Dan stared out at the vast ocean behind his dorm. He had learned a lot of useful information for surviving at Duel Academy, but nearly nothing about how he got here. School was easy enough, it wasn't possible to fail since the only thing that was graded was their ability to duel. Other subjects were more like tutoring than they were any school setting, but as Dan searched his mind he couldn't find any experience of this "typical" school that everyone talked about. Still listening to the problems and thoughts of his roommates had filled in many of the blanks for him so the puzzle at least was shrinking.

"Dan what are you doing here by yourself," one passerby said.

"Just thinking, don't worry about me."

"You sure do that a lot. Though to be fair I guess I wouldn't spend a lot of time in your room either."

The room he was in was said to be the most coveted room in the entire Slifer Red campus. Looking around you would be hard pressed to find why. Three desks were pushed together in a tight line along with the triple bunk bed that took up the majority of the space. A TV that was about twenty years old sat next to the tables, and a single book shelf capped off the sparse furniture of the room. An over head light lit the best room in the dorm. By the standards of other rooms on campus it was roughing it. But it had one quality that anyone else in the complex would kill to have. It was the former room of three of the most famous duelist to ever come out of Duel Academy. At first it was just a legend among Slifers, but after the retooling of the school to make Slifer the first year dorm, it became a world wide urban legend. The students who stayed in Jaden, Syrus, and Chumley's room were destined for greatness. It was a point of pride to even be allowed to live with one desk to split amongst the three of us. Personally, Dan would have traded the prestige of living here for a dresser to keep his clothing in, but it wasn't all bad.

Dan pulled out the black deck box that he always had attached to his hip, per school code, and scanned the cards within. Every time these pictures and words roused something within him but nothing that actually brought back a tangible memory. Chain Dog, Key Mouse, Rescue Cat, they were all beasts, but how did that relate to him? There was no real strategy amongst the cards besides to fill space it seemed. The mystery surrounding them only deepened the issue of his past.

"There you are!" A loud voice called down to him from the stairs of the second floor. Oliver leapt off of the second floor balcony onto the grass below him. He rolled elegantly into place next to Dan.

"Nice. It only took you eight tries to do that right."

"If you want to make an omelet then you need to break a few eggs! Now come on! I have a very important thing to talk to you about."

"Why can't you tell me right now," Dan said turning back to the ocean. He felt a hand dragging his shirt up the hill towards their room.

"I'll explain in a minute, but really I need you to come on! Marty is already waiting for us!"

Oliver knew that this shirt was his weakness. The Slifer Red t-shirts were the only way to avoid having to wear the dorky blazers that came with the uniform. He won this shirt in a prize raffle and there weren't exactly a ton of these laying around. Thus Dan was very careful to avoid it being damaged.

"Alright, alright. I'm coming."

"Hurry then!" Oliver was already back to the staircase as he called to his roommate.

Dan took one single look back at the ocean. Any new pieces to the puzzle would have to wait then.

Inside their room, Oliver was standing atop the trio of desks with a chart plastered to the wall. At his feet sat a book which made Dan's eyes go wide.

"Is that my journal?"

"Now that you're here we can begin," Oliver said, "and close the door while you're at it. I can't let people know about my plans."

"Can you just get on with this," Marty said, "we're all here now."

"Alright alright, I have a very important plan and you all need to hear this," Oliver said.

Both Marty and Dan were sitting on their floor eager to find out what was so worthy of gaining their undivided attention.

"So listen guys, there's this girl. Her name is Michelle. She's a little on the taller side and she seems to be a bit of a lone wolf. The thing is though that she's gorgeous, probably the most beautiful girl at this whole school. She's already a student here so she's gotta be a talented duelist on top of that. The complete package!"

"And so you want us to help you with your plan to do what," Marty said with a smile on his face.

"You guys? You guys are just going to sit and watch the magic happen. I'm going to find her in the commons where she is all the time reading a book and talk to her! And then after I've laid on the charm, obviously I'm going to ask her out!"

"Where would you even ask her out to," Dan said, "I don't think there are a bunch of great places to go around here."

"Well thanks to your contributions Dan, I know a ton of amazing nature spots!"

Dan didn't particularly like that his journal was being used to bolster Oliver's romantic life. But there was dangerous information in there for someone like Oliver to know. Dan would need to get that away from him immediately.

"Oh so if you've read the journal you know the best spot of all," Dan said.

"Of course! It's the waterfall deep in the woods! Couples go there and make out all the time!"

"You're going to try and kiss her on your first date," Marty said shaking his head in disapproval.

"You're getting our timeline all confused now," Oliver said, "those things can wait."

"No I don't think you've read very deeply into this journal," Dan said rising to his feet. He strolled across the room to take the book into his hands but was blocked by Oliver's foot. He flipped the pages with his finger as if there was a deep secret within them.

"Don't think that will work on me Dan. I've read your profiles of us too! You think I can't stand to not know a secret! I know you're bluffing."

Dan's façade cracked for a second. If he had read their profiles, then it might get ugly in here really quickly. It would be important for him to make sure that Oliver didn't go running his big mouth.

"Well since you're so well versed in the journal you should already know a fair bit about Michelle."

"What do you mean? You didn't have anything about her in the journal?"

"Didn't I? I distinctly remember writing about a girl in the common room who just loved Utada Hikaru. You could always hear it blasting through her headphones."

Oliver's trust in his reading of the journal was starting to fade. What Dan had said was totally true, he had in fact observed all of this. However, this was information he had yet to write into the journal just yet. The force under the journal was starting to loosen though as Oliver wavered on whether he had missed something or not. Just a little more and he would be able to wrench it free.

"Well I do remember him writing something-"

"Stop right there," Dan said, "duel me right now for the right to share that information."

A smile crept to Oliver's face. "You're on."

Rather than go through the song and dance of using the holograms, both opted just to use the cards themselves. Dan and Oliver seated across from each other and pulled their cards together. Marty got up into his bed to better see what was going on. He pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote their life points on it.

"I'll be the scoreboard," Marty said from above them. He turned the sheet around to make it visible to them.

Oliver: 8000

Dan: 8000

"I'll go first," Oliver said. "I play Jurrac Aelo (200/200) in attack mode and set one card."

Dan should have been nervous. His deck had next to no synergy and against an experienced opponent like Oliver this would be nearly impossible to pull off. But Dan was thinking one step ahead in a different respect. All he needed to do was get that journal and the outcome of this room was irrelevant. The journal was on the table next to them. Oliver had it placed slightly towards him. If Dan lunged for it right now he wouldn't be able to get it before Oliver's quick reflexes pulled it away. He would have to wait for him to be engrossed in this duel.

"Alright I'll play Giant Rat (1400/1450) in attack mode and end."

"Not a good draw huh? You should really get a better deck." Oliver drew a card and smiled. He probably had received something good.

"The first thing I'll do is summon Jurrac Velo(1700/1000)." He placed the red dinosaur card next to his other monster. "Next I'll reveal my facedown Royal Decree. So now you can't play any traps. Finally I'll attack your rat with Velo."

Removing the card from his side of the field, Dan placed the monster in the grave yard. Marty scribbled the changed result on the sheet of paper.

Oliver: 8000

Dan: 7700

"Fair enough," Dan said. He knew his stall tactic was working. "I'm going to use my monster's effect to summon another weaker monster from my deck and I choose Nimble Momonga (1000/100)."

"Your turn also Dan. Impress me."

"The first thing I'll do is play a set card. Then I'll end." Dan could read Oliver like a book. He probably thought that set card was a magic card to stop an attack. His monster would only be able to give Dan more life points because of Nimble's effect so he was teasing out a way around this. Oliver drew a card and Dan knew the window for him to strike was coming.

"I'll sacrifice both of my monsters to summon Jurrac Titano (3000/2800) his effect lets me banish one of my Jurrac monsters to raise his attack by 1000 till the end of my turn. Now I'll attack your monster!"

Dan theatrically swept away his card and deposited it into the graveyard. Nimble's effect meant he only lost 2000 points rather than 3000.

"I'm going to activate Nimble Momonga's effect which lets me summon all of my copies of this card to the field in defense position. Unfortunately, I don't have any other copies."

"Wait what," Oliver said, "if you don't have any copies of the card then why would you tell me that?"

Before Oliver could even finish the sentence Dan had launched himself at the desk. The split second of misdirection along with the swift movement from Dan meant there was no time to defend. Dan collected the journal into his arms however the momentum of his leap carried him further across the room. He flew all the way onto the second of three desks which lined the wall, landing face first.

"Mission accomplished," Dan said rolling over. Oliver was fuming.

"That's not fair at all! I thought we were dueling!"

"We were dueling and then I saw an opportunity to get back what you took from me."

"Is that why you were sandbagging?"

"Obviously. I could just give up right now and it would be about the same. I don't have any monsters in my hand."

"Well I'll just tell Marty what you wrote about him," Oliver said turning to their roommate.

"You mean that he snores really loudly sometimes? I wasn't really worried about that; I just didn't want you snooping any further before you stumbled across something really embarrassing."

"What! You tricked me twice! What the hell dude!"

"I'm not the one who went through someone's stuff and read things without permission!"

Marty was eating the drama up with a spoon. It was all he had to avoid laughing hysterically at the scene. Oliver continued to argue that it wasn't fair but Dan wouldn't move an inch. Oliver lunged at Dan to wrestle the journal from him but Dan was too quick and clever to be grappled. He slithered his way back to his bed before Oliver finally gave up on regaining the journal.

After a few minutes the energy of that moment had began to dissipate and the three were settling back into normalcy. Dan, after pulling off that maneuver, was clutching his journal tightly. He would need to find a new hiding place for it. Meanwhile Oliver resumed his fawning over Michelle.

"You're not the only guy who has noticed her," Marty said, "you sometimes hear guys talking about her all the time."

"Yeah but none of those guys are me!"

"Famous last words," Marty said in a low voice.

"It's only 3pm though," Dan said from his bed. "Why don't you go ask her right now?"

"W-well that's a little fast don't you think? I would really prefer to work my way up to it."

"What's wrong Mr. Cassanova? Are you getting cold feet now?" Marty was making hearts with his hand from his bed.

"No! Never! But just so soon?"

"Yeah right now," Dan said. "I didn't come all the way here so you could just talk about it. She's probably in the common room right now, you read that in my journal didn't you?"

Dan grabbed Oliver by the jacket and began to pull him towards the door. It was met with slight resistance. Oliver resigned himself to facing his big plans today. Marty was hooting and hollering as he jumped off his bed.

"Let's see how charming you really are then!"