Chapter Text
(
This is hell.
)
Ever since he’d run into Ryo, Sora had felt sick. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think, and couldn’t eat -especially not when all there was was cafeteria gruel. Because he was starving, he tried to eat, but because he was sick, he felt nauseated. He felt tired enough to sleep through class, but whenever he tried to turn in for the night, his hunger would keep him up till morning.
Like that, day by day, Sora’s problems just kept snowballing and, eventually, when the snowball got too crushingly big, something inside of Sora broke until he couldn’t deny it anymore.
Hell. This was his home, but it felt like hell.
(
And if Academia was hell, then he knew
exactly
where heaven was.
)
No! No no no! Sure, his situation was pretty hellish, but thinking like that was a step too far. Sora didn’t want to run away, he just wanted to feel normal again! Right now, he was so hungry, tired, sick, and stupid that he was turning into a parasite! Academia deserved better from him.
So yeah, Sora wasn’t running away. It was just that, to go back to being a proper duel soldier, he’d have to break a few small rules.
Or at least, that’s what Sora told himself as he crept towards Academia’s kitchen. Currently, the time was past midnight, which meant it was even further past curfew. Plus, the fact that he knew he was breaking curfew meant he couldn’t plead ignorance. Thankfully, being caught breaking curfew alone would just land Sora a few detentions. Being caught sneaking to the kitchen past curfew with the ingredients for pancake mix, though, was another story. One he didn’t want to find out.
This isn’t weak, this isn’t weak.
Sora had to eat and, with the cafeteria slop getting harder and harder to shove down his throat, the only choice he had was to try and make some homestyle pancakes. They wouldn’t hold a candle to Mrs Sakaki’s, of course. Academia soldiers mainly ate rations, so a home-ec class was out of the question, and since Sora had been here since he was two, he could barely fry an egg on his own. Still, with some flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, eggs, and butter, he could hopefully put something together!
Thankfully, despite jumping at shadows five different times, Sora successfully reached the kitchen without being spotted by anything. Prepping the batter went just as well and, just like that, it was time to get to the frying step.
Sora had been dreading this part. For one, if the oil was hot enough to cook through the batter, it could probably cook through Sora, too. For another, the thought of flipping his half-cooked pancake was absolutely terrifying! Even duelling with his life on the line hadn’t made him shake this much!
What Sora hadn’t expected was that he’d never even make it that far. Instead, the second the batter touched the frypan, the oil began bubbling so loudly that, in the silence of Academia’s midnight, everyone in the school would hear it.
Heart hammering, Sora scrambled to drag the pan off the heat. He cringed as metal scraped against metal, cringed as the pan slammed down on the counter, cringed as the bubbling slowly died off, and cringed at his own pathetic, shaking hands.
Failed again…
It wasn’t just the pancakes. These days, Sora was failing in class, failing at duelling, failing at sleeping, and, worst of all, failing at being a good special agent. Sora was the best of the best -his archetype was proof of that – and his duty as the best of the best was to model Academia’s excellence. That way, whenever an underclassman copied him, they’d become a little more excellent, too.
These days, the only example he could set was how to be a total failure. He couldn’t even answer 2 simple questions!
“Question 2: what is The United World?”
“Paradise,” Sora answered. “Synchro, Xyz, Standard, even Fusion -all of them are flawed because all of them are incomplete. Once we make them whole again, the world will be perfected.”
Yuya hummed. “Alright, question 2b: how long will it take for my mail to get here? 4 times as long? Or will The United World be a little smaller?”
“...What?”
“I mean, when you fuse ‘em all together, the landmass’ll become four times as big, right? So everything’s gonna be farther away!”
“That’s obviously not going to happen!” Sora snapped. “Don’t mock our cause!”
“I’m not mocking it!” Yuya protested. “Uh, think about it this way! If we fuse all the land, what’ll happen to the people!? The population’s gonna jump up by four!” he grimaced “Where are we gonna put them all?”
It should have been the easiest thing! If he couldn’t find the answer by researching, then just go on and ask a teacher! If asking a teacher didn’t work, then swallow his pride and ask The Professor! Sure, asking questions was insubordination, but if Sora asked with a pure enough heart, The Professor was sure to forgive him, right?
So why, when he thought about asking those simple questions, did he think of Marufuji Ryo’s duel disk pressing against his throat.
Funnily enough, the answer to that question always came easy. Sora was afraid.
Fear is antithetical to loyalty.
Afraid, and determined to bite the hand that fed him.
***
Sleep never came easy these days, but that night was especially awful. The devastating and, more importantly, deafening failure of Sora’s pancakes made the process of sneaking back to his bedroom way worse than sneaking out of it. The spitting oil had been so loud, he couldn’t believe that no one had heard it, and every time he turned the corner, he expected Ryo to be waiting for him.
By the time he finally reached his bedroom, Sora’s nerves were completely fried. Rather than burning the ends off, though, it was like they’d all been overcharged. They fired off at every noise, every breath, every twitch, and, even after hiding under his covers, they were still sparking wildly.
‘Don’t relax.’ They said. ‘Don’t relax. There’s something out there watching you.’
It was stupid. He knew it was stupid, but-
‘If you relax, it’ll swallow you whole.’
He didn’t sleep a wink that night, just laid awake with both his eyes closed. Obviously, come morning, he was completely exhausted. Too exhausted to put on his uniform, which made it lucky he’d gone to sleep fully dressed. Good on him for thinking ahead.
If only he’d also thought far enough to go to sleep on the cold tile floor. Instead, he’d sweat so much that his bed was soaked through and stuck to him like a second skin. When Sora peeled himself out of it, it sounded like tearing up masking tape.
Man, he sighed. This has gotta be rock bottom.
He shouldn’t have tempted fate like that. Sure enough, waiting a single step outside was a reminder of just how much worse things could get.
“Good morning!”
Like clockwork, that familiar and awful voice rang out. Sora tried to pull up his mask in time but, tired, miserable, and burned-out as he was, he just couldn’t work up the energy for it.
Instead, he locked eyes with Yuri and, for the latest in a long line of times, wondered how he could look so much like Yuya. “Don’t you have something better to do?”
In return, Yuri’s eyes widened in victory. “You finally responded to me!” he crooned. “How personable! So, what’s next? The cliff, or your little tower sanctuary?”
“Tower.”
“Still delaying the inevitable, I see. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you can’t.” his voice fell to a monotone. “The Professor wants us.”
***
Sora would have given anything to get away from Yuri, but orders were orders. If The Professor wanted him, then Sora would report and, if Yuri happened to be going the same way, Sora would go together with him.
Still, he didn’t take it lying down, instead using all his tricks to try and blunt the trap he was in -like playing songs inside his head, taking long, deep, and calming breaths, or keeping his eyes glued onto the floor. None of it helped, really.
He was lucky that his sleep deprivation had left him in a state of zen. The world, Yuri, even his memories all seemed to blur by apart from him. By the time they reached The Professor’s office, he could barely remember walking over.
“We’re heeeeeere!” Yuri sang, throwing open the doors so hard they slammed against the walls of the office.
The Professor, like he always did lately, didn’t budge at the show of disobedience. “I see,” he said coldly. “In that case, I’ll brief you two on your upcoming deployment.”
One pause and a button press later, both Sora and Yuri’s duel disks were beeping. A digital copy of their orders, most likely, but considering how they were both still here, Sora guessed the copy was just for insurance.
As expected, The Professor went on. “At 00:00, the two of you will be deployed to Neo Domino City together. Your mission is to capture Yuzu Hiiragi and Serena Kallas, to support Mackfield, and to determine if our Synchro Spymaster, Roget, has defected. A copy of your orders has been mailed to your duel disk, along with Mackfield and Roget’s most recent reports. Do not disappoint me. You are dismissed.”
Finished, The Professor lowered his gaze, returning to the papers stacked on his desk. As for Sora, he left the room with a quick “Yes sir!” and at a hopefully not-super-nervous pace. He didn’t want to look nervous because, even if he was nervous, there wasn’t a point to feeling that way. Orders were orders. The Professor’s orders, especially, were completely absolute. There was no getting out of this.
It was just… hard to wrap his head around those five short words.
“The two of you… together.”
The two of them, together. Him and Yuri, together. The two of them, him and Yuri. He was going to have to team up with Yuri. Alone.
I’m dead.
Up until now, Yuri had been awful, but livable. Day in and day out, he’d poked, prodded, stalked, and needled for Sora to just jump off that cliff already !
But no matter how hard it felt in the moment, Sora always called his bluff. The only thing Yuri could do was peck. Withstand that, and Sora would win.
Now, the rules were different. For all Sora knew, the instant he left the safety of fusion, Yuri would instantly turn and card him.
***
After that, the world changed. Suddenly, from drab, grey, and colourless, everything had turned too bright and noisy. It made it impossible for Sora to focus, which was bad since, right now, Sora needed to focus the most. These were his last meals, his last classes, the last nights he’d be able to dream. He wanted them to be wonderful!
Instead, all he could think about was exactly how little time he had left.
The only silver lining to the swamp he was stuck in was that Yuri was way too busy to annoy him. Sora didn’t see him all day!
Instead, the first time he was forced to see Yuri, it was in the depths of Academia’s midnight and, more importantly, Yuri was…strange.
It felt unreal and it should have been impossible but, for just a moment, he had looked normal.
Then, shocked, Sora’d gasped and, before he could even parse what he’d seen, Yuri had snapped to stare at him.
His usual sadistic grin was back. “Took you long enough!” he chirped, cheerily skipping over like a schoolgirl on an exciting field trip. “I was worried I’d have to set off without you~”
Sora deflated. “I wish…”
“Aw, don’t say that! Traversing dimensions is always an adventure!” his lips curled. “Will you bring back a recipe this time, too?”
The question felt like a fist to the stomach. Sora flinched, fully winded, but instead of knocking the air out of him, what Yuri dug up was Sora’s confession.
“Y-you were watching me!?”
Yuri had seen Sora break curfew, had seen him sneaking into the kitchen, had seen him try his best to make pancakes and fail for the stupidest reasons.
“No…”
He’d probably seen the rest of it, too. The way Sora’d crept miserably back into his room, the way he’d frozen up in bed, the way he’d turned into a 5-year-old who was deathly scared of the monster in the closet-
“But no… That was -it was you …”
His brain might have missed the truth, but his guts had somehow gotten it. That sense he was being watched by a monster? All completely rational. After all…
“You were watching me!”
That monster had ripped up his privacy and broken Robo-Sora to pieces. All that was left was the small, scared, humiliated, real Sora he’d always hated most of all -and Yuri, who looked like he’d be more than happy to kill and eat him piece. By. Piece.
Now, Sora was dead. There was no cliff for him to jump off of, but that didn’t matter. He’d already jumped off the cliff in his heart and, the moment his body hit the ground, something -no, everything - cracked .
(
No no no! I don’t
want to be here!
Sora didn’t care anymore. Not that he was weak, not that he was disloyal, not that he was a failing example. He didn’t care about this mission, didn’t care about his pride, didn’t care if being an Academia soldier meant flawlessly completing his mission. He wanted out !
Just let me feel safe for once in my life!
Sora’s eyes burned. Blinded, he didn’t notice when the sky opened up.
“Aaaw, is it that time already?”
Above them, green gave way to midnight blue.
“How unfortunate. I would have liked to watch you cry some more.”
The screen of Sora’s duel disk flared out.
“Oh well, there’s always next time.”
And In a final flash of light, Sora’s wish was granted.
“See you.”