Major spoilers for episode 18…

My mother was a beautiful woman, fully capable of holding her own in a battle. I remember how she dueled, especially with her butterfly-themed monsters. I admired her from the day I had first seen her battle against someone. She had even defeated my father a few times, despite his reputation as one of the strongest duelists within the city. My father had always joked about it, but he too admired her strength. He had told me a story about my mother before they had gotten together. She had been under the mayor's (of the time) command; despite this, she gave her all for the one she held dear to her heart, even though she lost her soul and died, before being revived once more to protect him. My father truly did love my mother, even with her tendency to get overprotective of him.

I was almost eleven years old when my mother came to me one night. Something seemed off, as if there were an event I was not made aware of closing in on us. She sat on my bed, her orange eyes aglow in the darkness of my room. Against her chest, she held a small case for what I could guess was to hold cards. Her gaze was completely solemn as she looked directly at me.

"Yuto," she began, handing me the case, "These are for you. But I want to give you a forewarning about them."

"Mother…" Sitting up, I stared at her in confusion. After all, I was ten, and I had absolutely no idea why she was acting so odd. I fiddled with the case, frowning. "What's wrong, mother?"

She ignored my question, only insisting that I open the case as she spoke. "Whatever you do, Yuto, don't use these monsters unless you are in the most precarious of situations. Do you understand?"

I slid the lid off the case and plucked out five cards, all except for one were Xyz monsters. Three were dragons, while the other two were warriors that my mother had always used in battle. "Mother, why? Why do you want me to have these?"

"To keep you safe, dear." Leaning forward, she kissed my forehead before vacating my room quickly, not even bothering to shut the door quietly. I blinked in the pitch blackness of the room, dimly wondering just what she meant by that.

My answer came the month after…

…

It was many months before I realized that I had no choice but to live on my own. I found a boy named Kurosaki Shun, and together we managed to figure out the living hell we had been thrown into. I had heard legends of a man riding around on a D-Wheel, trying to stop the destruction that was happening, but they were mere legends; nobody would be able to stop this carnage from overruling the world. According to Shun, there was nothing left for us, not in our city nor any others. So we did the only thing we could: we met others and lived it out.

I'm fourteen now, but the scars still linger. My powers, which I had had all my life, became out of control. Shun stated that I had to learn to control them eventually, but with my parents having been murdered and only our sad little group of duelists to be by my side, I couldn't get ahold of them. So I used them to my advantage; I used my abilities to steal, punish, and even kill others, even if they did nothing wrong. Everyone was afraid of me, even Shun…

All except for her. The girl I fell in love with as soon as she said she accepted my powers and all the baggage that came with them.

But in the end, I hurt her too. And she ended up with that man, Yugo.

Standing atop a pile of debris, I scanned the area that Shun had located her signal in. Ruri was out there somewhere; I could almost feel her. Clenching my fists and my teeth, I wanted to sob because of my stupidity. How could I have hurt her so badly and let her end up in the grasp of that bastard? How could I? I truly was a monster; that's all I had ever been meant to be.

Just because you're different, doesn't mean you have to beat yourself for it. Follow your heart, protect your love, and never, ever give up.

My father's words struck me, dug deep into my heart, but I couldn't help but roar to the sky and let a single set of tears fall from the corner of my eyes. My parents were dead, the girl I loved was missing, and it was all because of me. It was my damn fault for not protecting the people I cared about, and now I was facing the consequences all on my own. Even within my gang, I was nothing more than just another psychic duelist, a wolf in sheep's clothing within the herd. Even with most of them being psychic, I was still the most powerful and unstable.

"Focus, Yuto." Glaring at the ground, which had once been the street leading to my school, I shifted all of my attention to the task on hand. Ruri was more important to me than anything else at this very moment. Shun and the others were depending on me to get her back. Jumping down, I landed on the broken ground and began sprinting through the dust. Grey dirt billowed around my boots with every bound, and I had to force myself to keep from blinking. As I continued on, I remembered going this way to school with my mother every morning during the week. Now, only the memories remained. Nothing else mattered except my promise to my parents and saving Ruri.

I heard the Runner before I even spotted it. It was black, so it wasn't Yugo's. The person riding that bike was part of Yugo's gang, with the telltale markings on the side. The guy riding the Runner stopped, as if he had seen me, and stared at me from behind his visored helmet. He summoned a monster right off of the duel disk on his Runner, a large beast with two heads, a scaled blue body, and fins as red as blood. I simply took out Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon and summoned it; this wasn't the time to bring out my ultimate monsters yet.

However, a few other men surrounded the area, and they had their ace monsters out as well. All were Synchros, from what I could tell, since none had orbiting Overlay Units. An ambush? Yugo's gang was even more pathetic than they seemed to be. My dragon roared, shocking the monsters around it. This did nothing to deter the men, and they continued to advance on me.

Whatever you do, Yuto, don't use these monsters unless you are in the most precarious of situations.

I'm sorry, mother, but I have to do this. Reaching into my extra deck, I pulled out two monsters, a dragon that certainly didn't belong with the Xyz I possessed and a female warrior with wings of dark blue. I shut my eyes and listened to the men approach, the crackling of their steps as they scattered rocks across aged pavement. Just when they were about to be on top of me, I snapped my eyes open and placed the two monsters onto my duel disk. Focusing all of my energy onto my monsters, I watched as the new dragon spread its glowing blue wings, its crimson crest flashing in the dulled sunlight. Those darkened eyes landed on the first man it faced, and without hesitation, it blew the man away with a powerful light blue beam. The female warrior rained dark stardust onto the other men, making them fall to the ground, paralyzed. I smiled in satisfaction, allowing all three monsters to take control of my powers. The female warrior spread her insect wings and raised the blades attached to her arms, preparing to strike.

"Yuto! Please Yuto, don't do this! Yuto!"

I blinked. Shun's voice came through the haze that had shrouded my mind. Immediately, I called off the assassin and she stopped her attack with a huff. The two dragons turned to face the blue-haired boy, preparing to strike him.

I looked around myself, seeing the men lying on the ground around me. They were very much alive, but all of them were permanently paralyzed due to the winged woman's abilities. A gasp slipped between my lips and I backed away, going until I bumped into the side of a building. Shun gazed over the men, his golden eyes not showing an ounce of emotion, before coming towards me. He came to me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he asked. I nodded halfheartedly, swallowing. I couldn't shake the horror from my heart that I had doomed these duelists to death, even if they were fully alive now. Shun pulled on my arm for me to follow him, so I did.

I was a monster…

...

"Your father built a dimensional transporter, right Yuto?" Shun questioned, leaning back against an old arcade game that was beyond repair. Our 'lair' of sorts was an arcade I used to frequent when I was a child. We were the only two in the lair at the moment, which was quite odd. I figured that the rest of the gang had all gone to sleep, since it was past midnight.

I leaned against the wall, still shaken from the incident that had happened earlier today. "Yeah, but why do you ask?"

"We could use that to get to a whole other dimension," Shun replied. He still wore that ridiculous red scarf around a good portion of his face. How he managed that in the warm environment we lived in, I had no clue of. "Is it possible that there's an alternate to this world?"

"It is, but my dad never said anything about it other than Astral World." Rubbing my temples, I settled my gaze on the floor. "According to old reports that I scavenged from his lab, the Meklords and other monsters that destroyed our world came from a dimension he wasn't able to locate. So it is possible that those creatures came from the alternate universe."

Shun was silent for a while. "Does Yugo know?"

"I hope not." Sighing hard, I went forward to one of the arcade games and wobbled the joystick around to distract myself. "Are you thinking of trying to get the transporter to work?"

"Once we find Ruri, we will get the hell out of this place." Crossing his arms, Shun settled his cold, golden eyes on me. I felt uncomfortable under his emotionless expression. "That is, if she's still with us."

"Don't say that!" I roared, glaring at him. A few papers on a desk nearby flew upwards and smacked the ceiling. "She's not dead. I know she isn't!"

Shun kept an indifferent stare on me. "It's an option we have to consider, Yuto." He blinked once before pushing himself off the console and turning from me. "Let's just hope, if that's the case, that she didn't have a piece of you inside her when she died." With that, he left the room, leaving me to my thoughts.

Ruri… please be safe. I swear I'll find you and take you to a place where we can live together in peace…

Lots of unconfirmed headcanons in here. If you guys can guess the five monsters given to Yuto in this fic, you'll get a digital cookie.

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