This fanfic will be using one of the few Romaji spellings for Yuto, Yugo, and (eventually) Yuri. Take note that they are still pronounced that way. Ute is still Yuto, Hyugo is still Yugo. Although they can still be spelled as Yuto and Yugo in Romaji, I choose to stick to what the anime or the Japanese sources say for preference. It also helps distinguish all the Yu's. You'll get used to it eventually.

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A bizarre weather that sent Miami City to a standstill left the newly-formed Lancers to retreat in a warehouse after their first training session today. Reiji had extended his hospitality: free food, electricity, and a nice, warm shower in his mansion, but Shingo was the one to answer the call and the one to reject the offer.

"No, I've got a better idea," said Shingo with a grin. "It's perfect timing."

There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line, where Akaba Reiji must have raised a delicate brow.

"Very well. Inform the others that training will resume tomorrow."

Tired, cold, and hungry, the group was silently conducting their own businesses, trying to dry themselves the best they could and making sure that their cards and disks were not damaged by the water (they were relatively water-proof, so it was more of out of instinct.)

"Yes!" exclaimed Shingo when no light came on when he flipped the switch.

"No power?" came Yuya's voice from somewhere across Shingo. It was almost pitch black inside, with only the faint moonlight through the window turning them to identifiable forms. "Geez. Couldn't have Reiji picked us up? I could see lights from the LDS tower while we were running. We're all going to get sick tonight."

"Stop your whining, Sakaki Yuya. In a real battlefield, we won't have the leisure of calling our parents to pick us up," said Shingo.

Yuya made a strangling noise between protest and surprise, but he conceded. "…that's true."

"Kurosaki, what are you doing?" asked Gongenzaka upon seeing Shun search half-blindly through the crates.

"Trying to find something we can use to keep us warm and dry," said Shun. "But these crates are empty."

"Empty crates?" said Yuya. "What are they even doing here?"

"They're furniture," said Shingo smugly. "It creates an ambiance of old-fashioned – "

Gongenzaka's roar exploded, drowning out the heavy rain and thunder outside. The clattering of pieces of wood followed, accompanied by Yuya's, Shingo's, and, faintly, Selena's, screams.

"MY FURNITURE!"

"Now we have wood," said Gongenzaka as he picked the pieces of Shingo's 'furniture.' "How do we start a fire?"

"Put them around here," said Shun, kneeling at the center of the warehouse. He scanned the faces in the room and stopped at Yuya's. Before he was able to say anything, Tsukikage appeared out of thin air with fist-sized rocks.

"Here."

"Thanks." With Tsukikage's and Gongenzaka's help, Shun was able to arrange a fire ring. He pulled something out of his coat. By the clicking sound, it seemed to be a lighter. After a few tries, a dot of flame appeared, lightning the wood up. A blaze emerged.

"Wow, awesome!" said Yuya, bounding by the fireplace. "Now we can dry our clothes!" He started to pull his shirt off until he noticed the presence of Selena beside him. To his horror, she was following his suit.

"WAIT, SELENA."

"What?" she asked. Thankfully, she stopped before she could take anything off.

Yuya scratched his head nervously. "Er – Maybe we should just stay close to the fire with our clothes on."

Selena frowned. "Why?"

Yuya must have desperately tried to come up with an answer from a hundred of possibilities, but Shun came in to save him. With his trench coat at hand, Shun came over and raised it around Selena like a curtain. "I won't look," he promised, his eyes closed.

Selena gaped at Shun. "What the hell is going on?" Selena peeked past the trench coat and saw Gongenzaka and Shingo already stripped down to their underwear. For some reason, Yuya leaped in her sight and started waving his arms as if to shield them from her eyes. "Why is everyone in this dimension against me taking off my clothes?"

"Some of these people can't be trusted," answered Shun simply.

"HEY!" protested Shingo. "I'll have you know that I am the best gentleman out of everyone here."

"I…see," said Selena. "Well, whatever."

After a few minutes, the group was gathered around the campfire naked. Shun left his trench coat to Selena, who used it as a blanket in front of her body (she insisted for him to take it, but Shun's stubbornness was admirable.) Yuya noticed that Tsukikage was missing and started calling for him, until Gongenzaka told him to stop. Where he disappeared to, no one knows.

They were cold, hungry, and tired. No one spoke a word, focusing on saving their energy for themselves. Selena looked uncomfortable having Shun's trench coat help her keep warm. Gongenzaka looked completely unfazed. Shun had his eyes closed and seemed to be trying to sleep already. Yuya was clearly mourning over the lack of food.

"I have a confession to make," said Shingo with a cool, confident smile. "Akaba Reiji offered to pick us up but I turned him down."

"WHAT?" exclaimed Yuya.

"Man, you really are noisy," said Shingo scathingly before picking up his handsome smile again. "I thought I would do everyone a favor. Have you all forgotten what day it is?"

"Is it your birthday?" asked Yuya.

"No," said Shingo, still smiling.

"Hmm," said Gongenzaka. "The date today would be…"

"April 1st," said Shun, his eyes still closed. "Knowing him, he's talking about April Fools."

"Knowing me?"

Yuya chuckled. "Ahh. That's why! I completely forgot!" He grinned. "Remember last year, Gongenzaka?"

"Hmph. I, the man called Gongenzaka, still do not approve of your antics every April 1st, Yuya."

"What's April Fools?" asked Selena.

"It's a day when you pull pranks on people," answered Yuya. "You make huge announcements to mislead people and shock them, then say, 'April Fools!'"

Shingo chuckled. "No, you're wrong, Yuya." Shingo stood up. "It's an occasion where you spend time with people and create fun and new memories!"

"What?"

"Love, joy, beginnings, friendship, and entertainment. April is the month when Sakura trees blossom with their evanescent beauty. People from all over the world gather to witness the eternal beauty captured within the moment of spring. Ah, it is such the perfect time to have a duel under the shower of pink petals."

"That's true," said Gongenzaka. "There are sensations not even Solid Vision can recreate."

"But what does that have anything to do with April Fools?" asked Yuya.

"Would you stop all this nonsensical chatter?" snarled Shun before Shingo could say anything. "If you've forgotten, we're in the middle of a war! You might have the skills necessary to fight Academia, but if you don't have the right discipline and attitude, then you will be crushed before you could even raise your duel disk!"

Shun's words were enough to make the others go silent, but not Shingo. He placed a hand on his waist and looked at Shun seriously. For Shingo, it was impressive of how regal he looked considering he was naked.

"It really is a good thing that I planned for this occasion," said Shingo. "So that we can fix this attitude of yours before it's too late."

Shun opened his eyes and sent a glare at Shingo with cold anger enough to make him falter. "What did you say?"

Yuya looked like he was about to intervene but Shingo would not let the likes of Shun scare him. He swallowed and continued bravely. He had to admit, he was a hell lot of nervous. He couldn't look at Shun's eyes. Shun had a bird motif going on but he was looking more like a lion that could eat Shingo whole.

"No one's saying it, so I guess I have to," he muttered. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and decided to spit it out of his big mouth. "Look, Kurosaki, no one wants to end up like you."

"Sawatari!" berated Yuya.

"Sawatari, you're going too far!" said Gongenzaka.

Shingo avoided Shun's eyes and looked at Yuya and Gongenzaka's instead. "I'm telling the truth, all right? When do you think was the last time he smiled? Do you want to become someone who's always so sad, serious, and doesn't know how to laugh anymore? Not me!" He looked directly at Yuya. "Yuya, didn't you say you want to make people smile? To do that, you have to be smiling for yourself too. Us entertainers understand that for others to be truly be happy, then our smiles have to be genuine!"

"Yeah, but Kurosaki's in a different situation from us," said Yuya. "I agree with what you mean, but you shouldn't be so hard on Kurosaki. It's not fair."

"That's not what I'm trying to say!" said Shingo angrily. "I'm not so stupid as to treat this like a game all the time! I know the risks! That's why it's all the more important that in moments like this, we try to laugh and have fun. If we don't, we'll forget how to enjoy a good time and go crazy! Like him!"

Gongenzaka glared at him. "And now you're calling Kurosaki crazy – "

"But – damn it, why does everyone always have to be against me!"

"Stop." Kurosaki took a deep breath and sighed. "He's right."

Shingo finally turned to have a look on Kurosaki's expression. He was staring at the embers of the campfire, with the flames reflecting on his eyes as if they were glossing over his soul. At least he seemed to have gotten Shingo's point.

"All the fighting… Out there, all you can think of is to keep on moving forward. You're desperate and you'll do anything to win. To lose is to lose other people, people you love. I realized that while we were busy trying to find a ray of light somewhere, we've forgotten how to create a light of hope on our own."

"Creating a light of hope…" mumbled Yuya. His eyes widened and a smile popped from his face "We can always be the light for each other! Le's do it!" Yuya stood up with Shingo. "Sawatari, what did you have planned for April Fools? Let's have fun!"

Somewhat confused and surprised from Shun's accepted, Shingo seemed suddenly overwhelmed by Yuya's support. He stumbled for a moment but he finally got back into the game.

"It's nothing too grand, but is it quite special! You all would love it!"

Sawatari showed to the group a piece of paper that size of a world map. By one look on it, they already knew what it could be but they had a hard time believing it was for real until Sawatari did tell them that yes, it was a mat to have duels on.

"They're practically extinct because of duel disks. Not even your great grandparents would know what it looked like. Feast your eyes on this super, ultra rare relic of dueling history!"

"Two people have to play on that?" said Selena. "How are we supposed to play it since there are five of us?"

"Do you have more of it, Sawatari?" asked Yuya.

"They're really rare. I only have. We'll just have to take turns."

And so in turns they played. As they did, even more problems but interesting details popped out. The first battle went between Shingo and Shun. Having had training together, the duelists were already familiar with the deck of the others. But with some side decking, some cards were new, and being able to read the description on the card killed some of the surprise factor. Not that Shun or Shingo tried to read them.

"Oh! So that's what you're going to do," commented Selena from behind Shingo, who had already read the effect of his monster.

"What?" said Yuya from behind Shun. "Which card?"

"Stop that!" said Shingo, shooing Yuya away. "I was planning on explaining that later! You gave me away!"

"Oh, sorry," said Selena, putting a hand on her mouth.

Shingo barely won the match. His card-returning effects were a foil against Shun's swarming tactics, but Shun had already considered this and prepared to counter it. Shingo won through the luck of a draw on a pivotal turn.

The next one was a Yuya versus Selena. As soon as Yuya sat down, he already had something to say.

"EHH? Where do I put my Pendulum scales?"

"Just put it at the side like what I did," said Shingo. "Weren't you watching?"

"Oh. Hehe, well, without holograms, explanations kind of go past your head…"

Their match was more riddled with talks and mistakes. Yuya was taking long on managing the cards on the field. Selena was having a similar problem. Since they were taking long on their turns, they cut down a lot of their explanations. Shingo and the others kept asking each other what had happened, distracting Yuya and Selena even more.

In a draw Yuya was betting on, he got a particularly bad card that Shingo burst out, laughing.

Yuya lost against Selena in a mere six turns. Knowing that Yuya had played pretty badly, Selena gave him an advice and told him to picture the field like what she did. The sensation might be different, but the field was the same.

Encouraged by Selena's advice, Yuya challenged Gongenzaka next. The two had a fierce, 20-turn fight that ended in a draw. It was starting to get late, but after witnessing a fight like that, no one suggested to stop. Instead of having a new match though, they spent an hour discussing the match. Selena wanted to recreate the battle. She played as Yuya and Shun played as Gongenzaka. Through recreating the duel, they found a moment when Gongenzaka could have won. Gongenzaka admitted that he, a duelist of Steadfast Dueling, got overwhelmed by Yuya's relentless attacks and didn't see the path to victory.

Somehow, the discussion of the match led to a story when Shun lost a few friends because he kept destroying the Xyz monsters they worked hard on summoning.

"They sound like a bunch of sore losers," commented Selena. "They should accept their defeat graciously."

"Well…I can actually understand that somewhat," said Yuya. "Back then, I couldn't stand losing."

The longer the night went, the more hyper Yuya and Shingo became. The rain became heavier and Yuya and Shingo decided to drown it out by singing. Shingo took Shun's scarf and started pretending like he was Reiji. He put on his pants and rolled them past his ankles and halfway up his shins, which sent the others hollering with Shun even smiling.

"Egao ga soko ni aru kagiri! - Wanna keep on shinin'!"

"Kyukyoku no Pride kakete... WANNA BE THE PERFECT!"

"DONNA TOKI MO SHINJITERU JIBUN NO ASHITA WO…."

Since the heavy rain continued, it was hard to tell what time it was. The group eventually fell asleep.

The rain had stopped by the next morning. When none of his Lancers were answering and were late for the day's training, Reiji personally headed to the warehouse and found his chosen warrior sprawled on the floor without their clothes on.

"Did something happen?" Reiji asked Tsukikage. Tsukikage nodded but that wasn't all. "What is it?"

Tsukikage pulled down the mask on his face, surprising Reiji. The mysterious ninja was smiling.

"April Fools."