Chapter 1: Ordinary day
It was a normal day in Tokyo, with the sun high in the sky and no clouds to be seen. A boy felt the sun rays on his face, passing from the window of his bedroom, and woke up. His name was Yoshimitsu Hayashi. He had short fair hair and green eyes. His room had a bed, a chair, a desk with a computer, several chests of drawers, a wardrobe and some bookshelves stuffed with books and manga, which he was passionate about. He checked the clock.
"It's 7 o'clock! I should hurry...".
He brushed his teeth, washed his face and changed from his pajamas to his school uniform, and he had just finished changing when his mother called from downstairs
"Yoshimitsu! Breakfast is ready!"
"I'm coming, mom!" he answered readily as he descended the stairs and came into the kitchen. His mother, who had shoulder long fair hair tied up in a tail and amber eyes, asked him in a gentle tone
"How's it going? It hasn't been much since school started, after all...".
Yoshimitsu laughed lightly and answered "Don't worry, mom. I'm slowly but steadily getting used to it again.".
His mother joked "Maybe with that you mean getting used to be waiting for the end of the year again!"
"Ahaha! Mom, please!" said Yoshimitsu with a laugh as he finished his breakfast. He then went to the door of their house, put on his shoes and headed off to high school.
"I'm leaving!" he said to his mother, and she told him "Take care!".
Fortunately, his high school wasn't very far away from home, and so, after ten minutes, he arrived in time.
In the Makuhari High School of the Chiba Prefecture, in his class, excitement was in the air, and Yoshimitsu quickly took notice of it as he greeted with a smile his classmates, who, in turn, greeted him back
"Oh, hi Hayashi-kun!"
This was routine, after all, but still, everyone looked more psyched than usual. He was about to reach his desk, when he was grabbed by the shoulder by a guy who told him, with a familiar voice "Wazzup, Yoshi!"
The guy had short, slightly spiky brown hair and brown eyes that matched, Yoshimitsu recognized the voice, turned around and greeted his classmate back
"Hello, Zappa! How are you?".
"I'm fine, thanks! Have you heard?" Zappa asked his friend
"I was about to ask you, in fact… What's going on?" said the fair-haired boy, with perplexity.
The answer came shortly "We're about to have a new classmate!". The news surprised Yoshimitsu, and his classmate, enjoying the look that was on his face, kept going "As you have most certainly noticed, everyone is curious to know who's it gonna be, and of course, that goes for me, Zappa Kurosawa, too!" as he put up a glory fist.
A classmate interrupted "Kurosawa-kun, Hayashi-kun, you should get to your desks, the teacher is coming!"
"Oh, thanks!" said Yoshimitsu with gratitude, as he got to his desk, followed up by Zappa.
Their homeroom teacher entered the room.
"Hello everyone! As you know, today a new student will join our class." he said, with a serious but still somewhat bright tune. Then, he turned to the classroom's door and said "Please, come in!".
A boy with spiky red hair and brown-red eyes entered the classroom and bowed respectfully to everyone. Yoshimitsu turned to his friend and saw that there was a stunned look on his face. Then, the boy presented himself as he wrote his name on the blackboard
"My name is Ryuuji Yamazaki, Nice to meet you!".
The teacher showed him to an empty desk, at Yoshimitsu's left side, while at his right side was Zappa's desk, and he sat right there. Then, the teacher said
"Well then, if there's nothing else, let's proceed with our lesson.".
It was the hour of History, a subject that Yoshimitsu enjoyed very much, alongside Philosophy. The teacher said, with a serious tone:
"Now I will call a student to tell what did we do in the previous lesson, so that our new classmate may catch up. Yoshimitsu Hayashi! Stand up!". The boy was a bit startled by the call, but he did what he was told.
"Y-Yes sir?"
Two classmates behind him talked about him. One of them chuckled as he talked "Hehehe, it's always like this, Hayashi-kun is quite the shy guy.".
The other one replied "Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that he is usually the best in our class in History. How will he go now, I wonder..."
Both Yoshimitsu and the teacher heard them, though Yoshimitsu understood what they were saying and it made him feel more uncomfortable.
"Silence!" shouted the teacher to the two students, before turning back to Yoshimitsu and questioning him
"Hayashi, have you been paying attention?"
"O-Of course, sir!" he said, before cleaning his throat, in order to ease himself up, and giving a clean answer to the teacher's inquiry.
"We had just begun to talk about Emperor Mutsuhito, also known as Emperor Meiji, who ruled Japan from 1867 to 1912 and, taking advantage of some Western knowledge, modernized Japan, in order to make it able to stand up to Western countries, thus creating the premises of the future massive technological growth of Japan!".
The teacher smiled "Excellent! Is there something else you can add?".
"Well, he was the one who broke the de-facto dual power system which controlled Japan until then, and, to further ensure and celebrate the return of the Imperial power to its full extent, he transferred the capital from Kyoto to this city, Tokyo.".
"Outstanding! I expected nothing less from you. Sit back down, please." said the teacher. As Yoshimitsu sat down, his classmate behind him said to his companion
"See?".
The rest of the day went quite smoothly, and then came break time.
Yoshimitsu, before exiting the classroom, asked Zappa
"Why were you so surprised to see that guy in here? Do you know him?".
His classmate, with a slightly nervous expression on his face, answered
"You see, yesterday afternoon I was beaten pretty badly in a Force of Will trading card game duel… By him!"
"Oh." said Yoshimitsu in surprise. He had heard a lot about that card game, and knew that Zappa played it, but he never had a chance to try it, even though he had a deck.
"That's not all that bad, though." continued Zappa, with a smirk "Since he entered our class, this will allow me to study him and finally have my rematch against him! He will fear the wrath of Zappa Kurosawa!".
Ryuuji overheard the conversation and said "I suggest you to focus on training your skills in card games, instead of trying to study me! There's not much that you can learn from me that way, y'know?".
Zappa was petrified, his mouth gaping wide in disbelief. As the new student got out of the class, though, Yoshimitsu could see that he was hiding a stack of cards in his uniform jacket. He eventually reached him in the hallway and shyly approached him, since it was pretty hard for him to approach new people.
"Um…".
The boy turned around and answered him happily "Yes?".
Yoshimitsu backed off a little, startled, then he mustered up some courage and asked, in a low voice "You know it's not a good idea to take cards at school, right?".
Ryuuji laughed it off "Ahaha, yeah. Don't worry, I'm not using them. It's just a beacon for potential players!".
"A beacon?" asked the fair-haired boy
"Yes, I show those cards to people I think that they could enjoy the game I'm playing at."
"And in which you've destroyed my classmate, I've heard.".
Ryuuji scratched the back of his head and, with a big smile, said "Yeah, he wasn't that good. But I have a feeling that you would like playing this game a lot, even more so now that I know that you're friends with that guy.".
"You think so?" asked Yoshimitsu, surprised.
Ryuuji happily answered "Absolutely! Tell me, have you played any trading card games before?"
"No, but I love anime, manga and games, and so I heard about card games a lot, even though I never played one. In particular, I've followed a lot Force of Will, and I always check the news about it, since it's one of the most popular card games out there."
"Ooohh" said the red-haired boy. "So this is your first time playing a card game, eh?"
"Er… Yes." answered Yoshimitsu, a little embarassed.
Ryuuji, noticing his discomfort, decided to avoid teasing him any further and cut to the cheese.
"Anyways, your name is Yoshimitsu Hayashi, right?" he asked, tending a hand to his new classmate
"Yes. I'm pleased to meet you!" he answered, shaking Ryuuji's hand.
"The pleasure is all mine!" he replied "So, I'm going to my hideout this afternoon, wanna join in?"
"Hideout?" asked Yoshimitsu, perplexed.
"It's the place where I train in this card game." answered the red-haired boy.
His classmate thought about it for a moment, and then he accepted.
"Great! Don't worry, It won't be right after school. The name of the place is Yellow Submarine. You can't get wrong!".
"Yellow Submarine? I've heard a lot about that place..." said Yoshimitsu.
"Then it won't be a problem for you to reach it, I hope. I'm looking forward to it!" replied Ryuuji, happily, before heading off.
"See you soon!" said Yoshimitsu, when a girl approached him from behind, unnoticed.