Green and Black Roses
Chapter 4

Blogs were what she used to do so she had a good mindset for them. And there were plenty of blogs on street duels and conspiracies and many of them featured the Black Rose Witch. A few were even dedicated to her.

She toyed with the idea of setting up her own – or hijacking one of the ones already out there. That would involve finding the authors outside of cyberspace and meeting with them though. But the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like an idea that could possibly bear some fruit. If those blogs were dedicated solely to the Black Rose Witch, there must be a reason behind it. Extreme fascination to the point of obsession, attempting to glorify her and spread her image – or dig out the truth behind that image. And even an obsessive fan would have greater insight than a passer-by.

But that didn't negate the possibility of her own blog, or the fruit she could gain from that. Her concern was the potential caveats she could fall into. Danger was an obvious one and since she didn't technically have a job yet, she didn't have the additional safety nets to fall in to. But also if the government or some high power was involved… She didn't have the money to spare for bail, or the reputation that would make getting jailed work in her favour. Then again, that was a pretty dramatic outcome. It could be just something like a gag order (though she wasn't employed as a journalist so that would affect the company more than her) or tampering of the information or purposeful misleading – and that was something she'd be able to pick up by having a blog of her own.

And it wouldn't take much extra work on her part to set up the blog. Another plus. And she knew a few tricks to hide behind, a few tricks that would alert her if someone was looking for her trial.

Which she supposed all but decided it. And since it did, she didn't ask her cards for their say. Fortunes didn't really work like that.

.

She saw the duel from start to end and she had a good memory for them. She hadn't gotten any telling pictures. Pictures themselves were a plentiful but none of them explained the how or the why and those were the things she really wanted to know. They didn't explain the who either, but that was to be expected. If it was that simple, she wouldn't be on the case.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't do for the first post in a newly created blog. That would be too obvious, leave a trail straight to the duel and to the spectators, to any new face in the crowd and she didn't know how many new faces she had to hide amongst. She could wait to post duels, pretend she's a new face once she's more accustomed to them, once she's a face that's been there several times and no-one will give a second glance to.

But that didn't mean she couldn't post anything at all. She had to start somewhere after all. Pretend her interest had just been peaked, that she was making wild assumptions, that she was eager to see more, learn more, understand more…

And she would build up the alias circling the blogs regarding the Black Rose Witch.

.

Her record at the Underground was steadily improving, and honestly, that took the edge of the pressure and left her more room to worry about her investigation of the Black Rose Witch.

Of course, the officials and bet-collectors didn't know anything about that. They just saw a young lady with bad luck at finding a job but good luck in predicting the outcome of a duel. She insisted it wasn't predictions per say (since she wasn't using her cards or any other magic powers she didn't actually possess), but of course they liked the idea of blaming something mystical for what was simply luck and research and it gave her a bit of a reputation.

Which sadly meant she didn't get many chances for duels because her time became more occupied in giving out "betting advice" and watching the odds change according to how many people decided to listen, and to how much they listened to. She could say more about two duellists she'd seen in multiple duels after all, than someone she was seeing for the first time. And that applied to the Black Rose Witch as well.

.

'So you predict things with your deck?' asked one of the underground staff curiously, watching her shuffle through it. 'Or is your Fortune deck just a representative of your "good fortune".'

She wasn't popular enough as a duellist for them to give her a stage name and underground press, but it seemed the staff toyed with ideas nonetheless. It was somewhat amusing, since she wouldn't necessarily call it "good" fortune. After all, three weeks had passed since she'd come to Neo Domino city and she'd witnessed four of the Black Rose Witch's duels and was no closer to solving the puzzle. Nor had she found any trace of the Black Rose Witch outside duels – unless one counted the cyberspace, and her blog was picking up followers and had the last duel thoroughly exhibited, but was still too young to yield any particularly tasty fruit.

She shrugged at the question. 'Sometimes,' she said. 'Don't always get something out of it.'

'Do you get it right?' the man asked.

Carly considered the question. 'You know how fortunes work, right?' she asked. 'They're vague and can be twisted a lot of ways, so like that it's kind of hard to get them wrong…'

The man snorted. 'Vagueness has its limits too. Like you tell a person they'll become a prince and they wind up a pauper… Unless you have a way with words, I guess.'

She did have a way with words. It came with the territory. 'My fortunes are to do with luck more than riches,' she said, anyhow.

'Luck makes a good trade' the man commented.

Carly blinked. Is he asking..?

'Want to set up shop?'

'As a fortune teller?' She'd seen them, with circuses and things that came to visit the village. Dressed in long heavy robes and being altogether mysterious and offering life advice disguised as something else so people paid attention. 'You might be be – ' She cut herself off abruptly. Shed meant to say "better off getting a counsellor" but it occurred to her that it wouldn't be a bad idea after all. And she didn't want the follow up question of "so what is your line of job-seeking?" because she doubted the Underground trusted reporters very much. Not that she was one yet, but the distinction probably mattered less to them than it did to her.

Luckily, the man misunderstood the stutter. 'You'll be fine.' He pat her shoulder consolingly. Surprising action, since it wasn't a very Japanese thing to do. But most of the old customs had died so it wasn't surprising that the less sparkly aspects of society through the old proprieties out the window too…and she didn't care anyhow. 'We'll dress you up and add some makeup and you'll look the part perfectly.'

'Let's skip the makeup,' Carly replied. 'And make sure the outfit's not making me melt inside.'

.

So now her days were quite packed. She spent a couple of hours every evening near the bar selling fortunes, as the man from the Underground put it. She let her cards do the fortunes, but hid them within the layers of cloth with her black gown and instead pretended it was the crystal ball. That was Figaro's idea – Firago who'd sold her the idea initially, and a few bets as well.

And then there was the blog and her research and staking out duels. At the moment she didn't spend much time wandering aimlessly. She could find when and where duels would take place from the blogs and she wasn't quite at the point where she felt she'd exhausted the duelling avenue. She was creating an outline of the deck as well – she had covered less than half the deck so far but it was progress, and she'd found that Black Rose Dragon at least was an exclusive card.

Unfortunately, it had never been used in any official duel so there was no record of its owner. And the other cards were fairly common in plant decks. But combinations were the clincher. If she could tick off multiple cards, that made a culprit more likely. Since it was very rare for two people to have the exact same deck and not be copying each other. And when she exhausted that avenue, she'd have a nice small list of suspects and more time on her hands.

Or that was the plan, anyway. And a perfectly reasonable plan, so there was no reason why it shouldn't work, even if it was slow going.