Mizuo Ryugami was living just outside of Domino City when Zero Reverse happened. She survived the blast through sheer luck, but her family died - just like her favorite duelists, Seto Kaiba and Yugi Moto. With nothing left, she wandered the shatter...
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(Long, boring, slow chapter, basically, for this one and the next. Sorry, guys, but it had to be done. Travel and character development both take some time, and both are in this next two. However, Mizuo does take a big-ish step forward here, so cheer her on!){Originally, it was all one chapter, but I decided to split it into 2 to make it easier to get to the end of something at some point. I'll try not to make the split too obvious.}
(Also, I'm listening to a youtube video called 'Video Game Music for Studying 1' by SuperRedGames. The music is really good background for the story at about 30 minutes to 50 minutes, so I would recommend listening to it while you read.)
In the morning, Mizuo packed all the water and food from her shelter into her bag. She needed electricity to build computers, which was her end goal at the moment, and this shelter wouldn't cut it. She had found a few generators and heavy-duty batteries during her KaibaCorp factory loots, and scattered them among her more viable shelters. But they were all deeper in the woods, at least a week's worth of walking away. Even worse, some gangs stayed in the woods, rather than the city, and she would have to skirt their territories to get to her destination.
Occasionally, the various gangs would get together and call a truce, trading resources and war stories as they came together. Alliances were forged and dissolved during those temporary truces, and the most important things the groups had done over the past few months were discussed as well. At every meeting, Hatori had been sure to boast of Mizuo's incredible talents and abilities. Of course, he hadn't revealed everything. But it was enough for Mizuo to have acquired a reputation.
The chances were high that if she was found wandering in enemy territory, they would capture her, and not shoot her on sight. If they learned that she was also unaffiliated, then it was likely they would recruit her to become one of their own.
Mizuo was as cunning and ruthless as Hatori had always claimed she was. But her life was her own now, and she wasn't descending back into the murky politics of gang wars and killing sprees. She would try to avoid capture as long as possible, and find some way to escape to the world beyond this refuge town.
"But if I am found," She thought, trying to plan a step ahead. "I'll fake 'em out. I'll join the gang, keep my head down. I'll get out as soon as I have a chance. Until then, I give them no reason to doubt me. Once they trust me, I can do anything."
Mizuo laced her shoes up tighter, heaving her backpack up onto her shoulders. Taking out her map, she oriented herself by the rising sun, heading north-east. She would go through the woods for a while, circumvent a 'barter zone' (where the gangs traded goods even on non-truce days), then just touch on the borders of the two largest forest gangs, the Sakuya and the Yamoto. Her best shelter was there, a hidden basement that had once been under a house. The building over it had been shifted a few hundred yards away, but the trapdoor entrance still survived, concealed under a thin layer of bushes and pebbles.
