STRⱯIN

by Kim Chang-Ra

One day, Sakuragi Yū gets a visitor from another dimension. The next day, he begins recruiting a special team of Duelists. The day after that, a daring plan is hatched that could turn the tide of the war against Academia. Seems simple enough, right? … Right? (A collaboration with ThunderingWaterWitch on AO3.)

5. V

V

By the time a nearby clock had struck noon, Kaede, Kiko, and Kiri had reached the largest park in the city, chatting amicably as they crossed the winding paths beneath the trees.

" … and with Ryota," Kiri was saying to Kaede, who was listening to her so raptly that Kiko was having to tap her shoulder all the time so that she didn't bump into anyone, "Aoi—my oldest sister—taught us to do this so that we could tell him he was doing a good job."

She cleared her throat—and then made a high-pitched, warbling noise that was far too shrill to be birdsong. "I had to practice that for a week before my mom would even let me get in the water with him," she said, a little hoarsely. "Being around dolphins is more than just a job, Kaede. It's a way of life. A lot of little girls think it's the coolest thing to do in the world—and they'd be right, let me tell you—but there's more that goes into it than meets the eye."

"Wow … " The Cuisine Duelist's eyes were round as tea saucers and almost as wide.

"So—hang on." Kiko pointed out a bench up ahead, resting beneath a particularly shady tree. "You mentioned your mom and your oldest sister just now—are you saying all those mermaids in the show we saw are your family?"

"Yep," Kiri said airily. "I'm the youngest of six—all sisters. My parents said they gave up trying for a boy after I was born." She smirked slightly at the astonished look on both girls' faces, then continued on. "My dad is head of building security, and my mom helps plan out all our shows. She's been around dolphins for longer than I've been alive. The aquarium in this city might as well be the family business at this point," she added with a laugh.

"You think you'll be in charge of it when you're older?" asked Kiko. "My mom and dad say that'll happen to me with their toy store when I grow up."

Kiri shook her head. "I don't think so. Aoi's the oldest, so it'll probably be her someday. That's one good thing about being the youngest—they don't expect as much from you as they might from your bigger sisters."

She stretched. "Still … when I was little, I remember my mom bounced the idea around about us doing a traveling show with our whole mermaid gig. But then I got interested in Dueling and … well, too many commitments can tie you down, so we ended up staying here to help out at the aquarium. I've been teaching my sisters the basics of the game ever since. And," she smiled, as they reached the bench, "I like to think I've bridged the gap because of it."

The bloomers underneath Kaede's dress made a foof noise when she sat down beside Kiko, who'd sandwiched herself between her and Kiri. "Bridged the gap?" Kaede repeated, pulling off her white shoes.

"Oh, yeah." Kiri's smirk grew wider. "The Blue Sea Duel School didn't get its name for nothing. They weed out applicants with water-based physical tests." She began ticking off fingers. "How fast you can swim, how deep you can dive, how long you can hold your breath—and after all that, how well you can multitask while you're at it."

Kiko blinked owlishly. "So that show at the aquarium wasn't all the way scripted, is what you're saying," she said. "Your Sea Angel getup wasn't just for show—you can actually swim and Duel at the same time?"

Kaede, who'd pulled out a dainty cloth with which to polish the shoes in her hand, goggled in disbelief. She was looking up and down at the Blue Sea Duelist, apparently unable to figure out how such a feat could be possible.

Kiri, for her part, merely shrugged. " … Something like that. Obviously, it's hard to do that if you're actually in the water—but it does help when your Duel Disk and the cards in your Deck are completely waterproofed." She shifted the purse hanging from her arm a little, allowing both girls to get a better look at the device inside. "It's … easier if I show you," she added, perhaps seeing Kaede's inquisitive expression. "I hope I get the chance to do that today."

"Mm-hm!" agreed the little girl.

They sat in silence for a while after that, stretching their legs after the journey from the aquarium. Kaede was dividing her attention between the shoes she was polishing and the park around them. She looked left and right—even past the trees and, at one point, under the bench they were sitting on.

"Where is he?" she muttered as a loose group of joggers ran past them.

Kiko had noticed her friend's odd behavior. "You mean the guy who's tutoring you?" she asked. "Could be he's running late. But I don't think you ever mentioned what time he was going to be meeting us, did you?"

Kaede shook her head. "Nah, it's the boy he's tutoring me with. He's … kind of a weirdo."

Kiri sniffed, leaning back against the bench. "If he's from the Wight School like you said, I wouldn't be shocked."

"Wow—rude much?"

No one was really quite sure about the exact order of the events that ensued. Kiri had only remembered hearing someone speaking in a raspy voice one moment—directly above her left ear, very much out of nowhere. The next moment, she'd let fly with an earsplitting shriek that startled a flock of birds in the branches above, as well as several of the joggers that had passed them earlier.

She'd leapt off the bench and whirled around at the exact same time as a flailing Kiko, narrowly missing the girl's gloved hand clipping her cheek. Kiri got a brief glimpse of the person who owned that voice—a lanky boy about the same size as Kiko, hanging upside down from one of the branches of the tree under which they'd been resting—right before the hand she'd managed to avoid clocked him right in his cheek, sending him off his perch with a yelp. He landed in a tangled heap of limbs and a thud that was mercifully cushioned by the grass beneath.

Kiko, still wide- and wild-eyed from the unexpected interruption, immediately clapped her other hand to her mouth once she realized what had happened. "Sorry—sorry!" she cried out hurriedly. "I didn't mean to hit you, I swear!"

"Speak for yourself!" Kiri was clutching her chest, trying in vain to calm her thudding heart. "There's a thing called personal space—have you heard of it, you little creep?!" she hollered at the boy behind the bench.

Kaede hadn't even turned around; she still polished her shoes where she was sitting. "Hiya, Yūrei," she said, as casually as if she'd just bumped into him on the street. There was no reply save for a long, pained groan behind her.

Rational thought caught up with Kiko at that point. "Wait—hold on. Was that the guy you were talking about?"

"Yep! Why'd you think I was looking everywhere? I wanted to be sure he wouldn't scare you two!" Kaede peered behind the bench. "You okay down there, Yūrei?"

Another groan.

Kiri glared at Kaede. "Mission accomplished." Her clenched teeth did little to keep the sarcasm out of her words.

A hand clutched the bench just then, hauling its owner to his feet. Kiri felt herself gawk at the sight in spite of her anger: the boy was even more outlandishly dressed than both Kiko and Kaede combined! A Black Crystal T-shirt—no doubt for one of those bands her parents would never let her listen to in a million years, judging by the design—clung tightly to his gangly frame, but that was about the most normal thing about his clothes. Everything else, from the boy's heavy black boots and torn skinny jeans—held up with no less than three studded belts, she couldn't help but notice—to the thick bands around his neck and right arm, was nothing but spikes, leather, or both. Most bizarre of all was his colorful hair: even with the slick, purplish-pink bangs, each long enough to spear her, there was still hair to spare—he'd gathered that into a ponytail. She felt a stab of envy; this boy's hair was almost as long as hers.

Almost.

"You look ridiculous." The words tumbled out of her mouth against her will, but it was true—and the angry purple bruise now blossoming across the boy's cheek only drove that point home.

The boy called Yūrei stood now, holding the bench for support. Gray eyes blinked woozily as they tried to focus on Kiko. "Why'd you … hit so hard?" he managed to rasp.

That was as far as he got before a slim hand grasped him by his collar and spun him around. The hand's owner—a tall girl in her late teens, and perspiring enough that Kiri assumed her to be one of the joggers that had passed by just now—looked hopping mad. One glance at her severe expression told Kiri she'd seen everything that had happened.

"Because," the new arrival was growling through clenched teeth, "in case you haven't noticed, people don't like it when strangers pop up out of nowhere, thinking nobody else knows they're there. Especially," she added, "if those people are girls, and those strangers are boys.

"So you don't need to apologize," she said to Kiko—before turning her scornful gaze on Yūrei. "You, however … "

"I still feel bad that I hit him!" Kiko protested. "I flail around a lot when I get startled—it's not the first time that—"

She broke off. Her eyes had flicked to her gloved right hand—which Kiri had just now noticed was twitching oddly. Instantly, Kiko's expression had soured. "Aw, now look what you did!" she cried at Yūrei. "You made me break my hand on your thick skull! I just had this fixed a week ago!"

The older teen whirled around at this so rapidly that her bobbed black hair, slick with sweat, whipped into her face. "I'll call for an ambulance!" she coughed—only to stutter to a halt as Kiko's outburst sank in. "Wait—fixed?!"

Barely a moment later, her puzzlement had morphed into outright bewilderment—as did Kiri's own—when Kiko grasped her right forearm, twisted at the wrist … and physically pulled off her hand.

"Hold this," she said dispassionately to Kiri, offering her the detached limb. The Blue Sea Duelist, still swaying where she stood, took it by the palm as if it were a fragile egg that might shatter if she let it shift even slightly.

Kiko leaned in, unrolling the glove to reveal an antique-looking hand of what looked like polished brass and steel. The fingers were spindly, almost skeletal in their design, and had twisting patterns embossed in the metal.

Reason returned to Kiri then. "A prosthetic?" she heard herself say from far away as she stared at the gloved stump where the arm in her hands had once been.

"Yeah." Kiko did not even look up at her as she peered inside her arm's socket. "I was born without my right hand. No bad car wreck or anything like that—it just … never formed. Kaede and I have been friends since before we started school. We hang out at my mom and dad's toy store after class a lot. So of course she knows all about it."

Kiri tore her gaze away for a split second—just long enough to see Kaede still sitting where she was, apparently unruffled by everything that had happened over the past couple of minutes—and then she was back to staring at Kiko. Or, at least, Kiko's whole left hand, its fingers darting here and there with incredible speed and precision.

"You didn't think to tell me anything about this on the walk over?" Her dazed voice sounded as though she was hearing it from far away. "You had all this time to do that!"

Kiko shrugged with her right shoulder, still focused on her false hand. "Dueling underwater sounds a lot more interesting to me than Dueling with only one hand. I didn't want to hog the spotlight when I'd only just met you."

The newcomer, meanwhile, seemed to have forgotten her anger at Yūrei completely. Her head tilted quizzically as she inspected the false hand. "You … you can Duel with this?" she asked.

"You bet I can!" Kiko beamed. "I had to learn the game one-handed at first, though. And I didn't have my own Duel Disk until last year, either. There aren't enough left-handers in the world for their designs to be in demand. Oh—there we go!" The fingers of her detached hand had suddenly twitched, at which point Kiko inserted the stump of her right arm inside the socket. A few moments later, the fingers began to open, close, and smoothly flex.

"That's better," she smiled. "Anyway, I told you before that Lily's Duel School isn't all the way a Duel School, Kiri—that mostly we help disabled kids learn to play Duel Monsters. They have this 'buddy system' thing, see. When you enroll, you get paired up with somebody about your age that needs long-term care, like someone who can't go to school because they're sick and in the hospital. Or they're stuck in a wheelchair because of a bad injury they got when they were younger. And then you take some time out of your day to keep them company. Maybe you catch a movie or cook something for them. It's not always about teaching them out to play the game."

Kiri nodded thoughtfully. So did the woman they'd just met. "What about"—the latter chewed her tongue for a long moment, trying to find the right words—"developmental conditions? Does your school take that into account?"

Kiko needed a long moment to think about that. " … I'm not the person you want to ask that question. A lot of this stuff gets left to more qualified people—parents and teachers, doctors and caregivers. But we do have some kids like that, both as students and as buddies. I mean, my buddy's nonverbal and bedridden—she's about Kaede's age, loves animals. I helped her pass the entrance exam to Lily's just a few weeks ago. She's been doing the online courses until she's well enough to move about on her own."

The newcomer's expression softened, and a smile briefly twitched on her lips before her confusion returned. "That's certainly nice and all—but what does all that have to do with your arm?"

"Every month or so, Lily's does an in-school tournament for anyone who wants to try Dueling in an Action Field," Kiko explained. "Then, whoever wins them gets specialized equipment for whatever condition they might have. I won one of those tournaments a couple months after I enrolled there, and they helped my parents get both my arm and my Duel Disk custom-ordered for me. Look!"

She produced a Duel Disk from her purse: a vivid, fire-engine red, with its slots for the Main and Extra Decks switched around to accommodate her dominant left hand. Kiko hovered it over her freshly repaired arm for just a moment—and then the Duel Disk jumped right onto the prosthetic as if yanked there by an invisible hook.

"Yep—contained-field magnetics," she said, as if reading Kiri's thoughts. "Helps keep it in place during an Action Duel." She demonstrated this by activating the device, causing a bright green blade to shimmer along her forearm, and then waggling it in several directions. The Blue Sea Duelist was impressed—the Duel Disk didn't even shift.

"Handy." Kiri immediately cringed when the double meaning of what she'd said caught up with her—but Kaede had beaten her to it; the little girl was giggling madly at her unintentional pun.

"Even so, I'd think a prosthetic wouldn't look so … antiquated," the older teen was musing in the meantime. There was something off about her accent that Kiri couldn't quite place. "I'm not trying to sound insulting, by the way—I'm just wondering why you chose this design in the first place."

"I said my parents own a toy store," said Kiko. "So on top of pretty much living and breathing the things since the day I was born, I've been fixing them for half my life, too. My favorites are always those older antique ones—toys that you'd need something like this for, just to turn them on, make them work."

She pulled out a necklace from beneath her blouse; Kiri thought the trinket dangling beneath looked like an old wind-up key. "I like to tinker sometimes," Kiko told them, "to see what makes those old toys tick. So when Lily's 3D-printed this, I told them to use an antique design with some fiddly-bits here and there, so I wouldn't get bored."

"So … Yūrei didn't really break your hand?" Kiri wanted to know.

"Nah. I just shifted a wire when I flailed into him. If he actually had broken this thing, he'd be needing a new hand of his own—and since he's not a Lily's student, he'd be paying for both my hand and his as well," Kiko added with a warning glare at the embarrassed boy. "And good luck winning enough tournaments to pay for them both."

"Ugh … no wonder I feel like I got hit by a truck." Yūrei rubbed gingerly at the swollen mass that now dominated his right cheek. "Look … I'm sorry. I only wanted a laugh—I didn't want to hurt you or anything. I … actually think it's cool that you have that hand."

"Yeah? Keep talking and I might just make sure you need that hand now," Kiko said testily, making Yūrei grab his wrist reflexively. "I'm Kiko, by the way—Maki Kiko," she said to the newcomer. "That's Okashi Kaede from the Cuisine Duel School"—she pointed out Kaede, who waved back—"and that's Minakami Kiri from Blue Sea."

Kiri extended a hand to the teenager, who shook it warmly. "Good to meet you, Miss, um … "

"Jong—Jong Bo-Yeon," was the reply. "Youth Division—Leo Duel School, Busan branch."

This earned several reactions: Kaede was oohing; Kiko and Yūrei were equally slack-jawed—and Kiri felt several puzzle pieces in her brain clip into place: namely, the distinctive LDS pin on the young woman's shirt collar that she had just now noticed, and above that, the jawline and high cheekbones framed by her curtains of ebony hair.

"Busan … " She had to think back to her middle school's geography classes before it clicked. "You're Korean?"

The girl called Jong nodded. "This is my last year with the exchange program," she said. "I'm the oldest student in it—so everyone usually calls me Miss Jong to make me feel even older," she added, rolling her eyes and giving off a pleasant-sounding laugh. "Six months from now, I'll be of age. After that is graduation—and then it's off to Seoul for my bio/geo major, and hopefully somewhere in Vancouver for grad school after that. I might even try to eke out a semi-pro career along the way."

Kiri felt a sudden respect for Jong—here, it seemed, was a woman who knew what they wanted to do in their life, even as being part of the most famous Duel School in the country had saddled her with enough commitments as it was. "What's all the way in Canada for you, though?" she wanted to know.

"Fossils. " Jong grinned. "I'm a history buff—I've been one since I was a kid. Somewhere along the way, I got tired of studying human history and moved on to natural history. Modern humans have only existed for a few hundred thousand years or so—compared to the millions and millions of years that the dinosaurs and the trilobites were around, that's a blink of an eye. There's a lot more of the subject to study than school gives it credit for."

"Wow," said Kiko. "What drew you to history in the first place?"

Jong's smile became softer, more wistful. "I like old things. Antiques, artifacts—fossils, like I said; museums … I like thinking about all the stories they can tell you. It's like stepping into somebody's living room for the first time, and looking at all the little knickknacks they have inside. You start wondering how long they've owned them—how much of that person's life is tied up in this one small, insignificant treasure that wound up in their house."

"Sweet!" Kaede had finished polishing her shoes, and now bounced over to Jong with a toothy grin on her face. "I guess you got lotsa stories to tell us, huh?"

Jong's smile vanished as suddenly as the light of a blown-out bulb. "I'm seventeen, not seventy," she said flatly at the still-grinning Kaede.

"My grandma's seventy," Kaede replied back, "and she runs her own bakery!"

"Here we go … " Kiri heard Yūrei say. Kiko was seen to roll her own eyes, too; Kaede had all but told her entire life story to the Blue Sea Duelist on the way to the park—and nearly without stopping for breath. Kiri was willing to believe that the little girl thought her grandma's life was also a story worth telling to anyone who would listen.

"She taught me how to make these just last week!" The Cuisine Duelist had now produced a plastic baggie from somewhere Kiri couldn't see, and brandished it at Jong. Inside were a few puzzle piece-like treats, and a few crumbs left over from those that the three girls had eaten on the way over. "It's her very own recipe—want one?"

Jong frowned. Yūrei sidled up to her. "I'd take it if I were you," he said, quietly enough that the Korean wouldn't jump ten feet in the air like Kiri and Kiko nearly had earlier. "She'll hold it against you till then."

Apparently Jong could think of no real answer to this, as she shrugged and extended a slim hand. Kaede wasted no time in fishing inside the baggie with her own stubby fingers and plopping a puzzle piece in the other girl's palm.

Gingerly, the Korean nibbled at this—and within moments her almond eyes were wide. "Neomu dal-a!" she said incredulously. "How much sugar did you put in this?!"

Kaede was still grinning. "I have no idea!"

Kiri merely nodded to herself—that had been her reaction as well. Nor was she sure that she wanted to know how much sugar a hyperactive ten-year-old was willing to put into the first thing she'd cooked with her own two hands.

"I heard her say once that her grandma only has one tooth," Yūrei piped up, "and that it's her sweet tooth." This earned a look of renewed concern from Jong at the pastry in her fingers, but she managed to finish it a few moments later. "Yashiki Yūrei," he introduced himself. "Sorry if we, um … got off on the wrong foot. Yū's been … well, he's trying to help me break the habit."

"It's all right," Jong said, though she was still eyeing the Wight Duelist's strange appearance with a concerned eye. "So—Sakuragi's teaching you how to Duel?"

"Well—to Duel better," Yūrei replied. "He's a good teacher—he helped me plan a new combo yesterday that I'm hoping to use for my Dueling exam next week. But I still haven't figured out a way to beat his Deck—neither has Kaede, actually," he added, watching the little girl wolfing down another puzzle piece from her baggie. "I think Yū's probably the best Duelist in Maiami City who isn't part of the Lancers—the way he plays the game is just so much different from how the two of us do it. He's just … cool."

"Have you seen him around yet?" Jong asked—ever since she'd arrived, she hadn't seen the any sign of the boy's telltale lavender bangs. "If he called us here in the first place, I'd think he'd have showed up first."

Yūrei frowned. "What I want to know is where's the guy I found? I made a bet with Kaede that I'd find more Duelists to meet us than she could," he explained, "and she's met three." He cast a crestfallen look at the little girl.

"Two, actually," said Jong, shaking her head. "I'd never seen her before in my life until literally just now. But I did come with another person, though. He should be—" She broke off, looking around the spot where they had all clumped together. Kiri thought she saw a look of annoyance creasing the Korean's mouth.

"Ugh—geuneun-i ttaemada suhaeng," Jong muttered, massaging her temples before turning around. "Roşu, stop skulking around and come on out! They're just kids—I promise, they're not going to hurt you!"

Beside her, Kiri saw Yūrei freeze where he stood. His gaze was traveling from her to Kiko to Kaede and back again, with what the Blue Sea Duelist belatedly realized was a mixed expression of excitement and sudden unease. Seconds later, Kiri's attention was distracted again by something moving behind the tree across from their bench.

Then that something stepped out in full—and Kiri felt her entire body swaying where she stood in absolute shock.

The boy was Caucasian, and definitely older than she was—possibly Jong's age—but that didn't seem to concern her at the moment. He was incredibly attractive—breathtakingly, even, Kiri thought with a swallow. Everything about him, from his tall, rail-thin build, and the pale hands jammed inside the pockets of his spotless black pants, to the narrow eyes and neatly combed hair that looked blacker still, made her wonder if this boy … this man … had stepped right out of Aoi's favorite shōjo manga before stepping out from behind that tree.

Who is this guy—and where has he been all my life?!

Kiko and Kaede, in the corner of her eye, looked equally thunderstruck. The elder of the pair was beet-red in the face, fanning herself with her hand. Kaede was heard to murmur, "He looks like Tuxedo Mask … but taller … "

Then the boy's eyes had flicked upwards to stare back at them—and the Blue Sea Duelist later thought that it was almost as though a switch had been flipped somewhere inside his brain. Immediately, he had turned on the heels of his polished black shoes and started walking down the path—away from them—without uttering a single word.

He'd walked about fifteen feet by the time Kiri became fully aware of her own thoughts just now. But her sudden embarrassment, thankfully, went unnoticed; Jong had rolled her eyes—as had Yūrei, much to her surprise—and the Korean had hurried after him.

"Roşu, wait—!" But before Jong could finish, the boy—Roşu—had spun around. His eyes burned with extreme discomfort, if not outright anger—which surprised Kiri even more.

"Refuz să fiu în aceeaşi cameră ca şi acei idioţi," he growled in a language she didn't know. But the way he was gesturing at her—and Kiko and Kaede as well—made Kiri suspect that whatever he was saying wasn't good. Both girls seemed to realize this, too; they looked just as embarrassed as she had felt just now.

"You watch your language," Jong said sternly. "They don't know any better—"

"They should," Roşu snapped. "Did not come here to be feast for eyes." He muttered something else under his breath that Kiri couldn't make out, regardless of what language it might have been.

Jong, however, was much closer—and whatever Roşu had said was plainly the wrong thing she wanted to hear.

"Vlad!"

The single word cracked like a whip in the air. A stunned Kiri felt as if that whip had just cracked right next to her ear. It had the desired effect, though; Roşu was suddenly giving the Korean his full attention.

A slim finger stabbed the air. "Ulineun iyagi hal geos-ida," declared Jong—and without further ado, she went to the tree under which Roşu had first emerged, dragging him behind her. Before long, they were having a whispered conversation that Kiri couldn't hear—but clearly a heated one on Jong's part, judging by how animated her arms had rapidly become.

A very awkward silence had descended upon the path by the time Kaede voiced the question they were all thinking. " … What just happened?"

"What the heck was his problem?" Kiko ventured. "Who is he?"

"His name's Vladislav Roşu." Yūrei had stepped beside them. His face looked unusually dour—and Kiri somehow thought that the strain on his face of trying to pronounce such a strange name had little to do with it. "He's from LDS, too, if you didn't see the pin on his shirt—Bucharest branch."

Kiri hadn't. She recognized the word 'Bucharest', though—Romania, her geography classes answered again from the depths of her memories. So he's another exchange student.

"If you know what's good for you," Yūrei was saying, "call him by his last name. He doesn't like it when people say his first name here. Everybody always gets it wrong—and he doesn't have the patience to correct them."

Kiko was staring at the Wight Duelist as though she'd just met him all over again. "Wait—you know that guy?!"

Yūrei nodded. "He's the guy I wanted to bring with me today for this meeting with Yū. I met him at a tournament last year—a weekly thing at a small-time card shop near where I live. He'd just arrived in Japan back then—he and this Miss Jong must know each other from that exchange program she talked about." He frowned. "I remember Roşu told me I was the first person in this country he'd ever met who liked him—and his Deck—for more than what they looked like. We've been … sorta-kinda friends ever since."

The way he wiggled his wrist at this made Kiri think even Yūrei wasn't sure what this Romanian Duelist thought of him. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"Yeah," Kaede chirped. "How can you be 'sorta-kinda' friends with somebody?"

Yūrei let fly with a long sigh. Kiri had the impression he was doing some deep thinking. It looked like hard work.

"Roşu … doesn't like to be around people," he finally replied. "He likes his own company more than anyone else's. It isn't just 'cause he's not from around here—it's not even just because even being close to other people is mentally exhausting for him. It's because of what those people always end up thinking when they first meet him."

He narrowed his gray eyes at the trio. "You're not the first girls I've seen go head-over-heels for him; I saw him shoo off a teenager earlier this morning who wanted him to sign her Duel Disk. I was about to scare her off myself because I knew how much she was annoying him."

Kiri felt a fresh wave of humiliation flush her cheeks again. "But … have you seen him, though?" Kiko spluttered. "Why wouldn't a girl get a crush on him? Look at the way he dresses—even my dad doesn't have a suit like that!"

"Oh, Roşu knows he's good-looking," said Yūrei. "But girls and whatever crushes they have on him have nothing to do with it. He doesn't dress up to get their attention—or even because he wants to look good." A pause. "He dresses up because some part of him thinks he needs to. I think it's OCD or something."

Now that he mentioned it, Kiri had noticed how neatly the boy was dressed, even in this warm weather. Even in the romantic dates described by the dog-eared light novels on her bedroom bookshelf, there was always some element of relaxation—of comfort—with how both the boyfriend and girlfriend dressed and behaved themselves.

None of that had been seen within Roşu when they'd first met him. He hadn't felt relaxed—he hadn't even felt comfortable. No wonder he stormed off like that! Kiri now realized.

The Blue Sea Duelist now felt the cold sweat of mortified shame trickling down her neck as Yūrei went on, " … So if you really want to be his friend, then you'll have to accept that about him. Otherwise he won't even give you the time of day—like you saw just now."

Kiri swallowed—but by then, Jong and Roşu were already heading out from the tree and back towards them.

Now that she had a good look at him, Kiri noticed that the boy's body language looked very closed off indeed—his lips were pursed, and his hands were jammed even further into his pockets—but at least he was looking them in the eye this time, and therefore, perhaps, that he knew how bad they all felt at their first impression going so badly awry.

A glint of light on the collar of the Romanian's blazer caught her eye, and she saw a pin identical to Jong's perched there. So Yūrei had been right—he too, then, was indeed part of LDS. For some reason, this made Roşu feel even less approachable to Kiri; no doubt he was an élite Duelist if he'd managed to earn that pin—certainly a few levels above where she was now.

At a nudge to his chest from Jong, Roşu began to speak. "Sorry," he grunted. "Do not like people staring."

His European accent was thick but rich underneath every word he spoke—focus, Kiri thought hurriedly. " … We're sorry for staring in the first place," she said truthfully. "I'm Kiri—that's Kiko and Kaede." She introduced the two girls with a wave of her arm; they waved back at Roşu, but the Romanian gave no sign of returning the gesture.

"Yūrei here told us a little bit about you, Roşu," Kiko chimed in. The narrow eyes flicked over to the Wight Duelist, who nodded. "It sounds like you two go back a ways. Is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself? Break the ice with this bunch of oddballs?"

Roşu only shrugged at this, and said nothing. "Don't take it personally," Jong hurriedly said. "I've known Roşu longer than all of you, and that's probably why he's being so chatty right now."

Chatty?! Kiri privately—and perhaps, she thought, wisely—declined to ask what sort of definition Jong's surly friend had for 'quiet'. "He'll open up when he wants to," continued Jong. "Just don't put any pressure on him."

Kaede offered her baggie of snacks—what few of them were left, anyway. "You hungry?"

Roşu waved a hand in decline. "Had coffee." The Cuisine Duelist looked put out at the refusal, but retreated her bag back into her purse at a look from Kiko.

"So—Sakuragi," said the Romanian. "Is meeting us with friend, yes?"

"That's right."

Kaede and Yūrei sat bolt upright at the voice in the distance they'd just heard. Kiri followed their gaze, and saw two people heading up the path towards them. She didn't know either of them, but the nearer of the pair—tall and thin, though not as much as Roşu, and with light purple bangs slightly longer than the Romanian's black hair—was close enough for her to see some details. Namely, the LDS pin on his white jacket that, having seen it up close twice in one day, was now much easier for her to spot at a distance. This, then, had to be Sakuragi Yū.

The figure at Yū's side looked about the same age as him and Roşu, but stood between the two boys in height, and was noticeably more muscular. Spikes of black hair—longer and wilder than that of his companion, and tinted with dark green—sprouted from his scalp like the spines of a hedgehog. The face they framed—Kiri gawked at the scar that carved from nose to cheek; what on earth could have done that to his face?! she wondered—was rough and weathered, and yet the strange yellow-green eyes within, sunken in their sockets, bore a flame whose intense heat the Blue Sea Duelist could feel even from where she stood.

Kiri's first thought was that this boy had seen some really bad stuff in his life—yet was still determined to survive it. Or, more ominously still, to avenge it—no matter what he had to do … or what he had to sacrifice. She swallowed, hoping that said sacrifice wouldn't end up being her.

"We were behind another tree the whole time," Yū explained to them, gesturing to his companion. "It was his idea—if you'd gone ten more feet, Roşu, you'd have spotted us behind the next tree on your right."

He waved to Kaede and Yūrei. "How's it going, you two?" The two kids waved back.

Kiri frowned. "You were hiding from us?" That seemed an odd thing for a tutor to do. "Why?"

"Kiri, was it?" The voice of Yū's cohort—the Blue Sea Duelist didn't feel ready to use the term "friend" just yet—was gravelly and deep for someone of his age and build. It sounded heavy—both emotionally and physically. That impression of being a survivor—an avenger—was starting to sound a lot more certain.

"I wanted to see how you'd get along with each other," said the boy, "to let you break the ice before you met the two of us. That sense of camaraderie should always be the first thing you look for in any group with a common goal."

He smiled at them—perhaps in the hope of winning them over with a non-threatening gesture. Unfortunately, Kiri and everyone else had seen the teeth that composed that smile—and the sharp-looking triangles beyond the boy's lips looked about as far away from non-threatening as the human body could possibly be.

The Blue Sea Duelist privately thought she had seen more charming smiles at the Maiami City aquarium's shark exhibit. Nor was she alone in her shock and disgust; Kiko and Jong had each taken a step back, visibly—and quite understandably, Kiri thought—unnerved at the sight. Kaede was wide-eyed, and gulped loudly, making a "t-t-t-t-t-t" noise through her teeth, which were now chattering so noisily in spite of the warm weather that the petticoats underneath her gown were vibrating. Roşu's eyebrows had practically melted into his jet-black bangs with how high they were raised—and Yūrei's jaw was so slack that it was dangerously close to bouncing off the pavement.

"Cool … " he could only say, his voice hushed and his eyes wide. He did not seem to notice that half a dozen different people had slowly turned his way with a look of total disbelief. " … Can I do that with my teeth?"

Kiri felt one of her eyebrows twitching. "Yūrei," she said flatly, "if you actually do that to your teeth, I will literally drop everything I do at the aquarium and at Blue Sea so that I can study to become a dentist, just so I can make you my first patient. I'm going to call you into my office, strap you in my chair, gas your idiot face to high heaven—and then, I'll use every last second of our appointment to make sure you regret ever doing such a stupid, stupid thing."

Yūrei cringed. "You could've just said no … " he muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Kiko's already had to fix her arm once today thanks to you, bonehead," Kiri shot back. "I'm not taking any chances; I'm making sure you get a mental image that'll stick in anyone's brain. Even yours."

"Why on earth would you even do that, anyway?" Jong asked, still eyeing the mouth of filed teeth as though it was inches away from her own neck. "Tattooing your face is one thing, but this is another! What was it that made you decide to do this to your own teeth?"

The boy was still smiling, but he closed his lips enough to hide those fangs of his. "You didn't tell them?"

Yū shook his head. "I didn't even know half these people's names until just now," he replied.

The boy smirked. "Well … it's to let those Fusion fanatics know that my old home still has some bite in it yet."

He demonstrated this by making a loud chomping noise in front of them all, drawing back his lips in a snarl to show every bit of the pointed teeth within. Kaede was so wide-eyed at the intimidating display that she didn't even laugh at the play on words.

Kiri, however, wasn't even paying attention to that. "Your … old home?"

The boy nodded. "Sakuragi told me his Duel School turned it into an Action Field—Future Metropolis Heartland."

It was as though all the air around them had suddenly vanished. The last word had felt like a gut punch to everyone present, save for Yū—even Roşu looked shocked at hearing the familiar name.

Kiri hadn't lasted very long in the Maiami Championship: her Duel in the first round had been against a ninja-like Duelist who called himself Hikage. He'd been nothing but a scarlet blur en route to a one-turn kill that knocked her out of the competition. But she'd stayed for the remainder of the tournament—including the Duel where she'd seen that Action Field played for the first and last time in the event. The destructive battle had left her in such bad shock that she'd had to sit out her shows at the aquarium for the next week. And even then, compared to some people—she chanced a look at Kiko, who'd told Kiri more about her buddy on the way over—she had been fortunate.

"Heartland … " Kiko murmured in a daze. "You're saying that's a real place—a real city?!"

"It was a real place." The smile was gone from the boy's mouth. "The same people that attacked your city during that Championship of yours … they also destroyed mine. Whatever carnage you saw during the Duel in that Heartland Field was nothing compared to what they did to the real thing. There's nothing left of it now but ruins and shadows … and the few of us who banded together to fight against the Dueling soldiers of Academia."

Jong was biting her lip. Kaede and Yūrei were equally bug-eyed and open-mouthed.

All eyes were now on the boy. "My name is Kurokōri," he introduced himself. "I'm an Xyz Duelist, like all of you—and that's why I asked Yū to hold this meeting. When Academia invaded Heartland, I joined their resistance to fight back, and take back our homeland for ourselves. Now I've come to your homeland, to see if the seven of you have what it takes … to join them, too."