"Alexis, you said you needed help?" Jaden asked as he approached the blonde in the hallway.

"Yeah, think you can help me sort through my deck? Planning on dueling that girl with the silver eagle deck," she said grinning.

"Training for your duel with Sy?"

"That's right. Speaking of which, have you seen him?"

"No, I haven't. I wonder where he is…."

They suddenly saw flashes of yellow and blue uniforms pass them as the students jogged down the hall.

"Hey, where is everyone running off to?" Jaden asked one of them.

"You don't know? They're about to show Zane's duel in the arena."

The same thought flashed across their minds: Syrus must be there, no doubt, and headed to the arena. They found Syrus sitting by himself in the far left of the middle row, facing the giant television where duels from the city were often projected on.

"He's already here?" Chazz asked as he, Hasselberry, and Atticus walked in.

"Of course he is," Hasselberry popped in, "it is his brother's first match since...well, you know." They all sat a couple rows behind the blue-haired duelist, knowing how intensely focused he will be watching his brother duel.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer on the screen said, "making his second comeback to the pro-dueling arena, Zane Truesdale!"

Syrus smiled when he heard the faint cheers for Zane coming from the screen, as well as the school showing their support for the Duel Academy graduate. Go get him, big brother!

"I place one card face down and end my turn," Zane said, a card appearing on his field.

"Fool! You think you can defeat moi?" his opponent boasts, "Let's see how tall you stand when my monster attacks you directly!"

Zane braced himself before receiving a blow on his life points. Syrus gasped when he saw his brother cringed from the attack. Usually Zane wouldn't even blink when attacked, but after the underground duels, even blows from level two monsters get a reaction out of him.

"He's down to 2700 already?" One if the students mumbled.

"Oh no!"

Syrus frowned. That attack was pretty strong. Can he hold up through the rest of the duel?

"Well, now it's your turn."

"I play my trap, which sends your monster to the graveyard. Then I summon a dragon from my hand and put it in attack mode."

"Nice save," Alexis said.

"Yeah, but that was too close," Atticus mumbled, "you can tell that his dueling is a little rusty." He looked down at Syrus. Although the boy's back was facing him, he could tell from the stiffened shoulders he was thinking the same.

"That's all you play?" the dualist scoffed at Zane, "what a pity, because when you sent my monster to the grave, his special ability activates. For every monster on your side the field, they lose 500 attack points!"

Zane growled, watching his dragon's points dwindle before attacking.

"Now I can play a new monster, and what's lovely about this one is that it attacks you directly!"

Zane braced himself for it, leaving him with only 1200.

"That's not good," Chazz mumbled the obvious.

Syrus trembled when Zane slowly drew his hand near his chest. He stopped halfway, as if he could feel his brother's eyes from hundreds of miles away, and drew his next card.

"I fuse my dragon with one in my hand to create the cyber end dragon!"

The audience, both in the arena and in duel academy grasped. The legendary dragon stood in the stadium.

"He still has cyber end dragon?" Jaden asked in awe, looking down at Syrus. I thought he gave that card to Syrus.

He did, but Syrus couldn't keep such a card in his deck. Zane always dueled with that monster, it was his prized card. That card was meant to be with Zane, Syrus thought, and pulled a 'Jaden' by sneaking the card into Zane's new deck.

"4000 attack points?!"

"Yes, now let's end this battle!" Zane shouted. His dragon breathed white light beams at his opponent. When the glow from the blast died down, the duelist, covered in ashes, fainted as his life points dropped to 0.

The crowd's cheers roared so loud that the floor of the school arena shook under their feet. Cheering along with them, Syrus clapped for his brother's victory. Big brother, you did it.

"Hey look! Zane's being interviewed" one of the students pointed out.

"I've never seen a duel this exciting in my life! Tell me, Zane, what made you duel like this?"

"I changed my perspective. When I hit that dead end in my career, I thought the reason I kept losing was my deck. But my deck could only go so far, I had to work hard to find what it can do. I thought I had found every strategy my deck can have, but there is always another move that can be made we never saw before."

Syrus smiled. His duel against the Psycho deck was the reason Zane saw a new light on dueling, that the deck wasn't going to win on it's own, but with the endless strategies and finding every possible move. And through Syrus's duel, he found that out.

"I- augh!" He fell on one knee, clenching his jaw and clawing at his chest. Everyone gasped at the sight of the great duelist, kneeling on the floor.

"Zane Truesdale has collapsed!"

Flashing ambulance lights were shown on screen before the signal was cut off and replaced the image with static.

"Zane?!" his brother cried. What happened?! Is he hurt?! He felt a hand on his trembling shoulder, and looked up to see it was Jaden's. The gang surrounded him, each giving him a sympathetic smile or a hair ruffle to support him.

"Syrus, it'll be okay," Atticus tried to assure him, "come on, there's no point sticking around here. I'll try and find out about Zane but for now, let's go for swim."

I can't swim, he wanted to point out, but Syrus knew he was trying to get his mind of what had happened. Sighing, he went along with it.

"I knew this would happen," he mumbled as the gang led him out of the arena.