Me: Ahehe, hi everyone!

Astral: Yes, hi indeed.

Me: What?!

Astral: Oh nothing. You've just been slacking off like usual.

Me: Hey, tumblr's fun! Anyway, I do not own Yugioh Zexal. Yet…. (laughs evilly)

Astral: Oh no.

Chapter 8: Relating over a Card Game

Yuma opened his eyes slowly. He was lying in a bed. A hospital bed? Maybe. He was holding onto something. It felt warm. Yuma tried to focus on who it was and smiled slightly. It was Kotori. He was holding onto her hand. Why was she looking so worried?

He looked around the room. Huh? Why was Kaito, Shark, Rei, Sarah, and Astral all looking so worried?

"Oi, what's with all the gloomy faces?" He tried to joke. "You're making me gloomy too!"

"Yuma! You're okay!" Kotori yelled tearfully.

"Of course I'm okay! Do you seriously think, whatever that happened, could keep me down?"

Kotori smiled a bit through her tears. "You're such an idiot!"

"What were you doing, walking into a place that's obviously a trap!" Shark asked. "Do you realize what could have happened?! This world is obviously more dangerous than ours, and you've never had to deal with gangs back in our world! You could've died!"

Yuma backed up slightly in the bed. "Sorry." He said, looking down. "I just—"

"Wasn't thinking like usual." Kaito said seriously. "I swear, you have rice balls up there instead of a brain."

"Stupid Touma!" Orbital added next to him.

"We were all worried so much about you!" Rei said. "You weren't waking up after half of those thugs ran away so we had to drag you all the way back to the market and find a phone to call the hospital!"

"Oh…" Yuma said. Rei had a black eye. Kotori's arms were bruised. Sarah seemed the worst of them. There were scratches all over her, still bleeding. Her left cheek was red and swollen, like someone had hit her there hard. She was still shaking slightly.

"Hey, what happened while I was out?" He asked. "How'd we get away from there?"

"Well….." Kotori and Rei both looked at Sarah, who was still shaking.

"Too dark….. too cramped…." She was muttering. "Too small…. Get me out…."

"We think she's in shock." Kotori said. "We don't know why though."

"She just kind of freaked out back in there." Rei said. "And then…."

-flashbackofsomesort-

"Yuma!" Kotori screamed.

"What's going on?" Astral yelled.

Sarah was shaking in the corner. "Too small…. Too dark…. My fault…. All my fault…."

"We're gonna get a lot of money for these kids!" One thug said.

"Not again…. Not again…" She was holding her head and mumbling. "Please…. Not again…."

"Stop this now!" Rei yelled, standing protectively in front of Kotori and Yuma.

"Shut up!" A thug punched him in the eye. Rei fell back, his eye throbbing in pain. Another one grabbed Kotori from behind hard and she yelled in surprise.

"Hey, what's wrong with the kid over there?" Another thug said and pointed at Sarah. "Looks like she's hyperventilating or something!"

"Who cares! Let's just tie her up and get onto the other three!"

"Not again…. Not again…. Not again!" Sarah yelled as a thug came near her. Suddenly, a knife slashed across the thug's stomach. He fell over unconscious, a large cut over his middle.

"W-Wha—" Another one said before he was stabbed by her in the stomach as well. He fell down. The rest of them panicked and tried to attack. Some managed to hit her, but then got cut. In the end, they all ran out of an emergency back exit.

"S-Sarah?" Kotori said. "Are you okay?"

Sarah was standing in the middle of the place, still shaking and panting and holding the bloody knife. She looked at Kotori slowly.

"Please," she said, her voice trembling, "let's get out of here…."

-Aaaaand, flashback over-

"And that's what happened." Rei finished.

Yuma stared at him. He couldn't believe what he just heard.

"What?" He said intelligently.

Sarah got up and ran out of the room as soon as Rei finished. The door slammed shut and the room was quiet.

"What do you think is wrong with her?" Kotori asked.

"She seems to have some sort of fear towards the dark and enclosed spaces. It is possible she is nyctophobic and claustrophobic." Astral said.

"What does Santa Claus have to do with small dark places?" Yuma asked.

Kaito sighed. "Claustrophobia is the fear of small and enclosed spaces. Nyctophobia is the fear of the dark. Why though, that's a completely different matter."

"Shouldn't we ask her parents to see if they know anything?" Kotori asked.

"The hospital phoned them. They said they were too busy to come." Shark said.

"But they're her parents!"

"And that doesn't change the fact that they refused to come just because of their work."

"They apparently value their work over her." Kaito added.

"It seems both of her parents are very important computer businesspeople." Orbital said. "So they have to work most of the time."

"That would explain part of it." Kaito said.

"Yuma." Astral started. "Why did those men back then not duel? It seems they did not know how to? How is that possible?"

"Well, that's, uh…"

"You haven't realized yet?" Shark said. "This world and ours main difference?"

Yuma stared at him. "No not yet."

"The main difference is," Kaito explained, "that this world doesn't duel."

"What?!"

"At school today, nobody knew who I was." Shark said. "At first, I thought it was because of that fake name Sarah made me use. Then I realized. It's just a game in this world. Nothing else. People settle things through real fighting here, as if everything is a gang to fight in."

"That's terrible." Kotori said.

"That makes no sense!" Yuma said. "Dueling is everything! How can it not be important here!"

"That would also be why Sarah doesn't carry her d-gazer around and takes a knife instead of her deck. I saw it at home." Kaito said. "Her deck's covered in dust. She barely uses it. But then, a knife is still a pretty violent act."

"Excuse me?" A nurse walked into the room holding a clipboard. "I've come to check on Mister Yuya Tsukune. Could you all please exit for a while?"

"Sure." Kaito nodded as he and the others walked out back to the waiting room.

Kotori fidgeted in her seat. She stood up. "I'm going to go look for Sarah."

"This hospital is huge. It'll take forever to find her." Shark said.

"I think I know where to look." She answered and ran down the hallway.

Kotori had a pretty good idea where Sarah was. Most people would hide in a place that was small and dark, away from others. But then, judging from how she had reacted when they were trapped inside those thug's trap, there's no way she would go there.

Kotori ran into the stage room, where doctors would sometimes visit to see others demonstrate new methods for patients. It was huge and brightly lit. She looked around.

Sarah was hiding and crouching behind the closest chair to the door. Kotori went over and touched her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Sarah looked at her slowly. ". . . Nah, not so much."

Kotori looked at her. She suddenly looked really tired, like everything was beating on her. "You know, carrying a knife around is dangerous. I'm not sure about this place, but back home, you could get in lots of trouble for having one."

"I don't want to get trapped again." Sarah said. "I was tied up and stuck in a little broom closet for 20 hours once. Nobody came looking for me for that long. It was just a coincidence that the janitor needed some supplies from it and happened to unlock the door. I don't want to get caught by the kidnappers again. So I carry it around."

Kotori thought about it. Being stuck in a small, dark broom closet for 20 hours. No wonder she was scared of small spaces and getting trapped in them.

"I liked dueling. It was fun." Sarah continued. "Except nobody would play with me. I made a deck once, then couldn't play with it, so I left it somewhere. I don't remember where. I'm no good at anything really."

Kotori didn't know what to do. She wasn't a person who knew how to take care of mental trauma or social problems. She was only a supporter to others. She was always stuck on the sidelines and could only cheer others on.

"Hey, why don't you teach me how to duel sometime." Kotori said. "Then we can duel each other. You can also duel Yuma and Shark and Kaito-san too."

Sarah looked up at her in shock. Then she smiled slightly. "Sure."

Kotori held out her hand. "Come on. Time to go back."

Sarah took the hand. Kotori helped her up and the both walked back to where Shark and Kaito and Rei were waiting. Yuma was also with them. He noticed them and waved them over.

"They said I'm better now!" Yuma said, smiling. "So we can go back home now!"

"Yeah." Sarah nodded. "Let's go now. Before anything else happens."

-linebreakofsomesort-

". . . and then after all that, you just end your turn!" Sarah finished explaining to Kotori. The two girls sat in Sarah's room, surrounded by piles of different cards.

"Oh! And that just keeps going back and forth until someone's lifepoints reach zero, right?" Kotori asked.

"Well, there are some other ways to win other than lifepoints reaching zero. Exodia would be an example. Get all five pieces of it into your hand and you automatically win, no matter what! Plus there's deck destruction as well. If you run out of cards in your deck, you automatically lose anyway. And a few others, like Ouija Board." Sarah said, holding up the cards she said as she spoke.

"Still, you have a lot of cards here!" Kotori said and picked one up. "This is Obelisk the Tormenter! Yuma said it a one of a kind card used only by Yugi Moto, the first King of Games!"

"Yeah, except it's not so rare in our world. You can buy it online at some websites." Sarah said. "So, you know what kind of deck you want to make? You can choose from any card here!"

"Really? Thanks!" Kotori looked through the cards and took one. "How about this one!"

"Little Fairy?" Sarah looked at the card and smiled. "It kinda suits you! Bit like my deck!"

"What kind of deck do you use?" She asked.

"Ahehe…. Anyway, we don't have working duel disks or d-gazers, so we just put the cards on the ground to duel. Or a table if we have one."

They both heard whispering from outside the door.

"Do you think we should let them in?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah. Otherwise they'll be there the entire day!" Kotori answered.

Sarah sighed, got up, and opened the door. Yuma and Rei burst in.

"Woah! You have Slifer the Sky Dragon!"

"Yuma-kun! There's also the three Sacred Beasts!"

"To think you'd have this many cards." Shark said as he also walked into the room.

"I have free time. I need to use it on something." Sarah said and turned to look at Yuma and Rei, dancing in the middle of all of the piles of cards.

"Oh cool!" Yuma yelled and took another one. Then he tripped on a stack. Which caused another one to fall over. And another. Everyone else stared as every neat and organized stack of cards the room fell over and scattered everywhere.

Sarah stared as all of her hard work organizing every card was ruined in less than 5 seconds. She took a deep breath. "YUUUUUUUMAAAAAAAA!"

Me: Well, next chapter's gonna be fun! And also I decided to add some Skyshipping in this fanfic, so it's gonna be FUN!

Astral: Oh no.

Me: It's gonna be REALLY FUN!

Astral: Why?

Me: Cause it's fun shipping those two together! Anyway, review, favourite, follow, eat some chips and salsa, and hope it's better than my mom's cause she was buying salsa this weekend for nachos, didn't look at the label, and accidentally took extra-hot. Let's just say all the firemen and fire trucks and water in the world were not enough to hold down all that heat I was feeling in my mouth.

Astral: (sighs)