A/N: This was written for an anonymous birthday request. If you're reading this, you know who you are.

Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V are © 1996 and © 2014 by Kazuki Takahashi and the Konami Corporation; all original characters and content herein belong to me and the anonymous person in question.

Hope you enjoy! – K

I

" … I'm sorry, I don't follow."

Sakuragi Yū knew better than to give his principal the impression that he was either deaf or dumb as a post. The invasion that had taken place earlier this week had done enough to that end already; his standing as one of the best Xyz Duelists within the Leo Duel School had taken a serious hit—to say nothing of his personal pride.

So when the acting chairwoman of the Leo Corporation had summoned him to her office this sunny morning, one day after classes had been cancelled throughout the city, he'd been expecting a well-deserved tongue-lashing—not what he'd just heard. His confusion, thus, was to be expected.

"Several Duelists," Akaba Himika repeated, in the tone of a woman who was not accustomed to repeating anything at all, "have expressed interest in wishing to become Lancers. I want you to find out if they have what it takes."

"That much I understand, Headmistress," Yū said defensively. "What I want to find out is why you'd choose me, of all Duelists. I-I mean," he added, as the principal of the Leo Duel School quirked a dangerous eyebrow, "surely Hokuto or one of the circuit reps would be better qualified to—"

"Shijima Hokuto is … " Himika paused very briefly, " … indisposed at present. And I do not feel that the other circuit representatives have the necessary abilities to accomplish this task. Tōdō Yaiba is still recovering from his injuries at the Maiami Championship, and Kōtsu Masumi is, well … "

Another very brief pause. "Bottom line, you're the next best thing," Himika told him, sliding a sheet of paper across the desk in his direction. "I've already arranged for you to meet them at Central Park in half an hour."

Yū did some mental math as he tucked the paper in his pocket. "Central Park's a … half-hour walk from here."

Himika did not blink. "Then I suggest you run."

The Youth Division quarterfinalist—the sole one, in fact, to survive a Maiami Championship that had taken a stunning turn for the worse—could not help but cringe at the last word. It was exactly the same thing he'd done back then.

He'd run away from that battle—he'd run like a coward. Yū had been exceedingly grateful to hear that the camera feeds hadn't picked anything up, or he'd have been the laughingstock of the entire city by day's end.

Fortunately, Himika seemed to have acknowledged the poor choice of words, as her expression immediately softened. "Consider this an opportunity to rebuild your … reputation," she said. "We may need at least one more circuit representative before long. It's not too early to start thinking about potential candidates."

Yū's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his lavender hair. Had he heard that right? "W-well, then," he could only stammer. "I won't let you down again, Headmistress. Er—do you want my report directly?"

"That won't be necessary," Himika said coolly. "Half an hour."

Yū took the hint—but he didn't start running until after he'd left Himika's office, descended the elevator he'd taken to get there, and stepped out into the sunny day with a sudden vigor that he hadn't felt all week.

That vigor lasted all of about ten minutes—and so it was that a panting, sweat-streaked Yū was to be found in Central Park, lounging on a bench under a large tree and doing his best to catch his breath.

Every step of the way, his mind had been repeating the same thing, over and over again like a mantra: rebuild my reputation … circuit representative … potential candidates … rebuild my reputation …

But it couldn't be that easy, could it? It was harder for one win to make a Duelist than it was for one loss to unmake him. Yū knew this to be true; he'd gone into this Championship defending his title in the Junior Youth Division—beating Kachidoki Isao, of all people, to get there. Since then, it seemed like he could do no wrong; he'd yet to lose a single Duel with his Deck since then, and his entry into this year's tournament had almost felt routine.

Yū wasn't stupid, though; he'd known something about this year's championship was anything but routine the moment he'd seen that Duel: the Fusion user from You Show—Sora, was his name?—and Kurosaki Shun, LDS' New Kid On The Block, who'd come up from out of nowhere to display a mastery of Xyz that had even impressed Yū, though that supercilious attitude of his grated on his nerves to no end.

Things had started going off the rails two days later. Scarcely had Yū won his scheduled Duel when he'd been cornered by a young girl who looked strangely similar to another You Show student he'd seen in passing. With her had been another person that had instantly sent alarm bells ringing in his brain—a giant of a man, battle-scarred and kitted out like a soldier. It didn't take him long to figure out that these were no ordinary Duelists.

At the time, he'd been grateful to Akaba Reiji for his sense of timing, and for telling him to flee when he did.

Then it happened: an invasion force that used Duel Monsters to wage war. The very notion of it still made Yū's skin crawl. He'd remembered wanting to teach the invaders a thing or two—and so he'd been the first to jump into battle, the moment he saw those masked soldiers grinning smugly at him and his comrades.

He didn't like thinking about what happened next. He'd done his best to block out as much as he could. But try as he might, Yū could still see that strange Duelist in his mind, clad in white, riding a white motorcycle from which he could Duel. In that moment, all sense had taken leave of him; he simply couldn't cope with the magnitude of it all.

And so he'd fled. Again.

He hadn't lost. But he'd fled.

In his mind, that was much worse.

No one had told him to flee—certainly not Reiji. Perhaps if someone had, it might have made the truth sting less. But Sakuragi Yū knew the truth, and knew how badly it stung: that day, he'd acted like a scared little boy—a boy who'd gone in way over his head, and had paid dearly for his folly.

He knew his flight wouldn't go unnoticed. As far as he knew, the Battle Royale that invasion had interrupted had been televised to a stadium of thousands—tens of thousands of people. Yet the images Himika had shown after cancelling the tournament seemed to have shocked the world into forgetting everything about what Yū had done. Nobody had called him a coward in the days since; no one had denigrated him for leaving his comrades to be turned into cards. But he was worried that eventually, once the shock of the invasion wore down, everyone would start to wonder how things went so wrong—and that they'd find out what he'd done.

And it was the thought of the insults to come which stung him so.

So deep in his thoughts was he that Yū didn't notice the small clack-clack-clack of shoes walking up the paved trail he'd walked to get here—or that they'd stopped bare feet from where he'd flopped onto the bench—until he heard a small ahem from off to his right.

"Are you Sakuragi?"

Yū instinctively squished his eyes shut as he heard the voice squeak in his ear. God help him, he lamented—even kids could recognize him on sight now! He'd have to reconsider his choice in hair color after today; a disguise might come in useful somewhere down the line.

He sighed, opening his eyes to address the speaker and tell off their parents for talking to strangers—only to find nothing but apparently blue sky, green grass, and the occasional wisp of cloud.

"Um—down here?"

Yū's eyes flicked down right as he felt something tugging his uniform blazer—and he promptly felt his jaw hit the sidewalk in shock.

His first, somewhat foolish thought of the newcomer was of an antiques store that he'd walk past every day to get to and from LDS. Every day, without fail, a large bisque doll was to be seen in the window, its arms posed as if waving to the many passersby, young and old.

The preteen girl now standing before him—just past his waist in height—resembled that antique doll so uncannily that for a brief moment, Yū was half-convinced it had somehow walked right out of that store window. Both eyes were just as pale blue; both cheeks were just as round and dimpled, and just as rosy with makeup. Every strand of hair—butter-blonde but for a few locks of cocoa brown—had been coiffed, teased, and twirled into a headdress that seemed to explode out of her head in every direction like the grand finale of a fireworks display.

Yū's second, marginally more foolish thought was how this girl could stay on the ground with such a balloon of a hairstyle. But that question was solved the moment he saw the gigantic, cream-colored dress she was wearing—though to call it a dress was putting it mildly, and only his lack of fashion sense kept him from calling it anything more. But the amount of layers he could see under that dress made him wonder how she could even walk in the darned thing—let alone in the polished white shoes he must have heard clack-clack-clacking up the path before.

Those shoes now rested next to the bench as the little girl daintily plucked herself beside him, swinging her sock-clad feet a full foot off the ground. "Well, Mister?" she asked. "Are you Sakuragi, or aren't you Sakuragi?"

If Yū didn't know better, he'd have thought this little girl had gotten sidetracked en route to a beauty pageant, or some other silly little thing like that. But the insistence with which she'd asked for his name, and the way she seemed to already know who she was talking to, left him with no choice but to answer her question.

"I suppose I am," he sighed.

He immediately wished he'd brought earplugs. "SWEET!" the little girl practically squeaked in his ear, punching a tiny fist in the air, while Yū winced as if someone had blown a whistle right next to his skull.

"I'm Kaede—Okashi Kaede!" the little girl immediately introduced herself—before promptly commencing to chatter a mile a minute without any preamble, pausing here and there to take quick, squeaky breaths that Yū fervently hoped wouldn't start rotting his teeth.

"My grandma runs a pâtisserie store across the street and she told me I could make some snacks before I left to find you I've heard a lot about you and I'm really hoping you can teach me how to Duel like a Lancer—"

The single word brought Yū back to reality. "A Lancer?" he managed to splutter—before the reality of it all hit him like a ton of Antique Gears.

You've got to be kidding me, he moaned in his head, turning his eyes skyward as if wishing for help from above. This is who Himika wants me to find out is Lancer material?!

"—and I think it's really sweet, sweet, sweet that you want to do this for me and—"

Yū held up his hands before the girl called Kaede could ramble on any further. "Hold up, hold up," he said helplessly. "I feel like I skipped a page here. Who said I could help you become a Lancer?"

The word page stirred something in his memory—and it was only then that Yū remembered the sheet of paper Himika had given him. He quickly fished it out of his pocket, unfolded it, and began to read what was on it.

It only took a few seconds; all that was written on the paper was a pair of names, penned in Himika's neat script: Okashi Kaede and Yashiki Yūrei. These, then, must have been the Duelists who Himika had claimed wanted to be Lancers. On the one hand, this was a relief; Yū had been expecting a whole class full of wannabe Lancers to meet him here. He could live with two.

On the other … He glanced at Kaede, who had taken the moment of silence to resume talking nonstop—and as he wondered what he'd done to deserve minding a pageant princess, of all things, he hoped fervently that this Yūrei person was a lot more reserved than she was. If not, then it was looking to be a very long day.

"I 'unno," Kaede was shrugging. "I got called into the principal's office this morning. I thought I was in big trouble 'cause I made something explode again. But he said he got a call from a very nice lady who said I could be a really cool Duelist, and this woman said I could find you here to help me!"

So Himika had made plans with Kaede's principal before getting Yū involved. That was mildly irritating; it would have been nice for the headmistress to tell him what he was getting into—or at least, why she thought he'd been the "next best thing" besides an indisposed Hokuto.

He blinked. Wait—Himika's not her principal? I guess Kaede must go to a different Duel School than I do.

He blinked again. Wait—what did she mean by "explode"?! "Again"?!

Kaede, thankfully, was polite enough to stop talking when Yū raised his hand again. "Look … look," he groaned. "This has been a really weird start to my day, and I'm still out of breath from running all the way here, so can I just have a moment to take all this in before my brain goes bananas?"

The little girl blinked back at Yū as if he'd grown a second head. "Sure," she chirped. Then, a moment later: "I like bananas. My grandma makes some really good Tōkyō bananas. I tried to once, but I just made a big mess. So my mom won't let me make anything in her kitchen anymore."

Yū felt a couple of pieces begin to connect. Still learning how to cook, then. There was something about this that niggled at the back of his mind, something he couldn't quite place.

Kaede reached into a small purse, taking out a plastic bag full of what Yū first thought was a small, disassembled jigsaw puzzle until she started munching on one of the pieces. It took a moment for his already confused brain to recall that Kaede had mentioned bringing some snacks with her.

" … Those look really good," Yū decided to say.

"Thanks!" Kaede replied through a mouthful of whatever she was chewing. "My grandma says they're called 'Mill-Few', but I don't know how that's spelled yet, so I just call them napoleons. Want one?"

"Sure." Figuring it would make for a bad first impression if he'd refused, Yū held out a hand long enough for Kaede to plop a palm-sized puzzle piece in it. The run here had left him hungry, after all—and a snack didn't seem like such a bad idea while he waited for whomever this Yūrei person was to show up.

He took a bite—and instantly made a mental note to see a dentist; the sheer amount of sugar in that one bite was almost enough to make him gag. He could taste the pastry underneath, and a few hints of vanilla and almonds—but all he could think of until he managed to swallow that one bite was the torture all that sugar was doing to his teeth.

"You like it?" Kaede was looking at him expectantly.

Yū needed a deep breath before he could answer her. "Yeah, actually." That, at least, was true—once you worked past the sweetness of it all, it genuinely was quite delicious. "It's just, um … I don't have a lot of sugary stuff very often. That one bite kind of kicked me in the teeth—I might need a moment to finish it all. Thanks, by the way."

"No problem!" crowed Kaede. "My grandma always says a sweet tooth is the only tooth you need. She also says a sweet tooth is the only tooth she's got."

I wonder why, thought Yū as he eyed his half-eaten napoleon. "Why puzzle pieces?"

"My grandma's famous for them," Kaede said. "She makes whole slabs of them. And each piece is different, too. It takes her a long time to cut them the way she wants, though. She says she might need me to cut them one day."

Yū tried picturing a jigsaw puzzle where each piece was a different dessert. It was easier said than done; he felt his mouth watering at the concept.

Water—his mouth was dry after only a nibble of that pastry. "Did you bring some water with you?" he asked.

There was the telltale plastic thunk of a full-to-the-brim water bottle beside him. "Thanks a lot," Yū said, reaching to pick it up without looking. "As delicious as that was, I need to wash that bite down before I can eat any more."

"Um," Kaede said, "that's not my bottle, Mister."

Yū blinked. "It's not? Then who—?"

That was when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

When he'd tried and failed to thwart that invasion, the magnitude of it all had left Yū with a slight—if thankfully temporary—sense of paranoia. Large enough shadows were scarred soldiers and masked Duelists lying in wait; people he didn't know or recognize were invaders in disguise. Even knowing that LDS possessed Fusion Duelists of their own made him briefly wonder if any of them had ever used the same Antique Gears as all those soldiers.

All this and more considered, a tiny part of Yū felt that he was quite justified in reacting the way he did.

The moment he'd turned round, he'd had an instant to see what looked like a series of sharp, crystal-colored claws aimed right at his chest. He'd sprung to his feet with a high-pitched yelp, nearly knocking Kaede off her perch in the process. In the same movement, he'd clamped his Duel Disk to his wrist almost without thinking, and the chevron-shaped Solid Vision blade had hissed to life seconds later. Yū landed in a three-point stance, staring down his would-be assailant—

—who was rolling on the grass under the bench, snickering fit to burst.

Like it was nothing more than a prank.

Instantly, Yū felt his panic snuffed out—no invader would simply scare him for a laugh. At the same time, however, a wave of anger began to boil inside him, and he stalked behind the bench to level a glare at the newcomer, who'd curled up into a ball as he continued to giggle himself insensate underneath.

He was younger than Yū had expected—maybe not that much older than Kaede, if he even was—but a steaming Yū was past the point of caring about how old or young someone was when they'd pushed his buttons for too long.

"What's the big idea, then?!" he shouted. "Who told you it was good manners to sneak up behind a total stranger and scare them for a laugh, huh?"

Yū hadn't raised his voice too much—but it was evidently more of a reaction than his would-be prankster had been hoping for. Instantly, all laughter had ceased, and he'd frozen where he'd laid as if rooted to the ground.

Then, there were sniffles.

Instantly, Yū felt his anger begin an ugly metamorphosis into guilt and shame. Perhaps he shouldn't have shouted the way he had; this boy was young enough that perhaps he didn't know better—or, barring that, was in the middle of learning that he ought to. A bitter flame yet remained inside him to sputter, however—if the boy was still learning, then Yū ought to give him a lesson.

"Sorry for that," he said, choosing his words carefully, keeping his tone gentle but firm. "I've … had a problem with nerves over this past week." That, at least, was true. "I was wrong to blow up in your face, but I don't like getting scared out of the blue like that." He waited a moment, then added, "Would you like it, if I decided to pull that same prank on you?"

There was a long moment of silence before the boy mumbled something Yū couldn't hear. "What was that?"

"I didn't touch you."

"You didn't—what?" Yū tilted his head, confused.

"I didn't touch you," the boy said again. There was a large snuffle. "You can't touch people in haunted houses—most of the time. I don't like scaring people that much. I just like saying 'Boo', that's all."

Yū lowered his Duel Disk, shutting off the blade since it was plainly obvious he wasn't about to Duel for his life again. "So you've got a line, is what you're saying?" he asked hesitantly. "That you won't cross it for any reason?"

The boy nodded. "Sorry," he mumbled, curling out of his ball. His voice was the sort of nasally whisper that suggested he didn't relish talking any more than he had to. "Most kids I know actually like to be scared."

"Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything," said Yū. "People are still on edge after what happened during the Championship. Guess it was just your bad luck that I happened to be one of those people."

He grunted—it felt like he'd pulled something after the way he'd flipped out just now. "So—just a stab in the dark—but I'm guessing you're Yashiki Yūrei?"

The boy sat up in surprise, nearly hitting his head on the bottom of the bench. "How'd you know my name?"

"I'm supposed to think you were just hiding here for any random person to scare the daylights out of?" Yū asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't think so. I think you knew I was going to be here. And I think someone told you to meet me here, too. Someone," he added, patting the pants pocket that held the slip of paper Himika had given him, "who'd heard you wanted to be a Lancer, and was ready to give you the chance to make it happen."

"Whoa … " It was hard to tell if the boy, Yūrei, was exaggerating his surprise—boys his age often did. "It's spooky that you know all that."

He stepped out from under the bench, and into full view at last. "I like spooky. You're cool."

On any other day, Yū might have eaten up the compliment like one of Kaede's puzzle-piece snacks. But he was so taken aback by seeing Yūrei's full appearance for the first time that he was momentarily struck dumb.

The streets of urban Japan were a haven for outrageous fashion statements; Yū had traveled a few of them in his day on the way to various Dueling tournaments, and seen plenty of crazy collections of clothing and hairstyles in the process. This one wasn't the most bizarre of them, not by a long shot—but the point of any fashion statement was to stand out and be unique. And if nothing else, Yūrei was doing that and more—but to see such a getup on someone so young wasn't something seen every day, even in Japan.

What Yū had thought on first glance to be claws was actually the boy's hair, styled into a series of long spikes that looked long and sharp enough to run a man through. They hung over Yūrei's light gray eyes like so many horns, so gelled up that they barely twitched with every step he took. Whatever he'd used to dye it was catching the sunlight in a very odd way; it hovered in between a shade of lavender not unlike Yū's own hair, or the kind of pale pink associated with a mild case of sunburn. It was enough to make him wonder if this Yūrei kid was related to Sakaki Yūya—if for no other reason that no other boy he knew in this entire city had such crazy hair.

Yūrei's choice of clothes was only slightly less outlandish for their lack of color. The dark leather that covered most of his body—how could anyone wear so much of it in such nice weather? Yū wondered—was at least one size too small across the board; Yūrei looked tall and lanky enough that he suspected he'd just begun a huge growth spurt. Parts of that leather were adorned with enough spikes and studs to shame an American biker gang—and as for the boots … Yū was kicking himself for not hearing the noise they had to have made; they added a good inch or two to Yūrei's height at least, and looked heavy enough that a sufficiently hard kick could knock somebody unconscious.

The boy might have struck him for a vintage rock star if, again, he wasn't about the same age as Kaede. Thus, his first suspicion was that he was dealing with a very devoted fan. And Himika thinks he could be a Lancer, too …

Yū slumped back onto the bench as it sank in. A pageant princess, and a glam rock wannabe … God help me, she's put me on babysitting duty.

He felt himself searching the skies for help again. Can this day get any worse?

Unfortunately, the closest thing the sky offered him for help was a plane towing an ad for the latest Duel Girls Club album in its wake. That, for some reason, was enough of a sign for Yū that he felt he had no other choice but to see this through.

He gave Yūrei and Kaede enough time to introduce themselves to each other, and shifted aside enough so that the boy had space to perch on the bench as well, before he began to speak his piece.

"So—something tells me it's just going to be the three of us today." He waved the paper with their names on it. "And I'm not going to sugarcoat things here—um, no pun intended," he hastily added, but too late; Kaede had let out a raucous giggle at Yū's choice of words. "When I was told that some people in this city wanted to be Lancers, I was expecting to meet someone … well, older."

Neither of them looked too abashed at this. "Isn't there that one kid with the Lancers, though?" Kaede wanted to know. "Reira?"

"He's an Akaba," Yū said, as if that explained everything. In a way, it did. "That whole family might as well be on a whole other level. The point I'm trying to make is that it takes more than a Duelist to be a Lancer. Oh, there's going to be a Duel today, don't get me wrong," he said before Kaede and Yūrei could look sufficiently crestfallen, "but before that happens, I need to know more about you. Specifically"—he eyed them both in turn—"why exactly you both wanted to be here today."

He pointed to Kaede; Yūrei was too busy chowing down on one of the girl's napoleons to be ready to talk any time soon. "So—ladies first. Why do you want to be a Lancer?"

The little girl's reply was unexpectedly short and to the point. "I go to the same Duel School as Mokota Michio."

Yū suddenly felt a dull thud in his stomach. He knew who that was, though he'd not met him personally. Mokota Michio was a culinary prodigy—with his own TV show and everything, so he'd been told. His had been one of the more heart-wrenching stories of the Maiami Championship: the darkest of horses, showing up out of nowhere—from a Duel School known for producing more cooking personalities than competitive Duelists—and surprising odds and onlookers alike by making it to the Battle Royale after his opponent had failed to show up in time.

Only two things had surprised him more: first, the fact that said opponent had been Shijima Hokuto—a boy for whom the very concept of forfeit was a grave dishonor. In hindsight, perhaps Yū ought to have known then that something about that tournament had gone very wrong. But there was nothing he could do about that now—especially since the second thing had involved Michio being sealed into a card as well, to the horror of his many fans who'd flocked to the stadium to watch him Duel.

"I think I understand," Yū said to Kaede as he digested this bit of information. "You want to help bring Michio back. Maybe even get some payback on the people that … did those things to him."

"He meant a lot to us." Even as Kaede nodded, the explosion that was her blonde hair had noticeably waned. "In all the history of the Culinary Duel School, he was the first Duelist to qualify for the Maiami Championship. He made us realize that we could do so much more than have our own show on TV."

"You think he could've gone all the way?" Yū asked. "That he could've been one of the Lance Defense Soldiers, fighting those bad guys who invaded our city?"

Kaede could only shrug at that. "Soldiers need cooks, too. Who'd feed them after all that fighting?"

A long time passed before Yū realized he had no answer to that. To give himself time to process that answer, he turned to Yūrei, thinking it was time to hear his side of things. "What's your story, then?" he asked. "Why'd you want to be a Lancer?"

Yūrei's answer was, if possible, even more to the point than Kaede's had been. "Shiun'in Sora."

Yū had to rack his brains for a moment before he realized why that name sounded familiar. "The Fusion user from You Show?"

A nod. "I saw his Duel. I was probably the only kid in the stadium that he didn't scare."

That was a bold claim to make, thought Yū. He'd seen snippets of that same Duel, and even those had been enough to make for a difficult night's sleep. The level of carnage that had been caused during that war—there was no other word for it—was beyond anything he'd ever seen in his Dueling career. That wasn't even mentioning the monsters they'd used, either; as frightening as Sora's Des-Toys had been—and it would be a long time before Yū could scrub the screams of terrified children from his mind—it had been Kurosaki's own Raid Raptors that had caused the most destruction during that Duel. Even now, the hailstorm of bombs that had provided the final blow didn't fail to cause a shudder down his spine.

"So, wait—you're telling me you actually liked that Duel?" he asked.

"I didn't say that," Yūrei replied. "I just said he didn't scare me." He sighed, turning his gray eyes to Yū. "Look, I know I'm a weird kid—and I know you're thinking it, too, because I get that a lot. But I'm cool with it. I go to the Wight Duel School—and if you think I'm weird, then you haven't hung around that place for very long."

Yū raised an eyebrow. "Try me."

"Let's just say I'm the 'class clown' compared to everyone else over there," said Yūrei. "It's because I like playing tricks on everybody. I like scaring them, too, if I think they can take it. Hey"—he made a short, raspy noise that Yū needed a moment to realize was a laugh—"I even like it a lot when people can scare me, too. But what Sora did in that Duel was … "

His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. "Those weren't tricks he was playing," he eventually said. "Tricks are supposed to be funny. Nothing about that Duel was funny."

He'd wrapped his arms around his ankles, frowning. "I didn't like the way he was scaring everybody," he muttered. "And that's why I want to be a Lancer. I want to Duel him—and I want to show him the right way to be scary."

"To be scary and laugh about it later, you mean?" Yū clarified.

"Exactly," Yūrei said quietly. "Tricks are only funny if everybody laughs at them. Otherwise they're just mean."

Yū thought briefly about reminding the boy of his … unorthodox way of saying hello to a stranger. But then, Yūrei had said he was sorry, and meant it too. He'd realized he'd done something wrong, and made amends for it.

As for Sora … Yū wasn't sure how much of the footage of that Battle Royale Yūrei might have seen. But it looked a lot like the You Show kid had been one of them the whole time; it would certainly explain a lot of his Duel against Kurosaki. If Yūrei wanted to Duel Sora personally, then he was in for an uphill battle.

And Yū still wasn't sure if either of these two kids were Lancer material at all. But he doubted Yūya or the others had had to fill out a questionnaire to become Lancers themselves; besides, if Akaba Reiji had managed to include Sawatari in their ranks, then either Reiji saw something in him that Yū didn't—or their standards had been a lot lower than expected. Yet as far as Yū was aware, that batch of Lancers had made the cut purely on talent—though he knew full well who Sawatari's father was, and a more cynical part of him wondered if maybe some yen had changed hands to make sure he'd made the cut.

All that being said, however, if Himika had had the same doubts he was having right now, then she wouldn't have asked Yū to do this in the first place. And really, who was he to contradict the most powerful woman in Japan?

He stood up with a grunt. "Okay, then. So we know why you came to the table," he said, taking a moment to stretch his legs. "It's time to see what you're bringing to it."

Yūrei's spiky hair whipped upward. Kaede leaped up from where she'd been sitting as if from a springboard. "Are we gonna Duel?" she squeaked hopefully. "Sweet! I wanna see what kind of cards you've got!"

"Well … " A thought had occurred to Yū just then—a reason why, perhaps, Himika had sent him to scout these kids out. "Here's the thing. You know how I mentioned before that it takes more than a Duelist to be a Lancer?"

They nodded.

"I think the reason the Lancers are the Lancers isn't only because they're just that good at Dueling," Yū explained. "It's because they're able to thrive under pressure as well. They're put inside an unfamiliar situation, and told to solve it as only they can. If they can solve it, boom—they're a Lancer." He didn't mention what might happen if they couldn't—the last thing I want is to bring up that ghost so soon, he thought bitterly.

Yūrei looked puzzled. "I don't get it."

"I'm getting there," Yū smiled at him. "Now, if you were watching the Maiami Championship, then I'm guessing you saw at least one of my Duels there. I was a returning champion, after all—they'd have been crazy to not show at least one. But you probably saw a bunch of the cards I played in those Duels. Am I right?"

Another pair of nods.

"So you already know what to expect from me, then. But," and Yū's smile grew a little wider, "this is the first time you two have met, haven't you? So neither of you has any idea what the other can do."

"I know she's a better cook than I am," Yūrei admitted, pointing a thumb at a brilliantly blushing Kaede.

But the little girl recovered quickly. "And I know he's not as mean as he looks—he's a big ol' softie," Kaede sniggered at Yūrei, who failed to hide a blush of his own even as he stuck his tongue out at her.

"That's all well and good," Yū told them, "but neither of you knows what this means for their Dueling abilities. Which is why you're not going to Duel me."

He spun around to face them, smiling wider than ever at their shocked faces. "You're going to Duel each other."