Chapter 3

The next day, Gao and Shun headed to the Aibo Academy main entrance to find a poster. Kuguru and Baku were there along with Drum.

"ABC, Aibo Buddy Cup?" Gao read a bit confused.

"Is it that time of year again?"

"What exactly is the Aibo Buddy Cup anyways? I've never even heard of it until now." Shun honestly told the group. Gao agreed as well.

"What! You really don't know?" Baku said thinking how dumb they were.

"How could they? Gao hasn't started buddy fighting after the last tournament and Shun hasn't started an actual buddy fight since yesterday." Kuguru pointed out.

"Yeah, but at least they both should have heard of it."

Kuguru gladly explained. "The Aibo Buddy Cup, also known as the ABC Cup for short is a major buddy fight tournament open to the elementary and middle school students of our school. It's the number one event for those in the buddy fight class and my favorite tournament."

Shun was interested in this.

"Wow, sign me up!" Gao yelled with enthusiasm.

"I can hardly wait!" Drum agreed.

"Interesting, I would love to join in this event, how about you Zeus?" Shun asked his buddy as he appeared in his disguise.

"It would be an honor."

"Before you get too excited, this is a team competition, so you need to form a group of two or four students." The purple haired teen explained.

"Huh, a team? Baku, I want you to build my deck!" Gao said quickly as he and Baku grabbed each other's hand in respect.

"Sure, but only if you listen to me, ok?"

"First time for everything."

Kuguru went between them from the side and interrupted. "You're going to need an analyst too. I'm I right?"

Drum was confused at this. "What's an analyst? Something you can eat?"

"An analyst is a person that keeps track of all the card data and recommends play strategies."

Baku took over from there. "In other words, she's a walking, talking card dictionary."

"Wicked! We can use that!" Drum said as they all had their hands in the middle.

"Wait, what about Shun?" Kuguru said.

Shun waved his hand to her.

"No, you guys should form your team the way it is now."

Baku looked a bit displeased that Shun wasn't going to participate.

"Wait, so you're not going to participate?"

Shun smirked to Baku's question. "Well, I didn't say that. I will be competing, but I'll form my own team and I have the perfect candidates. Give me a second to call them….."

He started to call on his phone and a few minutes later, two people showed up. Shun's companions were actually twins, boy and girl. The boy had medium length green hair and yellow eyes and was wearing a white V-neck with a blue sweatshirt, sleeves rolled up, and blue jeans. His sister had the same color hair and eyes, but the length of her hair was much longer to her hips (that was tied in a ponytail) and she on the other hand was wearing an orange tank-top with light blue shorts and white tennis shoes.

Gao's group were surprised to see them.

"These two are in the same grade as we are. They both saw my fight yesterday and wanted to form a team so I said yes. These two are the Hiashi twins, Shiro and Shiki. Shiro is probably up to par in the use of card data with you Kuguru. He has been analyzing data cards since he was in the fourth grade. I think you two will get along well together I'd say. Baku, I think you better watch out because Shiki here is my deck builder. She looked through my deck and rearranged them to a more high level potential, here, take a look." Shun explained as he handed Baku his deck and flipped through them and smiled as he was impressed.

"Very interesting, to think that when I saw Shun's deck for the first time, I knew it was powerful, but now it's beyond my comprehension. To a fellow deck builder, it's nice to meet you, names Baku Omori by the way." He replied as he shook hands with the girl as she smirked at him.

"Likewise Baku. I look forward to seeing how well you prepped Gao's deck."

"So you know all there is to know about card data huh? That's amazing! As you heard from Shun, I'm Shiro Hiashi, it's a pleasure to meet you." Shiro said as he took the Kuguru's hand and planted a small kiss.

She started to turn all red.

"Y-yeah, I'm Kuguru Uki, I look forward to advancing my knowledge with card data with you, Shiro."

Shun couldn't help but smile at a new friendships he had just formed.

"So now we both have a team!" Gao said as the groups were excited about this.

"Now all we need to do now is figure up a team name for each." Shiro stated.

"Shiro is absolutely right." Kuguru agreed.

The rest of the groups were a bit confused.

Then suddenly everything went to chaos as Gao wanted to name their team, "The Mighty Sunfighters", but Baku didn't want that and argued about it and went off saying he'll make his own team as Gao stated he didn't need him and stormed off as well, leaving Kuguru and Shun's team a bit worried.

As the day dragged on, Shun's team had listened to Kuguru's plan to make Gao understand the importance of a good deck build and were invited to Kuguru's place and watch Baku help Testuya with his deck building. During that time, Gao and Drum came in, disguised and they watched as the master quickly arranged the deck to what Testuya wanted it to be. Shiki managed to step in and help in a few times and those two were an unstoppable team. After that, the next day was a surprise when Testuya told Baku, Kuguru, and the Hiashi twins that he was going to face Noboru. Gao overheard and was starting to get a bit jealous as to the fact Baku was helping out Testuya, but wanted to see what would happen.

When the match started after school, apparently Noboru seemed like he was going to win, but he overestimated his opponent and Testuya took the win with his new deck Baku made, making the Magic World user win his first Buddy Fight. After that, Gao apologized and realized that a deck builders duty was harder than it looked and everything went back to normal and they had decided their team name and so did Shun's team. Gao's team decided on the name, "Fusées de Soleil" and Shun's team thought of "Heroes of Olympus".

The next day was a big day since it was the ABC cup preliminaries were going to begin. There was a speech from the principle of the school and off the battles started.

Of course, Paruko took the announcer spot and announced, "Welcome back, we've seen some exciting battles today. Now it's time to go over the rules this elementary school qualifier, this year the officials have deemed worthy of five participates of each elementary and middle school for this year's buddy competition. They also must win five buddy fights to proceed in the fight against the middle school students, the main event of the ABC cup. Oh wow, Zanya Kisaragi of Team Kisaragi, top ranked team of the sixth grade, is already one win away from passing the qualifier."

A man with long blue hair and orange eyes that was wearing a white outfit, smirked as he knew he was going to win. "I draw and charge in draw! Get ready, my cyber ninja technique is flawless. You're not going to even know what hit you. Buddy call, Tsukikage, to the center…." Zanya ordered as his ninja armored buddy disappeared and reappeared in the center of the field. "….Accelerate Ninja Haiti, attack the center….." His copper plated ninja started to speed up at the dragon sword gentleman and he tried to strike, but failed as he disappeared and Tsukikage took the final blow as his opponent's life points hit zero.

"Game over. Winner, Zanya Kisaragi!"

"The first team to advance is the only elementary school, who won over the middle school last year. You know who I'm talking about Zanya Kisaragi who is the user of the Katana World."

After that Testuya was the second person to be representing the ABC cup. Noboru was the third person to be accepted and Gao was the fourth. Shun was in the middle of his battle with a kid with short spikey red hair and eyes. Though he had a nasty scare across his face, he was wearing red t-shirt with dark black jeans. His core gadget was a huge sword.

"And here is the last battle folks. Shun Kyoto of team Heroes of Olympus, who is not ranked, but won against Rouga Aragami, is now facing Ryoma Nagoshi, who is fourth rank in the sixth grade. Right now, Ryoma has out his Twin Headed Blade Dragon Beldor, who is a size three buddy and has the ability to attack twice if he discards a gauge. Shun has managed to bring out Kronos, a rare buddy card, but his center is wide open. With Shun down to four life points and Ryoma down to six, it will take some sort of miracle to pull of this win." Paruko stated as she watched.

On the field was an armored dragon that was red who was holding to twin blades in hand roared in anticipation to fight in the middle. The opposite of Beldor was only a man wearing black robes and was holding a staff with an hourglass on the tip. The man had long black hair and purple eyes as he wore black robes. He was on the right of Shun's field.

"Now I discard a gauge to attack you directly, take him down Beldor!" Ryoma said as one of his gauge cards disappeared and Bedor's blades were on fire.

"Twin Execution!" The red dragon roared as he began his advance to Shun to strike

"I cast Gods Protection!" Shun immediately countered as a clear blue shield shielded him from Bedor's attack, ending Ryoma's move.

"Wow, with a timely save, Shun used Gods Protection to protect him from any harm for one turn, amazing." The pink announcer replied.

"Good thing he thought of using Gods Protection or he would have been through." Baku said relieved.

"Yeah, but I have a feeling, Shun's already going to win." Gao stated with a huge grin on his face.

"Draw, charge in draw! I equip Divinity Staff and call out Zeus to the left….." Shun replied as he equipped his staff and Zeus appeared. "…..Now Zeus, attack with me against Beldor…." Zeus agreed as they both made their way in the middle field facing Beldor and they both blasted a beam of light. "…I cast Offering to the Gods!" Zeus power grew inside him and a renewal and sent a bolt of lightning at Beldor, who immediately disappeared.

"I don't believe it, Shun Kyoto manage to destroy Ryoma's buddy monster." Paruko said.

"Now Kronos, it's your turn."

"Ruin is what you will receive!" The titan of time cried out as he blasted the sixth grader with ghostly blue spears bringing down his life points to three.

"Ryoma's life points are down to three!" Shiki yelled with excitement.

"Now Shun can finish it." Her brother stated with a smile.

"Final phase, Kronos Strike!" Shun said and a circle appeared focused energy before Shun yelled, "Strike!" and a beam shot out and hit Ryoma which depleted his life points to zero.

"With that, Shun Kyoto not only defeats Rouga Aragami, the top ranked in the eighth grade, but has bested Ryoma Nagoshi. An outstanding victory and this concludes the elementary qualifiers, the five teams have been determined. All right folks, buckle up, I'm going to interviewing the five teams that are representing for the elementary for the tournament….." Paruko replied as she sped up to Zanya to ask her question. "…..Excited for the next round?"

"G-GIRL!" He quickly said as he disappeared, leaving leaves behind.

"Well, how about you guys? A few words about your win today?" She tried to ask Testuya, but he was smiling as he took out a banana out of his hair.

"Man, it was like, bananas, yo!"

"I'm not going to give up just yet. Any thoughts sir?" She asked Noboru, he looked pretty bored.

"Gao just got lucky again and Shun…..we'll see if he makes it in the finals."

"Yes, yes, very illuminating. What about you, Shun?"

"I'm just glad to compete along with my teammates, the Hiashi twins." Shun simply said.

Then she asked Gao, who seemed to take most of her time, which made Shun smile at his childhood friend being recognized.

Behind a tree, a shady figure with spiked purple hair was wearing an aqua marine scarf with a purple t-shirt with a lighter purple sweater like jacket. He was accompanied by a woman with pale peach hair that covered her eyes and was wearing a white shirt and over it was a black long sleeve sweater.

"So that's Gao Mikado? He doesn't look like much if you ask me, but that Shun Kyoto intrigues me." The shady man said not impressed.

"But you've taken an interest in both of them all the same." The girl pointed out.

He smirked as he started to walk away. "Hehe, very perspective Megumi. Let me see, I'll need a cleaver strategy to throw Gao off, though, Shun might catch on to what I might do."

As he stopped next to him was a ninja masked demon wearing purple robes and had spiked pale white hair.

"By throw, you mean, to ruin them, am I correct?"

He smirked as he held two back dice in his hand. "You know me well…." He tossed them up and he checked the numbers. "Mmmm, an odd number. I think I have an idea." He left it at that as he smirked again.