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A Tournament in the Making! A Series of Unlikely Happenings!
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"And you lose, just I predicted," Astral stated.
"Shut up!" Yuma shouted. "Maybe if you helped me I wouldn't have lost!"
"Maybe if you listened to my advice you would have won. Yet, you were stubborn and insisted that you could win the duel by yourself. The end result, Tetsuo won. I believe the term "getting creamed" is appropriate here, am I right?"
Yuma boiled with anger for a moment. He continued to yell at Astral a little more, but was stopped as Kotori approached him.
"Yuma, I think it's about time we should go home," she said.
"Aww, can't we have just one more duel?" Yuma whined. "Besides, isn't not even that late. Please! It'll be a quick duel! I promise!"
"Go home Yuma," Tetsuo shouted. He had already begun walking away back to his house. "You're not the only one who has to get home. Besides, don't you have that paper assigned from last week to finish? It's due tomorrow."
Yuma screeched. He had completely forgotten about that paper. It was just that dueling was a lot more interesting and it wasn't a two page essay. Yuma could feel a drop of sweat animate beside him as he calmed down from his little episode.
"Hey Kotori, can you help me out with my paper?"
Kotori sighed. "Fine, I'll help you," she told Yuma with irritation. The boy cheered and thanked Kotori for her help. She chuckled at Yuma. "Calm down, I'm not writing your paper. Now, how far have you gotten in the essay?"
Yuma gave a nervous chuckle. "Well you see…" Kotori glared at Yuma for an answer. The boy made a choking sound and nervously laughed again. "I kinda haven't started it yet."
"Oi Yuma." Kotori face palmed and shook her head. "Do you at least have an idea what you're going to do?" Yuma shook his head. "Do you even know what you're supposed to be writing about?" Kotori received the same response. "Geez Yuma." She sighed. "Well, I'll still help you out, but you'll only get a B at best."
"Thank you Kotori!" Yuma cheered gratefully and bounced up and down with joy.
The green haired girl smiled and began to head home. Yuma caught up with his friend as he finished cheering. An orange sky accompanied the two on their route home as Kotori gave Yuma ideas for his essay. Yuma half listened to Kotori. He was still caught up in his duel with Tetsuo.
I'll beat him someday, he thought. And then, I'll become Duel Champion. I'll win every tournament I'll enter. Hmm, I wonder when one will show in the future.
Yuma glance over at Kotori to see if she noticed that he dazed off. Luckily, she hadn't. The boy listened in on Kotori's speech and waited for the perfect moment to jump in.
"I know it's cliché, but you could write about how England and France are enemies. That would probably be the easiest way out of this report. A good way to get rid of some space is to talk about Joan of Arc and the 100 Year War. That would show a lot of turmoil between the two countries," Kotori explained.
"Yeah, that sounds great!" Yuma jumped in. "Hey Kotori, do you know of any duel tournaments coming up in the future?"
Kotori sighed. He's gotten bored.
"No, I haven't heard of any. But I know the World Duel Carnival is held every year. Maybe it'll be somewhere close by and you could compete!" Kotori offered.
"Yeah! That'd be awesome! I'd show everyone my Kattobingu!" Yuma shouted.
Kotori chuckled. This guy always had the greatest enthusiasm. The two walked together for a while longer until their routes split. Kotori left Yuma with a few more guidelines for his report and a promise to call and help him. Yuma gave a simple agreement in return and left on his own route home.
He walked down the street alone. Yuma began to stall his arrival to home by gazing into various stores and looking at random TV screens with their advertisements. To Yuma, the sooner he got home was the sooner he would have to start his report. Starting it a little later would hurt at all, would it?
"No way!"
"Is this really happening?"
"Holy God, it's a miracle!"
Yuma stopped in his tracks and deviated from his path to figure out what all of the commotion was about. A heard of people were gathered around the window of a TV store mesmerized by a particular advertisement. Yuma fought his way to the front of the crowd to figure out what was going on. By the time Yuma finally made it to the front of the crowd the ad was nearly finished. However, the immense joy Yuma felt did not fall short as he listened to the strict tone of Seto Kaiba in his announcement.
"So do you have what it takes to win Battle City?"
The screen flashed to a new commercial and the crowd scurried away. Yuma continued to stand and stare at the screen. Could this be true? Is there really going to be a new Battle City tournament?
Astral hovered around Yuma. He looked at the frozen boy with curiosity. "Hmm, do humans have the ability to prevent all movement when amazed? That's quite a draw back."
Yuma couldn't even hear Astral. His mind was running with thoughts. What would he do with his deck? Where is the tournament? Thoughts like this and more swirled in Yuma's head. The only thing he was able to do was squeal like a fangirl.
Astral blinked. "Oh dear, I think he's broken."
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Was this a dream? Because it surely isn't a reality. Yuma was sitting in his seat making absolutely no noise. More unbelievable than that was the fact that he was early to class. Tsukumo Yuma was early to class.
"Kotori, am I seeing things?"Tetsuo asked.
"I'm not sure if this is actually real or not," Takashi said.
"This can't be real, nya," Cathy added.
"Ahhh! What even is this!?" Tokunosuke yelled. He ran up to Yuma and began shaking him by the collar. "Yuma! Are you in there? Can you hear me? Have the Numbers taken over your soul? Is it forcing you to be early? Where is the real Yuma you foul beast?"
Kotori yanked the small boy by the back of his collar and freed Yuma. "You're gonna break him Tokunosuke."
"You guys are finally here! I've been waiting to tell you guys this since last night!" Yuma brightly said. It was as if he wasn't even violently shaken.
Well he makes fast recoveries, everyone else thought.
"Well, what's the big news?" Kotori asked.
A smile larger than Yuma's losing streak spread across his face. "The Return of Battle City."
"What?" The group shouted.
"Where did you hear about this Yuma?" Tetsuo asked.
"Wow, there's really gonna be another Battle City tournament!" Takashi said in awe.
"That's right! I saw a commercial last night! It was the Kaiba Seto making the announcement himself!" Yuma explained. "This is gonna be awesome! We should all sign up right now!"
Everyone agreed. Takashi pulled out his D-Pad and quickly found the official site for the Return of Battle City. The class rep read the crucial information on the screen.
"It's being held in Neo Domino two weeks from now. The preliminaries are during the whole week, which means during school. I'm pretty sure we could get excused though," Takashi said. The smile on the class rep's face quickly morphed into a frown as he read the qualifications on the screen. "A tournament for only the best duelists in the world. Invitation only."
Takashi's frown soon spread to all of his friends. Yuma moaned in great disappointment.
"But I was so excited for this!" he cried out.
"Well, it's not really a surprise. Battle City has always been invitation only," Takashi sadly explained. "How did I forget about that detail? Everyone who competed in the tournaments had some kind of impressive victory under their belt."
"But what about those Egyptian people who were in the finals during the first Battle City? I don't even remember their names! That's how little of a record they had!" Yuma yelled as he shook Takashi back and forth.
"Well, I don't think they got into the tournament completely legally," Takashi said in a daze from being shaken up (no one could recover like Yuma).
"Then that's how we'll get into the tournament!" Yuma declared. "We can all head out to Neo Domino and get into the tournament like those guys did! Then we'll be the underdogs like Joey Wheeler!"
"There are a few problems with that Yuma," Kotori told him. The boy tilted his head in confusion. "First of all how do expect us to sneak away from home to enter the tournament?" A cloud of gloom hung over Yuma's head. "Also, Joey Wheeler was legally put into the tournament and lost to one of the guys who snuck in. So the analogy isn't really that good."
Yuma sunk his head low as his cloud of gloom stormed above him. This was very disappointing.
"All right everyone, take your seats," Ukyo-sensei said. "Now, is everyone ready for the test?"
Yuma smacked his head into the desk and moaned out of pain and forgetting to study. "Today just keeps getting worse and worse!"
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After the "Waking up and getting to school early" apocalypse, things were getting back to normal. In other words, Yuma was making a mad dash to school. He was going to be late again. Even though he was early yesterday, he'd still get detention if he was late today.
Yuma jumped down a set of stairs and nearly fell in the process. He managed to recover quickly and regained his speed. If he kept up this pace he'd make it to school in just enough time. However, that is by the chance no more obstacle come in his way.
Yuma closed his eyes in hope that it would give him more speed. At first, it seemed to be working. The problem was that Yuma couldn't see where he was going. Since he couldn't see anything, Yuma hit something like a brick wall.
"Oww," Yuma said. He opened his eyes to make sure he didn't actually hit a brick wall. Thankfully, he didn't hit a brick wall, but instead a person who could potentially erase him off of the face of the earth and no one would ever find him.
The boy Yuma ran into rubbed the back of his head. He chuckled. "Hey, mind opening your eyes when you run that fast again? It's usually the courtesy to warm someone in your way when you can't stop."
Yuma's eyes widened. He stared intensely at the boy, who felt very uncomfortable in return. Yuma scanned the boy up and down to make sure he had the right person in his mind. The light, dusty purple hair, the onyx eyes, pale skin, and he even wore his trademark red suit (white shirt, black tie and all).
"Y-you're Peg-" Yuma began to shout before his mouth was covered by the boy.
"Shhh. I don't want to drag any attention to myself," the boy said. He scanned the area carefully making sure no one else was around. The boy sighed and removed his hand from Yuma's mouth. He extended his hand toward Yuma. "I'm Max Pegasus. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Yuma stared at the boy's hand for a moment to make sure it was real. The son of Maximillion Pegasus was really in front of him right now! Yuma grabbed Max's hand and shook in violently.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to run into you since you're probably so busy and everything!" Yuma apologized. "Ahh, let me help you up!"
Yuma hopped up from the ground and yanked Max up. He wasn't ready for that to happen and almost fell over again. Thankfully, Yuma caught him.
"Eheh, sorry about that again!" Yuma said.
Max chuckled. "It's no problem! Besides, I'm kinda of used to being struck down."
Yuma blinked twice. "What do you mean by that?"
Max nervously laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Well, I always manage to get struck down by all of the ladies."
"Whaaa? But you're you!" Yuma said in shock. "Talk about bad luck, but I don't believe those words one bit." Yuma his arm on Max like a rest. "Come on, you must be choosing the wrong girls. Am I right or am I right?"
"I suppose you're right. That's what Arishia always tells me at least," Max replied.
"Wait, Arishia? As in Kaiba Arishia?" Yuma asked with excitement.
"The one and only," Max said with a smile. "She should be around here… somewhere… Haha, I'm not quite sure where she went off to. She told me she was trying to find something. Or was it someone?" Max sighed. "I'm not really sure. She just kinda ran off shouting something about finding. That's all I honestly remember."
"Awww, I was hoping I'd get to meet her too!" Yuma whined. "It would've been so cool to meet two dueling legends in the same day!"
"Dueling legend?" Max repeated in English. "Oh no, that's not me. Just Arishia, and basically her entire family and most of the people she knows, but not me."
"What? Are you kidding me? You have to be a great duelist! Didn't your dad create the game?" Yuma said.
"Yes, Dad's the one who created the game. He's one of the best duelists I've ever seen, but I'm only his son," Max stated.
"But didn't you inherit any of that dueling spirit from him?" Yuma asked.
"I'm his adoptive son. I didn't inherit a thing from him," Max told Yuma.
"I'm calling bull on that," Yuma said. "You guys may not be related, but you might as well be. You look a lot like him, you dress like him, you might as well be designing cards you two are so similar!"
"I actually do design Duel Monsters cards." Yuma laughed nervously. Maybe he should've listened during class when dueling was actually the subject matter. "You are right though. Dad and I have a lot in common. If my eyes were brown you might as well say I was his biological offspring. But still, I'm a bad duelist!"
"Shut up!" Max's eyes widened as he heard Yuma yell. "I'm not gonna listen to you talk about yourself like that! Do you have a Duel Disk on you?"
"Yeah, bu-"
"How about a deck and a D-Gazer?"
"Of course, at all times. Wha-"
"My name is Tsukumo Yuma! Let's duel!"
"What?!"
"You heard me!" Yuma ran away from Max to set the field. He threw his D-Gazer in the air. "D-Gazer, set!"
"I guess so," Max said with a sigh and set his own black-rimmed D-Gazer. Numbers from the programs flew across the white lens as the duel settings activated.
"Duel Disk, set!" Yuma yelled and, as he said, set his Duel Disk. Max followed his lead.
"Wow! You're Duel Disk is so cool!" Yuma said noting the deviation of design from the standard model. The frame of the Duel Disk was a thick black line that looked like a picture frame around a white canvas. The only art on the canvas a unique black M.
"It's a custom model. Anyone can get one," Max told Yuma
"Really? That's so cool!"
"Can we just get this over with? I'm just gonna lose."
Yuma pouted for a moment. "Fine."
"Duel!"
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A/N: I'm so excited for this! I've wanted to write this story for a long time, but I kept putting it off. However, since Zexal is getting so far into everything I decided to start now. In short, this is my little rendition of Zexal, but I promise not to follow the original plot exactly.
Also, the next chapter is my first duel! Please, feel free to point out any major mistakes within the duel. I only know how to duel from the show and a quick glance at the rules.
Right now, this is taking place before the World Duel Carnival which means Yuma can't duel that well. Don't be mad if he loses any duels!
Leave a review and tell me how you think this will go! Tsukumo Yuma vs. Max Pegasus, who will win?
I hope you all enjoyed!