Who I Thought You Were - Yusei Fudo/OC [COMPLETE]

Chapter 7 - Nova

For the first time in the last couple weeks, my head is clear. So why am I on top of a crumbling building, staring at the sunset over the water? That's what I do when I need to think.

I stare at the mark on my arm for the hundredth time: the mark of the heron. It seems strange, the purple mark being there when a week and a half ago, when Yusei and I dueled and he summoned Stardust Dragon when I had Graydle Dragon on the field, and that weird crimson mark appeared on my arm. It's gone, replaced with my new mark. The stronger one. The better one.

I know now what the red marks mean. It means that whoever has one is my enemy, including Yusei. If that means I have to crush him, fine.

If I'm being completely honest, that sounds really tempting.

I'm still sitting outside, even after dark. I don't even know why I'm out here. Hell, I don't know how I'm still here. I shouldn't exist. Not like anyone would really care if I'm dead, except Ally, really. And maybe Martha. But anyone else?

God, it's so tempting to jump off the roof. End my sorry little life.

Nothing but bad things have happened to me pretty much my entire life. I never got to know my parents, really. All the things I know about them, which isn't much, Allison told me. Even when I lived at Martha's, I never knew what not being hungry feels like. When I joined the Enforcers, I thought that maybe, just maybe, they could be my family. But then Yusei, the one person I knew best, pulled away from me. And when he promised he wouldn't go back to Kalin, he took what little trust I had with him and smashed it to bits. That night, he proved to me what I'd always thought: the only person you should be looking out for is yourself. If I hadn't wasted time on Yusei, then maybe I wouldn't have lost my ability to trust (but then again, it's not like you can find many trustworthy people in this hellhole). Yusei's "teamwork" to help Kalin ended up making things worse between them.

At least I'm on Kalin's team now, so I won't be getting my ass handed to me. Ah, how satisfying it'll be to see the look on his face when he sees who he's turned me into.

"Something wrong?" someone asks from behind me. I turn around and one of my fellow Dark Signers, Carly, is standing there. Her outfit is like mine, except a bit more scandalous.

"Carly. Hey," I reply, swiftly pulling my deck out of its holster on my belt. "I'm fine. Just stacking my deck. Making sure I have all the goods." I shuffle through my cards to complete the lie, and one sticks out to me, my new ace, Earthbound Immortal Wakchilla. The heron.

"I just want to ask," she starts, sticking her hands in her skirt pockets. "Why did you become a Dark Signer?"

"I could ask you the same thing," I reply. "When I first met you, you had the face of a woman scorned. Boy problems?"

"That obvious?" She smirks, staring at my cards. "Can I see your deck?"

"Why?"

"I can tell fortunes with cards. You're intriguing. I want to see what your future holds."

Reluctantly, I hand her my deck. It hasn't changed much from my old deck; it's still based off sea myths, it's just gotten a power boost. I'm oddly attached to my cards.

"Strange," Carly says after she's looked through all my cards. "I can't tell your fortune. Sorry." She hands me back my deck.

"It's no biggie," I tell her. "So, who's the boy?"

"I'd rather not say." She blushes and turns away.

"Tell me, and I'll tell you about my boy problems."

"Fine." She rolls her eyes, a faint smile still on her face, and spills. "It's about Jack Atlas. You know, the pro turbo duelist?"

"Oh, I know him. I grew up with him. Then and now, he was an asshole."