Legal Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the situations presented here. They're only being used for entertainment and will be returned in their original condition at the end of the fanfic.
Story Title: Five Regrets Haou Never Had
Focus: Yuuki Juudai (Haou), a speck of Juudai x Johan if you squint.
Notes: This was written for the 5nevers Livejournal Challenge. There are references to previous and future fanfics of mine here as well. This can also be entitled "Five Things Haou Never Regretted Losing, Or So He Claimed".

They were still in his deck. But they never came when he needed them anymore. The E-Heroes still did, but not the Neo-Spacians, not anymore. He saw them many times when he shuffled, and he felt their presence, but it was as if there was something in between them. If he were to give it a name, it would be a thick, black barrier, a wall that nothing can penetrate.

They were creatures of darkness, suitable for his use, since he had made them all. He was told that he was the champion of darkness. They told him that. But now they refused to come to him. They would not serve him while he was Haou, it seemed. He didn't understand their reluctance. He was doing what he must. To stop all of the evil, he had to become evil. He needed Super Fusion, and there was nothing else that he could do to get it.

There wasn't any light in the Dark World, except for artificial light. The sun never rose there. There were only stars and the light of the comet. It was always night there, and the more he thought about it, the more Haou liked that fact. The night was the time for what he does, for death and destruction.

It was also the time when he sat in his private bedroom, armor cast aside for the moment, and shuffled his deck over and over again, and drew cards over and over in an attempt to gain at least a little reorganization from the Neo-Spacians.

But they never gave it to him. He never pulled one of them, nor any of their support cards. He couldn't even draw so much as the Neospace field card. Instead, other cards came to his hand, more and more frequently as he did that over and over.

Evil Hero Hell Gainer. Evil Hero Malicious Edge. Evil Hero Hell Brat.

Sometimes it hurt to look at his fusion deck and see what had become of it. Evil Hero Infernal Wing. Evil Hero Lightning Golem. Evil Hero Hell Sniper.

This wasn't what he wanted to be when he was younger. He wanted to be a hero, someone who was looked up to and admired. Not someone who was feared and hated.

Not someone who had killed his friends. Not someone who had killed more people than he could count anymore.

He drew five cards again, the start of every duel, and looked at them, his golden eyes unchanged at what they proved to be. Evil Hero Malicious Edge. Evil Hero Hell Brat. Revenge of Darkness. Dark Fusion. E-Hero Featherman. He drew a sixth, and was not surprised at all to find that it was E-Hero Burst Lady.

Still no Neo-Spacians. Perhaps they'd never enter his hand again. Or if they did, they would be changed into something different, as the E-Heroes had become the Evil Heroes. He didn't know, and as he stared down at the cards in his hand, Haou realized that he didn't care. If they would not serve him, then they were of no use to him in his deck.

Slowly, he spread the deck out before him and searched through it, taking out each and every Neo-Spacian. He could almost feel them looking at him disapprovingly, but he didn't care. Like all Duel Monsters, they would either serve him or die.

He didn't care about losing them. He didn't regret a thing.

There was one card that he kept in his deck regardless. It was one of those that did not come to his draw no matter what, but it wasn't a Neo-Spacian. He just could not bring himself to take it out.

If anyone had asked, he would have killed them just for having the nerve to ask why he kept it there. It was nothing but a painful memory, and useless since it never came to his hand anyway.

But he would not take out Hane Kuriboh. He did not stare at the card in longing or attempt to draw until he drew it. It was simply there, in the deck, waiting.

Though perhaps the thought of waiting was all in his mind. Maybe Hane Kuriboh had abandoned him as well. Maybe it would never come to him again and he would have to live his life without the partner that had shared his deck and duels for nearly three years.

That was fine with him. He didn't really want to have the useless creature by his side no matter what. Sure, it had helped him a few times, but he had better friends and better helpers now. His Duel Monster servants were certainly more useful and more powerful, and they didn't need support cards. The Evil Heroes came when he needed them in a duel. His lip curled in dark amusement as he recalled that human girl's expression when she saw Evil Hero Fiend Knight. He'd never seen someone quite so afraid of him before. It was intoxicating, really.

Was it something that Hane Kuriboh would have approved of? No, probably not. But Haou was not going to live out his life by the dictates of a fuzzball that didn't even have the nerve to support his master in his conquest. He was not even going to run his conquest by the approval or disapproval of that little bit of nothing.

He didn't miss him. He didn't wonder, in the depths of the darkness when he chose to sleep, if Hane Kuriboh was all right wherever he was. He didn't stare out into his cheering throng of servants and wonder what he would do if he saw a glint of brown fur and white wings.

There was no need to do any of that, and so Haou did not. He had too much to do to bother thinking about one little treacherous Duel Monster. He did not slip his cards through his fingers and stop at one of them now and then to stare and wonder what would happen if he summoned it in a duel. He could force a draw of the card if he really wanted to. He had cards in his deck that would do that. But he had never bothered to summon one that was so obviously opposed to his commands.

In this world, the holograms were more than holograms. They were the monsters. He'd seen that more than enough times to know it was true. To call Hane Kuriboh, when Hane Kuriboh did not want to come…

No. He didn't need to do that. All that he needed to worry about was victory, and Hane Kuriboh couldn't give him that. His Evil Heroes were who and what he needed. They'd come when he needed them, serving him loyally, as the Neo-Spacians and Hane Kuriboh couldn't or wouldn't.

He did not regret that his so-called partner had left him. Why should he? He was Haou. Haou did not need a monster that weak.

He only regretted that he hadn't seen this truth sooner.

Even Haou had to sleep sometimes, despite all of his great power. He had to sleep and to eat, and he refused to stop doing either one. It interrupted his conquest time, but it was still necessary. If he grew too weak from lack of doing either, then he wouldn't be able to keep on doing what he needed to do. That was unacceptable.

It was almost inevitable that thoughts of his friends would cross his mind while he ate or slept. He tried not to let it bother him, but regardless of whether it did or not, eating and sleeping did bring to mind other days of his past.

Sleeping brought back images of the Osiris Red dorm, of being in that narrow bed, in a slightly drafty room, with Shou in the bed above his and Hayato above him. Or sometimes he would think of Manjoume and Kenzan being there instead. It didn't matter which was there. He still thought about them.

They were gone now, all of them. Manjoume and Kenzan were part of what made Super Fusion work, and good riddance to them. Everything they'd said before they'd died still burned in the darker parts of his mind. He could hear it even more clearly in his dreams. Sometimes he started up from some dreams, with what they'd said echoing in his ears as if they'd just said it.

And then what Shou had said would drift back into his mind, and he refused to let any emotion show because of that.

He didn't know who to blame. Was he the one responsible? Was it them? His thoughts drifted from one to the other, and he never knew why. Sometimes he wondered if it mattered. Their deaths were over, and he knew that Shou's would come in due time. There was no way that it couldn't. The only exception might be if Super Fusion were completed before he actually ran into his old friend and former brother.

Yes. That would be an exception. Because there were fates far, far worse than death, and he knew exactly which one he would visit upon Marufuji Shou when he had him in his grip. And that day would come.

Really, did Shou think he was stupid or something? He'd known for what had to have been weeks that the other was watching him, observing everything he did from a distance. There was no way that he couldn't have known, not with all of his spies bringing him information.

He knew much, much more than they thought he did. He knew that Ryou and Edo were in the area and something of what they were doing. It simply didn't mean anything to him. He was so very close to having what he wanted, and once he had that, they could try with all their might, but they would be nothing to him.

He toyed now and then with thoughts of bringing one of them into his particular dark fold. It would certainly strike terror into the hearts of those who were left. A cold smile touched his lips at the very thought of having the proud and arrogant Hell Kaiser kneeling submissively before him. If the opportunity arose, he would seize it, he decided. The look in Shou's eyes, that look of ultimate pain, would be perfect. A fitting revenge for the pain that he had felt that day when Shou had declared he had no more faith in him. If Shou wouldn't have him as a brother, then he wouldn't have any brothers at all.

There were occasionally times that Haou wished all of this had never happened. But those were few and far between, and growing fewer as time passed. He did not miss his friends. He did not miss the warmth and the caring that they'd all shared with one another. He didn't regret losing any of them. He'd take the ones that were still around away as soon as he could.

If he couldn't have them all, he didn't want any of them.

There was another who crossed his thoughts, but never often. Haou made certain he didn't think of him at all. If the others caused him moments or even minutes of pain, the mere memory of those warm, laughing, happy eyes, that wonderful shock of light teal blue hair, would send him aching for hours.

What would Johan think of what he was like now?

No. That he would not think about at all, no matter what. He was doing this for Johan. He hadn't been strong enough before to defeat the evil that had killed him, and he would fix that. He would stop them all, bring them all to their knees, and never again would anyone lose someone like he had lost him.

Damn it. Damn Johan. Even when he tried not to think about him, he thought about him anyway. But it had been like that since the first time that they'd met. Johan had neatly fallen into place in his mind and his heart, filling a gap he had never even known was there in the first place.

Now that gap was there again, aching and empty and hurting no matter what he tried to do to stop it. It was wrong, it hurt more than anything, and there was nothing that could ever make it right again, because Johan was dead, and he wanted him back, and there was no way that he would ever be back. He knew this better than anyone. The dead didn't come back.

If the dead returned, then it meant everything he felt and everything he'd believed since first seeing Harpie's Brother puff into nothing but light was meaningless.

No. The dead were gone, never to return. Not just his friends, not just Manjoume, Kenzan, Asuka, and Fubuki. But Johan. Johan who had died when he hadn't even been there for him.

Had he suffered? He had to have. Had it been Yubel or had it been Brron? Nothing he knew had been really clear, and it was even possible that…

No. Johan was dead. He was not going to entertain any other ideas. He had not been lied to. He hadn't been deceived. He hadn't been tricked by some mad Duel Monster for some goal he couldn't even begin to figure out.

For once, he stared out of a different window in his castle, this one being the one in his personal room. He didn't mind accepting the cheers and applause of his army, but right now, he just wanted to be alone and to think. Johan was on his mind, and he didn't want those memories to be tainted by hearing Haou over and over.

Deep within, he knew that Johan wouldn't approve of this, no matter what. He didn't want to think about it, but he apparently was going to whether he wanted to or not. He could shove aside thoughts of the Neo-Spacians, of Hane Kuriboh, and all of the rest of his friends without any problem at all. But when Johan wanted to be thought about, he could only resist it for so long.

In their gloves, his fingers twitched slightly, remembering what it had felt like to touch Johan. His arms could almost feel Johan's weight in them, and his lips…

They'd only kissed a few times, but whenever thoughts of Johan burned into his mind, he could remember them all. The time with the doughnuts. The time in Johan's room in Obelisk. There hadn't been enough of them. But at the same time, they almost seemed like too much now. Remembering each one widened the hole in his heart until he was certain if he looked in just the right way, he'd see it there ready to swallow him whole.

No. He couldn't keep this up. He had a mission now, and it was not one that he would ever fail in. Killing Brron hadn't been enough for his revenge, he found out. He would kill everyone who hadn't been there to protect him, whether they should have been or not. It didn't matter. They hadn't been, and they should have been, because he was Haou, and that was what he wanted them to have done. Nothing else mattered.

There was no regret in losing Johan. Only that he hadn't been there to stop it from happening. It was his fault, and he would make everyone else suffer for it.

There were those who thought he was insane. His spies had told him as much. Those who thought that also whispered his name in fear and terror, and tried to hide from his forces wherever and whenever that they could. His spies told him where they hid, and he enjoyed pulling them out of their little nooks and crannies, crushing all of their hopes and dreams and desires, making them nothing more than fuel for the greatest of cards.

Had he lost his mind? He didn't doubt it a great deal of the time. He was not the person that he had been when he'd been on Academy Island. That boy was nothing but a child, a foolish brat who hadn't had any idea of what was real.

Did it matter if he were crazy? No. What mattered was Super Fusion, taking the souls that he needed for it, and getting it to actually become a true card. After that…after that he would really start his campaign. After that, he would crush everything that was even remotely evil.

To defeat evil, you must become evil. He knew that was true. Only after he'd made his decision, only after he'd become Haou, had he truly begun to make any progress towards his goal. The child he'd been hadn't been able to do anything. He had taken steps forward.

Even if the mental ground was shaking and unsure, even if deep within he could feel that small, scared child part of himself hating what he was doing, he was certain this was right. The consequences of being wrong were not worth thinking about.

"There are three villages that need to be taken care of, Haou," Chaos Sorcerer spoke up from behind him. "Would you like me to do it or do you wish this pleasure for yourself?"

Haou normally divided up conquests, depending on his mood of the moment. Sometimes he would just send out his servants. Sometimes he would take care of it himself. Today he was feeling somewhat bloodthirsty. There was no reason to it. He simply felt it, and so he went with it. "I'll take care of it. Have everything ready in half an hour."

There was really nothing like doing one's own work, after all. He was certain he could feel Super Fusion growing stronger and stronger when he took the souls himself instead of having his servants take them. They all went to the same place regardless, but that extra feeling was something quite intoxicating.

While his servants left to do his bidding, he pulled out his deck and inspected it. The new cards that had appeared to take the place of the Neo-Spacians were powerful and strong: more Evil Heroes, of course. It was what the Haou should use. He was a hero, a hero of darkness and demands, a hero of command conquest. And he was evil. He had to be.

He looked forward to seeing what sort of feeble resistance these villages could put up. He'd destroyed some of the most powerful Duel Monsters that he'd ever seen here. It was something akin to what he'd felt back on Earth when he'd faced down an opponent with a strong monster, only much, much more intense. The consequences of losing a duel had ranged from just losing a little bit of pride to losing the entire world, but this was different. Words to describe it weren't his to command, but he didn't need to. He knew what he felt no matter what. And there was no one that he needed to describe this to.

Sighting the first of the three villages sent a charge of adrenaline all through him. Fresh lives. Fresh souls. Fresh creatures to be either destroyed or enslaved, whatever happened to please him the most at the moment. He wondered if he really could capture one of those people who had once been his friend. Shou. Edo. Kaiser. Any of those could be useful to his cause. He had plans for each of them should that ever happen.

Perhaps it would be wise to inform his current servants of what they looked like and the style of their decks. That way if any of them were ever lucky enough to find them, there would be no risk of them being disposed of in a way that he didn't approve of.

For now, however, he would act on the assumption that they wouldn't be here. There were more than enough people here for him to crush into nothingness. They'd apparently also received word that he was coming, since the gates to this village were closed and there were humans and Duel Monsters guarding them. Haou smiled to himself. It was a thin, dark, and unpleasant smile, one that would have caused any who saw it to quake in fear.

So they thought their closed gates and guards would keep them safe from him? It was time they learned a lesson. That lesson being, the Haou was unstoppable. He threw up one hand, pointing towards the gate, and dark energy swirled about his extended hand for a few moments before it blasted forward, knocking aside the guards and destroying the gate and part of the stockade around the village in a single harsh explosion.

Haou smiled even more unpleasantly. "Attack." The word was spoke calmly, and his minions surged past him to obey. He watched in sick and twisted pleasure as the assault began in earnest, and there was never any doubt about who would win it.

If he had lost his mind, he had gained an entire world, and that was more than a fair enough trade for him.

He truly regretted nothing.

The End