Shorter chapter this time round and no duels, but I still hope you enjoy! There might bit a bit of break between this chapter and the next with my mid-semester exams coming up, but stayed tuned for more of Tanion's story in the future.

Chapter 15 – Hero and Spirit

Three days after leaving Duel Academy, Tanion found himself walking around the outside of Stromberg Castle's walls, on a grassed cliff overlooking the vast open ocean. Elise had since recovered from her battle with Yusei, but Jorann was still confined to his bed after the attack from Cosmic Blazar Dragon, although he insisted he was fine. Darrien hadn't left Elise's side the whole time she had been admitted to the medical wing, but since then he had been immersing himself in books and diving into the castle's records, sometimes forgetting to eat. Tensions were high amongst Felirae and the other higher-ups, the loss to Yusei and the imminent launch of Operation Theta on their minds. Tanion had found that walking out to this spot helped calm him. He wasn't the type to handle the stressful situation Felirae and the others were having to deal with now.

"Mind if I join you?" a voice asked from behind him.

Tanion turned in his seated position near the edge of the cliff to see Elise standing a few metres behind him. She had a bandage around her upper left arm, but other than that she seemed to have recovered fairly well from her duel with Yusei.

"Of course not," Tanion replied, turning once again to the ocean. "Have a seat."

"It's not often I get to have a break like this," Elise said as she sat next to him.

"Jorann mentioned. One job to the next. No time to stop and think."

"It's nice to stop and breathe every now and again though," she said, gazing at the white clouds above. "If you don't stop every now and again eventually you break down."

A wave crashed into the rocks below. The breeze whistled slowly past Tanion's ear, the sun radiating warmth from the sky above, the hairs on his arms standing on end as a pleasant shiver ran down his back. Compared to the craziness that he had been thrust into since he had arrived, it was heaven. It was the first time since he had arrived that Tanion had been able to see the similarities between his world and this one.

"What was it like, before the war?" Tanion asked her.

"Very similar to your world I'd say, except with Duel Monsters being played everywhere," Elise answered. "There were World Championships for both normal and Riding Duels, and they were broadcast globally, but there was a life outside of the game. Not everyone followed it, although almost everyone knew what it was and had cards lying around somewhere."

"So what did you do before it all then? You a duelist then or not?"

Elise let out a slight chuckle. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me," Tanion said with a slight smirk on his face.

"Fine, fine," Elise said, but she still let out a little laugh. "I used to want to be a journalist. Follow the big stories, the pro players like Yugi and Yusei, that's sort of thing."

"What's wrong with that?" Tanion said. "That's a perfectly good dream to have."

"I know, I know, it's just when I look at where am I now, and what's happened since…" her voice drifted away. "It's just a whole different life, you know? Everything's changed, and it's never going back."

"Did you duel back then?"

"I had the deck I have now," she answered softly. "It was never anything special, but when the war started, both it and I had to evolve. It's amazing what can happen when it's life or death, the power you can find that you never knew you had. I never would've survived past the first year if I didn't have that deck."

"I couldn't imagine what it would've been like," Tanion said. "To me, this sort of day was just your average Sunday. Sit back, relax, and just soak in the good vibes. But for you, and the people here… it's a relic of a time long since passed. That's just very hard to wrap my head around."

"Almost as hard as card spirits and top-decking as a skill?" Elise probed with a wry smile.

"That's different altogether and you know it," Tanion said curtly. "Needless to say it's been a rough adjustment period."

"Yet here you are, one of the strongest at our disposal," Elise noted. "Crazy world."

"Still got nothing on the likes of Jorann though. I've got a lot to learn."

"That's a good attitude to have in this world."

I wonder what she thinks of me, Tanion wondered as they sat in silence. She was the one that brought me into this crazy world. Does she feel remorse for bringing an innocent from Eden into the war? Or is she happy that someone else is around to help in the fight? He glanced over at her as she looked over the sparkling blue water, but he couldn't get a read on her. She seemed so distant and peaceful. He didn't want to interrupt the little respite she was having.

"Have you seen Jorann today?" she asked him eventually.

"No, I haven't been in since early yesterday, been giving him some space after his loss," Tanion answered.

Elise nodded. "I understand. He's probably going to be allowed to leave later today, but he's pretty banged up. He was lucky nothing was broken from that attack."

"Yusei's changed," Tanion commented. "That's not the man I knew from the show. He would never do that to a comrade."

"The war got to him," Elise said. "Even though he was leading the Resistance and I've been here in the Coalition, there were meetings amongst the leaders every six months to assess the situation. I was often taken to those meetings, along with Jorann and Darrien. Every time Yusei just looked worse and worse."

"Did something break him?" Tanion wondered aloud.

Elise's head dropped. "Two years into the war, there was a raid on the old Resistance headquarters, a different one to where you and Jorann went. The Grand Order got to Akiza. Even with the Black Rose, she didn't stand a chance against so many."

"They killed her?"

"She was the only Synchro users' body found," Elise confirmed. "Yusei became more aggressive after that, but launching Theta… I never thought it would ever come to this."

"So… where to next for you?" Tanion asked after a long pause.

"I don't know yet," Elise sighed. "Felirae is so focussed on Operation Theta that he hasn't assigned any other jobs yet. Once Theta is underway though I've no doubt I'll be sent off to stop The Order getting some new piece of tech or sent on a salvage mission of an old warehouse or base."

"Missions don't change much I take it?"

"You could say that," Elise said. "War never changes, Tanion. We've been doing mostly the same thing since the rebel groups were established. Sometimes I wonder if we're even making a difference."

"Elise, ma'am, I hate to interrupt, but your presence is requested in the meeting hall," a voice said from behind them. It was a messenger from Felirae.

"Oh, of course," she said, the voice seemingly breaking her from a trance. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"As you say," the messenger said, bowing slightly before hurrying back inside the walls.

"I'll talk to you later, Tanion," Elise said, brushing the grass off her clothes. "This was nice though. Reminded me of a better time."

"It's nice to hear that I could help you with that," Tanion said with a smile. "If anyone asks after me, I'll be out here."

"I'm sure they know," Elise said. "I'll see you round, Tanion."

The breeze picked up slightly after she had left, but Tanion found himself unable to return to the blissful ignorance he had found himself in earlier. His conversation with Elise had made him realise something about the people here. As much as they were focussed on the war and how it had taken complete control over their lives, they were still people just like him. He could only wonder about the dreams and lives that were destroyed and lost when the Grand Order first attacked, the drastic change they all had to undergo to survive. His admiration for the people here had grown significantly. He wasn't sure he would've survived if he had been in their position.

"You shouldn't doubt your own power, Tanion."

Tanion gasped and thrust himself away from the voice, whom he had not hear approach. However, upon seeing who was standing in front of him, in his red jacket and with his long brown hair, his fear and cautiousness turned to shock and awe.

"You… how did you get here?" Tanion demanded.

"You know what I am," Jaden said with a smirk. "Being both human and spirit gives me abilities that most people don't."

Tanion laughed uneasily. "I'm guessing they're a bit different to the ones shown in the show."

"I wouldn't say different, just more... advanced," Jaden said as he took a seat beside Tanion. "After being together with Yubel since long before the war, I am both human and spirit, and have the abilities of both."

"So you, what, teleported here?"

Jaden simply smiled. "Something like that."

Tanion noted that the Jaden before him seemed much older than the one that had been shown in the show he had watched online. Although it was undoubtedly him, he seemed to be in his mid-twenties, much like how Yusei had appeared to be pushing toward thirty when he had seen him. I suppose this world doesn't have to follow the laws of the shows exactly, even though it was born from it, Tanion thought to himself.

"Shouldn't you be afraid of people seeing you? The chaos it'd cause?" Tanion asked him.

"I'm still in my spirit form. Only those who I want to see me can see me," Jaden answered. "It's very useful really."

"That's… you know what, after the shit I've seen recently, I'm not even surprised," Tanion said.

"You were at Duel Academy three days ago," Jaden said, evident that he had come with a purpose. "And you know that Jorann is joining Yusei with Operation Theta."

"I do," Tanion said, straightening himself out. "I hear it's basically a death wish."

"Sneaking into the enemy capital to kill their leaders? Pretty much," Jaden agreed. "It could work, but Yusei and his men can't pull it off."

"No one seems to think they can," Tanion said dejectedly.

"They need someone to help them, someone who knows Duel Monsters as something different to what we know it as," Jaden said. "Someone like you."

"I'm not going with Jorann," Tanion said flatly. "I'm not losing my life like that."

"If you don't, they'll die," Jaden stated. "If you go, some of them may survive."

"How do you know all this?"

Jaden tapped his head. "Yubel," he said. "In much the same way that my spiritual powers have grown over the years, her ability to understand this world has grown substantially. She can predict things that I never would've been able to see."

"Why does she care anyway?" Tanion asked. "It isn't like her... or at least how the show portrayed her… to care about Theta. It doesn't concern you."

"But it does," he replied. "It's the snowball effect that will get to me. She can't tell how, but she has a terrible sense of foreboding about Theta. If all of you die… who knows what will happen."

"I'm sorry, Jaden, but I simply can't," Tanion admitted. "I'm too new to this world, I'm still green to the war and everything really. I'd only hamper them, slow them down, or worse yet, get us all caught."

"You won't," Jaden said confidently. "Have a bit of faith in yourself, Tanion. You weren't pulled from Eden for no reason."

"I don't feel like I'm ready though."

"Those around you do, I can tell. I've no doubt Felirae will ask you do go along with Jorann anyway, despite the risks. He will want to invest as much as he can into Theta so that it has even a remote chance of succeeding."

"I won't have a choice if he does, will I?" Tanion realised.

"Not really, no," Jaden acknowledged.

"So is that why you're here?" Tanion asked with a hint of discontent. "To warn me that I'm about to be sent to die?"

"It was one of the reasons I am here," Jaden said. "You would've heard by now that Yugi Muto disappeared when the war began, correct?"

"One of the first things I was told upon arriving here in fact," Tanion replied.

"Yugi is… well, he's in touch with the energies of the world in ways that even Yubel can't seem to comprehend," Jaden tried to explain. "When he felt you appear in our world, he explained it by saying that 'it was like a hole had been torn in the energy of the world.' He's never seen anything like it, and frankly, Yubel is concerned about what it could mean."

"I'm not from here," Tanion said. "I suppose it'd make sense that I don't fit with the 'energy' of this world, whatever that means."

"The other reason I came here was to give you a warning," Jaden said, suddenly serious. "You're going to face many trials in the days to come, Tanion. Operation Theta may only be the start for you. Whatever you do, keep your morals about you. You must not lose sight of what's important, and always keep faith in your deck. They can guide you through the dangers of tomorrow. They can and will protect you if you trust in them."

"I'll bear it in mind," Tanion said, nodding. "I realise that I'm different to the rest of you solely because I come from Eden. I'll make sure to make sure I'm not losing my way."

Jaden nodded, and stood, seemingly content. "One last thing before I go," he said. "This is perhaps the most important thing of all."

"I'm listening."

"I know you'll want to, but tell no one of our meeting," Jaden implored. "Not only does Yugi not want people to know, for whatever reason, what's happened to him, but I can't allow people to know about my…. abilities."

"I understand," Tanion said, nodding in acknowledgement. "My lips are sealed."

"I'll be going then. May the Three guide you," Jaden said in an ironic tone.

Tanion chuckled. "May the Three guide you as well."

And with that he was gone, leaving Tanion to wonder what the hell had just happened.