Chapter 42
A few days had passed since Camula's defeat and Duel academy had mostly returned to normal, Dr Crowler had returned to teaching, Crowler was determined to catch up on all the work he and his students had missed.
Robin had been released from the hospital although his hands was still bandaged, Nurse Fontaine had said that it would be another few days before the bandages could be removed.
Jaden seemed to have been affected the most by his experience with Camula, he had become much more quiet and told far less jokes, it seemed that he had finally realised how serious the situation really was.
Syrus had attempted to talk to Zane several times, but his brother would always either walk away or ignore him, Zane seemed to have become even more anti-social since losing his duel to Camula.
Everyone was currently sitting in Crowler's class doing maths work, most of the class was quite annoyed that Crowler had been making them all work twice as hard to catch up on all of their missed work.
Once class was over everyone left to do their own thing, Syrus ran up to Jaden who was about to leave the classroom, "Hey Jaden, do you what to hang out later today" asked Syrus, "No thanks Sy I'm to busy" said Jaden sounding a little depressed.
Jaden left the room leaving Syrus behind, Syrus sighed in disappointment, Jaden had been avoiding both him and Chumley recently and Syrus was starting to fear that Jaden blamed him for Zane's lose.
With nothing else to do and with no one to hang out with Syrus left the classroom feeling rather sad.
Syrus wondered the halls until he happened to find Zane leaving one of the classrooms, Syrus looked around and saw that no one was nearby, this gave him a spark of hope that Zane might talk to him now.
"Zane, Zane over here" said Syrus, Zane ignored his brother, "Zane please talk to me" said Syrus, Zane started to walk away, "Zane please, I just wanted to apologies, I know that it was my fault that you lost to Camula" said Syrus, Zane stopped walking.
Zane stood still for a moment, "Your right, it is your fault" said Zane and then he walked away as if Syrus had never been there at all.
Jaden was in his room looking through his deck, he felt terrible for leaving Syrus behind like he did but he hoped that if he distanced himself from his friend than maybe none of the Shadow riders would hurt then, he couldn't stand the thought of Syrus being in danger again.
Jaden placed his deck on his desk and sighed, "Man, this isn't right, I usually play duel monsters for fun, but now just one mistake could mean the difference between life and death" he thought.
Jaden couldn't get the image of Camula's body being crushed out of his mind, he had been having nightmares about it every night since, only in his nightmares it was one of his friends who was crushed.
Winged kuriboh appeared from Jaden's deck and attempted to comfort him, "Hi little guy" said Jaden although he didn't seem any happier, Winged kuriboh said something that only Jaden seemed to understand, "No thanks Kuriboh, I just want to be ready for the next Shadow rider" said Jaden, Winged kuriboh was saddened by the fact that Jaden was so depressed.
Alexis was in the hospital visiting her brother who had still failed to wake up, although by this point Alexis wasn't surprised by this.
Alexis thought that Atticus looked so peaceful, if she didn't know any better she would think that he was just sleeping.
Alexis still didn't understand why her brother had joined the Shadow riders, it just didn't seem to make sense, while Alexis did love her brother she wasn't sure what she would do if she found out that he had joined the Shadow riders out of his own selfish gain.
Robin was looking down at his bandaged hands, he had attempted to remove a piece of the bandages a couple of times in order to see what was underneath, but he would always quickly recover his hands before he could see anything.
While a part of Robin couldn't wait to get the bandages off, there was another part of him that dreaded what was underneath, Robin would always close his eyes every time that Nurse Fontaine would change the bandages, he was hoping beyond hope that when the bandages finally came off his hands would look fine.
Chazz was duelling a Ra yellow student, ever since Camula's defeat Chazz had been testing his skills against any duellist that he could find.
"Armed dragon LV 7 attack him directly" ordered Chazz, Armed dragon attacked and reduced the boy's LP to 0.
Chazz sighed, he had found every opponent that he had faced to be far too easy, Chazz wanted to be ready for the next Shadow rider but he knew that he wasn't going to improve his skills if he carried on duelling weak opponents.
Chazz walked away from the defeated yellow student and hoped to find a worthy opponent.
Bastion was sitting under a tree looking through all of his decks, "The Shadow riders have proven to be very skilled duellists, however as long as I am able to keep my mind focused I now I can win" he thought.
"There are still five Shadow riders to defeat, and we still have five Key keepers, so that means that we should be able to defeat one each, as long as we don't lose anymore duels" thought Bastion.
As Bastion was flipping through his EARTH deck he came across a card that didn't belong, it was White magician pikeru a LIGHT monster, "How did this get in here" thought Bastion.
Bastion put the card into his pocket, "I need to pay more attention when I build my decks, I can't make even to slightest mistake" he thought as he stood up and walked back to his dorm.
Little did anyone know that the next Shadow rider was already making her was towards Duel academy.
