Unwritten
In a place that came to be known as the Xyz Dimension, there was a boy. He wasn't a terribly remarkable boy, although some of the people that met him would remark that he was terribly loud. He was of average intelligence, although you wouldn't be able to tell that from looking at his grades. His best trait was probably his bottomless well of optimism. No matter how daunting the task, or how many times he failed, he would always bound back to his feet, usually with his trademark "Kattobingu!" erupting from his lips as he threw himself at the next challenge. That same optimism translated into an unshakable faith in the goodness of the people around him, a faith that attracted many friends to the boy. Unfortunately that optimism translated into his dueling with somewhat mixed results. Sometimes his bullheaded rush to attack would net him unexpected victories simply because his opponents weren't expecting anyone could be so reckless. More often than not, his hotheadedness cost him the win as he disregarded set cards, monster effects, and basic math. His closest friends felt that he could be great, maybe even extraordinary, if he could just find something or someone that could temper his unquenchable fire with a touch of caution. Alas, this was not to be.
(Sometimes the boy would dream of a guardian spirit, usually when he was ill or on the rare occasions when a Kattobingu wasn't enough to ward off feelings of sadness or failure. And while he could remember glowing white light and warm eyes, one gold and one almost silver, the spirit's words always faded once he woke.)
What happened to this boy when the Xyz Dimension was invaded? It's hard to say. He was a rather unremarkable boy, and there were millions of unremarkable boys when the Antique Gears flooded the city of Heartland. Why should the story of one more forsaken child make any difference?
In the slums of the City there was a boy. He wasn't born in the slums, no, he was one of the unlucky few to fall from grace, dragged down by parents that knew too much and asked too many questions. By the time he was ten he had no father and by the time he was eleven he had no mother, either. Many children would have been embittered by such losses, but this boy was a rather remarkable child. He was every bit as intelligent as his parents, and their misfortune had taught him the caution that they had tragically lacked. And even with his newfound caution he remained kind, ever lending a quiet ear to someone that needed to talk and his mechanical skills wherever he could, to make the lives around him just a little bit better.
At the orphanage where he ended up he met another boy, a beaten-down orphan with violet eyes and a single card – Tuning Magician. He looked at that boy and he saw a quiet desperation, a conviction to rise out of the trash and up into the dancing lights. And somehow the boy knew in the depths of his heart that he couldn't let this child sink into despair. Where everyone else looked and saw nothing but a parentless brat, the boy looked at those violet eyes and saw the man that this little orphan would become, and that that man might do terrible things if the only other choice was to despair. So he took this other orphan – Jack – by the hand and gave Jack his own name – Fudo Yusei – and together Jack and Yusei promised each other that they would make it out of the slums and into the gleaming steel castles above.
Together they worked tirelessly. Together they found cards, which became their decks, and vehicle parts, which Yusei managed to turn into their very first D-Wheel. He also managed to turn it into their very first fight, when he'd painted it white and bequeathed it to Jack. Jack had adamantly refused what he had seen as blatant charity, and had tried to force Yusei to take it back until the second one was complete. Yusei, in Jack's mind, was doing the bulk of the work and should be the first person to benefit. Yusei, on the other hand, had looked at that D-Wheel and somehow known in his heart that he was never meant to ride it. The fact that he couldn't quite put the sentiment into words only made Jack angrier, so Yusei tried to drop the argument and instead focus on finishing the second D-Wheel, but just about once a week Jack would wait until Yusei was asleep and sneak into the workshop and paint the damn thing red (and why red, Yusei could never figure out. True, he'd been planning on painting his own D-Wheel red, but unlike Jack Yusei didn't dress in his preferred D-Wheel color almost obsessively, so he couldn't for the life of him understand how Jack had guessed it.) Then Yusei would paint it back to white and the fight would start up all over again, like that book he'd heard read in the orphanage where the fairy godmothers kept changing the color of the princess's dress from blue to pink to blue again.
They'd continued like that for the better part of a year, through scrimping and scavenging, through new friends and girl friends (But not girlfriends, even if Jack kept giving him Looks when he spent too much time with Aki, or when he'd gone out of his way to get her something nice for her birthday. Aki had had a positively miserable life, Top or not, and she deserved nice things from people that actually cared about her, even if they couldn't really afford it. Jack was just jealous. Probably. Almost certainly.) In fact, Yusei had been threatening to end the argument by painting the D-Wheel the color that they'd both come to call Aki's Pink when a pair of reckless Riding Duelists accidentally destroyed the building they'd just finished scavenging. As the wall had started coming down Yusei had just enough time to shove Jack out of the way, and the last thing he saw before he was crushed to death was his best friends eyes widening in horror.
Duel Academia isn't the sort of school that fosters camaraderie, socialization, or any sort of hobby in its students. Free time is seen as the mark of a lazy student, and no one in their right mind wants to be a lazy student. The zealous would see it as a betrayal of the Arc Area Project, and those less zealous (they do exist, believe it or not) are still immensely invested in their self-preservation. Still Academia is a school full of children, and children, especially teenagers, like to gossip. Even on the rigidly controlled island stories do find a way to circulate, and the juicier the story the harder it is to kill. Who is sneaking off into the supply closets with whom, embarrassing secrets about the professors (But not THE Professor, no one's suicidal here, thank you), how to get your hands on contraband like candy and manga… and ghost stories. There are lots of ghost stories about Academia, it's not a safe school and there have been training accidents. Rumors of suicides, of students that cracked under the pressure and threw themselves into the sea. And the towers, the ones that no one except the teachers are allowed inside, you can't kick a rock at a 'study group' without finding someone that will swear up, down, and sideways that they've seen a girl's silhouette in one or more of those towers, even though everyone knows they've been mostly abandoned since the Professor came to the school.
And then there's this one. It started up four years ago, as near as anyone can tell. No one ever tells it exactly the same, and that might be because it's a poem. People will tell you that the original one was written in blood in the basement of one of the dorms or sent in an email that can only be opened from your duel disk at midnight on a new moon, or something equally ridiculous. Sometimes there are stories attached that if you repeat it without protecting yourself somehow (knocking on wood three times or anointing yourself with salt water for purification are both popular) you'll meet with a fittingly gruesome end – let's not go into the ridiculous details. This is a version of the poem. It is not the original – perhaps there was never an original. It was almost certainly rewritten by the victors, as most things are. Ah, but you should disregard that last sentence, shouldn't you? It might lead to questions, and Duel Academia is a very dangerous place to be asking questions…
This is a tale of all and of one
Of a shadow that failed to blot out the sun.
His eyes flashed gold in the moonlight
His smile cut through the gloom
And though reckless he dashed through the night
His skill always spared him from doom.
Other children flocked to his side
Entranced by his power and charm
Foolish children swept away by the tide
For his carelessness brought them nothing but harm.
Where others listen to wisdom
And by the laws of our leaders do guide
This shadow dared defy the kingdom
And thought from judgement he'd hide.
With his rash words chains were broken
And the poisoned dragon flew free.
With his skills sacred treasure was stolen
And his followers declared victory.
But in the end their cheers rang hollow
As our leader marched forward at last
Before ranks of blue coats they proved callow
Their triumphs a thing of the past.
One by one the children were defeated
And the dragon once more bound in chain.
The shadow still could have retreated
But he chose to struggle in vain.
Our wise leader tried to show mercy
But the shadow spit in his eye
He rejected all offers of sympathy
In defeat he chose to die.
And though the shadow your footsteps may darken
Though his red coat may catch your eye
Do not to his honeyed words hearken
Don't squander yourself on a lie.
If you must then remember the children
For in defeat they chose to bend
They still live to regret their decision
But here the shadow's story did end.
There's not much use for newspapers in the Standard Dimension. There hasn't been for years, technology has long since left behind such archaic things. Still, people do have a tenancy to horde knowledge, so if one was curious enough one could probably still go to a large enough library and find old newspapers still preserved on microfiche for those that want a taste of times long past. After all, the story of a game shop owner and his unwed, pregnant daughter burning alive when the shop caught fire in a freak electrical accident, while tragic, is hardly of monumental importance and quite unlikely to have been transferred to a digital copy. But most people don't care to put forward that much effort in an era where almost anything one wishes to know is a keystroke away, and so such tragedies of forgotten decades are lost in the shuffle of space and time.