Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's: Rainbow Stardust

Chapter 6: The Master Plan

There were a couple of times here and there, where Sylvia had flashes of a certain memory over the past several weeks. Once, she glanced at her Duel Runner, and as if she were floating in a dream, she recalled a white room, full of tubes and needles, with a lone chair in the center. An echo of what she assumed was supposed to be a comforting voice, which instead only gave her chills, would whisper in her mind.

"Don't worry. This is for your own good."

No matter how much she opened her mouth to scream or writhe or protest, nothing came out, and she felt like she was being choked. Her arm would tingle softly, begging for attention, or burn mercilessly, depending on the day.

"This is for your own good."

And no matter how often the voice echoed it in her mind... no, actually, the more it echoed in her mind, the more she felt betrayed and hurt. But grasping at the memory was like trying to grasp at fog, and the bigger details would slip through her fingers every time. Like the name or face of the person who spoke to her, or the location she was in, or even her point of view in the memory.

Sometimes the memory appeared as a dream.

On nights when that happened, Rally would wake her up just as the darkness began to engulf her, and a gloved hand reached out to her face with a cloth in it. He would ask if she was okay, because she was writhing and panicking, and her mark was searing red so brightly, it woke everyone else up.

Every time it happened, she apologized profusely, and they changed her bandages. Nervin, Rally, and Yusei were quick to forgive her, but Blitz scoffed and rolled over with his back to her, attempting to continue sleeping. Tank, who seemed a bit confused and unsure of what to do, mouthed a quiet apology at Sylvia and did the same.

Finally, the day came when they ran out of bandages.

No matter how hard they tried to treat her arm, the mark refused to fade, continuously burning and scarring her with no remorse. Every time her odd mark glowed, her skin broke, and fresh blood would trickle out little by little. It wasn't enough that she was lightheaded or anything-- the amount of blood being lost at a time was not substantial enough that her body couldn't replace it quickly enough-- but at this rate, she was constantly in a state of losing blood, and the bandages around her arm needed to be changed every three days or so, unless her arm happened to glow again and they had to be changed sooner than planned.

And of course, in Satellite, every resource was scarce and expensive. As much as Yusei and Nervin tried to deny it, she was putting a strain on those resources.

Tank was the one who brought it up. After a while of Rally and Nervin taking care of changing her bandages, he volunteered to help when they weren't around, and when Blitz wasn't there to judge him for it. Only Yusei and Sylvia knew that Tank was willing to help her.

"Oh. Our roll's empty," he said when he pulled the fresh bandage away. "We're gonna need ta get some more."

Yusei had been tinkering with his Duel Runner again. He hummed in acknowledgement without really saying anything else, as was customary for him.

Tank was actually pretty gentle, even more so than Rally. It was honestly surprising, since Sylvia hadn't really had a strong impression of Tank until he started pitching in to help, little by little. He had calloused hands and dirt caked under his fingernails, and when she looked closely, it seemed like he had a habit of biting his fingers, sometimes to the point that they bled. She could see small bits of dried blood around his nails, though they didn't seem to bother him at all. He was a trained hand in first aid, though, because he wrapped the bandages firmly around her arm without being so tight she couldn't feel the circulation in it anymore. It was wrapped tighter than when Rally did it, but Rally was young and inexperienced, and worried too much about hurting her with them. At the very least, it felt like Tank knew what he was doing.