Disclaimer: I do not own yugioh Zexal, or any of the yugioh series for that matter.

Chapter 1: Eshu

"Number 201, Eshu the Trickster," Yuma muttered as he stared at the card he had just won. "I thought there was only a hundred."

"One-hundred Number cards and possibly just as many Over-Hundred cards. This one is an enigma." Astral agreed, floating next to him as he reached his home.

"Weird. Maybe this one's from earth?" Yuma suggested, mulling over the thought. It had occurred to him before that the Barian Over-Hundred cards may've had an original number of their own like Astral was for the Numbers. But not the idea of Earth having its own set.

"There is some possibility, but I am more curious about what it can do. Our opponent never played it." Astral commented as he snuck into the house. Seeing the Number possessed man on the news, he had secretly slipped out to retrieve the card. Now it was well past midnight, and Yuma didn't want to explain what he'd been doing if he got caught by his sister or grandmother.

"Man, I'm beat." Yuma muttered as he reached his room. Luckily, it seemed that everyone else in the house was sleeping too heavily to hear him. "We can check it out tomorrow. For now, I'm blacking out."

"What is 'blacking out'?" Astral asked as Yuma fell into his hammock.

"It's when you fall asleep without effort." Yawning, Yuma muttered goodnight before his friend could ask another question.

'It appears that Yuma has 'blacked out.'' Since he had nothing better to do while the boy slept, Astral retired into the Emperor's Key. Making his way inside the spaceship, he began searching for the new Number's seal. It took quite a long time, but he eventually came across a giant pipe blocking the entrance to a secret room. Floating past it, he found the card's pillar.

Glancing down at it, Astral noticed the Number wasn't a monster at all. It looked completely human. Briefly, a thought crossed his mind as his hand hovered over the pillar. 'I wonder what it is like, being a human…'

The moment the card touched the pillar, something other than the usual blinding light struck him. His body suddenly fell very strange. But before he could register what was different, Astral felt a surge of fear flood his mind as his consciousness faded.

The sunlight stirred Yuma from his sleep, and for a moment he thought he was late for school. Then he remembered it was Spring Break. Sighing happily, he rolled over and snuggled deeper into his hammock, lazily prolonging getting up just so he could linger in the bed's warmth a little longer. Opening his eyes, he mindlessly looked around the room.

He started when he saw the strange figure lying on the floor with their back to him. Getting up slowly, Yuma stepped over them and looked the person over.

Wearing a white jacket over a pale blue shirt and grey jeans, the stranger had the same skin tone as him. A sense of familiarity fluttered within his mind. Yuma was going to push the feeling away until he noticed the person's hair. It was pure white and looked identical to Astral's…

'Could it be..?' Yuma knew it was impossible. The otherworldly spirit was too tangible to touch anything, let alone become a solid life form. But still…

A groan drew Yuma out of his speculation. He was shocked to see the boy's eyes when they flickered opened: The right was an extremely pale artic blue, the left was a very familiar luminous yellow.

"Astral?" The question slipped out like soap as he stared at the boy in disbelief.

"Yuma?" Astral asked, baffled. Sitting up, he suddenly released a terrible coughing fit.

"Astral! Are you alright?" Yuma asked, horrified.

"Yes," his friend finally managed to say. "I feel weird, though. Something is moving inside me. It keeps stretching my chest up and down."

"Stretching your chest… You mean your lungs? That's called breathing and it's perfectly normal." Hesitantly, Yuma reached up and touched Astral's face. He'd expected his hand to slide right through the skin, but it didn't. He was stupidly stunned to find it warm with life like his. "You're really human now, aren't ya?"

"I suppose. What is 'breathing'?" Astral asked, reaching up to touch his face in return. Amazement lite up Astral's face as his hand brushed across his cheek, feeling warm skin for the first time since coming to the human world.

"It's something your body needs to live." Yuma explained, smiling at how childish Astral was reacting to the sensation. It was so much like a kid or, possibly, a person returning to humanity after being raised by wolves. Somehow, it was just plain adorable.

"Oh," Astral replied. Yuma noticed he still had his tattoos or marking. He wasn't quite sure which was accurate, but he was more willing to believe they were birth marks. Unless energy beings were capable of having their bodies tattooed…

As for the gems, the ones on his head appeared to be attached to a very thin, almost invisible diadem, which wove strangely around his hair, while the rest were sewn into his clothes. The pair in his ears where pieced into them, making them look like giant studs.

Astral's heterochromia eyes fell to his sleeves. They lite up as he realized he was wearing clothes. "It appears I look like you now."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"I have no observations to determine that," Astral replied as he looked himself over. "Nor did I thought myself capable of becoming human."

"What caused this anyway? Did you transform like the Barian do?" Yuma asked.

"I remember putting Eshu on its pillar, then…" Pausing, Astral's eyes narrowed as he struggled to recall what had happened to him afterwards. "I blacked out."

"Blacked out?" Yuma questioned.

"Blacking out is when you fall asleep without effort, you said. I assume I am using the term correctly." Astral said, looking at him quizzically.

Yuma sighed. "Well, if you were knocked unconscious, then maybe it was the card."

"The timing is-" A growl interrupted him. "Hm?"

"Wasn't me," Yuma denied as another, louder one cried out.

Astral looked down at his stomach. "I think it was me…"

"We should probably feed you-" Yuma suddenly remembered his sister and grandmother. If the Barian found out they knew about Astral, they might take advantage of them like they had done with his friends. The thought of that happening turned his stomach. "Um, I should check the house first and see if anyone's home."

Standing, he moved towards the hole in the floor. "Yuma?"

"Yeah?" Looking back, he saw Astral holding onto the hammock. While his bed strained to remain suspended, the otherworldly being was struggling to stand. His legs were wobbling like a newborn fawn. "My legs aren't working and I can't levitate."

Astral apparently didn't know how to walk. Or, for that matter, stand. "For the moment, just sit on the hammock. I'll teach you how to walk when I get back."

He gave his friend a reassuring smile before climbing down the rabbit hole. Taking his time, Yuma scouted all of the rooms in the house. Walking into the kitchen, he found a note:

Yuma! A major scope has popped up downtown! I had to rush out before I missed it! I'm dropping grandma Haru off at the renaissance center so she doesn't miss the Sakura Festival committee meeting this morning. Don't get into trouble while we're gone!

-Kari

"What makes her think I'm going to get into trouble?" Yuma muttered, annoyed. Sighing, he tossed the note aside and ran back to his room. Climbing up, he found Astral standing on his own. Other than looking a bit shaky, he seemed to be doing well. "Do you think you can walk?"

In answer, Astral took a step without hanging onto the hammock. He stumbled through his first couple steps. Then, he caught enough balance to walk across the room and grab the rope suspending the ladder. There were still plenty of kinks to work out, but otherwise he did pretty well.

"Good job," Yuma praised, receiving a rare bashful smile in return. "Do you think you can walk down the hall?"

Astral was able to walk all the way to the kitchen with little assistance. The only exception was the stairs. With him still being new to walking, Yuma had held his shoulder as they climbed down the steps, ready to catch him the moment he began to fall. Luckily, that didn't happen. Nonetheless, the way Astral was holding onto the railing didn't hurt. Yuma was even impressed with how strong that new grip was. Astral's knuckles had been white the entire time.

Reaching the kitchen, Yuma sat his friend down and decided to cook them both French toast for breakfast, confident he could do it perfectly. Sadly, it didn't work out the way.

"Yuma? Are flames supposed to engulf the toast?" Astral asked at one point, his nostrils madly wrinkling at the smell of burning food. He had seen Haru and Kari cook before. Both were clearly better at it than Yuma was.

"Wahhh!" Yuma cried as the fire grew in size. Thinking quick, he grabbed the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and dumped its contents over it. "Grandma's gonna kill me if she finds out."

"For wasting half a loaf or setting fire to the stove?"

"That was a new, expensive pan."

"Oh." Throwing away his idea of cooking, Yuma decided to give Astral a bowl of cereal to munch on while he cleaned up. As he did, Astral popped out a new question. "Yuma, what are we going to do if the Barian finds out about my 'transformation'?"

"I don't think they'll figure it out for a while," Yuma answered. "But I don't know what we'll do when they do. I'll call our friends and tell them what happened. Maybe we can figure something out."

"I thought everyone but Kotori left town for the Break?" Yuma paled. He had entirely forgotten about that.

"Well, we still have Kotori. I'll see if she can come over after breakfast."

"Try not to burn your cereal."

Durbe looked up from the meditation he'd been doing. "The Astral World's joker card has been found. Hamartia!" A man covered in a brown cloak with red and gray outlined flowers on it, hood hiding his features, appeared behind him. "Go to the human world. You know what I what you to do from there."

Without a word, Hamartia left.

-End of chapter one-

And there's the closure to my first official fanfiction! Just a heads up I've only just gotten back into watching Zexal again, so I may be off on some topics from the series.

But anyways, I hope you all enjoyed it! :D Please feel free to review!