Part I


Shadow of reality


It's carelessness that gets him caught and that sets the beginning of the end in motion.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here," a voice slowly reaches into Judai's darkened consciousness. "Skipping classes, are we?" Something pokes him in the side, and it is with sleepy mutterings that Judai cracks an eye open, the blinding sun piercing his eyes. A shadow falls over him, something long swishing in the air like hair, something bulky that might be a duel disk on one arm...and a skirt?

Judai bolts up.

One of the teachers is standing over him, frame dark against the sun. Hands on hips, the woman's expression is bitingly irritated and thoroughly exasperated. "Do you have an explanation, Eriksen-kun?"

Judai stares at her, the gears in his head only slowly starting to turn again.

A woman. A teacher. Found him lazing around. Approached him while sleeping. Without him or Yubel noticing.

Something very much like a smirk curls the young woman's lips, sharply amused. "I for my part would every much like to know how it is that Eriksen Judai-kun happens to be present in Takaga-sensei's lessons and here at the same time."

Judai's brain creaks to a halt. "...er."

Helplessly and with a pang of apprehension, his eyes dart to Yubel. Who hovers to the side, watching the woman with sharp, narrowed, contemplative eyes, so deep in thought she doesn't even notice his mental tug. Her surprise as she observes the teacher is so apparent, it floors Judai all over again.

Sensei's eyes dart to the nothingness Judai is staring at, then back to his face. "Spirits or no spirits, this is a school. You are here to learn. If you are not willing, then this is not the right place for you." She stares him down, hazel eyes reprimanding and stern and hard as rocks.

Judai gapes at the teacher.

She, in turn, stares at him for a long time before pinching the bridge of her nose in a gesture of put upon exasperation, muttering something like why did I expect and typical under her breath in a move that stands startling in contrast to her steel-and-stone reputation.

"I'm not even going to ask for how often you skip classes," she eventually states slowly, pronouncing the words as other people would a prison sentence. "I'm not even going to demand you stop as no one can tell if its the real you sitting and studying. So here's the deal." She skewers him with a piercing glare, something dark and calculating behind her eyes. "It just so happens that we have a couple simulations running to accurately grade selected students for their potential and their area of expertise. You're going to come with me, right now so long as I'm sure I'm not talking to a stand-in, and you're going to take that test. If the results aren't…adequate..." the teacher's lips quirk without humour. "Well, they had better be."

Judai swallows an eep.

The teacher turns and leaves, her long light hair blowing in the wind, and Judai scrambles up to follow lest she find reason to get on him for that too. As they walk through the compound, first over the difficult terrain then through the buildings, apprehension is knotting more and more in his gut.

Judai doesn't care much that he's been caught skipping, but he's been caught when Prisma was standing in for him.

Judai swallows hard.

Yubel remains silent. She has withdrawn inside, yet Judai can still feel her attention drilling into the teacher's back, like a puzzle she can't figure out. And that doesn't make Judai nervous at aaaaaalllllll.

If he didn't know better, he'd say the teacher lady was amused to see him squirm, but the teachers don't have a humorous bone in their bodies (which is part of what makes them and their lessons so boring).

She leads him into a part of Academia Judai had never been to before, strong doors sliding out of their way only after she slid her identifications and palm over a scanner. To distract himself, Judai's gaze is drifting left and right, peeking through half opened doors, over what seems to be delicate electronic and medical equipment. Men and women in white pass them in the corridor, some ignoring them and others sliding their eyes over Judai in a thoroughly unsettling way.

His nerves spiral high before long and words bubble out, "...er, Sensei...do you, I mean can you see them?… See spirits?"

Her intimidating eyes dart to him without breaking stride. "No." And her lips quirk, as though Judai doesn't get a joke, as though its a joke she can't laugh at even though she wants to.

Judai, the next words already on his tongue, swallows them as he process the reply. His mouth hangs open. "But - "

Sensei comes to a sharp stop, holding a hand out in front of him for emphasis.

One of the many scientists seems to want more than stare, blocking their way.

He holds a white clipboard, half-moon glasses sitting low on his nose. "Tenjoin-sensei, what an unexpected pleasure. What brings you here?" Grey eyes scanning over Judai make it more than apparent that he has a good idea.

Sensei smiles a razor sharp, blizzard cold. "Eriksen-kun wished to try for extra credit. It seemed fitting to accommodate him by letting him try his hand on the SAF classifications, even if it is unscheduled."

The scientist's focus runs over Judai again, even more unsettling, lips curling in some form of a smile. "Indeed. Let us hope Eriksen-kun is up to the challenge. We would hate to loose such a promising asset." To Judai's teacher he adds, "you have such high expectations, Tenjoin-sensei, that sometimes we worry there will be no students left once you are through with them."

Sensei shifts her weight to something more intimidating, stare narrowed and hard. "I am a teacher," she says as though the man's very presence insults her. "It is my duty to test the potential of my students and recommend courses to them. I understand your point however, and I agree. It is most disturbing how many freshmen lack the qualities this school strives for."

"Those qualities can be taught," returns the man, sniffing. "And not all must meet the SAF standard. Those are the exceptions, if you remember."

"To settle for anything other than the best result is degrading to both the students and the teacher. I refuse to waste my time on useless cases." Sensei shrugs impassively, ruthlessly. "We must agree to disagree then, clearly."

Flinty eyes glow with scorn. "So we shall." One last look is given to Judai. "Best of luck, Eriksen-kun. You shall need it." With that, the white clad man (snake) hurries along to catch up with his colleagues.

Once Judai watched him disappear around a corner, he can breathe easier. The air seems to visibly melt from its frosty quality.

"Take care, Judai-kun, to never get to close to that man," Sensei's voice says quietly in his ear, startling him.

Something unreadable is in her eyes, but quickly enough she is back to being the Ice Queen of a teacher the student body named her for. Judai is startled that he can almost see the walls of ice rise around her person. (For an instant, the temptation to check what she looks like with Yubel's eyes is almost too great. An aura clear and blue like ice he imagines, yet for some reason cold doesn't fit in that image. It should be flames.)

"That was a member of our science division. Perhaps you have heard of them," she continues, swirling on her heels and setting a pace Judai is hard pressed to keep up with without running. (Yet he hurries, because the thought of being left stranded down here without her is suddenly terrifying.) "They do not have much to do with the majority of our facility, yet they are unquestionably one of the most important parts. It is them who develop our duel disks, and them who research the best ways to meet our needs. It will be them too who will analyse your data and determine your future specialization."

Oh. Right. Well, what a way to be encouraging. Judai suspects he doesn't have a say in that future at all. "What specialization? And I don't remember volunteering for extra credit."

Sensei shoots him a sharp look from the corner of her eyes, not turning her head, back ramrod straight as she marches. "If you know what it good for you, you will agree that you have. As for your specialization." Her eyes are hard yet not cold and weirdly easy to read. And what Judai reads behind that front is startling; concern.

Judai feels like he is standing at the bottom of a hill, yet he should know -needs to know right now- what lies on the other side. For the first time since Judai was so shockingly awakened from his afternoon nap, Yubel reacts to him. She takes his observations and reacts with alarm.

It's as though he is blinded with blinkers. What Sensei said is a threat, yet it is not to that that Yubel reacted. Sensei is a demon, yet for some reason instinct tells him she is safer than anyone else around in this school basement. Because she isn't really a demon – but why does she pretend?

"We're here." Sensei pronounces, drawing Judai's attention to a door just like any other settled in the pure white walls. It slides open to reveal a middle sized room. It looks like a control centre of some kind, terminals lining a wall, another wall replaced by a see-through window to an arena below and half a dozen men and women in white bowed over screens.

They all look up as the door hisses, staring for a moment, before they return to their screens. All but one. This one too glances over Judai like a viper its prey, before settling on Tenjoin-sensei.

Sensei puts a hand on Judai's shoulder, half turning him to direct him at a set of stairs he hadn't noticed before. "Go down there and follow the instructions." Her voice is low, hard. The feeling of blindness is joined by deafness because it feels that he should have heard a lot more than what sensei said.

He makes to leave, but not without throwing one more glance over his shoulder before he disappears down the stairs, watching the teacher and the scientist and the room: Sensei's squared shoulders (battle ready, something whispers, the example, the role model, the one without weakness, the face to the outside face – a stab of familiarity), the scientist (waxen skinned, glasses, thin wrists, obsessively neat, quicksand hidden in plain sight), data rushing over the screens (statistics, profiles, photos, calculations).

Judai sees, and will remember.

This is a fight, and he will not lose.

(To lose means to fail. To die. To sacrifice. To regret. This, he has known since his first breath, has not needed the teachers to teach him here. He will never lose.)

Down the stairs a sterile waiting room offers banks to sit. One of those is occupied, a boy of Judai's age just changing out of a hospital-like robe. On a shelf to the side clean ones waited. A paper with instructions hangs on the wall and copies lie on the benches. Looking at them tells him that he must get changed too.

The other boy flicks a glance at him when he enters, sharp and unnaturally cold aura clouding the air around him. He makes Judai pause for a moment, the hairs at the back of his neck rising. However Judai gets clearly dismissed when the boy turns back to snapping buttons on his shirt close.

Nice to meet you too is on the tip of his tongue, but self-preservation instincts catch up with him before he can dig his grave a little deeper still. Instead Judai dismisses the boy in turn in favour of changing. And would you look at that, there were even instructions on how to do it and on what to do with the things in that box that go along with the robe.

Judai has seen things like them before. In a hospital when pulse and stuff are taken, only these look slightly more complex.

Once he finished changing, he sets two of those things to his temple agreeing with Yubel's sneer of disdain (said sneer does nothing to hide the unease lurking in her demeanour, which alarms Judai in more ways than one, but he can't ask her, not here and not now). They seem to be made of metal or something like it and are cold and uncomfortable to the touch. Two come to his wrists, four to his ankles, twelve to his back for which he has to (unfortunately) ask the other boy for help, and fourteen to his chest. When he is finished, he feels ten pounds heavier than before and about as agile as a tortoise.

With a mental shrug Judai sits down to wait, fiddling with his duel disk and deck, though he has the stupid feeling that for what is coming he won't be allowed to keep them. His HERO's wink at him from their cards. Some of them are exchanging speaking glances with Yubel (who happens to be still inside him; Jduai has a feeling if he ever had to explain how the things he sees work, he'd lose most of them at the point where the material world tends to be unimportant/invisible/see-through), which doesn't escape him but the meaning of which does. It's kind of annoying that they do that sometimes, but Judai hasn't yet asked.

"Number 51. Eriksen Judai-kun." A speaker announces after what feels hours (the other boy is long since gone), and a white door at the other side of the room glides open like the maw of a crocodile or the gates to damnation.

Judai wouldn't be Judai if he didn't enter with mild and interested curiosity, confident to brave everything that lays behind it and have fun while he's at it.


That night, when Judai sleeps an uneasy, exhausted rest, Yubel steals away, gliding through doors and walls and security as though they don't exist, seeking out a specific presence. One that she is rather surprised to ever see again. Even more surprised to see again this quickly and entirely unchanged.

The human doesn't jump when Yubel materializes.

Her personal like and dislike aside, this human never was like the countless sheep Yubel doesn't even bother to remember who would have had a panic attack.

"Explain." Yubel cuts to the chase without so much a greeting, her wings flaring impatiently and designed to intimidate on habit alone. In her mind she has been running contingencies since she laid eyes on this human in the afternoon. Judai can not be found this easily. Not even by an ally. A friend.

The human woman dips her head, her features twisting in a way that Yubel has learned to read as irony. "Because this is Duel Academia," she says, drily.

When Yubel stares at her unimpressed, she continues, sighing, "to me it's been only eight years. I knew of course when I chose to travel past the borders of our world to continue my studies that I might slip into zones where time runs differently." Her gaze lowers and saddens, coming to rest on her closed hand on her desk. The many papers splayed on it."I knew, as we all knew then, that we would never see Judai again, that I would never be able to return home once I left. You know that I did. And I travelled, as was the plan. It felt longer than six years, but according to my best calculations it really had been only that long."

She meets Yubel's gaze in a habitual way that is almost uneasy to Yubel. Humans aren't comfortable enough around her to do so usually. "Then two years ago I stumbled over this world, found that it had a Duel Academia and couldn't resist. Imagine my shock when I saw Judai's face greet me from the list of my students this semester. Knowing him as I do, it didn't take long to piece together that the Judai sitting in my lessons wasn't really Judai, as you might imagine." She chuckles with more irony, but the look she gives Yuble is questioning. "For some reason I always had the impression that this reincarnation business was a thing spanning aeons and not closing to full circle in lifetimes – mine or that of a more long living species."

There is no reason why Yubel should reply to that. This woman may not bear harmful intentions towards Judai, but any information given out on him when he can be found in his most vulnerable state – as a child - is not a risk worth taking. On the other hand... "Judai is born when he is needed."

This woman saw once already what manner of things occur when Judai is around and knows better to take it as anything but a warning. The title King of Darkness is not given to anyone and not for just any reason. Not even King of Gentle Darkness. Judai is an omen, a herald of strife that is yet to become apparent. The people of old, those with memories spanning ages and universes did indeed know what they were talking about when they gave him titles, names.

Speaking of...Yubel floats over to the window, her three eyes gazing through the glass and taking in the giant complex of the school stretching out below. It reminds her of the castle she and Judai lived in, a long time ago. A castle build by a King, for many following Kings, and for siege and war.

"What did you hope to accomplish, making Judai take that...exam." The word curls around her tongue, disdain dripping from her lips, only hinting at the anger and ruthless calculation this afternoon caused in her.

In the nightly reflection of the window, Tenjoin Asuka's easy to read expression, nostalgic and melancholy, shuts down. She is good for a human, and experienced, but Yubel is better and can still clean information just by looking at her. The Ice Queen of Obelisk Blue. A strong willed human, fierce and fire, a flaming arrow. "I can't accomplish anything." She admits, looking away pained.

The urge to throttle the woman by the throat until she spills makes its (late) first appearance.

"I can't accomplish anything," the damnable mortal woman repeats firmly, "but Judai can."

Yubel stills. "If you want him -"

"I don't want him for anything." The woman snaps, offended. "I was there – at Academia, in Dark World, and then when humanity took steps we weren't supposed to take! You don't need to tell me that Judai isn't to be used!" She takes a deep breath, visibly forcing herself to calm down even when she still speaks through gritted teeth. "I don't want Judai. But if others find out about him they will. In this place, they will. You saw what its like behind the facade."

Indeed Yubel saw. Yubel saw a whole lot else too in her time here, and yet it's not enough. She doesn't know everything. And that's dangerous. The problem is that she can't assess if it is more dangerous to keep Judai here and gain more information to evaluate how dangerous, or to leave without it. "Judai will leave, sooner or later. Do tell, Tenjoin Asuka, what has this place hidden that makes you not want Judai around."

Aim and hit, straight to the core without regard. Of course Yubel noticed what lies under the woman's pretty words. She is the Guardian. Seeing such things is what had gained her the approval for the station – and that was before she had been changed.

Tenjoin Asuka is scared. She wants Judai gone from here, as she said. She is more than willing to provide Yubel with information to get her results.

The human's jaw pushes stubbornly forward, but doesn't deny it.

"I know exactly what Judai is capable of." Tenjoin repeats, licking her lips. "If this Academia continues on the way it is, then... This school is filled with my students. I have a responsibility to them. Those that I can remove, I remove. It's safer for them. Judai must leave for it to be safer for everyone."

"The direction Academia is heading worries you so?" Yubel voices the pointed question, coolly raising an eyebrow. "I recognize prepping for war when I see it but that is not all that's going on here, is it?"

Tenjoin nods stiffly, her hair bobbing with the motion. "I'm trying my best to stop it, but it seems I'm the only one who cares to try. I never noticed before how one-sided people become when they are told what they do is for a greater goal." Bitterly, she adds, "or what they are capable of when they believe themselves to be right."

Yubel almost smiles, but it wouldn't have been a nice smile. "Humans tend to believe that when they are part of something bigger, they too are something superior. That it makes them stronger, better, lets them forget the utter shortness of their lives. That it gives them justice. Typical, truly, of a race limited to one line of perception."

Mortal eyes of the more perceptive kind if just as limited eye Yubel flatly. "Whatever the cause, everyone is caught up in a one track state. The mind of the masses can become like a whirlpool. Doing as told, high on emotions transmitted through group pressure, and once things start it'll be too late to change that. I'm trying, but I'm alone and there is only so much I can do. I'm sorry, but If I can't change Academia, Judai can't be here. If the mindset stays confrontational, Judai mustn't be here. There would be nothing left."

"Agreed." Yubel flares her wings, watching how they completely block out the light shining behind her. Her three eyes close.


TBC