Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yuri would have liked to recall what it was he was doing when he found the curious gameboard. In truth, he had been lost in thought. He’d been thinking of all the bad in the world. Everything that could destroy what he loved. Everything out there in that vast expanse that wasn’t good.

And there was a lot of it, as he now knew.

Chaos in more forms than he could count.

What could he do? He’d never been a fighter, never been one to seek trouble out. But it just kept finding him — and, now, finding the things he loved.

Perhaps that was the worst part of it. He could deal with Chaos trying to destroy his own wonder. If he had failed then, it would have been his own loss, his own shame.

And yet, he’d won. They’d won.

And don so twitch now.

Erytheia was saved and yet and yet…

He hadn’t been to his wonder since.

He was too scared that there would be a new, third form of Chaos waiting there, just for him…

… he didn’t want to roll those dice and find destruction on his world again.

A roll of the dice, sinking into the earth…

He smelled the air. It was a familiar scent. That of death.

That of Blight.

He fought against it, but it threatened to sink his every step. One step forward, two steps down.

They’d fought this before, right? They could get rid of it. Certainly, they…

But there was no they. There was only himself.

He could do nothing on his own. He was not like Ida. He had no special powers.

He called out. He could see white wings in the distance. He cried out again. They turned away. He reached out. They flew away, turning to black.

He was sinking and he was on his own this time. There was no Ida to save him, no pod to heal him like when he was a page.

He was powerless now as he was then. The earth would consume him.

A roll of the dice, everything falls…

He felt the world and all of space shift beneath him. This was it. This was where he’d fall.

Darkness was all below him. Every bit of Chaos he would face he knew lied in wait down there. Every world he wanted to save was down there. Every person — senshi or knight or otherwise — was down there in the endless dark

But he still had a chance, right? He didn’t have to join them. He still held onto the edge, after all. He could pull himself up. Dust himself off. Walk away.

He could just save himself, right?

He didn’t owe it to anyone to save them or their world.