Notes: Remember that little boy who appeared at the beginning of one of the mid-fourth season episodes? Met up with Mr. T and multiplied to confront O'Brien, looked eerily like Martin when he was possessed? Yeah, Tsutomu's supposed to be him.

Disclaimer: GX, its characters, and everything else it encompasses do not belong to me.

Encounter

"How long has it been since the last time I had a good duel?"

Tsutomu kicked at a leaf on the road as he trudged on home, doing his best to keep his head down out of habit even though home was just a block away and he wasn't anywhere by school by now. He'd learned to keep at the habit after months of the same thing over and over.

He knew the drill by now: the other boys would think Tsutomu wanted to duel with them and either somebody would pummel him or they would just jeer at him for being a weak duelist until he ran off. He'd been getting a lot of the latter lately.

"Maybe I should just do as everyone says and give up on du—whoa!" He nearly tripped on a cat dashing across the street, which let out a loud yowl aimed at him. Tsutomu quickly backed up in case the cat wanted to take a swipe at him, promptly losing his balance and falling over on his back. "Ah, hey, hey!"

"Oi! Pharaoh!"

Tsutomu looked up, first at the speaker, a young man walking up the street in his direction; then at the cat watching him with a vaguely unsettling attention. Was that supposed to be Pharaoh? The man sure hadn't meant Tsutomu.

"Hey, you. You okay?" the young man asked as he reached Tsutomu. He extended a hand down to him, which Tsutomu took as he stood back up. "Sorry about that. Pharaoh gets like that sometimes. And you might want to check behind you."

"What?" Tsutomu turned around to see that his deck had spilled out of his pocket in the fall. "Oh!" He knelt down again, dropping his backpack on the ground and quickly starting to gather up the cards.

"So you're a duelist, huh?" the young man asked.

Tsutomu didn't answer for some time, instead taking his time to carefully pick up each card, dawdling especially when he reached the last one on the ground, Des Wombat. "Not really," he muttered at last.

"What are those cards for, then?"

"I don't duel much. I…" Tsutomu hesitated for just a second before continuing. "I think I might quit."

The young man was silent. "You're kidding."

"No." Tsutomu made a point of avoiding the young man's eyes as he pocketed his deck. "It's never any fun anyway. I'm too weak."

"You're too weak? No fun? No way! What do you mean?"

"Nobody ever wants to duel me because I'm easy to beat. And when I do duel everyone makes fun of me because I'm so weak."

"That's not right!" The young man raised an arm and clenched his fist, and he appeared genuinely angry. "You're supposed to enjoy duels."

"That's why I might quit." Tsutomu picked up his backpack again and began heading home again. "Why bother?"

"But what about—"

The cat yowled again and the young man glanced at it, startled as if it had talked. Tsutomu took the chance to dash off far enough so he could go the remaining block without having to talk to the young man again.

He didn't get far enough, however, to miss the exasperated complaint as he ran. "Man, and I thought coming to Domino was going to be a break for a few days…"

The next day the young man was there again. "Hey. Let's duel!"

Tsutomu had had enough at this point. "Go away!" he shouted at him, shifting his backpack as he went on with his route home. "I'm only going to lose anyway!"

"And you think that's all there is to dueling?"

Tsutomu ran ahead and around the corner instead of answering him.

The fourth day Tsutomu caved in. "What's your name, anyway?"

That stopped the young man in his tracks for a second, and he laughed sheepishly at his own folly. "Oh! My name's Yuki Judai. Just call me Judai. And what's your name?"

"Watanabe Tsutomu."

They headed to a local duelists' hangout, thankfully for mostly older kids so Tsutomu didn't have to deal with his classmates while they dueled. "I'm staying near this place while I'm here," Judai explained. "It's pretty close, so I thought it was good enough."

The result was as he'd expected: a miserable loss on Tsutomu's part, easily overpowered by the other's deck. "Told you I'd lose," Tsutomu said sullenly.

"Hey, that's not the point!" Judai protested. "Didn't you enjoy dueling at all?"

"Not really."

"Hm." Tsutomu couldn't see why, but Judai was watching his deck instead of his face.

The fifth day Judai was still there. "Hey! Want to duel again?"

"I already dueled you yesterday!" Tsutomu suppressed the urge to just storm away right that moment. "Wasn't once enough? What do you want from me, anyway? Are you like those people they always warn us about at school? I should've told my parents about this yesterday!"

"Hey, hey, don't say that kind of thing!" Judai waved his hands frantically, seeming sincerely hurt by the insinuation. "All right, all right, I'm sorry already!"

Tsutomu went home.

But Judai was there the eighth day, and at that point Tsutomu gave up.

Judai treated him to food following their duel (still a loss), after mourning the lack of fried shrimp rather dramatically for somebody so old. "So I notice you like your Des Wombat a lot, don't you?" he asked. "How'd you get it?"

"Yeah, I guess." Tsutomu tried not to frown, but he didn't get why Judai was asking. "I found it two years ago." It had been the day he'd come back after seeing the man in black and orange in his house, though he didn't mention that part. "It was just on the street, so I picked it up."

"And now you're pretty fond of it, huh?"

"Sort of."

"I have cards like that too." Judai pulled out his deck and shuffled through before removing two cards and showing them to Tsutomu. "Here."

Tsutomu examined them. "Winged Kuriboh," he read, "and Yubel. Hey, I've never seen this one before." He held up the Yubel card.

"Yeah, well, Yubel's special. That one's one of a kind." Judai grinned. "This card and I have been through a lot, and the same goes for me and Winged Kuriboh. All my cards have gotten me through loads of trouble, really."

"Huh." Tsutomu returned to his drink, and that was the end of it.

The ninth day, Tsutomu could have sworn something was up with his Des Wombat. He and Judai had increased their single duel to a couple of them, and since their talk the previous day Tsutomu had been careful to notice when Des Wombat showed up in his hand.

He'd never really noticed it before, but Des Wombat really was a big help when he did duel. Recalling the day's duels and the two before it, as well as some of those from before he'd met Judai, Tsutomu realized he'd never gone a duel without drawing it no matter how short or long the duel was.

What that meant he still had to figure out, and he was going to have to do that part himself. Judai wasn't so bad, but Tsutomu doubted talking to him about how cards behaved was such a good idea.

That night Tsutomu took some time to make some rearrangements in his deck after finishing his homework; and when it was time for bed, he slept with his deck on his nightstand, right where he could see it, with Des Wombat face-up right at the top.

The eleventh day, Judai wasn't hanging around the street near where Tsutomu lived. Wondering if he was late, Tsutomu waited around for a good twenty minutes before hurrying off home.

He wasn't sure why it bothered him so much. It wasn't as if they were good friends or anything. They hadn't even really agreed that they meet here to go duel, since it had all started because Tsutomu didn't have the patience to ignore Judai until he left him alone.

Still, Judai's absence made Tsutomu uneasy enough so that his parents asked him about it during dinner. He lied, saying it was just some lingering nervousness over a major test he'd taken that day and had nothing to do with dueling.

To his relief, they believed him. He'd have hated to try explaining why he was so edgy when he had no idea what the reason was himself.

The twelfth day Judai was back again. "Hey. Sorry I wasn't around yesterday," he said when he saw Tsutomu. "A friend came into this city. We haven't seen each other for a while and we got caught up in a duel, so I lost track of time. By the time I realized I was late, I was really late!" He laughed.

Tsutomu had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that. He wasn't about to tell Judai how he'd freaked out over one day, though he tried to shrug it off nonchalantly instead. "Whatever. Let's just do this."

"You looked pretty happy today," Judai told him later that afternoon as he sipped at a drink. "You really enjoyed those duels today, huh?"

"W-what?" Tsutomu spluttered. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, you liked it!" Judai gave him a teasing grin. "Duels are pretty fun stuff, whether you win or lose. You just gotta have a good opponent, put your all into the duel, and you're set!"

"You can say that." Tsutomu folded his arms, scowling at Judai disbelievingly. "Everyone always makes fun of the loser. 'You lost against that monster?'" he mimicked. "'You're such an idiot! How dumb are you?'"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Judai protested. "Don't say that kind of thing. I know people who others thought were losers, but they stayed strong, dueled their hardest and their best, and now they're all pro duelists!"

"Well, then, they must be actually good."

"You're not that bad, either, Tsutomu! Remember all the duels we had. What about those?"

"Eh?" Tsutomu stared at Judai. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"You mean you didn't notice?" Judai gave him an equally baffled glance. "The duels you and I have had. Didn't you notice you've been getting stronger the last week, as a duelist?"

"Not really." Tsutomu thought back through the week. He recalled taking note of the cards he drew more often and pulling out Des Wombat here and there, and of course a steady stream of losses that (come to think of it) he'd gotten used to, to the point of abandoned any of his previous sulking. Had he really improved in a simple week, though? As much as he tried, Tsutomu wasn't seeing it.

"We can always duel again, if you want to see!"

"No way! I still have homework to do!"

"Come on, what's homework compared to dueling?"

"Something my parents are going to be mad about if I don't do it!"

"Aw, where's the fun in that?"

Tsutomu eventually gave in.

The thirteenth day, Judai managed to get Tsutomu to admit that yes, he was having fun with their duels. Afterwards, Tsutomu vowed never to let Judai near the markers in his backpack again.

The fifteenth day, Sugiyama Rika, one of Tsutomu's classmates, came up to him at school during a break. "How do you know that guy?" she asked.

"W-what guy? A-and what, do you mean one of our classmates?" As far as Tsutomu knew nobody here had any idea what he'd been doing the past two weeks; the older kids there tended to discourage his classmates from going, and even Tsutomu had gotten a few midget remarks from older teens while dueling with Judai.

Sugiyama sighed in exasperation. "I mean the guy wearing the Duel Academy uniform. The one I saw you with the other day in the street." Sugiyama lived in the same area Tsutomu did. "The one who was talking to Johan Andersen like they were best friends at the exhibition on Wednesday?"

"…Johan Andersen?" It took a second for the name's meaning to sink in, but when he did remember Tsutomu nearly dropped his pencil. "He was what?"

"You didn't see? Everyone saw them at the exposition."

"No, I don't go to that kind of thing. And I had other things to do." Wednesday had been the day Judai skipped out on their duels. Now Tsutomu had some idea of what he'd been doing. "But what's he doing, talking to that kind of person?" Tsutomu played around with the pencil, rolling it in his fingers. "He said he knew some pros and he does wear that uniform, but being friends with a pro like that, who isn't even from Japan?" His grip slipped, and he nearly dropped the pencil again. "How does Judai know somebody like that?"

"Wait. Did you say 'Judai'?" Sugiyama asked.

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"I recognize that name. I heard it somewhere." Sugiyama tapped her chin for a second. "I bet he's from the Academy, and I heard it from Takehiko. That means he's either famous at the Academy, or Takehiko knew him." She paused for a second before crying out. "Ah! That's it! Yeah, he was at the Academy."

"And?"

"He was famous, that's for sure. Takehiko brought home all sorts of crazy stories his first year about zombie duelists and the world getting taken over by dark forces. Something like that. And Judai's name was all over it."

"What's that got to do with Johan?"

"Takehiko said he was a transfer student at the Academy, and he came up a lot until the transfers went back to their schools. He and Judai dueled in another exhibition match at the beginning of that year, so I bet that's how they're so familiar with each other."

"So they met each other at school?"

"Sounds like it."

"Huh."

- - -

"Johan?" Judai asked later that day when Tsutomu questioned him. "Yeah, we're friends. Why?"

"Someone saw you with him on Wednesday and she asked me how you knew him. And she says her brother heard of you."

"Me?" Judai pointed to himself, baffled. "Where'd he do that?"

"Duel Academy. He's a student there."

"The Academy, huh?" Judai laughed. "Yeah, come to think of it I guess the first years might still remember me! I bet they still talk about Sho, and Manjoume, and Kenzan…everyone else, too."

Tsutomu decided not to pursue the fact that he'd just named several other famous duelists in the nation and left it at that.

The seventeenth day the usual routine was interrupted by a loud "Hey!" as Judai and Tsutomu set their decks down to duel. Katsuo, Mitsuru, and a couple of other boys Tsutomu recognized from school ran in, panting. "There you are!" Katsuo shouted, pointing a finger at Tsutomu.

"W-what did I do now?" Tsutomu stuttered, flustered by their sudden appearance. "What's the big deal?"

"You! And him!" Katsuo jabbed his finger at Judai, then back at Tsutomu. "What's a guy like you doing with a guy like him, anyway? What, do you think that by dueling an Academy graduate—"

That was when Sugiyama entered the scene too, storming up to Katsuo. "Kurosawa, you idiot!" She shook a fist at him, and for a moment Tsutomu thought she was going to hit him. As it was, she seemed to be barely restraining herself. "I told you, leave him alone! Just because you're jealous and—"

"I'm not jealous!"

"Then why—"

"HEY!"

One of the employees had come in during the argument and stood with his arms folded, glaring at everyone gathered. "Keep it down, all of you, or else we'll have to ask you to leave."

"Sorry about that!" Judai called.

"Hmph." Casting one last glance at them all, the man left.

"Uh, right!" Judai looked stunned for a moment before perking up. Quickly, he took Tsutomu by the shoulders and pushed him towards Katsuo and his friends. "Hey, any of you want to duel him?"

"Duel him? No way! He's no good as a duelist. I want a challenge!"

"Nah, you'd lose," Judai informed him with near-unnatural cheer. "But this guy, he's pretty good. Why not give him a try?"

"You're kidding me!"

"Tell you what." Judai picked up his deck, shuffling it as he spoke. "If you beat him, I'll duel you if you want."

Tsutomu protested, naturally. "Wait, but don't I—"

"Yeah, what are you doing?" Sugiyama demanded. "Don't say that kind of thing without asking!"

"Relax." The bright smile Judai wore eased into a calmer, more confident one. "Don't you think you can win, Tsutomu?"

To tell the truth, he didn't. Academy graduate or not, Judai had beaten him every time. But Tsutomu couldn't say that now, in front of the other boys. Better to at least try than to earn their mockery by chickening out, and he had a feeling he'd disappoint Judai if he did that now. So Tsutomu took a deep breath, nodded, and said, "I'll duel."

Katsuo took out his own deck and set it in place of Judai's. They exchanged decks to shuffle, Tsutomu edgy from apprehensive the whole time. Focus, he told himself. Just focus. Judai had to be a lot tougher than Katsuo, and Tsutomu had been practicing with him for around two weeks now. Even that much experience had to have had some effect on his dueling ability, right?

Still, it wasn't until the duel began and he spotted Des Wombat in his opening hand that Tsutomu loosened up and felt free to breathe normally. "All right!" he declared. "Let's get this started!"

The duel went better than he thought. Katsuo was a simple opponent compared to Judai, one Tsutomu found he could hold his own against now to the displeasure of the boys in the audience. "What are you doing, Katsuo? Beat him down already!" one called, earning an aggravated "Shut up!" from Katsuo.

When Tsutomu glanced aside and saw Judai leaving, however, he faltered for a few turns. Katsuo took the advantage for all it was worth, and before he knew it Tsutomu was cornered. Five hundred Life Points against Katsuo's two thousand and no cards on the field when Katsuo had two monsters.

What to do now? Surveying his hand and Katsuo's victorious smirk, Tsutomu wondered if he really could make it through this duel. Things were looking bad, and he wasn't sure he could last much longer like this. Everyone remaining in the audience seemed to think so, too; the boys jeered, while Sugiyama snapped at them.

This was not going to end well, he thought.

A sound ripped through the air, like a raspy squeal of protest. Tsutomu whipped his head around in search of the source, but found none. It had seemed to come from his hand, actually. Or maybe he was just hearing things.

…And seeing things.

He had not just seen Des Wombat move in its place on its card.

He squinted at the card. There was nothing at first, but then Des Wombat's nose twitched and suddenly, right by his face: Des Wombat. Tsutomu had to stifle a yelp as Des Wombat opened its mouth and let out the same strange squeal he'd just heard, and somehow Tsutomu could hear meaning in it now. He couldn't put it into words right off, but he got the meaning loud and clear.

Do you want to make your big comeback or not? There are still cards you can play! You better not given up now, you—

Clearly Des Wombat wasn't quite as docile as the illustration suggested.

Well?

"Well, are you going to make your move or what?" Katsuo demanded. "We haven't got all day, and you're just staring into space!"

"R-right." Tsutomu directed his attention back to his hand. The squealing subsided, Des Wombat evidently satisfied. Tsutomu closed his eyes for a second, hoping that whatever card lay on the top of his deck would make a difference.

He drew. This card would, if he played everything right.

Here goes nothing, he thought. "First, I play Des Wombat in attack mode!"

- - -

He noticed that Judai was back inside by the time the duel was done, carrying a red and black bag in one hand. "Hey, congratulations. I knew you'd win."

"I guess you did. I still can't win against you, though," Tsutomu joked.

"Haha, it's going to be a while before you can beat me in a duel!"

"Yeah…" Tsutomu scratched his head sheepishly.

An argument erupting ten feet away caught their attention then, and they both watched as Katsuo balled his fist and glared at the other boys. "Hey, I'd like to see you do better!"

"I bet any of us could! What was that kind of dueling?"

"I had him until the end, and then he pulled out that one card out of nowhere!"

"So what?"

"Come on," Judai said, gesturing to Tsutomu to follow; Tsutomu did likewise and motioned to Sugiyama. "Let's go. I think you've had enough of a duel today."

"Wait a minute!" Katsuo ran up at them, his teeth gritted. "I want a rematch!" he barked at Tetsuo. "Come on, I'll show you I can beat you!"

Tsutomu just gave him a long, hard look and turned to follow Judai. "Just forget it, Katsuo. Maybe some other time."

He didn't feel like being a villain.

The eighteenth day, Judai met Tsutomu as usual on his way home, carrying the same bag from the previous day slung over one shoulder. "Hey."

"Hey," Tsutomu greeted him.

"So, uh, Tsutomu." Judai cast a glance aside to his bag. "I'm going."

"What? Why?"

"I've been here long enough already. Don't get me wrong." Judai inclined his head up towards the sky. "Domino's a fun place, and I've had fun memories here. But my job here is done. I have to keep moving—keeping forward. I can't do much if I just stay here, and I'm needed somewhere else."

"Where?"

"Dunno." Judai shrugged. "Could be another city. Could be another country. That's why I need to go and travel around, searching for anybody who needs me. A lot of people never realize they need it, so I have to go to them."

"What is it you're doing anyway?" Tsutomu asked. "And how do you know what you're supposed to do if no one else does?" At that Des Wombat materialized beside him and squealed. Both Judai and Tsutomu watched him before it clicked.

"You—this—"

"Yeah." Two spirits appeared behind Judai: a ball of brown fur with limbs and two big eyes and another, more startling spirit with large, dark wings, a third eye, and an overall more dangerous appearance than the other. Winged Kuriboh and Yubel, Tsutomu realized.

Judai smiled upon seeing them. "I told you, my deck and I have been through a lot together. I have the power to give others who need us the same thing, the same joy in dueling and having fun with your friends, whether they're human or Duel Monster. Not everyone can see the spirits, but every duelist should have that fun. You remember that first day we met?"

The sudden jump in conversation surprised Tsutomu, but he replied, "Yeah."

"One of the reasons I noticed you was because of your cards. They were filling up with darkness."

"Darkness? What?" Tsutomu took out his deck. That would explain why Judai had focused on it so much before, but the talk of darkness and cards baffled him.

"You didn't have a good relationship with them, so the cards don't work with you as well as they could. And I could see you had a lot of potential with your deck. I had to help. And others are going to need the same help, all over the world. So I'm going on a journey, in search of all I can do."

"Then it's goodbye, isn't it?" Tsutomu looked in the direction of the hangout for a second, wondering what he was going to do now. Sugiyama had told him he was welcome to join the group of duelists she hung out with, as long as he didn't mind that they were all girls. Maybe he'd give it a try sometime; it seemed that his time here was up.

Judai interrupted his thoughts. "Oh, come on, don't be so sad! You know what?"

"What?"

"I think—" Judai grinned and brought a hand up, first three fingers extended out and slightly bent. "Gotcha! Those were fun duels we had. I'll definitely return to this city, someday. Maybe it'll be soon, maybe not. But we'll meet again, don't you think?"

Tsutomu stared at Judai's hand for a moment, transfixed and trying to process what Judai had just said. Meet again?

"Yeah," he agreed at least. "I'd like that."

"Then we have a deal!" Judai's grin widened, before raising his arm above his eyes and squinting at the sun. "Well, I better get going now. If I stay all day, I won't be getting anywhere." He started off.

"Goodbye, then," Tsutomu called to his back.

"And see you next time I'm here!"

"Yeah!" Tsutomu lingered for a moment, watching him go, before turning to head home instead. Reaching the end of the block, however, he turned back around to watch again.

Judai had stopped, too. He apparently hadn't noticed Tsutomu, but was talking animatedly to what appeared to be a space of empty air to his left. Was that his spirits, invisible at a distance? Or was it something else, another thing about Judai that Tsutomu hadn't known (and maybe never would)? He wasn't sure.

Judai seemed to be listening now, and his face lit up. He laughed, loudly enough so that Tsutomu could hear it even at this far away. Judai swept out his arm in an emphatic "Come on, let's go!" gesture and said something Tsutomu couldn't quite hear. He laughed again and he was off, running to some destination unknown to Tsutomu and probably Judai until he arrived there, too.

Tsutomu continued on his way home again, still listening to Judai's faint laughter floating in the air.