The twins and Aki were throwing a party after our win, while I stood on the sidelines with my injured brothers. Jack sat in my chair, watching the party in a pain med filled haze, while Crow readjusted his sling for the fifth time, "Seriously, both of you?"
Both of them looked at Kiryu, and Jack raised an eyebrow, "What are we missing?"
Kiryu slapped his face, "Jack, the cafe maid and Mina have the hots for you. Neither of them seems to have noticed the ring, so go make it obvious that you are off the market before Yusei hurts one of them. And Crow, it never hurts to ask."
Mr Tall and Blonde got to his feet, "Oh? And who does he like?"
Crow turned the color of his hair, "None of your business."
"Aki."
That earned me a glare, "Yusei!"
"Oh, come on! We teased Jack about Carly, and you both tease me about Kiryu. We are going to tease you as well, so grow up."
He rubbed the back of his head, "It's just that she comes from a different world than I do. I'm just an orphan from the Satellite who somehow got the final mark. She was one of the original Signers, a telekinetic, and from a wealthy family who loves her."
Kiryu chuckled, "Try an empath with a genius father."
Jack got to his feet, pushing down on Crow's head, "The worst that she can do it throw you into a wall. Just go ahead and tell her."
The two of us shoved Crow forward, who stumbled over to where Aki was talking to Dad, "Aki? Do you want to hang out sometime when we aren't practicing on your dueling?"
She smirked at him, "Are you asking me on a date?"
He got even deeper red, "Yeah."
"Then I say yes."
Jack handed me ten yen and walked over to where Carly was talking to the other two women. Leaning over, he gave her a kiss, "Hey. Thanks for coming to check on me today."
She smiled back at him, holding up the hand with the ring on, "You've always been there for me, so I will be there for you."
A figure appeared outside of the garage, and I slipped over to greet her, "Sherri, did you win your first duel?"
"Oui. Elsworth didn't even have a chance to duel. But you practically carried your team."
Nodding, I leaned against the wall, "Sounds about normal. But I was prepared for that when we started."
Her stare grew, "If you had been on my team you would have been with great duelists."
"But I would have nothing to learn. My priority is to learn, and I do that best when I have a significant disadvantage."
She grabbed my arm, "Make sure that you don't risk your friends' lives on it."
A few days later, I was putting the finishing touches on the Wheel of Fortune as the door swung violently open. Glancing up, I saw Leo and Luna run in with Aki walking behind them, "We're ready to head to Team Unicorns' next duel!"
"Give me a couple more minutes. I need to finish the repairs before we go anywhere."
Jack leaned against the nearby wall, "I would appreciate having my only mode of transportation working."
As the last piece was secured into place, I yawned, "Alright, that's done."
I pulled on my jacket, shoved my wallet in one of the pockets, and grabbed Dad's keys, "Everyone else ready?"
Leo and Luna raced to the car as us other four walked over, Crow glancing at my hand, "Are you sure that you can drive us to the arena?"
"Crow, I've been driving cars for months. I think I can handle a bit of traffic."
Aki climbed in the back with the twins, and Jack took the passenger side. Crow got pinned between the two of us, and he still looked uncomfortable. The hardest part about driving a car compared to a runner was accepting the fact that it was not as quick to respond to my commands. Other than that, it was actually much easier to control.
Crow glanced over at me, "You're actually really good at driving."
"Well, I can't drive a runner to the mechanic shop, now can I?"
After the drive, we finally pulled up at the parking lot, and the twins jumped out before I could turn off the engine. The three of us followed them up the stairs, and emerged at the entryway to the arena.
I ran into Crow as he came to a sudden stop, "Crow?"
Leaning around him, I noticed two stretchers on the track, "What happened?"
Carly ran up to us, "Both Andore and Jean crashed dueling Team Catastrophe!"
My heart stopped, and I grabbed the twins, "Does anyone know what caused the crash?"
She shook her head, "They're going to the hospital right now, so no one will know anything for a couple days."
I glanced over to Jack, "Do you think we could meet up with Breo at the hospital?"
"Let's get the kids and Crow back to the house, then head on over."
Aki locked eyes with me, "I'm coming with the two of you."
"Not going to complain."
I pulled up outside of the hospital, Jack and Aki parking on either side of me. We each jumped off our runners and ran inside.
Breo was sitting next to one of the surgery rooms when he noticed me, "Hey."
"Do you have any idea what happened?"
He shook his head, "Jean put himself after Andore, which left me to go last. Andore managed to get back to the pit by some stroke of fortune, but Jean flew into the barrier without warning."
I sat next to him, and placed a hand on his shoulder, "So Jean is the one in surgery right now?"
Breo nodded, "They weren't sure of how bad he was until they got him here. I don't even know if he's going to make it."
Jack crouched in front of him, "Jean is not going to let a crash stop him, even a nasty one. He's even more stubborn than me, and you saw how I dealt with mine."
The light over the door went off, and we all got out of Breo's way as they rolled Jean out, "Thanks guys, but I gotta go!"
Aki looked over at me, "Are sure that he's going to be fine?"
"He's going to make it. But they are completely out of the tournament, and I don't like how they both mysteriously crashed. Aki, Jack, I don't want either of you driving alone anymore. We're Team Catastrophe's next opponents, and there is no chance that they won't try to take us out before the duel."
Both of them nodded, and we walked back outside to our runners.
Justice's engine revved, and Bruno glanced up from the computer, "How is it getting even stronger?"
"Never stop working on making something better. That's been the Fudo family motto for the past seven generations, and I am going to continue that tradition."
The door crashed open with a shout accompanying it, "Yusei!"
To say that I was surprised to see Breo standing in my doorway would have been an understatement. But I immediately noticed that there was something in his fist, "What's going on? Do you need my help with something?"
He rushed over to me, and held out two runner chips, "I was thinking that it was fishy that two of the best duelists that I know would both crash dueling the same team, so I checked these. I found something on there, but I wanted someone better with computers to tell me what exactly it meant."
I gently took them from him and plugged them into my computer, "That's strange. According to the record, both of them had the same anomaly happen right before they crashed. If I'm reading them correctly, it seems that something stopped the rear wheel. But whatever happened didn't do anything to the front wheel, which caused it to spin out of control."
Crow leaned over my shoulder, "That's what it felt like when I crashed a few weeks ago. Can you pull up the record of that drive?"
My eyes widened in shock as the results pulled up, "Crow. I need you to call Jack and make sure he isn't driving. I'm going to do the same with Aki!"
I scrambled to get the call feature up on my runner, my heart holding still until she picked up, "Aki, I need to to slow down right now!"
The scenery around her slowed down, "What? Why?"
Rushing to spit out the information, I was talking a mile a minute, "Team Catastrophe was behind Crow's crash as well. I don't want another duelist in the hospital as long as we don't know what's going on."
A scream came through the screen and went straight into my heart, "Aki? Are you okay?"
She appeared back in the screen, gasping for breath, "Yeah, yeah. My run-runner. Something happened. I spun out of control, but because you had me slow down I didn't fall off. Could you come pick me up?"
I picked up my keys, "Yeah, what entrance are you near?"
Aki weakly smiled at me as I pulled up, "Thanks for telling me to slow down. How did you know?"
"Team Unicorn's wheels locked while dueling Team Catastrophe, and Crow's did right before his crash. So if they have made it clear they don't duel clean, then I had a suspicion that they'd go after the three of us before the duel."
We loaded Bloody Kiss onto the back of the car, and I drove back to the house, "Breo brought Team Unicorn's data, and Carly is supposed to be coming over with footage of the duel any minute. We're going to be figuring out how they do this."
"Yusei? What are we going to do?"
I shrugged as I pulled up outside of the shop, "We'll figure that out once we have more information."
As we walked in, everyone was gathered around the computer as Bruno played footage of the duel. On screen, Andore spun out of control. Then in the next clip, Jean also spun out of control.
Gently pushing past everyone, I pointed to the opposing monster, "This thing was present for both crashes, even the duelists changed. What do we know about it?"
Bruno typed on another screen, "It's called Hook the Hidden Knight. It has 1600 attack points and no defense points. It's a level 4 monster. Andore crashed when he declared an attack. Jean crashed during his opponent's turn after the effect was activated."
Crow walked over to Aki, "Are you alright?"
"Just a bruised chest from hitting the front. I'll go to the doctor later today."
He glanced over to me, "Yusei, I've mostly recovered, but Aki's injuries are fresh. I'll duel first, and the two of you can pick up my slack."
"Don't be so rash you idiot. We still don't know how they make the wheels lock."
Bruno waved at me, "We found something moving on Andore's duel. If you look closely at the back wheel, something flickers."
I zoomed in on the back wheel, and paused right as Andore declared an attack.
Something was bulging out of the shadow, but with the poor quality it was difficult to see what.
My eyes locked on my ginger brother, "Argument retracted. We're going to need someone who can jump while driving on a flat surface. Jack, can you do that?"
"Yeah, but it isn't very easy."
I took a deep breath, "Alright, none of us can go anywhere alone on our runners. They might try again."
Everyone nodded, and I turned to Breo, "Thanks for helping us out. We'll make sure that we get revenge for the three of you."
He smiled to us, "I just wanted to make sure no one else was going to get hurt like the two of them did."
"Don't worry, we know what we're up against."
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