For most of the boys and girls on the grounds of the Academy, the Hell Kaiser's late-night duels had taken on the status of everything else that was forbidden on campus—taboo, dangerous, exciting. Students whispered poisonous rumors about the highly secret gatherings where the duels were played and, it was said, those who shared the Kaiser's proclivities met. And yet, when the event was discussed the next day, most students seemed to know how the battle had transpired. Everyone wanted to watch, to marvel at the strangeness of the duels, to indulge their own curiosity, or for some other trivial reason.
Asuka, however, dreaded the days that the Hell Kaiser's major duels were broadcast, because she and Fubuki were the only ones on campus who were obligated to watch. They were the only ones who were close enough to Ryo to truly understand how terrible those duels were.
After that first day, that first terrifying mind-numbing day when Asuka had sat white and still in front of the screen and Fubuki had sat shaking, his face in his hands, unable to look up and watch the duel unfold, they resolved to watch every one of the Hell Kaiser's duels. Whenever one aired on one of the major stations available at the island, they would see it. They would meet him again, after all, and they needed to be prepared for the way he would act. Besides, they agreed, nothing could be worse than that first day.
She wished desperately that they had been right. They were not.
That first day, everything had been so sudden that they had not seen the duel clearly. All that they had registered was that this was not Ryo, this was someone different, someone much crueler. But the next week, when his next major duel began, they were prepared, with their senses no longer dulled by the shock of revelation.
They saw everything.
They saw the stark, unglamorous entrance that he had arranged, that completely deflated the sparkle and smoke and splendor of his opponent. They saw the crazed glint in his dark eyes as his monsters attacked in a crackling roar of flame and high-voltage electricity. They saw the cruel smirk on his face as the duelist in front of him gasped in pain. They saw his face flush and his eyes snap shut as he was attacked in turn. And what they heard was even worse—his taunting remarks, his harsh, rasping laugh, the gasps and moans that intermittently broke from his lips.
This was not Ryo. Everything about him was different. Every basic principle that Ryo had lived by was gone, erased. Respect for the opponent, gone. Restraint in both victory and defeat, gone. That quiet determination that had brought him to victory in every duel but one, gone. Ryo would never duel like this. Ryo would never enjoy it so openly, so defiantly, daring the audience that stared with such wide eyes to chastise him. Ryo was, for all intents and purposes, gone.
It hit Fubuki hardest of all. He had loved Ryo like only a friend can love, and his world was ripped apart now that he was gone. After the ordeal was over, he clung to Asuka for what seemed like hours, trembling and sobbing into her shoulder. She cried with him.
When he could not cry any longer, Fubuki looked up at Asuka, his face red and streaked with tears.
"I'll stay with him," murmured Fubuki.
Asuka wiped some of the tears from her own face. "I know."
"I'll never give up on him."
"I know."
"We still need to come back, and…and watch."
She wrapped her arms around Fubuki again, and held him even tighter than before.