Behind the Gears
Proxy's POV
Time just went by, I spend the next morning in Kusanagi's truck once again. Unlike yesterday, I wasn't getting in Kusanagi's way and let him do business. With me being the pain that I'm, he let me borrow a laptop to search for a place to stay. I wouldn't be wrong to say that Kusanagi was most likely wanting for me to leave as well. Despite him giving me an apology for what Yusaku said yesterday, I knew that it was all true. Whatever he had suffered from to make him hate the Knights of Hanoi like this, it had nothing to do with my situation. Other than losing everything and being alone, I had no other connection to either of them.
"Are you ok?" Kusanagi had just finished doing orders as he turned to ask me a question.
I looked up at him. Am I ok? Could I have answered that question with 'no'? And that's when my hands stopped, my eyes stared at the glowing screen as my head reached a dead end. There was nothing 'ok' about me. I felt weak, broken, useless, but all those words got stuck into my throat. No, Kusanagi and Playmaker already had enough stuff on their hands, without my emotions being part of these things.
"I'm fine." My voice sounded dull, I noticed the difference, but hoped that Kusanagi wouldn't.
"You don't sound ok." I cursed in my head for being so bad that I couldn't even lie properly. "You can talk with me. If it's against what Yusaku said yesterday, I want to know that he is blunt with his words, but he didn't mean to insult you in any way."
"H-he didn't insult me." I finally said back, turning to face Kusanagi. "He was right about me. I have no place with you, my story, my goals, the lengths that I would go to achieve them… Nothing about me comes near to your levels. I'm not a hacker, barely know how to use a computer, not a great duelist, and probably will never be one either. If I remain here, I will only keep you two back and that's something I don't want to do."
"Roxanna!" I fell back when Kusanagi called me by my full name. "You aren't holding us back, don't ever think so about yourself. Truth is, you are helping me more than it's apparent!"
"You are lying!" I shook my head, it was obvious that he was just trying to make me feel better
"I'm telling you the truth." Kusanagi kept on persisting. "Ever since the incident, Yusaku has never been the same… He had distance himself from the world, taking revenge on the Knights of Hanoi has become the only goal in his life. I'm much older than him and no matter how much I understand his quest and support him, our relationship would never be like that of real close friends. That's why…"
I could see where Kusanagi was going with that speech. He wanted me to get close to Yusaku, become his friend and pull him out of the dark abyss that he calls his destiny. This plan would never work out. How could I, someone unable to fix myself, resolve another person's struggles and defeat their inner demons? The more I thought about it, a certain truth floated on the surface of my mind, almost making me chuckle at how sad it was.
Call it a bitter irony, but I could characterize myself with some of the words that Kusanagi said about Yusaku. How many true friends did I have back in my world? Not many, unfortunately. The only person in my life that gave me moral support – outside my parents – has been Elizabeth. I loved her for everything she did to help me out in bad situations, for every time she sat there and listened to my complains, but she would never return those feelings to me. Our relationship could never grow into a close friendship because our realities and goals were too different from one another.
"Please, Kusanagi." I raised my head to look him into the eyes, despite how hard it was for me to do so. "Allow me to do one good thing for your and Playmaker's futures. Just, let me disappear when the time comes. I can't stand to know that I'm a burden to your cause."
"Don't worry, I won't try to stop you from leaving." I smiled a bit when Kusanagi finally saw my point of view.
"Thank you." I muttered.
"Just know that if you ever change your mind, we will be here."
Yes, I knew that. Kusanagi was a very nice person, he could never think badly of a person's choice. Even so, that didn't help to ease the feeling of betrayal that burned inside my chest. I have given them a word to help defeat the Knights of Hanoi and now turned my back on it.
"Thanks for everything." I tried to smile at Kusanagi.
"Don't say it like this." He raised his head and turned to look outside the truck. "You aren't leaving, yet."
"Yeah…" I was going to be a burden to them for some more time.
"This was a heavy conversation, why don't you do something to relax and refresh yourself?" Kusanagi suddenly asked me.
"I'm not sure." I didn't feel like leaving the truck, it was making me feel a little bit safer than outside.
"Since Yusaku is at school and probably won't show up for a while, you could use the room to go inside LINK VRAINS. Maybe use the chip to accept the tutorial."
"But wasn't the chip dangerous?" I raised an eyebrow, confused to why he was suggesting to use it.
"We were worried that it might be a trap created by the Knights of Hanoi, but neither me, nor Yusaku found anything suspicious in it, so it must be legal. The coding also is extremely similar to the one used by SOL Technology."
"I see…"
With nothing else for either of us to say, we ended the conversation there. I stop up and walked over to the table with the ingredients and took the black chip, inserting it into my Duel Disk. After that, we made sure that nobody was watching the truck and I entered the secret room. There wasn't anything special about it, a completely empty metal room with just some bluish circuits drawn on the walls inside it. I took out my deck and set it inside the Duel Disk.
"Into the Vrains!" I exclaimed as my consciousness drift away from the limitations of the physical realm and into the possibilities of the cyber reality.
Upon my logging it, I arrived in the same large city where I started from during all my previous logging inside LINK VRAINS. It was probably the common starting server for the whole virtual reality. Visible data flowed through the air and several people were even taking part in Speed Duels.
I raised my Duel Disk and began to tap on the screen, searching for the tutorial option in the menu. To spend some time without others around me, I wouldn't mind even an A.I. laughing at me for my lack of dueling skills just to get a bit of privacy.
"Hey, there you are!" My eyes widened a bit at the familiar voice and I turned around.
"Rocketeer?!" I exclaimed as the robotic duelist came toward me with a huge smile on his face.
"Hey there! I have been waiting for you to show up the whole day yesterday." He pouted.
That was right! I made a promise to meet with Rocketeer yesterday! I had completely forgotten about it, just how more useless could I even get? To break not one, but two promises within the same day, I was far more than a burden, the right phrase for someone like me would be a terrible person.
"I-I'm sorry…" I slammed my fist against my forehead. Stupid, so stupid and useless! "I'm honestly sorry for yesterday. I-I just really couldn't… damn it! I forgot about our promise, I'm so, so… I'm so sorry for turning my back and forgetting about you!"
I wasn't sure if a person was able to cry inside this server, but my chest hurt so much and all those unspoken words that I tried to hold inside were choking me to the point that I felt the tears bulging to come out. Why? Why did I have to be such a horrible human being? I'm not smart and can't learn things as quickly as others, I'm very emotional and have strong reactions to everything that happens around me, I'm so selfish and engulfed in my own problems that I broke every promise I made so far.
"H-hey now, don't start crying on me!" I felt Rocketeer's hands grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me to look him in the eyes. His expression didn't show any sight of anger, but I could read something else in his eyes; anxiety. "P-please, it isn't a good public image if people catch me with a crying girl! The media will go crazy with their stories on my account!"
"I-I'm sorry." Hearing the panic in Rocketeer's voice broke something inside me. I knew that my irrational behavior was the cause for his problems and that truth was stabbing me in the heart along with all the other guilts that I had.
"Sheesh, you look so bad." I felt Rocketeer moving his hands and then a beam of light blinded me.
When my eyes were finally able to adjust to the sudden change in the lighting, I found myself in a white room with a huge window that showcased the ocean. It looked so beautiful, and the way its surface reflected the sun's light was so majestic. I felt the pain in my chest and the weight in my throat melting away in front of this magical view.
"How is that for a change of scenario?" Rocketeer asked, crossing his arms behind his back.
"W-where are we?" I asked him, looking around the white room. There was a completely white couch, a glass table and everything else that you would expect from a luxurious apartment.
"This is one of the Charisma Duelists' servers where we can meet." Rocketeer explained to me. "Usually, non-Charisma Duelists don't show up here unless they are invited, and guess who just invited you to join us."
"B-but why?" I was no more than a regular person, my dueling skills were even below average. After I broke my promise, Rocketeer should have turned away and left me, not reward me for it! "I'm no one special, so why are doing this for me?"
"Hm, no one special?" Rocketeer looked at me, like I had grown a second head. "What are you talking about? You are a very special person for me~!"
My cheeks burned up. I got no idea what he meant by those words, but they surely made me want to shove my head into the ground out of embarrassment. Maybe that's why they were called 'Charisma' Duelists. My heart fluttered and I turned away so that Rocketeer wouldn't see how red my face has become from his words.
"Hm? Why are you turning away? Did my words embarrass you~?" So he said that on purpose!? "Hehe, don't worry, I don't have a crush on you or anything like that."
You could call me a hypocrite for this, and you would most likely be right, but while a part of me was relieved that Rocketeer wasn't trying to make me fall for him, part of my heart shrank from the confirmation that I wasn't pretty, even as an online avatar. Or perhaps because of the avatar… It didn't matter!
"T-then why did you take me here?" I asked him. I couldn't find any reasonable ground on which he would have made such a decision.
"Because you were sad!" Rocketeer exclaimed, throwing his fist forward. "And it's the Charisma Duelists' mission to bring smiles to people, so I take you to help you smile again!"
I couldn't help but giggled at the answer he gave me. Just to make me happy, he would do something like that. Just to stop me from crying… Playmaker accepted to train me. Could it be that I have been using my tears as a free pass to get the things I wanted in this world? I didn't want this to be it! I had never wanted to manipulate others into doing my bidding!
"Hey, your face has gotten sad again." Rocketeer puffed his cheeks while looking at me. I tried to turn away, but his eyes followed me no matter how I moved.
"I'm… I just realized that everything I had achieved was just given to me because of my tears." I told him the truth about my thoughts. "I'm a horrible person that cries to get other peoples' attention."
"I don't think that it's true." It was my turn to look at Rocketeer in awe and confusion. "I have meet you for only a few minutes, but I'm sure that you aren't this kind of person. If people have helped you because you were crying, then that's because your smile has been too precious for them to save."
"But it's still a bad thing!" I shook my head. Using others is bad and there are no excuses for it.
"It surely is." Rocketeer nodded. "But if you didn't know that you were doing it until now, then that means you weren't manipulating them. I for sure didn't do this just to stop you from crying."
"Then why?"
"Don't worry, I will tell you everything in time." He laughed a bit and took my hand into his own, making my cheeks go red once again. "But first, let's meet you with some Charisma Duelists. Getting to know some of us is a very rare chance so you shouldn't miss it!"
Well, there wasn't a point in trying to resist him, so I followed after. We walked into a corridor made out of windows. I looked outside and everything that my eyes could see was an endless ocean. We were in a tower that literally flowed over the water with several other towers in the distance. Each one of them seemed different, one looked like a floating city, the other as an island, but all of them had elevators on their lower parts that seemed to lead to a small area on top of the water that looked like a pool.
"Impressive, isn't it." Rocketeer stepped beside me with a slight smile. "I looked just like that when I first got here as a Charisma Duelist."
"I meant to ask you." I looked at the side, unsure how to ask the question without making it sound rude. "Charisma Duelists are popular right? Why haven't I heard about you before?"
"Playmaker." Rocketeer sighed. "To be fair, previously most of the stage light fell on Number 1 and 2, the rest of us never got as much attention as them. But after Playmaker appeared and began to fight the Knights of Hanoi, the public's interest almost completely turned away from us. And before you ask, I'm Number 4 in the ranking."
"Who is Number 3 then?" I asked curiously.
"Blaze Rose."
"Oh…" I remembered that name, it was of the duelist whose first match I had watched.
"Judging by you reaction, you must have meet her." Rocketeer raised an eyebrow as he looked at me.
"I did watch one of her duels." I told him. "But she seems rude and some of things she said sound… weird? I'm not sure how to put it."
"You actually got her right." Rocketeer laughed a bit. "I'm very cautious with her, you know? Every time we met she challenges me on a duel and it's just starting to get really annoying at this point. I don't see why she bothers either way, her rating is higher than mine."
"She talks about a devil and an angel in LINK VRAINS." I rubbed my chin in thought. "It makes me wonder what she means."
"Nothing truly important." Rocketeer shrugged. "Anyways, we aren't here to talk about Blaze Rose and her weird behavior right? We came to have fun and meet interesting people!"
"Right." I nodded. "I'm sorry for bringing it up."
"Don't be!" Rocketeer laughed again. "It's really fun to have a normal conversation with users in LINK VRAINS that aren't my fan girls or rivals."
I nodded in agreement and followed him through the glass corridor. As we walked suddenly another figure showed up in front of us. A girl, much older than me with extremely pale skin, dark purple lipstick and black tattoos at the sides of her red eyes. Her hair was black and long with several curls falling over her face and around her eyes. She wore a red vest with black sleeves attached to it, a large purple ribbon around her neck with a bat emblem on top of it. Underneath the girl also had a frilly black gown, the bottom part of which was made from four reddish black batwings, two crossing over one another at her back, while the other two covered the side of her legs, but left the front mostly exposed. Her outfit finished with high-length black leather boots. Oh, there were also black cross earrings and a bat emblem on her left ankle.
The newcomer's face looked black, even lifeless. When I glanced into her eyes, all I saw were two red voids, it really creeped me out. She noticed us and walked closer, I instinctively took a step back, but Rocketeer's hand pulled me and we ended up walking over to her as well.
"Hey there, how are you doing, Ruby?" Rocketeer exclaimed with his usual lively attitude and big smile.
The woman just stared at him for a few moments, before turning toward me. I tried to not make any eye contact, but part of me was curious about this strange individual, so I still looked at her from the corner of my eyes.
"Who's that?" Ruby asked, lacking any emotion in her voice.
"A friend that I invited to come over here." Rocketeer replied. "Is there a problem with that?"
"Just keep an eye on her and don't let her roam around without an escort." What was that? Am I some sort of pet animal that I need people to follow me around?
"Don't worry, I will take care." Rocketeer reassure her with his big smile. "Also, you haven't forgotten about our private duel later, right?"
Ruby didn't answer back immediately, she looked around with her lifeless eyes for a moment. She pressed her thumb and index fingers together, I felt something very familiar about the way she was acting at the moment. The older girl didn't know how to answer the question without sounding rude toward Rocketeer and that seemed to be making her nervous. After a bit she shook her head and looked the male duelist in the eyes.
"I'm not sure if I will be able to make it." She responded in the same emotionless voice with which she stared the conversation and left.
"Who was that?" I asked after the creepy-looking girl disappeared from our view.
"That's Gloomy Ruby." Rocketeer told me. "She is a Charisma Duelist as well, but nowhere near the top places. We used to know her as Shinning Ruby, but after going to college she began to suffer from severe depression and wasn't the same ever after. Because of the change everyone began to call her Gloomy Ruby and a big portion of her fan base left her."
"That sounds horrible." I sighed, feeling bad for what must have happened to make her like this.
"Tell me about it." Rocketeer shook his head. "I used to be a very good friend with her before all of the bad stuff happened and it hurts me the most, because that's my friend suffering there. Unfortunately, there is little that one could do in cyber space to help someone whose problems resist in the real world."
I looked over at the robotic duelist once again. How could he kept such a big smile and positive aura even when his heart is hurting? Where did the strength to smile and kept on moving forward come from? I'm jealous of him for this sheer strength of will. For his determination to smile and make others smile even when in pain or sadness. Was that part of what it meant to be a Charisma Duelist, to put others before yourself and your own problems? It sounds like an impossible task for me, to be as selfless and noble as any of the duelists who had earned the right to reside in this majestic server.
"Enough negative emotions!" Rocketeer suddenly exclaimed, making me jump. "We came here to smile and have fun, so let's go on!"
I nodded and followed with him. After around five minutes of walking, the two of us reached the end of the corridor, which was a large white door that slides open. We walked past it and found ourselves in another room. This time it was much larger than the previous and had a more circular shape, with the duelists already inside. The first one was Blaze Rose and the other was a girl with long blue hair tied into two long strands with blue ribbons. Her eyes were blue and she had a green clover tattoo on her right cheek. Her outfit consisted of a white sleeveless shirt with a blue necktie. Underneath, she wears a blue and pink dress with wing-shaped frills, and dark blue thigh-high socks. As a final touch, she had a pair of white wings with pink heart-shaped patterns on them.
"And if that isn't a surprise." Rocketeer smiled and turned toward me. "Proxy, meet Blaze Rose and Blue Angel. Number 3 and 2 Charisma Duelists in LINK VRAINS."
Of course, I already knew who Blaze Rose was from our conversation not more than a few minutes ago, but the other girl caught my interest. As you might know, I had heard about her from users before and was interested in meeting her personally. She had a charming smile just like Rocketeer, nothing in common with the red counterpart that sat against her with a bored expression. Both girls turned to look at me and I waved at them a little awkwardly.
"I-it nice to meet you." I bowed to the two idols. "M-my name is Proxy."
"Hm, did you find a new friend, Rocketeer?" Blue Angel asked, standing up and walking over to me with a smile on her face. She took my hand and shake it. "Nice to meet, Proxy, Rocketeer already introduced me, but I'm Blue Angel."
"I-I know." I tried to give her a confident smile.
"What are you doing, getting outsiders in our server?" Blaze Rose asked angry. "This is a server for the top duelists of LINK VRAINS only, we don't need regulars like her running around."
"Jeez, can you not be rude for a moment, Red?" Blue Angel wagged a finger at Blaze Rose, scolding her, which, I have to admit, was very pleasing to watch. "We, Charisma Duelists are here to make the crowd happy, so don't be rude to the fans."
"Whatever, Blue." Blaze Rose rolled her eyes.
"So then," Blue Angel turned toward Rocketeer. "It isn't like you to bring other users here, so what's up?"
"Why must I be up to something?" Rocketeer titled his head to the side in confusion. I felt my cheeks getting warm again after Blue Angel said that he doesn't bring friends here often. "I got interested in her, she seems to have a bright future as a duelist, so I took her with me to show how much fun being a Charisma Duelist can be!"
"Is that so?" Blue Angel's smile widened a bit from that. "I won't mind helping you with that."
"You really are the best, Blue." Rocketeer laughed a bit. "But anyways, where is Go? I haven't seen him here lately despite him usually being very active."
"I don't know." Blue Angel sighed and turned back to look at one of the empty sofas in the room. "You know that the two of us aren't on close terms, so what he does outside of LINK VRAINS is a complete mystery for me just as it's for you."
"I hear him talking about dueling Playmaker lately." Blaze Rose just mentioned.
"Seriously?" Rocketeer facepalmed with a groan. "I just hope he isn't going to do anything crazy, but knowing Go, you should expect anything from him."
"That's not fair, I wanted to duel Playmaker as well." Blue Angel pouted. "I will have to get on it quickly, if I want to beat Playmaker first."
"Is there a duelist that doesn't want to beat Playmaker?" I laughed a little bit nervous about this question. It would be bad if they knew that I had some connection to the LINK VRAINS hero.
"Me." Rocketeer and Blaze Rose answer in unison. After that they glared at each other.
"Sheesh, you two are no fun." Blue Angel crossed her arms in disappointment. "Other users call him the strongest duelist in LINK VRAINS, don't you want to prove your skills by dueling him?"
"No, because he really isn't all that strong?" Rocketeer raised an eyebrow. "I know about duelists that are far stronger than him."
"I second that." Blaze Rose raised her hand to agree.
"I know, but they left!" Blue Angel shook her head. "They were my mentors as much as they were yours, but we are the ones standing here at the moment, not them!"
"I know that Blue, but Playmaker doesn't show up just because. He will come out only if there is a Knight of Hanoi, and as I saw the last time you tried to challenge him, that one just isn't interested in our affairs. If dueling him is so important for you, we will be supporting you, but that's just not in our interest." I glanced at Rocketeer, surprised by how calmly and collected he becomes when there is a serious topic. He's like a completely different person.
"It's your choice in the end." Blue Angel patted both on us on the shoulders before walking pass us. "I have to log out now, but I will see you two later. Bye, bye!"
Blue Angel winked at us and waved as her body began to slowly turn into pixels and disappeared. Rocketeer led me to the empty sofa and had me sit down with him joining a moment later. I felt nervous not because this was a completely new place for me, but also due to Blaze Rose staring at me from the other sofa, like she wanted to eat my soul or something. The three of us sat there in complete, awkward silence.
"So." Rocketeer cleared his throat. "Don't you have any duels or plans for today, Red?"
"Same goes back to you."
"I do have a plan for today. That's to spend the day with Proxy."
"Is that so?" I leaned back scared because the most unexpected thing happened and Blaze Rose actually smiled. But this wasn't a warm and genuine smile, but rather a more mischievous, maybe even sadistic one. "Come on, Rocketeer, you know that there is no point in trying to keep this a secret from me. Why did really you take this girl here? What's so special about her?"
"Jeez, you won't stop asking until I give you the answer you want, right?" Rocketeer rolled his eyes. "Fine then, she has a Gear deck."
"Seriously?!" Blaze Rose's eyes widened when she heard that.
"Absolutely."
I didn't dare to respond to them. Ever since I woke up and found my deck, I didn't think that there was anything special about it, and still don't. But if we all had a Gear archetype that couldn't be just a coincidence, right? Not to mention the angelic girl that saved me from the Knights of Hanoi, she had the word 'gear' in her deck's name as well.
"What's so special about Gear decks?" I finally asked. Rocketeer and Blaze Rose glanced at each other for a moment, then they turned toward me.
"The decks per say, have nothing abnormal about them." Rocketeer started. "I promised you to give the story behind our cards and why they are important anyways, so let's get to it."
"A few years ago, there used to be two great duelists. They were undefeatable, each of their duels breathtaking, and when they dueled together, it was an absolutely god-like image." While Rocketeer told his story, I noticed that Blaze Rose has learned forward to hear him better. Her eyes were burning with interest. "I had seen them win duel after duel, tournament after tournament, no one every coming close to defeat their impenetrable combos and powerful monsters. But being great duelists wasn't their only skill."
I looked down at my Duel Disk, already knowing where this story was going to go. These archetypes were created by them, weren't they? It would be ironic if my assumption was correct, because that would mean that I can't duel with a deck created by other duelists.
"Long ago, back when the wind blew strongly through LINK VRAINS, it's said that deep within the core of the cyber world resisted a hazard of data unlike anything seen before. It was wild, practically impossible to decode, nor understand. Well, not for these two legendary duelists it seems. It's said that they were the first ones who were able to travel to that place and tame the data, using it along with the data from their own decks in order to create cards with strength that was unseen before. As a result, they created six Gear Decks, each of which was based around one of the six attributes in the game."
"A-Amazing!" I shouted out, unable to keep down my astonishment after hearing about this achievement. "B-but is it possible a story like this to be true?"
"Of course!" Blaze Rose shouted, slapping the table that stood between our sofa and hers. "I and Rocketeer were the students of these legendary duelists! We witnessed their power first hand and earned a part of their strength!"
"So you know them?"
Blaze Rose retreated when I asked that question and lower her head. I turned toward Rocketeer, confused by the Charisma Duelist's reaction to my question, but he didn't look so happy about it either. His robotic hand squeezed into a fist, prompting me to crawl away from him.
"They abandoned us and disappear." He muttered, looking down at his own Deck. "The last thing they told us was how much of a disappointment were for them. We weren't worthy of the decks they gave us and all sorts of other things."
"Do you get it now?" Blaze Rose asked me. "Ever since that day, I swore to find and duel them to prove that they were wrong about the words they used."
"Y-yes, they had treated you horrible." I admitted.
"That's about is, but what's your story?" Blaze Rose asked me.
"What story?" I asked her, not understanding the meaning of her question.
"How did you obtain the deck?" She asked me again, her eyes turning to that angry look I remembered from before.
"I-I don't have one." I shook my head in disappointment. "T-truth is, I don't know how I ended in this city either! All I remember was having a normal live with my family and then- BOOM! I found myself in a hospital with this Duel Disk and deck. That's literally what happened, I'm not making it up!"
"People and cards don't pop out of thin air!" Blaze Rose shouted and I crawled back. "You are lying! This is obviously a lie! This there in your Duel Disk is a one of a kind deck! No one would kidnap you, drag you to this city, give you a Duel Disk with one of the rarest decks in existence and then walk away like nothing has happened!"
"I swear, that's the truth!" I exclaimed desperately.
"It's a LIE!"
"Shut it, Red!" Rocketeer suddenly stood up and pointed at the girl in front of him. "I took the girl here to help her relax, not to have you interrogate her! If you don't believe her, then it's your problem, not mine or hers! If you are so desperate for an answer, go and find the bastards that kicked us out, but don't take it out on her!"
"What are you? Her guardian angel?" Blaze Rose asked mockingly and stood up as well, staring into the boy's eyes. "You still own me that duel, so how about I kick your ass right here and now, huh? Then I will duel her too until she can't stand losing anymore and tells me the truth!"
"This is not the place, nor time, Red." I stared at Rocketeer in surprise at how quickly his calm self has returned. He didn't let Blaze Rose's provocation get the better of him and that alone was enough to earn prize from my point of view. "But if you want a duel, then fine, I will give you one just to shut you up. We will do it two days from now, you can choose the server on which we are going to duel."
Blaze Rose's eyes narrowed, then she nodded and turned around, leaving the room. At the door, she turned back and glanced at me one last time; I could see the anger still burning in her eyes. After the door closed and we remained the only two users in the room, Rocketeer took a deep breath and fell back down on the sofa, holding his robotic arm over his eyes. Great job Roxy, you got your only 'possible' friend into a fight with another user and probably got him to participate in a game that he would likely lose.
"I'm sorry." I whispered. My embarrassment from this situation was so big that I couldn't even get myself to speak in a normal tone. "All of this happened just because of me."
Rocketeer however removed his robotic arm and looked back at me, a happy, genuine smile written all over his face. It made me confused as to why he had such a positive atmosphere around him even at such bad times.
"It's not your fault." He told me and turned to look up at the wall. "Red would do anything to get a duel out of me, and that's why she suddenly became to blame you for lying. She knew that I wouldn't just stand there and watch, so she used the opportunity to get me fired up."
"It's still my fault." I gave Blaze Rose the situation that she needed in order to catch Rocketeer, so the mistake was on my side. "I should have lied and made up a more believable story to trick her first, but I didn't."
"I'm telling you, don't blame yourself for what happened. No matter what you have chosen to tell her, she would have still found a way to call you a liar, or something even worse. You did the right thing by being honest about what has happened and I appreciate that."
"T-thanks." I blushed a tiny bit from Rocketeer's reassuring words. "But what are you going to do now that Blaze Rose got what she wanted?"
"What every duelists would do in my position. I will face the challenge and give my best!" Rocketeer reassured me. "Although I wanted to do something for you than taking you to an empty white room."
"You already did too much for me." I told him. "But…"
"Yes?"
"All that you said made me wonder. Did you help me because of my Deck? Were you hoping to learn about the whereabouts of these legendary duelists?" I needed to know if that was how much I was worth…
"Of course not, silly!" Rocketeer laughed at me, making me feel more embarrassed. "Red is the one obsessed with them, I already moved on. The reason I became friend with you aren't the cards, but your heart."
"R-really?" This was the first time someone said something so nice about me. When the main topic of discussion were trading cards no less.
"Why would I lie to you?" He asked me back.
"I guess you wouldn't." It really was a stupid thought on my part.
"It makes me happy to know that you are trusting me." Rocketeer said, leaning back into the soft sofa.
"It makes me happy to know that there is someone I can trust." I replied and did the same thing as him. Not sure how a virtual sofa could feel so comfortable!
The two of us remained there for a while, until I closed my eyes and relaxed. I let all my negative emotions and problems just disappear for a while. Just so that I could smile again.
A/N: And so, another chapter without a duel. But anyways, this chapter focuses on Roxy and her interactions with other characters. I hope this chapter gave you all a better perspective on her character as well.
If there is anything that I would say was a trouble making in this chapter, it would be the Charisma Duelists. Like, seriously, I went to the YGO wikia to get some better understand about how their group functions. Yet all I got were three sentences explaining that they are being watched by a crowd of people. Well, no sh*t Sherlock! So in the end, here is my idea about hwat Charisma Duelists are and how their 'system' functionates.
Also, next chapter is finally going to have a duel and it's going to be between Playmaker and the mysterious Knight of Hanoi called Picaro! So stay tunned for that!
Onto the next thing, big thanks to shadosakushi for following this story, I hope you like it.
Response to Guest's review: First yes, the main character's name is Roxanna, Roxy for short. Her online persona is called Proxy. About the grammar part, I don't know where my mistakes are, so if you would be kind enough to point them out, it would be a big help for me. Finally, I want to address the shipping part. I don't write romantic plotlines in my stories because, I really suck at them, BUT I'm a fan of AoixYusaku, so I might do it. But for the story that will follow the second season of VRAINS. In other words, it will take a while.
Also a little response to ThePLOThand: I'm not telling you to stop listing the songs. If you like doing it, that's all that matters. But please try having some context in your reviews because otherwise they would be just spam.
And that's all folks. Remember to Follow, Favorite, and most importantly, Review.
Diabolic Tracer out!