Bonds Beyond Reality

Turn 4 - Back into the Abyss

— We finally made it here, so where do we go now?

— I don't really know.

— Huh? What do you mean? You were the one who said we should get here.

— I said it was the correct thing to do, not that I knew what we should do. For the moment, let's investigate a little about this place.

It's been over a week since Yuya's appearance. But ever since, he hasn't shown up anymore. Zaizen gave Yusaku the detection program that'll notify him once Pendulum cards are used, but nothing has happened yet. All of Yusaku's efforts to track Yuya have resulted in nothing; it seems there was no trace in the network of his actions; everything relevant he was able to find was people speculating about Pendulum summoning and excitement about the Duelist Cup. However, Yusaku couldn't be less interested in an event like that. Another thing he's been able to spot are some rumors going around. People have been reported missing very often in the past couple of weeks.

On the surface, it hardly seemed related to what he was looking for, but it became even weirder once he saw the reports of people who had apparently witnessed it happening. Most of the reports were very vague and straight-up incomprehensible; people were too scared to actually understand what just happened. Usually in the middle of the night, in lonely places like Allis or near buildings in construction, the people saw a human-like creature; however, it's mentioned to be no person, with long white hair and gray skin like a rotting corpse, covered by a torn-up cloak, and with shining blood-colored eyes. The people who spotted it agree that it took their friends and acquaintances deep into the dark until they lost trace of it. It's definitely a creepy little story, but not anything too special for the internet. Someone as Yusaku, who overall spends most of its time online, has seen and heard worse than this. The creature could simply be a duel monster, maybe not one too popular like the old normal monsters introduced at the beginning of the duel monsters. The people could not be missing at all; it could just be a case of misinformation spread online to gain engagement on this monster story. After all, none of this has reached the actual news or official sources of information about Den City.

Ready to disregard and ignore everything on the subject, Yusaku finally spots one last witness report: a mother crying at her child's disappearance after they were coming back from school. This resonated with Yusaku like an echo from the past. Not because he cared about the woman, but because he could certainly relate to how scary and anxious a missing child could be. Could it be a kidnapping case like the Lost incident? Yusaku remembers his traumatic experience at that moment; he thinks of it every day, but after defeating Hanoi, he was able to make peace with it, but this time he's remembering it in detail in order to compare his story with these reports. Of course, nothing about what happened to him was supernatural. He was lured by Ryoken into the secret facility controlled by his father, Professor Kogami, where he and another five children were kept hostages for six months to be used as guinea pigs for Professor Kogami's sick experiment to create the six Ignis.

Everything about that incident was clarified through the battles he had with his enemies, but from a technical point of view, he might be able to make some use of this experience. After all, something as serious as a kidnapping is not really common in the world they live in. Technology is far superior, and keeping hostages is something that will be noticed almost immediately by modern tracking technology. Yusaku thought that keeping people against their will would require a masterful hacker who could bypass every surveillance system in place. Since obviously he didn't do it himself, neither Kusanagi nor, hopefully, Revolver, there are not that many options left. But what if it wasn't a master hacker? What if they just had the appropriate location to keep people from noticing it? Only one place came to mind. Of course, the same place where he was kept hostage ten years ago. Professor Kogami's secret facility...