Authors Note: So apparently people like doing these, so I figured I should also place on in here just real fast (you could skip this if you want). Alright basic stuff first: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, nor do I own any of the characters, cards, or locations used in this fanfiction, except for the made up ones, those you have me to blame for. So yeah, please don't sue me Konami. Alright next, I wanna say that if you have anything to say regarding Yu-gi-oh Double Back, whether it be memes, images, comments, questions, criticism, or just flat out saying that I'm a bad writer, feel free to put that in the comments! Also If anyone wants to make a book cover for this series feel free to do so, cause I am crap at art. Alright, I'm done rambling I'll let you read now. On behalf of me, myself, and I, I hope you enjoy my little story.
The eyes of a young teen slowly open to the sight of a wall and the sound of an alarm clock. Next to the wall lied the boy's phone placed face down on the bright wood nightstand currently being shined by the light seeping in through the window directly next to it. The boy picked up his phone facing it towards him and turned it on. In an instant, the phone's screen flickered on; showing the time to the young man's eyes.
"8:15", the phone showed as it brightened up the boy's face. The boy stared at the phone for a long while, barely blinking.
The boy sighed as he placed his phone down and rose out of the warmth of the covers. His bare feet touched the hardwood lightly as the boy lifted himself up. The boy stood still, his light brown hair shining from the light that was beaming from the window next to him. The sound of the alarm clock once again rang out into his ears.
"Tsk", the boy said quietly as he began to walk out of his room, passing by a nicely organized dresser. On top of the dresser was a small black backpack which still had the price tag attached to one of its zippers. The boy walked out of his room and in front of him lied a hallway, each wall having several pictures both large and small. The boy followed the sound of the alarm to reach a closed door. The boy opened the door to see a bed with a man inside snoring away.
The boy sighed as he walked around the piles of cards on the floor over toward the nightstand next to the bed, where the alarm clock lied, still beeping extremely loudly. He placed his hand on the button and pressed it. Immediately the sound stopped only leaving the more annoying sound of the man snoring. The boy walked out of the room and slammed the door shut. He then walked out of the hallway to a bright living room, the room being split into two parts. One containing an old couch with a tv hung up directly to the wall. The other containing a small island which is surrounded by several kitchen machines and drawers. The boy turned his head towards the oven which was displaying the time.
"8:18",the clock read. The boy then walked over towards the front door and opened it. The outside contained a small garden filled with several types of flowers and crops all surrounded by a fence. The boy walked through a pathway in between the garden and stopped at a bright white mailbox at the end of the pathway.
He opened the mail to find a fancy envelope inside. The boy took a glance at it. It was clearly high-quality paper and it had a wax seal with the letters D and A written on the maroon wax. He took the envelope and went back inside.
The boy turned to the living room and sat down on the old couch. He stared at the front of the envelope.
"To Neo Yuki", was written on the front of it. Neo turned the envelope over to the other side and pulled up the flap. He then pulled out the nicely folded letter and opened it. He stared at the letter and began to read it
"To Neo Yuki,
Congratulations! Your application for the Fusion Dimension's very own Duel Academy has been accepted! We look forward to an amazing four years with you as one of our various students! Please attend the placement test on August 3rd at Neo Domino city in the Synchro Dimension in order to place you in the correct classes and dorm for you! Failure to attend the placement test will result in base classes as well as you being in the Slifer Red Dorm. Once again, we look forward to having you be apart of our illustrious academy!
Sincerely,
Alexis Yuki, Principal of Duel Academy"
Neo sighed as he threw the letter over the couch. The letter flung out and then slowly floated down onto the coffee table in front of the old couch
"Great...", Neo said as he began to slouch. He reached for the remote which was placed on the coffee table and turned on the Tv. The tv burst out with a huge sound.
"Welcome to the Duel Monsters Summer Nationals!",the tv said as the Duel Monsters logo formed on the television. The tv then cut to two men in chairs sitting across from each other. The one on the left shouted out in excitement.
"Goooooood Morning people in all four dimensions!",he said bombastically. "And welcome to the Duel Monsters Summer Nationals!" The man continued, "Today we have an exciting matchup that's gonna be insane!"
"That's right Jimmy", the man next to him said, " This morning at the beautiful Heartland Stadium, we have our finalists who both have made it through thick and thin to be here at the top." "We have 21-year-old Darrell Hudson, the previous Summer Champion who was gone through all of the previous rounds just to defend his title."
The camera cut to a picture of Darrell, a tall sturdy man, with thick black hair and a stern face. Next to his picture appeared simple statistics, his win-loss ratio, his deck, as well as the fact that he has been champion for the past 3 years. Neo took a glance down the statistics but then changed his focus towards the picture halfway through, realizing that nothing in Darrell's profile was new to him. Darrell had been analyzed by every single reporter at this point, so most of his secrets of how he duels, his story, his tendencies were already oh so clear to Neo.
"And going against our champion is none other than the 12-year-old dueling prodigy, Allie Yuki!",Jimmy said as the picture of Darryl changed to the face of the young girl, her face giving off a confident smile in front of her long dirty blond hair. The statistics made a flashy change to Allie's stats. Allie's win-loss record was very impressive to everyone, having only a few loses recorded, once again, however, this wasn't new to Neo.
"That's right Jimmy", the man once again said "Following off of the footsteps of her mother and father, Alexis and Jaden Yuki, she's a prodigy when it comes to duel monster, joining the illustrious Duel Academy when she was only ten. She's been a fan-favorite as one of the many rookies that appeared a couple years back, but this time she's looking for the win. But enough with the talking, let's get to the match!"
The screen then cut to a wide shot of the stadium, thousands of fans sitting in the stands, all cheering as the field in the center filled with vibrant lights making the floor of the field glow with such radiance. The field then formed the shape of a rectangle, the stage had been set. First from the front side of the stadium came Darrell from inside the tunnel which connected to the center field. He walked casually as the sound of keys in his blue jean's pocket rang out for everyone to hear. He eventually stopped walking at the very edge of the rectangle. The camera cut to a pan of Darrell. He was wearing a green polo with blue jeans, his black hair laid flat on his head with a few strands of hair covering one of his eyes. He clearly hadn't cut it in a while. He began to move his right hand towards his hip which on it was his deck carrier. He opened the box strapped to his jeans and pulled out his deck. He then moved his right hand back down to his side, still grasping his deck.
Next, the camera cut to the opposite side of the stadium as the floor began to shine vibrantly with various colors. From the opening, came running out Allie, her long hair moving all around as he sprinted to her spot. As she approached the end of the field she twisted her right foot (which was ahead of her at the time) towards the left, causing her body to drift towards the end and then finally stopping at the end. She clearly had practiced this sometime before this event. She then, following suit to Darrell, pulled her deck from the deck holder fastened to her light blue jeans and quickly slammed the fragile cards into her standard Obelisk Blue academy duel disk.
"Alright folks!", said Jimmy once again in a very exciting manner. "The fight is on! Who's gonna take it all! Will Darrell come out on top once again?! Or will there be an upset with the victory of Allie? Well, let's stop waiting and find out!"
In an instant, the crowd cheered with joy as the time had finally arrived. The two competitors held their duel disks facing one another. The disks then began to make sounds, as if communicating with each other. Then the field lit up once again, this time forming rectangles in order to make the field. Then, at the same time, both Darryl and Allie finally opened their mouths and said a single word. The word that lights up the world with excitement for the events to come.
"Duel!"
As the challenger, Allie was allowed to go first. She hastily put her right hand on top of her deck which was inserted in the front of the bright blue duel disk, and then pulled on the top card with such force that the cards under the top card shifted forward just a tad, as she exclaimed, "I draw!"
Allie took a quick glance at her cards, within the short time of having her hand, her confidant look indicated that she had already known what she wanted to do. She took a card from her hand and began to place it on the monster zone of her duel disk as she once again cheerfully said, "From my hand, I'll summon Angelic HERO, Freia onto the field!" With a flash, the monster came to life, this monster represented something along the sorts to a Nordic Valkyrie, as the female monster, equipped with a shield on her right hand, drew her sword which was fastened to her belt. There the monster stood, facing Darrell. Allie then stated, "When Freia is summoned to the field, I'm allowed to add one Ritual HERO monster from deck to hand!". Allie then moved her disk toward her, tapped the screen placed on top of it, and in an instant, the selected card shot out of the duel disk, Allie then caught the card. Darrell gave her a nod, indicating that he wasn't going to interfere. After confirming that the coast was clear, Allie then took another card from her hand and then activated it. The card flashed on the field as Allie stated, "I activate my spell card, HERO Training! This card allows me to discard up to 3 cards and for each card I discard, Friea gains that many levels!" Allie then took 2 cards and inserted them back into the duel disk. "Since I discarded 2, Friea gains 2 levels!" Allie stated. The camera then cut to the monster as it glowed briefly, and then the monster's stats showed up once again, indicating that the levels changed from four to six. Allie then took one of her last two cards and placed it on the field. "I set one card face down and end my turn," she said as the card showed up face down on the field. Allie then opened her mouth once more to say her catchphrase, which had been inherited from her father. "Get your Game O-".
The tv turned black as Neo faced the remote towards it in order to shut it off. He put the remote down next to the letter which he had also thrown onto the coffee table. Neo sat up straight, giving a long sigh as he placed his back upon the cushion. "How boring", he muttered quietly to himself. He then got up walked around the couch back to the kitchen side of the living room. "Guess I'm making breakfast today." He once again quietly stated as he opened the pantry and began to pick out the ingredients needed to make pancakes.
No less than an hour later, the room was filled with the scent of pancake batter and syrup. Neo sat on a stool next to the island of the kitchen as he slowly took bites out of the fresh pancake which was placed in front of him on a white plate. His eyes eventually met that of the wall which was in front of him. There was nothing interesting there, he just didn't have anything else to look at. He looked at it, attempting to look at the fine details of the plain white wall. His eyes began to lose focus as Neo proceeded to get lost into a trance. He was thinking about the letter. He didn't really have any intention of going to dueling academy, in fact, he wanted nothing to do with it. He only applied due to the huge pressure from his father, who had a firm belief that Neo would just love it there. He didn't give both the test or the essay that much effort, and yet here was the letter, welcoming him to the illustrious academy with open arms. What was he going to do? Undoubtedly, his father just at the sight of the letter would get extremely excited. For him, he always wished for his son to follow in his footsteps, always rushing into danger and passionately dueling along the way. This was the life of Jaden Yuki and he clearly wanted nothing more but to see his son, who was almost a spitting image of him to go to Duel Academy, the place where he became further and further enthralled in dueling and the actions that came before and after. Needless to say, it might break his heart to see his son wanting to go a different route. This was the predicament in Neo's head. He thought up of different scenarios, different ways he could go about the end of his calm summer, but none of them seemed to end with both of them happy. One was going to get the shorter end of the stick.
Suddenly, Neo woke up from his trance, he once again was staring at the wall, but now there was a new sound, the sound of loud rustling in the room which Neo had closed. The door burst open and out came the 38-year-old Jaden Yuki. He stood with the hand on the doorknob. His brown hair with some hints of white was still a mess. He quickly looked down the hallway to look at Neo. Their eyes made contact.
"Morning Dad.", Neo said monotonously as he put his fork down on the plate. "You're a little late. And by a little, I mean a lot".
Jaden quickly moved forward and shut the door. "Ahh, rats! I knew I'd wake up late!" he said as he did a facepalm. Jaden the ran a little down the hallway and then slip through the rest of it due to the fact that he was wearing socks. He stopped himself right at the end of the bright hallway. "Why didn't you wake me up?" He exclaimed as he dashed over to the couch in an attempt to catch what was left of the duel
"If that loud alarm clock couldn't wake you up, there's no way I would've been able to", Neo said as he moved his hand towards the glass of milk next to his plate. "Don't worry, it's recorded".
Jaden turn on the tv, only to be greeted with a family sitcom. Jaden sighed as he slouched. "Ah, but the recording's not the same! You gotta see it when it's live son! That's the only way to watch a duel!" He exclaimed.
"What does it matter?", Neo responded as he took both his plate and his glass and stood up with them in hand and walked over to the sink. "It's the same exact thing. Besides, that duel wasn't all that exciting" Neo placed the plate and glass in the sink and said quietly almost as to keep it a secret, "The duel was over as soon as the first turn ended"
"A duel's a duel! There's nothing boring about that! Plus your sister was dueling! She made it all the way to the finals this year!" Jaden said as he proceeded to open the recordings menu and find the program.
"Mhm, she was bound to eventually", Neo said as he walked over to his room and closed the door. Inside, Neo took off his white cotton shirt and blue pajama shorts and placed them in the hamper. He then opened up his drawer and took out bright tan khaki shorts which shined from the sunlight beaming from the window as well as a plain navy shirt. He closed the drawer and put on the shorts and shirt. He looked at himself in the wide mirror which was on top of the drawer and proceeded to head back out. Neo walked out of the hallway he turned his head towards Jaden who was still sifting through the menus. "I'm headed out for a bit," Neo said. "There's some pancakes left if you want some"
"Be back before noon!" Jaden said as he finally finds the program and selects it.
Neo gave a quiet nod and walked towards the door took his leave.
Jaden smiled as he saw the program beginning. "Aw, I can't wait!", Jaden said to himself. He attempted to stretch out his legs, but instead, his shin hit the corner of the coffee table. Jaden gave a short exclamation of pain. He looked down at his shin and then at the coffee table. "That's way too close to the couch." He said. "I'll move it," he said as he got up and placed his hands on the coffee table in a position to push it. Before he pushed it, a piece of paper caught his eye. He took his hands off of the coffee table and picked up the fancy letter. "What's this? The bills shouldn't have come this early" He said as he took a glanced at it. He suddenly realized what it was and he gasped in surprise and shock.
Neo walked through the small garden, it's flower's glistening as the sprinklers had recently turned on. He grabbed the old silver bike which was leaning on one of the sides of the fences surrounding the garden. He dragged it through the white gate, which had been left open last night and Neo then got on the bike and proceeded down the concrete pathway that went from Neo's house on top of a green hill, down to the plaza of the small hillside town Neo and Jaden called home. Neo went down the hill, making sure to bike slowly as biking too hard could cause the bike to go into an unstoppable speedy fury to the foot of the hill. Neo looked at the horizon to see the small brick plaza, only a few people were there at this time, but once the afternoon hit, it would soon become bustling, as most of the shops and restaurants were located there. Neo eventually reached this town center. He rode down the main street glancing at every store. Some were still closed. Neo turned his head towards him again and proceeded down the street until he reached a small building for dry cleaning.
Neo stopped the bike and dragged it into the sidewalk. He then walked with it to the glass wall of the building and leaned the bike on the wall. He decided that it'd waste time to place a lock on it as he knew no one would go and steal it. Neo opened the glass window, which caused a bell placed on top of it to ring indicating the young man with black hair who was running the store that someone has entered.
"Ah morning Neo", He said cheerfully. "You're up pretty early today"
"When am I not awake early Greg?", Neo responded as he closed the door and walk to the front counter where Greg was positioned. Greg was wearing black jeans which must've made him extremely uncomfortable in the very hot weather of the summer. Along with the jeans he was wearing a blue polo which was standard to wear in this dry cleaning establishment. Greg was more of a night owl type of person and as such his face gave off a tired expression. The coffee he drank which was in a mug on the counter must not have kicked in yet.
"True, you are quite the early bird." He said calmly. "Unlike most people here," He said taking a glance at the empty street. "Anyways," he said as he turned around and took off one of the clothes on the rack placed behind him. "I presume that you're here for this," He said as he thrust the old Slifer red duel academy vest hung on a hanger that Jaden had worn a long time ago, now in a polished state, as if ready to be worn again.
"Thanks," Neo said as he grabbed the hanger which was on top of the counter and pulled it across so that it sat next to him. "My old was real freaked out about this thing when he spilled a bunch of coffee on it"
"Oh I'm sure", Greg hastily responded. " That thing was a big part of his legacy. Though I don't know how well it fits him anymore".
"It doesn't", Neo said. "He just keeps wearing it." Neo turned his head to look at the uniform. It was glistening from the sunlight coming from the glass windows. Suddenly a sound of cheering came from behind Neo. He turned around toward the sound to see what made such a sound, his eyes landed on the old tv which was hung on the bottom right corner of the building his ears began to focus on the noise.
It was the Heartland Stadium once again, there was confetti as the camera showed the mayor of Heartland, Tomison Heartland handing a trophy towards none other than Allison Yuki, Neo's sister. The crowd went wild as Allie waved her trophy back and forth signifying victory. She gave a very uplifting face, as she smiled toward the audience, her Obelisk Blue vest, moving back and forth.
"What an astounding upset!" Jimmy the announcer rang. "This year has a brand-spanking new summer champion in the form of Allieeeeee Yuki!"
Greg looked at the TV to see what Neo was looking at. "Oh yeah, your sister won, it was a pretty impressive duel too. She had a trump card faced down on the field the whole duel and when she activated it, Darrell just straight up lost" Greg said in an upbeat tone.
Neo sighed. "Figures," he said in a monotonous voice. Neo turned back towards his khakis and took out his wallet. He opened it and said, "Anyhow, what do I owe you?"
"Oh don't even worry about paying me!", Greg said happily. "It's nice seeing you again, I kinda missed seeing you after I went to high school"
"Are you sure?" Neo said as he gave a confused look towards Greg.
"Oh absolutely!" Greg said. "Just consider it payment for being my study buddy"
"Oh alright then," Neo said as he slowly put his wallet back into his shorts. "Well, I better get going", Neo said as he turned around and began to walk toward the door still carrying the uniform. "Thank you so much," He said with a smile as he opened the door so the bell rang once again.
"Anytime", Greg responded as Neo left the building.
Neo once again picked up his bike he then realized an issue, he had no place to put the uniform. Neo looked around in the middle of the sidewalk, still no one was around. Neo sighed as he came to the conclusion that there was only one way he was going to be able to bring back the uniform and ride his bike: He was going to have to wear it. Neo took the red vest off of the hanger and put the old uniform on, making sure to pull his arms all the way through each sleeve and the popping the vest out a little. Neo looked at the sides of it. It was a perfect fit, it almost looked made for him. Was he really that similar in shape to his father in his age? He looked at himself in the glass wall reflection. He tried to picture his father at his age, but couldn't see it. Neo gave another sigh, "This looks..crazy stupid" he said and proceed to take it off. He then instead of putting the uniform on, tied it around his waist and looked back up at himself. Now it was at least bearable. Neo picked up the white, plastic hanger which was on the floor. And shoved it in his pocket, half of it still sticking out. He then got back on his bike and proceeded down the road once again, he headed out of the barren town center back to the countryside of the town, where he headed to his eighth-grade history teacher. Neo loved Mr. Desner, he had introduced Neo to the wonders of history, Neo's true passion. Every event, war, revolution, had made fascinating to Neo. To Neo, was a role model, and he wanted to seek his advice on his little high school predicament. He thought that if anyone knew a way out of the maze that was his issue, it was him.