Chapter 17: Duel Master
It was now the time of Seto Kaiba's arrival, and he was coming to meet us here at the school. I was just sitting on the dock as normal; the others still an hour to meet me here. Jaden had arrived only minutes ago with his luggage, so he could talk to me.
"So, what you think Alexis, I know you're thinking, don't deny it." I sighed, Jaden might as well be me, with the way he knows me.
"Yes, I am thinking. We finally got all our friends here, all together, happy and everything. Then we go and leave it's just so…
"Troublesome, really Alexis; calm down. It'll only be a bit of the year, a week here and there. Other than that, we'll be with them."
"I guess, but I feel like I'm abandoning them, they all come to spend time with us, from Japan, and their homes everywhere, and we leave them. There is so many responsibilities I'll give up, and adventures I'll miss out on." I sighed, hard to explain to Jaden this.
"I understand Lexy, but it's more like a few mini vacations through out the year, the newspaper has tons of people to write stuff about, and people to interview. You've pretty much got the place running by itself. Plus Lex, with the way this year has started, if we didn't take this opportunity, then we'd miss a huge adventure."
"You're right, I guess we'll go."
"Okay, now we just have to talk with everyone else, when they come. Kari and TK are probably going to be lonely without us, and our classmates will be two but this new system has made some great improvements, and that's all thanks to you."
"Me, what did I do?"
"The whole thing in the newspaper was your idea, Lexy." Jaden reminded me. I thought he was talking about something else.
"Yeah, but if it wasn't for you and the former Slifers, I wouldn't have seen so badly they got treated, it's a group effort."
Everyone came down and we waited on the dock for Seto Kaiba. "Hey everyone, my name is Mokuba and I'm here to be your escort to my brother's personal island south of here, he is making last minute adjustments for you all. He gives his apologies for not coming himself."
"Hi Mokuba, I'm Jaden Yuki. Nice to meet you!" Jaden yelled to Mokuba on the ship. I elbowed him and sighed, I bowed, then waved hi.
"If he's Jaden Yuki, then you must be Alexis Rhodes." I nodded. "It's a pleasure to meet both of you. I think that my brother made a mistake of not doing a test of skills to set up the dorms in the first place but don't tell him that."
"It doesn't matter about the past as long as we set things right in the future, right Alexis?" Kari said smiling. I nodded.
"Good to know that you won't be holding my brother responsible for his former mistakes, so ready to go?" We all nodded and boarded on the ship.
"So you're Kaiba's brother, I'm sure you're a great duelist right Mokuba?" Jaden asked, just wanting a duel. He had already asked me to duel 3 times today, and really with Jaden's skills it was no use accepting, that was like waiting for defeat.
"No, I prefer to watch battles Jaden, especially my brother's. You can challenge him, he's always up for a good duel, and anyone can if they want."
"I think I'm up to dueling Kaiba." I said.
"Me too, I wouldn't miss out on a chance like this!" Jaden yelled.
We arrived at the island and it had beautiful weather, and I just wanted to lay down in the sand. It felt nice and warm on my feet, and so comfortable. "I'm going to show you guys to your rooms, please try hard not to get lost." We all agreed and stayed close. "Lisa you'll have a room to yourself, room number 15. Alexis and Kari your room is right here. It's number 16." Kari and I carried our luggage in the room. "Chazz, and Atticus, you're room is across the hall number 17. Jaden and Syrus, your room is next to Alexis' and Kari's number 18. TK and Atticus you're room is here, 19. Marcelo and Danny are in 20. Zane you'll be sharing a room is Sebastian." Zane nodded and Sebastian followed into the room.
The rooms were huge, not as big as they were at our house because compared to my house, nothing would ever impress you again, sadly. Kari sat on the bed and fell back. I laughed, Kari loved rooms like this because apparently she lived in an apartment with her parents and brother at home. She has a small room to herself, but that was in the last few years.
A maid came into the room and Mokuba came in after her. "You can't clean in here, we have guests here, sorry about that Alexis, and Kari."
"No don't make her leave Mokuba; we want to talk with her." Kari said, I completely agreed.
"Okay, whatever you two want. When's dinner?" I asked.
"Dinner is served at promptly 7 for dinner with me and my brother." Mokuba responded
"Where's the kitchen?"
"It's in the main dinning hall, to the right; why do you ask?" He asked.
"It's two minutes to 3 and Jaden hasn't eaten in an hour, so in exactly 3 minutes he'll be in here asking for food."
"How do you feed someone who eats all the time, he's like Joey." He sighed and I laughed.
"You just do, I enjoy cooking food for Jaden. Anything to make him happy, it's sort of one of my many purposes." Mokuba laughed.
"Okay, well you can take care of any of Jaden's eating needs in the kitchen. The cooks would be glad to have a guest cook something, I'm sure." I nodded.
"Thank you Mokuba, see you later for dinner." He nodded and walked off.
Kari and I started laughing. "three…two…one…
"Alexis, where's the kitchen here!" Jaden said running into the room, and falling flat on his face.
"Come on, I got everything taken care of." He smiled and I escorted him to the dinning area so he could eat. I walked into the kitchen.
"I'm Alexis Rhodes, I'm going to be fixing a small dinner platter for my friend, if you don't mind?" I said introducing my name and purpose.
"You are going to cook, are you sure you would not like us to cook anything for you and your friend?"
"Trust me, I know you are professionals and everything. I respect that but Jaden's a pig when it comes to eating, that more careful I am with what I feed him, the better. If you have something super fancy and healthy I could see if he'll take that instead. I'm sure you're cooking is much better than mine." I said bowing.
A small girl brought a small platter out and tugged on my skirt. "I made this, my parents are cooks, but I make good food, I made this for practice, but it would be nice to get some advice on my cooking skills. Can you give this to him?" I smiled.
"I'll do one better, I'll let you take it to him." All the cooks gasped. "You remind me of a friend of mine, my cook's daughter, and my…uh, well anyway I'm sure that Jaden would love to eat that, it looks delicious and I'm sure he'll eat it all before you can blink. Let's go." She couldn't move. "What's wrong?"
"No one has ever been this nice to me. I live in this kitchen with all these people, I've never left this wing of the house. You're so nice, thank you." She started crying and I picked the little girl up and her platter of food and brought her to the table.
"Who's she?" Jaden asked, she hit behind me.
"Don't worry about him. I don't know your name, what is it?"
"Kate Jenzi, but why don't I have to worry about him?"
"Jaden is just a bit curious. He's enjoys playing around and especially dueling and things like that. He really likes food. His favorite two things in the world would be food and dueling. If you can cook or duel you're safe, but he's friendly."
"Hey that isn't fair Lexy, my most favorite thing is you, and Hailey." I nodded.
"Hailey, who is she?" I looked at Jaden, and he nodded.
"Hailey is our adoptive daughter, she's not with us, she's with her real parents back home but she's just like you." She smiled.
"This is amazing Lexy, so you cook this, this is the best food I've ever ate anywhere." I laughed and shook my head.
"Jaden, that's why Kate is here, she cooked that for practice and she wanted your opinion on it so I decided to let her out of that crazy place to give it to you."
"Wow, this is amazing Kate. It really is the best thing I've ever tasted. You must have practiced a lot to be this good." She smiled and nodded. "Man Lexy, you picked a perfect girl to give your trust to. Kate this is wonderful thank you."
"You're welcome Master Jaden." Jaden fell flat on the floor on his face.
"I think I killed him." She said jumping up and running away. I snagged her by the apron she was wearing. "I didn't mean to, I didn't." She cried.
"No, he's not dead, he's laughing."
"Why?"
"He's not use to being flattered like that. He thinks it's funny that you'd call him Master Jaden." Jaden stopped laughing at sat up.
"Jaden will do fine Kate, no Master. I'm no one's master, except maybe my dog if I had one." She laughed and I smiled once again seeing Jaden's happiness brought to a child, even if it wasn't his own.
After Kate finished serving Jaden food he was so stuff he didn't need food for another four hours, I was happy I met Kate. I came out and Kate happily welcomed Jaden and I at the door. "Hey Kate, what you up to?" Jaden asked.
"Nothing, just cooking food for you. Alexis said you usually eat once every 4 hours at night so in the fridge is food reserved for you. She said that that's the best thank you I could give you."
"Thank you?" Jaden asked.
"She was happy to finally leave the kitchen and meet someone else who didn't live in the kitchen. She also was happy that you liked her food so much. She asked me after you left to lie down what she could do to thank you, and I said that she didn't but after she insisted I told her she could cook some meals for late night so he wouldn't wake up the whole building for food."
"Thank you Kate, but I'm the one who really owes you. Your food was delicious and I enjoyed eating it. Here, take this." Jaden gave her a twenty dollar bill, I smiled at him. "You can cook for me anytime, thank you." She smiled and nodded.
"Kate, what are you doing here? My brother will fire your parents if he finds you out here. I'm sorry that we have to keep you in there, but you can't be out here."
"Mokuba, Jaden asked Kate to…
"…cook for me for in-between meals so I wouldn't have to bother all the other cooks or Alexis when I'm hungry. I was just thanking her."
"Oh, well Kate thanks for taking care of Jaden's food needs but can you head back into the kitchen." She nodded, waved good-bye to us and ran off. We just smiled and sighed.
Seto Kaiba arrived, and we all sat down. "I'd like to welcome you all to my private island estate. Those who I've gathered here, which are you thirteen, are the ones who very much saved my school. I had been receiving calls from parents about how we set up the school but without the students saying anything I had no proof of that, but then you all wrote it down and I had to listen so I changed it. Any questions?" Jaden raised his hand.
"So where exactly are all the other guests for this celebration?" I hadn't really thought about that because I was focusing on myself and the group, not the other guests.
"Simple Jaden, all our other guests are coming over the next few days, I wanted to first thank you all with this day of relaxation and anything you could ever need for saving my school. The partying starts on Thursday when all the guests were told to arrive by." Jaden nodded. "Now that that is settled, let's begin to talk about arrangements for the pro-leagues. What is your choice Jaden and Alexis?"
"We have chosen to take you up on your deal, Kaiba. Dueling great duelists sounds like fun." Kaiba sighed. Mokuba laughed.
"Jaden has the appetite of Joey and the attitude of Yugi; this makes for an interesting duelist, right brother?" Mokuba asked his brother.
"You're absolutely right Mokuba, Jaden is an excellent duelist and I look forward to dueling you and watching you duel, but in order to do that you must get all your stars." Jaden smirked at this, a challenge.
"So any other questions?" Mokuba asked.
"Can we people not in the league duel people from the league; are any of these people good duelists that we can duel without joining?" Chazz asked.
"You see with the exception of 9 of you, everyone here is coming for the initiation ceremony at the end of the weak for people about to join the week, as well as the party, so that would be a no." Chazz huffed. "You have to understand my brother only associates with the top duelists from his school, and pro league duelists and many companies."
"What's the initiation ceremony?" I asked.
"Well Alexis, the initiation ceremony is a ceremony held here at the beginning of the leagues' beginning so we can introduce everyone, their levels, stats who you can start with and end with. It's a way to make sure that good duelists get their recognition." Mokuba explained.
"Can we stay and watch it?" Kari asked.
"I don't see anything wrong with just watching, do you Seto?" Mokuba asked, Kaiba nodded. "So you guys may stay and watch their ceremony."
"How many duelists are going to be here?" Zane asked wondering how many competitors he had.
"15, that's as many as I have found worthy of the great honor, over the year if I haven't seen these top duelists go far, I just remove them from the list, so that's who I've found worthy. A lot of the teachers I've hired will be there."
"How many stars do we start with?" Jaden asked.
"None." Kaiba replied.
"You go to the weaker level testers and if you beat them they give you a star, with so many stars you can go up another level, and so on, so brother set it up so no one can just stay with the weaklings of the testers." I nodded.
We ate dinner and the food was delicious. The others were dismissed and that left, Jaden, Zane, Lisa and myself here. "Let's cut to the chase, you are each going to write your partner's biography because you know them well enough, right?" Kaiba said, obviously annoyed by the silence. We all nodded. "So go out and write it, easy enough; Jaden-Alexis, Alexis-Jaden, Lisa-Zane, Zane-Lisa; now that that is done, we can be dismissed. Kaiba finished.
Jaden Yuki, the slack off student that no teacher would ever want raised the far on dueling beyond anyone's expectations. He went threw the year undefeated except for one match where he lost to Zane Truesdale but later in the graduation match which was their rematch it came down to a tie, both people fighting the way. In that match Jaden learned that no way is better than your own way to duel. Jaden's unique way of dueling is only complimented by his ability and skill he plays the cards. Jaden may hate school work, and forget about it most of the time, but he still is the number one student and duelist at Duelists' Academy today; making him a real competitor for the league.
"So what do you think Kari?" Kari yawned.
"Seeing as we've been up all night working on it and then you just wrote what you felt was best, it's perfect." I found that confusing, but we stayed up all night and it seems perfect.
"Let's go to bed, I believe I'm going to collapse." I heard sounds from the hallway, I checked my watch, and I smiled, Jaden.
"How many meals a day does he eat, seriously Lex, he's so small and he eats that much; it's amazing he isn't the size of a room." Kari commented.
"I heard that Kari!" Jaden yelled. I laughed at them arguing. "Go be entertained with something Kari. I'm hungry." I sighed.
"When are you not?" I asked.
"When I'm thinking about dueling, or you, or anything other than food, that's when." I laughed and got up and accompanied him down to eat.
"So, you ready for all those people to dwell on your accomplishments, from the past, and them to be excited for you to defeat them."
"I'm excited and you and I are both going to take them down." I nodded and we went to meet Kate. It would be a long night, and I'd sleep in.