A/N: THIRD ATTEMPT AT WRITING THIS even though there's a self-insert I really want to write. Anyway, this is set before the Zanya vs. Jin match, meaning Akatsuki and Hana have not met yet. In my head at least. And I feel like Akatsuki would be a little known in their section of the school. You know, because of Zanya. The title is a joke by the way, because in the middle of being nagged about writing this me and Zephyr ended up not bothering to type Akatsuki's full name and ended up referring to this as the "Aka Hana" fic and I kept reading it wrong. And since I didn't have a title-
By the way, this is not a pairing. Nope. No matter how it looks this is not a pairing. Also, since I've only watched the English version, I'm going through this The Western Way. As in, no honorifics and names will be written in Western order. Don't like? There's a little red 'x' button on the corner of the window. Or an arrow pointing to the left. Pick one. I've been meaning to try this style for a while now in preparation for when I actually start that Magi fic.
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"Hey! You!"
Akatsuki jumped, scrambling to catch the deck that nearly flew out of his hands, quickly stuffing it into his pocket. He looked around hurriedly, attempting to find the source of the voice.
"Hey! Ninja boy! Over here!"
He looked up...
... And met the very excited eyes of Hanako Mikado, poking her head out the third floor window.
"Wha-"
"Wait right there! Don't move!"
Not understanding his current situation, Akatsuki stood his ground, even as Hanako's head disappeared from the window. The sound of footsteps thundered through the school, audible even though he was outside and this girl must really want to talk to him.
Am I that popular?
He waited a good five minutes - Wow she runs fast - before Hana came barreling out of the school building, running up to him. He waited a moment as she caught her breath(rather quickly, he noted) before asking her if there was something she needed from him.
She looked up excitedly.
"Teach me to Buddyfight!"
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"Um, Big Bro?"
Zanya looked up from his scrolls, meeting Akatsuki's gaze as the boy peeked into his brother's room.
"What is it?" He waved for Akatsuki to come in, and he did so, seating himself next to the older boy. Akatsuki looked hesitant, before speaking.
"Well, I wanted to know if we had any extra cards that I could use to build a deck?" At this, Zanya raised an eyebrow.
"You have a deck, I don't see why you'd need another." He said, turning back to his scroll. Akatsuki nearly panicked, realizing his brother meant to end the conversation there.
"B-But, um, see..." He saw annoyance on Zanya's face now, and decided to get it over with. "A friend of mine wants to learn how to Buddyfight, so I want to make a deck for them!" He said quickly.
There was a short pause, then Zanya sighed, setting the scroll aside and standing up. Akatsuki watched as he moved to the other side of the room, picking up a box that Akatsuki recognized as the one they dumped the cards they didn't need in. He brought it over, changing his sitting position to one he sat in when they were working on Buddyfight related stuff.
"We don't have enough cards to make a proper ninja deck, but we have enough skull warriors and spells so it should work out fine." He said professionally. Akatsuki nodded, though slightly disappointed. He was kind of hoping Hana would get to play ninjas. "A hybrid deck isn't bad to use, and you're doing this for them, so they can't complain."
He sorted through the cards, picking out the ones that were Katana World. He didn't know if Zanya knew how to build a deck for Dragon World or Magic like Hana asked, but he was right, she wouldn't complain because he was doing her a favor.
"Okay!"
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"Aw, it's not Dragon World or Magic World?"
It wasn't exactly a complaint, per se, so much as it was... disappointment?
"We didn't have enough monsters or spells from those worlds to build a usable deck." He said, explaining that they had to combine two sub-worlds in order to make the deck stable. Hana was quiet as he explained, but broke out into a smile when he finished.
"It's okay! Ninjas and skull warriors are cool too!" She said cheerfully, and he felt himself smiling along with her.
"Okay, then let's get started!"
"Yeah!"
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"... so you call this one here, and you can link attack with any of the other monsters on the field." Akatsuki explained, calling Mobile Ninja, Jiraiya to the left. His center was occupied by Cyber Onmyoji, Seimei, and the right was a face down card he placed with Semei's skill. Hana was watching with great interest, clutching her own cards in her hands.
He went through the steps carefully, making sure not to miss anything as he explained the skills of various cards, how to counter them, and how to use impacts.
Then the fourth turn came around and he taught her about counters.
"Then and Helmet Bear follows up in a link attack with Benkei!"
"Then I'll nullify it with Demon Way, Oborogenbu!"
"Aw man!" Hana cried, crossing her arms. "You're too good! How can I do damage if you keep blocking my attacks!"
Akatsuki placed the spell card into his drop zone. They weren't playing in the arena, instead he was teaching her manually in the school yard.
"A Katana World fighter should know how to read their opponents thoroughly and counter in response to what we think they'll do. I didn't block your last attack, and I knew you'd want to finish the match quickly so you would definitely use a link attack. Oborogenbu works on link attacks, so I could block it without losing a card or life point." He said, proud that he remembered what his brother taught him.
Hana made an ohh and looked back at the cards in her hand, a frown on her face.
"So you have to think ahead of what you're opponent might do? Katana World is tough!"
"But that's what makes it so cool!"
They laughed and continued the game, before a thought occured to Akatsuki.
"Hey, Hana?"
"Hm?" She responded, not looking up from her cards.
"Why didn't you ask Gao to teach you? Or his friend to build you a deck?" He couldn't remember the name of the 'friend' but he knew he was on Gao's team. He also knew he was a deck builder, although he and Zanya never had a need for one.
"Because," She said, calling an Irukamaru to the right. "The Mighty Sun Fighter is busy with his matches during the cup, and Baku needs to focus on making his decks. I don't want to bother them."
But I'm in the cup too, even though I'm not playing...
He didn't mind though, he didn't often get to play with kids his age, and Hana was nice. Myabe they could play more after the cup, and he could help her fix her deck more.
It was good to have a friend his age.
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A/N: That's... as far as I could get at this hour with as little sleep as I've been getting. The idea of getting to write that self-insert motivated me to write, that and FAT BIRDS. Uh, I think only one person will get that. Come to think of it, wouldn't this be my debut fic for the Buddyfight fandom? Somehow I'm not too happy with how it turned out... Also, I wanted to add it, but it wouldn't fit anywhere: Zanya was watching the from behind the giant slide, kinda freaking out that Akatsuki was with a girl, but proud of his little bro for remembering everything he taught him. Other than all that, I still wonder how Zanya managed to get past the "three member minimum" for the cup. Do Buddies count?
EDIT: Google lied to me, usable does NOT have a second E.