A/N: Written for the
The Prompts in Steps Challenge, 4.11 – trickle
Arc-V Bingo, the non-flash version, #019 - Sawatari Shingo
Diversity Writing Challenge, c18 – write about losing something
Female Spotlights Challenge, female of the month: Tenjoin Asuka (Arc-V)
Three Times Sora Met Asuka (and one where she met Crow instead)
First Meeting
She was an honour's student. He was getting close and they'd been slotted into the same section and that meant he'd probably wind up working under her in the future. That was kind of cool, because it meant he'd be actually doing something instead of training endlessly. And it also meant he'd be doing something more meaningful, more memorable, and more important than most others, those who struggled in the status quo, who maintained their averages, who were lost in the crowd.
The first time he saw her, surrounded by one of those crowds, he knew she stood above them. And then he saw the class allocations and that confirmed it. Tenjoin Asuka. Cyber Angel deck. Ranking quite close to Edo Phoenix and yet not in the first deploy to the Xyz Dimension.
Rumours told it meant she'd lead the assimilation of one of the other dimensions instead. Synchro or standard. Standard, probably, because their course was the most versatile of all and she led the Academia in Ritual summoning despite being a primary Fusion user like every other Academia student.
And if anyone needed help, she'd help them. That was how he wound up actually talking to her for the first time, even if it was a minor thing in the end.
Second Meeting
He was back from the Standard dimension and realised quite a few things had changed in his absence. The joy from the return of the first deployment had simmered down and given way to the discord sown between their ranks, and the result had been numerous students abandoning the Academia.
He was shocked to find an honour's student amongst them. Even more shocked to find out it was Tenjoin Asuka, because wasn't his mission to pave the way for her? Though he had other things distracting him too, like that Kurosaki Shun character and the boy Yuuto who looked so much like Yuuya, and the girl Selena who looked so much like Yuzu, and Yuuya and Yuzu too…
He returned to Standard, and then came back again. And this time he wandered, because that tumult of emotions had calmed a little and now he was just plain confused. And he wandered right off the island and to the mainland – and, to his surprise, right into Tenjoin Asuka.
She was all set to duel him but he deterred her. He wasn't there in any official capacity and seeing her offered answers to a few questions he carried. She accepted that and told why she'd left the Academia, what they'd done in the Xyz dimension – and it lined up all too neatly with the words of Kurosaki Shun.
He asked if she knew Selena or Yuzu. She didn't. He asked if she was going to fight against Academia. She was.
He left, hoping he wouldn't run into her while they were on opposite sides of the Academia, because she was still his senior and a mentor and oh so nice. He hoped he wouldn't run into Yuzu either, for the same reasons.
Third Meeting
This time, they were both traitors and Asuka didn't bat an eyelash at seeing him with the Akaba brothers, his allegiance fully on display. Sort of. After all, he was missing Yuuya and Yuzu and they were his best friends and the cornerstones of his allegiance. Instead, she calmly filled in the gaps the others missed and he did the same, and they both watched the man who turned out to be Yuuya's father (and wouldn't Yuuya be glad to hear that when they met up again) brighten at the new news on Yuuya – and then look like a chastised kid while Akaba Reiji told him not to run off on his own again.
Unfortunately, the two never got to talk to each other because they were interrupted by Yuuri. Sora didn't know him all too well but Asuka was quick on the uptake. Or maybe it was that she wasn't close enough to Yuuya to confuse Yuuri with him (though he had to admit himself surprised to see Yuuya's father of all people mixed up. Aren't parents supposed to know their kids no matter what face they wear?)
In any case, that crazy grin on his face quickly cleared up the confusion, even with Asuka pinning him.
She looked sharply at him. He got it. This was a team assault, even if the team would be just the two of them. They'd be another roadblock clearing the way to the Professor – and it probably worked out better for them, because two traitors walking up to the throne of the Professor? The likes of Sakaki Yushou and Akaba Reiji stood a far better chance in facing him. And in the meantime, they'd handle a fellow Academia student on even grounds, right?
Unfortunately wrong, and it started with the assumption that they – the top two students in their section – were standing on even ground with Yuuri.
If Yuugo hadn't shown up when he did, Sora was sure he'd be a card like her. Asuka, in his breast pocket for now. Where he'd once kept that spare Fusion card he'd gifted Yuzu what felt like an age ago.
Not Meeting
Somehow they got out of that mess. He didn't know what happened with the Yuuri vs. Yuugo duel (though he was rooting for Yuugo for several reasons). He didn't know where Yuuya had gotten to either, or how Jack had found them, because he stumbled upon a bunch of rioting Academia students along with him and Gongenzaka and Sawatari as well. Though they were missing Tsukikage and Crow.
Or, rather, they were in Sawatari's blazer pocket. Sawatari who now had an Academia duel disk strapped onto his arm.
He explained how Crow's monster attack had broken it – and saved him from being carded as a result. And Gong explained how Tsukikage had given his own freedom to tell them of the beast wandering the forest, tell them that a five on five duel actually had an eleventh player –
And why should he be surprised? Academia seemed to have no qualms about cheating or dirty duelling, and there was still the whole mess with Selena to sort out too. And how to convert all the carded people back…
And to find Yuuya and Yuzu too. But Gongenzaka was injured, and in any case, someone needed to guide the rebelling students. Didn't have to be him though.
He offered card that held Asuka to Sawatari. He stared at it. 'An Academia student?'
'She's Tenjoin Asuka.' The name meant nothing to him, of course, but the Academia students recognised it. The most well-known traitor, after all. And a popular honour's student and before that, and Ritual master always. 'She organised a Duel School to shelter anyone who managed to escape from the Academia…and Yuzu and Yuuya's father.' Sora closed his eyes. 'She was strong: one of Academia's best students, but kind. As soon as she realised what the Academia was doing, she left and fought against it, and she never stopped trying to open other's eyes. Except that Yuuri laughed and threw it right back in her face.' And he'd done the same, hadn't he? To Kurosaki. To Hikage.
Sawatari took the card. It crinkled a little under his clenched fist before he choked a little and loosened it. 'How many more people are going to wind up in a card before this is over?'
Who knew. Yuuri wanted every person in the world in a card, or so he said.
'We came here to end this,' Gongenzaka pointed out.
'Right.' Gongenzaka was right, after all. 'No more, once they knock some sense into the Professor.'
And he was off to find Yuuya and Yuzu and watch the finale with them…or the finale they made, whichever it turned out to be.
And as he left, he heard Sawatari mumble something about Crow and Asuka trading stories, and hoped they'd get the chance – or that they could, even in a card, communicate with other cards nearby. It would, at least, be less lonely for the carded that way. At least until it all came to an end.
And after that, Asuka could return to her new school (and she'd make a brilliant teacher, from his own experiences with her), and he'd go back to watching Yuuya's duelling evolve and being a student at You Show and Crow could go back to those orphan kids who cheered him on and everyone else too could go back to where they belonged.
And he'd get to see the original Sakaki Yuushou duelling too. That'd be cool, considering he was the tree an apple called Yuuya had fallen from.