Chapter 4: Skylar Takes a Nap, and Yugo Wakes Up
Skylar dealt with the fire in the laundry room first, all but tossing her Duel Disk into her friend's face as she raced to grab a battered fire extinguisher and snuff out the flames before they could spread to anything else.
Once the fire was smothered and gone, Skylar tossed aside the now-empty canister and went in search of the source; after twenty minutes of careful investigation that involved a lot of poking and prodding at semi-charred things, she discovered that something had apparently gone terribly, horribly wrong with one of the exhaust vents for one of the dryers.
The discovery wouldn't have been so upsetting, had it not meant that one of their two dryers was now very broken, leaving them with just the one. And laundry day was the day after tomorrow.
Well...shit. Like she didn't have enough to deal with already? Really? Now she'd have this on her never-ending To-Do List as well, and all she could do was hope that she could track down, and somehow transport, a new (or at least not completely unusable) industrial dryer. And hook it up. Within the next two days.
"I hate my job," Skylar groaned, sinking into a crouch and cradling her head in her hands. "Good grief, why did I volunteer for this crap..."
And there was still the matter of the new dimensional interlopers to deal with...
Or not deal with.
After a bit of contemplation, she decided to, perhaps immaturely and recklessly, ignore that particular development for now. After all, she had one presumed inter-dimensional traveler in her care already, and he would probably be enough trouble on his own; she'd didn't have time to waste chasing down every idiot who crossed into this dimension. Heck, she barely had enough time to deal with the idiots native to this dimension...and even then she could only seem to manage to get a handle on the ones in her immediate vicinity and only for a few moments at a time.
All in all, she didn't need to find more impossible things to do. She had a full plate already, one that was borderline overflowing. I'll have some Infinitas scouts keep an eye out for anything unusual, she decided. More than likely, the new arrivals were just more Academia duelists, joining their brethren in their reign of terror.
And if it was something weirder, well...she'd deal with whenever it became an issue. For now, she was going to go to bed, because it was three in the morning and she'd been up for almost twenty hours straight. If she stayed up any longer, she was liable to lash out or do something ridiculous; she could go for a while without proper rest, but she'd become excessively irritable and testy if such a situation went on too log. And if she passed that point of sleep deprivation, she'd just become flat-out stupid. And considering the fact that she was leading a double life and responsible for keeping who knew how many people protected from vicious multidimensional terrorists, being sleep-deprived and stupid was maybe not the best idea.
So she said goodnight to Irina, requested that she not be bothered for at least the next seven or eight hours unless something else caught on fire, and returned to her room, collapsing onto her cot barely seconds after closing her bedroom door behind her.
Irina wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the look that had been on Skylar's face as she'd finally returned to her room to rest. The "owner" of the boarding house had looked two steps away from passing out where she stood; Irina hadn't said so, of course, because she knew that a) Skylar was under a lot of pressure and b) saying so might have actually had the opposite effect from sending Skylar to bed.
So she'd simply echoed back her friend's "Good night" before backtracking her path and returning to the room where they'd put the stranger who had Yukito's face.
It was, she realized as she entered the room and looked at him again, unbelievably unsettling to see someone who looked so much like one of her friends and yet know for certain that it wasn't really him.
Sighing, she pulled up a metal folding chair and settled into as comfortable a position as possible; she'd given Jeremy the duty of keeping guard over this stranger, but only once he'd gotten some sleep himself. Meaning that Irina would be watching over the biker herself until Jeremy came to relieve her.
She was actually dozing off a bit when a sudden loud shout jolted her awake and nearly sent her tumbling to the ground as her sleepy muscles didn't quite respond right as she jumped to her feet.
"Where am I?" the biker hollered. "What am I doing here?"
"Quiet, be quiet!" she hissed, waving her hands at him. "People are trying to sleep!"
"Who are you?" he demanded. "Where am I?!"
"Would you please lower your voice," she said in a severe tone. "Before I finish what those goons from Academia started!"
That shut him up.
Briefly, anyway.
"How do I know you're not from Academia?" the biker asked suspiciously.
Irina snorted. "Do I look like I'm from Academia?" she asked scathingly, motioning to her worn and tattered clothing, finishing off the gesture with a flick at the infinity symbol earring dangling from her left ear.
The biker scowled at her earring in obvious confusion but seemed to otherwise acknowledge her point. "Where am I?" he asked again, then winced and lifted a hand up to lightly touch the bandages wrapped around his forehead that Irina administered before following after Skylar earlier.
"Are the wrappings too tight?" she asked, concerned despite her irritation. Miruna was much more skilled at medic work than Irina was, and it was at times like these that Irina missed her cousin most.
"No," the biker said after a moment, grimacing in pain. "The wrappings are fine. My head just...feels like it's about to fall off or something."
"Well, you did crash pretty badly," Irina remarked. "You're lucky to even be alive."
He just shook his head and winced again. "What happened?" he asked. "I remember starting a Duel with those three from Academia, but after that one attack...I can't remember."
"Probably because you were unconscious at the time," Irina remarked. "Technically, there's nothing for you to remember."
He just gave her a confused look.
She sighed, taking pity on him. "That last attack caused you to crash and get injured; Academia was about to get you when some members of Infinitas stepped in."
His look of confusion only increased. "Infinitas?" he echoed, brows drawing down in a baffled scowl.
"They're this dimension's resistance group," Irina explained, trying to be patient. "They fight back against Academia. You were rescued by Scarlett," she added. "She leads Infinitas and she's the one who brought you here."
He finally nodded, looking like he was beginning to follow what she was saying. "Where is...here?" he asked, slowly looking around at their dimly lit surroundings.
"This is the Fristad Boardinghouse," she replied. "It's a refuge of sorts, for people needing somewhere to stay. It's run by my friend Skylar. She's...an ally of Scarlett's, I guess you could say. She does her best to keep this place safe from Academia, but there's always the risk of being found out and needing to fight for our lives. It's why I'm keeping an eye on you even though you're injured," she added. "You're obviously not from this dimension, and we can't afford to take any chances."
"Are you saying that you think I'm a spy?" he asked, now starting to look annoyed. "That I'm working with Academia and those jerks from the Fusion Dimension?"
"I'm saying that until we know for sure," she answered evenly, "we're going to keep an eye on you."
"I'm not affiliated with the Fusion Dimension!" he snapped angrily. "Why does everyone always assume-"
"Would you please keep your voice down?" she demanded. "It's an ungodly early hour and people are trying to rest!"
He subsided, glowering. "Fine," he said sulkily.
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off a headache. "What's your name, anyway?" she asked him.
"Yugo," he replied. "My name is Yugo."
"Nice to meet you, Yugo," she said in response, holding out her hand. "I'm Irina."
He reached out with his right hand, then winced again as the movement jostled his splinted wrist. Grimacing, he switched arms and gingerly shook her hand, clearly mindful of how thoroughly wrecked his physical condition was. "I'm pretty beat up," he asked after a moment of silence, "aren't I?"
"Nothing that won't heal with time," Irina said to start, because Miruna was always telling her to be encouraging even when giving bad news. "You've got some breaks and bruises, and we're pretty sure you have a concussion. You're welcome to stay here for as long as you need, just don't-"
A soft knock came on the door.
Yugo and Irina both turned their heads to look at the door in bafflement.
"Jeremy's not supposed to come relieve me for at least another three hours," Irina remarked, frowning.
Yugo just gave her a blank look. "Who's Jeremy?"
She shook her head. "Never mind." She headed for the door and cracked it open carefully. "Yes?"
A familiar face framed by pale orange hair looked back at her. "That's all you've got to say to your favorite cousin when she gets back after a mission? 'Yes'?
Irina's face split into a wide grin as she threw and door open and wrapped Miruna in a fierce hug. "You're back! Finally! Skylar and I were getting so worried."
Miruna gave a low laugh and returned her embrace. "I know, and I'm sorry we were gone so long." She glanced over her shoulder at Yukito, who was leaning casually against the wall. "We ran into some trouble here and there, so getting back took longer than we anticipated."
"As long as you're here now," Irina said, still smiling, "that's all that matters. Although," she tacked on, "your timing really is incredible, because guess what?"
"Do tell."
"One of those dimensional counterparts we've heard about happens to be here. Like, right now." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder to the interior of the room. "Right on that bed, as a matter of fact."
"Whose counterpart?" Yukito asked, coming over with a curious look. "Mine or Runa's?"
"One of yours," Irina replied. "If you two didn't differ so much in coloring, I'd have assumed he was your brother or something." She shook her head. "Skylar's going to be so relieved you two are back; this guy with your face turning up just about broke her brain, I think. She's not so thrilled about all this counterpart stuff that's got Academia all hot and bothered. I think she liked it better when the fight was just us versus them with none of this extra stuff going on."
"She's a pragmatist," Yukito remarked. "She'll come around eventually. For now, though, can I see him?"
"Only if you," she pointed to her cousin, "take a look at his injuries. Skylar and I did our best, but we're neither of us very capable medics. Also," she glanced at her watch, "I have a patrol coming up in forty minutes, so could you guys maybe babysit him for me until Jeremy comes to take over bed-watch?"
"You have Jeremy on bed-watch?" Miruna asked in surprise. "Isn't he, like, barely twelve?"
"He's fourteen," Irina replied, a wry smile tugging at her lip. "And we've hardly got any room to judge; we're not even old enough to drink, remember?"
"Which is a damn shame," Yukito remarked, peering into the room and giving a reluctant wave to Yugo when he saw the injured biker on the bed, "because I could really go for something mind-numbing right now."
"You and me both," Irina agreed, wondering what exactly had happened to turn their world into such an insane place.
A/N: Okay, so no Duels in this chapter, and no real action. Mostly it was just Yugo waking up. Which is good, both because...hey, he's okay! But also because it coincided with Yukito and Miruna getting back and they're two important original characters who have been previously mentioned but not properly introduced. ;D In any case, as stated/implied earlier, Yukito is the Null counterpart to Yuya/Yuto/Yugo/Yuri. But things are a little more complicated than just that, though, so stay tuned. ;)