Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL.
Chapter 9: A Moment Alone
It was the beginning of another day as Kotori walked into the school. Kotori couldn't help feeling a bit desperate that morning, as she knew she was starting to run out of time. The curse Mitaka had placed on Yuma was set to kill him in three days, counting the day that had just begun. Kotori knew what she had to do, but it was a very tall order considering that she and Yuma had only had a couple of brief encounters in around the school. If there was any hope of saving Yuma, Kotori had to make some kind of attempt to spend some time with him. Though Yuma still had no memory of who Kotori was, the very least she could do was try and have him get to know her all over again.
As Kotori sat in class that morning, she found it impossible to focus on anything that the teacher was saying. Instead she was trying to come up with different ways for to meet with Yuma. The key was finding a way for them to at least be alone for a little bit. The main problem though was that Yuma would probably be with either Anna or one of his friends. After a lot of internal debate, Kotori decided to try and corner Yuma in the hall right before lunch. That seemed to be the best window of opportunity for them to be alone for at least a few minutes, and if she missed it she wouldn't get another one for at least another day.
After what seemed like forever, the bell finally rang and it was time for the students to head out for lunch. Kotori immediately headed for the classroom that Yuma had been assigned to since Mitaka's spell had altered everyone's memories. She walked through the halls as fast as she could without running. By the time she finally got to Yuma's classroom, the only person left in there was Yuma's friend, Tetsuo.
"Excuse me." Kotori spoke, getting Tetsuo's attention. "Do you know where Yuma is? Yuma Tsukumo?"
"He just left for lunch with his girlfriend, Anna." Tetsuo answered. On hearing this, Kotori became crestfallen. "Are you a friend of his or something?"
"Sorta…" Kotori answered. "I'm sorry to bother you."
With that, Kotori left the classroom and slowly headed for the cafeteria. It seemed like she had completely blown it, and there didn't seem to be much hope of her being alone with Yuma anytime soon.
Alit stood in the halls of Heartland Academy scanning all the girl students who were at that moment leaving their classrooms to go to lunch. Though Yuma had no memory of who Alit was, Alit still at least had the advantage of being a Heartland Academy student. With that position still intact, Alit had decided to try and find if there were other girls helping Mitaka and take them down before they either went after Kotori or tried to get their claws into Yuma. Unfortunately he wasn't having any luck determining who might be a member of Mitaka's little club. It wasn't as if those girls had any sort of trait that marked them as minions of the Death Queen that they were currently up against.
Just as Alit was about to give up and head for the cafeteria with everyone else, he spied a familiar face down the hall on his right out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw that it was Chitose. Alit stood and watched as Chitose walked away. Suddenly his D-Gazer began to ring. He took the device out of his pocket and saw that it was Kaito calling him. The boxer duelist put the device over his eye to answer the call.
"Any luck finding more of Mitaka's helpers?" Kaito asked over the line.
"No, but it looks like I've found an even bigger problem for us." Alit reported. "Anitak's back."
"Anitak! So we're dealing with two Death Queens then?" Kaito realized.
"It looks that way." Alit confirmed.
"If you want, I can be down there in a few minutes to take care of her." Kaito suggested.
"Nah, I've got this one." Alit told him. "You forget that I'm the only one besides Yuma who's seen her in action. Besides, I feel like she and I have something we need to settle."
"Okay then. But be careful." Kaito told him.
"Oh don't worry. I'll be careful alright." Alit assured him. "But I'm not gonna pull any punches either."
Kotori sat outside under a tree in the schoolyard lost in thought. They grey overcast sky seemed to perfectly reflect her mood. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like it might be impossible for her and Yuma to get back together. Every now and then Kotori mussed on the idea of how Yuma's current relationship with Anna might actually be for the best. With the speed that their relationship seemed to be progressing, there was a very good chance that Anna might be the one to break the curse on Yuma.
While Kotori couldn't stand the thought of Yuma giving himself to another girl, the important thing was saving him from death or something much worse. Even so, Kotori felt like she couldn't just stand by and let something like that happen. Yet what other option did she have? The way things had become thanks to Mitaka's wretched spell, Yuma hardly remembered that Kotori even existed. Getting Yuma to come back to her was an uphill battle, and Kotori didn't seem to have enough time.
"Excuse me." A very familiar voice spoke. Kotori turned her head and gasped when she saw Yuma standing before her. "Do you mind if I joined you?"
"Uh… um, not at all." Kotori replied.
"Thanks." Yuma told her as he sat down next to her under the tree. "So… do you come out here often? To this tree, I mean?"
"…Sometimes." Kotori answered. "It's a nice place to be when I want to be alone to think."
"What were you thinking about?" Yuma asked.
"Well… I suppose I was thinking about this friend of mine." Kotori told him. "It seems like he and I have kind of drifted apart, and I've been trying to figure out how to reconnect with him. But it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. It's sort of like he's forgotten who I even am."
"Are you and this friend pretty close?" Yuma asked.
"Yeah. We've been friends since we were just little kids." Kotori answered with a small smile. "The truth is… I can't really imagine my life without him. Still… I think things between him and I may have changed for good."
"…If you and this friend of yours are really that close, then you can't give up on him." Yuma told her. "Sure it may seem hopeless, but sometimes you have to try anyway, especially if it's important. I've always believed that even if something seems impossible, you can do it if you just try hard enough."
"…You know, the friend I've been talking about has kind of the same way of looking at things." Kotori told him as her smile returned.
"Well, we should probably be heading back to class." Yuma decided as he got back up. "Hey, this might seem weird but… would you mind if I walked you home?"
"Uh… I guess not." Kotori answered. "Sure."
"I'll meet you by the front gate then." Yuma told him. "Later."
With that, Yuma quickly headed back towards the building. Kotori meanwhile was left trying to figure out what had just happened. She hadn't expected Yuma to simply ask to walk home with her out of the blue like that. The green-haired girl didn't really feel like questioning why though. She found she was just happy that Yuma seemed to want to spend time with her.
Kaito stood working at the controls of a large round metal tank with a window on the front that had been set up in the lab. Orbital 7 was working at a neighboring control panel monitoring some readings. Kaito sighed and glanced at the clock in the corner of the monitor he was working at and saw that he had been working for almost four straight.
"Orbital, I'm going to take a break." Kaito told the robot. "Keep an eye on things while I'm gone."
"Y-yes sir." Orbital responded.
Kaito left the lab and in a few moments was in the kitchen of his residence at the tower. Droite was sitting at the counter with a simple sandwich and a glass of milk in front of her. Kaito had convinced the butterfly duelist to take the day off to properly recover from her duel with Fujisaki.
"How's it going?" Droite asked.
"Slow, but pretty well." Kaito answered as he got into the fridge and pulled out another sandwich that he had made earlier that morning. "I'm probably going to be working for most of the night though."
"What exactly are you working on?" Droite asked.
"Hopefully something that'll be the perfect way for Kotori to be alone with Yuma." Kaito answered. "In order for Kotori to do what she needs to do, she and Yuma have to be in a place where they can be alone without Mitaka or any of her hired help getting to them. Last night I came up with the perfect solution."
"And just what is this perfect solution of yours?" Droite asked.
"A sphere field." Kaito answered. "One similar to the one that the Barians used during the early days of the Number War but uses the energy of Astral World."
"Kaito, that's brilliant!" an impressed Droite praised. "Of course most of your ideas are. Still, do you think it'll work?"
"We have data on how the sphere field cubes used by the Barians worked." Kaito replied. "Though replicating one has been a little tricky. Hopefully Orbital and I will be able to get it done in time. In the meantime, it seems like we might have bigger problems?"
"What do you mean?" Droite asked.
"I called Alit earlier to ask if he found any more Mitaka's minions." Kaito explained. "He said that he found Anitak instead."
"So now we're dealing with two of the Death Queens." Droite realized.
"Alit's probably moving in to take on Anitak as we speak." Kaito informed her. "Hopefully she won't be too much for him to handle."
Kotori found that she was quite nervous as she waited for Yuma to meet her at the gate. It was the same kind of nervousness she had felt the first time they had gone on an actual date together. But then it seemed like they were starting their relationship from scratch. Yuma was going to start getting to know her all over again, and she wanted desperately to make a good impression. At long last she saw Yuma heading towards the gate. Yuma waved to her as he walked up.
"Sorry if I kept you waiting for too long." Yuma told her.
"That's okay. I haven't been waiting long." Kotori assured him. "So, shall get going?"
"You bet." Yuma answered.
With that, they left the school grounds and headed for home. As they walked what before the spell had been their usual route home, an awkward silence had been hanging over them. Kotori had been trying to think of some kind of topic of conversation but seemed to be drawing a blank. It hadn't helped that Yuma was being silent as well. After several minutes, Kotori finally decided to ask the one question that had been on her mind since Yuma approached her at the tree.
"So… why did you ask to walk home with me?" Kotori asked.
At this, Yuma stopped in his tracks. "You know… I'm not really sure. You'll probably find this kinda weird, but you've kinda been on my brain for the last couple of days." He turned around to look at Kotori. "It's like… I know you from somewhere."
Just as Kotori was about to say something in response, Yuma suddenly cried out and fell to his knee, clutching his chest. The curse mark that Mitaka had placed on his chest was glowing through his shirt. Kotori quickly ran to his side.
"Yuma, what's wrong?" a worried Kotori asked.
"I… I don't know." Yuma answered. Suddenly the mark stopped glowing and Yuma let out a deep breath. "It's stopped now. I think I'm okay."
"Are you sure?" Kotori asked. "Maybe I should…"
"Get the hell away from him!" a voice interrupted. Yuma and Kotori looked and saw Anna standing a few feet away with her arms crossed.
"Anna, I…" Yuma began.
"Get in my car, and we'll talk." Anna ordered as she motioning to the red convertible that was parked just a few feet away.
"Uh, Kotori, I think I better go." Yuma told her. "Looks like Anna and I might need to work some things out."
"Are you sure?" Kotori asked.
"Don't worry. It'll be fine. I'll see you later." Yuma told her. With that, Yuma got into the parked car.
Anna meanwhile walked up to Kotori. "Look, you slut! I don't know what the hell your game is, but if you don't stay away from Yuma, I'm gonna blow you to pieces!"
Anna then stormed off and got into the car. Kotori watched as she and Yuma drove off at what was probably an unsafe speed for the road they were on. After a moment she sighed and went to go look out over the water. She gazed at the city in the distance for a few minutes before pulling out Utopia's card, looking at it with a smile.
"Maybe there's some hope after all." Kotori told herself.
"I'm afraid your hope has just been lost!" a familiar voice told her. Kotori looked to see Chitose standing before her in her street clothes that resembled the uniform of another school.
"Chitose!" Kotori exclaimed.
"That is not my name." The dark-haired girl reminded her. "At least not in this life."
"That's right. You're Anitak, one of the Death Queens." Kotori responded. "So what do you want?"
"I've come to eliminate you." Chitose told her. "As simplistic as it seems, Mitaka's plan is turning out to be quite brilliant. But your continued existence is a threat to it. Therefore, I shall eliminate that threat."
"Not on my watch!" another voice cut in. Kotori and Chitose looked to see Alit arrive. "If you want to come after Kotori, you're gonna have to go through me!"
"You dare to interfere?" Chitose asked with anger rising in her voice.
"I don't know why, but I feel like we've got some kind of score to settle." Alit told her. "So what do ya say we settle it right now?"
"…Very well." Chitose agreed after regaining her composure. "Let's get this over with."
Suddenly a pair of black-feathered angelic wings appeared on Chitose's back. With a flash of crimson light Chitose transformed into her Barian form. Her skin had become the color of copper metal and her dark hair had turned silver and had grown all the way down to her waist. Her fingernails had become silver claws, and on the front of her stomach where her bellybutton would be was a red diamond framed in silver. Covering the Barian's chest was a piece of black armor with silver trim, decorated with a Barian Emblem in the center. Around her waist was a short tattered black skirt held in place by a golden belt with a silver buckle adorned with a red gemstone.
"I should've killed you and Don Thousand's other former pawns myself when I had the chance." Anitak declared. "I will correct that mistake now and end your life right here!"
Author's Note: I hope it hasn't bugged anyone that Kotori hasn't dueled very much in this story so far, even though she's kind of the main focus. She will be seeing a little more action after this next duel though. In the meantime, we'll be moving on with the little subplot with Alit and Anitak that sort of formed during the first story.
Please review and let me know what you think.