[Story? - Probably Backdated?]

[afterdarkbeforedawn]

"Jouji, we can talk about this!" Shiyoko shouted, trying to peer through the black fog around her. She wasn't even sure if she was on Earth or in some pocket dimension now.

Even with Infernoid Tierra on her field, something about the Number on her half-brother's side of the field bothered her. The way it chittered, the way those red eyes stared into her... her spine shivered with goosebumps.

"Why talk, you're still fake, still wrong, still defective." The redheaded boy said coldly. Shiyoko bit her teeth, the words stinging. She hadn't seen him in years, but for him to turn out like this...

"Rank-Up-Magic Barian's Force!" The boy held up a card from his hand as a sickly red glow poured across the field, piercing through the shadows whirling about them, for a moment, before the giant insect on his field exploded in a crimson glow, and soon after even darker shadows erupted forth from it.

'... What on earth...' Shiyoko said, placing her gloved hand above her eyes to try and see what was going on, to no avail. But then she heard a deathly howl, her monster. Something had happened to her monster, and she could hear her brother mumbling something but somehow, not only had the shadows made things too dark to see, it seemed like they were thick in the air, making everything impenetrable. Hard to understand.

And then she saw it, Tierra's mechanical form slamming onto the ground next to her, making a weak howl before it shattered. What the hell just happened, she tried looking at her Duel Disk but even its display was near unreadable.

And then a dead silver light pierced through the field, and with it a wind, blowing not from the light, but into it. Pulling. Pulling at her entire body. Shiyoko desperately looked around for her younger brother, while trying to pull away from the dragging wind. But the more she seemed to pull away, the more it seemed like the wind rushing towards that dying grey light redoubled its efforts to pull her in.

And then she saw him. The last she had seen him as a young boy, his hair was dyed as black as Shiroko's. ... She wanted to know what happened to him. Why he was doing this. If she could just talk to him...

"Jouji!" She shouted out.

"It'll all be better soon." He said with a smile, but one that betrayed his sanity. As she tried to march to him, he grabbed something. A pipe? A piece of wood? She couldn't tell, but she felt it hit her in the stomach, causing her to lose her stride, her steadiness, and she screamed as she was sucked into the grey light.

A slamming noise echoed as the light vanished. Shiyoko's voice could no longer be heard.

Jouji stood for a moment as the top of an abandoned building came into focus. He smiled as he picked up a black card on his Disk. "One down, three to go. The gate is the key. The key is the gate. All are in one, the lost time can be restored." He muttered to himself as he headed for the stairs, driven by a singular purpose.

To get back his beloved sister.