A/N: Written for
Prompts in Steps Challenge, 3.07 – ficlet, fruit
Diversity Writing Challenge, b49 – write about gaining an understanding for something
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After Our Labour
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The Xyz Dimension was the fruits of their labour. The spoils they'd been promised after this final test: the proof of their worth. In a sense, it was their diploma, just like their Academia coats were their militant stripes on the battlefield. They were proud to have the opportunity to partake in those spoils, relieved to have made it to the front lines and their failure to get into the elites hadn't damaged those chances in any way, and excited to be finally seeing the culmination of their efforts – and the fruit that would be their reward.
They were blinkers over their eyes: metaphorical ones that blinded them to the despair they wrought. The Xyz Dimension was a battlefield, like the ones they'd trained in – simulations, and like the training exercises they'd partaken in with their school-mates. All of them brutal, and rumour told the training of the Elite was even more brutal but only the small fraction of Elite were accompanying them, to target the few strong pillars in that other world.
They, the mass, would engage with the masses of the other world.
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For some of them, the blinkers stayed on throughout their duration in the Xyz Dimension. For some of them, that time in the Xyz Dimension was very short. They were either defeated and spirited back to Duel Academia to be retrained (or so they were told; the successful ones never did see the failures again) or, as the Xyz Dimension began to struggle back with Academia's own technology, they were carded instead. Carded like the thousands of people in the Xyz Dimension they'd carded themselves.
And to the victors went the spoils, all those scattered cards collected and taken back to Duel Academia.
And they compared numbers: how many times they'd pressed the button, how many cards they'd carried back, how many people they'd taken on in a duel at once, how many fleeing feet they'd managed to knock down in a single blast…
And others drowned in the horror of what they'd done when the blinkers snapped and fell off.
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The numbers that returned to the Academia were far less than those who'd gone, but still an impressionable amount. And they got a hero's welcome, no matter their accomplishment or the delight or unease that stirred in their chest.
Those differences became apparent later, when people who'd been comrades and possibly even friends when they left were down each other's throats now. Where others were detaching themselves from the general crowd and sought out secluded corners. When marks began skewering. And when students began attempting to flee to the mainland.
Of course, as far as the ones left behind knew, those who fled were disciplined and then returned to class.
Those who actually ran away were either caught and carded, or tucked away in a little underground school called You Show Duel School.
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Some of them eagerly awaited the emergence of another battlefield. There was talk of it being the Synchro Dimension, but a few whispers drifted about several Elites in the Standard Dimension as well. Either one was still fair game at this unconfirmed stage and it didn't matter so much to them except they got another chance in the battlefield, to prove their mettle and obtain their spoils.
Those were the ones that forgot how their numbers had thinned when they returned, forgot the haunted looks of their comrades – and almost all of those ones had escaped or been carded by then – and forgot the screams filled with horror of those they'd hunted, those they'd chased, those that fought…
Others, mostly those that hadn't gone to the Xyz Dimension at all, knew less but remembered more. Remembered the few who'd cried in corners, who'd snapped at everyone, who'd told them how horrible it was even when nobody else believed them. Some of those figured the next invasion would be a chance for them to see for themselves what the truth was. Others felt they didn't want to know the truth as well.
Some followed the whispers of new escape attempts. Some made it on to the mainland. Some made it all the way to You Show Duel School and that was how the surviving escapees learnt just how far the Academia's invasion would stretch.
And their founder rocked slowly in the corner and wished they'd instead look to fruits of a different kind.