7. Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V A New Story of Pendulum (Synchro Arc)

Chapter 30 A Battle of Trust

While Katrina and Aki's duel raged in the stadium, Vivian tossed in her bed. Sweat clung to her pale face as she thrashed under the sheets. Her breath came short and shallow, her hands gripping at the blanket as though trying to fight something unseen.

In her dream, she opened her eyes to find herself back in a familiar place — the passenger seat of her father's old car. The smell of old leather and faint cigarette smoke filled the cabin. She was small again, a child, legs barely dangling above the seat, a book spread across her lap.

Her father's voice rumbled from the driver's seat. "Vivian... you're reading my books again, aren't you?"

She looked up with a mischievous grin. "It's not my fault, Papa's books are so interesting!"

He sighed, though a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. His eyes flickered between her and the traffic ahead. "Are you sure? You know all my stories are ghost stories. Keep reading them, and you'll only give yourself nightmares."

Vivian hugged the book close, her voice brimming with childish excitement. "But I want to be friends with them! With Spirit Taker, the Supreme Dragon Zarc, and even Manibus!"

Her father chuckled. "Do you think all those monsters I write about are real?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Of course! Don't you?"

He paused, watching the road carefully as the lights of the city streaked by. His tone grew softer, almost distant. "Who knows? They might be real, or maybe not. In the end, it depends on what you want to believe."

But before Vivian could answer, her heart lurched. Headlights suddenly flared in front of them — a truck barreling through the intersection at terrifying speed.

"Dad, watch out!" Vivian screamed.

Her father slammed the brakes, jerking the wheel, but it was too late. The truck crashed into the car with a deafening roar, and the world erupted in flames.

Darkness swallowed everything.

When Vivian opened her eyes again, she was no longer a little girl. She floated, disembodied, drifting through the sterile white walls of a hospital. Her own body lay on the bed below, small and motionless, her father beside her. The steady beep of the heart monitor stretched into a flat, unbroken line.

Her breath caught in her throat. "This was... the day Dad died. I was supposed to die too..."

Doctors rushed in, trying and failing to resuscitate them. Vivian stared, powerless, as one by one they shook their heads in resignation. Two lives extinguished — or so it should have been.

Then, something stirred.

The book beside her child-self's bed — Manibus — shuddered violently, its pages flapping as though caught in a phantom wind. A deep purple glow bled from its cover, flooding the room with unnatural light.

"What... what is this?" Vivian whispered, eyes wide.

As the glow engulfed her, the heart monitor suddenly blipped. One beat. Then another. The straight line turned back into a rhythm.

Gasps filled the room.
"What—her heart rate is back?!"
"This shouldn't be possible!"
"It's a miracle!"

Vivian's ghostly form stared in shock, her body on the bed breathing again as though pulled back from the abyss. The purple glow faded into stillness, the book's cover closing as if nothing had happened.

Vivian's voice trembled, confusion dripping from every word. "That light... what was that purple glow?"

The hospital scene blurred, dissolving like smoke. Vivian felt herself being pulled deeper into the nightmare, shadows curling around her as if dragging her through another memory. The sterile white walls warped into asphalt and steel, the roar of engines filling the night.