Three years. Three years he had spent at this damn computer screen, running simulation after simulation, testing deck after deck, watching a million and one students pass across the screen, laughing, studying, messing around, being ordinary kids. Like they didn't know what was coming. Because they didn't, of course.

He pretended that he didn't care. That he didn't care that his childhood had been taken from him, that he wasn't allowed to participate in the mundane, everyday activities that other kids his age were. Pretended that he didn't rage against his father silently every morning and night, didn't mutter curses and swears at the keyboard when he couldn't sleep at night.

Akaba Reiji didn't think such things. Akaba Reiji was not prone to such displays of emotion.

He certainly wasn't the type to just lay his head into his hands and plead silently for sleep that wouldn't come. He wasn't one to quietly beg whatever higher power that was out there to send him some kind of sign that he was capable of doing this. For three years he had been training students with the secret intent of making them ready to fight off an impending interdimensional invasion, and for three years he had become more and more disillusioned about if they would ever actually be ready. These were children, for God's sake, children that he was turning into soldiers without their even knowing it.

How was he different from his father again?

No. No, don't go down that road. He shut off that line of thought immediately.

He was the initiator. I am just the reactor. I wouldn't be doing this if not for him.

The same rationalizing. He would recognize it for what it was if he let himself, but he didn't. He didn't have the luxury.

Please, he thought. Please.

Who was he asking, though? He had stopped believing in a God long, long ago.

And he was starting to lose his belief that he could ever protect this world from the destruction that the XYZ dimension had faced. He didn't have any more belief to give.

The screen flashed. Suddenly, every energy readout exploded. It was like the technology didn't know what to do with themselves, colored bars flaring up and done, line graphs wobbling in all directions, lights flashing and alarms buzzing.

Reiji's head snapped up. His assistants on the lower level were attacking the keyboards, shouting at each other over their headsets, trying to locate the energy source.

"What is this? What is going on?" Reiji said, standing up with a snap, hands bracing against his desk.

"We don't know, sir," one woman said, eyes fixed to the screens. "It's summoning energy but we can't pin...point...it..."

Her voice trailed off with awe as the screen locked on to the energy and zoomed in.

It was the exhibition duel with Strong Ishijima, against that boy, Sakaki Yuya. Reiji had given the boy a passing glance before, as he had given to many other duelists outside of LDS—he had counted on being able to scout outside his school if necessary.

But never before had he seen anything like this.

The boy stood with an uncommon amount of strength, radiating intensity, confidence, crimson eyes shining with determination. Pillars of light rested on either side of him, a magician hovering in each one. Three monsters graced the boy's field, the great red dragon with bichromatic eyes taking center stage.

"What...is that?"

"It's...Pendulum summoning, sir. That's—that's what the computer says, but I...I've never seen anything like it. These...these energy readouts..."

"Pendulum summoning..."

Something sparked in Reiji's chest. Like static electricity in his heart.

Those eyes...so focused...

"Sakaki...Yuya..." he murmured.

For the first time in months, perhaps even years, he felt something stirring in his chest. On the screen, the boy's pendulum necklace swung softly back and forth, back and forth...

A faint smile grew on Reiji's lips.

"Well," he said. "It's showtime, then."