Sora and Futoshi stood facing each other, duel disks held high as the rest of The You Show Duel School's junior class watched from the sidelines.
Sora's army of stuffed animals rushed towards Futoshi, reducing his life points to zero in a mess of fluffy claws, horns and teeth. The solid vision was low intensity, but the force of the blows was still enough to make him lose balance and fall flat on his back. It was overkill, to the extent that the word could apply to stuffed animals.
"Good Game," Sora said absently, putting his hands behind his head. He'd won on his second turn.
Tatsuya strode over to Futoshi and offered a hand to pull him up from the ground. Ayu kept her distance by Shuzou, her hot-blooded teacher. Sora was a cute kid most of the time, but sometimes he got kinda...scary.
"Geez, he got me," Futoshi said sheepishly.
"It was a good try." Tatsuya said.
"That's right," Shuzou said in his typical voice, a few notches below a yell. "However, you made several errors during the duel. Could you tell what the biggest one was?"
Futoshi contemplated for a moment. Then he shook his head.
"I see," Shuzou said. "Does anyone else know what Futoshi did wrong?" Tatsuya raised his hand. "Yes, Tatsuya?"
"Futoshi didn't take the opportunity to attack on his turn, even though his monster's attack points were higher."
"Correct."
"Eh?" Futoshi said, confused. "But he had a face-down card. The last time I tried to attack him in a situation like that, he destroyed my monster."
Tatsuya's voice was gentle. "That's true, but your monster got destroyed the next turn anyway. If you had attacked, you would've at least had a chance of destroying Sora's monster, and then he wouldn't have had enough monsters on his next turn to totally deplete your life points."
"Right," Shuzou said. "Forgoing the hot-blooded path of attack on your turn wastes an opportunity! If you're wary of your opponent's traps, that doesn't mean you shouldn't attack. Just be sure to prepare a contingency that leaves you with a workable position even after their traps are sprung."
"Yes sir..."
"It's nothing to get down about, Futoshi! Defeat is just another chance to lift yourself up higher!" Shuzou shot his fist high into the air, as if he were punching at the sun. Futoshi laughed at his teacher's bombasticism.
As Shuzou continued to go over the duel, Sora looked on at the conversation dispassionately.
Maybe he should've just gone to LDS. At least there he would've been able to duel someone half-decent. He'd come here to spend time with Yuya, but instead he was usually left "learning" and playing with these little kids. Sora was generally pretty good at entertaining himself, but even he had his limits. He had to find a way to sweeten things up.
"Ahem," Shuzou coughed, pulling himself back to a (relatively) composed position. "Now that Sora and Futoshi have had their turn to duel, we'll finish our daily duels with Ayu and Tatsuya."
Sora clapped his hands in realization. "Ah, teacher," he said innocently, "is it possible that instead I could duel both Ayu and Tatsuya at once?"
Tatsuya looked somewhat surprised; he wasn't used to such spontaneity. Ayu looked mildly uncomfortable. Shuzou looked excited.
"A two-on-one triangle duel? What a classic! One side improving their teamwork, the other side being pushed to their limit. Fine learning experience. My blood's boiling. I approve."
"Thank you teacher," Sora said, "C'mon you two."
Ayu hesitated a moment, then noticed Tatsuya's determined expression. They exchanged a meaningful look, then moved into their positions.
"I'll try my best," Ayu said.
"I'll make sure to support you," Tatsuya affirmed.
"Great, great." Sora smiled earnestly, flourishing his duel disk. This time he might actually have to try. "Let's have a fun duel."