Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
A/N: Like I've said before I don't like GX and so I incorporated the characters into this fic... I'm kinda curious though about Fubuki... how do you guys want him handled. Because I know what I have planned but well..
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To: Ms. Izayoi,
From: Lord Kaiba
This is about that boy, Rua, isn't it? I recall him being seen among your little social circle...
attached:
It was barely a letter, not even justifying a sheet of paper rather needing only a post-it-note instead. And despite her incredibly limited experience communicating with the Kaiba family, she was pretty sure that her letter reached, not the son, but the father instead. Stating 'Lord Kaiba' didn't help since it was a title every male Kaiba had used since Gozoboro's time when the city was more about weapons manufacturing.
But it was the attachment that held her focus, far more so than the cold comment. Just the name alone, records, hinted that they might finally have a clue as to what happened to Rua. Yet at the same moment she was struck by a sense of apprehension and worry.
"Witch? Can I talk to you for a bit?" She voiced aloud, since it wasn't like calling a friend what with Witch literally being a Duel Spirit. It felt wrong, like ordering a servant when Witch was clearly striving for the friend route. So every time she had to call the Spirit out she fumbled over how to make it sound inviting and not an order.
"Sure, what's up buttercup?" Witch quipped cheerfully as she faded into view holding playing cards in her hands as though she was in the middle of a game.
"I was... wait... am I interrupting anything?" Aki interrupted herself as she turned to look at Witch only to see the cards in the Spirits hands.
And a very familiar tentacle like vine trying to steal a card.
"Nah, we were just learning how to play Go Fish. What do you need?" Witch asked as a silvery dragon hand appeared and flicked away the vine.
"I... um... you can hear all my conversations, right?" Aki finally asked as she tried to figure out the boundaries of what the Spirits could and couldn't do. In case this conversation had to get super serious and private.
"Well when I'm here, yes... And usually I stay here to serve as your support and a go between for whatever you need," Witch replied. Her head cocked to the side as she put the cards to her chest and floated over in curiosity and mild concern. "Is something wrong?"
Aki was thoughtful for a moment before speaking, "is it safe to assume that Black Rose and Stardust are both here as well, and can hear?"
"Yesssss," Black Rose hissed out, Stardust giving nothing more than a small throat clearing sound to assert his own presence.
"Guys, this is going to be important, I need you to promise not to talk about this with Rua if what I just got is what I think it is." She instructed as she watched the two dragons began to shimmer into sight like mirages.
Witch blinked in surprise before turning to look at the two dragons that towered over her and Aki. Black Rose held her cards to her chest, and Stardust was holding a rather large book titled 'Simple card games' in his hands, yet the pair blinked in response.
"What is going on? Are you still trying to find out what caused Rua's reaction?" Stardust asked politely.
For which Aki nodded quietly, "yes, and its quite possible there are clues right here. I'm going to send this to Yusei and see what he thinks. But regardless, if we find out please don't discuss this with Rua. He can hear and understand you after all."
"You needn't worry about us" Stardust pointed out casually. Closing the book with a clawed finger holding his place as he did so.
"We are aware of the severity of the situation," Black Rose purred out, swinging her head down like a snake as she began to rest it on the ground.
"Speaking of kids, hey Stardust how many kids do you think Yusei wants?" Witch of the Black Rose asked looking up at Stardust in cheerful enthusiasm.
"You won't talk to Rua or anyone else! Great! Thanks! Sorry for interrupting, have a nice game!" Aki blurted out in a rush before she forcefully shoved all the Spirits back to the Duel Spirit World. As the group faded from her view she immediately dropped her head on her arms and rested that on the desk.
'Ok Aki, you can function without thinking about what the Duel Spirits are clearly implying and thinking about your relationship with Yusei. Just take a deep breath and calm down,' she told herself.
Sometimes control over her powers and her developing relationship with the Duel Spirits was great. Sometimes she just wanted to die.
Refocusing her attention on the screen before her, the word 'records' in a text format told her that whatever this was, it was going to be lots of words. It was also alarming how he knew that it was about Rua. That Lord Kaiba knew so much, about Yusei, his little 'group', how he casually could just skip over explanations and go right to the reason why a group of high schoolers would even attempt to communicate with him. That he was seemingly 'tolerant' of a bunch of high schoolers bothering him, albeit begrudgingly, was also odd.
She didn't know much about him, more interested in the game rather than the CEO for years, but now she was curious. Responsibility to her group made her shelf that curiosity for now, because they had information regarding Rua. Dueling with a handicap of passing out was dangerous, if he opted to follow in Yusei and Jack's foot steps he couldn't afford to have a trigger that would make him pass out while riding.
Aki finally pushed herself back into a sitting position before she began downloading the text file so she could open it and read it herself after she sent a copy to Yusei. She wasn't good with computer script and if it was out of her league she was going to need him. The file wasn't massive and once the pop up box notifying the computer was done, she put in a call to Yusei.
She sat at her desk, her eyes roaming above the space of the desk and her gaze becoming unfocused. The ringing became a beat in the back of her attention when a part of her mind pointed out it was... taking a bit longer than normal...
"Aki, I'm on a call with the twins, I'll call you back." Yusei's voice cut across her zen like thoughts giving her barely any time to get her wits about her.
"Ahh ok!" she answered in surprise as she forced her mind back into the present.
She couldn't help but wonder if the reason he was talking to them was because of Patty. After all while Aki was used to the twins talking to Yusei, this was past their bedtimes. But that wasn't her business and they had a right to talk to Yusei... just not past their bedtime.
But given the excuse she looked at the text file, just so she had a leg on whatever happened on her end and ready for Yusei. Yet even as it finished opening her computer rang as Yusei returned her call.
"Hi Yusei!" Aki greeted with a smile on her lips as the imagine of him taking a sip of water appeared on the screen.
He blinked a bit owlishly, seemingly almost surprised at the speed she picked up the call. But he put the cup down quickly and nodded, "Aki. The twins called, apparently you were keeping abreast of Patty's grandmother."
Aki nodded with a slight twist of the bemused lips, "yes, I was riding to pick them up for school when I came across Patty. My Witch went to check on her grandmother while we all went to school."
"They spoke as much, and are becoming more insistent about me moving in with them when the bridge is finished," Yusei confessed with a slight shrug. "Apparently this situation scared them pretty badly."
"Yeah, I can see that, and now with Rua passing out..." Aki agreed, seeing the value in having Yusei with the twins. But also seeing a way to segway into the text file. "I'm not sure if it will help, but Lord Kaiba sent me a text file regarding Rua." When his eyes brightened with curiosity she added, "I'm going to send it to you. Honestly he's intimidating, he could easily have figured that you were looking for Ruka or any of us and he pegged Rua."
Yusei was quiet while Aki's attention shifted from the screen to something off camera. He could hear the slight sounds of typing as she spoke and found himself a bit thoughtful about it. He didn't know much about KaibaCorp other than their connection to the game, and that the company was named after the founder. But he was clearly a threat to anyone who crossed him, his immediate reaction to Carly and his instant assumption of Rua showed he was more than just a business man or hacker.
As he saw a message with an attachment pop up on his screen Yusei nodded and went about opening the file. "The man knows to get to the point," he spoke as he gave a quick cursor scan of the text file first before absorbing the rows of words and numbers.
"It looks like dueling information..." Aki's voice sounded distant to him as his mind began processing the information given. For which he nodded in approval that she recognized what they were both looking at.
"Its a read out of each duel that Rua has taken part in, both with his own duel disk and also with the school platforms," Yusei began. "The top paragraph you're seeing is the identification numbers that is linked with each card. This is when you first put your deck into the system to be shuffled, so the system is already reading ahead of each card you have. This protects you from cheaters who may use slight of hand to insert a card onto the dueling field instead of drawing it from the deck."
Aki was quiet, but her eyes widened at the information and she found herself more intently observing the rows of numbers that Yusei had directed her attention to.
"The next rows you're seeing are the numbers again, but this time they include card names that are associated with them. The system doesn't keep any personal information on duel disks because its too easy to have those stolen."
"I see," Aki murmured as she looked down at the list, her eyes brightening a bit as she recognized a number. "This is interesting, and the top of each duel reads out the date, time and location that the duel took place by map coordinates! Wow I guess this is for the holographic system?" Aki commented more to herself than to him, but she seemed to have become fascinated by the information before her.
"Exactly, and this is the duel he had today it seems, so this list goes from most recent to the earliest." He explained, "but if you look down a bit further, Kaiba didn't send information on just 'Ruas' duels. He sent the information of the people he was dueling 'against', and the grids show what was placed where."
Aki nodded and redoubled her focus on Rua's school duel so she could get comfortable with the format. Taking in the moves he used and what went where, she couldn't just scroll to the bottom and go up since the list lacked clear Ids on the duelists. And the reality was that he probably had a variation of his current deck back then. Rich though the family was she couldn't see him able to know exactly what he would like in a deck at such an age.
Meanwhile Yusei did exactly that, scrolling the text to the very bottom and hit his first snag of the list. Recognizing the fairy and gentle theme of Ruka's deck, his eyes almost slamming into Kuribon's name. It was enough to make the corner of his mouth twitch into the slightest of smiles, that the duel spirits got to her so firmly at that age. But that it was on 'this' list meant she was Rua's first opponent.
Yusei scrolled up to Rua's duel deck information and found the first glaring problem as Rua's deck was 'not' the Morphtronic deck. The monsters he saw when he first dueled Rua were almost completely absent. It was almost a left over deck, looking more like what Yusei and the gang had when they started collecting. But it didn't make sense given the wealth of the twins family, so he scrolled back down and checked on Ruka's deck once more.
Clearly her deck was coming along at that age, with Kuribon and Sunlight Unicorn already in place and active. It was as though her deck was being built in preparation for the arrival of Ancient Fairy Dragon even though she wasn't in any packs. Yet as Yusei thought about it, it began to make sense, Rua was probably purchasing packs that would hold cards that 'Ruka' would like, thus he only had access to the spares.
And that made Yusei actually smile as he looked over the cards that he could find listed by name in Rua's deck.
"Yusei?" Aki asked her head tilting a bit to the side in curiosity at that surprisingly sweet and gentle smile that crossed Yusei's face.
"He... actually is pretty good at this... He was gathering cards that were unused from the packs he got from Ruka by the looks of it. And he was able to craft a viable deck out of it, even without it being to his particular interest and style. He would have done great here, he shows an amazingly keen mind for this." Yet as the words left his lips the reality that they were trying to find what had scared him soured those words. Something hurt Rua, all this potential was now damaged because of something and they needed to figure out it.
"Yeah, that goes with what Black Rose was talking about though," Aki confessed while Yusei made a clean copy of the text she sent him, then opened another text file on his end.
"Oh?" He asked as he began copying and pasting all the listed ID numbers and the card names associated with them. As each card was listed on the nameless text he began deleting the name and ID number from the original. Before scrolling up on the second copy he made so he had a visual of each dueling move that Rua made at the time.
"She said that originally the twins were 'our' elders, so back when we were originally dealing with the Earthbound, we looked to them, instead of them looking to us. So I guess maybe you inherited your talent from your past self who was taught by Rua's past self."
That caused Yusei to pause and process the idea, looking back at how Rua had gathered these cards out of spares and unneeded ones and make it work. He lacked the strategy at that age to make it work, but he had the core fundamentals already. He knew how to get what he needed, but at that age he just lacked the forward thought to make it reach the end. And truth be told that was an endearing thought right there.
"So let's assume he didn't get access to what he needed to create his own ideal deck, then a lot of these cards are kind of useless. He only used them because he had access to them, and given the age he was probably around four years old when this list began." Yusei explained as he scrolled up to the next duel that Rua had with Ruka and the patches of blank spaces in the paragraph of cards that Rua slotted in.
"You know... this is going to end up upsetting," Aki suddenly spoke her voice concerned and uneasy. "Ruka was his first opponent, fine, but she also went into a coma for a time and has a heart condition. We've met his friends, and he was home schooled all this time, which raises a question. 'Who else could Rua have dueled'? His parents? Strangers? Who? And why has no one spoken up or had it noted that Rua has these issues regarding those cards."
"Cards that were in 'his' deck... A child having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Yusei elaborated for Aki causing her to wince at the thought of that fact.
"Those were 'his' cards?" She asked and begrudgingly scrolled all the way down to where Yusei was and began following his path up them.
"Yes, at least in the beginning they were, he may discard them yet because I'm seeing replacements in the paragraphs. It looks like he only dueled Ruka when he got a new card in his deck and was trying it out." Yusei explained as his eyes roamed over numbers and names over and over.
"And still couldn't win, but he wasn't dueling with a deck that was connected to him really..." She finished with a rueful smile on her lips, typical Rua.