"Ugh, are you sure there aren't any other Slifer jackets?" Naruto whined, he had opted NOT be bound by the school's dress code, and instead of it, he wore a dark blue-gray robe with gray lining and a fur collar, and a tattered gray-blue cape emblazoned with his personal emblem of a mandala comprised of nine reddish-brown circles of varying sizes atop a larger green-grey circle. Beneath that, he a skintight gray zip-up long sleeved shirt to hide the Eight Trigrams Seal, baggy black pants and his hands were covered with fingerless opera-length black gloves wrapped in studded red-brown leather straps covered his hands while his feet were covered in a pair red-brown tabi boot sports shoes specifically for parkour. And, to Naruto's disgust, he'd been forced to remove his Konoha hitai-ate for the duration of his time at the academy, seeing as Crowler felt it was "gang related"...fish-lipped, gender-confused bastard!

Well...if he was honest about the personal emblem of the nine reddish-brown circles of varying sizes arranged in a cross pattern, atop a larger green-grey circle, it was actually that of that dimensional counterpart of his, Uzumaki Menma...still, seeing as they were the same person who just inhabited parallel worlds of one another's, it was the same difference really.

"It's Slifer Red for a reason, Naruto," Sakura said annoyed, her yellow jacket had a giant pink heart on the back with a picture of Sasuke's head in in the center of it. "During your second year you can choose to get a white primary with a red secondary."

"What? Oh come on, not fair!" pouted the blond "This school sucks. I'm suppose to be orange...my dad's nickname was the Yellow Flash and my mom's was the Red-Hot Habanero...when yellow and red mix, you get orange."

"Ah shut up Naruto...you have no taste anyways." Sakura snapped.

"So says the person who's worn the same panties with hearts that have pictures of Sasuke's face screen printed in the middle of each of them all over them since her first day in the academy back home." Naruto said, seeing as the whole village of Konoha knew Sakura's favorite pair of underwere followed the same Sasuke's-head-in-a-heart theme that the back of her jacket was now sporting.

"Wha-WHAT? H-h-h-how do YOU...?" Sakura sputtered.

"Honestly Sakura...you think with Danzo's programing him to have utterly no skills when it comes to people, you'd THINK Sai'd be able to keep a secret?" Naruto said flatly.

Sakura went red in the face and her eyes popped while white froth began to show itself coming from her mouth.

Sasuke (whom Naruto was pleased to see was green in the face from the information he'd just learned about Sakura and her favorite artical of clothing) kept quiet, he wished his teammates would shut up as the three walked to the main assembly hall of the school for the message to the first year students. Once they made it to the hall, Naruto looked around with a bored expression before his eyes locked on Alexis Rhodes in the crowd, flanked by a red haired girl and black haired girl on either side of her.

Sakura followed his gaze, seeing he was looking at a girl that was better-looking than Sakura herself was. "Stop looking at her!" she shouted as she smashed Naruto over the back of the head, knocking him into Sasuke with enough force to leave a crater in the floor. Sasuke groaned and kicked Naruto off him and into Sakura, she grined cruelly as she then twisted on her heel and threw Naruto into a wall with enough force to leave a impression. Groaning, the blond pried himself from the mark of his body in the stone wall, as he did so, he had to wonder:

Why had he used to like Sakura Haruno? Of all people, why had he been so attracted to that pink haired little...banshee? Her voice was grating, she had absolutely no figure, her ninja skills were abysmal to the point where she was an outright embarrassment to the Hidden Leaf Village and kunoichi in general, and sure she had the so-called perfect chakra control, but her reserves were so miniscule it didn't really matter. There was absolutely nothing that warranted his attraction to her! He had followed her like a dog on a leash for too long and even went to save the only one who ever had a chance in hell of getting through the oversized skull of hers.

Naruto, having it with being a punching bag, subsequently decided to fight back, and as he pounced into the soon-to-be brawl, he had to confess he owed these two a long-over-do beating each, not just for this, but all the crap Sasuke and Sakura had ever done to him.


"Who are those idiots?" a black haired girl on Alexis' right asked her two friends. The redhead shrugged.

"I don't know Mindy," she said, "But they obviously don't take this seriously."

"I wouldn't say that, Jasmine," Alexis said, watching Naruto as he took a kick in the face, causing him to stumble backwards before growling and launching himself at the group, "I saw that blond beat Dr. Crowler's deck." There was something about him that was fimilar, and that symbol on his back...she felt she'd seen it somewhere before...It was like the melody in a half-forgotten dream.

Why was that?

"What?" "No way!" the two girls replied in shock, snapping Alexis back to reality. Alexis nodded as she watched Naruto put both the Ra girl and Obolisk boy in various grappling holds. His legs were around Sasuke's neck while his arms were holding Sakura in a modified full nelson on the ground. Eventually, a teacher appeared to separate the three, the teacher scolding them for fighting in the school. Alexis smiled when Naruto smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head innocently, something that didn't go unnoticed by her friends. They wisely chose to keep quiet about it before seeing more of the blond Slifer.


A bald man with a brown beard walked to the stage of the auditorium and cleared his throat into the microphone. All the students turned to face him, a certain blond's eyes glowed in excitement when he saw the man. Any minute now...

"Hello there!" the man said with a smile, "I am Chancellor Sheppard, and I hereby welcome you all to the DuelAcademy. The dorm assignments are in your PDAs, so be sure to head there first before exploring anywhere. Your bags have been distributed to your respective dorms; all you have to do is unpack. I truly hope you'll all enjoy your stay with us and grow to be exceptional duelists...oh and for whoever managed to glue most of the faculty to their seats, please don't do that again."

He said this last bit with his eyes locked on Naruto. The first years all followed his gaze and gasped when they saw the blond whistling innocently and picking at his fingernails. Noticing the gazes locked on him, he smiled and waved before turning and walking out of the room.

Hey, he may be more mature but old habits die hard.

Or in his case, this habit will die when he does.

The Chancellor chuckled before turning back to his faculty and told them how to remove the glue from their bottoms.


As he made his way to his dorm, Naruto jumped as someone jumped out in front of him, a teal-haired boy in glasses gollowing at his heels.

"Hold it! I wanna duel you." the boy said.

Naruto thought for a moment, "You know...it's rude to challenge someone without introducing youreslf." he said with a shrug.

The boy beamed at the acceptance of his challenge "Jaden Yuki," he then gestured to the boy behind him, "this here's my buddy, Syrus."

Naruto took in the mesure of this Jaden guy, his outfit consisted of the standard Slifer Red uniform, unbuttoned, and a black shirt underneath. His brown hair was sectioned in two layers, the layer closest to his face was a darker shade of brown than the one behind it. His brown eyes were positioned directly beneath the bangs of the layer closest to his face.

"Ok...but why do you want to fight me?" Naruto asked, arching a brow.

"I saw your duel with Crowler, I beat him myself before you did, so seeing you in action after I'd won against the guy got me itching to take on your Red-eyes dragons."

Naruto shrugged "Sure why not?"

Jaden's responce to that was to give a grin that Naruto himself had to confess that wouldn't be out of place if the Uzumaki was at a National ramen convention convention with a free all-you-can-eat buffete.

"Awsome! Let's have some fun!" Jaden whooped, activating his duel disk.

Naruto found himself grinning, there was something about this guy's attitude that the blond couldn't help but like. It was as if he were looking in a mirror in a weird way. They say that when you meet someone exactly like yourself, you either get along great or hate each other's guts. Activating his red-eyes disk on his right arm, Naruto supposed this was the former.

Naruto LP: 4000

Jaden LP: 4000

"Get your game on!"

"No need to worry about that!" Naruto said. "I'll kick things off! I'll summon Red-Eyes Black Chick in defense mode and three facedown cards."

A large maroon egg with 500 defense points appeared in front of Naruto and it cracked enough to allow a set of crimson eyes show from within the egg.

Jaden grinned "Not bad, but I summon Elemental Hero Bubbleman in attack mode and throw down two facedowns"

A warrior in blue armor and a white cape appeared on the field in front of Jaden and the monster had 800 attack points and 1200 defense points.

"Now I'll attack with Bubbleman, so say good-bye to your Red-Eyes Chick!"

At Jaden's command, the heroic, humanoide creature in (in Naruto's opinion, stupid-looking) bubble-themed armor aimed its arm at the egg and a stream of water shot from a nossle on its wrist ans the pressurised water blew the Black Chick apart.

Naruto felt his blood boil as his chick was beaten. While it was part of his strategy, the fact that it was done by some Mr. Clean-reject was too humilating for him to accept and he always felt as if part of himself died when his Red-Eyes dragons were destroyed. But Jaden would learn to regret that right away as Naruto's facedown raised, exposing the image of what looked like a spiky ball.

"Thanks for activating my Crush Card Virus. Now you can't use monsters with 1500 or more attack points, so send 'em to that great, big duel monster's deck in the sky." Naruto said. "Now I'll pay Monster Reborn and bring back my chick. And to end my turn, I'll send my chickadee back to the graveyard."

"Why would he bring back his chick back only to send it back to the Graveyard from the field?" the teal-haired boy that Naruto guessed was to Jaden's version of Konohamaru said from the sidelines.

Jaden tensed "Its effect. When a face-up Red-Eyes Black Chick from the field to the graveyard, it lets him summon a full blown Red-Eyes from his hand. 2400 atack points strong and I just lost the ability to use any monster with 1500 attack points thanks to his virus." Jaden said, sending the Elemental Hero Bladedge and Elemental Hero Sparkman cards in his hand to the graveyard.

"Nice...you sure do know your way around a duel monsters deck. So here, please give a warm welcome to my good buddy...Red-Eyes Black Dragon, come on down and say hello!" Naruto said as his dragon appeared on the field.

"Now, since I don't want Red-Eyes being lonely, I'll summon Mirage Dragon in attack mode. That dose it for my turn."

Jaden felt a charge go up his spin as the second dragon appeared on the feild from how he was enjoying dueling this guy as he looked at his hand, "I'll summon Elemental Hero Clayman in deffense mode and switch Bubbleman to defense as well. That'll do it for my turn." Jaden said.

After drawing a card, Naruto decided to go on offense. "Not bad, but I've got this little number," Naruto said revealing his final face-down card. "I'll play Inferno Fire Blast, this spell lets me blast you with the force equal to the original attack of one face-up "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" that answers to me. Sure Red-Eyes Black Dragon can't attack the turn I use this card, but what the heck...giving you 2400 points of damage is a fair trade off to me."

Naruto LP: 4000

Jaden LP: 1600

"To end things, I'll set a facedown card. That'll do for now."

Jaden grit his teeth, he had to get rid of that crush card or his deck was crippled. After all, who ever heard of a fusion monster with 1500 or less attack points? Jaden drew a card and smirked, loving his "miracle draw" skill, as people called it, right now.

"Sweetness! I play Mystical Space Typhoon and you can say good-bye to that crush card!"

Naruto scowled as a whirlwind caused his virus to shatter into pixles and be sent to the graveyard.

"Now I'll play Fusion Gate and fuse Bubbleman and Clayman to create Elemental HeroMudballman in defense mode since his attack power can't handle Red-eyes. Now I'll use Fusion Gate's effect again and fuse the Elemental Hero Avian and Elemental Hero Burstinatrix in cards in my hand to summon Elemental Hero Flame Wingman in attack mode, and replace Fusion Gate with Skyscraper and attack Mirage Dragon and activate Flame Wingman's special ability: when he destroys a monster in battle, he can inflict damage to the opponent equal to the attack points of the destroyed monster!" Jaden announced as his monster moved to attack Mirage Dragon with 3100 attack points.

The 1600-attack point dragon shattered as Naruto took 4700 points of damage, Flame Wingman's 3100 attack points and the 1600 of Naruto's own destroyed Mirage Dragon put together due to Flame Wingman's effect.

"You're pretty good!" Naurto said, smiling as the monster's flames envloped him.

NARUTO LP: 0

As the hard-light holograms vanished, Naruto set his cards back into his deck after seeing what his next card would have been, he felt disapointed when he saw it was Dimension Wall. If he had made it through that last turn, he could have set it to where he could have played it.

'Activate only when an opponent's monster declares an attack. Instead of you, your opponent takes the Battle Damage you would have taken from this battle.' Naruto mentally read the effect. He'd played Mirage Dragon since that monster made it so that the opponent of the card's controller couldn't activate trap cards during the battle phase. Naruto shook his head with a good-natured grin on his face, ho well...win some, loose some, And the luck of the draw was king in Duel Monsters after all.

"That's game!" Jaden said, grinning then walked up to Naruto and shook his hand. "Good game, never did get your name, though."

"Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki, I'm a slifer. So I guess we'll have plenty of rematches since we're in the same dorm." the blond said.

Jaden looked like his grin was about to split his head in two with how wide it was at that "Sweetness! I gotta take you on more, Lord of the Red-Eyes Black Dragons!"

Naruto smiled and rolled his eyes. This guy was something else.

"So what's with you and the Red-Eyes that much? If you don't mind my asking." Jaden said.

Naruto shrugged, "Eh...I heard something about the dragons that I find I can relate to: "While Blue-Eyes brings power, Red-Eyes brings potential". You can be as strong as you like, but power's a fragil thing. I see it as climbing a mountain, you get to the top and the only way you can go is down. Having potential, on the other hand, means there's always room to get better so you've got to push your limits if you want to improve."

Jaden nodded. This guy was a potential-valuing type so or course he'd like the Red-Eyes Black Dragons.

"You know Jaden, I don't care about the ranking system in this academy. If you're good, what dose the color you're wearing matter? But personally, I think Fish-Lips sends anyone who beats him to Slifer out of spite." Naruto said "After facing you I'm sure of that."

Jaden and the teal-haired boy both laughed before the three made their way to the dorm they were going to share.

"So this is Slifer Red dorm, eh?" Naruto asked as he walked through the halls of the small, motel-like building, "Bet the other dorms are ten times better than this one."

"Aw c'mon, Naruto," Syrus said with a weak smile, "You just gotta appreciate what we-Was that a RAT?"

Naruto grinned, "Might have been...Don't tell me you're afraid of a little mouse, Sy."

"I-I am not!" Syrus said with a small stutter, "Rats are completely different though!"

"You're such a girl," Naruto said with a smirk as he knocked on their respective dorm room, "Yo? There a Chumley Huffington here? We're your roomies!"

An annoyed snort came from the other side of the door before it opened to reveal a teen with a koala-like hairstyle and nosie and was quite fat. He wore what was described to Naruto earlier as a second year jacket.

"Yeah, I'm Chumley," he said, "I have some rules about my stuff-"

"Don't touch it or else, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before Chum," Naruto said shoving past him and looking at the dormroom, "This is it? Well at least it's bigger than my room back home."

"That's the spirit, Naru-wait, bigger than back home?" Syrus asked, "What'd you mean by that?"

Naruto ignored him and plopped his bag on the bottom bunk. He started unpacking and pulled out two weighted wristbands and ankle bands as well as a weighted vest. Clipping them on under his clothes, he resumed unpacking and chose a single drawer to fit the multiple copies of his shirt along with a few pairs of boxers. Once done unpacking, Naruto lifted the bed cushion up to put his bag under the mattress in a storage compartment. That done, Naruto fell onto the bed.

"Ahh..." he sighed, "This is nice...Dibs!"

After Syrus and Jaden finished unpacking, the three left Chumley to his own devices in order to explore the academy. Naruto yawned as they entered a building with an arena staring them in the face. Walking closer, they could tell it was based off the stadiums used for professionals.

"Daaaaaaamn," the blond said as he looked around. Syrus nodded his agreement while Jaden grinned and took a few more steps forward, walking right into an unknown person. He looked up and jumped back with a small yelp. Naruto sighed and looked at the two first year Obelisk Blues staring them in the face.

"You don't belong here," one with glasses said, "These are Obelisk Blue arenas! You Slifer Slackers are nowhere near worthy enough to use this...wait a minute! You're that guys that beat Dr. Crowler right?"

Naruto and Jaden grinned, "Yup. Mr. Lip-Gloss was hard pressed to beat us." the blond answered while Jaden snickered.

"It was a fluke, obviously," a voice said from behind the other two Obelisk Blues. The three Slifers turned their attention to person that held an air of arrogance around him. He was also in blue but had black hair layered in two sections, his black eyes positioned directly beneath the bangs of the layer closest to his face. He wore the standards blue outfit of the younger members of the academy.

He stepped forward with his head high and looking down at the trio of red-ranked teens before him.

"You obviously don't have the skills required to beat a real duelist," he continued with his smug look still on his face. Naruto's eye twitched and he stepped forward and raised a fist threateningly. While his life didn't revolve around card games like most everyone else in this reality, he hated being underestimated.

"You wanna repeat that?" he growled with his fists clenched. Syrus was holding onto the back of Naruto's jacket in an effort to keep him from doing something stupid. the boy smirked.

"You heard me, Slacker," the black haired teen sneered, "You couldn't even beat me in a duel if you tried."

"That sounds like a challenge," Naruto said as his eyes narrowed, "Care to back those words up with your deck?"

"You know I just might," the "Second Sasuke", as Naruto was starting to view this biggiot, said back, smirking, before he sighed, "Alas, we don't have the time. The welcoming dinner is starting soon and I don't want to miss that."

"Why don't you name a time and place then, buddy?" Naruto asked before crossing his arms, "Unless you've got better things to do than prove me wrong?"

"Oh no, I've got nothing else planned. The time is twenty minutes after dinner; I'll even send you a message as a reminder. We'll duel here, unless you forget where it is. Good luck, Slacker."

With that, he turned and started walking away before stopping and saying over his shoulder, "Oh, and by the way, the name's Princeton. Chazz Princeton."

The other two Obelisk Blue teens followed Chazz and Naruto ground his teeth, agitated. And then his stomach rumbled. He looked at his dormmates with an apologetic smile.

"Guess I'm hungrier than I thought," he said, "Come on, fellas, let's get some chow!"

"Sounds good to me!" Jaden laughed.

Unknown to the three Slifer boys, a third party was present at the declaration of the duel and had left after they did.

"This is a feast?" Syrus asked as he looked down at his bowl of rice and the larger bowl of ramen. Next to him, Naruto was devouring the food eagerly.

"MMM!" the blond said with a grin, "This stuff sure is GOOD! Sy, you gonna eat your ramen?"

"Nah I don't think so," replied the glasses wearing teen. No sooner did the words leave his mouth; Naruto had taken his bowl of ramen, leaving the blue haired boy to watch in wonder as his friend vacuumed the food down.

'Where does it go?' He asked himself as he noticed the lack of evidence of fat on his new friend. Meanwhile in the confinds of Naruto's mind, a certain fox was grinning as a large bowl of ramen sat in front of it.

"Students, I would like to have your attention if I may," a polite-sounding man holding a fat tabby cat up said, earning the eyes of the present Slifer Red residents, "I am the head of this dorm. My name is Professor Banner and in my arms is my cat Pharaoh. He is a slippery devil, so if you see him outside of Slifer Red grounds without me present, please do bring him back to me."

"Excuse me Professor," Jaden asked, "But what do you teach?"

"Ah, a good question Mr. Yuki," replied the glasses wearing teacher, "I teach the knowledge of alchemy and its effects in dueling. More of a crypto-historian teacher I guess."

"Huh?" asked Naruto, swallowing another mouthfull of ramen. Syrus however was slightly creeped out by the man and shrunk down in his seat. He jumped up in fear when Pharaoh walked over his feet.

After dinner, Naruto had made a call to Pegasus about how well he'd gotten settled in once he'd gotten a moment alone, seeing as he didn't want anyone knowing he worked for Industrial Illusions. The blond was currently shuffling his deck seven different ways as he waited for Chazz Princeton's message on his PDA. Chumley watched as the blonde shuffled his deck time and time again, once doing so perfectly with his eyes closed. Syrus was pacing back and forth in the room, watching Naruto's PDA anxiously awaiting the dreaded (in his mind) message. When the clock showed twenty minutes had passed, Syrus relaxed.

"Ok, guess we don't have to go!" Syrus said hurriedly, "Darn, what a shame. And I was looking forward to watching you prove your point."

"He didn't cancel yet," Naruto said, flipping his cards from one hand to the other.

"But he didn't send you a message yet confirming it either!" Syrus said. No sooner than after the words left his mouth, Naruto's PDA buzzed. The blond picking his PDA up and nodded as he read. He turned to his roommates and grinned, "It's on. You coming, Chum?"

"Nah, I'll pass on seeing you lose," the older student said, rolling over in his bed, "Good luck though."

"Thanks pal," Naruto said dryly as he grabbed his duel disk and slid it on before heading to the door. He turned and saw Syrus having an inner battle with himself and said, "Come on, Jay! Sy!"

"Oh man...I've got such a bad feeling about this," the blue haired teen whined as he followed his blond and brown-haired friends out of the building.

Upon entering the dueling arena, they saw Chazz and his two fanboys standing smugly on one side of the arena. Sasuke next to him, the Sharangan-weilder had his PDA in his hand, recording all of this. Naruto calmly walked to the other side of the arena and slid his deck into his disk. Syrus hesitated before rushing to Naruto's side of the arena and standing next to Jaden.

"Ready to lose, Slacker?" Chazz asked the blond. Naruto grinned.

"Chill Spaz," he said, earning a fumed look from the Obelisk Blue, and activated his duel disk, "But seeing as Sas-GAY is there with you, why not make this more interesting: A tag duel."

"No way, I don't need the help of that snobish dick, especaially against a Slifer! You're going to pay for that insult Slacker," Chazz grumbled as he activated his own disk. Their Life Point meters flashed 4000 even. Chazz drew a card, "I'll go first, thanks."

"I'm glad we agreed on it," Naruto muttered rolling his eyes. And calling Sasuke a snobish dick...that was just the pot calling the kettle black.

"First I'll summon Reborn Zombie in defense mode!" Chazz said, placing a card on his disk in defense mode. A zombie with long white hair and a skeletal skull and right arm wearing torn rags appeared kneeling on a card with its arms crossed over its face as its ATK/DEF flashed 1000/1600. Chazz's eyes glinted as he put a card face down in the spell/trap slot of his duel disk, "And I'll place a face down then end my turn. Your move, Slacker."

Naruto arched a brow, "Wow...That was so creative, Spaz. I think you actually hurt my feelings with that one." he said sarcastically.

The blond drew a card and placed it in his hand "I'll pass attacking this turn and play four facedown cards."

Chazz snorted as he drew a card and placed it on his duel disk, "I summon Chthonian Soldier in attack mode!"

A muscular soldier wearing black armor and wielding a large sword appeared next to Reborn Zombie. Its eyes flashed a blood red as its ATK/DEF read 1200/1400.

Chazz smirked triumphantly "I end my turn, but then again you could just quit now while you're still ahead. Oh wait..."

"Just shut up and let me duel, Spaz," Naruto snapped as he drew a card, "Hmm...You've got a good strategy going for you, Spaz, I'll give you that, I'm impressed enough to give you a gift. I'll summon Lava Golem in attack mode with Mask of Restrict and Mask of the Accursed. Added onto that, I'll use two Ground Collapse spells" Naruto said as the cards he placed facedown showed a mask on one and a pair of idintical spell cards.

"WHAT?" Chazz shouted as his two monsters vanished from the field and he found himself in a cage that hung around the neck of a monster that was made of molten lava. It's ATK/DEF read 3000/2500, but a yellow and blue mask with long nails it its eyes and cheeks covered the Golem's face. Added onto that, two sets of swirling vortexs appeared on either side of Lava Golem where monsters would be set otherwise.

"And you DO know The monster equipped with Mask of the Accursed can't attack and the controller of the equipped monster takes 500 points of damage during each of their standby Phases. Added onto how the controller of Lava Golem takes 1000 points of damage during each of their standby Phases, you take 1500 points of damage on each of your turns. And with Ground Collapse, I can select two Monster Card Zones on the field and make it so neither player can use the selected zones. So with two, I can knock out four monster card zones. Sure I can't select a zone that is occupied by a Monster Card, but that's meaningless. I'll choose your four empty monster zones. Now I'll play Red-Eyes Chick in attack mode."

Chazz screamed in frustration and panic as he shook the cage, making Naruto laugh. From the sidelines, Sasuke snickered "A dueling monkey in a cage...how fitting." the Uchiha said.

"WHO YOU CALLING A DUELING MONKEY!" Chazz screamed, outraged at being called that, he WASN'T Joey Wheeler, damnit!

"Ok, Spazzy Princess, if you're so good, how are you going to get out of this?" Naruto asked.

Chazz fumed at the wordplay on his name while setting a card face down, "I play a face down and end my turn! Now hurry up so I can destroy you for this!"

"Wow, harsh," muttered the blond as he reached for his deck and pulled a card "I'll tribute Red-Eyes Chick to summon Jinzo in attack mode."

Chazz paled, this was a lockdown strategy! Before he could make any moves to try getting him out of this though, Alexis ran into the room.

"I thought I heard voices in here!" she shouted, "Security is coming, if they find you dueling after hours you'll be expelled!"

"What seriously?" Naruto asked, "Damn, looks like we'll never know how that would have ended, Spaz."

"You're lucky my beloved Alexis doesn't want me to humiliate you, Slacker!" Chazz retorted as the holograms vanished. Naruto rolled his eyes at Chazz's ego before just dashing towards the doors. As he passed Alexis, he stopped.

"Thanks for the heads up," he said with a grin, "I owe you another duel added onto our rain check. C'mon guys!"

"Coming!" Syrus and Jaden said as they ran past the female Obelisk Blue, Syrus pausing as he did so when he saw her following Naruto with her hazel eyes. The blond skidded outside the arena and shouted, "If you don't hurry we won't cover for you, Sy!"

"What? No! Naruto! Jaden!" Syrus shouted, sprinting as fast as he could after the pair. Alexis turned and walked out behind them, Naruto's words replaying in her head along with his smile.

'He's right about one thing,' she thought as she walked back towards her dorm, 'He does owe me a duel or two.'


-Slifer dorm-

Naruto suddenly sneezed just as they tried to sneak back into their dorm room, "Spaz must be mad at me..."

"Yeah..." Syrus said, remembering how Alexis was watching him run away, "Must have been Spa-I mean, Chazz."

"Or it's Alexis!" Jaden said with glee, "She must be thinking about that offer to duel her!"

Syrus smacked himself in the face, earning a look of confusion from his friends. The blue haired boy just shook his head, "Never mind. Let's just get some sleep, huh?"

"Mmm...Sleep," Naruto said before he reached his bed and plopped down on it, compleatly forgetting his first day of class was in the morning.


-Following day, Duel tactics class-

"Welcome first years, I am Dr. Crowler and I will be your dueling tactics teacher. Can anyone tell me what the six types of Spell cards are?" Dr. Crowler asked. At a certain blonde's raised hand, he nodded and Alexis stood.

"The six types are Normal Spells, Continuous Spells, Quick-Play Spells, Equip Spells, Field Spells, and Ritual Spells," Alexis said, listing them all without missing a beat. Dr. Crowler nodded and smiled.

"Excellent Alexis! Magnificent! Brava!" He praised, "You truly are the Queen of Obelisk Blue."

Alexis ignored his praise and sat back down, trying to get the image of all leering eyes off her. She did notice two pairs of eyes weren't on her. She looked down at the front of the Slifer side where Jaden had his eyes shut and Naruto was nodding his head to a beat.

'Good, now to make some poor fool look bad,' Dr. Crowler thought, scanning the Slifer Reds for a perfect example. His eyes stopped on Syrus, who was trying to slide beneath the desks and hide, and smiled creepily. 'Perfect!'

"Mr. Truesdale!" he said, pointing at the small teen. Syrus stood, looked left and right before shakily pointing at himself in fear. Crowler's smile grew and said, "Yes you! What is the purpose of a Field Spell card?"

"Uh, um, well," Syrus stuttered nervously, "A field spell does the thing, to the thing and then the thing does..."

"Well it's obvious you don't know," Dr. Crowler said, his grin never leaving as Syrus bowed his head and slowly sat back down. The effeminate teacher continued with, "But I suppose it's to be expected by a Slifer Slacker."

"But Freak-show," Naruto said, "didn't I, a measly Slifer Red, beat you in my qualifying duel? And the same with Jaden, so dosen't that mean you're WORSE than Slifer Reds, so by humiliating them, you look like a bigger joke?"

The class roared with laughter while Dr. Crowler fumed and chewed on the edge of his hanky. Naruto held a victory sign up and chuckled as he figh-fived Jaden and Syrus before he went back to doing nothing. Or so everyone thought. When Crowler stormed back to his chair and sat down, a large flatulence sound came from the man and Naruto fell out of his chair laughing. This started a chain reaction throughout the class.

"Mr. Uzumaki! DETENTION!" Crowler tried to shout over the roaring laughter of the group, but to no avail.

Alexis had a smile on her face while she watched Naruto roll on the floor next to his seat in laughter. Even when Crowler marched over to the blond's desk and started to chew him out, the boy didn't lose his smile.


-Crowler's Office-

"Argh!" Crowler fumed in his office after that class ended, "How? How did that...that Slacker beat me? I've got to rid myself of him!"

Crowler started pacing his office and asked himself, "But how? The rules have to have some way for him to be rightfully ejected from this school, right? Think, Crowler, Think! You're not a doctor in Duel Theory for nothing..."

After what seemed like hours, which in reality was a good five minutes, Crowler recalled a certain rule sustaining to the separation of the Boys' and Girls' dorms. With a mental and physical pat on the back, Crowler went to his desk and began using his mastery of Calligraphy to write a love letter. After signing it under the most longed for female in the school, for the students anyway, Alexis Rhodes, the effeminate man folded the letter and put it in an envelope. He then grabbed a red lipstick container and paused.

'...It's completely normal for a man to wear lipstick, isn't it?' He thought before shrugging, 'ah, whatever. I'm straight as a straw from McDonalds! The twisty kind, those are the best...'

After applying the red lipstick, he sealed the envelope with a kiss. He looked at the clock and grinned, "He should be in Gym now, so all I have to do is stick this in his locker and voila!"


-Gym-

Elsewhere, Naruto found himself in the gymnasium. He didn't even remember the earlier morning classes, but there seemed to be a type of evaluation in each class. Naruto was in the middle of the group of boys in standard DuelAcademy gym wear. He pulled at his zipped up jacket collar and scowled.

'What's with this school?' He thought, 'Must everyone wear a jacket or something? I mean, it's like seventy-five thousand degrees in here!'

The blond's thoughts were interrupted when a redheaded woman with an impressive bust stepped forward. Her hair draped over one side of her face and she was dressed in the same gym attire as the class, disappointing some of the boys. Naruto looked up at her and grinned before shoving his way to the front of the class.

"...teacher and my name is Ms. Fontine!" the woman, Ms. Fontine said with a cheerful voice. She noticed Naruto shoving his way to the front and raised an eyebrow. She looked down at her clip board and said, "Yes Mr...Uzumaki?"

Naruto grinned before rubbing the back of his head, "Yeah, uh, can I please take this jacket off? I'm boiling over here!"

Ms. Fontine laughed quietly before nodding, "You may, Mr. Uzumaki. As can anyone else that wishes to."

Most girls shied away from doing so, unlike half of the boys. The boys were all excited to show off their own builds. That was before Naruto practically ripped the jacket off himself. All eyes were on him in shock as he sighed in relief.

"Man, it's hot in here!" he said with a grin and gesturing to the sweat dripping down his shirt, "Thanks Ms. Fontine, I was afraid I was gonna blow up or something! So what do you want us to do first?"

Ms. Fontine smiled, happy to finally have a student excited about gym. There was more than being a professional duelist than smarts and skills, you had to look good too for the fans. She pointed at the track to her left and said, "Well, Mr. Uzumaki, since you're so eager to ask, I'll let you go first at the 100-Meter run."

'100 meters? That's it?' Naruto thought, slightly bummed, but said, "Piece of cake."

The class all gave him looks like he was crazy, but Naruto either ignored them or didn't notice them. Fontine's smile only grew as the boy went to the starting line. She turned to the rest of the class and said, "I want you all to work on your warm-"

A pair of crashes alerted everyone to look at the blond and saw him rubbing his wrists before he bent over and removed his ankle weights. He tossed them to the side where his wristband weights were in two craters and two more crashes followed. The blond then crouched in a starting position, a determined look on his face.

"Ups..." Fontine finished before looking at Naruto and holding a stopwatch up, "Go?"

He shot off in a run slightly faster than she could believe. The class behind her all had dropped jaws, a redheaded girl exchanged a look with her black haired friend.

"Holy..." they both whispered before following where they could see the blond blur. On his last turn, he went a little wide and ran across the wall of the building before returning to the floor. He crossed the finish line and slowed down to a jog while sweating. He bent over and held himself up, looking up from where he was at the teacher.

"How'd...How'd I do?" he asked through his pants. Fontine looked down at her stopwatch and her eyes widened.

"T-twelve point six," Fontine said, amazed. She looked back at the teen and saw he was frowning.

"Seriously? Dang," he said standing back up and looking over at the class. Girls had hearts in their eyes and guys had their jaws on the ground. Naruto tilted his head, "What? Is there something on my face?"


-LockerRoom-

While Naruto was looking for the unknown thing on his face, Dr. Crowler was searching through lockers in the boy's locker room for Naruto's locker. With a silent 'Ah-ha!' upon opening one, he grinned and placed the letter on the pair of Slifer Red shoes. With a grin he slowly closed the door before he heard a worried cry and darted out of the room.

"Oh man, oh man!" Syrus said as he pulled his shoe off and rushed to his locker. He opened it to see Naruto's shoes in there. Syrus sighed, "Darn it, Naruto...Jaden...whichever one of you left these here...I told you, I'm locker number 432!"

As he pulled his friend's shoes out, he saw a letter drop from them onto the floor. With a blink of confusion, Syrus picked the letter up and saw the lipstick.

"What the?" he muttered before opening and pulling the letter out. As he read it his face turned red.

I've been struck by Cupid's arrow ever since I saw you. You are the only one for me, and I know deep down I'm the only one for you! I know you feel the same way. If you want to discuss more about our future together, please meet me after hours behind the Girls' Dorm in the garden.

Love,

Alexis Roads

Syrus felt his face burst aflame and re-read the letter again, missing who it was addressed to because of his shock and the way that he was holding the letter and the misspelling of Alexis' last name, and thought to himself, 'Oh my gosh! Alexis Rhodes is in love with me! WHOO-HOO! GO ME! YAY SYRUS!'

Syrus slipped the note into his jacket and started getting ready for gym with a dazed smile on his face. Not knowing the way he held the letter covered up who it was ment for.


-Hours Later, Girls' Dorm-

Mindy, Jasmine and Alexis were all enjoying a good soak in the Girls' Dorm hot spring. Alexis was quiet while she listened to her friends' conversation.

"I don't know, Mindy," Jasmine said, "I mean, that Bastion kid is kind of cute, but I prefer Chazz Princeton. Loaded, hot, and a good duelist."

"Well if we're going by hotness standards, then what about that Naruto boy?" Mindy countered, "I mean, you saw him in gym today, Jazz. Who gets that fit from dueling?"

This peaked Alexis' interest and she looked at her friends, "What are you two talking about?"

"That new Slifer boy," Jasmine said, "The blond one that made a joke of Dr. Crowler today. Jazz and I have gym with him while you have that creepy Professer Banner's class. He ran the 100-Meter in under thirteen seconds!"

"That and his abs are to die for..." Mindy said, her eyes glossing over, "Seeing his white T-shirt sticking to his body like that..."

"He's still that lazy slacker from class though," Jasmine said, crossing her arms. She looked at Alexis and asked, "Right Alexis?"

"I don't know..." Alexis said as she washed her face with a towel, "I mean, he sure is...different from other guys."

Her two friends looked at each other before grinning slyly at the blond beauty.

"Something you want to tell us, Lexis?" asked Mindy slyly.

"Does Alexis have romantic feelings for a certain blond Slifer?" Jasmine asked, not even thinking about romance when she said 'romantic feelings'.

Alexis' eyes shot open and her face flushed bright red, "N-No!"

When her friends pressed on, she kept denying it.


Meanwhile, Crowler, who was wearing an all-black spandex suit that had a special ponytail holder, was breaking into the Girls' Dorm back garden. He was humming a catchy spy tune he was sure he'd heard somewhere before, but shrugged it off as he dove into the bushes and pulled a camera out.

'This will be perfect!' Crowler thought with a grin, 'Naruto will run in and shout for Alexis, I'll pop out from my bush and snap a picture, he'll have a dramatic shocked reaction, and then he'll be out of my hair before the paperwork is even finished!'

When he heard a voice speaking to himself, he ducked back into his bush and readied his camera.

"Ok, Syrus, you can do this," the blue haired boy told himself, "She's only the most beautiful girl in the school. Oh man, what would Naruto do if he were here?"

'What the?' Crowler thought with an annoyed look before he shouted, "What's Syrus doing here?"

"What was that?"

"That sounded like a boy!"

"Are we sure?"

"Peeper!"

"Pervert!"

Crowler squeaked and ran out of the bush before diving into the water, hitting his head on a rock and floating away with a dazed look. Syrus was suddenly surrounded by several pajama clad girls.

"What do we do with him?" one asked.

"I say we report him!" one shouted.

"YEAH!" the others shouted.

Syrus fiddled his hands and said with a high voice, "I say, we let him go!"

"Yeah!" the girls shouted before talking amongst themselves confusedly. Eventually they decided to tie him up and hand him over to 'The Queen'.


"...And that's what happened! I swear!" Syrus said as he was kneeling before Alexis, Mindy, and Jasmine. His hands were bound behind him and two of the three girls were giving him murderous looks.

"I don't believe him," Jasmine said with narrowed eyes, "He's nothing more than a pervert!"

"It's true! The letter I told you about is in my jacket!" Syrus said, pleading with his eyes, "just check! I swear it's there!"

Alexis sighed before unzipping his jacket and looked in the inner pocket, finding a note and pulling it out. As she read it over, she developed a twitch in her eye and her face grew red. Curious, Mindy and Jasmine read it over her shoulders before clapping their hands over their mouths to keep from bursting out laughting.

"This note wasn't written by me, Syrus," Alexis said, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself down.

"WHAT?" Syrus shrieked, his embarrassment rising. The girls all shushed him and pushed him down before sitting on him as Ms. Fontine walked out in a pink robe with a green skin mask on.

"What was that? Is someone hurt?" she asked the three girls. The trio all shook their heads.

"No Ms. Fontine," Alexis said with a smile, "No one's hurt." 'Not yet, anyway...'

"Ah, good," Ms. Fontine said with a smile, "Try and get some rest girls. Just because your first day was on a Friday, doesn't mean you can slack off your first assignments on Saturday."

"Right Ms. Fontine!" the trio chorused. With that, Ms. Fontine retreated back to her room and the three girls got off the blushing Syrus.

"What do we do with him?" Mindy asked her friends.

"I say we turn him over to Ms. Fontine!" Hissed Jasmine threateningly.

"But-but-but," Syrus said, "Are you sure it wasn't written by you, Alexis?"

"They spelled my name wrong," Alexis said, "It's not R-O-A-D-S, it's R-H-O-D-E-S."

"That and it was addressed to Naruto," Mindy said with a look at Alexis. The blond crushed the note in her hands and closed her eyes again, plotting on how to kill the one that wrote this in the most horrific ways imaginable. For once since he had vanished, Alexis was glade Atticus wasn't around, otherwise she'd never have any peace over this.

"Aw man..." Syrus said, sounding hurt and dejected. The three girls took pity on the boy and huddled. As they whispered amongst themselves, Alexis made a game plan. They all turned back to Syrus with too sweet of smiles on their faces. The blue haired teen gulped in fear.


-With Naruto-

Naruto sat outside the Slifer dorm in the lotus meditation position, trying to go into sage mode, but it was like holding water in his hands. Something was wrong with not just his sage chakra, but his normal energy and even his ability to channel Kurama's power. Every time he had the chakra, the energy slipped away. What was wrong with his chakra? He had felt this way since his run in with that guy with that blue pyrimid-pendant around his neck. What had that guy done to him?

Suddenly he felt Syrus' life energy from behind the Girls' Dorm. And he felt frightened as all hell. Bolting to his feet, the blonde's eyes narrowed and he frowned angrily. Having known perverts, such as Jiraiya and Kakashi, he had developed a knack for telling who was a peeper. And Syrus didn't have the perv-vibe...there was also another life-force skulking around that area.

The shinobi smelled a set-up.

He was going to find Syrus, and he was going to beat the shit out of anyone who got in his way along with who had done this… no one fucked with his friends as long as HE had anything to say about it!

Suddenly his PDA buzzed and he pressed it's speaker button and greeted, "Naruto here."

"Greetings, Mr. Uzumaki...I hope you know that your friend Syrus is unavailable at the moment," a disguised voice said. Naruto turned to face his PDA and narrowed his eyes.

"What've you done to my friend?" He demanded.

"Mr. Truesdale is safe...for the moment. If you ever want to see him again, however, you will meet with me behind the Girls' Dorm. Bring your deck and duel disk." The voice said before it hung up.

"Heh...heading over there to get him anyway. Guess this just means I've got a usual escape to pull from when Jiraiya set me up as the fall-guy for his inablilty to be decent to women."


-lake-

"Ugh," Crowler said as he came across a nice raised bank and rested from his covert swim, "My head...Wait, who is that?"

Naruto was rowing himself towards the Girls' Dorm and barely breaking a sweat. Naruto continued rowing until he saw that he was coming up on the Girls' Dorm, with two girls he didn't know the names of holding Syrus and standing in front of them was...Alexis?

"Oh, Hi Alexis!" Naruto said cheerfully at the sight of the welcomingly familiar face as his boat came to a halt, "You see someone that looks ready to duel? Poor Syrus over there is being held against his will and-Ohh..."

The two girls holding Syrus looked down at the blue haired boy and Mindy whispered, "Is he really that dense?"

"I just met the guy so I'm not sure." Syrus said hanging his head.

"So who do I have to duel?" Naruto asked, putting his Red-Eyes duel disk on. Alexis showed her own duel disk ready.

"Me," she said, "But I have a few stipulations."

"Strip-you-what now?" the blond boy asked, tilting his head. The three in the background groned while Alexis merely smiled.

"Stipulations," she said, "I mean there are a few things I want clear. If I win, you two are reported to our Dorm head and are most likely expelled."

"WHAT?" Syrus shouted, before the two girls covered his mouth. Naruto grinned.

"Ho...you mean the stakes. Why didn't you just say so? And if I win?" he asked. Alexis grinned back.

"You're sure of yourself, aren't you?" she asked, "Fine, if you win you get off scot free."

"And you can go out on a date with Alexis!" Mindy added. Jasmine gave the black haired girl a glare as did Alexis while Naruto merely didn't notice it.

"If I win, me and Syrus get off free?" he asked, getting a nod from Alexis.

"And you get a date with Alex-mph!" Mindy was cut off by Jasmine slapping her hand over her mouth.

"So where're we dueling?" the blond boy asked, not noticing the actions between the two girls.

Alexis grinned. "Right her, right now."

Naruto nodded "Suits me fine, just give me my buddy back."

Alexis nodded and Mindy and Jasmine rowed their boat closer to Naruto's and dumped Syrus into it before rowing the boat they were in back into its previouse spot.

"Ok so..." Syrus said as he kept the boat steady, "Why are you dueling in the WATER?"

"Shut up Sy," Naruto muttered before putting his deck in place and activating his Red-Eyes Black Dragon themed-duel disk. Alexis activated her own duel disk and pulled a coin out, "Heads I go first?"

"All right," Naruto agreed as the coin flipped and landed face up on the water before sinking to the bottom.

"Looks like you're up first, Alexis," he said. Alexis grinned back as their Life Points activated and flashed 4000.

Alexis drew a card from her deck, added it to her hand, and said, "First, I'll summon my Etoile Cyber in attack mode."

A blue skinned woman with red hair and a red skintight suit along with a pink half tutu appeared with a twirl on her feet before bowing and smiling at Naruto. Her attack and deffense flashed 1200/1600.

"I set a card face down and end my turn," Alexis said, placing a card in the Spell/Trap area face down, "Your move, Naruto."

"Nice opening act," the blond replied as he drew a card. He shuffled it into his hand and grinned.

"I'll summon my Red-Eyes Wyvern in attack mode!" Naruto said as his monster appeared on the feild. Its ATK/DEF flashed 1800/1600. Naruto grinned, "I play one facedown card and attack with Red-Eyes Wyvern."

The dragon-based creature flew towards Etoile Cyber, but Alexis declared, "Not so fast! I activate my face down, Doble Passé! This allows me to redirect your attack to me and not my monster."

"That sounds kind of like the opposite of what you'd want." Naruto said, confused.

"In return, my monster can attack you directly as well." Alexis finished. Naruto nodded with a grin, impressed at such a gutsy move. What a women...to think she set up this trap, yet not even care about taking damage herself.

"That makes much more sense...wait, what?" he asked as Red-Eyes Wyvern's attack lowered Alexis' Life Points to 2200. Etoile Cyber vanished in a twirl before reappearing and winking at Naruto before kicking at him, lowering his Life Points by 2200. The monsters returned to their respective sides and Naruto wacked his duel disk, "2200? What the Hell? She only has 1200 attack points!"

NARUTO LP: 2200

ALEXIS LP: 2200

"Etoile Cyber's effect," Alexis said, "If she participates in a direct attack, she gains an additional 600 attack point boost. I am a duelist, to achieve victory I'm willing to make sacrifices like this. Even if it means I throw myself in the line of fire."

At that, Naruto froze and looked at Alexis, his gaze was serious, deep, and intense enough to make her feel as though he were not just looking, but really seeing her for who she was, looking beyond her, even. Into the sheer depths of her soul and he saw something he knew instinctivly was something good. Looking out at her from deep within his eyes was something that made Alexis want to gibber like a madwoman. It was like staring at the night sky after learning for the first time that the stars were not pinpricks in the raiment of heaven, but each its own sun, billions of leagues distant. To stare into the eyes of this boy-no to stare into the eye of this man was to realize how small one was.

"Damn," Naruto said, breaking the spell he'd put her under with his eyes,"Guess my turn's done."

Alexis drew a card, her face becoming serious once again, and said, "I summon Blade Skater in attack mode!"

A bald girl with white and purple skin. She had blades attached to her feet and arms and one eye open before she smiled at Naruto, her ATK/DEF points flashing 1400/1500. Alexis held a spell card up in her hand and said, "Now I activate Polymerization and fuse Blade Skater with Etoile Cyber to summon Cyber Blader!"

The two monsters on Alexis' side of the field vanished and were replaced with a blue haired woman with a red visor, purple and red skintight clothes, and what appeared to be a skirt coming over her hips. She giggled before her ATK/DEF points flashed 2100/800. Red-Eyes Wyvern looked back at Naruto worriedly before facing this new foe.

"Now Cyber Blader," Alexis said pointing at her opponent's monster, "Attack Red-Eyes Wyvern!"

Cyber Blader skated forward and brought an axe kick down on Naruto's Wyvern, destroying the monster and turning it into a mass of pixels. Naruto fell to his knees as his Life Points dropped to 1700. Griping at his heart at though he were having cardiac problems. What the...? Why did he feel as if he were the one injured every time one of his Red-Eyes monsters were destroyed? He stood up, gasping a bit and gave Alexis a grin. Kunai or cards, this girl was a warrior...Naruto loved it. And he had to confess that she would have made a pretty good kunoichi back home.

"This is getting fun," he said quietly. Syrus was too engrossed in the match to even come up with a coherent thought.

"Alexis is dominating this duel," Mindy said.

Jasmine smirked."Of course she is," the redhead said, "Why wouldn't she? Now those two will get what they deserve."

"But-but-but," Mindy sputtered, "It's like a romance novel! The loser and town fool captures the heart of the beautiful and talented woman of every man's dreams! We must see it through!"

Jasmine blinked and scooted away from her friend, disturbed by her fiery eyes and determined fist pump.

Alexis ignored her friends and said, "I end my turn, your move, Naruto."

The blond drew a card and grinned, "All right. I'll activate Red-Eyes Wyvern's effect as well as Red-Eyes Transmigration! Offering up my Red-Eyes Black dragon on the feild and Celtic Guardian in my hand, I summon Lord of the Red!"

Narto walked onto the field as he was covered in armor, now that he was technecally a monster card himself, his ATK/DEF read 2400/2000. Naruto streched and sighed in bliss "Feels so much better now that I'm on the front lines rather than barking orders form the rear while others fight for me anymore! I love this Lord of the Red gig! Haha! And one facedown concludes my turn."

"How are you standing on the water like that?" Alexis asked, what her fellow blond was doing was violating the very laws of physics. Though she had to confess the Red-Eyes themed armor look suited him.

"I suppose you could ask Cyber Blader the same question then." Naruto said amused. 'And that's how you avoid a question that dosen't need asking.' the whiskered boy thought as Alexis looked thoughful and nodded with a small shrug as she took that for what it was worth. He and his (as far as he was concerned) EX-teammates had decided to keep that they were shinobi a secret, so he pinned using the water-walking trick on technechally being part duel monster now. He couldn't hold it longer than fifteen minutes with whatever was wrong with his chakra, but that wasn't really important just this second.

Alexis grinned as she drew her card, "I'll activate my Equip Spell Fusion Cannon to Cyber Blader, raising her attack points by 1500!"

Cyber Blader's ATK/DEF shot up to 3600 as a gun appeared in her hand. Naruto's smile dropped.

"Son of a..." he muttered.

"Oh no!" Syrus exclaimed quietly.

"Go Alexis!" Jasmine cheered as she clasped her hands around Mindy's mouth to keep her from acting out, "Show this Slacker who's boss!"

Cyber Blader, attack Lord of the Red!" Alexis exclaimed. Cyber Blader smiled and took aim, firing her cannon at Naruto, but he suddenly grinned.

Naruto grinned, "Just so you know, Alexis, I'm having a great time with this, win or loose, but this match is mine this time! Reverse open, Mirror Force!" Naruto shouted and a reflective barrier appeared in front of him andwhen the blast from Cyber Blader's cannon struck it, it bounced off and the redirected .

Alexis felt a smile on her face as she looked at Naruto, "Well, like you said, game, set, and match...for now, Naruto. Do it."

Naruto nodded and formed a very weak Rasengan and speread the wings of his Red-Eyes armor and leapt at Alexis, seeming to glide and hit her duel disk with the orb of chakra, seeing at it registered as an attack from "Lord or the Red", Alexis' Life Points dropped from 2200 to zero.

The blond male jumped back and away and landing back in the boat he and Syru were using as his armor faded. "Thanks for the duel, Alexis, we'll have to do it again sometime. I'd rather duel you for fun, this time I was trying to protect my buddy so our raincheck duel is still valid."

Naruto then gained a look that showed he suddenly remembered something important.

"Ho...one last thing, ladies..." Naruto said, picking up an ore from the boat he and Syrus were in and tossing it to the side and a moment later, there was a yell of pain and Dr. Crowler bolted to his feet, wearing an all-black spandex suit that had a special ponytail holder and a camera in his hands.

"Thought you'd be interested in knowing Crowler was sneaking around your dorm at night in all black with a camera." Naruto said, his eyes in a hard glare at the queer techer.

Crowler paled and bolted...only for the other ore from Naruto's boat to sail through the air and slam into the back of his knees and he fell to the ground only to be suddenly caught in a snare and left hanging upside down.

"Set that up in case you tried running. See ya, Fish-lips...I guess your teaching days are offically in to toilet now. Shouldn't have tried fraiming my friend so you could peep on a bunch of teenaged girls when you look like you're at least forty." Naruto said.

The girls all watched as the blond and the whimpering blue haired shrimp headed back to their dorm,(Naruto having thought to bring a set of spare ores), Naruto cracking some kind of joke causing Syrus to scream. Alexis calmly sat down and shuffled through her deck with a small smile on her face.

"Ugh, lucky punk," Jasmine muttered.

Mindy, on the other hand, had stars in her eyes. "He won! True love prevails after all!" the black haired girl proclaimed. Alexis and Jasmine both gave her worried looks and Mindy pouted, "I'm NOT crazy...Ok, maybe I'm boy-crazy but that's it!"

"You know," Alexis said as she looked back at where Naruto's form was last visible spot, "He never did agree to your little add on, Mindy."

"WHAT?" the black haired girl shouted, much to her friends' amusement.


Naruto, after waving off Syrus and his seemingly endless need to thank the blond, decided to leave him at the Sliffer dorm and told him there was something that he needed to take care of before heading back.

"Ok...where is that energy I felt in sage mode earlier? Somewhere around here...?" Naruto muttered, walking into a clearing. Naruto had to confess while he loved his Red-Eyes cards, ever since getting to the accademy, something had bothered him...it was like something was calling him. A type of black feeling hung around it like a miasma.

Naruto made it to where he felt he energy coming from and as soon as he did so, he looked down to see a large glowing green set of concentric circles, one eclipsing the other with strange glyphs between them appeared on the ground, and the outline of a star forms in the center circle. Naruto was nearly blinded by the light and he noticed he stood in the center of the star's outline. When the light faded, Naruto's jaw dropped.

Floating right in front of him was a black box covered with red vine like engravings and the lid had the same star-like seal that had appeared on the ground on it, the red vines seeming to steam from it. The feeling he'd picked up eminating from it.

Naruto didn't know what it was, but if he had to guess and knew seals right. It was some kind of time capsule. He reached out for it, the star seal fading when his hand made contact with the box's surface, breaking the seal and allowing him to open it. As he did so, Naruto was surprised to see a duel monsters deck in the box, resting snugly against black velvet that lined the box's interior. Shrugging to himself, the blond reached down into it and as soon as Naruto picked up the deck, he suddenly felt a icy feeling spread to his fingers, as if they had been turned to ice themselves, yet it didn't bother him at all...quite the contrary, it felt pleasent, as though he were meeting an old friend.

Monster Cards:
1x Dark Necrofear
1x Giant Orc
1x Newdoria
1x Mystic Tomato
1x Night Assailant
1x Spirit Reaper
1x Lava Golem
3x Hellpoemer
1xTerrorking Archfiend
1xInfernalqueen Archfiend
1x Desrook Archfiend
1x Imprisoned Queen Archfiend
1x Darkbishop Archfiend
1x Shadowknight Archfiend
1xVilepawn Archfiend"
3xArchfiend Soldier
1xBeast of Talwar
3x Viser Des

Spell Cards:
1x Checkmate
1x Pandemonium
1x A Deal With Dark Ruler
2x Smashing Ground
2x Creature Swap
2x Shrink
1x Nobleman of Crossout
1x Confiscation
1x Book of Moon
1x Heavy Storm
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Premature Burial
1x Spirit Message "I"
1x Spirit Message "N"
1x Spirit Message "A"
1x Spirit Message "L"
3x Battlefield Tragedy
1x The Seal of Orichalcos

Trap Cards:
1xFearful Earthbound
1xDestiny Board
3x Sakuretsu Armor
2x Deck Devastation Virus
3x Ring of Destruction
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
1xSkull invitation
1xcoffen seller
1xNightmare Wheel

It was Fiend-deck with torture-based cards, Naruto looked at the deck in his hand. He didn't know why, but it felt as if it were missing something. Incomplete. But what? And why did it feel so familiar to him? like something from the past...but that couldn't be. He was in another world for crying out loud!

Shrugging to himself, Naruto added one of each of his Red-Eyes cards from the deack he'd created before coming to the academy, along with one Summoned Skull, and his Mysterious Puppeteer, Dark Dragon Ritual, Knight of Dark Dragons, Metalmorph and his three Polimerizations (so he could use the fusion Red-Eyes cards, Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, and Red-Eyes Transmigration), pocketed the deck and made his way back to his dorm, deciding he'd work it out in the morning.


At the same time Naruto placed the deck in his pocket, Alexis had fallen asleep in her bed. Normally this would have been unimportant, yet this time was diffrent, for one thing, she was seeing the world through the view point of a young girl:

She shifted.

The cause of the young girl's concern was what was on it's way to her home world of Celestia: Makyo, a rogue planet that traveled through solar systems, instead of bound by a central force of gravity.

The rouge world was near her world to forge a treaty between the Makyans and her people, whom happened to be old enemies with the Makyans, the Celestians.

As the king of what was going to soon be the FORMER enemies of her people, entered, everything seemed to slightly darken and grew a few degrees colder. The king approached her father, who was at the end of a grand gold and ruby colored hall.

What caught her eye, however, was the young man standing next to the king Makyan.

He was a handsome fellow, if features balanced. His face was hardened, his visage freed of baby fat, his expression was chiseled and nigh but expressionless. He wore a long red trench coat that had black shoulder guards, he wore skin-tight black leather cloathing, which he kept zipped up underneath that, as well as crossed black leather straps (though those weren't as noticeble due to the black clothing that he wore underneath them), black boots, and a pair of fingerless opera-length black gloves wrapped in studded red-brown leather straps.

He sported claws on both his hands. His hair and lips were both jet black in color, while as for his hair, it was in spikes that stuck up in every direction like the spines of a sea urchin and in the very back was in a ponytail which was tied low, and reached into his upper back, and his canines were lengthened and sharpened more than a normal person's were, making them fangs. His eyes had a very vulpine shape and had dark circles under his eyes, as for there color, his eyes themselves were blood red with an animalistic black slit for the pupil.

He held out a hand, fingers splayed. Blackness seemed to swirl around him in the shadow, ebbing and flowing from his very being as though it were somehow alive; ebbing and flowing into his hand, pooling there as he brought it forth. And an orb of blackness formed over it, hovering in the air. He could feel that power reaching out to him tugging at his blood. He felt it pumping through his chest, dark and heavy from the taint. It moved through him like sludge. Abruptly, the orb imploded in on itself, winking out of existence, leaving the air around it colder.

He looked at the two rulers and seemed bored, even when a glowing green set of concentric circles, one eclipsing the other with strange glyphs between them appeared on the Makyan king's forehead and the outline of a star forms in the center circle.

The Seal of Orichalcos, founder of the Makyo Kingdome and it's first ruler.

Looking at him, she could just tell he was itching to slip away and do something...anything...as long as it didn't involve politics.

In spite of herself, she allowed herself a small smile and shook her head sympathetically. Political issues always were taxing in the extream for her as well. As unbefitting as it was for her, given that she was a princess and heiress herself.

He seemed to spot her out of the corner of his eye, because he looked up and their eyes met and they both nodded to one another in aknowlagement. Raising a finger, he pointed at her and a whisp of shadow shot past her head and she yelped, He pointed at her over her right ear and smiled slightly.

She reached up, slightly above her ears and gently felt what was there. The softness of a flower's petals caressed her fingertips.

Interested, she took the flower from it's perch and saw what it was.

A single black rose.

Her eyes widened, giving someone black roses would mean the death of a relationship or idea. Some, however, suggested that black roses could symbolize rebirth or the beginning of something new.

She smiled. Symbolizing rebirth or the beginning of something new at the peace treaty meeting. How fitting.

"Hime...what is it?" her handmaiden asked.

"Nothing. Just an interesting start to the treaty." she said.

When Alexis awoke, she couldn't recall her dream at all.


Ok, if I followed the canon of the series too closely in this chapter, I aplogize, but I just didn't want to rush the relationship factor between Naruto and Alexis. But from the point after Alexis and Naruto's duel onwards is the start of the major changes for the sake of the story. And some VERY fimiliar faces arg going to show up later in the fanfic.

As for Alexis and her dream...that'll be explained later as well, but it play an important role in the stroy's timeline. You just have to wait and see.