Note: This story is a joint story between E-arth Duelist (Who, by the way, came up with this whole idea), Serpentdragon, and I. There's not much else to say, but enjoy the story.
"Where're ya going?"
Dark, wet and unbelievably scary. A good place to look for serious duelists, but bad for living quarters. Of course, no one expected the underground duel arenas to be light, dry and filled with hope and dreams.
"Where're ya going?"
Something was amiss, however. Duelists, ones who boasted of bravery and strength, would take one look to the shadows and cower back in fright. People were run over by other people in efforts to get away from that shadow. A dark aura was dripping out of the mysterious blackness.
"Hey… I said… Where're ya going?"
Finally, one person, a tall, robust man stood to face the shadow. "Ya can't pass," he said. "This here's only for strong duelists."
"Heh." A smirk was heard in that dreadful, dark voice. "Fine then. Let's duel."
"You're on. But come out. Unless yer scared."
"As you wish~," The voice cheered out.
"W-what? Yer… Yer a kid!"
With clothes that really should only be worn by the mafia , the person did appear to be a kid, what with the height of three feet that the mysterious one had. But confidence- as well as dark intent- was flowing out of the kid. The only visible feature, the mouth, twisted into a sick grin. "Can't looks be deceiving? I should think you would know about that… Being an underground duelist who's escaped jail."
The man's eyes narrowed into a glare. "Quit talking, ya brat! Just duel!"
"Feh. As you wish…"
Kazuka was having a normal day, daydreaming about sleeping, or eating, or being away from all his troubles. He wanted to see the latest video games, and check out the new manga that he had seen on the way back from school.
He suddenly found himself across his desk, holding the back of his head in pain. "Ow…."
"Was my lesson that boring? Or did you not have enough sleep?" Kazuka looked up to see his teacher. "Pay attention, or it's detention for you!"
"Yes, sensei," Kazuka muttered. He felt some blood flush into his face as he heard his classmates snickering.
"Nice try, Kazuka."
He looked to his right to determine the voice. He might've been in school with the same people for many years, but Kazuka was pretty sure that even if he had a whole year was spent with only his classmates, he wouldn't be able to remember their names. "Whatever, Sei."
The guy, Sei, laughed. "Quit being so cool."
"I wasn't trying to."
He gave a chuckle. "Yeah right."
Deciding not to talk about this anymore, Kazuka tried to pay attention to the Calculus problem that the teacher was talking about… Or some kind of math problem. Physics, maybe? Was he even supposed to take physics? Kazuka gave a sigh. Maybe he should pay attention more…
Ring!
"Finally," muttered Kazuka. Lunch time. He got up from his seat and walked towards the door, when something caught his eye.
The teacher was leaning on her desk, with her hands linked together to support her face. She seemed to be staring, or glaring, at the card at the front of the desk that had flowers and a large, bubbly script that said "Haru-sensei".
Just beneath the card was a smaller card. It had some stars on it, and a picture of a red dragon that seemed sharpish. Below the picture were numbers, whose meanings Kazuka didn't know.
He gave a shrug, and headed toward the roof, where he was going to be eating.
"YOU'RE LATE!"
Kazuka kept his stoic face on, even while the girl in front of him was yelling. "Honestly, Hakazu…"
The girl gave a glare. "What kept you? A girl?"
Kazuka gave a smirk. "Well, yeah, if you must know. Jealous?"
"Of course not! But who on earth would be attracted to you?"
"More people then who are attracted to you."
"Yeah right. So, who was this girl?"
Kazuka coughed. "Haru-sensei."
Hakazu gave Kazuka a slightly blank stare, then burst out laughing. "You get in trouble or something?" she asked between gasps of laughter.
"Not like that, or the way you're thinking! It was just that… She wasn't her normal, flamboyant self. She was staring at her name card, and she looked all serious, which is something I didn't think was possible."
"Hm…," Hakazu said, pulling Kazuka over to the edge of the roof and gave him a bento. She herself sat down and started to open her bento. "Y'know, I saw her like that too. When I passed her in the hallway today, she was staring at a monster card and listening to something on the radio, Haru-sensei said something like 'The underground… attacked… That's not good… I need to see what happened…' and kept muttering about how bad it was that the underground was attacked."
"Hold up. Monster card?"
Hakazu gave the clueless boy an annoyed stare. "Y'know! Duel monsters! The thing that is so popular now! The card game!"
"Oh yeah… Did you see the card she was holding?"
Hakazu nodded. "It was a red dragon. It was pretty."
Yeah, I saw the same one just a few minutes ago."
"Hm… Do you think that she's part of the underground?"
"What?"
Hakazu tilted her head. "No, I mean… well… It's just that, her behavior is suspicious. And she was talking about the underground."
"But that could just be a coincidence. Or maybe she was talking about the sewers."
"Get real, Kazuka. Who talks about the sewers?"
"Who talks about the underground?"
"…"
"…"
Both absently chewed their food, thinking about what really happened. Finally, Hakazu gave a sigh. "Why don't we see for ourselves?"
"Huh?"
"We could follow Haru-sensei after school! So we could see what she really was talking about!"
"That's too dangerous!"
"You need the excitement. Besides, aren't you curious?"
"You know the saying. I would be sitting pretty, but for my curiosity."
"So that's what you were reading all summer."
"Yeah. Anyway, I'm not going."
"Well I am. And if I'm going, you are too."
Kazuka stood up, and glared at Hakazu. "You have to listen to me!"
"You're not the boss of me!" Hakazu stood up and glared at Kazuka too. They were the same height, and neither one was willing to give in.
"I'm older!" shouted Kazuka.
"So? Age has nothing to do with this! Besides, you're not that much older than me!"
"It does so! You have to respect your elders!"
"C'mon, Kazuka. Just this once. We have to see what happened. Please?" Hakazu switched her glare to a look of begging, which gave her a 50% chance of winning Kazuka over.
"…" Kazuka tried to look away, but that stare was getting to him. He began to weigh things out. If he let Hakazu go without him, then he'd get in trouble for not looking after Hakazu. On the other hand, this could all be a wild goose chase, and Haru-sensei could just be worrying about her brother who was working in a mine, or something. Finally, he gave a sigh. "Alright… but just this once, okay?"
Hakazu mentally cheered, and gave a small jump and hugged Kazuka. "Yay!"
Kazuka gave a slightly shaken smiled, then shook his head and smiled a genuine smile.
"Ooh, what this?"
Immediately, Hakazu and Kazuka looked over at the voice, and Hakazu detached her body from Kazuka's. In the doorway was a gang of two boys and two girls. "Hakazu-chan…" cooed one of the girls. "I knew it! You are Kazuka are dating!"
"What?" shouted the two. "We aren't dating!"
"Why would I date this annoying, stubborn girl?"
"Why would I date this lazy, carefree loser?"
The people in the doorway gave a smirk. "We don't know why," began one of the boys, who Kazuka recognized to be Sei. "But you two have been having lunch on the roof together ever since you guys transferred. On the same day too."
"Of course we did!" Hakazu glared at Sei. "You know why?"
"Because you two are dating," said one of the girls. "It's my special Shika instinct!"
"Besides, you two look so alike. It's like you were made for each other. Perfect halves."
"Well, she is my other half, but not in the way you think," Kazuka said with a hint of annoyance.
"Because we're twins," both Kazuka and Hakazu said.
"That's why we eat here together. And why we look alike," added Hakazu.
"Aw. That's no fun," the group muttered, going back into the school building.
I wonder how many other people thought we were dating, thought Kazuka.
"Gah… Ahh!"
The large duelist fell backwards and landed against the hard steel railing. "You… You… monster! What are you?"
The mysterious lifted its head up so that its mouth was visible. "How rude. I should be calling you the monster. But, I digress. Now, you have to give me my reward." It lifted its hand, which was surround by black smoke. It seemed to drain the life of whatever it came near. Luckily, there was not much life around to drain.
"Geh… No way!" The man started to run away in fear. "I'm getting' outta here!"
"I do not appreciated liars. Keep your word. You swore it on your pride as a man… I guess it cannot be helped. I have to take it from you."
And with that, the man stopped in his tracks turned with fear in his eyes, and fell to the ground, like a leaf falling from the heights of the sky.
The humanoid creature licked its lips. "Heh… Darkness, but not evil. What an interesting taste. Now," it said, turning to the empty room. "Who's next~?"
Sakoi Haru was a woman of light. She wouldn't give homework if she knew that the majority of her class was going to be going on a trip or had a big tournament. She barely gave detention, only saying that she would. And she never, ever went to the undergrounds.
That had to be broken, though. Her favorite card was telling her that danger was lurking, and she needed to go. Because the others weren't up yet.
So it was all up to her.
What pressure.
"See? She's going in the direction of the undergrounds. Just like I though," whispered Hakazu. School had ended, and the twins had secretly waited for the teacher to come out.
"I don't believe that she would be an underground duelist," Kazuka whispered back. "I mean, would the person who told everyone to call her 'Haru-sensei' instead of 'Sakoi-sensei' or 'Haru-chan' instead of 'Sakoi-san'? It's just not in her."
"Well, maybe she's indirectly involved. Maybe her brother is."
"Does she even have a brother?"
"How should I know?"
"Good point. Oh, she's moving. Let's roll."
"That's so old-fashioned."
"It works."
Quietly, the two moved, ducking behind mailboxes or telephone poles to avoid being seen. Even though the teacher seemed as if she knew there was people following her, she didn't seem to mind.
Finally, they reached the beginnings of the underground. Like a gate into an abyss, there was only darkness into the depths beyond.
Kazuka and Hakazu came to stand before the gate, as the teacher was no where to be seen. "Well," Hakazu started. "This is interesting."
Kazuka stared in awe at the large gate. "That's an understatement."
"Well, well, well. Look at what we have here."
The two twins froze at the sound of the voice.
"What in the world are you two doing here?"
Neither Kazuka nor Hakazu knew the answer to that question.
"I'm waiting…"
"Well," Kazuka began. "We just came…"
"For a, uh, look…" Hakazu followed.
"Because we heard…"
"About the accidents here…"
"And we got worried…"
"And that's why we're here," finished Hakazu.
"Ehehehe…" the twins laughed sheepishly.
Haru sighed. "What on earth am I going to do with you two?"
Kenshi Ikusa wasn't the type to just sit around watching. He liked to run around, and let his temper loose.
But that didn't mean he was reckless. He was just… A bit rash.
"Darn it!" Ikusa muttered. "What the heck's going on?"
The whole undergrounds was in complete darkness, which wasn't unusual. But this darkness seemed a bit more dark. As if evil still lurked there.
Evil. Ikusa laughed at that.
As if evil would come down the where only the toughest lay, in this dark, dirty place that wasn't fit for a dog.
It was 4:30 p.m. And Akira was getting annoyed.
It's not like it was unusual, and it certainly wasn't in their nature, but his siblings always were always home after school ended. Occasionally, they had clubs, but usually not.
Like it was easy even imagining Kazuka was in a club.
Akira gave a small laugh. With how energetic Hakazu was, it was hard to imagine that Kazuka and Hakazu were related to each other, or even twins. And given how their interests and personalities pretty much clashed with each other, Akira couldn't believe that the three were a family. It seemed that the more Akira thought about it, the more dysfunctional his family seemed.
Out of concern, or sheer boredom, Akira turned the radio on, hoping for some answers to his missing siblings.
"…And now for the news. There has been a series of reports concerning a strange person appearing at the undergrounds. As of now, no one seems to be coming out of the underground, but many are trying to enter. Eyewitnesses report seeing a strange child entering the dueling grounds in the morning, just before the whole undergrounds turned into darkness. The same eyewitnesses claim to have seen a strange mist surrounding the child, which eventually spread throughout the whole underground. Is it possible that this strange child and the darkness of the undergrounds are related? More information to come later."
This wasn't good news.
Akira went to get ready to go out, and grimaced. What a bad joke.
"So, um, Haru-sensei…"
"Yes, Hakazu?"
Kazuka flinched. Haru-sensei still sounded so teacherly.
And Hakazu still seemed to be oblivious to it. "What exactly are you doing here?"
After being interrogated into telling the real reason why the twins came here, Haru gave into letting them follow her. They had entered the undergrounds, with Kazuka feeling slightly more cautious and Hakazu feeling slightly excited to be here.
"I just had a premonition, that's all. Mind you, this will probably be the only time I will ever come down here, so I expect no rumors about me being an underground duelist," Haru commanded.
"Yes, Haru-sensei," Hakazu and Kazuka chimed.
From the background, an eye peered out to the three people who dared to come into the abyss. It gave a small laugh, and crept back into the shadows.
Soon… Soon….
I'll have my revenge.