[center][h3]At the hospital[/h3][/center]

The duel was over. Tsukiko could breathe somewhat easily with the danger having passed and the holograms fading out. [color=#EBF5FF]"...! Doctor, are you okay?!"[/color] she'd call out to the slumped-over person while Aiya frisked them, but neither Aiya nor the doctor stirred for a response. The girl's expression turned pained as she muttered: [color=#EBF5FF]"I... I see... it got him too..."[/color]

Then, as soon as everything was dealt with, Aiya did something stupid. [color=#EBF5FF]"Ah- Aiya?!"[/color] Tsukiko would call out incredulously as the other teen opened a window, said a brief word of thanks and then jumped out of it. Tsukiko felt her heart skip a beat as she rushed over to look out, but luckily, Aiya somehow had managed to nail the jump onto the surrounding fence. It was just a short climb down to ground level from that point, and thus Tsukiko signed with relief that her new friend was safe. The brief moment of respite wouldn't last long though; as soon as everything was dealt with, the hospital staff burst into the room because they'd hear the screams. Nurses were followed by doctors as the ward got a new patient, and Tsukiko was left to explain the whole mess...[hr][center][h3]Abandoned Streets[/h3][/center]

Kei was walking along a narrow, seemingly endless path stretching out into the void. Nothing was around him save for darkness; yet he still seemed able to see fine despite that. The constant march wore on him, tiring him out as he struggled to keep a consistent forward pace. The vista around him changed from time to time; it had been his house, the card shop, the streets of Kaleido... and now, once again, it changed to something new. It morphed to the town square where he saw Aiya leaned against a wall. She noticed Kei and gave him a wave, before vanishing into nothing. The next sight was the alleyways, Shinrei at the end of the road. Kei froze in fear as the champion summoned his Cyber End, but as soon as it looked to fire, the illusion faded.

Then, an unfamiliar sight spread out before Kei. The path he'd been walking on suddenly seemed to come to a halt, a literal light shining at the end of the road. It bathed a tall figure in a blinding veil, making Kei unable to get a good look. The figure spoke to him:

[color=ABEFD6]"Find me... save our worlds."[/color]

The light grew to be blinding and, in that flash, the figure disappeared. The location changed one final time, back to the square of Kaleido. Shinrei, Aiya and other people he knew were all laid across the floor as a dark miasma poured out of them, blanketing the entire city. It would blot out the light if it weren't for the raging fires all around the city center, buildings collapsing all around. That all, however, still wasn't the scariest part. That honor belonged to a giant, looming figure on the horizon. A gargantuan monster, the source of all this havoc, that slithered forward once it had noticed Kei. It aimed its left arm- ending in the head of a dragon- right at the boy. The dragon head spit out flames, burning Kei just like the buildings around him.

[color=9C5F25]”GUAAAAAAH!!"[/color]

Kei screamed awake from that nightmare, having broken out in a cold sweat. He shot up straight and regretted it as soon as he had. A throbbing pain coarsed through his entire body, but particularly his chest and head, alongside heavy exhaustion. It made his head spin, but Kei still tried to look around. He could quickly tell he was neither in the alley he was last in, nor had he woken up in his bed like it was all a second dream. No, Kei found himself in a different street, covered with a not-quite-clean rag and put down next to a pile of trash. He wasn't alone, either.

[color=9C5F25]”Did... you bring me here...?"[/color] Kei asked, half in a daze, to a ragged-looking man sitting on top of the nearby dumpster. A person that, most likely, had been watching over the boy and waiting for him to wake up. This situation was bad for Kei, given his recent track record with strangers in back streets, but his body felt much too sluggish to resist even if the stranger [i]did[/i] have bad intentions. Clutching his head, Kei added a: [color=9C5F25]”And why...?"[/color]