, he was exhausted, but in a war that could never be used as an excuse. And that gnawing sensation of loss, why wouldn't it go away? Who was she? Sighing the male pulled out his phone, scrolling quickly down to Yukino's contact information (accidentally skipping over the answer to what was missing in the process due to the speed in which he scrolled), and selected her. This brought up a white box with a single blinking cursor. Taking a breath the male started to type.

'Yukino, when you get the chance and it's not to much trouble, I'd like to talk. It's important. At least, I feel like it's important. Just whenever you get a chance. Don't stress yourself over it either.' his thumb held fast, hovering over the send button. Was he really going to talk to her about it? Was it even worth it to mention it? Was he just being paranoid? All these thoughts pushed themselves through his head, but nonetheless, he opted to hit send anyway. When the pop up message that signified the message had been successfully sent, he shut his phone and put it away, looking out over the landscape. It was beautiful to look at, at the very least, covered in the moon's soft glow.

Footsteps quietly marched in front of the building. An entity with sinister intentions traveled closer toward Resistance HQ. This was enemy territory - the home base of those fighting against invasions to defend Earth and Cray. Highly skilled fighters, along with those obtaining powers beyond normal reality all stayed here. An intruder would be shot down in seconds. Despite this, one person continued walking forward without fear. It was like the presence of divinity that left guards awestruck. A familiar kind of presence that made them question what was happening. Only one person could approach in such confident strides, someone who was a known face, and someone with courage beyond logic.

Yukino.

With a mad grin, the queen cleared the entrance guards out of her way, going inside. Blowing away nosy or defensive masses with her beautiful wings, she looked into the computer database. Looking up information on... Haruka. Her beloved of another timeline. Discovering "plans" written down concerning him, she giggled. This is what she was looking for. Getting the location for his cell room, the sword Blaster Blade came to hand.

Queen Yukino soared through Headquarters, flying over the staircases instead of using the elevator. More guards getting blown away by the angel, she reached his interrogation room/jail cell hybrid. A set of soft knocks came.

"Haaaaaaa...

... ruuuuuuuu...

... kaaaaaaaaaaaaa."

Her disgustingly sweet tone called.

Morning flew by in a flash. Haruka simply slept right through it, the obnoxious radiator not even waking him up. The only thing that really disturbed was a sudden energy floating about the area. Sera was unconsciously tracking energy in the near vicinity, aka, the Cardfight Training Area.

That disturbance got very close, very quick. Not inhumane speed or anything, but it looks almost as if they were smoothly gliding towards the area, not walking. Normally every step makes the energy bounce from the floor and across the walls the detect, but instead one rather immense glowing energy was simply smoothly riding the halls of the building.

This made him wake up, and be scared. Haruka wasn't sure what to expect really, if something combatable to Sera, perhaps just as strong were to appear. It isn't like Haruka couldn't defend himself but it was out of the question of whether or not he could escape the building and not get either shot down by Resistance guards, or be torn to pieces by this energy approaching.

S-Sera... What's the plan-

Nothing. Sit still and wait. It might not even be coming towards here.

Are you sure-?

Knocks. Soft knocks. Hard to hear at first, but what really got Haruka's attention...

"Haaaaaaa...

... ruuuuuuuu...

... kaaaaaaaaaaaaa."

Oh... Oh?

"Y-Yukino? Is that you? Are you okay?"

Haruka was rather unsure of what to feel at the moment. Normally Yukino's energy level was rather defined, not that it was tiny like everyone else, but it wasn't something Sera would break a sweat over seeing. He's just really cocky, but in all honesty, even Yukino's energy level is debatable in strength. Should Sera not be in tip-top shape, she might even have an edge on him...

"I'm coming, one second."

Gulp.

He took small lethargic steps to the door, the chainlink from the handcuffs smacking against his thighs as he kept his hands to his sides before reaching up to the door knob,

giving it one small turn,

and pulling the door open.

The Queen didn't respond to the responding of her "beloved". As the door opened, Haruka's first sights came upon a woman with the wicked grin of a maniacal, bloodthirsty murderer. The imperial psychopath came here on a mission. It wasn't to kill him, no. It was much worse than that. It was to drown this world into further chaos, only to be the one to save it. Yes, this plan to become a self-fulfilled hero... and the masses would never know that the nightmare was further fueled by her own hand. Because she knew what she was releasing.

She knew she was doing what that failure "Yugure" couldn't.

"Your welcome."

Blaster Blade glowing with ferocious, magical might, the sword of courage was jabbed into Haruka. Queen Yukino laughed madly as it left a wound. Not a physical one, oh no. But one in the soul. It began attempting to cleave it in two, to do what everyone here had planned to do with Haruka. To split him and Sera apart, leaving Sera without a body unless he duplicated his original host's form. To give him the power to sustain and do just that, blue lightning surged through the sword into the sword, fueling it with energy and pain all at once. Forming a connection through this, she began pulling the sword out, dragging the distortion into the open.

This could have been done only by the insane hero.

"H-Hey, waitwaitwait what the fu-"

Not even a few moments of time passed between the seconds the door opened, he saw the maniacal grin of what he believed to be his beloved Yukino.

He wasn't wrong. But it was a different kind of Yukino. Not one he knew. Not truly anyways. All he could really say was that he was completely and utterly mortified when he realized what he had done.

He done messed up. By opening that blasted door, he was now at the mercy of Blaster Blade, Ahmes' weapon, and it was now impaling him. Or at least, metaphorically it was impaling him. Despite it going into his body, he felt no wound form, no blood loss, no tear in tissue. He felt a pull on his soul, being ripped into two separate pieces.

He dropped to his knees, holding onto the blade. He wanted to scream in agony, to yell at her to stop, to grit his teeth and pull the damned thing out of him. He desperately wanted to pull it out of him that was already on the verge of tears until he realized what she was doing.

She wasn't tearing Haruka in half, but rather tearing apart Haruka and Sera's merged consciousness. By taking the main opposing force out, it would solve a lot of problems but.... why now? Why all of a sudden? Why with BLASTER BLADE?!

His eyes turned lackluster as he felt the feeling of wind drifting out from the center of his chest. It was something like a drifting to sleep, but he was immediately awoken every time he felt drowsy. An endless loop of excitement and fatigue until he tilted his head to the left, looked over and saw,

himself.

His own reflection was appearing in inverse colors, like a shadow with green eyes instead of red, pure black skin and hair cloaked in holographic dry blood.

"S-e-r-a..."

"Hi. Haruka. Glad we could finally meet face-to-face."

Sera was experiencing immense pain too, being dragged out of a human vessel and into reality as a formation of dark twisted energy. He was sustaining himself as energy because if he didn't he would evaporate and probably end of creating a vortex on the nearest surface. Not good for humanity or the world he's trying to conquer.

"What do you want, madwoman?"

Haruka could barely move, let alone speak, so he just sat still as the corrupted energy model moved about, dusting off his pants as he stood up and stared at the divine being that was Yukino. She was enjoying this... Haruka never imagined her to be so sadistic in this way. Maybe last nights encouragement forged a change of heart on the matter?

No less, Haruka feared for the remainder of his life, and wondered what the plan Yukino had in store for Sera was.

"I want to rule the universe."

Queen Yukino gave perhaps the most ridiculous answer thought possible. Yet, such absurdity was the truth. It may have been cruel to do this to them, but at the same time, they both have a margin of what they wanted. Haruka was separated from Sera, and Sera was free as long as he could keep himself together. An arrogant chuckle, pleased with her work. Wings fluttering about happily, she added more.

"I'm here to take over this world, then the next world, then every timeline. Starting grandly in the prime dimension is a beautiful way to get exactly what I want.

So have fun, and again, your welcome you two."

An alarm began blaring throughout the entire building as the crazy girl began flight once more. Slashing at the wall to open a hole as the torn off structure fell to the ground outside, she started to fly away. Her job was done and the plot would advance into a powerful, twisted chronicle. This was the rising action of her story - rising to the top after the devil was released.

The blaring alarms threw Cero out of his sleep, causing him to fall off the couch and slam his head on a table. Cursing out, he looked out the window to see... Yugure? No, Yugure doesn't have wings. It was one of the people that emerged from the gates. Standing up, ignoring the throbbing in his head, Cero set out to get a vehicle. The horse wouldn't be fast enough to catch up with someone flying, so he'd have to use something else. Taking the express elevator to the basement garage, and jumped onto a motorcycle. Revving it up, he set off in pursuit of the winged monster, ignoring traffic laws and yes, driving along the sides of buildings. He had no idea what the woman had done, but oh well. Someone else will figure it out and tell him. Probably.

Sera was 100% dissatisfied with that answer, but who was he to argue when it came to conquering? He was in fact out to do the same in reality. Maybe he should just team up with Queen Yukino...

Ah, who is he kidding. Teaming up was never Sera's thing to begin with. He uses anything he needs as a resource and continues to conquer that way. This just happened to be a more difficult universe to conquer than before. Past ones had always been nearly willing to give up...

Haruka dropped onto his back, passing out. Not sure if it was from fear, or just unable to bear his soul being split in half. Sera shook his distorted head, sat on the bedside for a moment. He threw the bed sheet over Haruka, placed the pillow under him, and snapped, and dissipated. He could maintain an ethereal form to store his energy, but was unable to physically interact with anything during that time. It was time to store energy until he was ready to take action.

Darren wasn't aware of what was happening outside of the Simulation Training Area. He had been training with his deck and the Dimensional Robos the entire time. The training was hard, but now he was taking a break. The door opened as Darren held onto his deck with a tight grip, his clothes slightly torn as he looked around for the nearest drink.

"I think... I'm starting to get it..." he said lightly as Kaizard and Goyusha, not in their Super or Ultimate Dimensional Robo forms, were by his side in astral form. "There's something that will help me get the most out of you guys, but I probably have to fight something other than a simulation to find it. I get the feeling that what I am already doing is enough to beat them."

I'd say the broken machine is proof of that.

"That only happened once! Okay... twice..."

Waking up the next morning gave Haruka a splitting headache. But what's more was he was alone with his thoughts instead of having something listen to every thing he imagined. It was liberating in a sense.

"Sera...?"

With a sound snap, the nega Haruka appeared. They adorned the same clothes. Sera was practically a virus just by the way he looked. His grins were menacing, but in reality it was just that the timespace distortions were making his expressions appaear malevolent regardless of his true face.

Dark energy circled and radiated off of Sera. It felt like staring a demon down.

"Haruka. Good morning. I made you coffee."

He directed the poor boy's attention to the bedside where a medium sized brown mug hosted a cup of coffee. Beside that were two plays of sugar cubes and creamer pits.

Haruka blinked, finally awake and sitting up. The broken window was fixed. No climbing in or out it seemed...

"What happened-"

"Your insane girlfriend from a timeline that isn't this one sought to sear our bond in half. The soul bisection was successful."

Sera turned back to Haruka, arms crossed. He approached from the foot of the bed, climbing across it aand pushing Haruka down. In fact placed a hand around his throat and squeezed firmly, his other hand holding Haruka down by the wrist.

Sera's expression remained emotionless, simply doing the job he had set out. However halfway overpowering Haruka and nearly choking out the boy gasping for air desperately,

he let go.

He sat up, as Haruka started heaving and holding his own neck of fear of the subtle attack again.

"WHY WHAT WHY."

"Shut up. I wanted to see what it felt like. Putting hands on somebody else. Of course I couldn't ask to hold your hand you fool. It only makes sense choking was the clear way to go." Sera shrugged, a smug expression crossing his face.

Haruka came to a conclusion.

Sera is tsundere-yandere crosshybrid. Things were only looking worse by the moment.