Notes: Chapters eight through fourteen of the GX manga. (Spoilers, obviously.) Need I say anything else?
Summary: "Professor Chronos? I must speak with you."
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh GX in either manga or anime form. Neither would be as cool as they are if I did, because I don't think I can do stuff like that.
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Autumn Legacy
"Professor Chronos? I must speak with you."
He should have seen the danger right away. The slight downturn of the corners of Hibiki's mouth, the clenched jaw, the fierce glare she looked to be fighting back in an attempt to keep her voice civil—a professor of the elite Duel Academy should have been able to see it. Thinking it was a continuation of her lecture about not jumping to conclusions, he calmly followed Professor Hibiki into her office.
Hibiki, on the other hand, was anything but calm after the door was shut. Her voice was quiet, but it was near impossible to miss the raging venom there. "You were going to confiscate his deck. Confiscate it."
That was his second lapse in observation: not the anger this time, but her implications. "Yes, so? The boy is a dropout. His deck is full of a child's comic book heroes. Most of them are fairly common as far as cards go."
"Fairly common? Fairly common?" There was no mistaking it now. Hibiki was livid now, on the verge of shrieking. "You have seen his deck, have you not?"
"Yes…"
"How can you call The Earth common?"
The name sounded hauntingly familiar, as if he was a student taking a test who had forgotten the answer to an easy question. He remained silent, racking his memory for the card…there. It was linked with—
His eyes widened. "But how?"
"I do believe I've told you of the boy's potential? Even before his entrance duel?" Hibiki walked over behind her desk, rummaging through a drawer. She looked up for a moment, meeting his eyes. "I didn't tell you because I was impressed by his score on the exams." She placed a photo on the desk: Hibiki and her brother were in it, along with the dropout boy; the picture looked to be taken shortly before Hibiki had begun teaching some five years ago or so.
It wasn't difficult to figure it out from there. "So…your brother…"
"He gave that deck—his deck—to Judai, less than an hour before he became comatose. Indefinitely." Hibiki's voice was ice-cold, her eyes smoldering. "It is one of the two most precious of the few physical reminders, and by far the most constant one, that that boy has left of my brother and the man who taught him to duel. His idol. And you threatened to confiscate it if he didn't get his best friend expelled."
Chronos felt like begging for mercy, though he wasn't entirely sure it would be directed entirely towards Hibiki. "I—I didn't know…" he stammered. "I didn't know it would mean so much."
"You should have." Her voice was even colder as she gestured to her red uniform. "Every student here is a student of Duel Academy. Every single student here is dedicated to the duel. And to any dedicated duelist, even the worst of Osirises, the deck is part of the soul. You should know better than to even suggest taking that away, no matter who or what the cards come from."
She breezed past him and out the door, still seething. A few moments later Chronos exited as well, heading for his own office. Once there, he sat in his deck and massaged his temples, thinking.
Maybe it was time he started revising his opinion of the Osiris students, if Judai was truly the legacy of Hibiki Kouyou, former Duel Monsters world champion.