School for Skyler continued as usual for the next few weeks after he defeated Kira. Despite the fact that the Duel had once again given him more unwanted publicity from his school mates, he took pride in the fact that he had already made two friends of his own who were there because they liked him, rather than just his family.

As Skyler laid sound asleep in his bed, the images of his childhood began to haunt his dreams, forcing him to relive the parts of his life that he despised more than anything. Images of his youth swirled around him in a vortex of torment; the images making him experience his past over and over again, until finally the images stated to slow. The speed on the images continued to decrease until at last they all settle back into the darkness, leaving only one directly in front of Skyler. The image played like a video. As it progressed, it proceeded to engulf its surrounding until finally Skyler found himself standing right in the middle of the dream.

In front of him was his younger self, kneeling in front of a mirror and crying. The small boy of eight years old appeared inconsolable as he continued to cry and scream for his mother. Skyler looked from the boy on his knees to the reflection on the mirror. For some reason, however, the image on the surface of the mirror was not mimicking the actions of the small boy before it. Instead, the reflection of the younger Skyler seemed irritated by the cries of the child.

"Stop being such a coward, you ungrateful brat… This is why you were born. Do you realize how lucky you are? If you continue to deny it…"

The image reached out its hand and forced it through to the other side. The hand seemed to melt through the surface of the mirror as it reached out and grabbed the other boy by his bleach blond hair. The younger Skyler seemed to be too concerned with his own internal pain to realize that he was being pulled to his feet by his long hair. The reflection in the mirror moved its other hand forward, this time reaching towards the boy's chest.

"Then I'll just have to take it for myself…"

Young Skyler's screams grew louder as soon as the reflection touched his chest, its hand bursting with black and purple energy.

"You don't deserve this power…"

Suddenly, with one last breathe, the child screamed out at the top of his lunges, followed swiftly by a massive surge of light from his back. Gold and white light shot from his back in a pillar of cascading light, destroying the darkness of his surroundings. The light itself seemed to cause the reflection a great deal of pain as it retreated back into the safety of the mirror. The cascade of light coalesced to form 6 giant, feathered wings. The wing folded in on themselves, shielding the young Skyler in a cocoon of wings.

Skyler woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, his heart beating erratically. The images from the dream seemed so real, so vivid, that it took him a few seconds before he realized that it was all just in his mind. The images, to him, felt more like reality than dreams. After a few minutes, Skyler managed to control his breathing patterns enough that he could stand up and lean himself against the wall. Lightly pushed his head against the wall over and over again.

{Get out of my head, dammit.}

Trying to forget the dream, he collapsed back onto bed. After another hour or so he was finally able to stand, get dressed, and go for his morning workout, trying hard not to relive the experience by trying to remember the dream.

Class started as usual, Skyler arriving before anyone else, followed soon after by Taikerou, who would walk in and sit next to him.

Right on schedule, Taikerou entered the room and took the sear to the right of Skyler, his backpack and camera in hand.

"Mornin', bro."

"Morning."

"Hey, ya feeling okay? Calvin said you were a little on edge last night: wakin' up and breathing hard all night."

Skyler felt a cold shiver run up his spine.

{Dammit, Calvin! He's always so freakin' quiet, I always forget he's even there.}

"Yeah, Tai, everything's fine. Just a bad dream."

Taikerou let out a sigh of relief as he pushed his long, black bangs out of his face.

"Cool, just wonderin'. So, did ya go over those photos I gave ya?"

Skyler looked upwards and scratched his cheek, trying to hide his lack of interest from his friend.

"Yeah, I was going to get to that, but I've been kinda busy." said Skyler as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a stack of photos. "By the way, some of these photos of school Duelists…they look sort of personal. How did you say you got them, again?"

Taikerou took the photos and silently placed them in his pack, saying only a few words.

"Let's just say I have my ways of gettin' info. Some people are more reluctant than others to just hand me their pics, so I have to do some…persuading."

He looked up at Skyler with an innocent, yet strangely unsettling smile.

"Oh…okay."

A flash of realization struck Taikerou's face, prompting him to pull out a flyer and handing it Skyler.

"I almost forgot, I wanted ta show ya this."

Skyler looked over the backside of the flier.

"I already have plenty of paper, Tai."

Taikerou let out a sigh, reached over, took the paper from Skyler's hand, and flipped it over to reveal the text.

"Ohhhh…"

In beautifully written, bolded letters, the flier read "International Limiter Breaker Tournament".

"It's a Duel Tournament that's gonna be held at Central. Meanin' that a couple of underrated kids like us get ta wipe the floor with some of the world's best Duelists. Whad'ya say?"

Among the different fonted and colored words of the flier that outlined the details of the competition it adverticed, a single word stuck out to Skyler more than any any other: International. The word once again cued his mind to go through its typical memory slide show, reminding him of the last time he was in an tournament where his family brought in high class duelist from all over the world just to duel him. With that thought in mind, Skyler becan to think about how he would be able to avoid so many high class Duelists on such a small island. With so many peircing eyes, there was bound to be a few that would recognize him.

"Yeah, I'm not that good with official tournaments."

"Aw, come on, bro." He said with a light whimper under his voice. "I know for a fact that one of us can win this; just look at the prize."

Taikerou pointed to the small print at the bottom of the page. Tai read the line, word for word, "'This Tournament is sponsored by Industrial Illusions Vice President, Chumley Huffington. As such, in addition to the price money, the winner of this tournament will have the opportunity to have Mr. Huffington personally design them an Archetype of there choice to the individual's exact specifications'. Think about it. That's not an opportunity to just pass up."

Skyler looked over the flier again, at that point paying closer attention to the fine print. The idea of trying to create his own cards didn't really appeal to him as much as Taikerou. As a child, Skyler received his Crusader Deck from his father as a gift along with their linage. Despite his feelings, however, he did like the idea of Dueling some of the best Duelists from around the world.

Just as the idea began to sink in to his mind, the doors of the classroom flung open. A student with shoulder legth, green hair and a baggy Obelisk Blue jacket ran through the doors and rushed towards Taikerou and Skyler as fast as he could. Over his head he was waving the same Duel Tournament flier like a child that had just found a crisp new twenty dollar bill on the side of the road.

"Tai! Gale! I-" In his hurry, Kira failed to properly position his legs as he ran, causing him to trip over his feet, launching himself into the air for a brief second before colliding, face-first with the ground.

"...Ow..." He managed to force with a painfilled yet begrudging voice.

"Kira's here…" sighed Taikerou.

They both stood and went to help their new friend up, carrying him arm to arm up to a seat next to where they were sitting. By the time that he was conscience enough to speak, the warning bell rang, followed swiftly by the rest of the students filing into the classroom.

Since his Duel with Skyler, Kira had underwent a change in attitude that sharply contrasted the boy he once was. He became extremely devoted to Skyler and started to follow him around like a lost duckly that imprints upon the first moving thing it sees. He was also less cinical about his life overall and even revealed himself to be perticullarly energetic and sunny. Taikerou had earlier explained how he was in fact the same way with Matt, the key difference being that whereas Kira only acted that way towards Matt, now he was more open about it. In addition to a change in personality, Kira had also undergone a physical change as well. Instead of spiking his hair up he let it grow out and stopped putting gel in it, making it look more natural, despite the fact that he dyed it every other week.

Taikerou looked up from his book that he was reading and tilted his head towards Kira.

"Yeah, I already told him about the Tournament, Kira."

Kira sat up and rubbed red face. "Damn it, I wanted to be the first to tell him. But seriously, Gale, this is huge. Think of it, any card you can think of! I could completely redesign my Deck."

Taikerou looked back down at his book, trying to find where he had left off.

"What's wrong with your old Deck? Last year ya got the number 4 spot on the Duel Final. Why would ya wanna change it completely?"

"Honestly, I never liked this Deck. Bugs give me the creeps. I use them is because everyone in my family uses Insects. So naturally, I was dumped with this."

"That explains it." Skyler said leaning back in his chair. "A Deck isn't just a bunch of cards that you throw together because they look good or just because they are the kind of cards you like. A good Duelist makes his Deck with cards that he can trust in to pull through in any situation. There's no way that Deck could stand up in Limit Breaker."

"Right, I was menaning to ask you about that. What's a Limit Breaker Tournament?"

"Ya wanna join a tournament and ya don't even know iwhat it's all about?" Taikerou said with a mild chuckle under his voice.

"I assumed it just meant more stuff for the prize."

"I'll let Gale explain, he's more about it than me..."

"Basically," He began, his narrowed eyes still scanning the flier. "A Limit Breaker takes away the constrants that the Duel Class put on Duel Monsters. When it first came out, Duel Monsters was a pretty straight forward game. Every so often a cheap card would come out, and it would either be banned or limited. After a while, however, more and more cards came out with amazing effects, making the game sumwhat one-sided. Not much fun when the entire Duel hinges on who goes first to FTK you."

"No kiddin'," sneered Taikerou. "Everyone was netdeckin'. Auto-pilotin' newbs."

"The ban list got bigger and bigger until entire archetypes got banned. But then the Duel Class came along and removed a lot of the restrictions, resulting in Deck Patents. If you had the money, you could buy the rights to a Deck, and once you did, nothing could be more than sixty persent similar. Also, they were allowed to use as many staple as they want, unlike the rest of us who are limited to two per Deck. So normal Duelist like us have to just deal, using the complicated, situational cards. But for this tournament, looks like the Limit is going to be removed, meaning you can use almost any card and strategy you want."

Kira looked up at Skyler with a type of admiration before looking back down at his cards. Taikerou chimed in, stretching his arms over his head.

"I'm gettin' excited just thinkin' about it. We could really use ya here, Gale, seein' as only one of us needs ta win ta get the prize. Anyone one of us could get special cards for the others. Course, the one who actually wins gets most of them."

Skyler crossed his arms over the table and laid his head down over them.

"I'm just not interested, sorry."

"Come on, Gale. If not for you, then for me." Kira said, the ending of the last letter with his upper lip slightly raised. "I need those custom cards to…umm…"

He looked back at Taikerou who promptly finished his sentence for him, repeating what Skyler had said only seconds ago.

"'Ta become a true Duelist – blah blah - constructs his Deck –blah blah - pull through.' Or somethin' like that. I usually jus tune him out when he says stuff like that."

"Right, what he said!"

The image of all of those peircing eyes looking down at him from the sidelines in Skyler's mind was now being counter balanced by the persistant pleas of his friends. After all, no one had recognized him in the few months he had been at the acadamy, so why would a tournament be any different. Then again, no one from his old life normally trapced around Central to see him. The inner mechanisms of Skyler's minds moved against themselves as they tried to weigh the pros and cons of perticipating. After a minute more of nagging on the part of his fellow students, Skyler finally came to a decision, lifting his head from the table and leaning back in his chair.

"Fine."

"Really?" Kira said, standing in excitement.

"Really"

"You'll enter?"

"I'll enter."

"Yes," He bellowed out, cocking his arms inward in victory. "Finally I'll get some cards that I can actually use."

Taikerou allowed a small smirk from the corner of his mouth before he brushed the hair out of his face.

"That's if I let ya have a card 'r two, after I win."

Kira gave Taikerou I narrow glare then jumped to stand on top of the desk. He knelt down and sat on the balls of his feet so that he could be face-to-to with Taikerou, who looked up from his book with an indifferent expression. They both seemed to be enjoying this exchange of friendly banter.

"Is that a challenge I hear?" He retrieved his Deck from where he was sitting and held it up to Taikerou's face. "How about it?"

Taikerou looked at Kira, who was at that point only a few inches away from his face.

"Dattebayo."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Yeah it's a challenge. What of it? Are you gonna step up or are ya just gonna bitch cause your still on the rag?"

"Ha, that's cute, what? Did your husband think that one up for you? Challenge Accepted."

Skyler couldn't felt but laugh at his friends as he leaned back in his chair. "Just another normal day at Dual Academy, huh?"

"Bup" appeared on Skyler's shoulder, nodding its head in agreement to Skyler rhetorical question. "Twee!"

"Hey, what's a rag?"

The little bat simply shrugged.