News of the duel reached the ears of the entire student body by the end of first period thanks to the quick work of Nathan and his gang. So at lunch time, everyone was present to see the duel. Yuya stood in the middle of the field, duel disk all fired up and ready to go. He looked down and noticed his hands were shaking.

Why am I so nervous? Duelling supposed to be fun. He thought. Of course he never usually had anything to loose when he duelled. Now his self-preservation and self-dignity was on the line. Sure there were worse things to loose, but he couldn't help but be a bit nerve-wracked.

Varsch on the other hand was with Zuzu at the other end of the field, feeling on top of the world.

"Are you sure about this?" She asked him.

"I have to find some way of getting through to him, maybe I can figure out why he's been so harsh towards you lately."

He cupped the right side of her face in his hand and looked at her with his best comforting gaze. It worked like a dream, she melted into his touch and smiled warmly, fully accepting what he said. Satisfied, Varsch took his place at the other end of the field to begin the duel.

"I think I'll start off," He said, drawing his first card. "First I summon my White Tiger in attack mode."

As the card said, a large white tiger appeared on the field.

White Tiger – ATK 1400

"But it won't be sticking around, because I'm going to sacrifice it to summon a monster I'm sure you're familiar with. Yin Warrior!"

His tiger disappeared and Yin Warrior took its place.

Yin Warrior – ATK 2600

"Next I place two cards face down and hand over to you."

"Okay then, I draw. Next I—"

"Not so fast!" Varsch cried. "I'm activating a trap, Warriors Barrier, since you just drew a card I can use this card to prevent you from using a certain type of monster or card for the rest of the duel. And do you know what." Varsch smirked. "I choose your pendulum cards."

"What?!" Yuya cried.

"What?!" Everyone else cried a second after.

"You heard me, you must now banish all your pendulum cards from the game."

Yuya just gaped at him. No pendulum cards. But pendulum cards were his ace, how would he win without them?! He gritted his teeth in frustration and removed his pendulum cards from his deck.

"It's still your turn Yuya. Come on, you're an entertainment duellist right, so entertain us. We're waiting." Varsch cried, gesturing to the crowd. Yuya was so confused right now he didn't know what to do. He was supposed to entertain people right? Why was he finding it so hard?

"I, uh, I summon preformapal hip hippo in attack mode." Yuya said, summoning said monster.

Preformapal Hip Hippo – ATK 800

"And I place a card face down." Yuya said, finishing his turn.

"That's it?" Varsch asked. "Where's the excitement? Where's the fun?"

"Yeah!" Nathan called from the crowd. "This boring, at least try to make it more interesting."

The crowd all gave cries of agreement, yelling very negative things at Yuya. Yuya himself looked like a deer caught in headlights. He'd never been treated like this by a crowd before. It was a dueltainers job to make everyone happy, but now all they wanted to do was yell at him.

"I… Um…" Yuya stuttered.

As she was watching, Zuzu found herself feeling sorry for Yuya. Sure he'd been acting like a jerk recently, but he didn't really deserve to be slammed in a duel like this.

"Whatever, I'm only doing this to make you pay for the way you've treated my lovely girlfriend." Varsch said, winking at Zuzu, causing her to blush.

"Well she deserved it," Yuya huffed, keeping up his act. He had to keep Zuzu away, to keep her safe. Even though seeing the way she blushed at Varsch made his heart twist in pain.

"How dare you!" Zuzu cried, face turning red in anger.

"Don't worry darling." Varsch soothed. "I'll make him regret that."

He drew from his deck as his turn commenced.

"And this is just the card to do it." He smirked. "I play shining lanterns." The mentioned card appeared on the field. It showed a picture of Chinese lanterns. "This card allows me to create a clone of my Yin Warrior." Another Yin Warrior joined the first one on the field.

Yin Warrior – ATK 2600

"Now I activate Polymerization to fuse my two Yin Warriors. I fusion summon, a monster you should already know and fear. Yin-Yang Sorcerer."

Yin-Yang Sorcerer – ATK 3200

"Yeah!" The crowd cried, getting excited at last. They all began cheering for Varsch causing Yuya to stare around him in disbelief. This wasn't right, he was supposed to excite the crowd. But they were all against him now.

"And incase you were thinking of using that facedown card to help you, you can think again, because I activate the Great Wall magic card."

One of his face down card's flipped up revealing an image of the great wall of china.

"This card blocks all your cards' effects for this turn."

Yuya gasped.

"And I'm not done. Now I activate my sorcerer's special ability, she gets an extra thousand attack points for every spell or trap card on the field." There were three spell and trap cards so Yin-Yang sorcerer got a lot stronger.

Yin-Yang Sorcerer – ATK 3200 – 6200

"Sixty-two hundred attack points!" Yuya gasped.

"More than enough to wipe you out!" Varsch cried, "Yin-Yang sorcerer, end this!"

A huge flash left his sorcerer's staff and destroyed Yuya's monster.

Yuya Sakaki – LP 4000 – 0

Yuya was frozen to the spot for a few seconds as everyone just stared, still taking in what had happened. Then suddenly everyone began cheering.

"Yeah!"

"Go Varsch."

"You show that loser who's the best."

"Yeah get off the stage you duelfailure!"

Yuya collapsed to his knees, still unable to believe what had just happened.

No. He thought as tears stung the corners of his eyes. This can't be.

"Sorry Yuya." Varsch said, using his nice act again. After all, Zuzu was watching. "But you've been acting horribly to my girlfriend and I couldn't stand it anymore." He was now stood directly in front of Yuya's pathetic form. "The three of us were supposed to be friends, don't you think you should just appologise."

"No!" Yuya yelled. "I am not your friend! And I don't want to be Zuzu's friend anymore either."

Those words hurt both Yuya and Zuzu more than the other would ever know. Yuya regretted them the moment they left his lips. But at the same time, he knew pushing Zuzu away was the only way to keep her safe.

"Too bad." Varsch muttered, kneeling down so he was level with Yuya, he leant forward and whispered in his ear so only he would hear. "And by the way, just look around you, listen to the way the crowd hates you. You saw how pathetically you just dueled. Face it, you'll never be a good dueltainer. You can't even measure up to that useless coward you call a father."

And with that he left. He went back to Zuzu. tears finally streamed down Yuya's cheeks as Varsch's words hit their mark. And the final shreds of self-worth Yuya had for himself were gone. Only self-hatred was left in their place. And his heart was completely shattered when he looked up and saw Varsch making out with Zuzu. The two of them looked so happy and in love. It was the way Yuya had always wished Zuzu would look at him, but instead it was towards someone who tormented him everyday. He pushed his way out of the crowd and ran as far away as he could. He refused to stay after he'd been so thoroughly shamed and heartbroken. But no matter how fast he went, he couldn't outrun his thoughts. They were all telling him the same thing. That Varsch had won, and he was nothing but a loser.

What he would never know was that Nathan and his group had fixed Varsch's deck and duel disk so he would get exactly the cards he wanted, when he wanted them. The perfect cards to counter Yuya's, which Varsch had studied extensively while they were in his possession.