A.N. Warnings: Language in the second half.

There is rubble all around, and he is standing in front of the smoldering remains of a village. He recalls that this village submitted without a fight, its human inhabitants easily acquiescing to his demands. It had been in the latter half of his campaign, when word had had time to spread about him. Their fear had been compensated with a still-standing village. The village that was now in ruins. As if bombed. Judai narrows his eyes in thought.

After some contemplation, Judai decides that this unordered destruction is a byproduct of the twelve dimensions attempting to fuse together. He recalls that beams had shot out to each dimension in his final duel with Yubel. This dimension's beam must have splintered and obliterated the village. Collateral damage, his mind supplies.

Yubel is asleep in his soul, exhausted by the Light and slowly recovering, so he cannot ask for the spirit's opinion. Having confirmed that this destruction is also directly linked to him, Judai stares at his hands and wonders what he should do next. There is so much he needs to fix. A voice mutters in his head that the biggest thing he needs to fix is himself, but he brushes it aside. There are concentration camps nearby he can check for survivors, seeing as there aren't even skeletons here. He knows the geography of the land by heart. It is a useful skill, but it is also a product of many days of strategizing the best way to conquer said land. He shakes himself of his thoughts and begins thinking of which camp to visit first when he hears the labored breathing behind him.

His body has had time to adapt to frequent assassination attempts over these past few months. There is a furious ax that comes down where his back used to be, wielded by an equally furious man. Judai wonders if perhaps he should check for survivors after all. By the look in the man's eyes, their sanity might not be worth checking. But he will, because he must.

As the ax misses him again, he decides he will have to be extra-vigilant in order to avoid loss of limbs. His hand twitches towards his deck, but refrains. It is a simple dance, and he is waiting for the man to tire as he dodges the awkward blows. The man is too broken to do anything else.

He makes word on his promise at the next prison camp, and checks each cell for inhabitants. There is nothing to see but bones, and Judai's thoughts wander to the strange Johan-look-alike who died because of him long ago. This in turn leads to thoughts of the current Johan. Judai dearly hopes he returned his friends (if he could call them that) to their proper world. There is a longing inside of him to go and see their faces once more, but he squashes it. He is on the journey to become a man, to burst out of his destructive, childish cocoon.

The words sound solemn enough in his head, but Judai still doesn't really know what he's trying to do.

A sudden popping sound interrupts his slowly panicking thoughts, and Judai instinctively crouches. It continues for another few seconds, and he deduces it's coming from the entrance of the prison camp. Images of Zure flash before his eyes, and he feels his deck burning at his side. If it his old army, he might need his cards' assistance in escaping. There is too much to be done to stall and duel. He cautiously crawls along the side of the wall and peers out.

He realizes that they are not Fiends at all, but Spellcasters, or possibly Fairies. There are... six of them, six females moving towards the center of the camp. Then he notices the three smaller ones. Nine. Revealing black swimsuits, strange bat wings protruding behind their elven ears, black sclera, and a familiar ancient eye on each forehead. Each lady is holding a staff, even the smaller ones. A scythe gleams at the bottom of each staff, suggesting that magic isn't the only defense they're capable of. The air they give is far from friendly. He doesn't recognize any of them, and a sense of unease stirs within him. This could be bad.

But they do not make any move to attack, and instead patiently wait in the center of the camp, facing out in all directions.

They're looking for me, he realizes, and he slowly slips Air Hummingbird's card into his hand. With slow determination, he cautiously reveals himself from his cage. The green-haired little lady starts, and the others turn to face him. Still they do not raise their weapons, although a spectrum of dark emotions crosses most of their faces. They wait in place, and Judai is encouraged to approach them. The blue-gray gravel beneath his worn shoes crunches audibly as he slowly makes his way over to the group. He stops a short distance away and waits for their move.

After a pause, the yellow-haired lady floats over to him. Her staff hand twitches, but does not bring the scythe on the opposite end near him. There are no words spoken yet, and she stares at him through closed eyes. In some ways, that expression was more preferable to her next, and it drastically warped as she opened her eyes and took in his image.

Her face is the epitome of fury, the thought crosses his mind in wonder, and the next thought is Ow as flesh suddenly slaps his face.

"We're going to die in order for you to fix things," she snarls, enunciating each word with disgusted conviction.

What an introduction.

Another slap follows up her words, forcing his head the other way. His eyes dart back to her face, and the golden eyes he sees could easily rival his own. Strange choice of wording aside, they definitely know who he is.

"Don't you dare mess this up, hero." She spits the word in his face, spittle sticking to his now-burning cheeks, and takes a step back. The others have not moved, but approval is in their gazes, and fury in their mouths.

"We've heard. You're no hero. You're no human. You're more of a monster - than anyone." She spares him one last glance of something unreadable - disappointment, he wants to think - then turns back to her waiting sisters. A duel disk materializes on her outstretched left arm, and Judai instantly lands his hand on his deck. Air Hummingbird could lift him away in time if Clayman and Bubbleman provided the swampy mud land to ground them. He is about to call forth his companions when the blue-haired lady sends him a withering look. They have still not moved, and Judai slowly lets the words die from his lips. He remains alert.

"You will come with us. To talk." It's not a question, and Judai can't really think of a counterargument. Oh, but I have more destroyed villages to visit and more prison cells to check. If you wait, I'm sure I'll get to your village, eventually. Can I wait for my dragon adviser to wake up first? Yes, that would go well, wouldn't it?

"Ancient Forest," his attacker tiredly murmurs, taking his silence as acceptance, and her duel disk glows. A column of light encases the fairies and him. Their surroundings being to warp in a myriad of colors, and Judai shuts his eyes in response to the sudden dizziness that makes itself known.

When he opens his eyes, they are surrounded by trees. A gentle light streams down from above, and Judai finds the lady with too-large glasses in front of him. Although he cannot see through the opaque lenses, he can guess the glare hidden behind them. She is about to speak, but Judai cuts her off.

"What do you mean, you're going to die for me... to fix things?" He hastily adds on the last part when he feels their glares intensify. But the lady does not answer his question quite yet.

"Fu," she calls in a surprisingly gentle voice, and the small green-haired fairy that spotted him straightens her back with a determined huff, her expression clearing. After clearing her throat as well, she begins speaking in a high-pitched voice. It wavers just a bit in the beginning, but then she squeezes her eyes shut even tighter and barks out her last words with certainty.

"Today, your fortune isn't too bad. Your lucky number is 3. Your lucky color is green. Your lucky item is a plant. You didn't take the other path yesterday, but you could today." Although her eyes do not open, she swivels her head towards Judai. "You might find something you lost," she slowly concludes, and a strange tingle runs down Judai's spine.

Judai opens his mouth opens once more, but Glasses silences him with a stare (wasn't that a paradox) and the tightening of her lips. When she's thoroughly satisfied with his silence, she crosses her arms and begins to speak.

"You're going to fix this hell you made. We've got sisters still stuck in that despicable world, and instead of getting them out, we chose to take you back. To the beginning. As far as we can. So that you," she jabs a finger sharply into his chest, and he winces at the feel of her nail, "-can go off your past self," another jab follows this, "-and prevent the genocide you've cast on all of us." A warning hiss from her red-haired sister prevents another attempt on his person, so she makes do with the heavy silence on his side. "They're dead because of you, after all."

Her matter-of-fact tone pierces just as sharply, though.

"But they don't have to be." Yellow-head speaks from where she and the others have been standing in a circle. "We're going to use Time Passage. Take you back. Way back. You'll go back through time and stop yourself." She pauses. "If you still manage to cause an interdimensional war and kill our innocents, we'll know. We're going to mark you."

"A reminder for you." The quiet voice of Purple-head carries through the serene air. "If we... try to send you back again, we'll… see it and know it's a lost cause. We... can make you pay."

"This forest does not condone violence." It was as if they had rehearsed it, each speaking as soon as the other ended. And perhaps they had. He turns towards Blue-head, and then to her raised scythe-staff. It slowly inches towards his neck, and he gives her a funny look. She raises an eyebrow in cool defiance. The scythe cuts a thin line across his throat, barely noticeable and hardly deep. There is a magic on it that he suspects will prevent it from healing normally.

"You… are a violent, vile, despicable being. We'll never welcome you here. And now you will leave. And you will fix everything. Because this is something you must do."

The insults sting like the palms on his cheeks, but he ignores it for the slowly dawning comprehension of their words. Could they do it? Was it possible to go back and undo it all? ...All of the pain?

"I will remember it all?" he hears himself asking, and he wants to slap himself. Of course he'll remember. If he couldn't remember what he had become, then when he stared into the abyss once more (and that, he knew was unavoidable), the abyss would reflect itself in his eyes and rip apart the worlds. From the looks the Spellcasters were giving him, they are thinking along the same lines.

A sort of numbness seeps throughout his skin. This is my chance, he thinks, and he would be a fool not to take it. But there is a nagging feeling that persists in his thoughts.

"And you will... die? In order to make this possible?"

They understand what he is saying immediately, and there is resignation on their faces. Fear, but resolve as well. They are not smiling, but there is an undercurrent of grim understanding passing between them.

"We are dying for you. For this chance. For our family. Our sisters will grow without guidance, and you will be to blame, but they will survive."

"Our souls will join the time stream. Sisters won't know. It'll be like we never existed."

"But you might be okay." Fu's voice is quiet. "You know what guilt feels like, and bad people don't know how to feel guilty."

There is a hint of childish innocence in there that leaves Judai speechless, even as her sisters cast her incredulous looks. Bitter bile rises in the back of his throat. Even the chance to save people from him requires people to die for him.

He wants to laugh at the irony of it all, and for a moment, he fears that laughter has escaped his mouth. All the words in the world have escaped him. There is so much he should do. There is so much he could do. The thought of waking Yubel up for advice crosses his mind, but there is a haze clouding it. A mantra has begun in his mind.

revive revive revive revive revive revive revive revive

"What should I do?" There is more than one question he is pleading to be answered, but it falls upon unforgiving ears. There is a crescendoing rush in his ears as the implications of what will happen are fully realized.

revive revive revive revive revive revive revive revive

They part at the mouth of the circle. Yellow-head points to the middle of it, and Judai forces his feet to move. He finds himself facing Fu, who has a scrunched up face, as if she can't quite figure what to make of him. That was okay. He didn't know what to make of himself, either.

revive revive revive revive revive revive revive revive

Yellow-head's voice calls from directly behind him. "There are nine of us here. Activate in groups of three... Ready?"

Shuffling sounds of duel disks materializing fill the air in answer. Judai feels his head begin to start swimming, but there is clarity that pierces through. This is it. He blinks, and is somewhat startled when he spots tears forming in their eyes. Their rage is breaking down, and I am about to die is written across their faces as clear as day. He hears Yellow-head hurriedly speak before any sobbing can be done, but there is a noticeable waver in it. It suddenly occurs to him that he never asked for their names.

"Time Passage!"

...And there is only darkness, completely different from his darkness, completely different from offending darkness, completely different from it all. There is no up, there is no down, there are no Spellcasters and no gravel to walk upon -

His perception of time has all but disappeared in this infinite space. His mind is in a haze, and he wonders if this is what going back in time feels like, or if the spell card worked at all.

His thoughts begin to wander. If this worked properly, he would be back in the past - how far back, only the Spellcasters knew - and he would have the choice of saving them from himself.

...

He would have the choice of killing them all over again-

"Oh, for Hell's sake," a voice drawls out, and he cannot pin its direction down. Judai tries to whip his head around, mind instantly on guard; there should have been no one there but him-

- there is a door, a large, golden door, and a figure is tied to it with barbed wire. A statue. He cannot feel himself moving, but it does not matter, for he is suddenly in front of it. When his outstretched hand touches the... (boy, that's what it is, there's a boy chained to this door)...boy, it disappears, and he blinks. He is surrounded by nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

He blinks again, and a pair of wide blue eyes and blue hair stares back at him. Recoil, he tells his body, but it is behaving sluggishly, and what is going on. It doesn't help that the boy - strikingly similar to the one on the door - is continuing to stare at him. Eventually, the blue boy pulls back, and he makes a visible show of inspecting Judai.

"You know, paperwork is really crappy work," the boy states conversationally. Judai starts. What was with people's opening lines to conversations with him? You killed my village or DIE were more along the lines he was expecting. The blue boy continues speaking, and Judai pushes away his thoughts to pay attention.

"If you're going to wreak havoc, wreak havoc. If you aren't, then bloody don't. It's not that hard of a concept. Do you know much shit I have to go through with death-assignment papers? When one of you megalomaniacs decides to kill everyone, I'm the one who has to rewrite all their files. There's no auto-fill, either," he adds as an afterthought, and a pondering look crosses his face. There is a brief silence before it clears and his eyes snap back up. Judai swallows. This is not what he was expecting.

"Where are we?" he asks.

The other boy's grin is akin to a shark. "Welcome to the Interstice of Time. Visitors tend to get redirected to my office when they're about to do something monumentally stupid. Unless they already have. That's probably you. Why are you here?" Judai gets the feeling that the other boy already knows, but speaks anyways.

"I'm going back in time."

"Because?"

"I... killed a lot of people?"

"And?" There is a bit of impatience in the boy's voice.

"I, er... I want to prevent that...?" Judai's voice is trailing off, and he curses his questioning voice. "I am going to prevent it. Them getting killed. By me."

"And who does their paperwork?"

This conversation is incredibly surreal, he thinks. He parrots the boy's earlier words.

"...You do."

"Excellent!" The blue boy beams, and Judai once again gets the feeling that that isn't actually how the boy feels. "Now, what could happen if you fail?"

"They... would all die again. But, I won't let -"

"Exactly!" The boy's eyes widen, and a crazed lights slips into them. "The problem with you people is that you're always flipping between Yes I shall kill them all and Oh but everyone should live. Or some mix in between. You're all incredibly indecisive!"

Judai feels slightly alarmed at this point. His body is still not obeying him, and he cannot move away from the disturbed young man.

"Make up your goddamn mind! If you're going to kill them, then leave them dead! Could you even...? No. You can't even begin to fathom the trouble that comes from assigning a soul from being alive to being dead to alive to dead again! Listen up, you bloody egoist!"

Egoist instead of megalomaniac? That's improvement and then Ow. Another jab in the exact same spot on his chest. Why did no-one do this to articulate their point at Duel Academy?

"You can get away with these active paradoxes because you've got Nyx-level manipulation in your own little dimension, but let me repeat myself: the paperwork is Hell." The blue boy stops his rant and stares at him expectantly. Judai doesn't quite know what to say.

"So, you've...been filling out paperwork every time I kill someone?" The other boy nods.

"And because I'm going to undo all of their deaths, all the paperwork has to be... erm... redone?" Another nod.

"And if I end up murdering everyone ag-"

"For fuck's sake!" the boy all but screeches in his face. "You. Death bringer. Me. Paperwork doer. You kill lots. I suffer lots. I don't like paperwork. Capiche?"

Judai stares. The boy throws his hands up in the air. How he can move that fluidly in this strange vacuum is a mystery he'd like to know the answer to.

"Go talk to a mass murderer, Minato. It'll be fun, Minato. Do you want to go back to your Door, Minato?" said person moans, draws out a gun (to Judai's instant alarm) and places the cold steel on his temple. "My life is such a fucking mess."

"What's your point?" Judai asks hurriedly, because he's not sure how much more of this he can take, and he really hopes that the gun isn't real. The boy gives him a withering glance for interrupting his monologue, then sighs and puts the gun down.

"My point is, you're on your way back through time. Good for you. I can't stop you from doing that. But-" and the other boy leans in now- "I can tell you that if you end up causing the deaths of even half as many people as you did last time, I will personally wrench your soul out of whatever plane you end up on (I can and I will) and force you to do paperwork with me for the rest of your unnatural life. Which is a long time. As it is-"

He slams down two books on a coffee table that is suddenly in existence between them, complete with complementary steaming coffee mugs and fat seat cushions. Each book is thicker than any textbook Judai has ever seen (although that wasn't counting for much), with one nearly twice the thickness of the other.

"Here's the record," he says, and Judai swallows, because damn that's a lot of names. The blue boy quirks an eyebrow, but carries on. "These," he points, "are the souls you killed through dueling. Over here," he moves his finger, "are the souls you absorbed into Super Fusion. Normally one can undo fusion, and split the souls, but you've fucked things up so spectacularly that your card is now one gigantic, angry soul."

The boy leans back, folding his hands over his knees, and takes a moment to collect his thoughts. "Congratulations, by the way. We don't get Gordian Knot murderers often. Makes it easier when it's impossible to untangle - we just don't. Hope you weren't planning to."

Judai eyes Super Fusion's book warily - the names clash chaotically with the pristine paper. The words are all mixed together, starting and ending with no consideration for distinction. There are plenty of types swimming in the paper, and Judai can feel the distinct portion made up of Fiend-types pulse at him. Brron and his lackeys. A familiar cold fury washes over his skin, and he stares in disgust at the book as if his gaze could burn the names away. A purposeful cough breaks his attention, and Judai looks up at now steady blue eyes. Apparently the other boy could act professionally when doing his job. Judai drops his gaze after a moment.

There's a large part of him that isn't too bothered at all that the merged souls are undividable. It was unfortunate that other types from other worlds had gotten dragged in, and the guilt is still lining his anger-clouded thoughts, but as the strange boy (record-keeper?) said - Super Fusion was a Gordian Knot. The various worlds had all been victims of it, and their populations would suffer, but there is no way he is chancing reviving Brron. A green-haired Spellcaster flashes in his mind, but like he has been doing so often recently, he pushes the thought away. His guilt doesn't suppress his anger quite that far. The other book, however...

"On the other hand, you can retrieve these souls." His voice is a little exasperated but amused, and Judai gets the sinking feeling the boy's mirth won't quite transmit to him the same way. "Normally, I would handle the rare- note, rare- case of sending a soul back, but... you're perfectly capable of doing the paperwork, aren't you?" The gleam in his eyes leaves no room for questions, and Judai finds himself uncertainly nodding before he knows it. Almost immediately, the Super Fusion book soundly snaps shut and disappears with a snap. In its place appears a heap - no, a mountain - of papers, and Judai's eyes widen a fraction or five. He blinks, and suddenly there is a ballpoint pen floating in front of his eyes, much like the ones used on the occasional Duel Academy test.

"Time... it never stops, but I believe you'll find yourself finishing right when you need to." The blue boy chuckles, and he's standing, moving backwards while becoming ghostlier by the second. "Call if you need anything," his faint voice carries over, "but it's all very straightforward. Just remember to sign your name at the end! I am a record-keeper, after all... Pleasure doing business; please don't ever fucking come back again."

And then he's gone, and Judai is left alone in this pitch black space, surrounded by paperwork. He takes a tentative sip from the coffee cup and is pleasantly surprised that it's not a figment of his imagination. He entertains the thought of this being a teacher's hell, then dismisses it, snatching the waiting pen out of the air. There's a lot of souls that need replacing before he can make things right again. He's still not quite sure what he's doing, but he suspects he's on the right path to finding out.

A.N.: First attempt at fanfiction. Constructive criticism welcomed and greatly appreciated.

From the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds anime description:

"Drawing this card means your fortune today is not too bad.

Your lucky number is 3.

Your lucky color is green.

Your lucky item is a plant.

You might find something you lost."

- Fortune Fairy Hu

The monsters were the lovely Fortune Fairies and Fortune Ladies.