Split
by Liz
(Previously known as "Kiss From a Rose," found here: www. fanfiction dot net /s/2654491/1/Kiss-From-a-Rose, no spaces.)
Prologue
Duel Academy island was a small paradise island in the middle of the ocean, collapsed on all ends by the waves hitting the cliffs and beaches. Salt water sprayed into the air, glittering the clear blue sky. The sun turned the ocean blue to onlookers, a strong heat touching the ground and inviting the early autumn weather to come.
A young man with dark hair and equally dark, quizzical eyes crossed the southern half of the island in a rush, racing as much as his legs could carry him from the main school campus to the dormitories. With the chains of classes broken temporarily, a taste of freedom lingered on the tongues of students, until an hour from then when the bell would ring again, and those horrid chains would pull them back to the campus. The boy came to a halt at a familiar square building, rather small compared to his preferred living conditions, but this was not somewhere he was forced to stay.
From where he stood, he could tell there were no students inside, but he figured this only so, since break usually was accompanied by the siren calls of the cafeteria, beaches, forestry, and duels on different ends of the island. The front steps of the building called to him, inviting to sit, relax, and wait, but he chose to reject this offer. Instead, he turned, and headed towards the strip of beach half a mile away. The second best location he would figure his companions to be.
And his brilliant conclusions never failed him.
Down the grassy hill and across the meadow, the little piece of paradise, complete with warm white sand and foaming blue waves against the rocks, was inhabited by only two students, both dressed in matching scarlet blazers, tossing rocks from the shore into the sea – once in a while, one would skip a few paces away and disappear into a toppling wave. The tallest of the two caught him approaching, and beamed, running his fingers through his unruly brown hair. His smile stretched into his auburn eyes, his hand dropping the stone he was about to throw into the water. The other boy was younger, and smaller, with light blue hair that matched the gaze of the sky, and light gray eyes staring up cautiously behind a pair of round framed glasses. His look of unease relaxed, and he smiled, though not as bold as the older boy.
"I have been looking for you two," Daichi called to them from the top of the hill, making his way towards the sand. A cluster of seaweed stuck out from below the hill, and he avoided it like a decaying corpse on the side of a road. "I was wondering where you were."
"My bad," the brunette boy, Judai, apologized halfhearted. "The water was calling my name."
"Careful with that, now," Daichi warned with a teasing smile. "There's a legend about hearing voices surrounding water. Look up the legend of the Lorelei. You'll see what I mean."
"I'd rather not," Judai narrowed his eyes, challenging his friend, and scooped up the stone he had dropped, only to toss it towards the ocean.
Realizing that the boy would also prefer entertainment over responsibilities, Daichi surrendered to trying to reason, and chose to join them. He picked up a stone buried under soaked sand, and flung it with a flick of the wrist. The stone skipped three times, then plopped into the water without a farewell.
"Why weren't you two in class today?" he asked casually. It wasn't a surprise that they would miss out on class, but he was curious of their excuse this time.
"There was class today?" Judai asked, his light tone masking the seriousness in his words. Daichi paused, then shook his head.
"There's class every day."
"That's news to me." Judai was, of course, joking, but Daichi and Sho exchanged worried glances before taking into account the boy's carefree attitude.
"So how long of a break do we have?" Sho asked, completely ignoring Judai. "Before we have to explain ourselves to Chronos?"
"An hour," Daichi warned them. He nodded towards Judai, oblivious to their part of the conversation. "And he's especially gunning for Judai this time. Not exactly in a good mood to put up with jokes."
"He's never in a joking mood, to be honest," Judai cut in, picking up a colorful seashell from the sand and pocketing it. He then bent down to trace faces in the sand. "I'll deal with him. Don't worry." His smile was assuring enough.
"Any reason why Chronos is in a 'non-joking' mood today?" Sho asked.
Daichi shook his head, giving half a shrug with his hands up. Sho took the message. Things have been relatively quiet on the island for the past few weeks. The only thing of true interest were the typical drama and rumors one would find and know about in a school, especially filled with teenagers. Last week there was a rumor of one of the Ra Yellow male students being caught smoking and drinking in a bathroom. This week it was an Obelisk Blue female student crushing on an Osiris Red student. Each week it was something different – Daichi could've sworn at some point there was a student-teacher relation one floating about the rumor mill. That was never proven to have much merit – proven, that is.
The boys were enjoying the serenity for the time being. It was bothersome, and dull, but needed.
For a good portion of the break, the boys continued to throw things into the ocean, creating a competition to see which one could skip a stone the furthest – surprisingly Sho won – and busting jokes between each other. Daichi, with a rather drier sense of humor compared to the other two, became the target of make of the jokes, seeing not much humor in them.
At some point time was forgotten and lost track of, and when a buzzer went off on Daichi's wrist, he stopped as if someone had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, choking him. He spun to his two friends, and glowered at them, as somehow they managed to get sand all over their school uniforms.
"Goodness," he sighed with frustration. "Chronos is going to have a field day with both of you. Come on, let's get out of here. Break's over."
"Already?" Judai whined impatiently. He was more child than adult at this point. Daichi didn't want to argue, but started on his way back up the hill towards the main walkway leading from the dorm.
"I'm not responsible for you two, but I don't think you'd want to get expelled anytime soon," he warned with an irritated growl.
Without arguing, the boys tailed after him and soon the three were making their way through the forestry and back towards the main campus.
But something was off. A lot of students were heading the opposite way – away from the campus. Particularly, a group of Obelisk Blue female students. Clustered in groups, they past the boys heading towards the beaches and dormitories.
"What's going on?" Judai managed to stop one of the girls. A pretty thing with bouncing red curls and faint freckles over her nose. She smiled back, flirtatious.
"There's a class over here some of us girls take," she pointed in the direction of the dorms. "It's just for us."
"Oh."
Judai let her go with the rest of her friends, just as another group of four pushed past them. Daichi was involuntarily shoved from the other two, and he stepped off the main road to allow the girls through. Once the last girl managed her way out, the three boys recollected, but couldn't help to watch as they left, pretty white skirts flapping in the wind as they moved. Hormones reigned the school.
"Hey."
Daichi's attention was drawn from the ladies when he saw Judai bend down to pick something from the ground. A deck card.
"I think one of them dropped this," Judai stated, handing it to Daichi to examine.
It was dueling card, one very rarely seen on this part of the world. A Magic Card, the design of the picture resembled the Yin-Yang symbol, only the rounded dark and light symbols were represented by two pale and ghostly beings, one dressed in white with glowing halo bright hair and feathered white wings, the other with long dark hair, red eyes, pale skin, and skeletal demon wings. Floating away from each other, the two beings had their hands laced together, holding on to each other – or dragging each other down. The top of the card called it "Sprite Interchange" and the description on the lower half told of the card's ability to take control of an opponent's monster to fuse it with any monster in the holder's hand, field, deck or graveyard – much similar to "Change of Heart" or "Polymerization."
"You hardly see any of those out here," Judai pointed out to Daichi.
And he was right. This was a rare card – rare to see outside the States, that was. It was used twice in televised tournaments before, once by a professional duelist, but not by Duel Academy students. Then again, it was never certain what these kids had in their decks.
Before he could think, Daichi looked to see if any of the girls were coming back for it. But the rest of the forestry was empty. Only the three of them stood there with a lost card – and no way of knowing who it belonged to.
"Think we should keep it?" Daichi suggested. He knew this was a bad idea, though – what if someone found and kept one of his deck cards and not returned it to him. Judai and Sho were on the same page as him, as they shook their heads.
"Not a good idea," Sho said. "Bad karma."
"Yeah." Judai took the card from Daichi, and flipped it over to examine it. "It most likely belongs to one of those girls. I'll talk to Asuka and have her see if it belongs to anyone she knows."
And with that, Judai stuffed the card into his pocket, while none of them saw the person standing behind the tree a few yards away disappear.