A bright flash devours New Domino stadium and Aria, a young 17 year old girl suddenly finds herself in a place unknown to her, surrounded by thousands of spectators, standing on a strange platform with an odd contraption strapped to her arm. She kno...
Aria was sat on the back of Yusei's duel runner on the way to wherever he and his friends lived. She took in all the sites of the city that passed her by, wanting to get as much of a sense of where she was as possible. The city of New Domino was huge, wherever Aria looked there were buildings and skyscrapers of all different shapes and sizes. She wasn't able to get a good view of them for very long though given the fact that she was constantly moving past them on Yusei's runner. After about 20 minutes of travelling, the modern like buildings of the city soon begun dissipating and they came to a large bridge, or rather, lots of them, there seemed to be many different twisted roads, like a racetrack sitting over a large body of water with a slightly glum looking part of the city on the other side. Driving over the bridge and onto the other side Aria decided to talk.
"Where are we?"
Yusei answered still keeping focused on the road. "We're in the satellite, it's a pretty run down part of New Domino connected to the main city by those bridges, it used to be one whole city until a terrible accident causing an explosion many years ago and this part of the city became desolate and isolated. But it's doing better now." Yusei said avoiding the details of his father and the Ener-D reactor.
"Here we are." Yusei announced, pulling up carefully alongside a warehouse type building, his friends doing the same. "You guys go on inside, me, Crow and Jack are gonna put the runners away."
Akiza, Leo and Luna made their way into the building, Aria following behind them. Stepping inside the door she took a look at her surroundings. It was fairly well kept. From the top of the stairs that led downwards she could see that there was a separate room for everything. There was a garage for the runners which Yusei, Jack and Crow were leading their duel runners into, a kitchen, a small compartment with a couple of sofas and a tv and several other rooms which she concluded were bedrooms. The odd bit of mess here and there but rather inviting and cosy looking considering it was a warehouse building in the middle of the satellite.
"Hey, you okay?" Aria snapped out of her daze to see Akiza waving to her from the bottom of the stairs, Leo and Luna standing next to her.
"Oh uh yes, I'm okay, sorry I just got lost in thought." Aria answered making her way down the stairs, following the others into the living room. Luna sat on one sofa with Akiza and Leo invited Aria to sit down with him on the opposite one. Not long after doing so Leo tapped Aria on the shoulder.
"I wanted to say thanks for a great duel today Aria, given that you lost your memory and all, you were pretty awesome!" Leo exclaimed, still excited from his duel even though he lost, Aria's words about not feeling bad about losing still working with him.
"Uhh thank you Leo. Like I said before. You were awesome too." Aria replied somewhat awkwardly due to the comment about her memory loss but she knew Leo didn't mean harm by it.
"Leo! Don't talk about her memory loss like that, it's probably really difficult for her!" Luna scolded her brother.
"It's okay Luna. You're right, it is pretty difficult for me not having my memory but your brother didn't mean any harm don't worry."
"Sorry Aria, I hope I didn't upset you." Leo apologized looking at the ground and gripping his shirt awkwardly, feeling terrible that he may have offended Aria.
"Leo, don't be silly of course you didn't" Aria assured him, gently ruffling his hair before patting his shoulder.
"Do you have any idea at all why the only thing you remember is how to duel?" Aria looked up and to the opposite sofa to look at Akiza who asked her the question, seeing if they could get anywhere.
"Your guess is as good as mine Akiza, I've really no clue." Aria sighed.
"Hmmm" Akiza hummed sadly. She couldn't begin to imagine what Aria was going through. She herself had been through some tough times during her life when she struggled with her psychic powers, her parents pushing her away and people shunning her before she met her friends but she felt like she could not compare that to the pain of not even knowing who you are.
"There's a lot we need to explain to you about some things we mentioned back at the stadium."
They all looked up hearing Yusei's voice, seeing him, Jack and Crow standing near them, finished putting their runners away.
"We want you to know first of all that we all believe ya, I mean I hope you thought that anyway but just wanted to put that out there encase you still had doubts." Crow said, hoping Aria trusted all of them.
"Thank you...I wouldn't blame you if you still questioned my word though, it's been a rather crazy day for you all I'm sure." Aria replied.
"Haha yeah, you got that right." Crow chuckled.
"Guys, I think we should explain to her about our signer marks and the Crimson Dragon." Luna piped up, pulling up her sleeve, revealing her mark to Aria.
"My mark is the dragon's hand, we each have a different mark, representing a part of the dragon." she continued. In response everyone revealed their own marks.
"Mine is the mark of the heart of the dragon." Leo said showing Aria his arm.
"I've got the mark of the dragon's foot." Akiza added.
Crow: "Mine is the mark of the dragon's tail."
Jack: "I've got the mark of the dragon's wings."
Yusei: "And I've got the mark of the Dragon's head."
Aria looked to each of them as they spoke and showed her their marks of the Crimson Dragon.
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"The Crimson Dragon is a legendary beast, the embodiment of the red star. Those who are chosen to bear its mark are called signers. We were all chosen by the Crimson Dragon to defeat the dark signers, a group who sought to destroy the world with their earthbound immortals and we've since faced many evil people." Yusei explained.
"Our marks glow and feel like they're burning whenever the Crimson Dragon is trying to warn or tell us of something important. Before you appeared, as we were waiting for Leo's opponent all our marks started glowing and burning." Luna continued.
"Then we were all very quickly absorbed by that white light and felt like we were paralyzed. As soon as we all returned from that that void and time returned to normal, that's when you appeared on the duel field with Leo. Our marks were glowing during the whole thing and we just knew the Crimson Dragon was pointing us to you." Jack finished, for once not sounding suspicious of Aria as he finished the explanation.
Aria took a minute or two to process all of the information she was just told, it was a lot to take in. The people that surrounded her were all people who were clearly extraordinary if they were chosen by a great entity like the Crimson Dragon to save the world.
"But, what does the Crimson Dragon want with me? I'm clearly no signer, I don't even have my memories, it only goes back to that white void and then appearing inside that stadium." Aria questioned, absentmindedly rubbing the back of her neck.
"You had something to do with that void and the stop of time you experienced like we did. That much we know because you didn't appear until after that happened. The only issue is trying to figure out exactly how, and why you are here, and what the Crimson Dragon is trying to tell us about you. With your memories gone, this could prove difficult but- " Yusei paused, seeing a look of deep worry on Aria's face.
"But no challenge isn't worth rising to. We might not know what lies ahead but we will all help you out Aria. I promise."
Aria looked up to see Yusei with a confident smile on is face, and all the other's faces too, showing her they were all willing to help. She gave them all a smile back, feeling so relieved and humbled by the kindness she was shown by all of them.
