Apologies if this chapter seems random, little to do with story or smut, or even generally boring. My outline for the story has gotten a little buggered up and I'm needing to improvise some things on the fly now, so this chapter is just buying time until the next one, which I'm actually excited to write, for reasons that will quickly become obvious~


Molly stepped forward to face the professor she would have to duel in order to gain access to Unihol's tournament. It wasn't their teacher, Professor Rominae, who had refused the task. Molly insisted this was because he knew he'd end up throwing the duel for Cassidy, who denied this and politely asked her to shut the hell up about stuff like that while they were still in public with other people around. Molly told Cassidy to woman up, as did her own duel spirits, and go fuck the sexy teacher. Molly wasn't sure if Cassidy was going to take her advice, but if nothing else, she was mysteriously absent after her own successful qualifying duel.

Molly took out her deck, ready to duel against the unfamiliar professor in front of her. She was tall, with long black hair and a smile on her face. Molly wondered what class she taught when she wasn't testing for the tournament. From her enthusiasm, and Molly's lack of having seen her up to now, she had to guess that she was probably some kind of tournament strategy professor.

Which you should have been taking up to now. Azle reminded Molly as she drew her first hand, Molly mentally shrugging, 'That's what I have you for remember? Or at least will have when it's time for the duel against your brother.' Perhaps, but it'll be useless if you don't actually get to the point of dueling him, which I suspect will be the case presently. Either learn more so your strategy is more than just 'throw monsters at the wall and hope something sticks' or let me take over during important battles.

'Hey, I'm a good duelist." Molly said, smirking as she prepared to prove this point to the succubus. Unfortunately for her pride, the succubus wouldn't be watching. Azle was bound to Molly yes, but that didn't mean she was trapped in the girl's mind. She could and indeed was leaving to entertain herself when it was obvious that nothing of much interest to her was happening. If Molly lost the actual duel to get to the tournament, Azle would intervene and make sure they at least made it to the island, so she had little to worry about.

In the meantime, she returned to the spirit world, looking around for something to do in her spare time. She did this during most of Molly's lectures and other school activities, and from what she could tell, her brother did the same. They'd chatted a few times, attempting to be diplomatic despite the intense, aggressive tension that hung in the air around them like nuclear radiation and airborne gasoline that needed only a single spark to ignite and blow away everything around them. The last time she and her brother fought, actually fought, it had not turned out well for anyone or anything around them.

But Azle didn't want to think about that right now. She looked around, finding the place empty. All of Molly's spirits were out and about hoping to be summoned during the duel. Far enough Azle supposed, she'd just have to travel a bit deeper into the spirit world and find something interesting to do. The next level down she found herself in was a bit more lively, ironically with the duel spirits who hadn't been called up in hundreds or even thousands of years, the information about them lost to time.

A few of them respectfully stood at attention. The others had learned that Azle didn't much care for the formal treatment and simply greeted her as she passed. She took a seat at a chair, looking over the various spirits. Not all of them were lost duel spirits, there were some lost souls from humans who'd found their way down and decided that this version of the afterlife would better suit them, some were natural spirits that just seemed to spring into existence in this realm from enough energy being present.

There were even some lessor succubi and incubi, which Azle supposed were technically her daughters and nephews from her and her brother's previous flings with humans, or if not, the children of those children. They were centuries old now, and she'd spoken with some one them in the past. She felt it only polite to help them get acquainted with this world since it was technically her fault they were there. Her brother, shockingly, held the same viewpoint, though she suspected for different reasons.

"Hey, Azle," A spirit, half formed it seemed, taking on the appearance of a wisp of purple smoke, vaguely aligned in the shape of a humanoid female, greeted, "What are you doing here?" "Waiting mostly," Azle admitted, "My host is busy with very boring things and refuses to even let me help. Not sure why, it'd be easier and less risky. Why must humans be so difficult?"

The spirit made a sound like snickering, "If I could grew a little quicker every time I heard that in here, I'd be at your status already Azle. Humans are odd little things. They've got pride and shame; some of them anyway, and when they do, they don't like taking short cuts. I can't really explain why, I've never been able to interact with one directly myself. I figured you would though, you're living inside one's head!"

"True, but I've made a point to not look through her thoughts and memories." Azle said. She'd told Molly that she just couldn't do such a thing, but in truth she was very capable of it, especially when Molly was asleep and her mind unguarded, but she chose not to. "I suppose you could call it respect, or trust. She's trusted me in her mind, and I'd rather not convince her I'm a liar like my brother."

More ghostly snickering, "I'd be even higher in status is I grew every time I heard you badmouth your brother or vice versa. He was in her not long ago going off about how much of a, and please don't get mad at me I'm just repeating what he said, spiritual knowledge slut wrapped up inside a normal slut you are. 'Filthy harlot of a sister giving divine knowledge to mortals!'. I tried pointing out that he did to showing Price how to tap into all of his spirits."

"And he didn't kill you?" Azle questioned. "No, he did, I', just good at hiding." She snickered, "So, you and him really gonna go all out this time?" "I hope not," Azle said, "It'd destroy quite a bit if we did." "But if you won, wouldn't you have the right to re-build it however you wanted?" "Yes, I would," Azle admitted, "But I see no reason to knock down something if you like the way it is. It could use a little tweaks here and there, but mortals don't learn from destruction, no one does. In fact, they forget from it."

"So.. what if your brother wins?" The spirit asked, "Then I suspect the human and spirit worlds would both become remarkably forgetful very fast." Azle said gravely.