"Flame Wingman, attack Cybernetic Magician!"

Flame Wingman flew towards Cybernetic Magician but before it attacked, he flew up into the air above the skyscrapers. Ryusei looked up, very tense at the situation as Wingman gained its 1000 ATK points from Skyscraper (3100/1200).

"Go Sky Dive Scorcher!" Flame Wingman dived downwards and turned flaming red.

"RYUSEI!" Vanessa and Shinji shouted.

Ryusei looked straight in Wingman's eyes and braced for the attack.

Flame Wingman clashed with Cybernetic Magician causing a huge explosion. A large smoke cloud appeared covering everything on Ryusei's side of the field.

Kazuma smiled and said "Now you have to take damage equal to you're Magician's attack!"

Flame Wingman prepared to fire a shot at Ryusei but as the smoke cleared, Cybernetic Magician was still on the field. The audience was impressed by how Ryusei manage to escape Kazuma's attack. Kazuma looked at Ryusei, waiting for an explanation.

"I didn't really want to use it but I had no choice." Ryusei said.

"What do you mean?" Kazuma asked.

Ryusei went to his Deck pouch and pulled out a card to show to Kazuma, it was Defense Wizard (400/1700).

"See this card? When it's in my Graveyard I can remove it from play to prevent a Spellcaster from being destroyed by battle. However I still take damage from the attack."

LP (2500/2300)

"Nicely done" Kazuma said. Vanessa and Shinji both breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Ryusei put the card back in his pouch and continued.

"I must admit, that was a pretty swift move you pulled on me. However I don't buckle that easy. There is still a long way to go in this duel and I plan on giving my all to the end!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way. I end my turn."

Ryusei put his fingers on his deck and drew his card.

"My turn!"

Chapter 8-Birth of a New Leader?! Part 2

"I summon Breaker the Magical Warrior (1600/1000) in attack mode! When he's summoned he gains a Spell Counter increasing its attack by 300 points (Breaker-1900/1000)! Next I discard my Apprentice Magician to limit your Wingman's attack to 2000, courtesy of Cybernetic Magician!"

The crowd cheered the move by Ryusei.

"Cybernetic Magician, attack Flame Wingman (2000/1200!)" The Magician fired a blast of white light which engulfed Flame Wingman, shattering it to pieces.

LP (2100/2300)

"Breaker will now attack directly!"

Kazuma flinched from the attack but kept his balance from falling over.

(200/2300)

"Finally I'll use Breaker's effect to remove its Spell Counter to destroy a Spell or Trap on the field like Skyscraper!" the crowd cheered Ryusei's excellent move.

"I end my turn."

"All right! Ryusei!" Shinji yelled.

"Good job!" Vanessa cheered. As the crowd continued cheering Kazuma was just about to start his turn.

"I thought you guys were on my side!" He joked. "Anyway I play Fifth Hope. By returning 5 Heroes from my Graveyard to the Deck I can shuffle and draw 2 cards. However, since it's the only card on my hand and field I can draw another on top."

Avian, Bubbleman, Tempest, Thunder Giant and Rampart Blaster returned to the Deck and Extra Deck respectively. Kazuma shuffled and drew his 3 cards.

"I summon Elemental Hero Stratos (1800/300) in defense mode. When he's summoned I can add a Hero from my Deck to my hand like Necroshade (1600/1800). I play two cards face-down and end my turn."

Ryusei: ("He must have a lot of faith to keep using up his hand. But anyway...")

Ryusei drew his card on his turn and moved straight onto the Battle Phase.

"Breaker will attack your Stratos!" As Breaker slashed Stratos in half, Kazuma smiled.

"I activate Hero Signal so I get to summon a Hero from my Deck when you destroy one of my monsters like Bubbleman (800/1200) in defense!"

"Cybernetic Magician attack Bubbleman!" As Bubbleman was destroyed Kazuma shook his head in disappointment.

"You should really be careful Ryusei because you never know what trap you're going to fall into." He said as he activated his Trap.

"That's Hero Counterattack!" Shinji exclaimed.

"This Trap can activate when you take out a Hero by battle. You select a random card and if it's a Hero I get to destroy a monster of yours and then summon it. But since I'm only holding one card you have to choose it." Kazuma revealed Elemental Hero Necroshade.

Ryusei: ("Clever play.")

"So I'll destroy your Cybernetic Magician and summon Necroshade (1600/1800) in attack mode!"

"I end my turn." Ryusei muttered.

"Good." Kazuma said as he drew his card. "Necroshade will attack Breaker!"

Ryusei was surprised by Kazuma's command but Shinji and Vanessa were not, already figuring out what Kazuma was up to. The two monsters destroyed each other and Kazuma revealed his plan.

"Now since Necroshade is in the Graveyard its effect allows me to summon a Hero without a release for one time only."

"Crap." Ryusei muttered.

Kazuma smiled at the response,

"Anyway, come out Elemental Hero Bladedge (2600/1800)!" A gold bull headed, muscle-bound monster appeared. "Your turn Ryusei."

Ryusei drew his card and hoped for the best. "I summon Apprentice Magician (400/800) in defense mode and end my turn."

"Fair enough. I draw and have Bladedge attack your monster." Bladedge charged forward and slashed Apprentice Magician with his arm.

(LP: 200/500)

"Great. Battle difference." Ryusei said sarcastically.

"You're catching on."

"Well my Apprentice Magician allows me to special summon a Level 2 Spellcaster from my Deck to the field in face-down defense, so I choose Old Vindictive Magician (450/600).

Kazuma growled a little knowing about Old Vindictive's effect. "I play a card face-down and end my turn."

"My turn then!" Ryusei declared.

Vanessa: ("If things go right, Ryusei can win this turn and take the lead in this match!")

"I flip my Old Vindictive Magician to attack mode, thus triggering its effect. It destroys a monster on your side of the field!"

The mage twirled its staff and fired a purple shot causing Bladedge to explode. Kazuma still remained calm about the situation.

"Old Vindictive Magician attack Kazuma directly!" Vanessa and Shinji were looking in amazement of Ryusei's victory while the crowd was in awe of the duel coming to an end.

"Sorry Ryusei but I activate Hero Blast!"

"Hero Blast?"

"It's a handy Trap which allows me to add a Normal Elemental Hero from my Graveyard to my hand like Burstinatrix, and as a bonus, I can destroy a monster that has equal or less ATK than Burstinatrix." Old Vindictive shattered.

"I set a monster face-down and end my turn."

"Draw. I summon Elemental Hero Burstinatrix (1200/800) and it will attack your face-down monster!" the monster flipped was Crystal Seer (100/100).

"When Crystal Seer is flipped I can pick up two cards from my Deck and add one to my hand and return one to the bottom of my Deck."

The two cards were Jowgen the Spiritualist and Magical Marionette. Ryusei added Marionette to his hand and put Jowgen to the bottom.

"I set a card and end my turn."

"This duel has been so awesome!" Vanessa said gleefully.

"You're right! It's been non-stop action! I just hope Ryusei can keep on battling to win." Shinji replied.

Location: Domino South Dorm

Hayate was in his room with Tasuku. The room was back in its clean state. All the replacement items were present with the room looking like it was never damaged. Tasuku was on his laptop working away when he received an email. It was sent from Kasumi Fujia. Tasuku opened it and the message was entailing her acceptance of the invitation.

"Okay. Kasumi is in too."

Hayate got up from his bed to read the email himself and asked,

"What's the status of everybody?"

"Well, almost everybody is in. Kasumi, Yuji and Ayaka have accepted their invitations. All is left is Kazuma."

"Typical." Hayate responded.

"You want me to send him a reminder?"

"No, leave it to me. It's been a while since I've seen him anyway."

Location: Domino East Dorm

The duel continued and it was Ryusei's turn. "I summon the Unhappy Maiden (0/100) in defense mode and end my turn."

"Is that it? I expected better Ryusei." Kazuma said as he drew his card. "I summon Elemental Hero Wildheart (1500/1600) in attack mode. Sorry Ryusei but this duel is over. Wildheart, attack his Maiden!"

As the maiden was destroyed Kazuma was about to declare an attack with Burstinatrix but noticed something strange.

"That weird feeling you have, that's your Battle Phase ending courtesy of my Maiden." Ryusei proclaimed.

"Hmm…I shift Burstinatrix to defense mode and end my turn."

"My turn." He smiled at what he saw. "I summon my Magician's Valkyria (1600/1800) in attack mode. Magician's Valkyria will take out your Wildheart!"

LP: (100/500)

Ryusei: ("His face-down didn't destroy my monster or stop my attack. In that case!")

Ryusei then looked at Magical Dimension and Magical Marionette in his hand.

"I now play Magical Dimension! By releasing a Spellcaster monster I can Special Summon a Spellcaster from my hand and then destroy a monster on the field. So I release Valkyria to summon Magical Marionette (2000/1000) and take out you're Burstinatrix!"

Ryusei: ("Hopefully this should be it.")

"Since its still his Battle Phase Ryusei can now attack with Marionette!" Vanessa said in celebration.

"Magical Marionette attack Kazuma directly!" Ryusei declared.

Marionette sent her puppet forward, which was holding two knives. It went and slashed Kazuma twice but he had no reaction.

LP (100/500)

"What happened?" Shinji asked, completely lost at the situation.

Ryusei looked and saw Kazuma had activated a Trap card.

"Took you long enough to notice my Hero Spirit Trap. When a Hero is destroyed by battle I can reduce one monster's Battle Damage to 0 in the same turn." Kazuma explained.

"When Valkyria destroyed Wildheart."

"Correct."

"I end my turn."

"My turn then." Kazuma looked at his card for a moment. "Ryusei, I must thank you for an excellent duel. It's been a while since I've been pushed to my limits. You are a very good duelist."

"Same thing goes for you."

"However, unfortunately for you, you're skills hasn't been good enough to win today."

"You said something like that earlier and look what happened."

"True, but this time there is nothing you can do to stop this. I activate Miracle Fusion! This time I will remove from play my Flame Wingman and my King of the Swamp as a substitute for Sparkman to summon my favourite monster!"

A new armoured plated warrior appeared emitting a very bright light from its body.

"Whoa…" Vanessa said quietly in awe. The crowd was amazed at the new monster that was summoned.

"Ryusei, meet Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman (2500/2100)!"

"That's a nice monster, but since you played a Spell my Marionette gets a Counter and 200 extra points (2200/1000) so victory won't be happening this turn."

"You would think that but my Wingman has a very unique effect. For every Elemental Hero in my graveyard it gets 300 extra ATK."

"Wait, what?"

"So since I have six Heroes in my Graveyard my Wingman gets 1800 more ATK points (4300/2100). Shining Flare Wingman, attack Ryusei's Marionette with Solar Flare!"

Wingman created a luminous green flame in his hands and threw it at Marionette instantly destroying it.

LP (100/0)

The crowd applauded as thanks to a fantastic duel. Both players deactivated their Duel Disks and walked to shake hands.

"Great duel Ryusei." Kazuma said.

"Likewise." Ryusei responded.

This action then caused a small amount of confusion with the crowd.

"What happened to the match?" someone shouted.

"What match?" Kazuma responded.

"We heard this is a match duel to become Duel Leader."

"First time I've heard of that. I just wanted to duel Ryusei to test his skills. There were no plans of a Duel Leader match. Someone's been pulling your leg. Unless you knew about this Ryusei?"

The crowd eagerly anticipated Ryusei's answer.

"No. I heard he was the best so I wanted to see how I rate with the best. Where did you hear this from?"

This caused some commotion as the crowd was then looking for Vanessa. That was when Shinji then noticed that Vanessa disappeared from the crowd, and couldn't be found. Kazuma and Ryusei just smiled at each other as the crowd dissipated in disappointment.

"Vanessa is not going to be too happy with us selling her out like that." Ryusei said.

"Well she should learn not to get involved with everything. Some things need to be left alone with the people in question." Kazuma replied.

"Anyway Kazuma, I was thinking that you should enter the tournament."

"Why?"

"Well why not? It's just a few duels. Plus with what I've been hearing about reputations of dorms and all that it would be nice for Domino East to lose the tag it has right now. If you don't do great, it stays the same so you don't really lose anything."

"Don't you want to enter? It's an opportunity to face Hayate again."

"I couldn't care less if I never duel him again. Plus I think you're the better person to represent us in this. After all you are the Duel Leader."

"True. Though I prefer 'Unofficial Duel Leader.'"

"Anyway I'm gonna head back to the dorm so see you around."

The pair shook hands again. As Ryusei walked towards the dorm, Kazuma walked towards the main building.

Location: University Car Park

Kazuma was walking to his car (blue convertible) and he was about to get in to go home and then he heard a voice he recognised saying.

"I was just about to swing by you're place."

Kazuma turned to see it was Hayate on his black Kawasaki motorbike.

"But since you're here, you've saved me a journey."

"Can I help you with something?" Kazuma asked sternly.

Hayate got off his bike and walked up to Kazuma. "I was wondering whether you are entering my tournament, that's all."

"I'm thinking about it."

"What's there to think about? This is a chance for you to become a legend here."

"I'm a realist Hayate, for the years we've known each other you should know that. So I think you're claims are a little over exaggerated."

"How can I forget? Kazuma the realist!" Hayate said sarcastically. "That has always been your problem. You don't take chances, everything has to be played safe with you, you analyse too much. You assume you have no chance because you know the strength of the other Duel Leaders despite the fact that anything can happen!"

Kazuma just stared at Hayate sternly as he continued.

"My father told me that risks bring great rewards, maybe you should learn from that."

"What you say about me may be true, but what about you?"

"What about me?"

"This tournament may be a fancy way to determine the best duelist here, but we both know this is a farce."

"What are you talking about?!"

"You're problem is that you cannot accept the fact that no matter how good you are at something, there may be somebody who is better than you! That's why you are doing this event. You don't want the people to think that Ryusei, a 1st year from Domino East is better than the Duel Leader of Domino South!"

"That's bullshit!"

"You know it's true! If it bothers you so much why don't you do the simple thing and have a rematch?"

"I'm the University Champion! I'm the best duelist here! Why should I have a rematch with scum like him?!"

"I know why, you're too scared."

"What the hell did you just say?!"

"You heard me! You're scared in case Ryusei's win wasn't a fluke and he beats you again! So instead of facing him head-on you're doing all this crap!"

"I'm not doing this for myself! All this crap is for the students! When something happens you need to do something to restore faith to the public!"

"Another thing you're Dad taught you?" Kazuma said sarcastically.

"Yeah it was actually, and it's that kind of advice that will make me a success and people like you will stay a failure!"

Kazuma looked furiously at Hayate as he turned and walked away and got on his bike.

"Up to you if you enter the tournament or not. I don't honestly care. But if you do enter I would really like you to make it to the final so I can humiliate you in front of the whole university. But as you said yourself, you're a realist so it will probably not happen."

Hayate put his helmet on and started his bike, he prepared to ride off but Kazuma had something to say.

"There is still one question I want to ask?"

"What?"

"What happened? I mean, what happened to us?"

Hayate kept silent looking away. An image of a pretty girl flashed in his eyes. She was average height and had long wavy dark brown hair reaching her lower back. She had innocent brown eyes and was wearing a purple jumper and brown jeans. Hayate broke the silence and said.

"18, 11, 06."

He rode off on to the main road and out of the University. Kazuma was thinking about the numbers, confused at what Hayate said.

Kazuma: ("November 18th 2006. What's the deal with that? We were back in high school then and were best friends also. But I can't remember anything that happened that caused us to fall out. If anything it's his Dad that caused it. But for me to know for sure I really have to check things out to find the answer. In the meantime, Hayate, you've got to learn to face things head-on. You'll thank me for this.")

Kazuma got in his car, started the engine and drove out of the University. He reached the junction and slowly turned right at the junction to head back to his place.

Location: Domino East Dorm

It was early evening. Around about 6pm. Ryusei and Shinji were in their room just chilling when they heard a knock on the door. Since Ryusei didn't move from his chair Shinji got up from his bed to answer it. As he opened the door he saw Vanessa standing outside.

"I see the crowd didn't get to you then." Shinji joked.

In response, Vanessa slapped the back of Shinji's head.

"Not funny!" she answered back while Shinji rubbed the back of his head.

As she walked into the room Ryusei noticed Vanessa entering the room.

"Hey Va…" Vanessa slapped him on the back of his head before Ryusei could finish his sentence.

"What was that for?" Ryusei asked whilst rubbing his head.

"That's for selling me down the river!" Vanessa said loudly.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean!"

"If you're talking about the match Duel with Kazuma it was your own fault."

"How is it my fault?!"

"Look Vanessa, I know you had good intentions and what you did earlier was thoughtful. Not many people would do that for their friends."

Vanessa calmed down after hearing this.

"I feel a 'but' coming though."

"But this thing with Hayate is my problem to deal with, not yours. What he's doing may seem unfair but it doesn't bother me so I choose it ignore it and him. That's my choice and hopefully you'll accept that decision."

Vanessa sighed in acceptance of Ryusei's statement.

"Okay, I do. But I still think you're wrong though." She said stubbornly

Ryusei just smiled and then the guys heard a little beep.

"It came from your PDA Ryusei." Shinji said.

As Ryusei picked it up he noticed he had 2 email messages, both from Kazuma. The first one had the subject "READ FIRST!" and the second one "University Tournament". Ryusei clicked on the first one and the message read.

After thinking about it I realised that you're the man. Enjoy!

"What the hell?" Ryusei said.

"What does that even mean?" Shinji asked.

"Go to the other message!" an agitated Vanessa said.

As Ryusei clicked on the second message (University Tournament) the three of them read silently and when they finished they all shouted in unison

"WHAAAAT?!"

Location: Domino South Dorm

Tasuku was still in Hayate's room working on his laptop. A few seconds later Hayate walked into the room with some food, their dinner for the evening. Tasuku then got an email alert. He went to check his email and got a message from Kazuma with the subject "University Tournament".

"Finally got an email form Kazuma" Tasuku said.

"Hmm. Decided to enter has he? Looking forward to it." Hayate smirked.

As Tasuku opened the message he lost his smile.

"What the hell?!" Tasuku said loudly.

Hayate went over to his laptop to read the message himself. After reading this Hayate clenched his fist in anger and punched his desk shouting.

"Kazuma! You son of a bitch!"

On the laptop screen Kazuma's email read.

Hayate

I am writing to let you know that I cannot make the tournament this time around. I got a call from my Dad and he needs an extra pair of hands for some big party his restaurant has been booked for in a few weeks. So I have to go to Sapporo in a couple of weeks to help out (obviously the tourney is at the same time). Anyway for me not to be a nuisance and disturb the format of this tournament I've decided to take your offer of naming a representative for Domino East to take my place. I think you will agree that he is suitable. Anyway take care man.

Kazuma

Representative Details
Student No: 05628392
Student Name: Ryusei Fujiwara

End of chapter

Preview: Hayate is clearly unhappy of Ryusei's entry to the tournament. So Tasuku, behind Hayate's back challenges Ryusei to a duel with his place in the tournament on the line. Ryusei declines as he has coursework due for the next day. Seeing this as an opportunity to pay him back for what he did on the first day Shinji duels against Tasuku in Ryusei's place.
Chapter 9-Returning The Favour, Shinji's Thanks! (title tbc)

ORIGINAL CARDS

Defense Wizard
DARK/Spellcaster/3/400/1700
During damage calculation, you can remove from play this card from your Graveyard to prevent a Spellcaster-Type monster you control from being destroyed by this battle.