Author's Note: And so here it is. The remake of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL: Our Souls. I would appreciate feedback so I know what you guys think and improve on this story, mainly the mystery aspect when it comes up time and time again.

And so, enjoy and review…

Yu-Gi-Oh! Our Souls: Story of the People

Prologue: Sides of a Coin – Heads and Tails

Three Years Ago

"You're the culprit."

The accusation sent off a series of reactions among the people at the crime scene.

It was like some sort of detective story. A murder had taken place inside a mall at an empty section of a clothing store. The security camera, unfortunately, was being repaired.

The victim was a teacher named Hidetoshi Honda. The victim was found lying face-up with a knife stuck to his chest. There were signs of a struggle in the area; mainly clothing that was strewn around.

The most noticeable detail about the struggle, however, was that there were shards of a glass bottle around the victim's body, although there were no cuts or bruises that suggested that he got hit by it. There were also stains on the carpet near the victim's body, but there was a larger one a few feet away from him.

The mall was under lockdown minutes after the body was found. Those that were near the scene of the crime and those that were suspicious were taken to the scene by the police.

Of the people pulled into the scene, one of them was the "suspicious type". He was a brute-looking man carrying a black bag with one hand and the other resting in his pocket.

In the man's bag was alcohol. All of them were recently bought, but one of them was almost empty.

The bottles that contained the alcohol were the same as the one found smashed in the crime scene, with the name of it found by an officer checking the scattered glass.

About a minute ago before the accusation was made, the man made himself even more suspicious when officers took notice of the bag.

"It's a freaking coincidence!" the man roared at an aging police officer. "Anyone else could've bought the same kind of drinks as me! It's all just a coincidence!"

Behind the aging officer was a female one. Her eyes darkened at the brute-looking man's shouting and attempted to step toward the two. The aging officer, however, raised a hand to stop her and responded to the man.

"Please, sir," the old officer said. "We are merely questioning the contents of your bag."

But the man didn't calm down. In fact, he looked even angrier. Despite that, however, the old officer didn't budge an inch.

"…Tch," the brute-looking man snapped. "Even so, why the hell would this murderer bash that guy's head in instead of stabbing him? Wouldn't the knife be easier?"

"Not if you're trying to hide a bloody knife," a new voice spoke.

The two men turned toward the sound of the voice. A man and a woman were walking away from the corpse. Both of them were wearing normal clothing, but had gloves on.

"What the…?" the man muttered. "Hey, they aren't police officers, too, are they?"

"John, Asuka," the aging officer greeted the two. "I thought you two were on your day offs. Why are you here?"

"To spend that day off with our daughter, Officer Yamamoto," the man named John explained.

"Such a shame that this happened," the woman named Asuka sighed as she turned to look at the victim's body.

"But anyway, about what you said," John began as he turned to the man. "A bloody knife would be difficult to hide, especially if the murderer got some on their shirt. But a bottle on the other hand…"

"…The glass that the shattered bottle was made from is thick enough to prevent itself from breaking upon impact," Asuka added. "I've bought plenty of these before. Had my fair share of accidents with them. None of them broke unless a lot of force is used."

"Well…what're you saying?" the man asked.

"What I'm saying is that the murderer could've used the bottle to smash the victim's head hard enough to kill him, but not enough to break it."

"B…but if that happened, then the bottle would have blood on it," the man argued. "It would be the same as a knife, then…"

"Which is why you would use something to disguise it," Asuka said. "If blood is dark red, then what would you use to hide it? Something that is darker than it, or at least have the bottle color dark enough to hide any traces of blood. And if I'm pretty sure that the shards are dark red…"

'!' the man's eyes widened as he eyed his bag, which was black.

"H – hold on, now…" the man said with an uneasy tone. "T – then how would it explain why there's shards lying everywhere? The bottle won't break easily without using a lot of force, right?"

"Yes, but like you said, unless you use a lot of force," John said. "Take a look at the scene. There are obvious signs of a struggle that happened, but despite that, the only wound that was inflicted on him was the stab wound that killed him. Think about it. With the signs of the struggle here, why do you think the culprit failed to kill the victim and the bottle smashed as the result?"

There was a brief moment of silence. But seconds later, the aging office spoke.

"The victim noticed the murderer," he said. "Upon realizing that he was about to be attacked, a struggled occurred between Mr. Honda and the culprit. As for the culprit himself, he must have panicked upon being found out. In an act of desperation, he took a wild swing…"

"…And the bottle missed him and broke upon impact with the ground, explaining the stains that were near him," John concluded. "The original plan for the culprit was to lure Mr. Honda to an empty section of this store, where he would kill him with the bottle. After the deed is done, he would hide it in a bag that has a color dark enough to hide the fresh blood stain on it and leave."

"W…wait…"

"Which is why I think…" John continued as he slowly raised a pointed finger…

…At the brute-looking man.

"You're the culprit."

"…"

While the other people at the scene responded to the accusation with gasps and startled looks, the man's reaction was oddly calm, if not bewildered and silent.

Of course, seconds later, he exploded.

"BULLSHIT! ALL OF IT!" he screamed. "You're tellin' me that your proof that I'm the murderer was a black bag!? Are ya shittin' me!? It's all just a coincidence! Ya got any more evidence? Huh!?"

The man's sudden outburst caused the people around him to step back in alarm, but the other officers cautiously began approaching him, though he didn't seemed to notice.

"And besides, ya got a contradiction to your story! If that bottle got smashed an' the liquid spilled, then why was there a stain several feet away from that guy?"

The man made a gesture with the hand that was carrying the bag at a large stain several feet away from the victim's body and the glass shards and stains.

"…Mind if I add something?" a female voice asked.

The female officer that tried to get in between the aging old man and the brute man spoke.

"Perhaps it's something vital to what's happening right now," the female officer explained, "but when I looked at the victim's body, I noticed that he was holding onto a glass shard."

She held out a plastic bag. Inside was a jagged glass shard with a somewhat noticeable amount of blood on it.

"Like what the others said," she began, "since the only injury the victim had was that stab wound, which means that the blood might belong to the culprit."

"H – ha! See!?" the man sneered. "With that much blood, the culprit's gotta be limping! That means there's no way it's me!"

"…No…there's something else," the aging officer said as he looked at the man. "One of the bottles that you have is almost empty, correct?"

The man hissed. "Aw, what is it now?"

"Is it, or not?"

"It is, but what's that got to do with – "

"…So it means that you've drank it, correct?"

"What?"

"My father has a point," the female officer said as she stepped next to the aging man. "Now that I think about it, when you were shouting and screaming, I could smell alcohol on your breath, but with that much alcohol gone, I would've smelled more."

"Gh…!" the man grunted as he flinched.

"And I've taken notice to the fact that your hand has never left your pocket," she continued. "Alcohol can numb pain as well as being able to disinfect a wound if you pour it on it, although it would sting."

"Gh…ghhh…!" the man couldn't respond to the officer's comment other than making a strange sound.

"Looks like new proof has shown up," Asuka said. "Guess that solves why there was a stain away from the shattered glass, huh, Maromus Waru?"

"Maromus Waru?" the aged officer asked. "Do you know him?"

"No, but I heard…"rumors" about him. I heard that about a week ago, his son, who was in Mr. Honda's class, got suspended by him."

"So, if that's the case, then there's our motive," the female officer muttered. "But why here? Why not at his home?"

"That would be too obvious," John said. "Waru probably knew that the police would suspect him if he had murdered Honda at his home, so he choose the place that would disguise himself among the crowd…here, this mall. Of course, we don't exactly know how Waru led him to here, but I would guess that he somehow persuaded him to come here to discuss about his son's suspension."

"So now let's go back to everything that's happened," Asuka began.

"First up, Waru persuaded Mr. Honda to come to this mall to discuss about his son…"

"Upon arriving at the mall, Waru purchased the alcohol bottles with a black bag. While it may seem that he was buying them for a drink, in truth, he was planning on using one of them as the murder weapon."

"Then, Waru met up with Honda and most likely began leading him around the mall, trying to find a place to kill him in. That place would turn out to be this empty section of the large clothing store, with no people or a security camera around."

"With no one around, Waru acted out his plan. Counting on the fact that the bottle wouldn't be smashed to pieces upon bashing Mr. Honda in the head, he would hide the bottle among the others in the black bag and leave."

"…Unfortunately for him, that didn't go as planned. Mr. Honda noticed him and attempted to fight back. Waru panicked and hurried to try and kill him…"

"…But he missed, and the bottle ended up getting smashed on the ground. Mr. Honda grabbed a glass shard and attacked Waru with it, which ended up stabbing him through the hand."

"But despite that, in the end, Waru was forced to use his knife to kill Mr. Honda. While reeling in pain, Waru drank some of the alcohol from his bag to numb the pain that he felt and poured most of it onto the wound. As for bandaging it up, you can substitute it with cloth found in this store. But since walking around with something like that would be too suspicious, he had to hide the wound by keeping his hand in his pocket…"

"…This sums about everything. Now, you got anything to say, or in this case…show?"

"Gh…gaaaaaaaaah…"

The only sounds that were coming out of Waru were raspy gasp-like noises. He was simply standing on the spot, not moving except for opening and closing his mouth as if trying to find words.

"…It seems that's it," the aging officer said. "Now, please…"

But as the officers took a step toward him, Waru suddenly seemed to have regained his thoughts. His shocked face with his raspy gasps quickly changed to rage as he bellowed.

"NO!"

The other people at the scene screamed as the man suddenly seized one of the bottles from the bag and charged through the officers.

Right toward John and Asuka.

Present Day

"I think I just discovered something big. I'm sending you the info now. Will contact you more if I find anything else."

That was the last e-mail the young reporter sent to his friend.

He knew the risks and dangers he was facing as he wandered through the halls of the empty building. At best, he would be arrested for trespassing, but at worse…

He would be killed.

But he knew that what he was about to do was more important. The truth had to come out…

The young reporter stepped into a dark room lined with rows of computers. Checking to see if the room was cleared, he hurried toward one of the computers and activated it.

As soon as it was on, he inserted a silver flash drive into it and furiously typed on the keyboard. Images and words flashed on the screen. He didn't bother to read it, however. To him, this was extra information that he needed to recover.

But he was so focused on his task that he didn't hear the dull footsteps approaching him.

"This has to come out…" the young reporter muttered. "This conspiracy…"Constellation Stars", whatever this…"Barian" is…the truth has to come out…"

"…So what has to come out?" a cold voice spoke right behind the young reporter.

"Gah…!"

The young reporter immediately seized the flash drive from his computer and turned around.

A flash blinded him and he felt sharp pain at his arm as he was pushed back.

Smoke escaped from the muzzle of the attacker's gun as he leered at the reporter.

"Eh? Oh, it's you again."

The young reporter winced in pain as he gripped the wound on his shoulder. His vision became somewhat fuzzy due to it, but could still make out what the attacker looked like.

The attacker was a muscular man with somewhat tanned skin. His clothing was completely black and somewhat ragged.

If it weren't for the fact that the young reporter had seen him before, he would've mistaken the attacker as some sort of criminal.

"What was it, just about a week ago?" the attacker asked. "I thought that beating we gave you was enough to tell you that we don't like brats snooping around. You remembered what we said about what would happen to you if we catch you here again…right?"

With a cruel smile, the attacker slowly raised the gun at the young reporter.

The young reporter seized that moment to jump at him before he could fire.

About an hour later back at the computer room, several men got rid of any signs of a fight. The young reporter's body was stuffed inside a suitcase and taken away.

What killed the reporter wasn't a gunshot or being beaten to death. It was a single stab wound right through his chest.

"Disgusting…making me do this…"

Among the people inside the computer room was a masked woman, wiping away the blood on the katana she had.

"What is?" the dark-clothed man asked as he sat on one of the tables in the room. "The blood or the little bastard? Although they're both the same thing, ha ha…"

"…"

The masked woman gripped the cloth used to clean the blade, which was already soaked in red.

"Of course, there are probably tons of even slimier guys running about in Tokyo. But that's where you come in. You'll just make them disappear…"

"…But this?" the masked woman asked in a hushed tone. "A young boy like him? Not some criminal or corrupted politician like that in stories?"

"But if he would steal away info from this building, that would make him a criminal, right?" the black-clothed man leered. "Besides, why should you care about a fool you don't know? Don't you have someone else you should worry about?"

The masked woman flinched. Despite her face was hidden, the man knew what her expression was.

He chuckled. "Don't worry. If you keep working for us, we'll see to it that your brother is alright."

"I see…" the masked woman muttered as she pocketed the cloth. "…If that's all, then I'll leave…"

Without waiting for the man to respond, the masked woman left the room and into an empty hallway.

And in that empty hallway, she pulled out a note with neat handwriting on it. The message written in it was somewhat long, but she only the ending.

"…After you do this, meet me in Tokyo Tower."

"I'll help you find your brother."

The note simply appeared in front of her a few days ago. The note didn't have a name to it, so she didn't know who the sender was. Any person's first instinct at such a message would be to throw it away and ignore it.

But the masked woman didn't.

Even if she didn't know who the sender was, she had a strange feeling that she should trust it.

For the sake of her brother, she had to do it.

It was the beginning of a story.

The beginning of a violent, chaotic story.