The Lost Card

A spirit disrupts Chazz's focus in class with its crying so Chazz resolves to find it and return it to its owner. Because he actually cares about his education.

"I'm over here! Look at me!"

The spirit's crying is loud enough to completely drown out Dr. Crowler's preening, an impressive feat considering his is the one class that even Jaden can't sleep through entirely due to how passionate Crowler can get.

Chazz can't completely tune the cries out no matter how long they goes on though, and spends most of the day craning his neck trying to locate the source of the wail. By the time the last bell rings, his neck is stiff and he can barely lift his forehead off the desk. He finds himself with a newfound respect for new parents, and shudders at the thought of having to deal with this one day.

From the way the crying continues even after the other students file out, he determines the persistent duel spirit is stuck in the room, though upon realizing its owner has left, its pleading quiets into a whimper before fading away completely.

Chazz basks in the silence for a few moments before it's broken again by Ojama Yellow's shrilly telling him that classes are done for the day and he's hungry. He doesn't eat, but Chazz doesn't care enough to point that out.

Ojama Yellow's voice does rouse him to his feet though, and he quickly checks to make sure the room is really empty and the door is closed before cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone and shouting,

"Hey Crybaby! If you can hear me, show yourself!"

To his annoyance, nothing happens.

"Great," he scowls.

"What's wrong, Boss?"

"What's wrong? Didn't you hear that crying before?"

"Oh that, some card must have fallen somewhere," Ojama Yellow says with an uncaring shrug. "But I guess it's gone now."

"No, it's still here, I can tell." The crying continued for some time even after Chazz was alone in the room, so the card has to be here too. He wasn't able to pinpoint it before though, so he'll have to be thorough in his search.

He scans the room and picks out three desks roughly in the center of each third of the classroom. On each one he leaves an Ojama card, before moving to the front of the room.

"Alright, you three. Make yourselves useful for once and help look. There's a duel monsters card in here somewhere, and we're going to find it."

Ojama Black and Ojama Green emerge from their cards, unsure of what's happening.

"We're doing what now?" Ojama Black asks.

"Hey Yellow, is the Boss okay?" Ojama Green looks at their youngest brother.

"He must be really worried about that card," Yellow says.

"I can hear you clowns. And I'm not worried, I'm annoyed," Chazz snaps. "That stupid thing wouldn't shut up all day and I couldn't pay attention in class as a result. Some of us actually care about our education!"

"Er, if you say so, Boss," Ojama Green says through stifled laughter.

"It wasn't really that loud though, was it?" Ojama Black remarks.

"I think someone's just too shy to admit his true feelings." Ojama Yellow does, of course, know Chazz best.

"Less talking, more looking," Chazz snaps at them again.

To their credit, they do look though. They float around the nearby desks and chairs, as far as they're able to. Chazz has never been able to fully establish how far from their cards they can wander, but it seems to cover a decent enough radius, so he refrains from moving them until he's made his way up to their rows. No luck so far, and he's especially annoyed that the duel spirit won't appear for him. Unlike its owner, he'd actually be able to listen to its directions.

The Ojamas also get tired of looking and continue to insist that the card isn't here anymore. They're sure because they don't sense anything, but they're stupid so Chazz ignores them. He also ignores the growing pangs of hunger in his stomach because if he leaves now, he doubts he will come back afterwards, and he doesn't want to put this off another day. He knows the card is here.

And he's right. In the second to last seat of the third row from the top of the Obelisk Blue section, he finally finds the facedown card wedged in under the desk, only a corner barely sticking out. It's stuck in there good, but he manages to slide it out, hopefully not scratching the image too badly in the process.

"Huh, a Silent Swordsman LV 3? Not a bad card," he notes. "Maybe I should keep it."

"Nooooo!" The shrill voice that plagued his day cries out, and the little Silent Swordsman jumps out of its card, arms flailing wildly. "You can't!"

"Oh now you want to talk?" Chazz snaps at it. "Where were you a forty minutes ago when I was calling out to you?"

"I-I don't know who you are," it cries. "But you're not my owner. Where's my owner?"

"Probably stuffing his face in at the cafeteria," Chazz answers, perhaps a little too harshly. "I wonder if he even knows you're gone."

Which is exactly the wrong thing to say to this crybaby spirit, because it immediately bursts into tears and demands to be returned to its owner asap.

"Alright, alright shut up already. I'll give you back when I see him tomorrow."

"No! I want to go back now!"

"Well, tough. I'm a Slifer. I'm not allowed in the Blue dorm."

"But, but I was waiting for him to notice me all day, but all that happened was he ended up sliding me under the desk. My artwork got scratched."

"And you really want to go back to such a guy?"

"He's my owner! And he needs me to summon Silent Swordsman LV 5!"

"No. No, he doesn't." Chazz uses LV cards himself, so he knows only the highest level monsters actually need their predecessors to get onto the field. But this is news to the idiotic spirit and a fresh stream of tears immediately gush forth.

"Boss, I think you're making things worse," Ojama Yellow scolds, but his giggle reveals his amusement at the whole affair.

"Yeah, not all spirits are thick-skinned like us," Ojama Green adds. "You gotta Chazz it down for the little ones."

"Hey, I'm not thick-skinned! I'm just big boned," Ojama Black snaps. "But, yeah, maybe you could try being a little nicer to the kid. The waterworks are kinda annoying."

"Yes. I know," Chazz says through gritted teeth, before turning back to the bawling Silent Swordsman. Who even came up with that card's name anyway? "Alright, enough already. Sure you're not needed in the deck to get Silent Swordsman LV 5 out, but you do make it easier, so there. You have a purpose."

The crying continues and Chazz is eternally grateful that no one else can see or hear this because the last thing he needs right now is for someone to walk in and accuse him of bullying a duel monsters equivalent of a child. Of course, if other people (who didn't obliviously sleep through every class) could see and hear duel spirits, Chazz wouldn't be in this mess.

Chazz pinches the bridge of his nose. He's not good with children. He's not good with tears either. He leans against the desk thoughtfully. Obelisk Blue, huh? It's not too far from the school building. And he does know the layout of the dorm well enough to sneak in, drop off the card, and get out without much fuss.

Chazz sighs.

At least he wouldn't need to sneak into the Obelisk Blue women's dorm.

"Alright," Chazz says. "What's the bastard's name and room number?"

To Chazz's relief, he is able to slip into the dorm and avoid meeting anyone on his way to the careless student's room. And to make it even better, the guy is in his room (because the spirit spent enough time on the floor today and refused to be slid through the door and hope for the best).

As soon as the door opens, the student can only manage a bewildered, "Chazz?" before Chazz shoves the card into his hands.

"You dropped this in class. You're welcome."

He looks at the card. "My Silent Swordsman?" He takes his deck out of the case on his belt and looks through it. "Woah, you're right! It is mine. Thanks a lot, man! Where'd you find it?"

"Under your desk. Don't tell anyone you saw me here, and we're even," Chazz says hastily. He can hear footsteps in the halls, and he really just wants to get back to his own dorm already.

But the student isn't as stupid as his card, and something clicks in his mind.

"Wait, my desk isn't anywhere near yours. Or the door. And how'd you even know I use the Silent Swordsman cards?"

"Your card told me" is not an appropriate response.

"Cause I've seen you duel," Chazz says instead, looking elsewhere. "And I always remember the good duelists." Thankfully, this student is an Obelisk, and nothing makes them more agreeable than stroking their egos a little.

"Aw, thanks Chazz," he grins. Then something else clicks. "But you know, you could've just returned this to me in class tomorrow. You didn't have to sneak into the dorm."

"Tell that to the loudmouthed card" is also not an appropriate response.

"Well, you know…you're a duelist!" Chazz snaps, eye twitching. "Your card was missing for an entire day and you didn't even notice! What if someone challenged you? And you'd have been one card short? And unable to Special Summon Silent Swordsman LV 5? Then where would you be? Now apologize to the card!"

"I-I'm sorry!" The student is so stunned that he stammers out an apology automatically. The little Silent Swordsman peeks out and looks like it's about to bawl from joy. Chazz does not want to stick around for that.

"Yeah well, all's well that ends well, so bye." Chazz turns to leave. "And remember, you didn't see me."

"Yeah, yeah," the student says. "But finding a stranger's card and sneaking into their dorm just to return it to them as the first opportunity. You're really just a nice guy, aren't you Chazz?"

"The nicest!" The little Silent Swordsman agrees happily.

"No, I'm not," Chazz insists, and hurries off before the either the student or the spirit can see how red his ears are.

A/N: Thanks for reading :)

I've had an idea to write a drabble series like this for a while now. Some of my favorite GX episodes include the Dark Scorpions ep & the Chazz vs. Slade because I really like the focus on Chazz and his duel spirits (not only the Ojamas, the whole collection...where did the rest of 'em go in Season 2 anyway?) and I was kinda sad not to find too many Chazz & Ojamas fics. I feel like between Yubel & Honest, GX gave a lot of focus to the darker side of duel spirits but these drabbles will be centered on more mundane, occasionally silly things. Because it's Chazz and he's the show's biggest butt monkey. He's not allowed to have a peaceful life.

Also I am using dub names for this because even though I've seen enough of the sub to be comfortable with writing both verses, my main exposure to this show was the dub and I tend to hear the characters' dub voices and mannerisms when writing. If people reading this would prefer Japanese names though, I can probably switch over
(or I may end up doing so anyway because I never watched S3-4 dubbed ^^")