"Naaaaaassssch~"

Vector had been quietly calling his name for about ten minutes now, while curled up beside him watching television. Of all the days for a heat wave to strike, it had to be that very day, when Ryoga had a duel with Yuma planned for that afternoon after lunch. Neither of the two boys could stand to be outside in that weather, so both of them agreed to hopefully duel the day after, when weather reports said it was expected to pass by then.

His former enemy had been staying with him and Rio, since it was the only place with room, and the younger Kamishiro twin had decided to go out with Kotori. How either of them could stand the heat, Ryoga would never know.

"Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasch-"

"What?" he finally groaned out after the fortieth time Vector had called his former name. He only allowed the ex-Barian to continue calling him that because it was almost physically paining to him to hear "Ryoga" or "Shark" said in Vector's voice.

"I'm booooored," Vector responded, in his usual childish voice. "Let's play a game or somethiiiiiing."

Ryoga sighed. He did have to admit, sitting around and watching television was pretty boring. "What game do you want to play?" he asked.

It took the redhead a bit of a while to think about his answer. "How about Hisoutensoku?"

Hisoutensoku? He had almost forgotten that he had that game downloaded, despite even getting two controllers for multiplayer. It was a fighting game of the Touhou Project, a series of shmups that Rio had introduced him to. Ryoga preferred the shooting games over the fighters, but every now and then he liked to play with his twin when they had some spare time.

"Alright," he said, "I'll go get the game ready."

It took about three minutes for his computer to start up and load the game, and an extra two to find the controllers and plug them in. Getting two chairs, Shark took the P1 controller while Vector settled for the P2 one.

While picking characters, the Water duelist could hear his friend humming along to the character select menu song. He seemed oddly familiar with it, though in Ryoga's memory, he never played against the redhead in this game. He chose the oarfish Iku Nagae, while Vector picked out the boundary youkai, Yukari Yakumo.

'Does he even know how Yukari works in this game?' he wondered to himself. He doubted it.

Selecting the Random Stage option, they landed in the Scarlet Devil Mansion Clock Tower. From then on it was a flurry of button pushing, D-pad clicking, blocking, special attacks, melee attacks, jumping, and everything in between. Iku would shoot orbs of lightning, whip with her sash, and Yukari would flip to the other side of the screen, or block with her barriers. Maybe Vector wasn't as unskilled with the gap youkai as Shark expected.

That was when he tried to pull something new. Ryoga whipped at Vector, and sent Yukari flying off to the other edge of the screen. Coming a bit forward, Iku launched another lightning orb, and Vector took the bait and flipped to the opposite side. Ryoga took that chance to activate the spell card Lightning Sign "Elekiter Dragon Palace," which won him the first round.

"OH YOU MOTHERFUCKER," Vector yelled at the first loss. Shark simply smirked as the second round began. The purple-eyed gap user appeared to be going with a more offensive approach, while all the "discofish," as Vector had dubbed her, could do was jump around and block. Three times Yukari managed to break Iku's block and send her flying. The second player managed to open up all five spell card slots, and the first only opened three. Ryoga had gotten so caught up in the fight that he only then realized what he was supposed to be worrying about.

'Oh God no.' was all that went through his mind when he saw what his opponent was switching to in the spell card zone. However, that moment of distraction was enough for Vector to activate the spell that Ryoga feared most.

Abandoned Line "Aimless Journey to the Abandoned Station."

"OH NO," he screamed, as train horns blared from the speakers with the knockout sound effect. Of all his losses, the Water duelist had never been so angry as with this one. Even in the duel in which he was disqualified from an entire tournament. No, because this time, his opponent was a genuine, honest-to-God piece of fucking shit.

FINAL ROUND!

'Oh it's on this time asshole,' Ryoga promised. Both players went for offense, dashing through the screen instead of blocking attacks. Iku whipped, drilled, fired lightning, while Yukari swatted with her fan, slapped with her parasol, opened gaps to summon kunai, shot patterns of lasers, and continued to cross over to opposite sides of the screen to sneak in attacks from behind. Due to Iku's lack of boundary gimmicks, it was easy to be backed into a corner when blocking, which gave Vector the opportunity to, once again, prepare his spell cards. With all the times he quickly broke Shark's attempts at blocking, the match was instantly his once he activated the spell Border Sign "Quadruple Barrier".

It took every nerve and muscle in Shark's body to not throw the controller at Vector's face, instead causing him to yell in frustration. That simply left the redhead to laugh in triumph.

"NOW YOU KNOW WHAT I DO WHEN YOU'RE GONE!" he called as Ryoga stormed out of the room.