Mitzi here! The Enemy Has The Move was getting too depressing, so I wrote this as a little break for my brain. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Not mine, blah blah blah. Hey, did you know this disclaimer is legally useless? Still, it's tradition. :shrugs:
Story Notes: Set about two years pre-ZeXal, which translates to 20ish years post 5Ds, around 55 years post GX and 70 years give or take post DM in my headcanon. Doesn't match up to fanon precisely, but eh. I expect this to be four or five chapters long.
Festival Of Memory
Chapter 1: Leaving The Nest
"No."
"Dad!"
"Yuma, you know this household's stance on Duel Monsters."
"But Dad…"
"No. That is final. You are not going."
Yuma can tell from his father's tone that further arguing is useless. He groans and turns off his D-Gazer. Numbers whiz down as the lights of D-World fade into the colours of the real world. He takes it off and slumps onto the couch.
"You knew he'd say no."
Yuma doesn't bother to correct his sister. She's right, of course, but he doesn't feel like arguing the point.
Apparently, neither does Akari, because she murmurs, "You're such an idiot," and brings up a screen. Soon, she's happily typing away doing whatever big sisters do when they're not nagging their little brothers.
For lack of anything else to do, Yuma turns on the TV. One argument with the voice steering later he's sitting down ready to watch his favourite episode of ESPer Robin.
"And now, a word from our sponsor!" trills the voiceover woman, and as the mascot dragons dance and fight, Yuma is reminded why he's stopped watching TV.
Somehow, he didn't mind back when he was a little kid. He was too young to work either a D-Pad or his grandmother's old duel disk, and certainly too young to ride a D-Wheel, so it held no attraction for him. Now, with Tetsuo's 'help', he's learning to duel (admittedly failing miserably, but it's the principle of the thing), which means he's old enough to be tempted by the forbidden joy of Battle City.
"Baturu Shiti…" he whispers, rolling the words on his tongue. That wonderful festival of dueling, that comes once every five years in a city far to the south of Heartland. It's a must for each and every serious duelist (and Yuma has no doubt that he is one) to go at least once, if not participate. Unfortunately, his international ranking is far too low to enter him to the central tournament, but he at least wanted to watch.
He's got himself annoyed now, and grumbles throughout the episode. When it ends and the ad starts again, he buries his head in the cushions.
Next thing he knows, he's being suspended in midair on the end of a broom.
"No grandson of mine is going to spend a fine summer day moping around in front of the TV! Go outside and play!"
"But Grandma…"
"No excuses! Out!" She catches sight of Akari. Before either of her grandchildren can see what's happening, she has Akari pinned to a wall.
"No granddaughter of mine is going to spend a fine summer day moping around in front of the computer! Go outside and play!"
"But Grandma…"
"No excuses! Out!" She kicks the switch that opens the sliding door and throws the pair of them out onto the lawn. A moment later, she throws out their D-Gazers.
Yuma climbs to his feet, picks it up, turns it on and groans; she's disabled D-World access, so the only thing he can do with it is buy stuff and call people. Akari swears loudly; she's done the same to hers.
The two of them spend the next few minutes calling their friends. Tetsuo's practicing for BaShi, Kotori's doing homework, and everyone else is out of town or busy.
Akari's luckier, it seems, because she's telling Tsuko to wait for her at Kawaii Paradise. She takes off her D-Gazer, waves to Yuma, goes to her car, swears again and sets off running.
Yuma takes off his D-Gazer and goes to get his D-Pad and deck, before remembering that he left them at Tetsuo's. He calls his friend again, but after waiting at least five minutes decides to just go to the park. He boots up his hoverboard, and is there before he knows it.
Trouble is, there's nothing to do there.
Oh, sure, there're plenty of workstations and activities, but they're all in D-World. All of the stuff that isn't in D-World is either closed for the summer (by which they mean Battle City) or for little kids. Except for the swings, of course…
Back out, legs straight ahead. Shyunk. Body clutched into a ball. Kwaggan. Out. Shyunk. In. Kwaggan. Out. In. Out. In. Shyunk. Kwaggan. Shyunk. Kwaggan. Shyunkkwagganshyunkkwaggan…
And now he's completely horizontal, each new arc struggling against gravity. Yes! I'm striking for the sky!
Then, wonder of wonders, he completes an arc, soaring down with the kwaggan as it becomes a shyunk, and again, and again, the adrenaline rushing to his head.
Shyunk! Kwaggan! Shyunk! Kwaggan! Shyu-snap!
The next thing he knows he's lying on his back on the ground. He's managed to clear the safety bounce that surrounds the swings, though he'll bet he hit it at least once. He slowly clambers to his feet. Nothing serious; a few cuts and scrapes and bruises, but Yuma's ninja grandmother and habit of striking for the sky mean he always has a few of those anyway.
A red blob lands on the ground beside him. Yuma puts his hand on his head and feels the sticky warmth of blood.
As the lightheadedness starts, he lies down on the safety bounce and sets his D-Gazer to call Grandma.
-0-0-0-
Pretty much everyone in town is at the mall, so Yuma is there too. It's a week after he broke the swing.
He's with Kotori and Tetsuo, leaning over a balcony. Kotori is playing Spot The Person with him. Tetsuo's away in D-World, waiting to get his pass.
"I think I see your grandma," calls Kotori. Yuma follows her finger down to the crowd below.
"There she is!" He fingers the plaster stuck to his head. "What's she doing here?"
She's about to speak when the lights turn off, the windows shut and a projection of Mr Heartland appears where they were.
"Good morning all!" he says. The sharp, angled D-Gazer symbol appears in the corner of the projection and everyone in the room who has access to a D-Gazer puts it on, turns it on and dives into D-World.
Yuma is not one of these people. His grandma's got into the habit of kicking him and Akari out of the house every morning at seven, just after they eat breakfast, and not letting them back in until six, when either she or Akari starts cooking dinner. She turns off D-World then too, so, despite his and Akari's desperate pleas that morning, neither of them can use their D-Gazers properly.
When most people have their D-Gazer on, Mr Heartland continues his speech. "As you may already know," – it's common knowledge – "yesterday was Domino Dumping Day. This morning Chief Of Police Mikage Ushio announced that Domino had been cleared of all non-citizens. The application and ticket sales will begin in precisely," – he checks his D-Gazer – "two minutes." People start cheering as a countdown appears in another corner. Mr Heartland hasn't finished speaking.
"Unfortunately, the international duel level required for entry has been raised to level 7." Tetsuo swears. "Chief Organiser Sho Marufuji stresses that this change is temporary. Now that that's out of the way, I bid you farewell." Mr Heartland vanishes and the numbers fill the screen.
"I can't believe it!" growls Tetsuo. "I can't believe they did that! Why would they do that?"
"They probably had too many entries," says Kotori.
"That's a good thing, though, isn't it?" asks Yuma, before remembering that his friends can't hear him.
While Kotori and Tetsuo argue, Yuma watches the numbers on the screen as they count down. It's the tensest minute of his life, even though it means nothing to him; the energy of the crowd is carrying him along. Forty! Thirty! Twenty!
"TEN!" somebody shouts. Yuma stands to attention. Kotori and Tetsuo stop talking.
"NINE!" More people are joining in.
"EIGHT!" A full half of the crowd.
"SEVEN!" It's spreading to the balconies.
"SIX!" Yuma, Tetsuo and Kotori take up the chant.
"FIVE!" All together, shouting the same word.
"FOUR!" Yuma can swear he hears Akari's voice.
"THREE!" He catches sight of a group of kids from school.
"TWO!" The mascot dragons take their places on the screen.
"ONE!" They start flying.
"ZERO!" They cross flight paths. As they do, the countdown is replaced by two numbers, which immediately start falling. It takes Yuma a second to realise that they're application and ticket numbers. Because most of the population of Japan and most of the world's duelists are buying them, they're flying off the shelves.
"TICKETS GET!" screams Kotori, soon followed by Tetsuo. They hug each other, almost crashing into Yuma when Tetsuo topples over.
It's about then that Yuma is cut off from the frantic atmosphere, and he's immediately hit by the smell and noise of it all. It clamours in his ears. I've got to get out of here.
But how? The people are pressing all around him, and there's no way he can clear a path without making himself visible in D-World, and he can't do that. Then he looks down. If he jumps and lands…
He climbs onto the banister. He'll try to land in the decorative pool, but if he can't he'll probably just land on the hands and be pushed out like a rock star.
"I'm striking for-"
"YUMA!"
Akari grabs his hand and pulls him down. She pushes him against the barrier.
"You're such an idiot! I can't believe you'd even consider doing something like that! You could've died! Do you have no sense of self-preservation?"
"Self-what now?"
She growls. "Let's just get out of here."
Akari inherited their grandmother's ninja-quick reflexes. Yuma is clinging onto her back like a baby monkey before he knows it.
"Now – don't squeeze my neck – we have to get out of here." And she pushes into the crowd.
Yuma tried that, of course, but his sister is more experienced at this sort of thing, has the physical strength to back up her skills, and, because she's a teenage girl, knows the mall like the back of her hand. She soldiers on through the crowd.
Not that there's much to soldier on through – the balcony crowd is more long than thick. Yuma breathes a sigh of relief.
"Come on," says Akari, as he climbs off her back. "We're not out of the woods yet."
Yuma climbs into the lift after Akari. She hits the down button, and the lift takes them to the bottom floor in a whirr of blue light. When they hit the ground floor, Akari motions for him to get on her back.
The door opens, and someone slips in. They don't seem to be aware that they have. Akari pays them no heed and pushes into the mass, kicking and shoving, dodging and ducking. Yuma just clings to her back and thanks anyone who's listening that he inherited the hard to hurt part of his grandma's ninjaness. At some point the screen drones that 'all applications have been taken and are being evaluated' and the siblings are caught in the rush of people who are only there to duel.
Robots outside are making sure that everyone either stays in or moves on. One accosts Yuma and Akari.
"Please move along," it drones, and waves a bat threateningly.
Yuma slides off his sister's back only for her to grab his hand. She runs, and he has to keep up through the whole journey to the park.
When they arrive there, both of them are panting – ninja endurance went to one of their cousins. Yuma stretches out on the grass. Apart from a cleaning robot, three small children and an incredibly old man who probably belongs to the last dregs of the pre-duelist generation, the park is empty.
"Hey, Akari?"
"Hmm?"
"Why'd you take me here?"
She sits up. "It's somewhere to be."
"No, seriously, why?"
"We need to figure out what we're gonna do for the rest of the summer."
"Huh?"
"Don't you get it? All the people in town will be at Battle City or the Surround or watching it in D-World or on TV. Except us and Grandma."
Yuma slowly grins as he realises what this means.
"We have the run of the city, right?"
"Us and about thirty other kids, old people and families." She's rubbing her hands together in excitement. "You know, apart from Battle City stuff, they essentially turn off D-World. They don't even bother working the robots until it's over!"
Yuma's eyes are shining now. No D-World and no robots mean no restrictions.
"Back at the last Battle City, me and some other kids went spelunking down the warehouse district, and if I say anything else the NPA will lock me up."
It's like something out of Tashalian!
"Besides, you're a Tsukumo. That makes you half-ninja. I'd better train you up," she pulls him up, "or Grandpa will haunt us."
Suddenly, the summer looks much brighter.
-0-0-0-
Two weeks pass, and Yuma can't remember why he even thought that.
The tickets ran out two days after Domino Dumping Day, and tickets for the various festivities in the Surround ran out after about a week. Every day more of his friends left, and now the only person in town he both knows and is not related to is the snooty class representative. Even he's leaving today.
He can't even follow his friends in D-World because his grandma's still kicking them out for the whole day, and the phone network's banned outgoing calls to Domino anyway so there isn't any point. Akari's trying to teach him the art of city spelunking, and while it's fun it's not the same without his friends.
He's at his favourite spot in the park, the top of an old jungle gym. While he's technically too old to be on it, it's turned out that Akari was right about the robots. Since there's no point in policing an empty city they've turned them all off. All the shops are closed for the same reason.
Yuma hangs upside down for the sake of it. Blood's rushing to his head, and if he doesn't want his plaster to burst off in a spray of gory glory he'll have to leap down soon. But not yet. Not now.
A car powers down the street, and because cars have become a rare sight he flips himself the right way up. It's the class rep's car. Yuma can see him in the back, along with his little sister. They catch each other's sight, and the rep looks surprised.
Then the car's gone, and Yuma's left alone with his thoughts.
He yawns, stretches and stands on the jungle gym. Off to the left, he can see the ice cream stall. He would kill for an ice cream around now.
Maybe there's still some there. He leaps off the jungle gym and runs straight there. The door's locked, but an enterprising half-ninja is never stopped by a door.
One battering with the ex-swing seat later, the door stands firm.
Yuma coughs. "I said, an enterprising half-ninja (by which I mean me) is never stopped by a door! I'm striking for the sky!" He slams into it with the swing seat. The door is unharmed.
Yuma gives a yell of ninja fury and charges into the door. He returns from it with sore fingers. The door, predictably, is unharmed. He could swear it's grinning at him.
He sucker punches the door again and again. His fingers are aching and if he has to come up with one more simile for how his punches have absolutely no effect he's going to scream.
Defeated, he rests his arm on the door handle. It pushes down and the door slides open.
He's been trying to break down an unlocked door.
He groans in frustration and kicks it all the way open, before stomping in, muttering, "There'd better be ice cream in here."
It turns out there is, lots of it, in fact. He grabs a spoon and a tub of chocolate and delves in.
"You know, just because they've turned off the robots doesn't mean they've turned off the CCTV."
Yuma freezes with the spoon in his mouth. Akari's standing in the doorway, smirking. She holds out her hand.
"Come on. You've got to do something so terrible they'll call in the NPA and forget about this."
He spits out the spoon and grabs her hand with his clean one. She pulls him up.
A horn honks outside.
"AKARI! YUMA! CAR! NOW!"
It's Grandma. Akari pulls Yuma out of the ice cream shack. Grandma's sitting in her car with the passenger doors open.
"What are you waiting for? In!" The siblings do as they're told.
Ten minutes later, when they have their seatbelts on, an old J-pop band is playing and the car is inching out of the city, Yuma asks their grandma where they're going.
"Oh, to- Wait, I forgot." The car's on autopilot, so she can reach for her D-Gazer without disrupting anything. "Here we go." She puts on her D-Gazer. "Password: Fourth Disciple. Transfer ticket BCFA-7584 to Akari Tsukumo. Transfer ticket BCFA-7608 to Yuma Tsukumo."
Yuma can already suspect her surprise, but he checks just to be sure. He doesn't let himself scream "YES!" until he sees the words YUMA TSUKUMO – BATTLE CITY – FULL ACCESS on his own D-Gazer.
Of course, when he does, he immediately starts an impromptu finger-jive. "Oh yeah! Uh huh! I'm going! To Battle City!"
As Yuma parties in the background, Akari glares at Grandma.
"You know Dad forbade it."
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
"But your pension!"
"I've been saving up. Besides, going to Battle City's something every boy and girl should do."
"We need to get the cops off Yuma's track!"
"I'll arrange something. I'm an ex-ninja, I have contacts."
Akari's so stunned at the revelation of what she and her brother have suspected for so long she's thrown off kilter. Grandma smiles in a triumphant sort of way and drives on.
-End Chapter-
Continuing Battle City Olympics-style seems just the sort of thing Kaiba would do.
R&R!