Euphemia of the Duel Academy
Shadow Game Tasters part 1
Disclaimer – Code Geass is the property of Sunrise, Bandai Entertainment and Ichirō Ōkouchi and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is the property of TV Tokyo, NAS (Nihon Ads System), Studio Gallop, Kazuki Takahashi (the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga artist), 4Kids Entertainment (I mention this because I'm using the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX dub names) and most recently from the 25/26th June 2012 the 4K Acquisition subsidiary of Konami. Also some cards I'll be using will be based on characters from other TV shows, movies etc. Those characters are the property of their respective owners.
Warnings – Strong language, possible violence and possible Euphemia OOC (not a female Jaden).
Chapter Summery – Since his capture and having his memories suppressed by his father, the Emperor, Charles zi Britannia, Lelouch Lamperouge a.k.a. Lelouch vi Britannia has been returned to "Area Eleven" and is living life as a normal student with no recollection of his previous life. However, bored with his life and knowing that something is off; Lelouch can't help but think back to the Black Rebellion and the massacre at the SAZ beforehand that acted as a catalyst for the rebellion. Also, rumours have been circulating over that Princess Euphemia's body mysteriously vanished from on board the Avalon while up in the air and Lelouch tries to theorise how it's possible. Meanwhile, in the Yu-Gi-Oh! World, after Euphemia had defeated Amanda, Euphemia, Yumi and Blair hear about the Abandoned Dorm from Arenson and Sophia while telling ghost stories and Euphemia decides to go and investigate with Blair agreeing to take them there. However, all is not well as while en route to the Abandoned Dorm, Euphemia unintentionally acquires a golden medallion with the Eye of Anubis symbol and if that was not enough, Yumi ends up being kidnapped by an old adversary of Jaden's, backed by yet another of Jaden's old adversaries for the purposes of luring Euphemia into a trap. However, as Euphemia goes to help Yumi, yet another old adversary of Jaden's appears to prevent her friends from following her and Zukasu steps up to deal with the obstructive Trueman in a duel more real than any of them could ever imagine and where losing does not mean just losing with your Life Points. Can he defeat Trueman so that he and the others can go aid Euphemia or will everyone fall victim to the Shadow Game?
Code Geass World – Tōkyō Settlement, "Area Eleven", Ashford Academy, Boys' Dorm, Lelouch's room
Lelouch Lamperouge sat on his bed in an upright position with his back pressed against his pillow, which was between his back and the bed's hardboard. He sat with his knees bent and his arms folded as he had long since given up trying to fall over to sleep. It was night outside, though unlike two nights previously, it was raining heavily outside and the only sound Lelouch could hear was the battering of raindrops against the glass. In fact, it was raining so heavily outside that if he had gone to his window and looked outside, if not for the fact that it was dark, then he would have seen the raindrops bounce off the ground. However, the weather was the last thing on the amnesic prince's mind at the moment. He honestly just could not fall over to sleep no matter how hard he tried, though he tried to place the blame on the raindrops beating against the window, he knew that that was only just an excuse for he had long since managed to drown out the racket of the assaulting raindrops on his window. No, the real reason he could not get to sleep was because his mind was just too full of thoughts as he remembered events of the past three months and needless to say, his thoughts were all in one big jumble.
He was Lelouch Lamperouge and he lived with his brother, Rolo and both attended Ashford Academy, one of the most prestigious schools in all of "Area Eleven". Three months previously, Princess Euphemia, former Third Princess of the Holy Britannian Empire had announced the formation of the Specially Administrated Zone of Japan in which "Elevens" could sign up and regain some of their rights and be called Japanese once again, but it had all been one carefully constructed ruse as during the opening ceremony, Princess Euphemia had apparently ordered a massacre, which in turn led to the Black Rebellion that was led by the masked terrorist known as Zero and his Order of the Black Knights, which was eventually finally quashed thanks to the efforts of Gilbert G.P. Guilford and the Glaston Knights. Most of the Black Knights had either been captured or killed and as for Zero himself, he was reported to have been executed and even now, things were still a bit hairy, though through all the chaos and confusion following the aftermath of the Black Rebellion, rumours over Princess Euphemia had started to fly around. According to those rumours, Princess Euphemia had apparently died and that her body had mysteriously gone missing from Prince Schneizel's personal flagship, the Avalon and several rumours had cropped up as to what happened from totally logical explanations to the outright bizarre.
Anyway, Lelouch could not help but ponder about his life and the state of affairs. All in all, he was just an average everyday student, though he was not very fit and cut out on PE classes, claiming that they were too strenuous for him and he cut other classes, finding them insufferably boring. In truth, boredom was pretty much the highlight of Lelouch's life. It was his final year of school and come the end of the semester, he would be expected to get a job and join the workforce. However, despite being tired of being a student, he did not think that he was suited to just getting a job and joining the workforce. It was not like he could ever hope to accomplish anything. No matter how well he did or how hard he worked, the nobility and the big corporations would still be above him and he would just end up being absorbed into the hierarchy of adults; just another cog in the machine that was the Holy Britannian Empire. It was the perfect world; a world in which everyone knew their place and did their part and no one dared even take a single breath out of line for the punishments for doing so were severe and may God help any poor sap who tried to rise above their social class. The attitude from those at the top could simply be described as "Know your place and stay there".
"How boring," Lelouch thought to himself, "Perfect world, hah. I guess what they don't tell you is that everything being perfect means stagnation."
That much, he did know. Despite the perfection that the Holy Britannian Empire exuded, the fact remained that life in the Holy Britannian Empire for its people had become rather stagnant. Nothing changed. Despite the Emperor's constantly ranting on and on about survival of the fittest and how progress was made through struggle and hardship, Lelouch could honestly say that he did not get it. Britannia had started a recent expansion that was still going on even to this day with the war with the EU with Britannian forces encroaching on more and more of the EU's territories. Lelouch honestly did not see the benefits of this "progress". He was still a student, he was still Lelouch Lamperouge. He honestly could never hope to get very far by joining the workforce. The nobility and the big corporation would not allow him to rise higher than a certain point.
"Hypocrite," he mused as he thought about the Emperor, "The Emperor's nothing but a hypocrite. Survival of the fittest, the strong survive and the weak perish, struggle promotes growth, it's all a lie."
He found his eyes widening as he found himself taken away at the amount of pure hatred and venom in his voice as he voiced Britannia's Social Darwinism rhetoric. He did not know why, but every time he thought about Britannia and its rhetoric, as well as the Emperor, it seemed to bring this seething hot fury that seemed to just come out of nowhere, especially when he thought of the Emperor. He did not know why, but Britannia's rhetoric somehow infuriated him and something about it just seemed to rub him the wrong way and in truth, it scared him somewhat. However, when he tried to think why he felt the way he did, his mind drew a blank. He could not find any reason whatsoever why he felt the way he did, or rather, whenever he believed he knew the answer, it would always slip from his grasp. All he knew was that he hated Britannia's rhetoric and he especially hated the Emperor. The Emperor seemed to bring out the most hatred in him and yet, he had only seen the Emperor on TV and had never met him in person. However, with the amount of hatred Lelouch felt for him, he could easily forgive people for believing that the Emperor had done something horrible to him.
"And why do I get the feeling that that's the truth?" he asked himself.
That was another thing. Despite not having met the Emperor before and therefore, the Emperor could not have done anything to him since he doubted that the Emperor knew he even existed, somehow, whenever he told himself that, it came off feeling as if it was a lie. He did get a sense of déjà vu whenever he saw the Emperor on TV and whenever he did, he felt his anger flare up like never before. His anger was so great that he knew if the Emperor had been present in the assembly hall while delivering his speech, then he would have attempted to kill him right then and there.
However, his mysterious hatred for the Emperor was just one of many things that plagued his mind. He had similar feelings towards many things; that certain things did not seem real and other things felt as if they were a lie. His entire life was an example. He was a Britannian orphan whose parents had died when he was still young and since then, he had taken it upon himself to look after and care for his little brother. However, whenever he thought back on those events, he could not help but feel a sense of indifference towards them and they did not seem real to him. In fact from the way he acted, it was as if he had read a story in a book and then taken on one of the characters' backstories as his own and he did not know why, but socialising with Rolo somehow felt wrong to him; like Rolo should not be there. He did not know why, but at times, he felt as if Rolo was not really his brother and had on occasion almost blurted out words like "fake" or "phony" whenever he thought of him and like his mysterious hatred for the Emperor, it terrified him since he did not know what it had come from.
However, one thing he was comfortable with was cutting class to go gambling; challenging members of the nobility to high-stakes chess matches in which he would always win and the nobleman would pay him a huge sum of money. That was the only thing he felt comfortable with as it helped stave off his boredom. It was because he was bored that he went on those frequent trips, sometimes with Rivalz and sometimes with Rolo, in which they would borrow Rivalz's bike. That was perhaps the only thing that did not in any way feel strange to him. He had been doing it for years, after all. However, whenever he thought about it, the outings themselves did not feel strange and the outings in the past did not feel strange. What did feel strange was his reasons for doing so. True, he could admit that staving off boredom was his main reason, but somehow, it felt as if that was not always the case. He felt that in the past, he had also done it for another reason entirely and that it was not always about combating boredom.
"Strange, just like the Black Rebellion," he thought to himself as he let his thoughts drift to the Black Rebellion, or rather, the months leading up to the Black Rebellion since Zero made his debut.
Zero had first made his appearance at the Court Martial of Private Suzaku Kururugi, an Honorary Britannian and former "Eleven" who had been accused of murdering Prince Clovis la Britannia, former Third Prince of the Holy Britannian Empire in Shinjuku in an incident involving poison gas in which some terrorists had apparently stolen a gas canister and had been chased into the ghetto in which they released it in an effort to take out their pursuers, but the residents of the ghetto were mostly the ones who made up the list of fatalities.
"All a lie," Lelouch spat with a growl.
That was another thing that irked him. Despite not being there, he somehow knew that it was a lie and that what had been mentioned was a cover-story invented to favour the military. That in itself was probably not a surprise since Lelouch had often come across soldiers executing "Elevens" while out in the Settlement and then hearing stories of how the soldiers had been defending themselves even when Lelouch knew that that clearly was not the case, but with Shinjuku, it was different. It was not so much as he suspected a military cover-up, but rather that, he knew it was a military cover-up and from the way he told himself that, it was as if he himself had been there and had seen what had happened first-hand. Sometimes he would hear the screams of a child echoing in his mind before being silenced by gunfire and not only that, but for some reason, he pictured his PE teacher, Miss Villetta Nu there as well and honestly, for the life of him, he could not understand why. Miss Villetta was a PE teacher, not a soldier, though he did admit that she did join the teaching staff after the Black Rebellion after the school reopened, though almost all of the student body with the exceptions of him, Rolo, Milly, Shirley and Rivalz had all remained in the Homeland. It was an entirely new student body altogether that attended the school now.
Anyway, for some reason, he felt as if he had been present at Shinjuku during the apparent military operation there, but if that was not enough, remembering being in the Student Council Clubhouse and witnessing Zero's debut on TV in which he managed to rescue Suzaku and somehow caused the leader of the now-defunct Pureblood Faction, Jeremiah Gottwald to go berserk and help him escape. However, like with his backstory, he felt the same feeling of indifference whenever he thought back to being in the clubhouse; it felt as if someone had told him about it. However, what was different about that and his backstory was that he knew that it had actually happened. However, the feeling was more along the sense that he had been there in person with Suzaku and Zero as well as Zero's mysterious accomplice who had aided him. Somehow, he knew that "Orange" was really nothing and had been something that Zero must have thought of in order to cause dissention and infighting among the authorities. He did know that there were several factions within Britannia's administration and that the administration had its share of internal problems and disagreements among those various factions were rampant. Zero had obviously known this and had invented "Orange" as a means of stirring up internal fighting. However, in the end, Jeremiah had to deal with a munity orchestrated by Kewell Soresi when Kewell tried to make it seem that "Orange" was just Jeremiah acting on his own rather than the entire Pureblood Faction, which ultimately proved to be a mistake since Princess Euphemia had gotten caught up in the crossfire and because they had put her little sister in danger, Princess Cornelia, who had just assumed the role of "Area Eleven's" acting Viceroy had demoted the Purebloods and reassigned them to the rare flank. In any case, from what Lelouch heard, Jeremiah had been driven insane and had perished at the battle at Narita.
"Again, why does that all feel like I know more than I should?" he asked himself, feeling really confused.
That was another thing that ebbed away at him. Thinking back on hearing about Zero's many escapades, he somehow got the feeling that he knew more than he should; like he had been right there on the battlefield when it had occurred. Somehow, he knew that Zero's failure at Saitama had been due to his subordinates panicking when Cornelia managed to gain the upper hand, somehow he could picture Jeremiah at Narita in his final moments ranting and raving like a lunatic in his final moments and somehow, he knew that at Port Yokosuka that General Katase and the survivors of the JLF had not committed suicide, but rather Zero had attached and detonated a bomb underneath the Sakuradite tanker that Katase and his men had been using as a make-shift hideout. Those incidents and more; somehow he knew things that he knew he shouldn't and like the mysterious hatred he seemed to have developed for the Emperor, it scared him. He was unsure why he felt the way he did. However, he just knew that what he thought of was true.
However, after an incident at Kyūshū's Fukuda Base in which former members of Japan's Kururugi Administration led by Atsushi Sawasaki had attacked in a bid to claim Japan in the name of the Chinese Federation; basically, it was an attempt by the Chinese Federation to wrest control of "Area Eleven" from Britannia and have Sawasaki act as their puppet leader; anyway, afterwards, Princess Euphemia had come to Ashford Academy during Milly's festival, probably looking for Suzaku, Lelouch guessed and it was there that she had announced the SAZ. However, for some reason, thinking of Princess Euphemia caused him to be overwhelmed with wave upon wave of sorrow for some reason and he could not help but feel a pang of what he could only describe as guilt and it sometimes reduced him to tears the more he thought about her; especially when it came to the massacre that she had carried out.
Princess Euphemia was perhaps one of the only royals Lelouch could honestly say he liked. Unlike her many half-siblings, who he would described as over-privileged, uncaring and overrated snobs and her full-blooded sister, Princess Cornelia being what Lelouch believed was an overly-glamorised kill-happy thug, Princess Euphemia was one of the nicest and kindest people one could meet. Apparently, she did not get with the Social Darwinism program and seemed kind to even nin-Britannians. Lelouch remembered how Nina Einstein described how during the Lake Kawaguchi incident in which a disgruntled member of the JLF named Lieutenant-Colonel Josui Kusakabe had hijacked the Annual Sakuradite Summit that had been taking place there and had taken everyone hostage. Anyway, Nina had a crippling xenophobic fear of non-Britannians, "Elevens" in particular and a guard had overheard her mumbling to herself, and she had used the word, "Eleven" and the guard had taken extreme offence to that and it resulted in Nina having a panic attack, but Princess Euphemia, who had been there in disguise had revealed herself to save Nina's life and since then, Nina had developed a rather unhealthy obsession over her. Anyway, Euphemia had seemed to have been a kind and caring person and had thought up of the SAZ, apparently in a bid to help the Japanese.
Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Before the opening ceremony, there was talk of whether or not Zero would show up and at first, it seemed that everyone had figured correctly when, during the televised broadcast that Zero's seat was empty, but then Zero came, riding a stolen Knightmare Frame that he had somehow acquired from Prince Schneizel and requested an audience with Euphemia alone. After that, they had disappeared for a while and then Princess Euphemia had emerged alone and then asked if the Japanese could die and somehow, despite the broadcast being cut, somehow Lelouch had a picture of Princess Cornelia's advisor, Andreas Darlton trying to talk sense into Princess Euphemia after she had gone and shot one of the Japanese in the crowd and then Princess Euphemia shooting him and saying something along the lines of "I have to kill the Japanese; get in my way and you'll share their fate" and that was when the massacre started.
"I'm sorry," Lelouch mumbled as his vision blurred and tears suddenly streamed down his face, apparently coming from nowhere.
Thinking of Princess Euphemia for some reason brought nothing but sorrow and guilt and Lelouch had found himself mumbling "I'm sorry" over and over again, though he just, for the life of him could not understand why. He did not know why he felt guilty over Princess Euphemia, especially considering that he had never met her in person before and therefore had done nothing that would bring on such feelings. However, like before, he somehow knew that to be a lie. He not only had the feeling that he had met Princess Euphemia before, but that he knew her rather intimately and not only that, but he also had this deep crippling feeling of foreboding dread that caused his blood to run cold whenever he thought of it and that was that he somehow believed that he, himself had ultimately been responsible for the SAZ Massacre. As ridiculous as it sounded, he was fearful that Princess Euphemia was innocent and that it was him that was responsible. In other words, he had somehow coerced Princess Euphemia into carrying out the massacre, but just how could that be? He was nowhere near the SAZ at the time and yet, like the feelings he got from all of Zero's escapades, he found himself knowing more than he should.
In any case, after the massacre had ended thanks to intervention from the Black Knights, Zero had rallied the angry Japanese under his banner and marched on the Tōkyō Settlement and thus started the Black Rebellion in which, the Black Knights had come relatively close to winning, but only lost due to Zero going missing. However, from official reports that were released to the public, Suzaku Kururugi had apprehended Zero and had been awarded with elevation to the Knights of the Round in which he had become the Knight of Seven, the first and perhaps only non-Britannian to do so and as for Zero, he was reportedly executed.
"Zero," Lelouch thought as he continued to fight the wave of tears that still spilled down his cheek from thinking about Princess Euphemia, "You were a fool, no matter how hard you try, you can't do it; you can't change the world. In the end, the Elevens just didn't have the strength."
However, even as those thoughts passed through his mind, he found himself disagreeing with them. Despite the fact that the Black Rebellion failed, Lelouch will concede that Zero had ultimately succeeded in one thing. He had succeeded in shattering the Holy Britannian Empire's aura of invincibility as the Black Knights had come so close to winning. Unfortunately, in the end, shattering Britannia's aura of invincibility had cost the "Elevens" greatly. "Area Eleven" had been demoted to a Correctional Area with the Britannians coming down hard on the "Elevens". The new Viceroy, a Duke by the name of Calares regularly broadcast the executions of "Elevens" on live television and kept rambling on how it was not discrimination, but instead, differentiation. Apparently, the "Elevens" he had executed were supposed criminals who committed heinous atrocities, but Lelouch suspected that that was a load of nonsense. Whenever he watched one of Calares's executions, he definitely could not recognise any of the faces of the "Elevens" that were executed and suspected that they were just innocents that Calares had sent his men to abduct from the ghettos and only executed them because they were "Elevens" and to spread fear among the natives in an attempt to scare the idea of resisting Britannian rule out of them; to try and teach them that resistance was ultimately futile and to Lelouch's horror, even children were executed and Calares had gave some excuse along the lines of "Even children can be deadly, don't underestimate their capacity to resist". That had repulsed a few people and then Calares started executing fellow Britannians, accusing them of sympathising with the "Elevens".
Anyway, somehow when it came to Zero's disappearance, Lelouch found himself going along with the notion that Zero had willingly abandoned his subordinates and when he wondered why he would do that, he found himself coming up with the notion that someone had discovered Zero's true identity and must have kidnapped a loved one, causing him to abandon his own rebellion and as it turned out, the Black Knights had been so reliant on Zero that when he disappeared, they had been unable adapt on how to handle the situation without him and the command structure of the Black Knights had collapsed leading to their defeat and why… all because someone kidnapped someone who was close to Zero, at least that's how Lelouch saw it. Using the enemy's loved one was an easy way to obtain victory. After all, no matter how battle-hardened or committed to a cause someone was, whenever their loved ones were involved, it always seemed to have the same effect in that if ones enemy was to target the person one cared about the most, then they could get them to do anything; even turn their backs on their followers.
"Gee, I wasn't even there and yet I'm coming up with weird theories," he said to himself.
However, even as he said that, he somehow knew that it was true and like everything else that he could not explain, it frightened him. He found himself feeling rather terrified of all the weirdness that seemed to surround his life recently. As for where he had been during the Black Rebellion, he honestly could not remember all that clearly. Every time he tried to remember, his mind came up blank, though he did remember that Black Knights had seized control of the school and had turned it into a make-shift base of operations and he remembered how, he, Rivalz, Milly and Shirley had escaped from where the students had been rounded up and had been caught and were about to be shot by a hot-headed "Eleven" that for some reason he identified as Shinichirō Tamaki and then the Avalon arrived, saving everyone. However, like many things, he found himself feeling nothing other than indifference and to him, it was like he was never really there to begin with and heard it from the others, though he was confused as to how he knew the name of the "Eleven" that had decided to defy Zero's orders and kill them. He also recalled how Suzaku had come in the Lancelot, Britannia's prototype Seventh Generation Knightmare Frame and Zero had set a trap for him that he had wondered into and the Black Knights had been in the process of trying to open the cockpit when they had gotten caught, but the commotion in getting caught had caused Suzaku to exit the cockpit in a bid to save them, but just as Tamaki had been about to kill him, Arthur the cat had come and bit Tamaki in the hand, distracting him long enough till the Avalon showed up, but then Nina emerged in the Ganymede, the Ashford Family's brainchild and a Third Generation Knightmare Frame, back before Knightmare Frames had been adopted for military applications. Unfortunately, the death of Princess Euphemia and the fall of the SAZ had driven Nina totally over the edge and in a mad bid to avenge the dead princess, she had constructed a nuclear bomb that would have been enhanced by Sakuradite had it gone off and Lelouch remembered hearing her demanding to know where Zero was and threated to detonate the bomb unless Zero showed himself, apparently too out of it to care that if she detonated the bomb then she would have killed millions of innocents. Fortunately however, Nina's bomb failed to detonate and Lloyd Asplund, who was in charge of Prince Schneizel's Britannian Special Research Division also known as Camelot had her arrested and flown back to the Homeland, though from Lelouch heard, Prince Schneizel had been intrigued with her considering that she was only seventeen and yet, she came up with rather complex scientific theories that had even some of the teachers at Ashford Academy wracking their brains and so, Prince Schneizel had brokered for her release and from what Lelouch gathered, she was in Dallas working for Prince Schneizel's nuclear research team, In Vogue, though from what Lelouch heard, Nina was still rather insane and many members on the team just plain refused to work with her and rumours were circulating that Nina had developed a rather kill-happy personality in which she had murdered those who badmouthed her to her face, though weather or not they were true or not, Lelouch could not say, though he hoped that they were not true, but from what he could remember of Nina, he honestly could say that he would not be surprised if it turned out to be true since Euphemia's death and subsequent disappearance had destroyed Nina's sanity in its entirety.
"Though, I do wonder how Princes Euphemia's body could have gone missing," he mused to himself as he knew that the body's disappearance had been a contributing factor to Nina's insanity.
According to the Emperor, Princess Euphemia had been declared solely responsible for the massacre and had been arrested, had her title and everything else stripped and then executed by the Britannian military, but Lelouch knew that this was not true. That was another thing that he could add to his lists of things that he knew more than he should. He knew that Zero had shot Princess Euphemia himself in order to stop her and as soon as those thoughts entered his mind, the pang of guilt returned more ferociously than before, like a knife that had been plunged right into his heart. Somehow, the knowledge of Zero shooting Princess Euphemia caused him the most pain and he suddenly felt another onset of tears coming along. He honestly could not understand it. Why was he feeling like this? It was like he was one who had shot Princess Euphemia and not Zero and then, another horrific thought entered his mind. What if he was Zero? This thought plagued him the most and no matter how much Lelouch tried to dismiss it, it just refused to go away. How could he be Zero? Zero had been captured and executed. There was no way the Emperor would let Zero live after what he had done, would he?
Shaking his head, Lelouch pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and concentrated on Princess Euphemia's mysterious disappearance. He knew Zero had shot her; that much was obvious, though the Emperor only invented that cover-story probably as a means of appeasing the Britannian masses who had suffered during the Black Rebellion since they knew enough to know that it was because of the massacre that the "Elevens" had taken up arms and since they had been in the dark over the Princess's apparent plans, they had joined in with the Elevens in condemning her and Princess Euphemia had been given the name, Princess Massacre. However, since then, rumours had cropped up in the Homeland that Princess Euphemia's body had mysteriously disappeared from on board Prince Schneizel's Avalon and those rumours had quickly spread. Some of the theories that had been presented ranged from logical explanations such as the crew of the Avalon did not want her body on board and so ditched it somewhere to the outright bizarre, such as the supernatural, abduction by aliens and some even claimed that Princess Euphemia was still alive and was in hiding. Heck, one guy even claimed that he had Princess Euphemia's body in his basement, though that had turned out to be a hoax just like all those people he popped up in Zero costumes claiming to be Zero back from the dead, but they were quickly put down as they lacked Zero's charisma and strategic mind.
Anyway, Lelouch was unsure what to think. From what he heard, Suzaku had managed to evacuate Euphemia from the SAZ and had taken her aboard the Avalon while it was up in the air and had remained up in the air all that time and had not landed till it had returned to the Homeland and somehow, while the Black Rebellion was in full swing, Princess Euphemia's body had vanished without a trace. It just baffled Lelouch as to how it could have happened. He did not know the full story, but even he had to admit that pulling off such a spectacular feat just seemed impossible. There was just no way anyone could have gotten anywhere near the Avalon without being noticed. Lelouch was sure that the with the Avalon's surveillance equipment, it could probably detect a sparrow flying in the air at a range of twenty-five hundred metres. In other words, even birds could not fly by the ship without the crew on board knowing about it, though that was just mostly guesswork. He honestly had no idea what the range of the Avalon's surveillance was, but he knew that no one could have gotten near enough to the Avalon to infiltrate it. Any incoming craft or Knightmares would have been shot down. Nonetheless, still someone had managed to infiltrate the Avalon, steal Princess Euphemia's body and escape, completely unnoticed. The only explanation to that would be if the body snatcher had snuck on bored while the Avalon had still been on the ground at some point prior to that point, but the problem with that was that there would have been no way for them to have escaped unnoticed. It would have caused too much of a commotion and no doubt, even if they had managed to escape off the Avalon, the Avalon would have undoubtedly shot them down and yet, that did not happen either. It was as if Princess Euphemia's body had vanished into thin air.
"I just can't think of how anyone managed to pull it off, short of teleportation or the supernatural," he said to himself, "But that's impossible."
That much was true, he figured. There was no such thing as the supernatural and teleportation was impossible. There was just no way Lelouch could think of how anyone could have pulled it off. Even he, for all his strategic brilliance could not have hoped to have accomplished something so spectacular and he doubted that Prince Schneizel, who was the Empire's best tactician and strategist could have pulled it off either and he probably knew that ship like the back of his hand. No, the only theory Lelouch could come up with to explain it is that the crew had obviously gotten rid of the body for some reason and had come up with the disappearance story to avoid repercussions from the Imperial Family; if not from the Emperor, then definitely from Princess Cornelia and Prince Schneizel, though since the Black Rebellion, Princess Cornelia had been presumed dead, though her body had never been found.
Sighing to himself, Lelouch decided to have another try at trying to get back over to sleep. He did not know why, but for the past three months, his life just did not seem all that real. He was an average student and yet, somehow, he felt out of place; like he did not belong. He did not know what it was, but he knew that all the weirdness he felt was somehow tied into it all. His life the past three months just did not feel right. He was bored over how stagnant everything seemed and felt as if something was missing. He could not really explain it, but he felt it and no matter what he did, whether it be sit throw a boring lecture, chatted with his friends, heck even right now, sitting in his bed, he could still feel it; a pang that continued to pester his mind that everything these past three months had all been one big lie and it did not help matters that every now and then, he got the feeling that he was being watched; that someone was stalking him.
"Lies," he whispered to himself, "Everything's all just one big lie. I'm meant for so much more."
Yu-Gi-Oh! World – Shadow Realm
Titan screamed as he continued to fall into what could only be described a bottomless pit as he was encircled by row upon row of grey shadow blobs. Each blob had black triangular eyes with the top and bottom of their mouths formed into sharp jagged teeth and as Titan continued to fall, he could feel a few of them take bites out of his flesh and yet, despite falling for who knew how long, with the blobs devouring his flesh continuously nonstop since he first arrived, the chunks of flesh they had taken instantaneously regenerated and somewhere in Titan's terror-stricken mind, he was amazed that he was still alive. He could feel each bite from the horrid little blobs as they sank their teeth into his skin and rip the chunk of flesh from his body and needless to say, it was one of the most painful sensations he had ever felt. It felt like countless needles penetrating his body and his flesh being ripped off by a rabid animal.
"PLEASE HELP ME, SOMEONE, ANYONE!" he screamed for… in truth he had no idea how many times he had screamed for help as all his cries had gone unanswered and it was plainly obvious, even to him despite his panicked state that no one was going to help him, "I'LL DO ANYTHING, ANYTHING!"
By all rights, Titan knew that under normal circumstances, he should be dead. He gathered that it was whatever magic that governed the Shadow Realm that was keeping him alive through the constant pain he felt constantly writhing through his body and he knew that it was the Shadow Realm's magic that was causing his body regenerate the missing chunks of flesh that the blobs ripped from his body. In fact, Titan found himself wishing that he was dead. Death would have been more preferable than this constant torture. Every moment, his body was wrought with agonisingly unbearable pain and his mind had long since been overpowered by an overwhelming sense of horrifying terror. He honestly had no idea how long he had been falling as in his fear, time had seemed to slow down to a crawl. For all he knew, he could only have been falling for a matter of minutes, but then again, at the same time, years, centuries; even millennia could have passed in the real world. Each second to him felt like an eternity and he found himself growing increasingly desperate.
He supposed though that he had no one to blame for his current predicament other than himself. Before he had come to this point, Titan had been what was known as a duelling mercenary, a mercenary who was hired by clients to do things through duelling. However, before that, he had a job at a fairground, managing a ghost train ride. Unfortunately for him, his ride was just too scary and too realistic and many children had ended up traumatised by the experience and it ultimately cost him his job. However, he had gotten into Duel Monsters and had become fascinated with the stories surrounding the game; especially the stories relating to its origins in Ancient Egypt and its ties to seven mystical items known as Millennium Items, which were said to have the power to induce Shadow Games, which meant making the game more real and more deadly in which losing could be deadly. Whenever someone lost in a Shadow Game, they would be put through what was known as a Penalty Game by the winner and Penalty Games could range from relatively minor things such as an irritating rash that would never go away to permanent blindness, right up to death itself, though in some cases the Penalty Games were so terrifyingly horrific and so frighteningly painful and torturous that compared to them, death was a generosity, like the Penalty Game that Titan was experiencing at the moment.
In any case, Titan had become fascinated with Duel Monsters, Shadow Games and the Millennium Items and suspected that all the unusual events that happened over a decade ago surrounding Duel Monsters was all to do with the Millennium Items and he had for a time tried to seek at least one of them out. However, unfortunately, he learned that Yūgi Mutō had gone to Egypt and that during that trip the Millennium Items had all disappeared since he remembered in the past, seeing Yūgi wearing an upside down golden pyramid with an Egyptian style eye on the front. That had angered him as he had been hoping to obtain a Millennium Item so he could induce Shadow Games on his opponents just for thrills. However, rather than give up, Titan had settled that if he could not have a real Millennium Item, then he would make-do with a replica of one and he constructed his own replica of Yūgi's Millennium Item and using lights and electronics, he was even able to replicate the golden glow of the Millennium Items when someone activated their power. However, he also used the glow of the fake item to induce hypnosis on his opponents to trick them into believing that they were in a Shadow Game. It may not be the real deal, but it was close enough for Titan. Titan, however, was not his real name. It was more of an alias that he had taken on when he started as a mercenary and he chose the name, Titan due to his huge size and muscular body build since it gave him a rather intimidating appearance. He even wore a white mask over the upper portion of his face and the mask with similar to the mask of the Phantom of the Opera with two sharp points curving downwards at his cheeks to give the appearance of fangs. It definitely helped in the intimidation department.
However, unfortunately, after a few years of inducing countless people to fake Shadow Games, he had been called to Duel Academy for his latest job and his client had been a member of the faculty and from what Titan could gather from his appearance, it seemed to him that this person was rather unsure as to what gender they were, but he did not care about that, all he was interested in was his latest job. Anyway, the job was to scare a student by the name of Jaden Yūki. He was to scare Jaden so badly that he would flee the island and the faculty member even told him where Jaden would be; at an old abandoned dorm. As it turned out, the faculty member, whose name he remembered as Crowler had been right. However, he also noticed a girl with Jaden and his two friends, though when Jaden and his friends left her and went into the dorm where as she remained outside, Titan had abducted her and decided to use her as bait to lure Jaden to him and it worked and as he and Jaden duelled, for a while, he had the upper hand, but rather than being scared of his fake Shadow Game, the prospect of a real Shadow Game seemed to excite him. However, unfortunately Jaden somehow managed to figure out that his Shadow Game was a sham and destroyed his fake Millennium Puzzle, though he had believed that it had been called the Millennium Pendant, which Jaden had used to trip him up. Once he had been exposed, Titan had ended the duel and decided that it was not worth it, though he had been confused when Jaden accused him of kidnapping other students and he later learned that a group of students had gone missing in the dorm they were in and Jaden had clearly taken one of his comments out of context. Jaden did not believe in the Shadow Realm or the supernatural and Titan had mentioned on how the "others" did not believe in the Shadow Games either before he defeated them. When Titan said "others" he had been referring to his previous opponents, but Jaden had mistakenly believed he meant the disappeared students. In any case, unfortunately for him, the dorm had a trace of residual dark magic in the air that had attracted the spirits of the Shadow Realm and upon having his fake Shadow Game exposed, the spirits had interpreted it as mockery and in their anger had forced the duel to continue, only this time, it had been as a real Shadow Game and Titan remembered how one of the spirits had even possessed him in order to force him to continue the duel, though Jaden had been convinced that it was all part of the show and that he was still trying to convince him that his "powers" were real. Needless to say, Jaden won and Titan was put through a Penalty Game courtesy of the angry Shadow Realm spirits.
However, sometime later, his cries for help had been answered when an old man, whom he learned with Duel Academy's Superintendent, Kagemaru had agreed to release him in exchange for doing his bidding. Needless to say, Titan had been so desperate to escape that he did not care what he had to do, just so long as he could escape and Kagemaru had given him a new mask with the same Egyptian eye symbol as the Millennium Items, which he called a Shadow Charm, which like the Millennium Items had the power to induce Shadow Games, so basically, Titan finally attained his dream. However, according to Kagemaru, Titan was still technically a victim of a Penalty Game and that the power he had given him was what was protecting him from the Shadow Realm spirits. Once he lost that power, the spirits would reclaim him and unfortunately, the only way the spirits would allow someone to walk free from a Penalty Game was in exchange for another soul. So basically, he would only be safe from the Shadow Realm if someone took his place. Anyway, Kagemaru had recruited him to his group of Shadow Riders, who were after three cards known as the Sacred Beast cards, which were basically dark rip-off versions of the three Egyptian God Monsters. In order to obtain them, they needed seven keys called Spirit Keys that opened the Spirit Gates and each key had been entrusted to either a student or a faculty member and the keys could only be won in a duel, so his job was to duel the Key Keepers and obtain their Spirit Keys, not that he really cared what Kagemaru had planned; he just wanted to be free from the Shadow Realm and doing Kagemaru's bidding was just a step in that direction. Anyway, he chose to duel Alexis Rhodes, the girl he had kidnapped before to lure Jaden to him, intending on forcing her into being his replacement for the Penalty Game he had been put through and who was worried over her brother, Atticus, one of the students who had disappeared and who had been the first of the Shadow Riders to be defeated, though it was not Atticus himself who was defeated, but rather, Nightshroud, who had been in possession of Atticus, so Atticus was spared a Penalty Game. However, when Alexis explained about reasons why people duelled, Titan tried to dispirit her by labelling Atticus a hypocrite since he knew that Alexis probably learned her philosophy from him and claimed that Atticus had willingly given into the darkness to obtain power and for a while, despite Alexis's early lead, he had her doubting herself and her brother, but unfortunately for him, Alexis managed to overcome her doubts and went on to defeat him and with his defeat, he lost the protection of the power that Kagemaru had bestowed on him and the spirits of the Shadow Realm had reclaimed him and he was now back, falling down a bottomless abyss, surrounded by countless shadow blobs.
"So, you say you'll do anything, is that right, Titan?" a deep demonic voice boomed, seeming to echo from all around the former mercenary.
"Huh?" Titan said as he looked upwards.
There was always a light above him, a circular light that shone down on him and no matter how far he fell, the light did not appear to get further away, the distance between him and the light remained constant. It was as if the Shadow Realm itself was presenting him with a false sense of hope. The light, he knew was undoubtedly to symbolise a possible exit, but unfortunately, he could not reach it. He had tried before during the first time he was banished to grab hold of the blobs and climb up them to the "exit", but that had proven useless, as whenever he tried, they would always bite at his fingers, but even after he managed to ignore the pain, whenever he managed to successfully grab hold of one of the blobs, they would always liquefy, in other words, transform into liquid and found himself still falling and the light above him seemed to shine down on him mockingly, as if taunting him on his useless situation. He supposed it was the Shadow Realm's way messing with him, by giving him a false sense of hope, but always keeping it beyond his reach. He had long since learned that the hard way and somehow, he doubted if the light really represented an exit. Perhaps the "exit" was not real and even if he did somehow manage to reach the light, somehow he got the feeling that his hope would be shattered as he believed that it was probably just an illusion that the spirits of the Shadow Realm created just to mock and taunt him.
However, this time when he looked up, he was shocked and surprised to see a shadowy silhouette with a cloak over the top of their head staring down at him with dark glowing blue eyes, though the light from the eyes did illuminate a rather dim light underneath the cloak and the head underneath the cloak, though Titan could not be sure since he could not see all that clearly, the head appeared to be what he could only describe as a dragon's skull, though unlike a dragon, the snout was rounded rather than pointed and the two glowing orbs that were the creature's eyes were situated in its eye sockets.
"I say again, so you'll do anything?" the mysterious creature boomed once again.
"Yes, yes!" Titan said rather hurriedly in desperation, "I don't care what you want me to do, just give the word and I'll do it! I'll even get down on my hands and knees so you can rest your feet on my back like a footstool!"
That spoke volumes of his state of mind and the level of his desperation. So desperate he was to escape that he did not care what he had to do, even if it involved humiliating himself in the process. Heck, he would even go as far as ballet dancing down the streets of Domino in a tutu. Having people laughing at him and considering him a joke was more preferable than this Hell he was experiencing. Every second of his time in the Shadow Realm was agonisingly painful, every moment was an inescapable nightmare and he felt as if he had forgotten what fun and joy were for his mind had spent so long being dominated by horrifyingly terrifying fear for so long.
Anyway, the mysterious creature seemed to ponder his response for a moment before sending him a nod.
"Very well, Titan," it said as a shadowy skeletal hand reached out over the light above Titan and then a black mist appeared out of nowhere surrounding the creature's hand and then shot down towards the former mercenary, or rather, the former mercenary's mask and upon contact, the mist appeared to merge with the mask, which caused Titan to scream, "I'll give you a portion of my power, but in exchange, you will duel this girl and have her take your place. I'm well aware of your previous service to Kagemaru and like before, in order for you to be completely free from the shadows, someone must take your place."
Titan continued to scream as the black mist seeped into his mask and the pain that currently wrought his body only intensified immensely, casual him to shake and squirm. However, despite the unbearable pain he was experiencing, the creature's words did penetrate his pain-filled mind and looking up into the light, the transparent image of a girl with long pink hair and light purplish blue eyes appeared and Titan immediately knew that this was the girl that the creature wanted taken care of.
Duel Academy Island, Abandoned Dorm Ruins
It was a clear night on Duel Academy Island. The stars were out, twinkling in the sky, or at least, they would have been if not for the light of the full moon that shone down, bathing the ruins of the Abandoned Dorm and the surrounding area in a pure bluish white splendour. It was also quite calm with no so much as a light wind in the air. Yes, everything seemed quite pleasant and serene. Nothing stirred aside from the local nocturnal wildlife, but they were nothing to worry about as they just went about their normal business.
However, all of a sudden a fierce wind started to pick up that seemed to come from the entranceway down into the basement was left pretty much intact. However, the arrival of the wind caused the surrounding wildlife to flee as their sixth sense told them that there was something unnatural and evil about the wind. In any case the wind emerged from the entrance to the basement and started to spiral round the entire area, all the while increasing in ferocity, causing the branches of nearby trees to whip around in the air violently and the wind became so fierce that some branches even blew off the trees and were carried in the wind. However, as quickly as the wind came, it vanished and in the centre of the ruins of the Abandoned Dorm, a black mist suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started to take the shape of a huge muscular human figure and as soon as the mist had fully taken shape, it vanished and in its place stood Titan, who was now suddenly free from the Shadow Realm once again. However, anyone who recognised him, if they were to study him, then they would immediately realise that something was different about him; or rather, his mask. His mask was the same shape as before, but it was the colour that was different. Instead of its usual white colour, the mask had become a dark purple colour and there was a vertically-placed ovular red ruby situated on his forehead above his nose and between the eyes.
"Euphemia Felixton," he exhaled, taking his first breath of fresh air in over three years, "Or rather, Euphemia li Britannia. I'm coming for you."
Yes, that was the name of the girl that the mysterious demonic creature wanted him to defeat and in order to earn his freedom from the Shadow Realm, he was determined that he was going to do just that. He would duel and he would defeat this girl no matter what. The reason why the creature wanted rid of her did not matter to him. He was desperate and he did not care who ended up taking his place in the Shadow Realm, just so long as it was not him going back there. For that, he was willing to sacrifice an innocent soul just so he could be free.
Meanwhile, over at the Slifer Dorm's dining room, Euphemia, Yumi and Blair sat at one of the tables with a deck of Duel Monster cards sitting on the table between them. Also sitting on the table was a grey circular candleholder that curved upwards to a flat circle in which the candle sat with its flame dancing and flickering peaceful as it provided the light for the three girls. Euphemia had beaten Amanda Ribbets a.k.a. Amanda Varos earlier that day after she had confronted Euphemia and demanded that they duel because Amanda claimed that she had seen Euphemia before, but she could not remember where. However, Amanda held back because she wanted to draw the duel out for as long as possible so as to jog her memory, but Euphemia had pretty much dominated her and though Amanda had made a brief comeback, Euphemia was still able to win the duel and everyone had left Amanda to her own devices, clearly not wanting anything to do with her since she had kidnapped Abigail two days previously and that was still fresh in their minds.
Anyway, Yumi sat with a Rocket Warrior card in front of her. Basically, the three girls were playing a game of telling ghost stories. The deck of Duel Monster cards between them were all monster cards of various levels and the object of the game was to draw a card and the level of the monster on the card determined how scary the story was obligated to be and it was Yumi's turn and she had drawn Rocket Warrior, which was a level-four monster.
"So one night," Yumi started as Euphemia and Blair listened intently in anticipation, "I'm strolling home, minding my own business, when suddenly, I notice a creepy haunted house across the road on the other side of the street…"
Yumi's Fantasy
Yumi was walking home and wearing the same clothes her real-life self was wearing when suddenly, she noticed an old house across the road that looked rather old and falling into a state of disrepair.
"Curious, I go over to investigate," Yumi narrated as her fantasy self did exact what she had said and opened the open and went inside and looked around, "So, I naturally go in and look around and I eventually find myself in the bathroom."
Yumi's fantasy self did look around, seeing that everything was rather old and laden dust that had been gathering for years. The carpets were all torn in certain bits and some of the floorboards were missing and one of the chair had a small tear in it with the sharp end of a spring stinking out, however, just as the real Yumi said, Fantasy Yumi went upstairs and made her way to the bathroom and found the door lying out in the hallway having been ripped off its hinges.
"At that moment, nature calls, so naturally, I do my business," Yumi continued to narrate, "And afterwards, I'm in the process of washing my hands, when suddenly… a giant tarantula bursts out from the toilet seat and I try to run away, but the tarantula shoots silk at me, capturing me and then takes me down to the sewer to devour me."
As Yumi narrated her story, Fantasy Yumi was in the process of washing her hands. However, like Yumi had narrated, a giant tarantula that was twice as big as Yumi herself and which was brown and yellow in colour burst out from the toilet seat, completely destroying it, causing Fantasy Yumi to turn and seeing the tarantula, her eyes widened in horrified fear as she felt as if her blood had turned to ice and the colour immediately drained from her face in an instant. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound apparently had died in her throat as no sound came.
"Hi," the tarantula greeted in a sinister tone.
It was then that Fantasy Yumi seemed to find herself again and immediately turned and bolted for the exit, but like Real-life Yumi had narrated, the tarantula straightened its legs, rising up and then brought its abdomen underneath it and aimed its spinnerets at Fantasy Yumi's feet and then fired out a line of silk and wrapped itself round her right ankle and then the tarantula disconnected the silk from its spinnerets, grabbed the line after righting its abdomen and pulled the line towards itself, causing Fantasy Yumi to fall over on her front and as she was dragged off, she found herself clawing at the floor in an effort to stop herself from being dragged away.
Real World
Back in the Slifer Dining Hall, Yumi had jumped onto the floor and started clawing at it, apparently having gotten so into her story that she was acting it out.
"No please!" Yumi screamed in a genuinely horrified tone, "Not tarantulas, anything but tarantulas!"
However, noticing a shadow looming over her brought her back to reality and she found Euphemia staring down at her with humorous grin on her face, indicating that she was trying her best not to laugh.
"What's so funny?" the Japanese girl asked as she picked herself up, feeling rather offended that her best friend found her story funny.
However, Yumi's story did succeed in scaring Blair as she had gotten up from her seat and had bolted underneath the table behind her with her knees on the floor and her hands over her head in a slightly curled up position.
"Tarantulas aren't scary," Euphemia said simply, "I'll admit, they do look scary at first glance, but they don't go out of their way to bite people. Just so long as you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone."
"Tarantula's aren't scary, huh?" Yumi said, feeling a bit dispirited and also a bit miffed as it felt as if Euphemia was mocking her, "Not even giant-mutant, man-eating, sewer-dwelling tarantulas?"
"Giant-mutant, man-eating, sewer-dwelling tarantulas; where do you come up with this stuff?" Euphemia laughed as Yumi let out a dissatisfied groan, "Tarantulas mainly live in jungles, rainforests and deserts. I highly doubt that there's a species that dwells in sewers."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Yumi replied with a dispirited groan of displeasure as she thought over what Euphemia had said, "Only a complete and utter wimp would be afraid of that."
"Thanks a lot," Blair complained in a not-so-pleased tone as she came out from underneath the table, feeling rather insulted at the Japanese brunette's comment.
"Still, mid-level scare for a mid-level card," Euphemia went on and she and Yumi both ignored the pre-teen bluenette and Euphemia took the Rocket Warrior card and placed it to one side and then brought her hand over to the deck and placed her index and middle fingers on top, "As for me, I'm hoping for a high-level."
She then drew the card as both Yumi and Blair, who had returned to her seat look on in anticipation and crossed their fingers, hoping that Euphemia would not draw a high-level card that would make her story too scary. However, Euphemia drew and turned the card over, revealing it to be, Barrel Dragon, a level-seven monster.
"Wow, that's a level-seven monster," Blair said in awe and fear, "Can I go to bed now?"
Euphemia then let out a mockingly sinister chuckle and had a rather cliché evil-looking grin on her face.
"What's the matter, Blair?" Euphemia mocked as she produced a flashlight, seemingly out of nowhere and switched it on while placing it in front of her underneath her chin, shining the light on her face, "You're not scared are you?"
She then followed her comment up with a stereotypical and rather cliché evil laugh, causing Yumi and Blair to both almost jump out of their skin. Both had to admit that despite Euphemia's act of shining the flashlight on her face from underneath her chin being rather cliché, it was still quite effective. The angle of the flashlight seemed to cast a shadow over parts of her face.
"I have a story that is quite suited for a level-seven monster," she went on in her sinister tone, "Well; actually, I just thought it up off the top of my head."
"Uh huh, go on," Yumi said in a daring tone in a bid to prove that she was not scared.
"Yumi, don't encourage her!" Blair said in a stunned tone; stunned that Yumi was daring their pink-haired friend to go on.
"Come on, Blair, how scary can her story be, I mean, my tarantula story wasn't really all that scary," Yumi said with a shrug.
"It was to me," the bluenette grumbled, still feeling rather miffed at Yumi's earlier comment on her only a wimp would be afraid of her story.
"Okay, here goes, I call this story, the Tale of Princess Massacre," Euphemia went on, still shining the flashlight on her face, "You see, in a land far, far away, there was this empire that was dedicating to taking over the world and as such, they sent their military to conquer foreign lands."
"What's the name of this evil, world-conquering empire?" Blair asked curiously, feeling somewhat surprised at Euphemia's story as she did not find anything scary about an empire devoted to conquest.
"I'm not sure, exactly," Euphemia replied as she seemed a bit lost in thought for a few seconds, "Okay, let's just call this empire, Evillia."
"Evillia, how cliché, it's obvious that it's evil with a name like that," Yumi said, trying hard not to laugh.
"Just who's telling the story anyway?" Euphemia shot back and she put the flashlight on the table and placed her hands on her hips as she glared at her friend, sounding a tad bit insulted, though she had to admit that Yumi had felt the same way when she laughed at her story, so she found herself content in believing that Yumi deserved a measure of revenge.
"The shoe's on the other foot now, eh, Euphie-chan," Yumi said in a taunting tone before becoming serious, "Anyway, please continue."
"Okay," Euphemia went on as she picked the flashlight up and placed underneath her chin like before, "Anyway, The Empire of Evillia was dedicated to war and conquest and conquered the land wherever they went. However, one day, one of the Emperor's wives was assassinated…"
"Wives?" Blair interrupted in confusion.
"You mean that the Emperor has a harem?" Yumi asked, bringing her hand to her mouth as she tried her hardest not to burst out laughing.
"Yes, he has a hundred and eight wives," Euphemia said, clearly not appreciating the fact that she was interrupted, though even as she said this, she could not help but get a feeling of déjà vu from it; like she knew of something similar to her story and was drawing on it as inspiration for her story.
"A hundred and eight wives, what the hell is he, a sex machine?" Yumi said as she burst out laughing and Blair joined in and Euphemia just glared at them both, clearly upset at being interrupted, though it did distract her from her thoughts.
"If I may continue," she said in a serious tone and both other girls stopped laughing.
"Sorry, please go on," Yumi said with a snigger as she still found her own sex machine comment funny.
"Anyway, one of the Emperor's wives is assassinated and his daughter is caught in the crossfire and so, the Princess's brother goes to their father and demands to know why he hasn't done anything, only to be blown off and when the Prince lashes out in anger, telling his father exactly what he thinks of him to his face, the Emperor decides to banish him and his sister to the land Sakuraditia, which he was already planning on invading. However, after the invasion, the Prince and Princess survive and the Prince vows vengeance against his father and vows to take down Evillia and so, he fakes his and his sister's deaths and both of them going into hiding. Seven years later, the Prince gets caught up in a battle between resistance fighters and Evillia forces and ends up receiving the power to hypnotise people and get them to do what he wants."
"Wow, freaky," Blair said in awe, "Just how did the Prince get this hypnotic power?"
"I haven't thought of that," Euphemia replied honestly, "But please bear with me, anyway, once he gets this power, he helps the resistance beat the Evillia forces and in the process, kills his half-brother, who's Viceroy of Sakuraditia and he becomes a masked terrorist known only as Zero."
"Zero, what, as in nothing?" Yumi asked curiously.
"Yes," Euphemia said with a nod, though for some reason, the name Zero did seem familiar to her and it seemed an appropriate name to give the Prince's rebel identity, "Anyway, after the Viceroy's death, the prince's older half-sister, who's a military general is selected to replaced and she comes with her full-blooded sister, who becomes Sub-Viceroy and who is one of the most kindest and gentlest people one could meet and who doesn't get with Evillia's program and after a string of confrontations between the Military Princess and Zero, the Sub-Viceroy, who met up with the prince beforehand and discovered his true identity decides to help the people of Sakuraditia and announces the establishment of a specially administrated zone or SAZ for short."
"Specially Administrated Zone, you mean like Hong Kong or the Indian Reservations in America?" Blair asked curiously.
"If you mean an area that's technically part of a country, but has a separate administration more or less independent of the country's main government, then yes," Euphemia replied with a nod, "Anyway, she announces the SAZ, but for the Prince, this presents a problem. You see, his main reason for fighting is revenge and with the SAZ, he loses his excuse for fighting and so in a bid to preserve his reasoning, he decides that he'll sabotage the opening ceremony and use his hypnotic power to have his own half-sister shoot him and stage his own assassination, but while he's in the process of explaining that to her, he suddenly takes on a massive headache and then as the Sub-Viceroy goes to aid him, he explodes in anger. However, as it turned out, the Sub-Viceroy had renounced her title as that was the price for establishing the SAZ, but she had done so without hesitation and explained that she had done it for the Princess, the Prince's sister as the Princess had told her that all she wanted was to be with her big brother and nothing else mattered to her. However, unfortunately, just as it seemed they had come to a compromise with the Prince agreeing to amend his plan, he was in the process of explaining his hypnotic power to her when, all of a sudden, it activated on its own and his example to her was that if he told her to kill all the natives of Sakuraditia, then she'd do it no more how she felt about it. Unfortunately, that was misinterpreted by his power as a command and when the Prince realised this, it was too late. The Sub-Viceroy then went out and started a massacre and the Prince was forced to kill her since he saw no other way to stop her and so, with a heavy heart, the Prince killed her, which was unfortunate as next to his full-blooded sister, the Sub-Viceroy was the one he was closest to and afterwards, she was branded with the name, Princess Massacre as no one knew the truth and as for the Prince, his only option had been to fall back on his original plans."
"Sounds more like a tragedy than scary story," Yumi said, though she had to admit the idea of a kind and gentle soul being hypnotised into a mad-axe murderer was a terrifying thought and she did not know why, but somehow she feared something like that happening to Euphemia as whoever this sub-viceroy was, it was clear that Euphemia had based her off herself.
"Man, that's scary," Blair thought with a shudder.
"Yeah, especially since the Sub-Viceroy ran out onto the stage and asked for all the all the natives to die in a rather casual tone," Euphemia said with a shudder of her own, but suddenly, her eyes widened as a strange sensation come over her, "And the speech goes something like this, "For those of you who call yourselves Japanese, I have a favour to ask, could you all die please?""
"Huh, Japanese?" Yumi asked in confusion as she shot her friend a confused look and she did not know if it was her imagination or a trick of the light, but for looking into Euphemia's eyes, she could have sworn she saw a rather eerie reddish orange glow flickering round her irises, "Euphie-chan, are you feeling alright?"
"Huh, what, what'd I just say?" Euphemia said in confusion as she shook her head, though when Yumi looked into her eyes, the strange glow was gone.
"You just said, Japanese," Blair answered, also looking confused, "You said Japanese instead of natives of Sakuraditia."
"Did I?" Euphemia said, looking even more confused than before and not only that, but the two other girls also detected a hint of fear in her tone; like she feared that what she said was true.
"Maybe it's because Sakuraditia has the word, Sakura in it, which is a Japanese word," Yumi suggested.
"Yeah… that's probably it," Euphemia said with a nod, though from the sound of her voice, it was clear that she was still quite shaken and not totally convinced of the Japanese girl's suggestion, "To be perfectly honest with you, I really have no idea where that story came from, I just seemed to think of it off the top of my head."
Of course, that was not totally true. Somehow the pinkette knew that she had gotten her story from somewhere, though she could not remember where. Thinking about it, something just did not seem right about it. The way the events of her story had come to her, it was as if it was a true story and she was just changing the names. Of course, she did not use names, but of all the characters she had thought of, she could easily place herself in the Sub-Viceroy's shoes as she had based the Sub-Viceroy off herself. She somehow felt as if she could relate to her the most. What she had attempted to do; Euphemia knew that she would have probably tried the same thing had she been a princess of a world-conquering empire, though thinking of that filled her with a feeling of pure and absolute dread. Somehow, that notion felt quite real to her, like she really was a princess and it brought her back to the day she and Yumi first arrived at Duel Academy when Yumi had suggested that she was a princess in a past life and for some reason it her filled her with this terrifying notion that had caused her to hastily dismiss Yumi's claim and she somehow got the feeling that it had been true. She remembered earlier that day during her duel with Amanda when she overheard James jokingly state that she was a mad-axe murderer and then Yumi, in her counter-rant mentioned something along the lines of massacring an entire race, which was what the Sub-Viceroy had unwillingly tried to do. Somehow, thinking of that just terrified her and she came off feeling, not only that something like that had actually happened, but also that she was somehow involved.
"Euphie-chan," Yumi said, looking at her friend in concern, knowing that she was lost in her thoughts again.
She supposed that it had something to do with her strange amnesia and her own story must have triggered something, but what? Looking at Euphemia, she could see that not only did she not remember her own slip-of-the-tongue comment, but the fact that it was a slip-of-the-tongue seemed to shake her somewhat and it made the Japanese girl feel concerned for her friend. Thinking about it, she remembered how James made a joking comment earlier during Euphemia's duel with Amanda about her being a mad-axe murderer and she had became upset and told him not to make it sound like Euphemia had started to massacre a race of people, which by coincidence the character of the Sub-Viceroy in Euphemia's story had done, albeit not of her own freewill and what made that striking was that Euphemia had based the character of the Sub-Viceroy off herself and not only that, but also she remembered her comment of how Euphemia had been a princess in a past life had somewhat scared her when they had first arrived at Duel Academy, though at the time, she had dismissed it since Euphemia seemed to have recovered fairly quickly. There was also the issue of Euphemia's slip-of-the-tongue comment in which she had accidently said, Japanese and that had confused, not only her, but she could tell that Euphemia had been just as confused and knew that it was probably of those comments that she had made and then not remembering saying. However, unlike before, Yumi could detect a hint of fear in her friend; that she had made the comment and not remembered saying it and that the fact she did not remember saying it is what terrified her. However, from the fear apparent in Euphemia's voice, it was as if what she had said was true despite not remembering saying it and that was what scared her.
"Ho, ho, ho," a new voice laughed in a somewhat sinister tone, interrupting the Japanese girl from her thoughts, "May we partake in this fright-fest?"
All three girls almost jumped out of their skins and Blair accidentally tipped her seat over, causing her to fall on her back. Euphemia looked behind her, where the voices had come from and relaxed when she saw that it was only Thomas and Sophia Arenson, the Headmaster and Headmistress of the Slifer Dorm along with their huge grey Great Dane, Greyfang, who wore a blue collar with a leash attached at the top, which Sophia held.
"How's it goin', girls?" Sophia said as she raised her hand in a greeting gesture.
"Like I said before, may we join in on the fright-fest?" Arenson repeated.
"Well I say that you already have," Yumi said after she recovered.
"Yeah, you unannounced greeting almost scared the pants off us," Euphemia said as she also calmed down.
"Yeah, don't creep up on us like that," Blair put in as she picked herself up and fixed her seat so that it was in the right position, "Anyway, since you're here, why not try drawing a card?"
"Huh, draw a card?" Sophia said curiously as she raised a curious eyebrow.
"It's a game we're playing," Yumi explained.
"We're telling ghost stories, but before we do, we draw a card and higher the level of the monster on the card, then the scarier the story has to be," Euphemia finished.
Arenson chuckled as he reached out to draw a card.
"Okay, if that's how it goes, then let's see what level I'll draw," he said as he drew a card and turned it over and Yumi and Blair's eyes widened as they saw that it was the Five-Headed Dragon, a level-twelve monster and not only that, but with five thousand attack and defence points, its card displayed the highest number of attack and defence points on a card without any enhancements.
"That's a level-twelve monster," Euphemia commented, looking more intrigued than scared, "Guess we'd better get ready for nightmares, huh, girls?"
"C-can I go to bed now?" Blair said, repeating her earlier question from when Euphemia drew her card.
"Yeah, we have classes in the morning and it's past our bedtimes," Yumi agreed, sounding nervous as she clearly did not want to hear a really scary story.
"What's wrong, girls?" Sophia asked in a mockingly sinister tone, "Don't you want to hear about the Abandoned Dorm at the other end of the island?"
"Abandoned Dorm, wait, you don't mean that dorm that involved all those disappeared students, do you?" Blair asked curiously, though she herself knew what had happened as she had been there the previous year when the mysterious disappearances of the students were finally given closure.
"Wait a second," Yumi said, her own curiosity being piqued, "Earlier on, I heard that all those students had returned, but that the general public still believe them to be missing, is that true?"
She did recall eavesdropping on Chancellor Sheppard and Dr Crowler while they were dealing with Amanda after she had been apprehended by the Academy's Disciplinary Action Squad after she had kidnapped Abigail, only for her father to call and practically blackmail the two faculty members into dropping the charges against his daughter. However, she remembered Chancellor Sheppard mentioning that the disappeared students had all returned, though officially, only two had officially returned. She believed that the students had vanished and that Duel Academy was covering it up and claimed that those students who had disappeared had been studying sabbatical abroad, but when their families had demanded to know which schools they were attending, Duel Academy had refused to tell them.
"Well, you see, girls, it's more complicated than that," Arenson said with a sigh, "Since my wife and I are relatively new here, we don't know the complete picture, but we have been briefed on most of what happened."
"And what did happen?" Euphemia asked, as she too was curious as to the truth of disappeared students since she did recall Jaden telling her something about an incident that had occurred a year before he had enrolled.
"Well, I'm not really sure, but apparently, there were two separate incidents of students disappearing," Sophia said as her husband took a break from talking, "The first incident was a lone student by the name of Yūsuke Fujiwara a few months before the others all disappeared en masse."
"Huh, what, hold up, are you saying that there were two separate incidents?" Yumi asked, completely surprised by this revelation, "I know of Yūsuke Fujiwara, he was the student who reappeared just last year near the end of the semester. I heard that he pulled out and has become rather reclusive."
"That's right, you see, the reason the two incidents were believed to have been one complete incident was because young Yūsuke has no surviving relatives," Arenson said as his wife took her turn in taking a break from talking, "Both his parents died when he was very young and they had no surviving relatives either, so, young Yūsuke's all alone. Anyway, I will say this much, he made an awful lot of friends during his time at Duel Academy, but the events leading up to his disappearance, he started exhibiting rather strange behaviour. He became rather cold and suddenly started distancing himself from all his friends. However, I understand that Atticus Rhodes, one of his friends followed him on the day of his disappearance and was found in the dorm's basement, which is said to be an old cavern that was used in ancient times to conduct strange dark rituals. However, unfortunately whatever it was that Atticus had seen, it caused him to develop a case of amnesia."
"Atticus Rhodes," Euphemia pondered curiously, "Wasn't that the name of the student who was known to have returned three years previously?"
"Yes, that's right," Sophia said, looking at Euphemia with a raised eyebrow, "How'd you know that?"
"You forget that Jaden Yūki was the one who recommended that I enrol in Duel Academy," Euphemia replied, "And I spent two months before enrolling here in his company and apparently, he's good friends with Atticus's sister, Alexis."
The mention of Alexis caused Blair to cringe as she was still rather in love with Jaden and was still a bit upset over losing him to Alexis.
"I see," Sophia said with an accepting nod.
"Boy, this is a coincidence, isn't it?" Yumi said in an intrigued tone, "Two separate incidents of students disappearing with the first going unreported and all because Duel Academy believes that just because the boy that disappeared has no living family that no one would care about him. However, if what you've said is true, then his friend obviously must've seen something, but the trauma of the experience caused his brain to suppress the memories of the experience; he ends up going missing a few months later and reappears a year later and then his friend; the first one to disappear reappears only last year. The two who officially returned were once close friends, I find that too convenient to be a coincidence."
"That's not fair," Arenson said, glaring at Yumi, "Duel Academy did care about young Yūsuke and for your information, they did try to get to the bottom of it. However, they hadn't much to go on and the only person that could've told them anything had unintentionally blocked the experience from his mind."
"Anyway, the other students all disappeared en masse," Sophia spoke up, before Yumi could reply as she detected that an argument was imminent, "Neither Tom nor I know the details, but we were told that our predecessor as Slifer Dorm Headmaster, Lyman Banner is suspected of being involved in their disappearance."
"What happened to him?" Yumi asked curiously, momentarily forgetting about anger over her belief over Duel Academy's treatment of Yūsuke Fujiwara.
"Well, that's yet another mystery," Arenson said, making it clear that he also wanted to know that, "You see, when Atticus first reappeared, he had fallen into coma and not long before he recovered, Professor Banner mysteriously vanished and hasn't been seen since. It was Atticus who made the accusation. According to him, Banner had told him and a few other students to meet in the Abandoned Dorm's basement to undergo a test, but when they did, that when they disappeared."
"I will admit, that it could just be a misunderstanding," Sophia spoke up, "It could be that Banner was innocent, but considering that he disappeared not long before Atticus awoke from his coma… it does raise a few eyebrows and does not help his case. Unfortunately, no one has seen head nor tail of him since then. It's as if he's vanished off the face of the Earth."
"Wow, that's scary," Euphemia whispered to herself with a shudder as she had to admit that it was a bit frightening how someone could just up and disappear, never to be seen or heard from again, especially considering that he was a suspect in a mass kidnapping.
"You don't suppose he was silenced, do you?" she said, speaking aloud, "You know, perhaps he was not the main instigator and was just a lackey and when one of the kidnapped victims reappeared, he's superiors panicked and had him killed to ensure his silence."
"I admit that that is probable," Arenson said with an accepting nod, "There are people in the criminal underworld who know how to eliminate someone and dispose of the body in such a way that guarantees that it'll never be found. However, rumours also circulated that the students' disappearance had something to do with Shadow Games."
"Shadow Games?" Yumi said curiously as she knew of Duel Monsters and its origins in Ancient Egypt.
"You see, girls, Shadow Games are duels played using mystic item known as…" Sophia started to say
"Let me guess, Millennium Items, right?" Yumi interrupted in a rather uninterested tone, "Yeah, yeah, I've heard all the stories about Shadow Games and the Millennium Items, but they're all a load of garbage. The supernatural doesn't exist."
"Huh?" Blair, who had been silent this whole time said, "What, you mean that you don't…"
"Of course I don't," Yumi replied, interrupting the preteen before she could finish as she shook her head, "The supernatural is just a load of hogwash that people invented in ancient times in order to explain how everything worked because they were too primitive to figure it out for themselves."
However, Arenson only chuckled at this, causing the Japanese brunette to groan and for some reason, she could not help but feel a twinge of fear worming its way into her mind.
"Yes, that's what most people say," he said dismissively, "However with all legends, despite the majority of them being just fantasy, there's mostly always a grain of truth in them somewhere."
"Yes, thank you, Arenson-sensei, I'll keep that in mind," Yumi said in an irritated tone, not likely the way he dismissed her claims.
"Anyway, regardless of what really happened, at the end of the year following their disappearance, all the disappeared students aside from Yūsuke all returned," Sophia explained as her husband once again took a break from talking, "However, it was so near the end of the semester and despite the rumours, no one really knew who the missing students were as there were other students who were really studying sabbatical abroad, they were able to slip back into society completely unnoticed."
"Really?" Yumi said, sounding sceptical as it was clear that she did not believe the headmistress, "And what about the disappeared students families, huh? I heard that they had gone and demanded to know where their children were, but Duel Academy clammed up and refused to tell them anything."
"To be perfectly honest with you, Miss Fujiharu, before my wife and I came here, we both believed that as well," Arenson said in an "as-a-matter-of-fact" tone, "And when we first arrived, we both confronted Chancellor Sheppard about it. However, as it turned out, that was just a big misconception."
"A misunderstanding?" Euphemia asked, putting in her two cents, "How could it possibly be a misunderstanding?"
"What, do you honestly think that Chancellor Sheppard would be heartless enough to keep the families of the disappeared students in the dark over the status of their loved-ones, do you?" Sophia asked, sounding rather appalled as she glared at the pinkette, "Of course not, he told them everything he knew. However, he did swear them to secrecy and it was the fact that they were sworn to secrecy that led to the rumours that Duel Academy refused to tell them anything when they inquired about the status of their children."
"That's right," Arenson agreed with a nod, "I will admit, at first, we were sceptical, but Chancellor Sheppard invited us to get in contact with those families to see if his story checked out and even gave us their contact details and I did check up on one family and they confirmed what Chancellor Sheppard told me and not only that, but I even spoke with their son, one of the disappeared students."
"However, because the students managed to quietly slip back into society, the rumours that they're still missing still persist," Sophia went on, picking up from where her husband left off, "And I understand that last year, a group of students went missing in an unrelated incident. However, all but two of them returned."
"Oh, I see," Yumi said with an apologetic sigh, feeling rather low that she had jumped to conclusions and vilified Duel Academy in their handling of the disappeared students and she could tell just by looking into their eyes that both Arenson and his wife were telling the truth; plus they sounded way too convincing for what they said to have been lies, "Gomenasai, Arenson-sensei, Arenson-san."
At that moment, Greyfang, who had just been standing around watching his master and mistress's discussion with the three Slifer girls opened his mouth and let out a really wide yawn.
"Well, I think that that is our cue to head on to our rooms," Sophia said as she noticed the dog's yawn, "Take care, you three."
"And don't stay up too late," Arenson said with a hint of seriousness in his tone, "You three have classes in the morning."
They both then turned and left.
"Later," all three girls said in unison as their Headmaster and Headmistress both left.
Outside the dining hall and behind a tree, unbeknownst to the three girls or the two faculty members, Jaden stood with a rather troubled expression on his face as he had heard everything that had been discussed and he had heard Euphemia's story and he knew that basically it was an edited version of the SAZ Massacre that Lelouch had unintentionally forced her into carrying out back in her own world. However, he had to admit that listening to the girls and their stories did bring back memories. He remembered round about this time during his first year, though it had been on the night of the day he had taken the Promotional Exams that he Syrus and Chumley all played the same ghost-story telling game in which they would draw a monster card and the higher the level, the scarier the story had to be and he remembered how Syrus had drawn Earthbound Spirit and told a story in how he had wondered into a cavern and found a Dark Magician card in the centre of the lake and as he reached out to grab it, a hand shot up and dragged him into the lake and like Yumi, he had gotten so into his story that he had started to mistake it for reality. However, unlike Euphemia, he had drawn Sinister Serpent, a level-one monster and so he did not get to scare them at all and for the story, he recounted how at night when he was a child, he would hear the voices of the spirits of his cards, but whenever he went to investigate, they would always retreat back into their cards. However, back then Jaden had did not believe in the supernatural, though he did admit that since enrolling in Duel Academy he started to hear the "mysterious voices" again.
"And it seems that Euphie can also hear them as well," he said to himself, "I knew that she had the power to see Duel Monster Spirits, though like me back then, she doesn't know it yet. I just wonder what will be the catalyst that will awaken her ability fully."
For him, it had been his duel with Titan, the duelling mercenary that had induced a false Shadow Game on him. Up until then, he could only hear his Winged Kuriboh and after his duel with Dr Crowler, the card image had winked at him, however, it was his duel with Titan in which his ability to see and communicate with Duel Monster spirits had fully awakened when Winged Kuriboh first appeared to Jaden as an orb of golden light after one of Titan's attacks left him feeling a bit disorientated and it was only when he made an offhand comment about how the orb was trying to hypnotise him that he suddenly realised that Titan's Shadow Game was a sham and he had used his Elemental Hero Avian card to destroy his fake Millennium Puzzle and managed to trip Titan up when he referred to it as the Millennium Pendant instead of the Millennium Puzzle. However, after Titan ended the duel and tried to leave, the spirits from the Shadow Realm that had made the Abandoned Dorm their home had become rather infuriated at Titan's fake Shadow Game and had interpreted it as an insult and had forced the duel to continue, only as a real Shadow Game.
Of course, back then, Jaden remembered that he had initially believed that Titan was still trying to convince him that his powers were real and did not believe that it was real Shadow Magic. He even recalled how Titan had been swarmed by a horde of grey blobs and one of them had entered his body through his moth and then Titan had addressed him in a somewhat deeper voice and glowing red eyes, though Jaden had believed that it had just been red contact lenses when in truth, Titan had been possessed in order to force him to continue with the duel. However, just when it seemed that those blob monsters were about to do the same to him, he had been surprised to see Winged Kuriboh come out from his deck. However, when Winged Kuriboh emerged, it was a real Winged Kuriboh and he was solid and he warded off the blob monsters. Needless to say, Jaden won, though even then he had believed that everything had all been a part of Titan's show, but since then he found that he could see Winged Kuriboh and communicate with his monsters, though unlike the first time, Winged Kuriboh's form had been transparent whenever he appeared in the human world. It was not till much later in the year when Jaden finally found out that magic and the supernatural were indeed real and he then realised that everything that happened between him and Titan after Titan tried to leave after being exposed had all been the actions of infuriated spirits from the Shadow Realm, who were not happy at Titan's phony Shadow Game and like the Egyptian God Monsters whenever someone played a counterfeit copy of their respective card, the spirits had decided to punish both players in the duel. As the spirit that had possessed Titan had said, the shadows hungered for a soul. In other words, the duel would continue and only the loser would be punished.
"Man, I'd getting way off topic here," he said as he brought his mind back to Euphemia and her story.
That did indeed concern him. Basically, what Euphemia had done was recount events in her own world, probably drawing up knowledge from her subconscious and due to her amnesia, she honestly believed they were just ideas that she had thought up off the top of her head, when in fact, she had pulled them up from her subconscious. Sure, she changed some of the names. Evillia was practically the Holy Britannian Empire and Sakuraditia was practically Japan, which Euphemia had obviously named after Sakuradite, the mineral in Euphemia's world in which Japan held seventy percent of and which was the supposed the main reason Britannia had invaded. In any case, Euphemia had changed some of the names, though for characters, instead of names, she had given them titles, though she had used, Zero as the name of the Prince's alter-ego, which was the same alias Lelouch had taken up, so one name did make it to the surface, though Euphemia clearly had no idea that the name she had believed to have thought up was real.
However, a few things did pique his curiosity; such as how Euphemia came to know of certain things that she should not know. Oh course; with the events concerning Lelouch and Nunnally, who were the Prince and Princess in her story, he knew that Euphemia had mostly taken a guess, since she did know that Lelouch and Nunnally had both been banished after Lelouch confronted their father over his inaction over their mother's assassination. She had probably guessed his motives and despite acting surprised when Lelouch confronted her at the opening ceremony of the SAZ when he told her of his plan to stage his own assassination; like she had no idea why, but in Euphemia's story, the she had mentioned Lelouch's motivation for doing so; that in establishing the SAZ, she had effectively taken away his excuse for taking his revenge since Jaden knew that Lelouch honestly did not care one bit about the Japanese and in fact hated them just as much as he hated the Britannians; even if he was not aware of it. After all, during his stay at the Kururugi Shrine, Lelouch had sometimes gone to the nearby town and had been harassed by some of the locals; not to mention spending seven years passing Japanese who shot him hateful glares just because he was a Britannian undoubtedly contributed to his subconscious hate. Anyway, the point was that how could Euphemia have possibly have known that she had unwittingly taken away his means of exacting his vengeance when she had been surprised when he told her of his plan. Of course, in the short space of time between then and when Lelouch had accidentally placed her under his Geass, she may have come to realise Lelouch's motivation since she did know that Lelouch was fighting to avenge the death of his mother.
However, that did not explain how Euphemia could have known that Lelouch had fallen back on his original plan, since she had been under his Geass at the time and Suzaku had lied to her about the SAZ being a success and so, she could not have known about that and even more peculiar, the title, Princess Massacre had only come around after she had died and after the Emperor had declared that Euphemia had been responsible for the massacre and had been arrested and executed by the military. In other words, Princess Massacre only started to crop up after she died and after Jaden had brought her to his world to revive her, which means, she had no idea that she had been branded with that name; especially considering that the memories of her own world were being forcibly suppressed and yet, Euphemia had used the term, "Princess Massacre" in her story when, even if she was drawing her ideas up from real events in her subconscious, she should not know of that name as she had not been there when it started to come up.
"Very weird," the former Slifer said to himself, "How can she know of something that she wasn't there to find out?"
That did have him stumped, though he did vow to investigate.
Back in the Slifer dining hall, Euphemia, Yumi and Blair all waited in silence for a while till they were sure that the Arensons were out of earshot.
"You know, girls, all this talk of Abandoned Dorms, disappeared students and Shadow Games has got me really excited," Euphemia said, being the first to break the silence, "Whadda ya see we go look for this Abandoned Dorm?"
"Why?" Yumi asked, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.
"Well, I'm curious," Euphemia replied simply, "There's obviously more to the story that our Headmaster and Headmistress didn't tell us. I want to find out what really happened."
"Well, I only enrolled last year, so I don't know the full story," Blair spoke up, "However, last year, the Abandoned Dorm was destroyed."
"Huh, destroyed?" Euphemia asked curiously.
"I don't know how, since I wasn't there at the time, but something happened last year that caused it to be demolished," the pre-teen bluenette replied.
"But no doubt, the wreckage is still there, right?" Euphemia asked, sounding hopeful, "Maybe some evidence of what happened four years ago survived."
"I guess so," Blair replied with a nod, "I guess you want me to show you the way, right?"
"That would be appreciated," Euphemia confirmed.
"Now wait a minute, I not so sure about this," Yumi protested, sounding rather nervous, "What if something happens to us?"
"What could possibly happen?" Euphemia laughed in a dismissive tone, clearly waving her friend's concerns off, "It's not like we're gonna meet some evil duellist with the power to induce Shadow Games or anything. I've also heard of Shadow Games and the Millennium Items, but like you said, Yumi, it's not true."
Blair gave Euphemia a strange look of surprise and looked unsure on whether or not to object since she knew that magic and the supernatural did exist. She remembered the previous year in which Duel Academy had been sent to another dimension where Duel Monsters spirits were real and she also recalled the events that happened afterwards in which students started to disappear and not only that but as each student disappeared, all memories and evidence of their existence vanished with them and Blair recalled that she was attacked by a man calling himself Trueman and as it turned out, he was responsible and he proceeded to duel her and defeat her and then she was taken to what was known as the World of Darkness in which she had lived out her worst fears over and over again, with events playing back like a broken record. However, she remembered that she eventually heard Jaden's voice and his words had given her the courage face her fears, which led to her release and not only that, but the whole world had been dragged into the World of Darkness as well and they had also been released and she also remembered how Jaden defeated Nightshroud, the one who was ultimately responsible for the whole crisis.
"I know, but…" Yumi started to say.
"Oh, stop being such a worrywart," Euphemia said dismissively, "Like you said, the supernatural doesn't exist, so there's nothing to worry about."
"I guess," Yumi sighed in defeat as she still sounded unsure, though she did not know why.
Like Euphemia had said, the supernatural did not exist and she herself had said that, but still, she could not help but get the feeling that something bad would happen if they went to the Abandon Dorm. It was a pang of some sort that kept gnawing away at her mind and no matter how hard she tried to dispel those thoughts, somehow, it had only served to make it worse.
The next day, the First-year students all found themselves in Dr Crowler's class and Crowler was busy giving them a lecture. However, up in the Ra Yellow section of the class, Abigail Richardson was in a rather dark mood. She sat with her elbows of the desk and her hands clasped in front of her face as she felt the beginnings of a headache coming on as she felt a throbbing sensation in the veins on the left side of her head as she listened to her roommate, Alicia Riverton happily chatting away with Amanda Ribbets, the girl responsible for her kidnapping three days ago and who had also become her roommate.
"Why me?" she thought to herself, clearly not too happy about her situation, "What have I done to deserve this?"
After Euphemia had defeated Amanda in a duel the previous day, they had all left her and gotten on with the day. However, when Abigail had returned to her room, she had not only been surprised to find an extra bed in the room, but was also surprised to see that its occupant was none other than her former kidnapper. According to Professor Shizuki, Amanda had been assigned her room which she unwillingly shared with Alicia, much to her displeasure. Of course, Abigail had complained, demanding to know who's idea it was to place a would-be kidnapper in the same room as her former victim, but according to Professor Shizuki, all other rooms in the Ra Yellow Girls' Dorm were full and so they had no other choice and so, Abigail had offered to trade rooms with someone, but Professor Shizuki had refused and then brought up the fact that she had no one to blame for being kidnapped other than herself; reminding the bespectacled girl that had she ignored Amanda that night and returned to the dorm with her brother and friend and had not sent them on ahead while she investigated what she believed she had seen then she would not have been in that fix to begin with and the fact that Abigail knew that the Headmistress was right made it a really bitter pill to swallow and not only that, but Professor Shizuki was still in the process of thinking up a suitable punishment for her and so, that only served to infuriate her even more.
It certainly did not help matters that despite being there when she was rescued and having spoken to Amanda in her defence, Alicia had hit it off rather well with the shy-coloured bluenette. Despite not being pleased with Amanda two days ago, with the way Alicia and Amanda were talking to one another, it was as if her kidnapping had never happened and that left a rather bitter taste in her mouth. Just how was that possible? She remembered Alicia angrily demanding that Amanda release her and yet, here they were now chatting away like old friends. Abigail just could not comprehend it. Sure, she knew that Alicia acted as if she was on a constant sugar-high and seemed a bit of a ditz, but during the confrontation with Amanda, Alicia had shed her usual personality, showing that there was perhaps more to her than the bespectacled girl had initially thought and had been genuinely concerned for her. However, now that the situation was over, Alicia had gone back to her usually personality and not only that, but she had become fast friends with a girl that she had outright hated just two days ago.
"So, anyway," Alicia was in the process of saying, "Two days ago, we were all sitting in the first class of the day and Mr Woman was giving us a presentation of different effect-monsters and then we were subjected to the most horrific image known to man."
"Gee, the most horrific image known to man?" Amanda said in curious awe, "What was could that be?
"Mr Woman or Dr Crowler, as he's called in the nude," Alicia replied in a strange tone.
"Eew, gross," Amanda said with a cringe as she could not help but envision the effeminate teacher in his birthday suit, "Don't put that image in my brain, I'll be having nightmares for months."
Abigail could not help but cringe at that as well as she also could not help but imagine an image of a nude Dr Crowler.
"Hear that, Abigail, I guess in a way, you should really be thanking me for kidnapping you?" Amanda said as she turned her attention towards the bespectacled girl, "At least you never saw that horrific image."
Abigail's patience suddenly run out and she turned round, shooting the bluenette a glare and opened her mouth, about to give a reply when someone beat her to it.
"Miss Ribbets, Miss Riverton, would you care to share your conversation with the rest of the class, since you obviously find it more enlightening than my lecture on Ritual-summoning," Dr Crowler's voice came from the bottom of the class and Amanda, Alicia and even Abigail all looked down to find the effeminate teacher glaring up at them… well his glare was focused on Amanda and Alicia since he could see that Abigail wanted nothing to do with their discussion.
"Sure thing," Amanda boasted smugly as she shot Crowler a rather arrogant look, "Basically we were discussing the most horrific image known to man, which, unfortunately for you, happens to be you in your birthday suit."
"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" Crowler practically shrieked in a high-pitched voice, completely red in the face, causing everyone in the class to cringe and tense up as to them, it had the same effect of someone running their fingernails down a chalkboard and Amanda's comment did cause many of the students to recall that incident in which one of Crowler's private photographs had gotten mixed up with the presentation slides two days previously.
"Why?" Amanda asked in a dismissive tone, clearly not all that bothered over the authority Crowler had over her, "You're obviously confused as to which gender you are. Did your sex-change operation go wrong?"
Crowler glared furiously up at her as he felt his fury reach boiling point. How dare that girl make fun of him? Not even Jaden had gone so far as to bring up the issue of his gender. That was the biggest issue he faced and whenever someone made fun of him by bringing up his gender, it really upset him. However, instead of exploding with rage, he decided that it would be best to calm down. He especially did not like Amanda in the slightest since she was only here thanks to her father essentially blackmailing Chancellor Sheppard. The way he saw it, Amanda was nothing more than a criminal who had effectively gotten away with it and all thanks to her father's influence, though he did acknowledge that Amanda herself was not happy with it either, but that was not the point. The point was that Amanda had kidnapped one of their students and Duel Academy had been forced into dropping the charges against her and that's what he found so infuriating. Amanda did not deserve to be here. Her place was a jail cell in some correctional facility somewhere.
He did at one point consider perhaps resorting back to his old personality and try to get her expelled through using underhanded tactics like he did with Jaden, but decided against it. Not only would it get him in trouble with her father if he was caught, as he knew that Varos did have enough influence to have the entire academy shut down if he wanted, but it could be seen as a regression and may ultimately prove that he had not really changed at all. Sure, he was no longer an elitist snob and he did value all his students, but he also knew that it was wrong to try and get someone expelled just because he did not like them. He had not liked Jaden and tried to have him expelled, but all he had ended up doing with humiliating himself and he supposed he deserved it, though he was fortunate that Jaden never caught on as he dreaded to think of the consequences if he had decided to get his parents involved. If he was caught here, he knew that he would not only be out of a job, but Varos could possibly arrange it so that he would never be able to get another job for the rest of his life. Besides, his experiences had taught him the value of tolerance. Even after Jaden had caused him to re-evaluate his outlook on life, he did not immediately start to like him. His anger towards Jaden had slowly transformed into grudging tolerance after the school duel to disbelief after Jaden had saved him from Camula and finally during the second year, he started to respect Jaden, though his pride refused to allow him to admit it. In any case, he knew that it was wrong to try and expel Amanda just because he did not like her. He would, albeit grudgingly try to tolerate her and if he found her to be intolerable, then he would bring it up with Chancellor Sheppard. He wanted to prove that he had changed, though he had to admit that the urge to fall into his old habits was still there.
"Believe what you want, my dear," he said in a far more calmer tone, "However, I must say that what goes around, comes around, Miss Varos."
Amanda's eyes widened in shock at hearing Crowler use her real family name.
"And what's the deal with your hair?" Crowler went on, noticing that the bluenette's hair was indeed a mess, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that it looked like a dead rat that fell into a can of blue hair dye."
Now it was Amanda's turn to become red in the face with fury as she had not expected Crowler to turn the tables on her and to make matters worse, the rest of the class burst into laughter.
"Shut up!" she shouted, having nothing else to say.
"Sure thing," Crowler said with a nod, "However, I'll make a bargain with you, you leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, sound fair?"
Amanda just nodded with a huff as she grudgingly accepted Crowler's deal.
Abigail could not help but chuckle. She remembered earlier that morning when she woke up and found Amanda already in her uniform and was in the process of doing her hair and was clearly having great trouble with it. However, she had just sent Abigail and Alicia on ahead while she was fixing her hair. Abigail did mention that they would be late for class and Amanda clearly stated that she did not care and that the look of her hair was more important. It was the same reason she had missed the Entrance Exams and now it seemed as if this habit of fixing her hair was going to carry into her time at Duel Academy and undoubtedly it would cause her to miss most of her classes and so, Abigail had forcibly dragged her along to class, probably as a albiet rather small measure of revenge against her for kidnapping her.
Later that night, after classes had ended and the sun had dipped below the horizon, Blair was leading Euphemia and Yumi, who looked rather reluctant down a path that Euphemia was sure led to the ruins of the Abandoned Dorm. Each girl had a flashlight in order to see where they were going as it was fairly dark and difficult to see.
"Well, I guess we could just pretend that we've gotten lost in the woods," Euphemia was saying, "Or we could pretend that we're off on some fantastic adventure."
"Yeah," Yumi laughed nervously.
"Don't be such a sourpuss, Yumi," Blair said, clearly annoyed with Yumi's weary attitude, "It could be a whole lot worse. We could have gone down into the sewage system and discovered a colony of "giant-mutant, man-eating, sewer-dwelling tarantulas"."
"Very funny," Yumi stated in a mockingly impressed tone, "I'm not the one who refused to take a shower because she saw a spider at the bottom of it."
"Well, maybe if the shower was cleaned every once in a while, it wouldn't attract all those creepy crawlies," Blair retorted, clearly not happy that the Japanese girl had one-upped her.
"Hey, girls, don't fight," Euphemia said as she tried to play peace-maker, but then noticed a blue-covered book lying at the left side of the pathway, "Gee, I guess we're not the only ones to have come down this way."
"How do you figure?" Yumi said, not having noticed the book as Euphemia went over to where the book was before bending down and picking it up.
"What have you got there?" Blair asked curiously as she noticed the book.
"Just a book I found lying off to the side," Euphemia replied as she showed the other two girls the book, "I'm guess someone must've dropped it."
She then opened the book, using her flashlight as a light to read the text, but then she frowned when she noticed that the majority of the text, diagrams and pictures had mostly faded due to exposure to the elements. However, from what she could gather, the book itself seemed to detail a ritual of some kind.
"What's in it?" Yumi asked curiously.
"Dunno, the text's mostly faded due to exposure to the elements," Euphemia replied as she allowed Yumi and Blair to come closer to see for themselves, "I guess it must've been lying here for quite some time, however, from what I could gather, it seems to document some sort of ritual."
Both Yumi and Blair looked at the pages for themselves and Yumi then noticed that not all the text was in the process of fading.
"Hey, Euphie-chan, not all the text is fading, take a look," she said as she studied the text more thoroughly and to her amazement, not only was the unfading text not in the process of fading, but from the looks of it, it had not started to fade at all and looked as clean and fresh as the day it had been printed and then she noticed somethin else, "Huh, now this is weird."
"What is?" Euphemia asked as she also looked over the unfading text and then saw what Yumi was getting at.
It was not so much as some of the text being unaffected by the elements, but rather, one word in particular and every insistence in which this word came up, it was unaffected by the elements. Everything else had faded, but every time this word came up, it was as if the print had never been outside.
"Wow, now that's just freaky," Yumi said with a hint of nervous fear in her voice.
"Nightshroud," Euphemia said, voicing the unfading word as she skimmed through the pages.
However, whereas the majority of text had faded, every time the word, Nightshroud came up, the print was unaffected by the elements and it was only the word, Nightshroud that this applied to.
"You're right, Yumi, this is freaky," Euphemia said, unable to come up with an explanation on how to explain it, "Just what the heck is a Nightshroud?"
Unbeknownst to the two older girls, upon hearing the name, Nightshroud, the colour had quickly drained from Blair's face and she suddenly started to tremble, looking as if she had just seen a ghost. She did indeed remember Nightshroud. He was the demon that Jaden ultimately defeated the year before and the one responsible for the eclipse that covered the world in darkness and who had the entire world's population taken to his World of Darkness. She had thought to have heard the last of him after Jaden had defeated him, but she did remember hearing Nightshroud inform Jaden that despite the fact he was defeated, so long as darkness existed in people's hearts, he would continue to exist and could never truly be killed and warned Jaden of the possibility of his return, though Jaden had just shrugged it off, claiming that so long as people remained true to themselves, them his return would never come and now Euphemia had discovered a book about Nightshroud in which, the text had all faded aside from Nightshroud's name.
"No, it can't be possible," she thought to herself as a wave of dread washed through her as she started to wonder what this could mean as she was sure that this was no coincidence, "Jaden defeated him last year, there's no possible way he could be back. It's too soon."
"C-c-can we move on, please?" she suddenly found herself blurting out rather hastily, suddenly feeling a horrifying sense of dread.
"Gee, Blair, what's got your panties in bunch?" Yumi joked, totally clueless to the pre-teen's change in mood.
"None of your business!" the bluenette suddenly snapped, causing both older girls to jump in surprise, but then Blair calmed down, "Sorry, it's just that the sooner we get there and investigate, the sooner we can get back and the more time we'll have to sleep before tomorrow's classes start."
"Can't argue with that," Euphemia said as she closed the book, though much to Blair's dismay, instead of putting it back down, she held onto it.
"Yeah, you're right," Yumi said with a nod, though she was curious as to why Blair had snapped, but decided to ignore it and pass it off as Blair being tired of their recent verbal war.
The three girls then walked on with Euphemia placing the book in the left pocket of her Slifer blazer. A little while later, they came to a clearing in which they saw to square-shaped stone posts that formed a gateway, but there were no gates between them, but instead, a rectangular wooden plaque lay on the ground with a rope tied to each corner and it did not take the girls long to determine that the ropes had been attached to the posts, holding the plaque up, but had since slackened and now the plaque was on the ground. To the outer sides of the two posts was a twisted metal fence that had long since fallen into a state of disrepair and formed a square perimeter round what could only her described as fallen debris.
"This must it, the Abandoned Dorm," Yumi said in awe as she examined the debris that littered the area, realising that Blair had been right when she said that the Abandoned Dorm had been destroyed, but she suddenly noticed something strange about the debris, "Hey, Blair, you said that the Abandoned Dorm was demolished, right?"
"Yeah, what about it?" Blair asked as she looked at the debris, wondering what Yumi was on about.
"I'm no expert on demolition or explosives, but from what I can see from the layout of the debris, I have to say that it looks as if something blew it apart from the inside," Yumi said as she made a double-check, "It must've been quite a powerful explosion in order to blow the entire building apart."
"Well, like I believe I said before, I wasn't here when it was destroyed, so I can't really tell you how it was destroyed," Blair answered truthfully, "All I heard was that it was demolished."
Yumi just nodded.
However, Euphemia looked around, amazed to see the state of the old dorm.
"Must've been one almighty gas explosion," she theorised.
"Or whoever kidnapped those students decided to destroy the evidence," Yumi suggested.
"Possibly," Euphemia agreed with a nod as she moved to walk closer.
However, above her, hanging on a tree branch by a thick brown string that looped in a circle was a golden medallion with the Eye of Anubis symbol on it. The medallion itself was pure solid gold and its weight was pulling the branch downwards, and when Euphemia passed by underneath, all of a sudden, as if by magic, the small diagonally positioned twig growing out from the branch that held the medallion snapped, causing it to fall off and somehow, the string attached to the medallion found itself round Euphemia's neck, catching the pinkette completely by surprise.
"Huh, what the?" she said as she placed her hand underneath the medallion and manoeuvred it so that the flat end was on her palm before examining the medallion, "That's like the same eye insignia that's associated with the Millennium Items."
She did of course hear about the Millennium Items and Shadow Games, but dismissed them as old wives tales. She honestly did not believe in the supernatural and believed that the old stories about the origins of Duel Monsters in Ancient Egypt were hyped up nonsense. Like Arenson had said, most legends probably had a grain of truth in them somewhere. However, the way Euphemia saw it was that that the Ancient Egyptians had somehow captured wild animals and forced them into fighting their wars for them, though how they accomplished this, she was at a loss to explain. However, she believed that that was the truth and that in order to make those wars seem more fantastic, they claimed that sorcerers had summoned monsters from another dimension to do their bidding and duel their enemies and it passed down into legend and as time passed, historians over the ages, in a bid to interpret those stories had probably added bits in order to come up with an easier interpretation and that's how the stories of Duel Monsters in Ancient Egypt came about.
Anyway, Euphemia studied the medallion for a bit, completely awestruck at how it somehow managed to find its way round her neck. However, she did not believe that there was anything magical about it and that as peculiar as how it ended up round her neck was, she wrote it off as some massive coincidence. However, deciding that she would pocket it, she moved to take it off, but to her shock and surprise, she found that the string round her neck was too tight and the diameter was so small that she could not bring it over her head.
"Huh, what's going on here?" she said in a slight panic as she let go of the string, causing the medallion to fall and hang just in front of her stomach.
"What's up, Euphie-chan?" Yumi asked as she turned to see what was wrong with her friend.
"It's this medallion, somehow, it fell round my neck and now I can't get it off," Euphemia replied as she tugged on the string.
"Just pull it off," Blair said with a wave of her hand as she turned to face the pinkette and upon noticing the medallion, her eyes widened in shock as she clearly recognised the Eye of Anubis and instantly guessed that the medallion was magical in origin.
Euphemia took the string on both sides of the medallion and to her surprise, the diameter in looked big enough for her to get over her head, but as soon as she tried, as if by magic, the diameter became a whole lot smaller and Euphemia found herself accidentally slamming her fists into her cheeks, causing her to let go of the string and stumble backward as the string returned to its normal size.
"Wow, how'd you do that?" Yumi asked curiously.
"I don't know," Euphemia said, sounding rather panicky as she was at a loss to explain it, "It looks as if I can get it off, but when I try, it's like the string seems to get smaller, tightening its grip and my chin gets in the way."
"Come on, I'm sure that there's a perfectly rational explanation for this," Yumi explained and she took hold of the string, pulling it out to its maximum length, finding that the diameter was big enough for Euphemia to get it off and then she tried yanking it upwards, but to her surprise and shock, the string seemed to contract and Yumi felt as if she had been tugged forwards and went barrelling into Euphemia, causing them both to fall to the ground.
"Oh my, Euphie-chan, I'm so sorry," Yumi said in a fretful tone as she rolled off Euphemia and picked herself up, unable to believe what she had done.
She honestly could not believe that she had unintentionally hurt her friend. However, just as she yanked at the string, she felt it contract with such a force, that it had pulled her along with it and sent her hurling into Euphemia and she had to wonder just how that was possible.
"It's okay, Yumi, never mind," Euphemia said as she picked herself up, "Let's just leave it for now."
Though she had to admit that it was scary. The medallion had fallen from a tree branch and somehow ended up round her neck and now that it was round her neck, it was as if it refused to come off. The diameter of the string that looped round her neck was indeed big enough to fit over her head, since if it had not been, then there was no possible way it could have gotten round her neck in the first place. However, when she had tried to take it off and Yumi had tried and each time, the string had contracted, becoming smaller to the point that it could not fit over her head. Despite her disbelief in the supernatural, this completely scared her and she was at a loss to explain just how the string was able to expand and contract. However, the contractions were so quick that when her fists slammed into her cheeks, it hurt and Yumi had been pulled into her when she tried. She could not help but feel a rather deep feeling of pure dread rising up from the pit of her stomach. This was something she just could not explain and she suddenly found herself wanting to get rid of the medallion, just knowing that it meant trouble for her in future. Unfortunately, she knew that if she tried to take it off again, then the string with just contract again. It was as if the medallion was alive and had decided to latch onto her and with that in mind, she decided to leave it for now and worry about it at a later date.
"Wait, Euphie, are you sure," Blair asked with a hint of fear in her voice.
"Yeah, there's nothing that can be done about it now," Euphemia replied was a defeated sigh, "If we try to take it off, the string round my neck will just contract again. I don't know how that happened and I want it off, but there's nothing we can do about for now, so with that in mind, I think it's best if I just leave it for later."
Both Yumi and Blair nodded, reluctantly accepting Euphemia's reasoning.
However, Blair could not help but feel a bit alarmed over this latest development. She just knew that that medallion just meant trouble for Euphemia in the future and that it was probably no coincidence that the medallion had somehow managed to find its way round Euphemia's neck. Despite not being present for Jaden's first and second years, she remembered Jaden telling her about his adventures in how he dealt with Kagemaru and the Shadow Riders and Sartorius and the Society of Light. She also remembered Jaden telling her how the Shadow Riders used items known as Shadow Charms to induce Shadow Games. Basically, the Shadow Charms were objects that emulated with the same powers as the seven Millennium Items and Jaden himself even managed to acquire one. Well, he acquired one half of a medallion before the Shadow Riders arrived when Professor Banner took a few of the students on a hiking trip round the island and they ended up in another dimension in which Jaden had duelled the Gravekeeper's Chief and won. Then when the Shadow Riders showed up, the first one was Atticus Rhodes, who was possessed by Nightshroud and who had acquired the other piece of the medallion that Jaden had and after defeating Nightshroud, Jaden had acquired both pieces. However, from the description of the medallion that Jaden had given her, she knew that it was not the same medallion that Euphemia now wore and the medallion Jaden had definitely did not latch onto him as he could take it off with no problems and had discarded it after the end of the semester.
This was a completely different medallion entirely and it came with a new set of rules, though Blair somehow knew that it was a Shadow Charm of some kind or something similar and that the powers that be, whatever or whoever they were had decided that Euphemia would become its chosen owner and that terrified her. She really liked Euphemia and found her fun to be around. She was kind, friendly and had this passionate gentleness that seemed to set her at ease. It was like a soothing aura that made people want to be her friend and she feared that getting involved in Shadow Games and the dark magical side of Duel Monsters would cause that aura to vanish and cause Euphemia to break. She knew that it had happened to Jaden the previous year. The previous year, Jaden had met Jesse Anderson, the Champion Duellist of North Academy and both boys had hit it off pretty well, but then the Duel Academy had been sent to another dimension and when it returned, Jesse did not return and so Jaden went off with his friends to look for him and Blair did not know what actually happened, but she knew that Jaden had become so traumatised by the experience that when he did finally return, his personality had changed completely and he just did not find duelling fun anymore and whenever he did duel, he always made sure as to finish the duel rather quickly. However, that was not all. Jaden had also become rather cold and distanced himself from everyone else and he had come across to many others as an uncaring jerk like when Atticus ended up in the infirmary and Jaden came in and pretty much demanded that he tell him information that he needed when Atticus was clearly in no condition to talk and when Alexis pointed this out to him, Jaden had uncaringly commented that he needed the information, which had earned him a slap from Alexis and Jaden left.
However Hassleberry had organised a Duelling party as a memorial event for the seniors and had everyone paired into boy/girl pairs for a tag-duel tournament and she was partnered with Hassleberry and Jaden was partnered with Alexis, but Jaden's desire to end the duel quickly had gotten in the way of their teamwork and despite winning their duels, Alexis had been rather infuriated that Jaden was leaving her out of the duel and Jaden could not understand why she was upset. However, come the final duel, which was her and Hassleberry VS Jaden and Alexis, Alexis's patience had run out and so, Blair had played the trap card, Partner Change, which meant that the duellists involved could swap partners, so long as they agreed to it and Alexis was only more than happy to trade Jaden with her, much to poor Hassleberry's displeasure as he felt as if he had been caught in the middle. However, as it turned out, Jaden worked for better with her than he did was Alexis, which only further served to anger Alexis as Blair knew that despite her anger towards him, she still loved him. However, after Alexis played a card that Jaden recognised from the first time they duelled, it seemed to rejuvenate his passion for duelling somewhat and Alexis destroyed her Partner Change card, causing her and Alexis to trade places yet again as the trade-off was only legal so long as Partner Change remained on the field and after that, both Jaden and Alexis were able to work together to win the duel.
"Oh, Euphie," she thought, coming back to reality, "Please, oh please, don't end up like Jaden did."
That was her biggest fear; that Euphemia could potentially end up becoming like Jaden or worse, the power of the Shadow Medallion, as she decided to dub it could possibly corrupt her since she knew that the darkness within Shadow Magic had corrupting properties and could potentially cause good people to turn bad. From what she heard of Kagemaru, he had been an old man whose health was rapidly deteriorating and had turned to Shadow Magic in a bid to restore his youth and in the end up, he had become so warped by the corruption that he sought to enslave the world using the three Sacred Beast cards that had been sealed underneath the Academy. However, unfortunately, the Sacred Beast cards were no longer underneath the Academy had had become lost after Yubel, the one she knew to be responsible for traumatising Jaden and who had possessed Marcel Bonaparte, a boy that she had become really close friends with and who had been Jean-Lois Bonaparte's son had released them and since then, they had become lost in one of the Duel Monsters spirit dimensions. Anyway, with this Shadow Medallion, the pre-teen just knew that Euphemia was heading for trouble.
However, the sound of a twig snapping, almost caused her to jump and apparently, Euphemia and Yumi also jumped and spun round, pointing their flashlights in the direction the sound had come from.
"Hey, hey, easy there, girls," a familiar voice came, sounding rather surprised and the three girls relaxed when they saw that it was none other than Terrance, Abigail, James and Zukasu and Terrance had his arms up in front of his face as he was the one whose face had been assaulted by the glare from the three girls' flashlights.
"Don't do that," Yumi scolded, though she did let out a sigh of relief that it was nothing dangerous, "For all we know, you could've been a mad-axe murderer."
"Well, as you can see, we're not," Abigail said with a laugh.
"Anyway, what're you guys doing here?" Euphemia asked curiously.
"That's funny," Terrance replied as he gave the three girls a questioning look, "We were about to ask you the same thing."
"Well, last night, Professor Arenson and his wife told us about this old abandoned dorm and the stories surrounding it, so we thought, we'd check it out for ourselves," Euphemia replied honestly.
"Well, that wasn't very smart," Zukasu said in a scolding tone as he levelled the three girls a scolding glare as if he were a parent who had just discovered his children being somewhere where they should not have been, "Don't you know that four years ago, a group of students disappeared here?"
"Yeah, yeah, we heard that," Euphemia said in an uninterested tone, "We also heard that they all returned and aside from two of them, the rest were able to slip back into society unnoticed, which is why the rumours they're still missing persist. In any case, why are you here?"
"We have our reasons, that's why!" Abigail snapped as she shot the pinkette a furious glare, clearly not appreciating her uncaring tone.
"The J-Man thought that he'd tag along when he saw Terry 'n' Abi walking together," James replied, explaining why he was there.
"I noticed them walking into the forest and well… I was curious," Zukasu explained as he gave his reason, "I tried to find you after classes finished, but I couldn't find you."
"Wow, no need to snap," Euphemia said in surprise with an apologetic tone, completely taken aback by the bespectacled girl's uncharacteristic fury, "We were just curious as well, but hey, if you want, we'll stay out of your way."
"Sorry," Abigail apologised with a sigh as Terrance put a comforting hand on her shoulder, "It's just that… well last year, there was an incident in which the main building of the Duel Academy mysteriously vanished and even though it returned, afterwards, a group of students disappeared and despite the majority of them returning, two are still unaccounted for."
"And one of those students…" Terrance went on, picking up from where his sister left off, "One of those students was our cousin, Bastion Misawa."
"Bastion Misawa!" Blair exclaimed in surprise as her eyes widened in shock as she knew who he was despite not really socialising with him, "That's one of Jaden's old friends."
Everyone aside from Euphemia, Terrance and Abigail then turned to look at Blair with questioning looks on their faces.
"Wow, you guys never mentioned anything 'bout that," James said as he turned to give the Richardson Twins a hard look, feeling somewhat upset that they never told him about Bastion.
"Must be either a resident of Domino or a person of mixed race between Japanese and…" Euphemia summarised, though she unwittingly said it aloud.
"British," Terrance finished for her, "Bastion is Japanese-British, his father, Daichi was over in the English city of Oxford on a business venture for the Mitsubishi Motors car company. They were planning on building a manufacturing plant somewhere in the city and Daichi had been sent over there to finalise the deal and he met our aunt, Vanessa Richardson who was an overseas student at Oxford University who had come over from Boston."
"Wow, hold up, if his father was Japanese and his mother was American, wouldn't that make him a Japanese-American?" Yumi asked in confusion.
"Well, both Daichi and Auntie Vanessa liked the scenery of the UK and so after they finished their respective work, they both moved over to England and Bastion was born in Oxford," Abigail explained simply, "So despite none of his parents being born in the UK, the fact that he was makes his nationality British by default, since it was the country in which he was born."
"Wow, that's just freaky," Euphemia said, causing everyone to turn and look at her in confusion, "I guess that means all the Britannians born in Area Eleven would be Elevens by default then."
Of course, as soon as the words left her mouth, she immediately forgot what she had just said and was surprised to see everyone suddenly looking at her as if she had grown a second head.
"Huh, Britannians, Area Eleven, what are you on about, Euphie?" James asked curiously.
"Huh, did I just say something?" she asked no one in particular.
"Yeah, you just said something about a place called Area Eleven and how babies born there would be Elevens," Yumi explained, giving her friend a concerned stare since judging from the pinkette's confusion, it was clear that it was another one of her comments that she just did not remember stating.
"And you also mentioned something about a race of people known as Britannians," Terrance added, looking really confused, "What is that, some new slang term for the British or something?"
"Britannia," Abigail stated in a professional tone; the sort of tone a teacher would give when explaining something to their students, "Britannia is the old name given to the British Isles by the Romans after they invaded and note, that Britannia didn't span the entire British Isles. At first Britannia went as far north as the Hadrian Wall and then later, went further north to where the Romans built the Antonine Wall. North of the Antonine Wall was all Caledonia."
"You sure know your history," Yumi stated in an awestruck tone.
"However, I don't think that the natives of Britannia were ever referred to as Britannians," Terrance spoke up.
Euphemia looked confused though the words, Britannia, Britannian and Area Eleven did strike a chord with her. She did of course; know the history of the British Isles as her time with Jaden and Yūgi taught her a lot about the world. However, upon hearing the name Britannia and knowing the history of how the Romans had invaded the British Isles, for some reason, she felt that there was something wrong with that and for some reason, she wanted to state that the history she had learned was not true. However, she did get the distinct feeling that Britannia was a real place; and so was this mysterious "Area Eleven" she had apparently mentioned. She did not know why, since she had never heard of those places, but somehow, deep down, she just knew that they were real. It gnawed at her mind with a fierce persistence and just refused to go away and it scared her and for some reason, she could not help but tie it in with the story she had told the previous night.
"So your cousin, Bastion was born in Britain?" Yumi said, changing the subject and bringing Euphemia back to reality.
"Yes," Terrance said with a sigh, "However, it's peculiar."
"Huh, what is?" James asked, though he was still rather upset at being kept in the dark.
"Well, during his first year here, Bastion was rather enthusiastic," Terrance went on to explain, "He's a really good duellist and upon seeing Jaden Yūki's performance at the Entrance Exam in which he beat Dr Crowler's Ancient Gear Golem, he was thrilled at the prospect of having competition and made it his mission to defeat Jaden, so that he could claim the title of Number One of the freshman class."
"He would periodically write to us every week and one time, he even turned down a promotion to Obelisk Blue because he believed that until he defeated Jaden, he did not consider himself worthy of entering the top dorm," Abigail went on as Terrance took a break, "And even though, when they finally duelled and Jaden won, it only served to motivate Bastion to try even harder."
"Yeah, I know," Euphemia said as she added her two cents, remembering that Jaden told her about Bastion, "I spent some time with Jaden before coming here. He told me about Bastion and from what he told me, come their second year, everything seemed to go downhill for Bastion, isn't that right?"
"Uh huh," Abigail sighed sadly with a nod, "It started off with him being as enthusiastic as before, but as time went on, he started to feel overshadowed and underappreciated and it got so bad that he even joined a group known as the Society of Light."
"The Society of Light?" Yumi questioned in wonder, "I think I may have heard something about that. I believe it was a cult of some kind."
"We're not sure of the details since Bastion never went into detail about it," Terrance spoke up as Abigail took a break, "All we know is that Bastion ended up in a duel in which losing meant joining and winning meant that the leader would be forced to disband the group. However, Bastion confessed that he was on the brink of winning, but that he lost the duel on purpose as he believed that joining would get people to recognise his talents."
"He lost a duel on purpose?" James said, his eyes widening in shock and disbelief, "What the hell? Throwin' a duel on purpose; that's the biggest insult in the entire game of Duel Monsters. Just what the hell was he thinking?"
"Gaining recognition and having others acknowledging his duelling skills," Yumi answered with a blank look, "Weren't you listening? Bastion felt that he was wasn't getting the recognition he believed he deserved and must've believed that his skills were diminishing and so, he sold his soul to the Devil to get back on top."
"I wouldn't put it like that, but yeah, that's exactly it," Terrance said with a nod, though it was clear he was not happy with the way the Japanese girl had phrased it, "The Society of Light was led by this fruitcake, a man called Sartorius who was said to have the power to see into the future."
"Oh please," Yumi scoffed in a somewhat smug way, "Precognitive vision, like all that other supernatural mumbo jumbo is impossible. No one can see into the future because the future hasn't happened yet. I bet he just used tricks and illusions to give the impression that he could see into the future."
"I'm not so sure," Abigail said in an uncertain tone, "From what I heard, whenever Sartorius duelled, he duelled without looking at his cards and yet he knew exactly what cards he was drawing and before you state that he obviously memorised the order of his cards, he had his opponent shuffle his deck without him looking and yet, he still knew what cards he would draw."
"There has to be a trick to that somehow," Yumi stated, though she was confused as to how he could have pulled it off.
"Anyway, unfortunately for Bastion, joining the Society of Light didn't help any and he only succeeded in making a fool out of himself," Terrance said before his sister could reply, deciding to move on, "However, eventually he met his childhood idol, Dr Albert Eisenstein, a world-renowned physicist from Germany who specialises in duel physics, who has an IQ of one hundred and seventy-three and a ten-time Nobel award-winner for his work in the medical profession."
"We don't know why Dr Eisenstein was there," Abigail went on as Terrance took a break, "But Bastion saw him duelling Jaden and somehow, Jaden managed to win, but Bastion suddenly felt inspired or enlightened about his worth as a duellist and as a person and left the Society of Light and left the Academy with Dr Eisenstein, who had taken him on as in impromptu apprentice and helped him in quantum mechanics experiments."
"Wait, if he left the Academy, then how can he be missing?" Zukasu asked in confusion as from what he had just heard, it seemed that Bastion had left of his own freewill.
"Well, that's the confusing part," Terrance said as his sister took a break, "During one of those quantum mechanics experiments, there was an accident in Eisenstein's laboratory and somehow, Bastion disappeared. However, months later, the Duel Academy's main building disappeared in a similar manner and though it returned, Bastion was said to have been sighted on the island, though before anyone could confirm this, he and a few other students disappeared and as we said, all but two of those students have returned and Bastion's one of the two."
"Terry and I were originally intending on joining South Academy," Abigail said, deciding to open up as the cat was already out of the bag, "However, news about Bastion caused us to change our minds."
"And now you want to investigate to see what happened to him," Euphemia summarised and both twins nodded.
"So that's why you were apprehensive about having a roommate," James realised as he remembered that Terrance had lain out ground rules on how he was not to be disturbed while working away on his laptop; ground rules that James had obeyed, "But why didn't ya tell us, we're yer friends, aren't we?"
"Sorry," Terrance apologised with a rather sad sigh as Abigail gave him a look of concern, "After everything that happened to Bastion… we were upset over his downward spiral when he started to feel underappreciated and with his disappearance, we didn't want to burden you all with our problems."
"We were meaning to start our investigation over a month ago when we first arrived, but I guess, hanging out with you guys was so fun that well… we kinda got side-tracked," Abigail said with a sigh, "It was supposed to be a secret and like Terry said, we just didn't want to burden you with our problems."
"Burden us with your problems, you're our friends," Euphemia stated, indicating that she was also not happy at not having been told of their plans, "Listen, I know that it it's probably painful for you guys to talk about and I won't pretend that I understand how you're feeling, but I will say this, we're all friends here and as friends, we're here to support you and after hearing what you just told us, we want to help."
"Huh, really, you mean that?" Terrance asked in surprised, believing that everyone would abandon him and his sister for not telling them.
"Of course," James said as he flashed the Richardson Twins a smile, "Can't say I'm all that happy 'bout being left in the dark, but hey. The J-Man knows that there're things that people keep from even those closest to 'em."
"That's right," Zukasu commented with a smile of his own, "There are some things that people feel are so personal that they don't want to share with anyone, even if those people are their friends."
"In my opinion, I believe that you should have told us," Euphemia said honestly, "But having said that, that's just my opinion on the matter and it doesn't mean that I'm right. It's upsetting that you kept this from us, but I know that you probably felt that you had your reasons for doing so, so let's just drop it. We'll help you in looking for your cousin."
"Hold on," Yumi said in realisation, "Two students are still missing, right?"
"Yeah, and?" Blair asked though everyone did notice that she was rather quiet the whole time
"Well, what about the other guy, what's his name, Adrian something?" Yumi replied.
"Adrian Gecko, top ranking student at East Academy, voted richest, smartest and most famous duellist in America," Zukasu said reciting what he knew of Adrian, "At the beginning of last year, Duel Academy engaged in a special program to help promote its expanding influence. They invited the top ranking duellists from each of their four branches or subsidiaries from around the world, North Academy, South Academy, East Academy and West Academy along with a teacher from West Academy, a Professor Thelonius Viper."
"Viper, who in the hell has a name like that?" Yumi asked curiously
"Who in their right mind would have a family name that shares a name with a group of lizard species?" Euphemia commented in response.
"Touché, Euphie," Yumi replied with a laugh.
"I wouldn't laugh about it if I were you," Abigail said as she, her brother and James suddenly glared at the two girls with rather hard and serious looks on their faces.
"The Gecko Financial Group is multi-billion dollar world-leading conglomerate that has considerable influence over the world's petroleum, heavy chemical industry and IT," Terrance explained, making it clear that he was not to be interrupted, "In other words, they're exceptionally rich and wealthy."
"Their wealth is said to be on par with that of our nemesis's family, the Harrington Family," Zukasu spoke up, causing Yumi to cringe upon being reminded of their teal-haired nemesis, "And Adrian just so happens to be their eldest son."
"And what's really strange is that despite his disappearance, one would have expected the Gecko Family to be up in arms over the loss of their son and hit Duel Academy with a massive lawsuit or have the Academy shut down and yet, no one's heard so much as a peep from 'em," James said, making his own contribution, "They've been unusually quiet over the issue."
"Wow, that's just weird," Euphemia said as she found it strange that a wealthy family had seemingly chosen to abandon their eldest son, "Does anyone know why?"
"No, that's just it," Zukasu said, looking just as confused, "The Gecko Family are a very secretive bunch. It's rumoured that they run their own intelligence agency and engage in espionage, assassinations and who knows what else. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I'd choose the Harrington Family over the Gecko Family any day of the week because at least with the Harringtons, everyone knows what they're up to. The Gecko Family on the other hand is way too secretive for my tastes. Heck, going into their website; certain parts of their website can't be accessed by just anyone. Trying to access those parts only causes an error message to pop up."
"Sounds like they're a sinister bunch," Euphemia noted as she went over what she just heard, "I wonder what they've got to hide."
"Believe me, you probably don't want to know," Terrance said with a shiver as he shook his head, "Anyway, their silence over Adrian's disappearance has led to rumours that they were watching Duel Academy and were after something, though no one knows what."
"That would make sense," Yumi said with a nod, "If they had been staking out Duel Academy and were after something, then raising hell over their son's disappearance would probably earn them unwanted attention."
"However, that's not all," Abigail said as she decided to reveal more on what she and her brother had found out, "I don't think that it was anything to do with Duel Academy. I think it had something to do with Professor Viper. From what we managed to discover, if anyone was a target of the Gecko Family, it was him. He had something they wanted."
"Boy, I wonder what that could be," Yumi wondered.
"Don't know, but apparently on the lead up to the disappearance of the main Academy Building, students started to mysteriously drop like flies after engaging in duels," Terrance spoke up, "When they were examined, the cause was diagnosed as fatigue and exhaustion as if they had been exercising non-stop for hours."
"What brought that on?" Euphemia asked curiously.
"Don't know, but rumours were circulating that it had something to do with Professor Viper's bio-bands," Abigail stated in wonder, "You see, Professor Viper came from West Academy and West Academy had what was known as the Survival Duel system. Basically each student was required to wear what was known as a bio-band, which basically monitors their duelling skills as well measures their fighting spirit based on passion, concentration and decisions made during every duel… that sort of thing. Basically, how it works is if their fighting spirit is beneath a certain level, then students would face a demotion and if their motivation doesn't improve then they faced straight-up expulsion. That's how West Academy works and that's what Viper planned to introduce here at Duel Academy. However, as you can imagine, it was not a popular thing."
"Yeah, from what the J-Man heard, Viper seemed to think that he was runnin' a boot camp instead of a duellin' school," James added since he knew at least some of what happened the previous year.
"Probably just a case of the fear of demotion or expulsion caused the students to push themselves too hard in their duels that it exhausted them," Euphemia theorised as she went over what she just heard, "And so when they were looking for an explanation, since they did not like the Survival Duel system, they blamed the bio-bands, hoping to get the Survival Duel system scarped when in fact, they were probably doing it to themselves."
"Yes, that is a plausible theory," Terrance said in agreement, but from the look in his eyes, there was a very big, "but" in there, "However, from just one duel? Some of those students had fairly light duels and it was only just one duel and yet, they all collapsed without showing any signs that they had been pushing themselves to their limits."
"Anyway," Abigail said as she moved things along, "No one knows exactly what happened, but in the lead-up to the main building's disappearance, Professor Viper and one of Duel Academy's own professors, a Professor Graham Stein both apparently died."
"Wow, hold up, people actually died?" Euphemia said as her eyes widened in shock and disbelief, unable to believe what she had just heard.
"Unfortunately, yes," Terrance sighed, indicating that it was no joke, "Both their bodies had been recovered and according to the autopsy reports, both died from falling from a great height, which in the case of Professor Stein is perfectly explicable since his body was found at the bottom of a deep chasm, but unfortunately they can't explain how Professor Viper managed to fall from a height since there was nothing he could have fallen from that was high enough to have killed him."
"P-p-people actually died," Euphemia repeated in complete shock.
"You don't suppose they were murdered, do you?" Yumi asked curiously, trembling nervously as she had to admit that she was shaken up.
"Who knows," Terrance said dismissively, "There's no evidence that suggests foul play; especially in Professor Stein's case since one of his cards was found at the edge of the chasm he fell into and the coroner hypothesised that he was leaning over to pick it up when he either slipped or leaned too far over the edge and fell in."
"Can we just put all this talk behind us and move on?" Blair said in a rather agitated tone, clearly getting impatient and everyone could detect a hint of uneasiness in her tone.
"Oh, that's right, you were here last year," James said as took note of Blair's tone, "You wouldn't happen to know what happened, do you."
"I don't want to talk about it," Blair replied, shaking her head in a pained tone as she could not help but remember the horrors of being transported to another dimension, being attacked by Yubel as she made her move to possess Marcel and then having Jaden return as a cold and uncaring jerk.
"Hey, let's just drop it for now, huh," Euphemia said upon recovering from her shock and sensing her roommate's distress, "Blair clearly doesn't want to talk about it and from the sound of it, it's too painful for her to recall, isn't that right, Blair?"
Blair just nodded as tears started to well up in her eyes as she remembered Marcel and how Yubel had possessed him and then discarded him when she no longer needed him. She remembered that she had met Marcel the previous year. He was a Ra Yellow student who was apparently shy and had a difficult time making friends. She could see that he was lonely and decided to take it upon herself to look out for him. Unfortunately, Marcel was used to being alone and it made her interactions with him difficult and she remembered getting frustrated over his reluctance to accept her friendship. She remembered one time, having to force him to try some food she had made for him, but he had run off and only stopped when she called out to him. It was obvious that Marcel was not used to being around people and did not know how to handle conversing with others and preferred to be alone, but he was also too polite to tell others to leave him alone and for Blair, trying to get Marcel to even say "Hello" was a massive chore. However, despite her frustration over the issue, she refused to give up and then the main building was sent to another dimension and Blair had Marcel accompany to the bathroom, but on the way back, Yubel had attacked, possessing Marcel and injuring her, leaving a grotesque gash that seemed to emit a bright orange glow on her arm. However, all she had seen was an orange silhouette with a grotesque looking left arm; Yubel's left arm and later, Yubel had turned many of the students into duel-obsessed zombies and eventually challenged Jaden to a duel and Yubel had pretty much dominated the duel, since she knew Jaden and had already planned on how to deal with him. However, Jesse had gotten involved in the duel and Blair remembered how she had rushed over to the duel site and demanded that Yubel release Marcel and Yubel did release him and then tossed him over to her as if he were a rag doll. However, eventually, using the power of the Rainbow Dragon, Jesse was about to return Duel Academy, though he had not returned and had been left with Yubel and Blair knew that Jaden and a few others had left to go look for Jesse, which led to Jaden's drastic personality change. However, Marcel recovered and as it turned out, he was Vice-Chancellor Bonaparte's son who had constantly overheard his parents arguing over his father's many job opportunities and eventually, Bonaparte had decided that enough was enough and told his wife that he was leaving for a new job and that had pretty much destroyed their marriage and Marcel was in his mother's custody, but he missed his father and believed that he did not love him. Anyway, afterwards, Bonaparte and Marcel reconciled and Bonaparte apologised to his son for neglecting him and everyone returned from trying to find Jesse, Duel Academy had scrapped their planned program, Bonaparte reassigned his position and Marcel pulled out to go spend time with his father.
However, as upset as she was at Marcel's departure, Blair was also happy that he was able to finally resolve his issues and liked to think that she had a hand in it.
"Anyway, let's explore," Euphemia said as she brought the pre-teen bluenette back to reality.
Everyone nodded and then started to look around. Unfortunately, there was not much to find other than bits of debris. However, as they continued to look around, James noticed that near the centre, there was a hole in the ground and ran over to it.
"Hey guys, I think I found something," he called over to the others.
"Really, what have you got there?" Zukasu asked as he and the others came running over.
"Dunno, but it looks like it leads underground," James replied as he inspected the hole further.
It was dark inside the hole, though it did look as if they could get down safely with no problems. Shining a flashlight down the hole, James noticed that they were at the top of a stairway that led down into what he and the others guessed was probably the basement of the dorm and from the look of it, it seemed that the basement had escaped the explosion.
"What do you suppose is down there?" Terrance asked no one in particular.
"Yeah, ask us, like we're gonna know," Abigail said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," Euphemia said as she started to walk down the staircase.
However, staring down into the darkness, Yumi started to shake and tremble in apprehension as a sudden feeling of uneasiness and dread washed over her as she suddenly decided that going down into the basement was probably not the best idea. She did not know why, but all of a sudden, she felt that she wanted to get as far away from the Abandoned Dorm as possible.
"Hey, guys, I'm not so sure if going down there's such a good idea," she spoke up, causing Euphemia to stop and stare back at her friend.
"Not again," the pinkette said in frustration, "Come on, Yumi, what's wrong?"
"I don't know, but all of a sudden I feel the need to turn and flee," the brunette replied.
"Yeah, come on, what could possibly happen to us?" James said as he was also confused as to Yumi's sudden change in mood.
"You said it yourself, there's no such thing as the supernatural," Euphemia said, reminding the Japanese girl on what she had said before, "What's gonna happen to us, are we gonna run into some soul-hungry shadow-spirits?"
"That's not funny!" Yumi snapped, clearly not liking the fact that the pinkette was clearly taunting her.
"Don't be such a worrywart," Zukasu said, shaking his head, "The worst that could happen that there's a wild animal such as a bear or a pack of wolves living down there and I doubt that."
Yumi only groaned in frustration as she knew that Zukasu was probably right. She did know of the rumours of the secret animal-testing facility that was said to have been on the island and of the rumours that when it had been abandoned, they had left the animals and that some of those animals had escaped. However, like Zukasu said, that was highly unlikely as if that had been the case, then surely the Academy's faculty would have given the students fair warning and would have taken steps to ensure their safety. However, as such, no such warnings or rules had been made, so it should be perfectly safe, right?
Unfortunately, she could not get rid of the nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong. It was like a pang of insecurity that kept gnawing away at her mind, refusing to leave her alone and all efforts she made to try and dispel the notion only served to make it worse and the feeling only intensified the more she tried to get rid of it.
"No, I'm not going down there," the Japanese girl said, shaking her head with a tone of finality, surprising everyone present, "You guys go on if you want to, but I'm staying here."
"Alright, if you insist," Euphemia said with a sigh, "I guess you can act as a lookout."
"Yeah, that's it, I'll be a lookout," Yumi found herself agreeing with a rather hasty nod.
"Hey, Yumi, are you sure?" Abigail said as she gave the other girl a look of concern, "Will you be alright by yourself?"
Yumi just nodded and from the look on her face, it was clear that nothing was going to change her mind.
"Okay then," Euphemia said as the others all agreed to leave Yumi to act as a lookout.
"Man, who knew that Yumi could be so grouchy?" James whispered to Terrance.
"You learn something new every day," Terrance whispered back to him.
"I'll be fine," Yumi said, waving off any concern that the others had for her, "It's not like there's an intruder on the island that's going to kidnap me."
Abigail groaned at this as she shot the Japanese brunette a glare, not happy that she had reminded her of her own ordeal two to three days ago, but chose not to respond and she and the others all made their way down towards the basement.
"See you later, Yumi," Euphemia said as they parted ways, "Don't disappear on us, now."
"Oh, very funny, Euphie-chan," Yumi sarcastically called down the passageway, "I'm laughing so hard that I'm wetting myself."
She then turned and walked away from the hole that led down to the basement and sat on a rather large chunk of debris. However, just as she relaxed and had become accustomed to the fact that she was now alone, she suddenly noticed a shadow in the moonlight that appeared and loomed over her, followed by evil laughter.
"You should really know better than to tempt fate, my dear," a deep voice then said, causing the Japanese girl to turn and gasp as she saw the silhouette of a huge muscular figure wearing a fedora and a trenchcoat standing over her.
"Euphie-chan!" she shouted as the man suddenly brought his enormous hand and clamped it over her nose and mouth.
Meanwhile, Euphemia and the others walked down the passageway, finding the walls and ceiling had wooden beams built into them and that the passageway itself looked more like a cavern and the ceiling itself really was not all that high. Euphemia found that if she reached her hand up, the she could easily touch the ceiling.
"Gee, I wonder what we're gonna find once we reach the end," Zukasu wondered curiously.
"Who knows?" James replied with a wave of his hand, "Maybe there's treasure down here; like maybe in olden times a group of pirates discovered this island and hid their treasure down here."
"Well, this does look more like a cave than a corridor, I'll say that much," Terrance said as he took in the surroundings.
"You don't think there's something down here that's connected to the Shadow Games, do you?" Abigail asked curiously.
"Who knows, but you don't honestly believe in that mumbo-jumbo, do you?" James asked, waving off the possibility of the Shadow Games being real.
"Well, there is a debate on whether or not the Shadow Games are real," Terrance said, answering for his sister, "And even though most people don't believe in it, I have to say that going over some of those instances in which the Shadow Games are said to be involved… well if they really are tricks and illusions, then they're sure-as-hell really damned convincing."
"How do you figure?" James asked curiously.
"Well, do you remember before Kaiba Corp's Grand Championship over ten years ago?" Terrance asked in interested.
"Vaguely," James admitted with a nod, "However, the J-Man was just a tot at the time."
"Well, do you remember that before the Grand Championship, there were reports of duel disks malfunctioning and the holograms apparently started to run amuck?" Terrance went on inquiring.
"Hey, wasn't that written off as one big publicity stunt that Kaiba Corp and Industrial Illusions came up with to promote the game of Duel Monsters?" Abigail asked, making her own contribution to the conversation.
"That's the official story," Terrance said with a nod as he admitted that much, "However, neither Pegasus, nor Kaiba faced any criminal charges following those incidents and as I understand it, those so-called holograms looked way to damned realistic to be holograms and also, there were reports that some people had been killed by those holograms. I'm no holographic expert, but since when did holograms become capable of drawing blood and breaking things?"
"We're here," Euphemia said, interrupting the conversation as she emerged into was could only be described as a huge cavern.
The cavern was incredibly huge with the ceiling being so high that it was too dark to see. However in front of them was a massively wide circular depression in the ground and surrounding the depression round the rim were stone sculptures of what appeared to be greyish blue dragon heads. However, the depression itself was not all that deep and in fact, it was so swallow that people would have no problems climbing in and out of it. However down in the depression in the centre of the greyish blue floor was a huge circle carved into the floor, though there were two smaller circles at two opposite sides of the huge circle that were also carved into the floor. However, also there were a variety of lines that were also carved into the floor that formed various shapes and also there were really small holes with curved bottoms like the insides of bowls. The lines in the floor seemed to come the edge of the depression nearest the entrance and go off towards the circle and pass into the circle and then move to the left and up a small slab of rock that was leaning on the wall of the depression and then continued onwards up to a hugely significantly bigger slab of rock that was leaning on the wall of the cavern at the edge of the depression and the big slab of rock also had a small hole with a rounded bottom.
"Wow, I have to say that there may be treasure down here like you said, J-Man," Zukasu said in astonishment as he took in the immense size and the layout of the cavern, "But from what I can see, this place must've been inhabited by some ancient tribe in the past."
"Yeah, the carvings on the floor do seem to indicate that the island was indeed inhabited in the past," Euphemia said as she studying the carvings closely, "This cavern must've been used to conduct some sort of ritual in the past and I'm guessing when they built the dorm building, the students must've come down here and used it as a duelling arena."
Everyone could not help but nod in agreement as the studied the circle carved into the floor and noticed the two smaller circles carved into the larger one. The smaller circles where probably were duellists stood when facing one another and the larger circle undoubtedly acted at the field, so like Euphemia had hypothesised, the students had probably turned the ritual ground into their own duelling arena.
Yumi opened her eyes as she felt the beginnings of a massive headache coming on and once she opened her eyes, she could not help but blink as she noticed that something was terribly wrong. Looking ahead of her she noticed that not only was she lying in a vertical position, but the world looked as if it was upside down and after a few moments of disorientation, her eyes widened in shock as she tried to move her arms and legs, but found that they were tied to the surface she was currently lying on. He arms were spread out diagonally and tied at her wrists and her legs were also spread out and tied at the ankles, though to Yumi's relief, she was glad to find that she still had her clothes on. However, it was then that her memories suddenly came flooding back to her. She had refused to accompany her friends down to the basement of the Abandoned Dorm and after they had left her, she had been attacked by a huge hulking figure in a trenchcoat and a fedora who had placed his hand over her nose and mouth and proceeded to knock her out.
"What the…?" she said in confusion and fear, "Where am I and why am I upside down?"
As if to respond to her question, the entire room sudden boomed with evil laughter that Yumi recognised as belonging to her attacker.
"Hey, what's this about?" Yumi demanded as she glared ahead of her, "Why am I here? Just what is it that you want?"
"It's not you that I want," the loud booming voice said as the Japanese girl suddenly noticed the silhouette that she recognised as belonging to her attacker rose up from the floor and to her shock, she saw that he was not alone as two others emerged from the shadows on opposite ends of the room and walked over to either side of him.
"You are nothing more than the bait," the man in the middle said in a quieter voice, though it was the same voice that had spoken before, "Bait to lure my quarry to me."
Yumi's eyes widened in shock as she studied the three men in front of her and was surprised to find that the two on either side of the man in the middle, not only looked exactly the same, but they were identical clothing as well. However, unlike before since it had been dark; Yumi could see the three men in front of her perfectly. The man in the middle had back shoes and a dark grey, almost black trenchcoat with a lighter shade of grey providing an outline and a high-rise collar that cover three-quarter of his head and was folded back. However, what made this trenchcoat stand out was that at the front the opening where the coat separated was not in the middle, but rather to the right with a total of nine buttons; six underneath his waist and three above his waist The tops of his shoulders that a grey outline with a strap at either side with pointed ends buttoned onto the side of his shoulder and on either side of his coat at the sides of his legs were three buttoned straps running horizontally with straight ends at the back and pointed ends at the front. The cuff of the right hand sleeve was a lighter shade of grey than the rest of the coat with a darker grey straps with two pointed ends attached to it with a button at either end. He also had a light grey belt situated round his waist with a rectangular front and into the rectangle were a series of buttons in three rows of three and to the man's left, still inside his belt's rectangle were two other buttons, each one with a red arrow symbolising it with the arrow in the top button pointing upwards and the arrow in the bottom button pointing downwards. At the top of the rectangle was a small white cuboid and attached to that were two small pipes that vertically up to a white armoured plate over his chest that was rounded to the right and went over to his left where the over end was straight and went over his left shoulder was a rounded end at the back The rounded right end of the plate was in fact part of a circle and at the opposite end of the circle, sitting in a horizontal position was a deck of Duel Monster cards with a red arrow pointing towards them situated in the centre of the circle. From the circle, three lines moved horizontally to the left end with one just above the deck, another below the deck and the other in the centre in between and on the front of his shoulder were to blue orbs, a small one and a bigger one above that and also there was an orb on top of his shoulder and, yet another one at the back and also at the back was an opening with a red arrow pointing into it. He also wore black fingerless gloves over his hands and dark greyish blue plates over his knuckles and attached to his left arm was what could easily be described as an oversized bracelet as it extended from his wrist right up to his just underneath his elbow and the bottom had three wires protruding from it attached to a white plated rectangle that was attached to his left glove over the back of his hand To the outer left of the "bracelet was a semi-circle with an opening on the circumference and also there was an opening into the semi-circle with a red arrow pointing towards it and also on the top of the "bracelet" was a rectangle that formed a small depression at each corner and formed a smaller rectangle within it was a line running along the centre and it. Aside from that, Yumi also noticed that he wore a dark grey, almost black fedora with a darker grey band and also had a purple mask over the upper half of his face with an ovular shaped ruby embedded in it over his forehead and between his eyes and also had curved fang-like protrusions over his cheeks.
As for the two identical men standing on either side of him, both of whom Yumi could not help but get a sense of déjà vu as she studied them, both had a slight brown skin tone with a greyish tint to it. They both had short dark grey hair styled in such a way that gave the impression that there were small spikes sticking out round the curve of their heads at the top. However, Yumi could not see their eyes at they were covered by a pair of dark brownish purple rectangular sunglass; at that least she believed they were sunglasses. They both wore identical jumpsuits that were different shades of grey, had dark reddish brown ovals depicted in them, a light reddish orange outline and spikes protruding out of them and also covered the entirety of their hands. The jumpsuits themselves had spikes on either side of each individual legging above the ankles, three at the outer sides of each thigh, two at the both sides of the hips, two just below the elbows on the sleeves, two at the sides of each shoulder and at either side of the back of the neck. However even more bizarre, at least in Yumi's opinion, the centre of each foot, a reddish orange line ran up the front of each leg till they came to the knees in which they formed a diamond shape Up in the centre of each thigh the reddish orange outline depicted a V shape with the inner line looping round the inside of the thighs and the outer line moving up to the bottom of the hips before lopping round the outside round the bottom of the hips and above the last of the spikes at the sides and then moved downwards at the back before meeting up with the inner line again, forming another V shape at the back of the thighs. There was also an outline depicting another V shape at the back at the top of the hip with the point at the centre of the area above the butt cheeks and both lines looped round to the front and then moved downwards at a slight diagonal angle towards the centre of their crotches, halfway between the sides and the centre of the front, the lines then moved upwards vertically , outlining the abdomen and once reaching the halfway-point between the top of the hips and the bottom of the stomach area, the lines curved outwards slight before continuing their journey upwards till they reached the bottom of the stomach area and then looped round the back where they met up again and forming an upward curve at the back. There was also an outline running downwards from the top of the centre of each jumpsuit till they reach the centre of the chest and the moved out horizontally in each direction till reaching the centre of each chest plate muscle before moving downwards to the bottom of each chest plate muscle and then moving outwards while outlining the bottom of each muscles till reaching the side of the shoulders before moving upwards, over the shoulders and meeting up again at the back while outlining the bottom of the upper back muscles. There were also outlines at the top of each arm with a straight line running horizontally at the top of each hand just underneath the knuckles and then two lines, one at either end of the horizontal lines running vertically along the top of each arm to halfway between the wrists and the elbows before they started to spiral round the arms with two lines seen; one spiralling round each upper arm. The majority of the jumpsuits were a really dark grey, almost black colour with a dark reddish brown oval depicted vertically in the stomach area with an outline and two more reddish brown ovals were positioned at the top of each hand inside the outlining. The front of the stomach area of the jumpsuits over the oval was the same dark grey, almost black colour as the rest of the jumpsuits, but the areas at the side and the back between the hips and the upper back between the two outlined areas were a light shade of grey with small black lines running vertically down the light grey in a striped pattern.
For some reason, Yumi could not help but feel a sense of familiarity as she studied the two identical men; like she had met them before and suddenly, a wave of fear and terror washed over her as the feeling of déjà vu she had told her that they were in no way friendly. Somehow she just knew that these men had not been friendly to her in the past.
"Like I said before, my dear," the man in the middle spoke up, bringing the captured girl out of her thoughts, "You should've known better than to tempt fate and also, you would have been safer staying with your friends, not that it would've helped you in the long run as I would have confronted you all anyway."
"W-w-what d-d-do you w-w-want?" the Japanese girl stuttered fearfully, trying very hard not to tremble as she remembered Abigail's predicament two days previously.
However, unlike Abigail, who had been kidnapped by a girl eager to enrol in Duel Academy, Yumi knew that this kidnapper would not be as gentle or as kind as Amanda had been to Abigail. Unlike Amanda, she knew that the chances were that unless someone helped her, she would not be leaving this room alive as she knew that tis man would probably dispose of her once she had fulfilled her purpose, unlike Amanda who had every intention of letting Abigail go, even if it was not until her demands had been met. However, she knew this man had no such intentions of letting her go and was going to kill her just to eliminate a possible witness to whatever it was he had planned.
"As I already told you, my dear," the man said in a sinisterly frightening tone as the edges of his mouth slowly curved upwards, forming a terrifyingly cruel and sadistic grin that caused the captive girl to tremble as shivers ran up and down her spine, "It's not you that I'm after. You're just the bait to lure my prey to me."
"Prey?" Yumi said, completely confused as she did not understand what this man was on about.
"That's right, my dear," the man said with a sinister laugh, "You're going to lure the pink-haired princess to me and then I'm going to duel her in a Shadow Game."
"Pink-haired…?" Yumi questioned before her eyes widened in realisation at who his target was, "Euphie-chan!"
"That's right," the man confirmed with a nod, "Young Euphemia will be subjected to a Shadow Game and then I will finally be free from the accursed Shadow Realm."
"Look, pal, I don't know what your beef with Euphie-chan is, but Shadow Games don't exist," Yumi said as she momentarily forgot her fear and glared at the man, "You've been reading too into those legends. However, I know for a fact that the supernatural doesn't exist."
The man's response was just to burst out in evil laughter.
"Well, you're not the first to make such claims," he said admittedly, "The others didn't believe in Shadow Games or the supernatural either, but they were soon convinced, as will you be."
"Others…?" Yumi said fearfully as her eyes widened as her fear came back in one big massive torrent, "So, it was you, you've the one behind those disappearances."
"You're the second person to make such an accusation, but no, I was not referring to the missing students," the man said in a tone so calm that Yumi could not help but tremble as she did not like the vibe this man was giving off, "I was simply referring to my previous opponents."
Sure she was scared and terrified, but there was just something about the vibes that this man gave off that seemed to scare her more than usual. Heck, she felt even more scared than she did that time she had accidentally walked into Stella's trap that she had set up for Euphemia after she had found Stella's phony love letter and Stella had ended up trying to kill her after she had bitten her in a bid to escape. Even then, she had been nowhere near as frightened as she was now. She just could not explain it. Something about this man just made her blood run cold and she could not help but shiver as the temperature in the room felt as if it was below freezing and despite trying to pass it off as the wind, she somehow got the sneaking suspicion that she was just making excuses since there was indeed a wind blowing in the room, but not to the point of affecting the temperature to such a degree. No, despite making excuses, she just knew that the drop in temperature was due to this man and it certainly did not help matters that she had a sense of mysterious familiarity with his accomplices as that did serve to add to her growing insecurities.
"I can see it in your eyes," the man spoke up again, "I can see that you're in denial. However, let me prove to you that the supernatural does exist."
"Y-you're on," Yumi said, feeling somewhat brave and somewhat afraid at the same time.
He then turned to face his accomplice on the right and gave him a nod. The other man just nodded back and suddenly, he was surrounded by a black mist that completely enveloped his body. However, what happened next, caused Yumi's eyes to widen as the black mist moved off to the side of the man and appeared as if it was coming off the man, like a cell splitting in two and then the mist formed into a human shape and then a third man materialised in place of the mist and what shocked the Japanese girl the most, was that this new man was completely identical to the other two identical men in the room.
"That's a really good trick," Yumi said in an effort to try and be brave, "Probably just holograms or smoke and mirrors."
The three identical men all frowned and then turned to look at the captive girl and if despite their sunglasses covering their eyes, Yumi could tell that they were glaring at her and must have felt insulted by her comments.
"I think she needs more convincing," one of the identical men; the one who had been to the man in the trenchcoat's left said, speaking up for the first time since Yumi had seen them.
"Yes, I wholeheartedly agree," the one who had been to the trenchcoat man's right said in agreement and Yumi was surprised to hear that both men not only looked identical and wore identical clothing, but also spoke with identical voices.
"Very well," the man in the trenchcoat said as he unbutton the upper half of her coat and reached inside before pulling out a deck of Duel Monster cards despite already having a deck on the armoured plate of his trenchcoat and Yumi guessed that the armoured plate and the oversized bracelet on his left arm must be what he used to duel with.
The deck in his hand suddenly started to emit the same black mist that had been surrounding one of the identical men and had formed into a third identical man.
"Still not convinced," Yumi said, shaking her head, though to be honest, she had a creeping sense of dread that seemed to be creeping its way into her mind as somehow she just knew that she was not going to like the results of what they were trying to show her.
The man in the trenchcoat just chuckled and he threw the deck into the air, causing the cards to scatter. However, the black mist surrounding them did not dissipate and Yumi's eyes widened in shock as she witnessed the black mist appearing to pull all the scattered cards back together, only instead of bringing them back into a neatly arranged deck, the cards were clustered together as the back mist started to shape itself into a human shape, still with the cards inside it and then a man identical to the three identical men materialised and shot the Japanese girl a rather sinisterly triumphant grin.
"Do you believe us now, Miss Fujiharu?" the newly materialised man said as he seemed to enjoy the sight of the captive girl's eyes widening in shock and disbelief as Yumi started shaking her head rather hastily.
"No, no, no," she said in a rather desperate tone of disbelief, "This isn't happening, this just can't be happening. It isn't real. This is just one big nightmare."
"I assure you, Miss Fujiharu that this is all very real," the newly materialised identical man said, "And, just for the record, we have crossed paths before, though it wasn't me, but one of my clones."
"Huh?" Yumi said as her eyes widened in further disbelief, though she had to admit that these identical men did look familiar to her.
"In fact, everyone in the world has encountered me before," one of the other identical men said, "Even if the majority of the populace managed to block the experience from their minds."
"No way!" Yumi screamed in denial as she suddenly recalled a memory from the previous year and then everything that she had subconsciously blocked from her mind after the previous year's freak-eclipse came flooding back to her.
She remembered how she had been down on her luck in Duel Monsters. He sister's lecture years before on how she would never impress her and how she was just wasting her time had really dispirited her and ate away at her confidence and self-esteem. She had wanted to prove Seika wrong and had decided to enrol in Duel Academy in an attempt to gain the confidence to prove her sister wrong; that she was a good duellist and was capable of impressing her. However, she could not help but worry that she would fail. She feared that no matter how hard she tried or how well she duelled, Seika would just refuse to acknowledge her skills and that depressed her terribly. As much as she tried to shake off her fears and move on, she found that she just could not shake them off and occasionally had nightmares in which she did fail and Seika continued to berate her, calling her worthless and that she was better off just rolling over and dying.
However, the previous year, even before the freak-eclipse, Yumi suddenly remembered how people she knew suddenly started vanishing; not just from the physical plain, but from her memories as well. She remembered how, looking at a picture of her family one day and then Seika suddenly just vanished from the photograph and what had been terrifying was that Yumi remembered that she had forgotten who her sister was. She had forgotten her name and even what she looked like, but she did still retain the knowledge that she existed, but that she just could not remember anything about her other than the fact that she had a sister that she could not remember. However, this extended to others that she knew, including her own parents. It had been frightening knowing that people she knew were disappearing and she was suddenly forgetting about them as they disappeared aside from the feeling that someone had existed.
Yumi also remembered how she had been in her room in hiding since she had essentially ended up being alone, not remembering her parents or her sister and fearful that the same thing would happen to her and then as she was holding onto her Duel Monsters deck, the black mist she had just witnessed had appeared round her deck and transform into a man, identical to the four identical men in the room and she remembered how she had been challenged to a duel and the man had proceeded to trounce her and then, the next thing she knew after losing the duel, she was living out her fears of her sister berating her over and over and the same events had played out over and over like a broken record and Yumi found herself slowly sinking into despair as her sister's voice continued to echo in her mind, berating her tauntingly and she also remembered wishing that she could just curl up and die, just as Seika had suggested. However, eventually, she remembered hearing a voice and though she could not remember what it had said, it somehow had given her the courage to stand up to Seika and then she was free, back in her room and she remembered who everyone was again. However, unfortunately, most of those events had been suppressed and she had believed that she and the rest of the world had simply been forced to sleep by the freak-eclipse.
"You, you're the ones responsible for everyone disappearing last year," she said as a wave of horror suddenly washed over her as she started to thrash at her bindings, "You made everyone disappear and then erased them from our memories."
"I think she understands now," one of the identical men said with a sinister smirk.
"Yes," the man in the trenchcoat said as he turned his attention towards the newly formed identical man, "I will deal with Euphemia alone. Make sure that her friends don't interfere."
The man he had spoken to nodded and then suddenly transformed back into black mist with the cards still within, but instead of dissipating, the black mist suddenly left down a corridor as the man in the trenchcoat turned his attention back to the terrified Yumi and then advanced on her as he suddenly started to emit a black, sinister aura.
"Still think that the supernatural's all tricks and illusions now, my dear?" he boasted tauntingly, knowing that he had proven his point.
"No, stay away from me!" Yumi said in increasing alarm as she continued to thrash at her bindings as the man got closer, "Don't come any closer!"
However the man just laughed and Yumi felt a growing sense of urgency as a wave of crippling terror established its hold over her and then suddenly, without even thinking, she let out a very loud and ear-piercing scream.
Back in the cavern where Euphemia and the others were, they all heard Yumi's scream echoing off the walls.
"What was that?" James asked curiously.
"Sounded like someone screaming," Terrance said with a tone of concern as he wondered just who it could be and if they were in need of help.
"That wasn't just anyone," Euphemia said in an alarmed tone that had a sense of dire urgency in it, "That was…"
"Yumi!" Zukasu finished as he also realised who it was.
However, before anyone could react, Euphemia had already rushed round to the other side of the depression and ran down another corridor that had been hidden from view by a huge boulder.
"Hey, Euphie, wait up!" Abigail called out as she started to run after her.
"Are you sure that it was Yumi?" James asked curiously, "I mean, we left Yumi outside, how could she have gotten past us without us knowin'?"
"Even if it's not Yumi, someone may be in trouble and in serious need of help," Terrance replied as he started after his sister.
"It was Yumi," Zukasu stated, "I just know it."
"Oh, Yumi, what have you gotten yourself into?" Blair thought with a growing sense of dread as she started to ponder possible reasons why the Japanese girl would scream.
However, just as the group reached the corridor that Euphemia had run down, a fierce wind started to pick up and blew then all away from the corridor and across the room.
"H-hey, what gives?" James asked in confusion, "Just what the hell happened?"
"Search me," Terrance said in equal confusion.
However, just as everyone managed to pick themselves up and recover from their brief disorientation, a black mist suddenly came rolling out from the corridor that they had just been blown away from and Blair's eyes widened in shock and horror as she recognised the black mist.
"No, it can't be," she thought in pure horror and disbelief, "It just can't be."
However, despite the blackness of the mist and how dark it was in the cavern, everyone could just barely make out the familiar rectangular shapes of Duel Monsters cards. Unfortunately, before they could ponder this, the cards within the mist started to cluster together and the mist the started to take on a human shape and then a man identical to the two men with the man in the trenchcoat that held Yumi captive materialised.
"Greetings, friends of Euphemia," the man greeted and Blair's eyes widened in horror at seeing her worst fears being confirmed, "I am Trueman."
"Trueman, what sort of a name is that?" James asked in confusion, "And just how'd you appear like that?"
"And unfortunately for you, this is as far as you all go," Trueman went on, completely ignoring James's questions.
"This guy obviously isn't real," James said dismissively, "Okay, joke's over, come out."
Trueman then turned towards James and frowned, feeling rather offended at the boy's dismissal of him.
"I don't know, James, he seems very real to me," Abigail said with a shiver as she could not help but notice that since Trueman's arrival, the temperature in the cavern had apparently plummeted and she found herself tensing up and rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms since she had no sleeves.
"How can he be real?" James asked simply, "I mean, just look at his entrance. That's just plain impossible. He must be a hologram or something."
"I'm not so sure," Terrance said as he looked around the cavern for any possible places where a holographic projector could possibly be well-hidden from view, but could find nothing, "Remember what we were discussing earlier, about that time Duel Monsters holograms seemed to run amuck?"
"Come on, that's was all just a publicity stunt," James scoffed in a dismissive tone, "I don't know how this guy managed to pull it off, but if he's not a hologram, then he's obviously good with smoke and mirrors."
"I can pretty much assure you that I am indeed as real as you are," Trueman spoke up in an insulted tone, clearly not happy at being blown off, "And as I already said, you're not proceeding any further."
"What do you mean?" Zukasu asked as his eyes narrowed, fearing that this man had done something to Euphemia and Yumi, "And just what did you do to Euphie and Yumi? It was you who made Yumi scream, wasn't it. You've kidnapped her, haven't you?"
Abigail's eyes widened as she was reminded of her own kidnapping ordeal and then could not help but remember what Yumi had said about being kidnapped, though she had been joking around. However, she could not help but worry over the fate of the Japanese girl as a feeling of pure dread suddenly washed over her as she fear that something bad had happened to her friend. Sure, she remembered her own ordeal in which she had been rather fortunate and despite still hating Amanda for kidnapping her, she had discovered that Amanda had absolutely no intentions of hurting her and would have released her eventually. Unfortunately, Yumi's kidnapper was not a disgruntled Academy applicant looking to get enrolled and undoubtedly, the Japanese girl would not be as lucky as she was. Abigail had been fortunate. Yumi, unfortunately had not been so lucky and the bespectacled girl knew that Yumi probably would not get off as lightly as she had and it brought her back to when Professor Shizuki had scolded her for confronting Amanda the previous night in which she had told her just how fortunate she had been. That night she had sent her brother and James on ahead while she investigated something she thought she had seen and had demanded that someone show themselves, which caused Amanda to burst into a run from her hiding place. What Professor Shizuki had been trying to tell her was that, supposing that it had not been Amanda at all and someone else; someone else with more sinister and unfriendly intentions. It was then she realised that had that been the case, she may have ended up in the same situation Yumi was now in and since no one would have known that she had gone missing, the outcome could have been rather drastic.
"That is correct," Trueman said, answering Zukasu's question, "Miss Fujiharu is nothing more than the bait to lure in Euphemia."
"What, you mean that Euphie's the target?" Terrance said in astonishment.
"How do you know Euphie's name?" Zukasu said, feeling rather uneasy over the way Trueman had mentioned Euphemia's name.
The way he had used Euphemia's name; it had suggested that he was familiar with her, like he knew her.
"That's what I want to know," Blair thought, having similar thoughts, "Just what does Nightshroud want with Euphemia and come to think of it. This all just seems a bit too convenient. We go out to the Abandoned Dorm and Euphie just so happens to find a book that documents Nightshroud and Nightshroud's name is the only word in the text that hasn't become affected by the elements and then Euphie just so happens to acquire a Shadow Charm that refuses to part with her. Something's clearly not right here. How can Trueman be so familiar with Euphie and even if he somehow managed to return, wouldn't he be more interested in gaining revenge against Jaden?"
She knew that Nightshroud had to be involved in this. That much was plainly obvious. The fact that Trueman was here was proof of that. Trueman had been Nightshroud's emissary and who had been the one who had dragged the world's populace to Nightshroud's World of Darkness. Nightshroud had left Trueman to carry out his plan and only got involved personally because Jaden had defeated his host, whom, as she understood it, only had a portion of Nightshroud's soul embedded within him. However, the question remained, just how did Nightshroud manage to amass such a huge amount of power in such a short space of time as Nightshroud's power had been tied to the darkness in people's hearts and even if Nightshroud had warned of his possible return, there was no way that he could have amassed such a massive amount of power in such a short space of time and even more troubling, instead of targeting Jaden in a bid for vengeance like the pre-teen would have figured he would have done, it seemed that he decided to target Euphemia for some reason. Of course, she knew that Jaden had recommended Euphemia to the Duel Academy and it could just be a case of targeting her to get to Jaden, but somehow, Blair doubted that very much and for some reason, she just could not think of why.
"It matters not," Trueman said in response to Zukasu's question, "All that's certain is that you're not going any further. The boss will deal with Euphemia."
He then raised his left arm, which suddenly became surrounded by black mist and then a duel tray suddenly grew out of the side of his arm with each monster space being represented by a light grey square with a smaller rectangle merged into the outer side and each space with a long protruding spike separating them and the bottom of each space had a reddish orange outline running along it. In fact, each individual space had the appearance of webbed skin and his duel try looked more like a bat's wing and above each monster space was an opening, apparently, the spell/trap slots. Also on the top of his arm part of his jumpsuit appeared to rise slightly and a deck of Duel Monsters cards appeared, stuck halfway inside the protruding portion of his jumpsuit.
"Gross," Abigail said as she covered her mouth as she felt a sudden wave of nausea hit her.
"Wow, that's just freaky," James said, completely stunned.
"You know," Terrance said as he studied Trueman closer, "Now that I think about it, I can't help but think that perhaps I may have seen this guy somewhere before."
"Yeah, I get that feeling as well," Abigail said with a cringe.
"The J-Man also feels that he's seen him before," James added.
"You do?" Terrance said as he turned to give his friend a questioning look.
"Yeah, but the J-Man can't remember where, though," James replied simply.
"Us to," Abigail said in admission.
"Wait, you want to duel?" Zukasu said, surprised at Trueman's gesture, though he was curious as to how he managed to "grow" a duel disk out of his arm.
"Of course, my mission is to keep you from interfering in my boss's confrontation with Euphemia," Trueman said simply.
"But, through duelling, I mean come on, there are other ways to keep us occupied," Zukasu said, completely at a loss as to why Trueman felt the necessity to duel, "Why don't you just kill us and be done with it?"
"I will duel you," Trueman said in a tone of finality, seeming to disregard Zukasu's question, "And it'll be a Shadow Game in which when you loss, you will be taken to the World of Darkness in which you will live out your darkness for all of eternity."
"Okay," Zukasu said as he activated his duel disk and both him and Trueman went down into the depression and stood inside the two small circles, facing one another, "I still say that you're better off just killing us without resorting to duelling."
"Zukasu, don't give him ideas!" Terrance shouted towards him.
"I think you'll find that a Shadow Game will be more effective," Trueman replied simply, "And get ready because the monsters in this duel are real and not holograms."
"Yeah, yeah, if you say so," Zukasu said, uncaringly waving off his claim as he drew five cards.
"Sceptical, are we?" Trueman asked as he also drew five cards.
"Of course," Zukasu replied in an uncaringly tone, "I've heard of all this mumbo-jumbo about Shadow Games and the like, but they're not true. I will admit that all legends had a seed of truth in them somewhere, but I don't honestly believe in the supernatural and believe that Shadow Games are just hyped up nonsense told by people who were too primitive to understand what they were truly seeing."
"Well then, Mr Rikuguru, allow me to prove you wrong," Trueman chuckled and then his expression became serious, "But enough talk."
"Couldn't agree with you more," Zukasu said in agreement.
"DUEL!" both duellists yelled in unison.
Zukasu: 4000 – Trueman: 4000
Meanwhile, while Zukasu and Trueman started their duel, James, Blair, Terrance and Abigail all rushed to the side of the depression.
"You don't suppose that this guy is right about this being a Shadow Game, do you?" Abigail asked nervously as she continued to shiver, clearly not wanting to believe Trueman, but wondering if what he had said was true.
"Don't be silly," James scoffed dismissively, "He's bluffin'. He's just tryin' to intimidate us, as all."
"But don't you feel it?" Abigail asked, sounding frustrated at her friend's constant dismissals.
"Feel what?" the grey-haired boy asked.
"Abi, you're shivering," Terrance spoke up in a concerned tone as he noticed his sister shaking, "Are you cold?"
"Huh?" James said as he also noticed that Abigail was shivering as he studied her closely, "Hey, you are shiverin', what's up?"
"Don't you guys feel it?" Abigail asked, causing her brother and friend to stare at her in confusion, "Ever since that guy showed up, it feels as if this place suddenly became a freezer."
Terrance then paused for a bit, considering how to reply, but then he suddenly started to feel the chill in the air.
"Now that you mention it, it does seem to have gotten a bit chilly in here," he said as he started to notice the change in temperature.
"Yeah, the J-Man feels it to," James admitted as he also felt it, but then returned to his dismissive attitude, "I doubt this guy's actin' alone. Probably has someone operatin' a temperature control thingy."
"You mean a thermostat, don't you?" Terrance said as he glared at his friend, not happy that he was clearly denying the possibility that it was all real, but Terrance knew that he could not really blame him since hardly anyone believed in the supernatural.
However, Terrance did suspect that somehow, this man was the real deal and he could see that his sister was also thinking along the same wavelength. He did not know what it was, but somehow, just looking at Trueman made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He just seemed to give off this creepy vibe that caused his blood to run cold and he could not help but let out a fearful shiver. There was also the issue of the room's temperature. Like Abigail had said, since Trueman's arrival, the temperature had apparently seemed to plummet and though he did agree with the possibility of James's assessment, the way Abigail had caused him to notice the difference in temperature; from the way she had been speaking and the way she had been shivering, it was clear that the drop in temperature had been an instant drop and not a gradual one, which ruled out the use of a thermostat since had there been a thermostat, the drop would have been a gradual affair and not an instant one. Of course, since Trueman's arrival and witnessing what he was capable of, Terrance had been looking around the cavern, searching for anything that could possibly explain how they could be mere tricks and illusions, paying close attention to anywhere in which it would be rather easy to hide equipment, but nothing had stood out and with that in mind, he could not help but agree that this was indeed a real-live supernatural phenomenon.
On the duel field Trueman chuckled as he drew a sixth card.
"I hope you don't mind if I go first," he said in a tone of mock inquiring as he looked at the cards in his hand, which consisted of Zero Gazer, Power Gift, Armageddon Knight, Dark Archetype, Spirit Ryu and Spear Dragon, which he had just drawn.
"Sure," Zukasu said simply with a nod, "Be my guest."
Trueman nodded with a smirk.
"You're too kind," he replied in a mockingly thankful tone.
He then reached for his Armageddon Knight card and placed in it in the middle monster space of his duel tray, which was effectively also part of his arm.
"First I summon Armageddon Knight in attack mode," he announced as the Armageddon Knight (1400/1200) appeared on the field, materialising from a glow of light that moulded into its shape.
The monster on the field looked human with long dark blackish brown hair, pure white skin and black eyes that covered the entirely of its eyeballs. The knight wore a long red bandana round the lower part of its face and went flowing out behind it and it also wore brown armour with brownish silver plating over its shoulders with the front portion of its chest coming to a point in a V shape. There were also cupped plates strapped over the sides of the shoulders with holes dotted in them and small rectangular plates with a small hole dotted at each corner, each on attached to one another looping round the sides of the arms and over the hands were metal gloves, the same colour as the plates. It also had a brown belt round its waist with a brownish silver buckle at the front and holes running round the entire length with brownish silver rims for each hole. There were also rectangular plates attached to the sides of the hips, running down to the thighs and running up to the knees were a pair of brownish silver metal segmented boots. The monster was also armed with a sword in its right hand with a rounded, bowl shaped guard with the handle coming out from the inside of the "bowl and the blade on coming out from the other side opposite and from the handle, a small part of metal came out, looping over the top of the hand and then meeting up with the edge of the "bowl" and the piece of metal also had three holes grafted into its sides with three spikes sticking out from the top above each hole.
"And whenever Armageddon Knight is summoned to the field, I can take one dark-attribute monster from my deck and send it to my graveyard," Trueman went one as a single card moved out from his deck, as if it had developed a mind of its own and Trueman took it and smirked when it turned out to be Masked Beast Des Gardius and then placed it over the top of the centre of his duel tray and then the card moved into his arm as if it were moving into a graveyard slot and Trueman appeared to absorb the card. He then took his Zero Gazer card and inserted it into the middle spell/trop slot.
"I then place one card facedown and end my turn," he concluded, "Now then, Mr Rikuguru, let's see what you got."
"Did he just…" Abigail said as she felt another wave of nausea was over her as she witnessed how Trueman absorbed the card that he supposedly sent to his graveyard.
"That is just messed up," James said in disbelief, "Good thing he's just a hologram, though."
"Hologram, if he's a hologram, then just how, prey-tell, is he conducting this duel?" Terrance demanded with a glare.
"Well I…" James said, before realising that he did not know what to say.
"Wanna dissect him to find out what's inside his body?" Terrance went on in a mocking tone as he believed that his friend had run out of things to say that pointed towards this being just a trick.
"Terry, shut up," Abigail said, shooting her brother a glare as she made it clear that she did not appreciate his taunt, even if it was not directed at her, "Please don't mention things like that. I'm in danger of losing my meal from earlier."
"Sorry, Abi," the redhead apologised.
"It has to be some kind of trick," James said after finally thinking up of a response, causing both Richardson Twins and Blair, who remained silent off to the side to groan in frustration.
Back down in the depression, Zukasu drew a sixth card and then looked at his hand, which held Yggdrasil Drive Explosion, Knightmare Frame: Glasgow, Jousting Lance, Assault Rifle Knightmare Frame: Lancelot and Knightmare Shield, which he just drew.
"Okay, first off, I summon my Knightmare Frame: Glasgow in attack mode," he said as he took his Knightmare Frame: Glasgow (1400/1000) card and placed it on the middle monster space of his duel disk and the downsized mecha appeared on the field in a manner similar to the Armageddon Knight.
"I hope you realise that both our monsters are equal in terms of the number of attack points," Trueman pointed out, "If they do battle, they'll end up destroying one another."
"Wow," James said from the side-lines, clearly in awe over Zukasu's mecha monster, "Now the J-Man understands why Stella dubs him, Mecha-freak."
"Hey, hold on," Abigail said as she realised something, "I've never of that monster before."
"That's right," Terrance said in realisation as he came to the same conclusion, "I don't recall ever seeing a card with that name in any of the registries that list all known cards in the game of Duel Monsters."
"Huh, come again?" James said in confusion.
"All cards known in the game of Duel Monsters are listed in a registry," Abigail started to explain, "Well… there are several registries, but they all pretty must document the same cards. These registries are all kept under lock and key in the mainframes of both Kaiba Corp and Industrial Illusions, though the public has access to hard copies."
"That's all good, but what has this got to do with Zukasu's monster?" James asked curiously.
"These registries are supposed to help identify each individual card," Terrance went on as Abigail took a break, "Each card has its own individual registration number that makes it unique. Even if there are two copies of the same card, each individual card has its own unique registration number."
"It's supposed to help in preventing the playing with illegal and counterfeit cards," Abigail went on as Terrance took his turn at taking a break from talking, "Basically, what happens is that the registry is programmed into each duel disk and whenever each card is played, the program scans the card's registration number and then sorts through the registry looking for a match."
"And any cards that are deemed illegal or in the event that no match is found, the duel disk will not recognise the card and therefore, no hologram will be projected," Terrance concluded.
"And even though duel disks can be reprogrammed, each duel disk is fitted with an alarm system that's linked to Kaiba Corp's mainframe," Abigail said as James opened his mouth to speak and she knew what he was going to say, "So anyone who tampers with their duel disk; Kaiba Corp can easily shut it down and take it offline, making it impossible to duel using that duel disk."
"Wow, that's just… wow," James said, completely stunned at what he just learned and he had to admit that he did not know that, "But then what do you mean, that Zukasu's monster's a fake?"
"This is indeed puzzling," Terrance said as he looked down at the Glasgow Knightmare Frame, "I've never seen that monster before and I don't recall ever coming across it in the list of cards that can be used in the game and yet, his duel disk recognises it and not only that, but his duel disk is still functioning, which indicates that it hasn't been shut down."
"Yeah, that is weird," James admitted with a nod, "You don't suppose he somehow managed ta rig the disk in such a way that Kaiba Corp wouldn't be able to detect it?"
"He'd have to be an amazing genius to pull that off," Terrance said as he continued his gaze, "Seto Kaiba is an extraordinary genius with computers and has backup program after backup program in place ready to deal with hackers that try to weasel their way round Kaiba Corp's computer programs. It's very difficult and highly unlikely that Zukasu would be able to outsmart them all. Heck, me and my sister both have an IQ over one hundred, making us both geniuses and yet, even if we put our heads together, even we wouldn't be able to get round all of Kaiba Corp's defences. Even if he did somehow manage to get round one, another one would be waiting in the wings, ready to act."
"So what does this mean?" James asked curiously as he looked down at Zukasu in disbelief, unable to believe that he may be duelling with counterfeit cards.
"Who knows?" Abigail said with a sigh.
Back down in the depression, Zukasu cringed after overhearing his friends' conversation as he had to admit that they did have a point. Zukasu was not stupid. He knew that his cards were not part of the Duel Monsters registries and he knew that by all rights, his duel disk should not recognise them and yet, his duel disk did indeed recognise them as if they were legitimate cards. He had known that Duel Academy had confiscated his duel disk and had replaced it with another one when they believed he didn't know after his duel with Stella and he knew that they had obviously sent it off to Kaiba Corp to have it examined and eventually when they returned it, it was clear that they could find nothing wrong with it and that had him stumped. He knew that he did not tamper with his duel disk and yet his cards seemed to suggest that he had done and he knew that it would undoubtedly cast doubt on him and that upset him immensely as he feared that it would cost him his friends.
Anyway, shaking his head, deciding to sort this out later, he decided to proceed with the duel as he reached for his Assault Rifle card and placed it in the spell/trap slot to the left of the middle.
"I realise that," he said, responding to Trueman's last comment, "However, I play the spell card, Assault Rifle."
The card appeared on the field and the assault rifle depicted in the card flew out of the card and into the hands of Zukasu's Glasgow (1900/1000)
"And by equipping my Glasgow with this, it gains an additional five hundred attack points," he went on, "And now, Glasgow, attack his Armageddon Knight with Machinegun Barrage."
In response, the Glasgow aimed the assault rifle at the Armageddon Knight and fired it.
"I activate the trap, Zero Gazer," Trueman said as he brought his hand over his facedown card, which rose up.
The image depicted on the card a man in armour, armed with a sword surrounded by an orange aura and he looked as if he was struggling to stand up above him were a pair of white eyes with huge red pupils and both eyes were surrounded by a golden auras, making it clear that they were what was weakening the warrior.
"Whenever my opponent declares an attack, I can activate Zero Gazer, which automatically reduces the targeted monster's attack points to zero," Trueman explained as Armageddon Knight (0/1200) cringed at losing its attack points.
However this failed to stop the Glasgow's attack and the Armageddon fight was hit with a barrage of bullets from the Glasgow's assault rifle, causing it to thrash around in the air wildly as it was lifted off its feet and then it shattered into glowing bright light particles and disappeared.
Zukasu: 4000 – Trueman: 2100
"Huh, what gives?" James asked no one in particular in confusion, "Why'd he do that? He just gave Zukasu a massive lead."
"Maybe it's part of his strategy," Terrance hypothesised as he analysed the situation, "You see, despite Zero Gazer's negative effect, as soon as the targeted monster is destroyed, its owner can then draw a card from their deck."
"Also, some duellists are notorious for letting their opponents getting in a few good hits at their life points," Abigail added, putting in her own two cents, "It's a strategy designed to lull their opponents into a false sense of security. You recall Euphie's first duel with Stella, don't you?"
James nodded.
"Well, Stella was like that," the bespectacled girl went on, "She had let Euphie take away a good chunk of her life points before springing her trap. However, in Stella's case, it had backfired spectacularly on her as Euphie was able to end the duel before she had a chance to summon her more powerful monsters. However, Stella's not the only duellist to go for that strategy. Get your opponent to drop their guard by making them believe they've won. Make them believe that they're just one turn away from winning and then spring a trap on them and in most cases, their opponents are usually so confident and cocky that when the trap is sprung, they normally have no idea what hit them."
"Oh, I see," James said with a nod.
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Blair thought, still remaining silent as she analysed the duel for yourself, "That's one of Trueman's strategies, alright."
She did recall how her own duel with Trueman had gone the previous year. Trueman had let her score the duelling equivalent of first-blood; in other words, being the first duellist to score a hit at their opponent's life points and at first, he had seemed to be duelling pretty badly, making seemingly stupid and pointless moves, but just as she had been so sure of her victory, like Abigail had said, he then sprung a massive trap on her and also, like the bespectacled girl had said, she had no idea what hit her. The only duellist she knew to have ever beaten Trueman in a duel was Jaden and from what she remembered hearing from Jaden about his encounters with Trueman, the first time they crossed paths, Trueman had tried the same strategy, only that time, it had backfired and Jaden won fairly easily. The second time Trueman and Jaden crossed paths, Trueman still stuck to that strategy, albeit in a slightly different way and even though Jaden did have a tougher time, he still won. It was only when he and Trueman faced off for a third time that Trueman had abandoned that strategy and settled for trying to finish Jaden as quickly as possible and from what she could tell from what Jaden told her of each of his individual encounters with Trueman in the past, each time Trueman was beaten, his deck seemed to evolve and grow more powerful. In other words, each time someone encountered Trueman and defeated him, it only made him even harder to defeat the next time they crossed paths.
"I really hope you know what you're in for, Zukasu," she thought as she gave the prep-school graduate a worried look, "Even if you do manage to defeat him, should you both cross paths in future, he'll be even harder to beat."
"And once the monster targeted by Zero Gazer has been destroyed, I get to draw one card from my deck," Trueman said as he drew a card that turned out to be Monster Reborn.
"I end my turn," Zukasu announced as he glared at Trueman, knowing what he was up to, "And don't think I know what you're up to. You're trying to lull me into a false sense of security, aren't you; making me think I have the duel won before springing a trap on me."
Trueman just chuckled sinisterly as he was quite impressed by Zukasu's deduction.
"It matters not whether you figured it out or not," he stated simply in a calm tone, "The end result will be the same. Anyway, it's my draw."
He then drew a card, which turned out to be Tyrant Dragon, which caused him to grin.
"With this along with Masked Beast Des Gardius in the graveyard, even if I'm not able to summon him, Tyrant Dragon will be a nice backup," Trueman thought to himself as he reached for his Dark Archetype card and placed in on the monster space to the right of the one in the middle.
"I summon Dark Archetype in attack mode," Trueman said as Dark Archetype (1400/400) appeared on the field in a similar manner as Armageddon Knight and Zukasu's Glasgow
The monster that appeared on the field had a black body with a red underside and a whip-like tail. It also had four huge greenish brown legs, each with three claws the same colour as its legs and at above the joint at where the legs bent were bluish green dome-shaped orbs. It also had a dark gold metal ring attached to the front of its body with four protrusions; one at each upper and lower side with each protrusion had a thick blue wire running out from them to the area of the legs that was above each joint. Inside the diameter of the metal ring was a mass of purple skin and in the centre was the monster's dome-shaped helmeted head the same greenish brown colour as its legs and at the front of the helmet were two holes, each one with a glow yellow eye.
Trueman then reached for his Power Gift card and placed it in the middle spell/trap slot on his duel tray. The image of the card had a variety of blues and purples as a background depicted as lines coming from a Rocket Warrior surrounded by a yellow aura with two goblins that were normally part of the Goblin Attack Force looking on in awe and also in the image was a pair of human hands at the bottom, one hand was holding onto a device with a dial and the other hand was turning the dial as a needle gave readings al a semi-circular reader.
"And then I activate the spell card, Power Gift," Trueman went on as he detailed his turn, "And with this card, I can target one of your monsters and discard a monster from my hand and then the targeted monster receives the discarded monsters attack points."
"Huh, excuse me, what?" Zukasu said in confusion.
Trueman ignored him as he selected his Spear Dragon and like before, absorbed it into his arm and Zukasu's Glasgow (3300/1000) felt the empowering force of Trueman's Power Gift card.
"And now, my Dark Archetype, attack Mr Rikuguru's Glasgow," Trueman ordered as he pointed at the Glasgow.
Dark Archetype lunged towards the Glasgow, confusing Zukasu.
"Just what on Earth are you doing?" he asked, completely astonished as his seemingly reckless move, "My Glasgow has way more attack points that your Archetype."
"I know," Trueman said simply as Zukasu's Glasgow opened fire on the Dark Archetype, destroying it.
Zukasu: 4000 – Trueman: 700
"Wow, just what the hell?" James asked in confusion, "That's twice he's let Zukasu take a hit at his life points, is this guy tryin' ta lose on purpose?"
"Somehow, I doubt it," Terrance said as he analysed the situation, "Remember what I said earlier, about lulling opponents into a false sense of security?"
"Well, yeah, but I never thought he'd do that twice in a row," James replied.
"He obviously has something planned," Abigail pointed out.
"Hey, I just thought of something," James said as if he made a realisation, "What if he doesn't care if he wins or loses, but has every intention of killin' us anyway?"
Both Richardson Twins' eyes widened in shock as they came to that same realisation.
"You know, you may have something there," Abigail said, still rather shaken at this revelation.
"Well that would be very difficult, since counting Blair, there's five of us and only one of him," Terrance pointed out simply, "All we have to do is scatter or gang up on him."
"The J-Man's for ganin' up on 'im," James said as he slammed his right fist into his open left.
"Do you think that would work?" Abigail asked curiously as she also pondered the idea.
"Who knows, but it's definitely worth a try," Terrance said as he agreed with James, "Then we can hand him over to campus security and Duel Academy can have the police come and ship him off to jail."
"Provided somebody doesn't pull strings to force Duel Academy into dropping the charges," Abigail stated bitterly as she recalled how Amanda got away with kidnapping her due to her father's interference.
"And now that your Glasgow has made an attack, the other effect of Power Gift kicks in and destroys the monster targeted by Power Gift," Trueman explained as the downsized Knightmare exploded and Zukasu had to admit that he was surprised that he felt a shockwave almost push him back and he also could have sworn that he felt the warmth from the fire caused by the explosion as well.
However, debris from the destroyed mecha flew everywhere around the cavern, causing Zukasu's eyes to widen as he noticed how the debris flew out with the range of the holographic projector and yet still remained visible.
Back on the side-lines, everyone else's eyes widened in awe as they witnessed the Glasgow explode and seemed to light up the entire cavern, but it was so brief that they believed that it was possible that they imagined it. However, a piece of flying debris came flying right up at them and narrowly just missed slamming into James's head, though he did feel the force as it passed right by him and heard a thunderous crash as the debris slammed into the wall behind them and James suddenly brought his hands up to his left cheek where the debris had passed as he felt a stinging pain in his cheek and upon feeling something wet, he immediately withdrew his hand and brought in in front of his face and his eyes widened in shock as he saw a familiar crimson-coloured liquid on his hand and realised what it was.
"I guess it wasn't a total miss," Terrance said in shock as he noticed blood rolling down his friend's cheek from a scar left by the piece of debris as it passed by having obviously cut him as it passed.
"Oh shit!" James said as a new and horrifying realisation washed over him and filled him with pure terror, "Oh shit, oh shit, that was real!"
"It seems so," Abigail said in shock as she came to the same realisation.
"No way, how's that possible!" James said, completely in denial, "This ain't real, it can't be real."
"Well, unfortunately, suffice to say, the evidence seems to point to the contrary," Terrance noted simply as he folded his arms and gave his friend a rather, somewhat cocky "I told you so" look, "That was definitely no hologram that cut you."
"Terry, you're not helping," Abigail scolded, shooting her brother a glare.
"No, this is a nightmare," James said as he shut his eyes, still in denial and clearly so gripped by his fear that he had forgotten the others' presence, "This is a nightmare and when I open my eyes, I'll be in my bed and this will all be a really bad dream."
However, when he opened his eyes again and saw that he was still in the cavern with the others and that his cheek was still in pain and spilling blood, he suddenly felt his terror increase as he let out a rather loud, ear-piercing scream and then made a run for the exit.
"James, wait!" Abigail called out, but unfortunately James was too caught up in his own fear to have heard her.
However, when he reached the exit, he found that that it was blocked by the same black mist that Trueman had materialised from, but he did not care, he just had to get out, he had to get away from this place. He just could not believe that it was all real. He wanted it all to just be one big horrible dream. He wanted to wake up and find himself back in the Ra Yellow Dorm and was getting ready for the following day's classes. However, as soon as he ran through the black mist, instead of finding himself in the corridor leading to the surface, he found himself still in the cavern, only staring at Blair, Abigail and Terrance and was standing behind them just outside the corridor that Euphemia had run down.
"No way!" he exclaimed fearfully as he started to hyperventilate.
"Huh, James?" Terrance said in confusion as he looked back at the exit that James had run through, "How'd you get back here?"
"I don't know," James said as Terrance's question managed to find its way through his fear-infested brain.
He then turned and ran down saw that the corridor that Euphemia had run down was also blocked by black mist. However, he decided to run into the mist anyway and found that he was still in the cavern, only right back at the exit to the surface.
"Wow, this is…" Terrance said as his eyes widened at the horrifying realisation, "We're trapped!"
Back down in the depression, Zukasu and Trueman had both witnessed James's episode and Trueman then suddenly burst into what could only be described as insane maniacal laughter.
"Yes," he said in a rather triumphant tone, glad that they had finally realised the seriousness of their plight, "That's right, you're all trapped here and once I defeat Mr Rikuguru, here, you're all next."
"What?" Zukasu said as his eyes widened in shock as he noticed the black mist that seemed to loom into the corridor that led to the surface and saw James pass through it, "What's going on?"
"I'll tell you," Trueman said with a smirk, "You see, as I said, you're all trapped here. As soon as the duel had gotten underway, I immediately had the exits to this room sealed and so, until the duel is concluded, no one's getting in or out of here."
"You sealed the cavern off from the outside world?" Zukasu said in astonishment, though he had to admit that he was a bit fearful at the same time.
"Yes," Trueman confirmed with a nod, "And the only way you'll ever be able to leave is to defeat me."
"Sounds easy enough," Zukasu said simply.
"Oh, really?" Trueman taunted with a laugh, "Don't be so sure. Anyway, on with the duel. My Dark Archetype has a special ability that lets my summon a monster from my hand with attack points equal to the amount of battle damage I received from its destruction so long as I discards monsters from my hand those total level equals the level of the monster I intend to summon. However, fortunately for you, I have no monsters in my hand with nineteen hundred attack points, so consider yourself lucky since now, I end my turn."
"That's a big risk you took," Zukasu pointed out, "You only have seven hundred life points left and with no monsters on the field and my turn coming up, all I need to do is summon a monster and you're finished. I'll admit, I have one monster with attack points lower than seven hundred, but the odds of drawing it are rather slim and let me let you in on a little something that has to do with my Glasgow. You're also fortunate that it was destroyed as a result of your Power Gift card and not as a result of battle because if it had been, I would have been able to have summoned a level-four or lower monster with Knightmare Frame in its name so long as it had nineteen hundred attack points or lower."
"Then draw your card," Trueman stated smugly, as if confident that he was going to get out of this, "And we'll see if the risk I took was worth it or not."
"Gladly," Zukasu said as he drew his next card and then groaned as he saw that he drew, Knightmare Call.
"Bad draw?" Trueman taunted sadistically.
Zukasu then inserted his Knightmare Call card into the middle spell/trap slot of his duel disk.
"I place this card facedown and end my turn," he stated.
"What, that's it?" Abigail said in surprise.
"I guess, there's not much he can else he can do," Terrance summarised as he analysed the situation, "He must've had a bad draw."
"Come on, Zukasu, you have to win!" James shouted down at him, "You have to beat this guy! I don't wanna die down here!"
"So I guess it's true then, huh?" Abigail said to her brother as she looked into his eyes fearfully, "Not only does the supernatural exist and Zukasu's trapped in the grips of a Shadow Game, but if he loses, we'll all be subjected to a penalty game, is that how it goes?"
Terrance nodded as he knew that lying to her would be pointless.
"Uh huh, from what I heard about Shadow Games, the loser is always subjected to a Penalty Game," he started to explain, "However, Penalty Games vary, depending on the person who induces it. In most cases, those who lose Shadow Games are banished to the Shadow Realm, but Penalty Games can also be something as minor as an irritating rash that refuses to go away right up to death itself. However, some Penalty Games are so terrifying; so horrific that compared to them, death would be the preferable option. The good news here is that we may not die. However, the bad news is that compared to what this guy could put us through, the fact that we may not die may in fact be bad news in itself."
Back down in the depression, Trueman drew a card from his deck, which turned out to be, Pot of Greed.
"This could help," he thought as he placed in into the far left spell/trap slot of his duel tray.
"I play the spell card, Pot of Greed," he announced as the image on the card appeared on the field and gave a really sinister laugh as it started to emit a golden glow round its form, "And with this, I'm allowed to draw two cards from my deck."
"I know full-well what it does," Zukasu stated in frustration, as he witnessed Trueman draw two cards, "Pot of Greed is one of the most common cards in the game. Whoever it was who decided that players had to announce their moves and explain their cards' effects as they play them should be taken out to pasture and shot."
Trueman ignored him as he took a look at his cards that he drew and a rather evil grin materialised onto his face as he saw that he had drawn Cost Down and Double Summon and then reached for his Spirit Ryu card.
"Just what I need to end this duel," he thought as he placed Spirit Ryu (1000/1000) on the middle monster space.
"First I summon Spirit Ryu to field," he announced as the monster appeared on the field.
The monster itself was a huge serpentine like dragon with a bluish purple head with two pairs of red eyes and a green ovular orb with a red outline embedded in the area between the eyes. It also had a pair of wings attached to the sides of its head with creamy yellowish white webbing and three lines, similar to the lines that separated to the webbing in bats' wings running horizontally with dark green hooked claws at the bottom and a dark green spike sticking up from the centre of the top of each wing and also with looked like a vertebrae running down the back of its body, though it stopped at quarter of the way along. Its serpentine body was the same colour as the webbing of its wings, but three quarters of the way along its bottom was what looked like a second head, the same blue purple colour at its front head with a round red eye at each side and two hooked shaped ears; one sticking up from either side and sticking out the other side of its "second head" was its tail.
"However, I don't intend to keep him round for long as I now play the spell cards, Double Summon and Cost Down," He said as he placed both cards into the spell/trap slot at either side of the one in the middle and both cards appeared on the field and started to emit a bright golden glow that temporarily lit up the entire cavern.
"With Double Summon, I'm allowed to normal summon a second monster this turn," Trueman announced triumphantly, "And Cost Down automatically lowers the levels of all monsters in my hand by a factor of to, so my Tyrant Dragon is now a level-six monster."
"But first, you have to discard one card from your hand, before its effect can activate," Zukasu pointed out, remembering seeing Euphemia play the same card in the past.
"Fine," Trueman said, sounding a bit surprised and disgruntled as he discarded his Monster Reborn card, causing Zukasu to cringe as he also felt rather nauseous at witnessing the card enter his arm, "And now, I sacrifice my Spirit Ryu in order to summon my Tyrant Dragon."
As he spoke, instead of reaching for his Spirit Ryu card, the Spirit Ryu card appeared to transform into a golden light before vanishing and its real-life representation followed suit and then Trueman placed his Tyrant Dragon card in the same monster space that Spirit Ryu had vacated and then Tyrant Dragon (2900/2500) appeared on the field, letting out a rather load roar at Zukasu.
The monster was basically a long necked dragon with a brownish orange head with red eyes and four spikes sticking out the side with dark greyish purple webbing in between and two dark greyish blue horns sticking up from the top of its head. Its body was the same colour as the webbing in between the spikes at the side of its head. However its back and tail were the same colour as its head and it also had a pair of wings with a spike jutting out at the top in the centre and two lines running vertically down each wing and it also had five curved claws on each foot.
"Now, Tyrant Dragon," Trueman ordered in a demanding as he pointed at Zukasu, "Attack Mr Rikuguru directly.
In response, Tyrant Dragon lunged at Zukasu and then raised its front right leg and brought it down in a violent swipe that sent Zukasu flying to the wall of the depression and Zukasu just could not help but give out a loud scream as, unlike with the regular duels in which the pain only lasted a few seconds, since it was a phantom sensation brought on by the realism of the holograms, the pain this time did not subside and it felt rather excruciating. Zukasu winced as he moved to get up, but felt an overwhelming burning sensation from where Tyrant Dragon had slashed him and he stumbled to his knees as he fought to keep standing.
Zukasu: 1100 – Trueman: 700
"Oh no, Zukasu!" James shouted in a mad panic as he was still fretting over the realisation that they were trapped, "Come on, you have to win! I don't want to be banished to the Shadow Realm!"
He honestly could not believe what was happening. He had followed Terrance and Abigail, curious as to what they were up to and when they noticed him, they decided to let him tag along and they had all come to the ruins of the Abandoned Dorm where they had coincidentally met up with their friends and despite all the stories surrounding the dorm and ties to the supernatural, James had initially been sceptical and dismissive of the possibility that the supernatural was real. He just assumed that it had all just been tricks and illusions that someone had pulled off in order to scare people into believing that it was real. He had summarised that there had been a perfectly reasonable explanation for those so-called supernatural occurrences and refused to acknowledge the possibility that they could possibly be real. However, now he was confronted with undeniable proof that it was indeed real and it was only now that he was coming to realise that in the past, he had been living in denial and it brought out a rather crippling fear that made his blood run cold. He just did not know what to think anymore. He wished that he had been right before and that it had all been just mere tricks and realising that he and the others were now trapped caused him to feel rather claustrophobic despite the fact that the cavern itself was incredibly huge. He felt his terror overtake his mind and because of it, he was no longer thinking clearly.
"Zukasu, win!" he shouted desperately, "Win, win, win!"
"Will someone shut him up?" Terrance said in frustration, getting annoyed with his friend's panicked state.
Back down in the depression, Zukasu winced in pain as he stood up and made his way back to where he had been standing with each step seeming to take everything he had just to execute as every time he moved, it sent an overwhelmingly crippling pain shooting through his body and each time he felt it, he had to struggle to keep on his feet. It was unbearably excruciating as he felt that his body was on the verge of giving out.
"What's wrong?" Trueman's taunting voice came in a tone of mock concern, "Don't tell me that you can't take the heat. This is what it's like to duel in a Shadow Game. The monsters are real and each time they wage a direct attack, the attack is real and therefore extraordinarily painful. I'm sure that that will erase any lingering doubts you may have had that this was all just some trick. Anyway, I end my turn."
Zukasu winced as he continued to make his way back to where he stood.
"Damn," he thought to himself, "He's not kidding. It hurts just to move. I doubt that I'll be able to withstand another direct attack. Even if by some miracle my life points don't drop to zero, I'll probably pass out from the pain and if that happens, he'll end up winning by default and then… who knows what he'll do."
That much was true. In Duel Monsters, if one of the players was unable to continue the duel for whatever reason, whether it be due to illness, if they collapsed suddenly or if they had run out of cards to draw from their deck or any other reason, then their opponent was automatically declared the winner and Zukasu knew that if the pain was to overwhelm him then that would end up happening; Trueman would win the duel by default and who knew what he had planned for them.
Anyway, fighting through the pain that wrought through his body, he drew from his deck and found that he had drawn, Knightmare Frame: Sutherland (1600/1200) and then he placed it on the middle monster space.
"I summon Knightmare Frame: Sutherland in defence mode," he announced as the downsized Knightmare appeared on the field then went over to where the assault rifle had landed after the Glasgow had exploded, "And just to let you in on what's happening, you see, my Assault Rifle equip spell isn't like other equip spells that leave the field if the monsters they're equipped to are destroyed, Assault Rifle stays on the field and whenever I summon another monster with Knightmare Frame in its name, it can pick it up and gain it's enhancement."
The Sutherland (2100/1200) picked up the assault rifle and then returned to its designated area and dropped into a kneeling position.
"And with that, I end my turn," Zukasu said simply with a sigh.
"Not much else I can do, is there?" he thought to himself, "Luckily I have my Knightmare Call card facedown on the field. His Tyrant Dragon's special ability allows it to attack a second time if its first attack is successful, so no doubt, its first attack will destroy my Sutherland, but when it wages its second attack, I can use Knightmare Call to save myself."
"Again!" James said in desperate frustration, "Come on, Zukasu, you have to do better than that! How do you expect to win with sloppy moves like that?"
Terrance groaned in frustration, sick to death of James's constant complaining. Sure, he could understand his fear and desperation since they all knew that if Zukasu lost, Trueman would come after them next and they would meet the same fate. However, there was only so much that the redhead could stand and considering the fact that James had been smugly dismissive of the supernatural before and now, being proven wrong in a way that he simply could not refute had caused his change only served to infuriate him even further as he believed that James had some nerve freaking out considering how smug he had been before.
"You have to win!" James continued to shout, going on and on, repeating the same rhetoric over and over like a broken record, "You just have to win! I don't want to be trapped down here forever! Come on, try harder, win!"
"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP!" an unexpected voice shouted in frustration, causing Terrance and Abigail to both jump in fright at the ferocity in the tone.
Terrance had been about to lash out and scream something similar, but apparently someone else had beaten him to it and he turned to where Abigail was, wondering if it was her, but she was just as shocked and as shaken as he was and then he turned towards James and was stunned to find him on the floor with his hands clutching the front of his face and standing over him, glaring furiously down on him was a remarkably furious Blair with an outstretched fist and it soon became apparent that not only had she been the one to shout out, but she had also physically lashed out at him as well.
"Will you just shut up?" the pre-teen bluenette repeated in a quieter, but no less furious voice, "Can't you see that he's doing the best that he can? Do you think that he wants to lose? No, of course not, if he loses, then Mr Tall, Dark and Scary down there will banish him to the World of Darkness and then he'll come after us and I know that Zukasu doesn't want that."
"I know, but…" James started to say.
"I'm not done," Blair interrupted as she intensified her glare and that worked in silencing him, "Zukasu is doing the best he can, but unfortunately, his moves are governed by the cards he has in his hand and the cards he draws. It's not his fault that he had a bad draw. You don't always draw the card you need all the time. I've seen it before; players on the verge of winning their duels, but then fail to do so on account of their next draw. Duel Monsters is all about improvisation and thinking on your feet. If you don't draw the card you need, then improvise. Planning your strategy beforehand will do you no good if you draw the wrong cards. You must learn to plan your strategies as you go along and think them up right there and then. Zukasu knows this and needs to concentrate if he's to think of a way out of this predicament, but he won't be able to concentrate with you yelling at him all the time. In fact, yelling at him is a good way of breaking his concentration and causing him to lose, is that what you want?"
"Of course not," James said as he glared back up at her, momentarily forgetting his fear as the fact that he was being lectured by someone five years his junior felt like he had been made to look like a fool.
It was not so much Blair's lecture that made him feel miffed, but rather the fact that Blair was younger than he was by a considerable margin. Sure, five years may not seem like much, but the fact that the bluenette in front of him was not even a teenager yet made her lecture a rather bitter pill to swallow and the fact that it was in front of two of his friends only made it feel even worse.
"She's right, you know," Terrance spoke up before the grey-haired boy had a chance to berate the pre-teen, "Zukasu is trying his best, but your constant yelling is only going to guarantee his defeat. Now, I know that you're scared and that we're trapped. However, you have to realise that we are all on the same boat here. What happens to you will also happen to the rest of us, so don't think for one second that you're alone. Heck, Abi and I are both just as frightened as you are, but you don't see us freaking out, do you?"
James just silently shook his head as he had to admit that his friend had a point.
"How can you be so calm?" he asked finally after a few minutes of silence, "We're all going to be banished to the Shadow Realm. How can you be so calm about that?"
"We'll only be banished if Zukasu loses," Abigail explained as she looked down into the depression and saw that Zukasu was still struggling in pain from Tyrant Dragon's direct attack, "With the way you're acting, it's as if you believe that he's already lost. However, the duel is still on and Zukasu still has the lead."
"That's only because that creepy guy let him take the lead," James pointed out in an "as a matter of fact" tone.
"Yes, but the duel isn't over yet," Terrance countered as he pointed out another fact.
"But it's a Shadow Game," James said as his fear started to make a comeback.
"So, you think that automatically means that he's already lost?" Blair asked, sounding a tad bit insulted.
"You, shut up!" James snapped as he glared at the pre-teen bluenette, "You're too young to understand anything."
"You take that back!" Blair demanded in a dangerously low tone, "Just because I'm younger than you, that doesn't mean I'm stupid."
"Well you should be!" James stated with a glare, clearly not happy at this young girl proving herself to be more knowledgeable and a lot calmer than him, "Little girls like you should not be smarter than their elders."
Blair opened her mouth in complete shock and then suddenly shot James a furious glare as she clenched her fists.
"Enough!" Terrance shouted as he decided that it was time to defuse this argument, "Stop arguing, we're not going to get anything done by fighting amongst ourselves. Blair is right though, you do seem to think that because this is a Shadow Game that Zukasu's already lost."
"But he has no experience in Shadow Games," James said in an effort to defend himself.
"Yes, I'm aware of that," Terrance replied as he shot his friend a glare, telling him to keep quiet, "However, I've done research into Shadow Games. Shadow Games may seem as if the one initiating them has an unfair advantage, but in truth, this isn't true. Any stipulations that apply in Shadow Games apply to both players. However, it only seems like the one initiating the game has an unfair advantage as they take advantage of the other player's lack of knowledge and inexperience. The other player is normally oblivious at first, but as soon as the reality of their situation becomes apparent, their minds are dominated by fear and in their rush to win, they don't think their moves through and don't pay attention to their opponent's moves and that's how mostly everyone who's challenged to a Shadow Game loses and if there are additional stipulations, then the one initiating the Shadow Game would probably choose a stipulation that doesn't affect them as much as it does their opponent."
Blair and Abigail both nodded in agreement.
"So, what you're saying is that Zukasu has a chance?" James asked hopefully.
"Yes, that's exactly it," Blair said as she shot the older boy a glare, telling him she was not in the mood for his retorts, "The monsters are real and losing means losing more than just a game, but aside from that, a Shadow Game is just a regular duel. There may be added stipulations, but at the end of the day, the basic rules are still the same."
"That's right," Abigail spoke up, picking up from where the bluenette left off, "And please, oh please, don't panic so much. You're driving the rest of us insane. You're not alone in this. We're your friends and we're in this together. There's nothing to be afraid of, we're right here with you."
"Oh, I see," James said in an apologetic tone as he suddenly felt stupid for freaking out as he realised that the bespectacled girl was right.
He was not alone and he had his friends with him and all of a sudden, he felt rather ashamed at freaking out and trying to flee, since he had, in effect, attempted to abandon them and even the knowledge that he had been so caught up in his terror over the realisation that everything was real was not enough to erase the feeling. How could he have been so self-centred? He had friends and yet, he had attempted to abandon them and leave them to their fate. He suddenly found himself rather fortunate that the exits out of the cavern had been sealed off and that he could not leave, otherwise he shuddered to think of what could have happened the following day if he came across his friends and even now, he could picture them glaring at him and wanting nothing to do with him because of his cowardice.
"Sorry guys," he said with a self-loathing sigh.
"It's alright," Terrance said with a forgiving smile.
Back down in the depression, Trueman drew a card as his turn came round and smirked as he saw that it was Stop Defence. He then placed it into the middle spell/trap slot of his duel tray.
"I play the spell card, Stop Defence," he announced as the card appeared on the field and the edges of its image started to glow as Zukasu's Sutherland automatically stood up and dropped into an attack stance, "And with this card, I can select a monster on your side of the field and switch it into attack mode and since you only have one monster out on the field, it ends up being the target by default."
Zukasu frowned and moved to switch his card from a horizontal position to a vertical position, more found that the card had moved on its own.
"Why am I so surprised?" he thought to himself, "Everything else has proven to be real, so why would my cards moving by themselves be so surprising?"
He had to admit that the prospect that he was in a real Shadow Game scared him, though he refused to let his growing fear dominate him. He knew that if he was going to win, then he had to remain calm and think his moves through. He had overheard Terrance's explanation on Shadow Games and he had to admit that he also recalled reading up on Shadow Games and it had pretty much documented what Terrance had said. Trueman did not have an unfair advantage over him. Aside from the monsters being real and how the direct attack from Tyrant Dragon had been excruciatingly painful, it was just a regular duel with the same basic rules and he knew that Shadow Games with added stipulations did not affect the usual rules of the game. However, he knew that if he did lose, then he would probably end up losing his soul as well as the game.
"I just have to make sure that I don't lose, won't I?" he said to himself.
"Tyrant Dragon," Trueman said, bringing the prep-school graduate out of his thoughts, "Attack Mr Rikuguru's Sutherland."
In response, Tyrant Dragon jumped over to the Sutherland, raising its front leg and then brought it down in a diagonal slash and practically severed its left arm from its body and destroying the front of its head. The Sutherland then went flying and Zukasu only managed to barely move to the side to avoid having his monster barrelling into him. Once the mecha hit the wall of the depression, it then exploded and disappeared.
Zukasu: 300 – Trueman: 700
"And not only that," Trueman went on as his grin widened maliciously, "Whenever Tyrant Dragon destroys a monster in battle, he can attack a second time, so, Tyrant Dragon, attack Mr Rikuguru directly once again."
Tyrant Dragon responded by lunging over to Zukasu, but Zukasu just responded by pushing the spell/trap activation button on his duel disk.
"I play the trap card, Knightmare Call," he announced as his facedown card rose up.
The image depicted on the card showed a Burai Knightmare Frame about to unleash a punch on a Britannian soldier in the middle of a ruined city and a Sutherland Knightmare Frame racing to help.
"I can only activate this when my opponent declares an attack that will drop my life points to zero," Zukasu explained as Trueman, first the first time since the duel started looked absolutely stunned, "And once activated, I can take a level-four or lower Knightmare Frame monster from my deck and summon it to the field in defence mode and it takes the hit instead."
He then took out his deck from its slot and trolled through his cards and selected one of his Knightmare Frame: Gloucester cards and placed it in the middle monster space of his duel disk and the Gloucester (1800/1400) appeared on the field in a kneeling position.
"And get this, if the attacking monster happens to have a piercing effect, then that piercing effect is automatically negated," Zukasu went on explain as Tyrant Dragon then turned towards the kneeling Gloucester and brought its claws down on it from the side, sending it flying into the wall of the depression before it exploded an disappeared.
"Lucky move," Trueman growled, sounding a bit agitated, clearly not expecting Zukasu's last-minute move.
"Phew, that was close," James said from the side-lines.
"Yeah, Trueman obviously must've been so caught up in the prospect of winning that he completely forgot about Zukasu's facedown card," Blair said, looking impressed, but then her look became series, "However, he has to make it count and draw something worthwhile."
"I concur," Terrance said with a nod, "It's his turn and with only four cards in his hand, he really needs something that can enable him to summon something capable of standing up to that dragon and not only that, but hopefully something that can end this duel."
"But he has no monsters on the field and in order to summon something capable of standing toe-to-toe with that dragon, he'll need to either sacrifice two monsters or summon a powerful monster to the field via special means," Abigail pointed out, "Twenty-nine hundred attack points is no laughing matter and it'll probably take a level-eight or higher monster to take it down."
"Not to mention a monster with over twenty-nine hundred attack points," Blair put in, suddenly joining the others in their conversation.
"My draw," Zukasu said from back down in the depression as he placed his hand over his deck and hesitated.
"Gee, things aren't looking good," he thought as he stared up at Tyrant Dragon and the dragon responded by growling at him, "I really have to make this draw count, otherwise, regardless of what I draw, Trueman will surely win on his next turn."
"Make your move," Trueman said in a tone of impatient irritation, clearly still reeling from being caught off guard at Zukasu's surprise move.
"Okay, here goes nothing," Zukasu thought as he drew his card and clenched his eyes shut and from a few seconds, refused to open them, as if afraid of looking at the card he had just drawn, afraid that it was totally worthless.
"Hurry up!" Trueman demanded in growing impatience, "I don't have all day, just make your move so I can defeat you already."
Rather hesitantly, Zukasu slowly opened his right eye and carefully glanced at the card he had drawn and then looked hopeful as he saw that he had drawn, Card of Sanctity, one of the few knowingly legal cards in his deck.
He placed in in the middle spell/trap slot and the card suddenly appeared on the field before it emitted a golden glow.
"I play the spell card, Card of Sanctity," he announced simply, "And this basically lets us both draw till we're holding six cards."
He then drew two cards and Trueman drew six since his hand was empty.
Looking at his hand, he saw that he had drawn Pot of Greed and Honorary Pilot and added it to his hand that consisted of Yggdrasil Drive Explosion, Jousting Lance, Knightmare Frame: Lancelot and Knightmare Shield.
"So far so good," he thought to himself, "Now all I have to do is play Pot of Greed and hope for the best."
"And next, I play the spell card, Pot of Greed," he went on announcing as he placed his Pot of Greed card in the spell/trap slot to the left of the one in the middle and like what happened when Trueman had played the same card, the image on the card appeared on the field and gave a sinister laugh, "And as you already know, since you played the same card earlier, this lets me draw two additional cards from my deck."
He then drew two new cards from his deck, bringing the total number of cards in his hand up to eight and then looking at his cards, his eyes widened in astonished disbelief as he just could not believe what he had drawn.
"Wow, this is just…" he said in amazement, "Wow."
"What's wrong?" Trueman asked, still rather impatient, "Just make your move already."
Zukasu then levelled a gaze at Trueman and then the edges of his lips curved upwards to form a massive grin.
"Okay, if you insist," he said simply as he beamed with confidence.
"Huh?" Trueman said in confusion as he was caught off guard by Zukasu's apparent boast in confidence, but then just shrugged it off and burst into a grin of his own, "So, you've decided to accept your defeat, have you? How admirable, but it won't save you."
"Hardly," Zukasu replied as his expression became serious, "I now have all the cards in my hand that will guarantee me my victory."
"What?" Trueman said in alarm and disbelief, "No, impossible, you're bluffing."
"It would be pointless to bluff," Zukasu pointed out simply as he levelled a glare at Trueman, "Not only would you see through it, you'd still win. However, I'm not bluffing and I'll prove it."
He then reached for his Honorary Pilot card and placed it on the middle monster space of his Duel Disk.
"First I summon the Honorary Pilot," he went on to explain as the Honorary Pilot (300/300) appeared on the field, first as an orb of golden light and then the orb started to form into a human shape and then the Honorary Pilot appeared, causing everyone from the side-lines to gasp in both astonishment and confusion.
The Honorary Pilot was basically Zukasu's twin with the same messy brown eye and emerald green eyes, though he did had a lighter skin tone. He wore a white and dark blue, almost black jumpsuit with a golden outline. The areas round the feet were black with the black coming up the front of the shin till a quarter of the way up and forming a rounded end with white on either side of the shin and round the back. The majority of the jumpsuit was whit with two golden lines, one for each leg coming up from the knee right to the centre of each chest plate muscle About three quarters of the way up his chest was a thick golden line and above that was where the dark blue was situated and ran down his sleeves till three quarters of the way between his elbows and wrists, in which the white returned as his hands were covered with white gloves. There was also white on his shoulders with a golden border and the whit ran down to the sides of his shoulders and at each side was a green diamond shape with the same golden outline. Gower the white at his shoulder also ran up the sides and back of his neck, forming a collar, completed separate from the dark blue which was at the front and underneath the collar and at each side of the front of the collar were a pair of identical golden symbols that would look right at home on a coat of arms.
"What the hell?" James said in confusion, "Did Zukasu just summon himself?"
"Now that is inexplicable," Terrance said in agreement with James, "It's not like Kaibaman in which Kaiba had the card modelled after himself on purpose."
"Gee, I wonder what this could possibly mean," Abigail said in confusion.
Blair stared down at the card with a serious pondering look on her face.
"This is indeed strange," she thought to herself, "And Euphie has a strange sense of déjà vu when it comes to Zukasu and according to Yumi, she zoned out whenever she saw Zukasu's Knightmare Frame monsters as if she recognised them and yet, those cards aren't on any registry of Duel Monsters cards."
That did pique her curiosity. She did recall Yumi mentioning Zukasu's duel with Stella in which, according to her, Euphemia had apparently blacked out upon witnessing them in action and according to Yumi, Euphemia could not remember where she had seen them before and yet, she had known their names the moment they were summoned before Zukasu had announced their names and yet, she had apparently forgot what it was she had been thinking about the moment she had been brought back to reality.
"There's a connection there," the bluenette thought to herself, "I just know it."
Back down in the depression, Trueman just scoffed at Zukasu's newly summoned monster, apparently not all that bothered over the resemblance between the monster and its owner.
"That's going to end the duel, don't make me laugh," he said dismissively, "That pitiful monster doesn't have nearly enough attack points to stand up to my dragon."
"I'm well aware of that," Zukasu said dismissively, "However, when Honorary Pilot's out on the field, I can sacrifice him to summon my Knight Frame: Lancelot from my hand," Zukasu announced as he reached for his Knightmare Frame: Lancelot card.
"Huh?" the Honorary Pilot said, apparently blinking in confusion as he looked around frantically as if unsure of where he was, "What's going on here? Where am I?"
However, his eyes widened in shock and fear as he looked up into the eyes of the Tyrant Dragon in front of him and the dragon just responded by growling at him.
"What the heck's going on?" he asked in confusion as he backed away from the dragon and then turned to run and then his eyes widened as his confusion only increased when he saw Zukasu, "Who the hell are you? You look like me, but I never had any brothers or sisters, especially not an identical twin brother."
Zukasu's eyes widened in surprise at his "monster's" strange behaviour. However, shaking it off as a product of the Shadow Game, he proceeded to removed his Honorary Pilot card from its space and the Honorary Pilot's eyes widened in shock upon seeing his image depicted on the card, but before he could speak, he transformed into a silhouette of golden light and vanished as Zukasu discarded the card to the graveyard and replaced it with his Knightmare Frame: Lancelot (2900/2800) in the same monster space and the Lancelot appeared on the field.
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Trueman said with a smirk, "But your Lancelot's attack points are equal to my Tyrant Dragon's. If they do battle, they'll destroy one another."
"And all I need is the right card and then I can summon Des Gardius from the graveyard like I originally intended," he added in his thoughts, feeling rather confident with himself, "With four hundred more attack points than his Lancelot, I'll have this duel won."
He had used Armageddon Knight's effect to send Masked Beast Des Gardius to the graveyard in the hopes of using Monster Reborn to summon it from the graveyard along with Tyrant Dragon, but unfortunately when he played Cost Down, he had no other cards in his hand to discard and so had been forced to discard Monster Reborn and use Tyrant Dragon as his backup, but seeing as things had not played out the way he had intended, thanks to Zukasu's surprise facedown, he now saw an opportunity to enact his original plan so that, even if Zukasu did have a trap set up to save him, against two monsters, he'd ultimately lose.
"I'm well aware of that," Zukasu said with a triumphant smirk, "But you've forgotten that I played Pot of Greed."
He then took two cards in his right hand and showed them both to Trueman and his eyes widened in shock from behind his sunglasses as he saw the two cards, which were basically two copies of the same equip spell card, Maser Vibration Sword, which depicted an image of a red-bladed sword with a golden guard and a black handle with a golden bottom and Trueman realised that those were the cards that he had drawn from using Pot of Greed, but what shocked him was when he read the text on the card and suddenly realised what Zukasu was intending to do and suddenly, he knew that he had lost the duel.
"Impossible!" he gasped in shock, "For such an occurrence to occur would have taken a miracle."
"Yes, a miracle," Zukasu said with a nod, "And I plan on ensuring that this miracle doesn't go to waste because now, I play the spell card, Maser Vibration Sword."
He then inserted both Maser Vibration Sword cards into the spell/trap slots on either side of the one in the middle and the cards both appeared on the field and then their images came out of the cards. However, instead of the red blades depicted in the image, each blade had two pointed grey prongs with the gap in the middle coming to a rounded end near the bottom.
"And by equipping this to my Lancelot, it gains an additional four hundred attack points," Zukasu announced with a triumphant smirk as he knew that he had already won, "And as you can guess, I'm equipping it with two and that gives it a grand total of eight hundred additional attack points."
The Lancelot (3700/2800) grabbed the pair of swords and then suddenly, the gap between the prongs started to glow a deep pink colour before the blades transformed into complete blades and were red in colour as depicted in the image of them.
"Now, Lancelot, end this duel with Crisscross Slash," Zukasu commanded as he pointed at Trueman's Tyrant Dragon and the Lancelot zoomed towards it and raised its sword and brought each one down in a diagonal angle on opposite sides for an X style slash and the Tyrant Dragon roared in pain as it took a few steps back and then let brought its end up and let out an almighty roar as it suddenly became enveloped with light and disappeared.
Zukasu (winner): 300 – Trueman: 0
Trueman then let out an almighty scream of his own, mimicking his defeated dragon as he was suddenly enveloped with black flames and then transformed into black mist and then appeared to explode as the mist dissipated and to everyone's relief, not only did Trueman vanish, but the black mist covering the exits had vanished as well.
"Game, set and match!" Zukasu said, mimicking his winning pose from when he had defeated Stella, though this time, there was no opponent for him to talk to and he just performed the pose to the empty space where Trueman had been.
"Alright, Zukasu did it," James said, breathing a sigh of relief and Abigail nodded with a smile as she felt the temperature of the cavern return to normal and the black mist that sealed of the exits also started to dissipate.
However, Terrance stared down into the depression with a rather inquiring look on his face as he recalled the behaviour of Zukasu's Honorary Pilot monster and he could honestly say that despite it being a Shadow Game, the "monster" did not exhibit the normal behaviour of a Duel Monster. He knew that in Duel Monsters, the monsters were usually just holograms that responded to their owners' commands and throughout the duel, the monsters had all done the same despite being real. However, the fact that the Honorary Pilot had been an exception to this rule had gotten him thinking and from the looks of it, Zukasu had been equally confused, but he must have passed it off as a product of the Shadow Game or one of Trueman's tricks to try and throw him off his game. However, somehow Terrance knew that that had not been the case as the Honorary Pilot looked like a person who had been teleported into the cavern and was genuinely confused and disoriented and had no idea what was going on.
"Most strange," he noted to himself, "I've never heard of something like that before. Just who was that?"
However, just then, Zukasu came up and from the looks of it, he still looked as if he was suffering from the effects of Tyrant Dragon's direct attack and Abigail had to help him up out of the depression.
"Zukasu, my god, are you alright?" she said, giving the prep-school graduate a look of concern, "Maybe we should get you to the infirmary."
"No," Zukasu said, shaking his head, "We're not going back to the infirmary. Somehow, I think that we're not supposed to be here and if Duel Academy discovered that we had ventured out here, then we may end up being faced with expulsion."
Everyone else cringed at that, including Blair since she knew that Duel Academy had made the Abandoned Dorm off limits and despite the mystery of the disappeared students being solved, as far as she was aware, that rule was still in effect.
"However, we can't leave yet," Zukasu went on saying, bringing the pre-teen out of her thoughts, "Don't forget, Yumi's been kidnapped and Euphie went after her."
"Oh yeah," James said as his eyes widened in shock as he remembered Euphemia and Yumi and then a growing sense of fear and urgency started to build up inside him, "Of course, Euphie was the main target. That Trueman guy had only been sent ta keep us from interferin'."
It was then that everyone's eyes widened as a horrifying realisation washed over them.
"Oh no, if Euphie was the main target, then that means…" Abigail said as a feeling of terrifying dread crept into her mind.
"No doubt she's been challenged to a Shadow Game as well!" Terrance finished as he came to the same horrifying conclusion.
"We have to help her!" James said with a sense of urgency as he started to race down the corridor in which Euphemia had gone down.
"Wow, a short while ago, he was so scared at discovering that the supernatural was real that he was all for fleeing and now he's the first one to go head-first back into another potential nightmare just after we were released from one," Blair said simply as she remembered how James had gotten so caught up in his fear that he had unwittingly tried to abandon them.
"We're his friends," Terrance said as he started to walk down the same corridor James had run down, "I think our speech in helping him calm down made him realise that and he just wants to help Euphie and Yumi. I highly doubt he wants to think that he's abandoning us."
He then burst into a run and disappeared into the darkness down the corridor.
"That's right, I think that James realises what he tried to do and is going back into the nightmare in an attempt to make amends," Abigail said before she followed her brother.
"Well then, shall we get going?" Zukasu said with a wince as he made an attempt to go after his friends, but then stumbled as the pain shot through his body.
"Are you going to be okay, Zukasu?" Blair asked in concern, "That was a really bruising attack you suffered, I think you need to go to the infirmary and get yourself looked at."
Zukasu just smiled and then chuckled with a smile.
"Thanks for your concern he said with a smile, "I appreciate it.
He then took a brief pause as his expression hardened into serious determination
"However, I must go and save Euphie," he went on in a tone that made it clear to the bluenette that he was not going to change his mind, "I was lucky. However, since Trueman's boss… whoever he is, is targeting Euphie, Euphie's probably in the same predicament I'm in and unfortunately, I fear that she may not be so lucky."
He then got up and, fighting past the pain, he made a run down the corridor with Blair following suit.
"I understand where you're coming from, Zukasu, I really do," she thought to herself, "However, somehow I get the feeling that Euphie can handle herself. As for you, you managed to pull off quite the feat, defeating Trueman like that. However, like I said before, in doing so, you've only made him stronger and next time, should you cross paths again, he'll be even tougher to defeat."
Preview of the next chapter
Euphemia finds Yumi tied upside down in a small cavern underneath the ruins of the Abandon Dorm
"Hold on, Yumi, I'll get you free," Euphemia says in urgency.
"Wait, Euphie-chan, it's a trap," Yumi said in fearful urgency.
As Euphemia walks over to try and free Yumi, evil laughter suddenly echoes throughout the room and Titan rises up from the ground.
"Welcome, Euphemia Felixton," Titan says with an evil chuckle, "Or should I say, Euphemia li Britannia?"
"Huh, Excuse me," Euphemia says in confusion.
As Titan speaks to her, Euphemia denies what he's telling her.
"Listen, Mister, you've got the wrong person," Euphemia says in a sincere tone, though inwardly, she's unsure of herself, "I'm not the Euphemia you're looking for."
"I beg to differ, my dear," Titan says in a sinisterly calm tone, which unnerves Euphemia.
Titan goes on to explain that he's going to duel Euphemia in a Shadow Game, but Euphemia waves him off sceptically.
"Oh come on," Euphemia scoffs dismissively, "Shadow Game, whatever. They don't exist."
"Then allow me to prove it you," Titan replies still in his sinisterly calm tone.
"I think you better listen to him, Euphie-chan," Yumi says from where she's tied up, "I don't want to believe it either, but he managed to convince me that he's the real deal."
Euphemia and Titan stand facing one another and activate they respective duel equipment.
"DUEL!" they both yell in unison.
Euphemia: 4000 – Titan: 4000
Euphemia ultimately wins, but during the duel, she becomes convinced that Shadow Games and the supernatural are indeed real.
Afterwards, black mist appears round Titan's mask and flies round the round before forming into a demon of grey and black smoke with a serpentine bottom, long arms with curved clawed fingers, a dragon's head and two glowing blue eyes with a blue glowing vertical oval on its forehead.
"You may have won this time, Euphemia, but rest assured, this is just the beginning," the demon says before dissipating.
"Wow, freaky," Euphemia says in confusion, "Just what does that thing want with me?"
Afterwards, Euphemia watches in horror as Titan it suddenly swarmed by the shadow blobs that cause him to sink into the floor.
"No, not again!" Titan shrieks, "This is the third time this has happened. Euphemia, help me!"
Euphemia is petrified as Titan begs for help as she comes to realise that she would have suffered the same fate if she had lost.
However, upon recovering after Titan's fully been consumed, she goes and helps untie Yumi. However, untying Yumi in her current position and wrapping her arms round her waist to prevent her from falling cause Euphemia to fall over and both girls end up in a rather awkwardly suggestive positive just as James and the others arrive.
"Wow, it may not be what it looks like, but it's still freakin' hot," James says with a perverted smile
"Get back here you disgusting hentai!" Yumi says as she gets up and starts chasing James back down the way he came and Abigail joins in after hearing Yumi's comments.
However, what everyone doesn't know is that they're being watched and one of their watchers makes a call to Edward Harrington.
"Finally," Edward says in excitement, "I now have something I can use to expel that pink-haired pest and giving my niece hassle."
As everyone emerges from the basement and make their way back to their dorms, little do they know that a raven perched on a tree in watching them closely.
Meanwhile in a caravan parked on a hill in England near Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plains, the raven's vision is being projected into a crystal ball and is concentrated on Euphemia as a woman sits at a table with a deck of tarot cards and has the High Priestess laid out in front of her.
"So this is the High Priestess," the woman muses to herself, "Euphemia Felixton and yet, that's not her real name. I need to know more, much more."
In an unknown location, two Trueman clones stand over an image of Euphemia as they discuss what to do about her.
However, the demon that freed Titan from the Shadow Realm appears and tells them to leave Euphemia alone for now as the image of Euphemia that the two clones were looking at suddenly transforms into an image of Nunnally sitting in her wheelchair next to a fireplace.
"Next time: Shadow Game Tasters part 2," the demon says in a deep sinister tone as he stares at Nunnally, "It's still early days to deal with Euphemia and I was just giving her a preview of what's to come anyway. It mattered not whether she won or lost as I would have won anyway. Anyway, I have a variety of different plans on dealing with you, Euphemia li Britannia."
In the image, Nunnally shivers.
Card of the chapter
Name – Knightmare Call
Image – A Burai Knightmare Frame about to unleash a punch on a Britannian soldier in the middle of a ruined city and a Sutherland Knightmare Frame racing to help.
Type – Normal Trap
Info – Activate only when an opponent's monster declares an attack that is capable of ending the duel. Select one Level-Four or lower Knightmare Frame monster from your deck and summon it to the field in the defence position and the attacking monster's target will be redirected to the defending monster. If the attacking monster has a Piercing Effect then it is automatically negated.
"Gee that's the second time the Card of the chapter hasn't been a monster card," Jaden says in wonder.
"Of course, it's the card that helped Zukasu turn the duel around, that's why it's the Card of the chapter," the author explains.
"By the way, about Zukasu's Honorary Pilot, was that…" Jaden starts to say.
"Yep," the author says with a nod.
"And is he…?" Jaden starts to ask, looking concerned.
"Heavens no, he's not dead," the author says, "And that will be made apparent next chapter as he'll be making a guest appearance."
"Oh, I see," Jaden sighed in relief.
Author's Notes – Gee, it's been almost a year since I updated this fic; about nine months and two weeks to be exact. Anyway, sorry for the delay. My mind just got occupied with other things, plus I was unsure of whom to have at the beginning wondering about Euphemia's missing body and eventually, I settled for the amnesic Lelouch as the first of many people who know nothing about what actually happened and only heard of the disappearance through rumours. Anyway, as for the Yu-Gi-Oh! end, when it comes to backstories and events during the show, I'm aware of the 4Kids edits to the show and of the original Japanese versions, so I decided to mix them up and add a bit of both. By the way, if you've noticed in this chapter that I have started to apply the use of macrons and other text symbols etc. since I've discovered how to apply them and before I even started writing this chapter, I went back and applied made changes to the nine other previous chapters, correcting grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes that I missed before and adding in appropriate text symbols and made improvements, so feel free to go back and read over them.