"He has brought chaos to our most beautiful creation."

"Lock him away and never set him free."

"But what if he, with such terrible power, is able to overcome our own?"

"Grant them the chance to save themselves. Their fates will be the same as ours."

"SHIO!" a masculine and impatient voice boomed from between the wooden floorboards. It, along with the first glimpses of the morning light, wriggled its way through the entirely-too large cracks among the planks that comprised the foundation of the building's second story. The upstairs consisted of only a single room, whose various paintings and knick knacks injected an atmosphere of droll appeasement during the daytime, but currently remained obscured by the shadows. Along the floor was scattered an uncountable number of small pieces of paper, each of which would proudly display a different work of fantastical art, if only the candles had not been reduced to mere puddles of wax the night before.

Somewhere among all the undisturbed parchment, in the center of the room, lay a jumbled assortment of blankets with a single brown-cased pillow approximately 3 feet away. Amid the chaotic sleeping arrangement lay the equally disorganized human responsible for the mess, a boy no more than fifteen turned flat on his stomach, long, brown hair fallen around his head like a wet mop. The sound of an angry man shouting crept delicately into his dormant brain, going unprocessed for more than a few seconds, before a sudden jolt of lightning sprung it alive again. The sudden impulses surging through the boy's body shot him straight off the floor and onto his feet- and back onto the floor again after his head made an unexpected collision with the low ceiling.

"Ah!" the boy stumbled back onto his feet, rubbing his head where it had run into the crossbeam. No blood, could've been worse, he optimistically consoled himself.

"There you are!" came the voice from downstairs again. "It's about time you got your lazy butt out of bed!"

The boy stumbled up and began to prepare to go downstairs, but as he frantically ran to where his clothes were lazily strewn-about, his foot felt something other than splintery wood. He looked down, and suddenly remembered what he had been up all night doing. "Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap!" he muttered to himself, as he crawled around the floor of his room, shoving each piece of paper into his- he had no pockets, or pants for that matter! He set his collection down on the floor and ran back over to his clothes. So many thoughts were running through his head, each idea shouting over the others in an attempt to get the boy's attention, but the most urgent was putting on pants. He finally slipped on his baggy burlap trousers, tied a rope around his waist to keep them in place, and immediately lunged back to where he stacked the old, stained papers he had collected so desperately, accidentally knocking them over in the process, scattering them back around the floor. He needed those papers, but he didn't have time to pick them up all over again- his dad would know something was wrong and come upstairs. He needed an excuse...

The boy hobbled slowly down the stairs, a feat made excessively difficult by the fact that the stairs more closely resembled a ladder than a set of traditional steps. His hand gently rubbed his head where it had been violently struck by the aggressive ceiling- or at least that's what he wanted his father to believe. He made his way towards one of the other three rooms in the house- the kitchen. This room, like the entire building, was constructed from uneven wooden beams, but the floor remained strong enough to support the weight of all the shelves, pots, cauldrons, and furniture. The marvels of Mizumuran engineering never ceased to amaze him- despite residing so close to the Mainland, their culture and architectural style had been minimally influenced by their surroundings. Sometimes he wondered how a lot of these structures were possible, but he had lived his entire life trusting the integrity of his village's construction, and it hadn't gotten him killed yet.

When he reached the kitchen, his father was facing away from him towards the round mahogany table in the center of the room.

Two chairs, the boy noticed for what must have been the three hundredth time in the past year.

His father stood before him, a giant of a man dressed sparingly but heavily. Accommodating cloth trousers littered with uncountable pockets covered his hard-working legs, held up by a rope around his waist. Adorning the man's muscular torso was a plain beige cotton blend, unmatching with the pants, but sufficient enough to keep his appearance modest and unoffending. His unkempt, brown hair twirled as the man's square head turned to face the boy.

"What the hell are you doing in my house without a shirt?" his father barked, his temper outwardly nearing the end of a short fuse.

"What?" the boy phonily inquired, dropping his eyes to his own bare chest, just to sell the lie. He let a shocked expression form on his face before settling into the embarrassment. "Sorry, I'm really tired and I hit my head getting up…" At least that much is true, he thought.

"Up all night preparing for your first real day as a fisherman?" The look of anger twisted into an amicable, yet condescending grin. "You know, Shio, tiring yourself out makes you more likely to get pulled into the sea by a big ol' sturgeon! And I don't want everybody in the village to talk about Mr. Furo as the one whose son became the first to get fished from his boat!"

Shio's father reached out and grabbed his son's head in the bend of his arm, playfully pulling the boy into his chest. The two of them laughed hardily, until it actually began to hurt. Shio knew his father was only joking, but a cold shock surged through his body when his mind processed the empty threat he had just heard- his father had just admitted how dangerous fishing could be; also, he barely knew what a sturgeon was. Then he remembered the decision he had finally made the previous night, and none of his dad's water talk mattered anymore.

"I didn't mean to stay up," Shio lied. "It's just so hard to fall asleep up there on the hard floor." Truthfully, he was used to sleeping on the floor, but it never did suit him very well.

"I let you live in my workshop not because I want you to be comfortable, but because I have a responsibility to make sure you are taken care of!"

"Well, I wouldn't really call it living. It's really small, and the blankets don't make it any softer, and sometimes my foot gets stuck between the floorboards."

"A fisherman never complains about the mood of the ocean! It is only when he tames it does it ever settle," his father scolded.

Shio rubbed the back of his head, trying not to seem like he was talking back. "Couldn't you just get me a real bed?"

His father turned away and shrugged. "Well I hear the ocean is very inviting this time of year, why don't you go check it out?" The man looked back before throwing his large hands in the air, then leaning back into Shio's face. "You wouldn't want to get on its bad side, would you?"

"Okay, okay, sorry," Shio conceded, tilting his head downwards, shortly afterwards recalling that he was still pretending to listen to his father's instructions. Gotta sell this, he thought. "Wait, are you trying to scare me before my first day with that sturgeon thing?" To be truthful, however, Shio was scared. The thought of being out on the open sea with nothing but water in sight was one of the most terrifying things he could imagine, despite the fact that he had experienced it countless times. Nobody can predict everything that could be lurking beneath, and that makes preparing nigh-impossible.

"There's nothing wrong with being brutally honest, Shio. That's why I'm such a respected member of the Mizumura Fishing Union!" retorted Shio's father, pounding his puffed-out chest triumphantly.

Shio slumped over, visibly exhausted from the mere mention of his father's work. Please don't start talking about your fishing union, he begged silently. His father had a tendency to share his life's accomplishments with every opportunity he recognized, something Shio had witnessed first-hand on numerous occasions and would do almost anything not to hear again. At risk of subjecting himself to the horrors of his dad's life story, Shio apologized again for forgetting his shirt, and hobbled- climbed- slowly back up the poor excuse for a staircase. As he ascended to the second floor, he took extra time to exaggerate the amount of painstaking effort he had to exert in order to make it all the way back to where his morning had just begun. The more lethargic he looked in front of his father now, the less suspicion he would arouse when he took longer than expected to simply put on a shirt.

Once he finally made it to the top of the stair-ladder, he promptly pulled the shirt he had previously set aside over his head before doing anything else, just in case he had to leave before he finished cleaning up. If he had a mirror, he would have seen just how uninteresting he looked in the rugged, tan getup that was comfortably draped across his torso. He did, however, notice that the light had seeped into his father's workshop remarkably quickly- he had only spent a few minutes downstairs, and the various fishing rods and tackle boxes the fisherman had spent the years collecting were already beginning to emerge from their own slumber and start their busy days of sitting on the wall. Shio then did his best to quickly pick up the scattered pieces of paper without making much sound on the floor. If his dad heard him running around, his cover would be completely blown.

"Thirty-four, thirty-five," he counted as he collected each sheet from the floor, not paying attention to which was which. "Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine…" Something was wrong. He knew there were supposed to be forty sheets, but there was nothing left on the floor. He quickly circled around the room one more time to make sure he hadn't simply overlooked the remaining one, but his efforts proved fruitless. Disappointed, but not wanting to set off his father's internal lie detector, Shio did his best to put on a neutral face as he returned to the first floor of his house. What if losing that one means I'm disobeying my dad for nothing? he worried silently. He began to run through hypothetical scenarios in his head to reassure himself that everything would be okay, but he was cut short by his father's unshaken voice.

"Well it looks like somebody figured out how to get dressed!" the man scolded again as he set the final bowl down on the kitchen table. The floor creaked as Shio made his way to the chair opposite of where his father had just taken his seat. He looked down at the bowl in front of him- fish soup. What a surprise... At least it isn't just broth this time, he consoled himself.

As the two ate their soup, Mr. Furo began to give Shio advice for his first day- general fishing tips, ways to stay safe, and the best methods for kissing up to his master. Of course, Shio's brain registered none of this incoming information, because he was too focused on remembering the directions he had received the previous day. When he finished eating, he took his bowl over to a table next to the wall- he would wash it later. As he turned around to leave, his father stood up from his seat to offer one last piece of advice.

"And don't cut yourself on any spears, ya hear? You don't want to attract sharks... when you fall in!"

Very funny, Dad.

He made his way to the front- and only- door of the house and said one final goodbye to his father. As he stepped into the open air, he was greeted with the familiar sight of his home village.

The instant he crossed the threshold, a short gust of refreshing highwind began to dance on his face as it ran down the cliffside to which several wooden balconies and bridges were anchored. The port town of Mizumura made itself in fishing, and the dirt streets that narrowly squeezed between buildings and river straits certainly showed it. Always bustling and noisy, the market area above which Shio resided served as the de-facto center of town, where fishermen and farmer alike congregated to sell and auction off their products. Hanging from the rock face opposite that of Shio's were more buildings just like his own home, connected by overpasses, enhanced with ornate lights made from thinned-out dried fruit skins and stuffed with candles. This method of decoration seemed a bit primitive, even to the residents, but hanging on to the remnants of traditionalism pleased them, so they never longed for an upgrade.

Shio hurried down the series of stairs and ladders, expertly jumping levels and ducking under railings as he had done countless times before. He reached the street in a matter of seconds, but none of the people took notice to the boy's grand entrance, for it was nothing strange for an energetic youngster to hurl himself down to the ground as quickly as possible in an attempt to beat another there. This time was different, though. This time, Shio was not racing with anyone. He was simply eager to reach his destination.

As he made his way through the market square that spanned both sides of the river, as well as the wide, wooden, raft-like bridge created for the sole purpose of the market's expansion, Shio received not a single passing glance from the busy crowd of tanned inhabitants- too enthralled by the economic wonderland of pottery and giant fish to notice their leader's son, no doubt. As usual, there seemed to be an even split among those who wore clothes comprised of modern blends and those who preferred more traditional woolen gowns and leather sashes- a testament to Mizumura's cultural combination of its contemporary surroundings and the customs that built the village as an indigenous society.

Shio always understood why people held onto the past, but still couldn't help but question those who considered modernized Mizumurans traitors to their own kind. His father, as the village head, always refused to reveal any partisan affiliation in order to maintain his relationship with the population, but Shio had been able to infer that the man most likely sided with the traditionalists more often than not. Perhaps it was that sense of traditionalism that drove his desire for his son to take up fishing. No, of course, thought Shio, there's no doubt at all.

Past the marketplace was a steep cliff face where a beautiful waterfall reflected the light of the setting sun each evening. It emptied not directly into the ocean, but instead into a shallow lagoon in which many ceremonies and recreations regularly took place. Farther, just beyond the frequently-flooded embankment, the vast ocean spanned into the horizon, out into the world unknown.

Shio gazed off into the endless expanse of blue. The lack of waves undulating across the surface kept the waters perfectly still to the point where Shio had to look closely to ensure he was not actually staring at an incredibly-well-woven blue rug. The absolute tranquility deprived him of his senses for a brief, motionless moment, almost making him forget how terrifying the ocean was, until a wind suddenly rushed in from the sea. A heavy wind! A wind that almost knocked Shio off his feet! A supernatural wind. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, into the howling gale that seemed intent on overpowering the boy. Shielding his face with his arms, palms reaching out as if telling the air to stop what it was doing, Shio planted his feet and simply waited- there was nothing else to be done. Eventually, after a few extra-long seconds, it stopped.

Shio regained his balance and looked over his shoulder to assess the damage of the market behind him. He did not want to be the next head of the village, but some lessons from his training had become habitual. Miraculously though, nothing had been knocked over. All the giant fish were hanging just as lifelessly as before, all the pottery remained in-tact on the tables, and most curiously, nobody seemed confused or bothered at all. Did they not notice that?, he could only wonder.

He pondered for several moments before remembering that he had no time to sit around and think about what had just happened. Shaking the thought from his mind, he ran from the vista, farther from the market, until he reached a narrow slope that ran up the side of Mizumura's gargantuan outer wall on the half opposite of his home. This was the back passageway out of the village and into the mainland of Hondo.

It took him a good half hour of crossing the great grass plateau before he spotted buildings in the distance. He could see the crude dirt trail end up ahead as it met the start of a paved road. This looks like the right place, Shio thought, pulling a note from his pocket. 'Our paths will cross where the paths cross,' it read. This guy thinks he's really something, doesn't he? Then, as if responding to Shio's thought, someone interjected.

"There you are! I thought you were just gonna ditch me!"

Shio turned sharply to face the impatient cockney voice, but he could not see anybody nearby. Looking all around, only tall, yellow grass, the path, and the road were in sight. After a few seconds, it came again.

"Down here!"

Shio turned his head again, this time towards the ground on his left. He still, briefly, did not see the person to whom the voice belonged, until he spotted a patch of grass that was rustling more violently than the rest. Finally, there stood a boy whose expression resembled that of a mother who had just witnessed her child eating a cookie after being told not to four times.

"Sorry I'm late!" Shio apologized. "My dad almost saw me carrying these out of the house," he said, pulling the papers from his pocket, "and then he wanted to talk to me about-"

"It's alright," the other boy interrupted. "I'm just messin' with you. Enjoying the weather, ya'know?" His pale face formed a smug grin as the orange light of the rising sun reflected off his bleach-blonde hair. Longer than wide, and wider than none, his entire frame seemed to fit in among the tall blades of grass in which he had been lying only moments before.

It's a good thing I met him outside the town, thought Shio. He could NOT blend in with us at all! And he was right. In a word, the most fitting description he found was "shiny." The boy's skin tone alone would have been enough to draw vexed glares from every resident of the village. Not to mention his blinding hair color and weird mixed-blend clothing. Sneaking around with him would have been about as discreet as setting the market on fire, which was another thing Shio would never do.

"Well let's not waste time standing around getting acquainted," the foreigner suggested. "We can do that while we walk."

Shio complied, and the two stepped onto the road, and began their journey towards the town.

"Your name was what again?" the guy asked.

"Shio, and you were…?"

"Hoseki."

"Okay, thanks." Thanks? Who says thanks to that?

"Uh, yeah mate," he responded, mildly perplexed, before deciding to change the subject. "So what exactly were you hoping to accomplish with us?"

Oh jeez, this is an interview? Shio thought, but he managed to come up with a pretty good answer. "Well, over the years I've overheard a lot of conversations around the village. Some of the modernists who visit the mainland used to talk about all the cool things they saw during their trips."

"Modernists?" Hoseki interrupted.

"Oh yeah. My village is pretty split between people who want to assimilate with the mainland and people who want to keep to ourselves. The modernists think we should start making ourselves more like you guys- and they dress like that too. They buy clothes from the towns up north and everything. The traditionalists think we should keep doing what we've been doing for centuries."

Hoseki ran his eyes up and down Shio's clothing. "So are you a traditionalist?"

"You think I'd be walking with you right now if I was?" They laughed. "My dad says I'm not supposed to take sides. That's why I wear this. And I kinda have to listen to him since he's- well, not only my dad- he's also our chief."

"Oh wow! Your dad runs the place? What does he think about all that?"

"Publicly? He tries to ignore it altogether. He can't keep doing it forever though. Eventually he's gonna have to pick a side, so I don't know where we're gonna end up. I try not to worry about it."

"Not worry about it? But if he's the chief, doesn't that mean you're gonna replace him one day?"
"Don't remind me." They laughed again. Several seconds passed in which neither boy thought of anything to say, until Hoseki remembered his previous question.

"Oh yeah, you never finished telling me about why you're here."

"Oh yeah, that's right. Well..." Shio trailed off.

"Well…?"

"I've heard so many stories about what goes on outside my village, but honestly, none of them made it seem like the outside world had anything to offer me. But…" He paused. Hoseki motioned him to continue. "...but one time, one of the fishermen who had come back from one of your towns told us about a performance he saw while he was there."

Hoseki laughed at 'one of your towns' but nevertheless continued the conversation. "A Duel?"

"Yeah, a Duel. But the way he described it- the costumes, the excitement, the uncertainty of what was gonna happen next- I had never heard of anything like that before. I was like... an angelfish hearing about the deep trenches for the first time!"

Hoseki didn't know how to respond to that.

"Oh, sorry. I should try to stay away from the fishing metaphors."

"Well, technically, it's a simile," Hoseki mumbled.

"A what?"

"Nevermind... So you decided to give dueling a shot, huh?"

"Yeah, and I can't believe I actually got a chance to do it! But to be honest, I'm pretty worried that everyone is gonna be way better than me. I mean you've been a duelist for how long? You'd probably crush me."

"Well," Hoseki grinned, tickled by Shio's compliment, "that is true." Shio gave him a strange look after he stopped talking for several seconds, lost in self-centered thought. Hoseki shook himself awake. "But I'm not really one of the duelists. I'm a recruiter."

Shio zoned out for a several minutes, and it seemed his new acquaintance was content to walk in silence as well. He could barely make out some details of the buildings in the distance before either spoke again, but he eventually had something to say. "So what does a recruiter do anyway?" he inquired. "I mean, I get that you recruit people, but that can't be it, right? I mean, how do you find people in Hondo of all places?"

"Well it's my job to go out to different areas and scout around, find talented duelists, assess their abilities, and hopefully get them accepted by the League."

Shio was flattered… for about half a second. Then he realized something. "Wait, but I've never dueled before. Why are you bringing ME in?" Hoseki winced. He knew this question was coming but had been trying to avoid it.

"Well, uhm, we've had a pretty rough season. Let's just leave it at that."

As they approached the outskirts of the town, Shio began to feel a bit like an angelfish in a deep trench, and the feeling only strengthened when they entered the city. All around him stood buildings, but not ones like he had seen before. Perfectly straight walls with no signs of wear, triangular paneled roofs, glass windows. Nothing looked like it creaked at all. He could only wonder what the floors inside them looked like! And the furniture! He observed all the people walking around the town as he did, in and out of buildings just like the market kiosks back home, but each person was wearing something totally unique and going quickly past one-another, barely making eye contact. That's kinda rude, he thought as a kid bumped into him. He watched a woman he could only assume to be a tailor enter a large brick building with magnificent white dresses on display in the window as his mind was continuously assaulted with questions. How do they make their clothes? These houses are huge! How big are their families? Where is the market? What kind of fish racks do they use? No, forget that last one.

Hoseki, noticing Shio's piscine expression, tried to provide some relief. "Yeah, it's not the nicest part of Hondo, sorry." Before Shio could respond, they arrived at their destination. "Here we are." Before them stood a structure so grand in both size and presentation that Shio felt ashamed for being too distracted to notice it. Its walls were made entirely of glass panels interspersed with curved metal arches that spanned all three stories and then some. Inside, Shio could already see wondrously jagged grey balconies, no doubt fitted with the same blue carpet that lined the floor of the bottom level. This was the place that fisherman had told him about, the Theatre. Hoseki walked up and grabbed the front door's metal handle. "Yeah this town has a thing for the arts. That's why this building looks so nice," he said, before politely instructing Shio to enter.

Wow, he thought, taking his first step into the building. It even smelled pristine and expensive. All the walls were sleek and shiny, with screens adorning several of the walls near large, finished wooden doors. Hoseki caught up and began walking briskly in front of Shio, leading him to their next location. I'll have to explore it another time, I guess.

"You still got your cards?" Hoseki asked.

"Yeah!" Shio excitedly replied, pulling the papers from his pocket. He was beyond ready to actually get to use the things he had designed.

"Good, I'm gonna introduce you to Sheila. She works the Card Verification desk. She can hook you up with a full deck for free as long as you're an auditionee and have the whole thing ready."

"Really? That's amazing!"
"Yeah, just don't be too… enthusiastic. She's not the most approachable person."

"Hoseki!" croaked a supposedly-feminine voice from across the hallway. The two got close enough to the counter whose sign read "Card Verification" for Shio to see a fair-skinned woman with long-dark hair resting her head on her fist. "You finally found a duelist, huh?"

"Very funny Sheila, but you know I'm the best recruiter you've ever met."

"In two years of working here, you've scouted literally one duelist ever," she bluntly retorted with raised eyebrows, nose upturned.

Hoseki, exposed and panicked, quickly glanced at Shio, who was silently chuckling but biting his lips together to hide his amusement.

"Uh, that may be true," Hoseki regained himself, "But do you remember who that duelist was, right?"

"Just gimme the cards, kid," she said, changing her focus to Shio. He reached into his pocket and grabbed the sheets he had prepared, excitedly handing them to her. She snatched them out of his hand and quickly thumbed through them, forming a confused expression as she finished. She took a second pass, and this time, Shio could see her head bob with each card she passed as her mouth silently counted them. "Sorry, you're missing one."

Crap! I knew this would happen! "Well that shouldn't be a problem, right? It's just one." He was more worried about his father finding his missing card than his duel being messed up... that is, until he turned to Hoseki, who was biting his lip.

"Sorry," Sheila spoke with a hint of sympathy, "We validate decks, and you only have thirty-nine cards here."

"I know I made all forty of them!" Shio pleaded. "Can't you just do the thirty-nine I have?"

"Sorry kid," Sheila replied, her long hair draped over the hand that anxiously rubbed her forehead, "If you want us to validate your cards, you're gonna have to get the full deck bundle or pay for each of them on their own. Those are your options."

"But that's ridiculous!" Shio protested.

"I know, but I can't bend the rules."

Shio looked expectantly at Hoskei, whose face indicated he did not want to participate in this discussion. "I agreed to take you to the audition, not to pay for your deck," he said, waving his hands in front of him.

Shio sighed. "Well can't I just play without the last card? That would just put me at a disadvantage anyway, right?"

Hoseki laughed as the side of his mouth curled. "On the contrary, you'd be surprised what people would do to play with only thirty-nine cards!"

Shio let out a frustrated groan. He wasn't about to let this be what stopped him. "Well is there anything I can do?"

"Well…" Hoseki started, as Shio perked up. "You could use a lender deck, but you'd be hard-pressed to impress anybody with one of those!"

"Are there any other options?"
"Not really."

"Well then that's what I'll do!" He injected some artificial optimism into his words.

Shio turned towards Sheila, whose eyes were now closed. "I guess I'll just borrow a deck then."

She perked up, revealing a red mark on her face where her hand had been. "Huh, okay. Just a sec." She fumbled around in the back for a few seconds before returning with a slick black plastic box in hand. "Here you go."

Shio held the deck box in both hands as he gazed at it like a mesmerized child. Then, realizing how weird he looked, he shoved it into his oversized pocket. "Thank you," he kindly replied to the woman, who was fast asleep.

"Is she high or something?" Shio asked. "Some people in my village one time-"

"She's been working harder than usual for the past few weeks." Hoseki gestured Shio to walk with him. "Cut her some slack."

Hoseki guided Shio to a small meeting room with nothing but blue plastic chairs and a single wood table for him to study his deck. An hour or so passed before the blonde returned to retrieve his new friend.

The boys walked down the hallway until they reached a door that looked so inconspicuous that you almost couldn't miss it. On the front, it simply read, "AUDITIONS". Shio's stomach began to turn as he entered.

The turning became lurching when he saw what awaited him inside. The large square room featured a single pathway down from the center of each wall to the circular stage in its center, presumably where he and Hoseki would be dueling, but that wasn't what bothered him. The surrounding area was filled with quarter-circular rows of velvety chairs, but that wasn't what bothered him. In the middle of the room, above the stage, there was a four-sided box hanging down from the ceiling with status displays and "Turn" and "LP" written above them, but that wasn't what bothered him. What bothered him was around the stage, in the chairs, facing the score box: the people who had gathered to watch the audition.

"You didn't tell me there would be people here!" Shio complained.

"Haha, whoops," Hoseki mused.

"I don't know if I can do this."

"Look, if you wanna be a professional, you're gonna hafta get used to being in front of an audience. That's what this business is all about."

Shio sighed and kept walking. When he reached the stage, Hoseki motioned him to acknowledge three overdressed individuals in the front row. Shio could barely see them, but politely- and nervously- introduced himself. The one on the left, a woman, said something to him that he didn't hear before Hoseki grabbed him by the arm.

"You ready?"

"Okay," he said, and the two took their places at opposite ends of the stage.

The crowd was disappointingly small to Hoseki, but Shio felt as if the entire world had gathered to watch. I can't believe I'm actually here, he thought, barely able to contain his excitement. In truth, his feelings would have escaped if not for the overwhelming amount of attention focused on him, a brand new experience which intimidated the young performer. Shio's hands shook nervously despite his best efforts to control them while the unyielding eyes of his first-ever audience gazed eagerly into his soul, dying to witness the spectacle that was to come.

"Ladies and gentlemen," boomed a man's voice from all around the room. The crowd erupted into the loudest cheers Shio had ever heard at the sound of the announcement. "The Audition Duel! Let's introduce the duelists!"

Shio could barely make out the sound of the intercom over the roar of the crowd. He had witnessed, and participated in, boisterous applause in the past, regularly even- when the fisherman returned from a long voyage or the boat parades passed through the inner channel at solstice, but never in his life had he been right in the center of it. Amid the screams assaulting his ears, he was able to catch the voice say Hoseki's last name- Williams, what a weird name. Anything would do to take his mind off the crowd and calm him down. Deep breaths, he thought.

Shio inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. Soon, the only thing in front of him would be Hoseki and his field of creatures, and that was all that mattered- the next few minutes were going to change his path forever. He pushed the air out through his nostrils and opened his eyes with the widest smile of his life. "Duel!" both boys shouted, as the scoreboard above their heads lit up and the audience around them began to fade out of sight.

Author's note:

All original cards can be downloaded for use in YGOPro (Links beta) from my profile.