Even as the island started to come into view, I still had a hard time processing everything that was happening. The day before we all set out on the ship, and even before then when I was just barely making it past the entry exam, I was just a normal girl living in Domino. It always seemed a little funny – growing up in what a lot of people called the Mecca of Duel Monsters but not being too terribly, well...good at it. But all that changes now. As of today, I'm officially a student of Duel Academia!
Despite everyone saying it was the worst dorm in the school, I really liked the way the red blazer looked on me so I didn't bother getting upset. Could maybe stand to be a bit more scarlet, but it's still pretty nice. It's hard to find stuff that goes well with pastel green hair and pasty skin, but that's the life set out for me so I've got to make the best of it. Some people would describe it as "sea foam" colored, but my current situation tells me that's not exactly an accurate description (that was closer to my eyes, anyway). Maybe I could use a hat. But I've got this whole bouncy, wavy, volumey kind of thing going on, though, and a hat might mess that up. I don't know, I'll think about it harder when we reach the island. Do they sell hats on the island? I hope they sell hats.
I guess I'd find out now that I was here. There was already a pretty decent number of upperclassmen waiting at the docks, probably to see all if any of us looked like a bad enough dude to pose a challenge. Some teachers, too. Obviously, the first one to catch my attention was a beautiful blonde woman dressed in blue. I'd heard murmurs about a Professor Tenjouin during the trip and how powerful she was; good enough to be a pro, they were saying. Also how she was one of the largest driving forces in desegregating the Red and Yellow dorms to allow girls, so I already liked her.
Beside her was a tall foreign man wearing a similarly blue but much fancier outfit. According to one boy behind me, that was the headmaster. Cronos, I think he said? He seemed friendly enough, if a little stiff and formal. "Welcome, new students!" the two of them greeted, Cronos adding in a, "ina no ne/i," to the middle. As odd as it was, it kind of felt like it was signaling just how fun and bizarre these next three years would be, and that was something I was definitely looking forward to.
We had our orientation inside what I assumed to be the biggest lecture hall in the school, given it dwarfed every single one I'd been in up until now. For some reason, I got the feeling that there were a lot more students seated around me than there were on the actual ship over here. It was probably just my imagination, but it was still weird. Maybe it was just some second and third years staking us out, but that would probably mean they'd try to pick a duel with the weakest one they saw. Please don't let that be me. I don't want to get my ass kicked in front of the entire school on the first day.
Thankfully, that wasn't the case. Headmaster Cronos just introduced us, explained the dorm system, introduced our dorm leaders (apparently Osiris doesn't really have one?), and encouraged us to fight hard and make the most out of our three years at Academia. We were let out to explore the island since classes wouldn't officially start until the beginning of next week. Most people seemed to head straight to their dorms to be assigned rooms, so I figured that was the best thing to do for the time being.
The first thing I noticed about the dorms for Osiris Red were how absurdly far they were from the actual school. It was like someone placed them all the way out in the boonies (whatever the boonies would be for an island) just to be a dick and inconvenience all of us. The second, of course, was how small it was. There was only eight rooms in the thing that was supposed to house an entire class of students. That couldn't possibly fit us all, right?
Sure enough, though, we all got assigned to where we needed to be and it somehow worked out. And this leads us to the third thing, which was just how gross this place was. The stairs groaned as I walked to the upper floor, not wanting to touch the rusty safety rails and instead holding to my backpack straps. I pulled hard on the doorknob before I felt someone tap my shoulder. "You have to push," she said.
Like the expert linguist that I am, I responded with, "O-oh. Okay." Needless to say, I'm not exactly as confident as I'd like to be when I'm talking as opposed to when I'm just thinking to myself. And it absolutely never helped when the person in question was cute and, look at that, this girl was damn cute. Shaggy purple hair, thick rimmed glasses, a tiny button nose, short and small enough to fit in my backpack – it's like she was just trying to make things even harder for me.
Even worse was the fact that the door refused to open even when I started to push it. It must have been jammed. "I'll help," said the perfect specimen of feminine beauty standing next to me. She did this by getting intimately close to me to help push, though I honestly couldn't feel the slightest difference. Big help there, I promise.
Finally, using every last bit of my strength, we forced open the door and tumbled inside. There was a distinct smell coming from somewhere in the room, but I couldn't place what it was. It wasn't overbearingly strong or rotten, more old and musty. Instinctively, I took a whiff of the mattress on the lowest bunk. Old and musty, yes, but not what I was looking for. Maybe it was just another of the many mysteries of Academia.
I turned my attention back to who I desperately hoped was my roommate. Unfortunately, it seemed like she already left, crushing my hopes and dreams in an instant. Kind of wish she'd have at least introduced herself so I could find her later. Not like it mattered with how small this place was. I could just go knock on every door to see if she came out if that wasn't an awful idea that filled me with anxiety just thinking about it.
My thoughts were immediately forgotten as soon as I heard a shrieking coming from the dorm next to mine. Rather than walking in on a rotting corpse I fully suspected was hidden somewhere in this building, me and the rest of the doors stood amazed at this lucky asshole's room. It was double-wide, a single, and full of all this great stuff. It had a damn flat screen TV just hanging there on the wall. Who did this guy know to be assigned a room like this?
Nothing I could do about it, though, unless I camped out in his closet. Once I returned to my room, I met who seemed to actually be my roommate. It was like falling in love all over again. She was tall and tan and big with enough muscles to literally tear me in half if she wanted, and I'd let her in a heartbeat. It looked like she could flex and bust out of that red blazer without any trouble. She turned to me slowly, apparently having been disturbed by my presence while she made up the top bunk (which she was more than welcome to have).
"Hello," she said quietly, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest with every unsteady, shy look from those deep green eyes of hers. "I hope it's not too much trouble that we'll be in the same room," she mumbled, scratching at some golden hair in a perfect little pixie cut on top of her head. Of course it's not trouble! Kick me out and live here by yourself if you want to!
Okay, me, stop freaking out and act like a normal person for once. "Duh..." I replied, disappointing everyone yet surprising no one. "T-that's- n-no, that's okay! I-it's cool to have roommates. M-my name's- uh, I'm Sato. Sato Emiri, I mean." It probably should make me feel better that she seemed just as awkward and unsure of things as I was, but that only made her seem cuter which was only making it harder to talk like a human.
"Hello," she repeated, seeming to catch herself and only getting more embarrassed. "I'm..." She cleared her throat. "Tayama Aiko." The perfect name for the perfect woman.
"Great name," I said while doing finger guns, not entirely sure why I was doing finger guns. Or why I didn't just stop doing finger guns after the first three seconds. Or why it's been ten seconds now and I'm still doing finger guns. I forced myself to stop by putting my hands behind my head. "So I guess it's just us here." It was sort of a question, to be honest. I didn't pay attention to the list of names and dorm assignments when I first saw mine.
Aiko finished smoothing her sheets out and cleared her throat again. "Actually, there's one more." As if on queue, our final roommate walked through the door, slamming it behind her. You couldn't even see the red blazer she wore underneath the heavy black veil and cloak she had on. It must have been burning up in there.
It didn't seem like Aiko would be brave enough to introduce herself, so I took the burden off her and placed it firmly back on me. "Hey," I greeted, getting no response as this bizarre person set about putting everything she owned into our tiny closet. "My name's Sato, this is Tayama. I guess we're roommates now."
"Stela," she finally said in a thick...Romania accent? Either way, it was kind of unusual to see someone from Europe here. Was Academia West just full this semester? "I'm taking this," she said before closing herself in the closet without warning.
"I guess that's our roommate," I said to try and seem witty. I finally sat down my backpack and decided to lay claim to the bottom bunk. No idea what we'd do with the middle given one us was apparently living in the closet (a metaphor?), but I'm sure we could figure something out.
Aiko cleared her throat again," Sato," she said, seemingly about to ask something.
Of course, I couldn't just stay quiet there. "Just call me Emiri," I blurted out, taking her by surprise.
She nodded quickly. "Emiri, do you know where everything is at school yet? I never visited before enrolling." Judging by the growling sound I heard (and the tiny blush along her cheeks that almost killed me right then and there), she was hoping I'd know where the school store was on campus.
"Sure do," I lied through my teeth. "I'll show you." As you can tell, I was off to a great start. My foolproof plan was just to wing it and try to follow some other students that would hopefully be heading to the same place as us.
I grabbed my inhaler out of my bag before heading to the door. "Oh, wait." I knocked on the closet quickly. "Uh, Stela. We're going to get food. Do you want to come, or...should we bring you something?"
"I don't eat," she replied brusquely, having nothing else to say on the matter.
"Okay, then." Stela was kind of creepy. That wasn't of consequence right now, though. We were going to get food. Was this a lunch date? God, I hope it's a lunch date. To show off just how cool I was, I completely failed at opening the door, slamming it closed having jammed it once again.
"I'll take care of it," Aiko said, forcing it open with a small grunt that made my heart skip a beat. I made a mental note to tell someone to fix our door as we left the room, shutting it back to, potentially, lock Stela inside. I shouldn't find that as funny as I did.
As we walked down the creaky staircase, I spotted the purple haired mystery girl again. "Wait a second," I said to Aiko, running over to her, realizing too late I didn't know what I actually planned to say once I got there. "Hey, uh..." Well, I had her attention. What's our plan, me?
"Oh, hi!" I felt my soul unclench as she graciously took the burden of starting this conversation out of my hands. "Your door, right?"
"What?" Best response I could possibly give, as usual.
"Your door's still jammed, right? Just email the maintenance office and they should be on it soon. There's a list of numbers in your orientation folder, so you should probably keep those safe." She was so sweet and helpful. Why couldn't I be more like that? God, I'm such a loser.
"T-thanks," I stuttered. "Thanks for helping me get the door open."
"That's perfectly fine," she said in her normal peppy tone. "My name is Mariko, by the way. I'll try to be around if you need help with anything."
It was my turn to clear my throat now. "I'm Sato Emiri. I'll be sure to remember." I could feel myself go weak in the knees as she let out some bubbly laughter, probably from noticing how much of an awkward, gay, desperate nerd I was.
"I hope you're not too discouraged by being placed in Osiris Red. It's really not so bad, I promise. And if you work hard, I know you'll be able to transfer really soon!" I couldn't really say I was idisappointed/i by being in Red, given that I was just relieved at passing the test at all, but her words were still motivating all the same. I could do it, couldn't I? And I bet Aiko could, too. We'd take the school by storm and claw our way right to the top as the strongest duelists Academia had ever seen, carrying on a torrid affair behind the scenes the entire time. This was destiny as I had foreseen it.
I tried my best to smile like someone who didn't look like they'd kill you in your sleep, probably failing. "Thanks for the encouragement. I guess you're, like, our dorm leader, right?"
She giggled, the sunlight literally seeming to radiate through her to highlight just how pure this girl was. "Oh, no. I'm just another student here. The Red dorm doesn't have a leader, really. It used to be a cat, but he left the island a while ago. And before that it was a man named Professor Daitokuji, but he died. I think." Apparently noticing my stunned silence, she added, "But don't think that's a regular occurrence! People dying, I mean. It's very rare, I promise. Rarer than rare, even. You'd have a better chance of getting a parallel rare card out of the next booster pack you open than seeing someone die."
I couldn't help but laugh a little at how hard she was trying to reassure me. "That's good to know," I told her. "I guess we'll see you around. I'm going to get some food now." We waved to each other before I rejoined Aiko standing exactly where I'd left her, forcing me to realize that conversation took far longer than I planned. "Sorry about leaving you like that," I said with a nervous chuckle.
"It's okay," she said, almost sounding like she was the one apologizing. "Was she your friend?"
"Well, no." I paused. "She helped me open the door, I guess. Before you, I mean." We quickly ran out of things to say, making the silence even worse now that we knew we couldn't hold a conversation for longer than a minute. What do I do now? Finger guns? No, bad plan. Don't do finger guns. No, stop doing finger guns, it doesn't even make sense.
"So, uh, what did you enroll for?" I asked after shoving my hands in my pockets, realizing too late that question probably came off as more accusatory than intended.
I saw Aiko purse her lips. "I want to become strong," she said simply.
"You seem plenty strong to me." Her head whipped around to look at me, stopping me in my tracks. Did I say something wrong? Did I already piss off my cute roommate? Why was I like this?
"Really?" she asked, her eyes lighting up just the tiniest bit. Unable to function in normal society, I just nodded in place of a real answer. "Oh." She blinked several times, neither of us speaking. "Thank you." We walked the rest of the way mostly quiet, though there were the occasional breaks in the silence where we'd interject about a movie we saw recently or a new card we'd gotten or how our entrance exams went (we both nearly failed). I even told a joke about a duck a chainsaw that nearly made her laugh.
Despite the distance, we seemed to make it to the school fairly quickly. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad walk to and from the dorms, after all. This is where the real challenge began, though. Using my excellent skills with observation, I locked on to an Obelisk Blue student who seemed to know where he was going. "Almost there," I assured Aiko, following behind our speedy classmate who I hoped beyond hope knew where he was going.
I breathed a sigh of relief as, thankfully, we ended up exactly where we needed to be. "Here we are," I announced like I actually had any idea what I was doing. Aiko seemed pleased, though, so that's all that mattered. I trailed the student we'd followed before with my eyes, watching him buy three lunchboxes from a kindly older woman, immediately shoving two into his blazer and setting about noisily eating the third.
He was an odd one. Really stubby legs and...I guess you'd say a long torso. Seemed to wear a blue bandanna to match his coat and some dark sunglasses. A weirdly strong jawline for a teenager, too, and it kind of sounded like he had some sort of voice box when he was ordering food before. I wasn't one to judge, though. You do you, guy.
We got to the front of the line pretty quickly, ordering two chicken katsu sandwiches from the friendly Ms. Tome. She said we were lucky since there weren't any of these left. I immediately understood why after a single bite. "This is great!" I said, Aiko nodding enthusiastically beside me. The chicken was warm; you could really tell it and the bread were made fresh every day. The lettuce was crisp and there was just the right amount of tangy sauce spread along the side.
"That was mine," a voice dripping with hate said behind me, nearly causing me to drop the most perfect sandwich I'd ever eaten. We turned around quickly, an unkempt girl with sharp features and baby blue hair staring me down like I'd just shot her dog. Her blazer was a bright yellow and clearly too big for her small frame but too short for her gangling arms.
"What?" I said, once again proving myself as the greatest communicator of our generation.
"The sandwich is mine every day. Give it to me." Aiko placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back to step in front. The girl started to fluster, almost sounding like she started hissing as her hair puffed up. What the hell was this all about?
"Now, now. Don't lose your head, Amethyst." A tall, suave looking boy in yellow walked smoothly towards the weird bird lady, his strides seeming almost a little too far compared to where his legs actually landed. He ran a hand through his auburn hair, flashing a winning smile toward us. "It's no one's fault they ran out of your favorite sandwich. You'll just have to be quicker tomorrow."
"The only reason I was late was because I was helping you with your-" She cut herself off for some reason. Apparently, they seemed to have some sort of understanding that I was just too oblivious to place.
"Right, right, sorry," he said to try and placate her. "I'll get you something else to make up for it. Tell Ms. Tome to put it on my tab and get whatever you like." She glared at him, then back at me before finally deciding to screech at him, marching off to order her own food. Things didn't seem like they were going to start making sense any time soon, so I just rolled with it and kept eating my sandwich.
"You'll have to excuse my associate, ladies," he said, smile seeming to imply I wasn't giving off enough queer vibes to turn him away. "My name is Arakawa Ichinomiya, second year Ra Yellow and top of my class. Might I have the courtesy of your introductions?" His smile was creepily unchanging as he waited for an answer.
Weirdly amusing name aside, this guy was starting to get annoying. "Emiri," I said, pointing my thumb to the side. "Aiko." She seemed too unsteady to answer for herself, so I decided to help out. I also wanted him to leave, so it was a win-win.
"Such lovely names," he crooned as I tried to hold back a gag. "Normally, I wouldn't set foot in here, but Amethyst does love her sandwiches. Regardless, why don't you two stop by the Yellow dorm some time? Get a taste of what real food tastes like." He chuckled to himself, not getting a reaction out of either of us. "But for now, I must go. It's been a pleasure." With a flourished bow, Arakawa walked off, taken aback in surprise as he saw the armload of food that girl had bought at his expense. She squawked at him.
"That was...something," I finally said after they'd both left.
"I don't care for them," Aiko told me, which I nodded to. I could already tell we'd become the best of friends over our mutual dislike of other people at this school. The arrogance of a Blue while only a Yellow. Still, though, I'd heard most of that stuff was kind of a thing of the past. Outside of superficial jabs at each other, everyone seemed to be getting along pretty well regardless of their dorm color. I'd heard people talking about a Red student here years ago who broke down barriers, or something, but the details were pretty vague. Long story short, it meant Academia pretty much got along now, I guess.
We finished lunch pretty quickly and headed back toward the dorm, all the while talking about how corny and weird that Arakawa guy was. I finally managed to get a laugh out of Aiko when I brought up his weird, pointy sideburns. "They jut out at, like, a perfect 90 degree angle!" She forced open our door while I made a note to send in a request later, which I'd probably forget to do because I'm awful.
"We're back," I announced to a resounding silence. Maybe she left, but I wasn't about to check the closet to find out. With food taken care of, I started unpacking me stuff. The first thing I did was make my bed, then lay down and decide to quit unpacking for now. Aiko had taken her place on the top bunk, seemingly looking through some cards by the sound above.
"What kind of deck do you use?" I finally asked, having pulled out my own after feeling an urge to mimic her.
There was a few seconds of silence. "I don't know if it has a theme," she said timidly. She almost seemed embarrassed by that.
"It's cool," I assured her. I stood up despite my body's protests and held my deck up to her. "You can look at mine if you want." I'm sure plenty of people would be screaming at me for breaking a cardinal sin of Duel Monsters if they found out about this, but I felt like I could trust Aiko. We were roommates, after all. Not like I could keep much secret from her even if I wanted to.
Slowly, she reached out and took it from me. "Uh, here," she said, handing me her own. I sorted through, genuinely impressed by how many strong monsters she had. There wasn't much of a theme like she said, but it had a lot of heart. "You have a lot of Normal Monsters," she commented.
"Oh, yeah." For once, I actually didn't feel self-conscious about something. It was a miracle. "Yeah, it's kind of...well, people like to call cards like that useless, so I want to show them they're wrong. Everything has value, you know? Even little cards like that." Aiko looked at me amazed, forcing me to stare off to the side with some nervous laughter like a chump. "Or, whatever. Some corny junk like that."
I handed her deck back and took mine. "You seem pretty strong. We should duel sometime."
She nodded with a smile warm enough to melt the ice caps faster than they already were. "I'd like that."
I couldn't really know what was going to happen next. Academia was turning out to be far stranger than I ever thought it could be. Between the shimmering little angels, Amazonian goddesses, creepy closet gremlins, grunting slob monsters, weird bird ladies, and pick up artists, it was sure to be an eventful year. Guess I'd better make the best of it.
[Reposted from my AO3 with commentary.]
Explanation. This is a goofy kajigger born out of this post I made on my blog roughly calculating the number of students that could possibly be at Academia based on the Red dorm's size. Long story short, we decided there's some fuckery going on at that school. /post/158526169122/boblogical-radraptors-boblogical-really
I took the idea and ran with it, so here we are about 10 or so years after the end of GX with a new protagonist being completely oblivious to the various ghoulish friends she's about to make over the course of her study. I wasn't exactly subtle about the true nature of the non-human characters, so using your knowledge of the canon things in GX and that post, see if you can guess who's what.
Some of the ideas in here (specifically Professor Tenjouin, since I love that) actually came from another story that I used to read. If you know the rest of my work, you'll be able to see some major influences throughout the whole thing. I'll add the link extension to put at the end of FF's URL, too, but I should warn you that it's not finished and never will be, since the author tragically died several years ago. I'm not pretentious enough to think my work is a "spiritual sequel" to his, but I'd like it if more people got the chance to read it. It's honestly one of the best pieces of work I've ever read and it's inspired me in a lot of ways as far as writing goes. s/4192130/1/YuGiOh-Negative-Zero
I don't usually write in first person. I kind of hate it, honestly. Because of the way this story is told, though, I decided it kind of does enhance the narrative, so I had to go with it. This is my excuse if it's kind of jumbled in places. I don't have a lot of experience in this tense, so I did what I could.
Unlikely as it is, if anyone is wondering if I'll make this a full series, my current instinct is no. I'd consider it in the future, but I'm already focused on a pretty long and complex story I'm posting now. Taking on two projects like that would be kind of a hassle, especially since I've got stuff like work. We'll see what happens, though. I've definitely got ideas.
Thanks for reading. Always remember to get there early so you can buy your sandwich.