Last Duel of No Regrets
Chapter 2

They did get the popcorn. And Asuka's laptop and data stick and she'd said that anyone who got butter on her keyboard or in the circuit would be cleaning it with an earbud. Or paying for its cleaning of the culprit was Fubuki.

Which caused said male to point out he took great care in maintaining his guitar. Including constantly restringing it, and not getting any crumbs or other stains on it, contrary to popular belief. Shou had laughed and added something about Manjyoume's black jacket – that he still wore, though now it was a little too short. He'd keep wearing it though, he said, until he found "the perfect replacement". Asuka believed he wasn't really looking – or else was worse than Junko and Momoe when it came to picking clothes. Fubuki just figured he wasn't up to the effort of changing it.

Ryou chuckled quietly as he listened and watched. Of his brother's friends, Manjyoume he knew the least. He'd been gone from the stage by the time the youngest of the Manjyoume brothers had arrived on it. He'd arrived at Duel Academy during his graduation year and been at another school for a good portion of it…and, at the match, Ryou had honestly been paying more attention to Judai's duelling than his opponent. He had to admit it: he hadn't thought much of that person back then. Though he'd seen enough to appreciate the lengths he'd come when he'd seen the reply of his duel with Edo. And not only because he could respect that beating Edo was no easy task at all.

And keeping one's pride in tact in front of Edo was no easy task either. Though, in his opinion, it was Judai who'd scraped his pride off the bottom of the barrel and handed it back. But it was a moot point either way.

The duel was starting and the conversation was dropped in favour to watch it.

.

Edo hadn't lost any of his sharpness after his defeat at Manjyome's hands, though his reputation had gone through a bit of sledging. Much like Ryou had found his own had after Edo defeated him. A sign of how cruel the professional world could be; how much one duel could matter.

But, unlike Ryou, Edo's duelling skills didn't collapse like a pile of cards. His being didn't collapse. He didn't wander, half blind, searching for that thing that had had held him up over the years. That thing that had made him strong. Edo had discovered it earlier. With Judai perhaps. With that secret duel that few people saw, and only a few more heard about. A duel that had somehow stayed away from the ears of the media. Maybe because so many other things had happened at the same time. Maybe because it targeted Duel Academia's reputation as well as Edo's professional career. Asuka had told him about that reporter, looking for something to damage the Academia's reputation. There was lots, if one knew where to look, what to say. But the Academia guarded its secrets well, and not necessarily by force or secrecy.

They were like a family who didn't sell other families out. He hadn't seen much of it in his day. They'd lost friends then. Been betrayed. And there'd been no-one to bring things back. They'd only gone on. Forgotten. Changed.

Yusuke had seen that. Ryou had not. Both of them, perhaps, had made bad choices regarding that. But Yusuke would be graduating next year. Three years at the Academia after his return from the Darkness. One year after, because his body and mind had needed to recover first.

Ryou was resting now.

He wondered if Edo had found a home, and his peace, at Duel Academy. He'd eventually finished his formal education – though a great deal more sporadically than most other students. In fact, he was doubtful Edo had enough attendance credit at all – but then again, Judai had been lacking in that department too, and Chronos had come up with quite the pile of homework to replace it.

Ryou couldn't say he envied that alternative. He'd never been a fan of homework, however diligent he'd been at completing it. Duelling was another matter: bread and butter, life and soul. Watching Edo on screen with that snarky yet lazy little smirk on his lips, hearing him call out those card names that fell so easily from his lips and slip the cards themselves into disks like he could do it in his sleep made him want to get his duel disk out of the briefcase he'd carefully put it in and duel. But he was saving that. The doctors didn't want him doing anything too strenuous before his operation and he didn't want to give them a reason to take away his cards and duel disk entirely. Not yet, anyhow. He stood by what he'd said three years ago. He was going to choose the way he died, and he would choose duelling over anything else: lying down and waiting, asleep on an operating table…

If it couldn't be helped, it couldn't be helped. And he wasn't dying in the next few days, he thought. But a death before he could have that duel would be a death he would come to regret – whether that was in any afterlife that existed or next life or whatever happened after one died. Even if nothing happened at all. The last moments, knowing there was something he'd wanted so badly to do but didn't, would be the worst…

Then he chuckled. He was feeling fine at the moment, watching Edo give his opponent a good trouncing with both words and cards. Wasn't even worth Edo's time; he wondered why the other had wanted them to watch, but figured that was just Edo's part in the cheering him up campaign. It had quietened down a little, but when he'd been admitted for the long stay, he'd gotten a rather long stream of phone calls and visitors. Even Chronos had shown up at his bedside and shed a good many tears.

Ryou had wondered how many tears the good professor would shed at his funeral, then tossed the thought out because it had been so macabre. But it wasn't the first macabre thought he'd had, nor the last. Nor was he particularly concerned, his heart having already stopped a number of times over the years. And he'd already had one open heart surgery and walked on for a good three years.

It had been quite unfortunate timing, as despite the state of the world then, he would have liked to be able to duel for his life. But he'd had no deck at all back then. And still unable to move much off the wheelchair.

'Edo should stop playing around,' Asuka said disapprovingly, when the American skipped over a chance to attack. 'He hasn't shown any mind for strategy that will make use of his extra lives.'

'It's all in good fun,' Fubuki disagreed. 'I imagine the fans who paid for their seats would be quite disappointed in the match ended early. They want a good show.'

'The professional duelling world is a strange one,' said Shou. He'd learned much about it in helping his brother establish their own circuit: smaller, fairer and more evolving, or so they hoped. There was still quite a bit to iron out, namely how to encourage such evolutions in decks and duellists, but what had gone well so far was keeping money-louters and those who thrived off public opinion far away. It helped that they had good friends in equally good positions: Edo and Manjyoume with their financial backings, Duel Academia with their prestige, Momoe and Junko who, while working with children, had learned the ins and outs of promoting unity and teamwork, Hayato who worked at Industrial Illusions and saw quite closely the evolving face of cards and card designs. Though it would be more accurate to say they were all Shou's friends. Even Judai, who'd pulled strings in invisible places – or places only he seemed to know about.

Ryou may have come up with the idea, but it was Shou who had made it happen. And that was okay, because it was an idea, not a dream. He was an individual. Not a leader, though he knew there were many at Duel Academia who'd looked up to him. Not as many as those who'd looked up to Judai. Or Shou. Or Asuka or Fubuki or Manjyome or all those other successful people of that generation. It was a passing thought, if other people could grow like Shou had, could evolve…

What he'd wanted most was to evolve himself. And he had. Or might have. It was hard to know, because he didn't duel the same any more. No more underground. No more long and invigorating duels that bore on the body because his chest would ache before the end of it. More often than not it had been his body that withdrew from the match before his mind. His heart stuttering or his breath catching one too many times in his throat and making his vision spot.

And then a blood clot floating around from somewhere had gotten stuck and caused his second major heart attack. Unless the ones in the other world had counted too. He wasn't sure. He wasn't a medical expert and nor were any witnesses to say otherwise. And he'd been signed up for a longer stay. The clot had been sent on its way and several tests afterwards checked out the consequences. And decided he needed another surgery before he could back on his feet. And a stress-free life thereafter.

Ryou couldn't say he was happy with that. Limitations were not things he worked with. Creating an entire other duelling circuit may not be his dream, but experiencing the greatest duel was. A duel with the duel disks, with the holograms. With an opponent that would stand and grin at him as he beat him down. Who he could exchange equal blows with. Who would transcend that limit of his body, mind and soul – that limit he'd five years ago called perfection.