There are many stories as to how the universe began, and many contradictions in each story that seem to blur the line between the true force that created the universe.
Was it black magic; did everything that exists just appear out of thin air with no clear or logical explanation? Like from mysterious, ancient powers that caused creatures to come to life?
Or was it done by alchemy, the science of understanding, deconstruction and reconstruction? Is there indeed a law of equivalent exchange; can you not gain one thing without sacrificing another?
Many legends speak about a legendary war fought with weapons called Keyblades, in a conflict that destroyed the universe. And it was only through the hearts of children that the universe was restored, separated into smaller worlds connected by one common thread; the heart of all worlds, Kingdom Hearts.
Yet another explanation revolves around balls; in fact, the universe and the heavens (more commonly referred to as "Other World") are two parts of a giant ball that makes up all of existence, with a race of beings called the Kais watching over all of it.
Indeed there are many stories as to how the universe was born. And yet, in just a matter of time, all would cease to be relevant.
You're probably wondering why you're listening to any of this. Why should you care about how the universe began? How does it affect you in any way?
Well, you should care.
It is important that you care about how the universe. Because only then will you understand… how it all came to an end.
Tales of the Wanderer: The Signers
Disclaimer: I don't own ANYTHING that shows up in this fanfic. They are all owned by their respective owners
There was nothing worse than forgetting something really important.
That is the particular predicament Yugi Muto found himself in now.
The chains on his hands weighed down on him like anvils, crushing his wrists like they were plastic. His legs were tied up in ropes, and his body was strapped to the chair he was sitting on. His eyes were covered in a blindfold made of black leather, so he couldn't even tell where he was. Judging by the smell, he assumed it was in a dusty warehouse or a giant, dirty basement.
Breathing slowly but heavily, Yugi cracked his neck a bit. It had been like this for two hours; the blow to his head must have been so hard that he could barely remember what had happened before then.
She's gone...
Yugi's eyes widened under the blindfold. Who's gone? He just couldn't put the pieces together.
Ice cream...
"Ice cream?" Yugi thought. Someone was gone, and ice cream? How did those two connect? Yugi strained his mind to try and remember. Was there something else? Anything else?
For the next ten minutes, Yugi tried to rustle himself out of the chains, but to no avail. From what he could tell, they were made of iron, nearly impossible to break (at least by an ordinary man). Yugi would have to be at least three hundred pounds to break free of these chains. Of course, if he did weigh that much, he wouldn't have been kidnapped in the first place. And he wouldn't have to resort to dueling to provide his income.
And my wife wouldn't have left me.
That was it! His wife! That must be who was missing! The kidnappers must have gotten his wife! Yes, he remembered now! They had been walking in the park together, eating bars of ice cream, when two guys in black suits approached them and grabbed her brown hair without warning. Yugi had tried to protest, but the man refused to listen, picking her up by the pigtails-
Cute, beautiful pigtails tied up in red ribbons...
Wait, that didn't add up.
She hasn't worn pigtails in years!
"Ah, I see our guest has been taken care of!"
That voice! It sounded so familiar to him. It had kind a gruff, condescending feeling to it. It almost reminded him of someone from long ago, someone he knew.
But it couldn't be. It just couldn't.
"Who are you?" Yugi bellowed. "Why are you doing this?"
"Ah, so the darkness within you awakens..."
This voice sounded different than the first one. It sounded like it belonged to an old man, close to his seventies or eighties. Yugi could almost sense a smirk appearing on the old man's face, as though he had bested Yugi, in a way.
"What do you mean?" Yugi was used to these cryptic statements by now, but that didn't mean he liked them.
"If I had a nickel for every time you said that word, I'd be even richer." It seemed like the first speaker was rolling his eyes in disbelief. It wasn't clear to Yugi how he knew this; he just knew.
"But it can't be..." Yugi whispered.
"What's wrong, Yugi?" The stranger whispered in his ear. "Too scared to face the truth?"
A tear fell from Yugi's left eye. "Why..." He asked. "Why are you doing this?"
Without answering, the stranger walked away. Eventually, he stopped in one place.
"Cut it off."
Without warning, the blindfold fell to the ground, so quickly that it took Yugi a few seconds to realize that they had been cut. Putting his eyes into focus, he attempted to take in his surroundings. However, the minute he looked in front of him, Yugi wished he had left his eyes shut.
That was when the memories began flooding back.
Cute, beautiful pigtails tied up in red ribbons...
Ice cream...
She's gone...
The park...
Toy bear...
Two men...
Blood...
Yugi screamed in terror, as the memories started to painfully resurface, and he remembered why he was here.
This was no random kidnapping; it had been planned. By none other than the only man with the power, the money, and the motive to do so.
Seto Kaiba.
And that was not his wife sitting in the chair in front of him, gagged with a giant white cloth and blindfolded.
That was his four-year-old daughter, Sarah.
"No..." Yugi's voice started to break, and more tears began to flow from his face.
Sarah's muffled screams placed daggers in the duelist's heart, while Kaiba merely smirked with delight.
"It wasn't hard to convince her. All I had to tell her was that she'd never see her daddy again, and soon enough, she was as obedient as a dog!"
"Children are very easy to manipulate. Trust me; I have some experience." The old man agreed. He was dressed in a black coat that obscured his face, but Yugi could see a white goatee sticking out of the hood.
Trying to scramble free of his bonds, Yugi's chair fell down, his face now shoved into the hard, gray cement.
Kaiba sighed. "This is the part where I tell you my plan for revenge and you yell triumphantly about how friendship will save the day and other crap like that. But this time..."
He pointed a gun at Sarah's head.
"I'm not giving you that chance!"
And he fired.
Time seemed to freeze up.
Yugi was no longer in an unknown, dark place. He was back home, with his grandfather and friends in the Card Shop...
He was playing with his friend Joey in school, teaching him how to play Duel Monsters...
He was standing with his friends in a circle, as Tea drew the circle of friendship with ink on their hands, the bond that would last for years to come...
He was dueling Seto Kaiba for the first time, summoning the lengendary Exodia against the latter's Blue-Eyes White Dragons...
He was on the boat to Duelist Kingdom, as Joey fought to save the Exodia cards that Weevil had thrown overboard...
He was fighting against Kaiba again, when he was forced to make the choice to kill Kaiba or sacrifice his grandfather...
He was fighting against Pegasus, in order to save his grandfather's soul, as well as the Kaibas...
He was fighting against Marik, in order to save the world from destruction...
He was sacrificing himself to save the Pharoah, so that his soul wouldn't be offered to the Great Leviathan...
He was fighting against Yami Bakura, in order to restore the Pharoah's memory...
He was fighting against the Pharoah, in order to put his soul to rest...
He was getting married to Tea, the love of his life...
He was holding his newborn daughter, whom he named Sarah, which he put in his loving wife's hands...
He was sitting in a courtroom, next to his divorce lawyer, with his wife on the opposite end of the room...
He was sitting in the park with his daughter, dueling some bullies from her school...
The last image he saw was Sarah's beautiful, smiling face, with her short brown hair quite similar to her mother's, and her light green eyes that emiited a radiance of their own...
All Yugi could see was the blood stained teddy bear his daughter had been carrying, lying on the floor a few feet in front of her corpse.
And everything after that was a blur...
It wasn't a good ending. It was hardly an ending at all.
In fact, it was only the beginning.
There are many theories as to how the universe began. But no one can really give any insight as to how it would end. For who really knows what is to come?
One child's death was only the first of many. One casualty in this catastrophic, incredible war that threatened the security of all worlds, all timelines, all parallel timelines, all of reality.
And one child's death would cause the birth of five others.
The Children of the Stars.
The holders of the Mark.
The Signers.
All of the pieces were coming together. This game of life and death was going to begin...
To be continued