XII

The best thing Yū could say about his trip from Central Park to his Duel School was that it felt much shorter in his head than it did on his feet. One moment, he'd been hurriedly excusing himself from the group, just barely listening to Roşu and Miss Jong—mostly the latter—making promises to look for Yūrei before it got too late in the day. The next, however, he'd found himself making a beeline through the glass doors of LDS and straight through its lobby, only pausing in his pace once the elevator doors had hissed shut behind him.

The moment he felt the lift lurch upwards ever so slightly, Yū felt something in his brain give way. All of a sudden, his stress had shot through the roof, and it took everything in him to not slump against the glass partition that let him gaze out at the rising skyline of Maiami City.

It was not the prospect of meeting his headmistress that made him so apprehensive. He'd met Akaba Himika before, after all, and their last encounter had been very recent. But things had been different back then; the only thing he'd had to worry about was his standing in the school after how laughably he'd performed at the Maiami Championship, albeit away from the focus of the action. When he'd been called up to her office that day, he'd been so scared about being tossed out on his backside that he'd made a head start on packing his things, just in case.

Instead, Himika had told him that two students from other Duel Schools had wanted to be Lancers themselves—and that a variety of circumstances involving their three circuit reps (he knew Yaiba was in the hospital; Himika would only say Hokuto was 'indisposed'; and she'd refused point-blank to answer any questions about Masumi from there) had put him, Sakuragi Yū, in the best possible spot to gauge these two students' potential.

The rest, as the old saying went, was history—but now, however, the script had been flipped. He'd been meeting more students thanks to Kaede and Yūrei, and helped in gauging their potential as Duelists—but instead of them coming to him for help, he'd come to them. Surely even his headmistress couldn't find anything wrong with that.

Yes, that was it, Yū thought, as he forced himself to stand at his full height; she's just going to tell me I've been showing a lot of initiative. It's what every senior student at LDS has to do, right?

His thoughts went to Yūrei, last seen streaking away from the park with tears in his eyes. I hate that it happened, he seethed in his head, but how could I have expected it to happen all the same? That had been the oddest thing about all this, now he thought of it. One moment the Wight Duelist had been over the moon about Dueling against a Deck so much like his own; the next, he could hardly wait to leave. And then there was Kurokōri's take on the aftermath.

Something about that Duel got to him—and I don't think it's that he lost.

Roşu—mostly at the insistence of a very stern Miss Jong—had said vaguely that they would reach out if anyone was able to find Yūrei. Yū remembered that the Romanian had whispered something in Jong's ear immediately after the Duel, and was very keen to find out what that was once he was done here.

He just hoped Himika wouldn't keep him away for too long.

"Sakuragi—please, come in. Have a seat."

Fully one minute later, however, as the office door snapped shut behind him, Yū's stress was back through the roof again, and the comfort of the chair he'd sat in did nothing to bring it back to earth.

"You've been making some interesting friends lately." There was no need to ask how the headmistress of the Leo Duel School knew that, but Yū's attention was diverted elsewhere: he'd never heard his principal sound so friendly before. Himika was even smiling, which made it feel doubly unreal—not enough to show teeth, because there was a time and a place to ask for miracles—but it was still more of a smile than he'd ever seen on her heart-shaped face.

He did his best to look her in the eyes—blue as an icicle and just as cold. The smile was too discomforting for him to look at—mainly because the cosmetics applied over her thin lips looked so fresh that he couldn't help but think of blood. Yū wondered if there was some grim joke to be made about that—a bleeding heart, he mused, feeling his eyes flick for a moment to the meticulously styled, hot-pink coiffure that only reinforced the characteristic shape of the face beneath.

He breathed in—out—

—returned to her eyes.

"That's … actually a good word to describe them, Headmistress," he said, attempting to be conversational. "I mean, I can admit a few of them might rub each other the wrong way—but then, Kaede and Yūrei did the same thing." He laughed in spite of himself, still recalling the first day all three of them had met one another. "I like to think they'll get to know each other a lot better before long."

"Well enough to form your own personal group of Lancers?"

Yū froze. What?!

The crimson lips looked much thinner—but Himika's smile looked all the wider. "Or, dare I say … a resistance?"

"How do you—?!" But even as he leapt to his feet, forcing the rest of his question down his throat, Yū was cursing himself under his breath. Even he knew he'd made an error in reacting at all.

"The question isn't how do I know, Sakuragi." The smile had disappeared from Himika's mouth in less time than it took for a light bulb to blow. "It's what do I know. And you'd be surprised just what I've come to know about this character Kurokōri—and my associates and I have already learned a great deal of it before he even showed up in this city. We know enough, as a matter of fact, that I have become … very concerned about his reasons for having you gather so many Duelists—Xyz Duelists, at that—into one group."

Yū didn't like the way she said concerned. " … I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"That depends."

"On—?"

"On what Kurokōri has to say for himself." Himika rose from her seat. "As you're no doubt aware—indeed, as he himself has likely already told you—he is not the first inhabitant of the Xyz Dimension to come to the attention of the Leo Duel School." She paused. "Kurokōri … did tell you about the concept of multiple dimensions, didn't he?"

"Yeah," sighed Yū. "I had some trouble believing it at the time, but … well, it sounded way too wacky to be a lie."

"Good. That saves me a very long and tediously wacky explanation," Himika said dryly, "and lets me get straight to the point. There were two others before Kurokōri, both of whom appeared prior to the Maiami Championship—but all three of them were members of their Dimension's resistance against the forces of Academia."

Yū blinked. "Yūto and Kurosaki." He remembered the names Kurokōri had spoken that night in the alleyway. Part of him was already glad he was sitting down; even though he already knew Shun had been more than a simple pupil, to hear it from the mouth of his own principal made his legs wobble.

How much wasn't I told? The thought made him shiver. How much more haven't I heard?

"In those days," Himika plowed on, oblivious to Yū's consternation, "Kurokōri took up the pseudonym of Black Ice. He had gained a reputation among the invading forces for being a particularly elusive and slippery target. Someone in the Resistance had the wit to call him that, and the name stuck."

"And you're wondering what all this means for him being in Maiami City, aren't you?" Yū asked.

Himika sniffed. "I'd like the chance to ask him myself. Because I can tell you right now the Resistance had nothing whatsoever to do with it. They didn't send him here. And I wish I knew if they even want him here."

Yū blinked. "I've been using the past tense, you might have noticed," the headmistress went on. "The reason being that, at some point in time, Kurokōri … well, he's not part of them anymore. They expelled him—kicked him out."

…

"What?"

The single word came in a half-whisper, dropping from his mouth with so little force behind it—so little movement from his jaw—that Yū almost thought he'd heard it in his head. "Sorry—what? Expelled from the Resistance?"

He remembered an instant too late that it wasn't a good idea to make Himika repeat herself—it made you look like a very inattentive listener. Yū briefly saw her lip curl, and he braced himself for the incoming lecture—but nothing further happened beyond that, and he breathed again.

"I—" He shook his head. "I mean—how does that even work? What did he do?"

"I don't know." Himika's nostrils were flaring. "And my source was more uncooperative than usual in disclosing why this might be. He would only say there was a 'difference of opinion'. I took his silence from that point on to mean they did not part on amicable terms."

Yū noted the emphasis on "source", and pondered what on earth could possibly make Kurosaki Shun less amicable than he already was. "So … he didn't switch sides, then?" he said hopefully. "He's not part of Academia?"

"He is not." And his headmistress said it with so much certainty, and so little hesitation, that he felt a surge of relief against his will. "If I believed otherwise, I would be having this conversation with the Self-Defense Forces, and not with you." Her lip curled even further. "Even so, I want you to tread carefully around Kurokōri. Whatever this difference of opinion was, it cannot be discarded if it caused the Resistance to sever ties with him—"

She broke off. It took Yū a moment to realize why; the faintly buzzing noise of a vibrating cell phone had ruptured the silence of the office. In less than a second, she'd brought the phone to her ear. "Yes?"

A very long moment passed. Yū thought he could hear a young woman's voice on the other end of the line, and for a moment he wondered if it might be Miss Jong. But she sounded older—and that was all he could glean; any hope of listening for words in that conversation was squashed in short order.

"Thank you." Himika's nose flared once more as she ended the call. Her thin lips looked thinner than ever as she stared out into apparently empty space for a moment—and then, quicker than Yū could find the words to tell it, her gaze had locked onto him again.

"I want you to find out why the Resistance expelled Kurokōri." Her voice was far too quiet for his liking. "Stay as close to him as you can. If you can gain his trust enough to hear it from him personally, so much the better. But on no account are you to take anything he says for granted anymore."

Yū frowned. I thought you told me you were certain he wasn't involved with Academia. "You don't make a habit of trusting people, do you?" he said cautiously.

"No." Himika spoke the single word almost before he'd finished asking the question—and with an assurance he did not feel. "What trust I do have, Sakuragi, I am putting in you to make sure he does not endanger you or any of your classmates. And if the worst should happen"—her eyes became icier still—"if my trust in you was misplaced in any way … then it may be necessary for me to reevaluate your standing at this institution."

Oh. Oh, that's not good. That was the sort of conversation Yū had been expecting to hear from her before he'd met Kaede and Yūrei. He instantly knew he was on very thin ice—and instinctively, he bit his tongue lest a single word shatter it from under his feet.

Himika tilted her head slightly. "Do I make myself clear?"

Yū sensed the meeting was close to over—and he thanked the fates for that much—but he couldn't think of anything to say beyond a mumbled, "Y-yes, H-headmistress. Perfectly clear." Only his sudden fear and some sixth sense in his brain kept him rooted where he was.

"One other thing," Himika said just then, like a passing detail she'd just remembered. "That was my secretary you were attempting to listen in on just now." Before Yū could even look properly embarrassed: "It would seem Miss Jong was able to track Yashiki Yūrei to the Wight Duel School after he left Central Park in some distress."

The headmistress swiveled round in her seat to look out over the skyline of Maiami City, and the slice of the park where Yū had been less than an hour ago. "She and Vladislav Roşu are currently shadowing the campus grounds until he emerges," she told him. "Is there something going on that I ought to know about?"

"I'll head down there and talk to him." Because I'd sure like to know about it myself, he mentally added.

He rose, and turned to leave—"Sakuragi."

—almost lost his balance.

"I am used to expecting definite answers and receiving none." Himika was not looking at him. "I am not, however, used to hearing these evasions and prevarications from my students. You'll have to do better than that next time."

The implications of those last two words made Yū shiver. "That will be all," his headmistress said—and it took him a few long, silent moments to comprehend that he'd been dismissed at last. Shakily, he made for the door.

There were so many thoughts exploding in his head that he didn't even register the huge man on the other side of the office door until he'd wobbled his way back to the elevator.

Himika frowned as Nakajima moved aside for the departing Yū—an impressive feat for a man who nearly filled the doorway. From one worry to another, she grumbled in her head, noting the tablet her faithful aide held in his hand.

Nakajima inclined his head towards the door he'd just squeezed through. "He didn't look too convinced."

"Good." But Himika didn't feel any more certain of that herself. "It means he's starting to ask questions. Now all he has to do is search for the right ones to answer."

Nakajima said nothing, merely staring through the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses in a way that she couldn't help but find irritating. They'd known each other for too long to need words in times like this.

"He's not an idiot, Nakajima," Himika sniffed. "That's more than I can say for most people in this city. But I don't think Sakuragi fully appreciates the gravity of the situation, either."

Let's hope he appreciates it soon, she could almost hear her aide thinking. But there were other matters to attend to first. She gestured to the tablet he held. "What have you found?"

Nakajima placed the device on her desk, but kept his hand on it. "I had my people analyze the alley where Kurokōri Dueled Sakuragi," he answered. "There was definitely a high-level discharge of Xyz Summoning energy in the area. It was less powerful than the Summon that occurred when Yūya Summoned that Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon of his against Kachidoki Isao. At least, not a lot less," he amended with a shrug. "We were about to log it, leave it be."

He finally slid the tablet towards her. "Until we found something else."

Himika picked it up, flicking over the screen with a long finger. A series of pictures greeted her, captured in high definition—but what they'd captured was a whole other story completely. The first photograph was of a wall that she took to be part of the alleyway; a light had been shone on the bricks and mortar that made it up—

She frowned. Was mortar supposed to be black?

"Keep at it." Nakajima must have seen her confusion. Himika zoomed in on the dark lines that ran along the bricks. No, that wasn't a trick of the shadows; something really had turned the normally grayish, porous mortar a uniform jet-black—so dark it seemed to suck in the light itself. She might have taken it for charcoal if it didn't look so shiny.

Mystified, Himika scrolled down to the second picture. One of Nakajima's subordinates had taken a cotton swab to the darkened mortar and discovered it to be a sticky coating of some kind—like tar, she couldn't help but think. The edges of gloved fingers could barely be seen holding the swab, for which she was thankful; Nakajima was nothing if not careful, and had no doubt instructed his task force to be just as cautious last night. Whatever this black slime was, the basic rule of thumb remained: don't touch anything you know wasn't here before.

But where had it come from to begin with? Himika decided to move on to the next picture. By now, the swab had been bagged and tagged; she recognized the label on the plastic as the same one the MCPD used to collect evidence.

"You went to the police?" she asked.

"We were expecting to find evidence of Summoning energy—not whatever this was," replied Nakajima. "I decided I needed a second opinion."

Himika sniffed. That might not have been a good move—until they knew more, it was best to keep this circle small, and keep the speculation from running rampant. She studied the label itself.

CASE NO.: 2251826

EVIDENCE DESCRIPTION: cotton swab, unknown residue (advised class D-X contaminant, contain per protocol)

PLACE EVIDENCE FOUND: 21-2-10 (sector SE-16)

DATE/TIME RECOVERED: 2230

SUSPECT: UNKNOWN

OFFENSE: N/A

RECOVERED BY:

There followed a list of the people who had been reporting to Nakajima—whose own name was visible at the very bottom. Himika took the asterisk scrawled alongside it to mean that any inquiries were to be routed through him.

She was starting to have a few of her own. "You ran it through the labs down there?" she asked.

The aide nodded. "I've kept it as quiet as I can. Three CSI techs and their supervisor—besides the two of us, that's everyone in the city who knows about this right now. What they found is on the next picture."

In the city … Himika instinctively knew this wasn't being kept as quiet as Nakajima had made it sound. Perhaps he knew that himself. But she had become intrigued enough by what he was showing her that she could table the issue for later—and so she resumed scrolling through the album once more.

Picture number four turned out to be the image of a microscopic slide—and Himika's consternation only doubled. At once she could see why the substance that coated the wall of the alleyway inside sector SE-16 was as black as it was—nearly half of the slide was composed of tiny, thin flecks of dark material. They almost reminded her of iron filings in a magnetic field, though not nearly so uniformly aligned—and yet the shapes of each dark sliver looked so similar to one another that—

She bit her lip. "This almost looks like metal."

"The techs thought the same thing," said Nakajima. "So they ran it through an SEM next. They figured that since a scanning electron microscope is more powerful than a regular scope, they might find out more about this residue. It didn't take them long to realize they'd found a lot more than they were expecting." He made a motion with his hand to indicate she should start scrolling again.

The fifth image was actually four different photographs spliced together, two-by-two. Himika felt her breath catch with each successive picture: there was a spring-like shape that the headmistress thought looked so like a strand of DNA that she could almost make out the double helix shape inside; a vaguely hexagonal mass filled with a churning mass of black material; a hollow cylinder so thin and black she knew it had to be a shaving of that unknown 'metal'; and finally, an image incorporating all three of them for scale. The hexagon was small enough that several dozen of them could have fit inside one of those dark tubes.

Himika thought about that. She went back to the other images, looking over the smooth edges, the perfectly uniform angles—yes, she thought, exhaling through her teeth. There was no other explanation.

She pushed the tablet aside. "It's a virus."

"A dead one, in point of fact," added Nakajima. "I've been assured that it's no longer infectious. That's if it ever was. But the fact remains that I've never seen one like this before—and neither has the MCPD. They cordoned off the Duel side as a precaution about"—he checked his watch—"two hours ago. Closed for construction—the usual excuses. They've sent the swab and everything else off to Tōkyō as well. I've talked to the university over there—they'll be sending a team to examine the site themselves. I won't know more about whatever this is until I hear back from them—and that won't be till midnight at the earliest."

Himika's lips thinned. "We're both thinking the same thing, aren't we?"

Her aide didn't look optimistic. "Viruses need some kind of vector—something to sustain it, keep it active—or else they won't live long outside of its environment. And that black stuff … " He took a moment to pull a face, and then he was all business again. "I recommend we schedule some inoculations, just to be safe."

The LDS headmistress nodded. "I'll send word to the school nurses. You and your men had better be first in line." A nod. "You've got a record of who Sakuragi has been in close contact with today?"

"Oh, yes. I'll tell their schools to do the same thing. Tomorrow for certain, today if they can."

"Good. Keep this even more quiet, Nakajima. Children can be chatty—and when they do, they can be scared. Tell the nurses that it's only some routine shots—make it innocuous enough that they won't rouse attention."

She saw his eyes narrow suspiciously behind his sunglasses. "From Kurokōri … or from everyone else?"

And did not blink. "Both."

Yū wasn't sure when he'd left LDS. He wasn't even sure when he'd realized he was halfway along the same route he took to the Wight Duel School every day to pick up Yūrei for practice. He only knew that it felt like only a few seconds had passed between then and now. The flood of unwelcome news he had been hit with in Himika's office had inundated his brain, and it was too busy treading water to think about such things like where and when.

Why? Yū had kept on asking himself. Why had Kurokōri been kicked out of the Resistance he'd sounded so proud to be a part of in the twelve hours Yū had known the boy existed? What had he done that even Kurosaki—Kurosaki Shun, that one-Duelist army—had stayed as silent as silent could be, as if his silence could make his former friend cease to exist? Who did Kurokōri fight for now, if not them or Academia?

And why … why had he not told him about any of this?

Yesterday's misgivings about this entire day had suddenly resurged tenfold in his mind. The Duels he had been so proud and eager to watch suddenly felt like he'd spilled something corrosive in his eyes. Yū was no longer certain as to why Kurokōri had wanted him and his friends to join a Resistance he no longer could.

Or—and the thought seized in his chest so quickly he nearly stumbled—was it even the Resistance he wanted them to join? Was there some other, more sinister group out there? He had no idea of what the Xyz Dimension was truly like—if the ethics of survival had been blasted to smithereens like Heartland, that futuristic metropolis.

And if that was true, Yū thought … if even that last, most inviolate rule of human civilization had broken down in the wake of Academia's invasion … what on earth had Kurokōri been meaning to do from there?

Not even the familiar sight of Yūrei's Duel School could drive the questions from Yū's mind. Perhaps it was that sense of something he'd seen a dozen times before, grappling in vain with something so unheard of that the mental struggle exhausted him more than the trek itself.

The building itself looked almost like an afterthought of Maiami City—as though its planners, after sketching out all their revolutionary ideas for color, glitz and glamour in Japan's hub of Duel Monsters, had noticed a certain space of it needed some filling in. And so they had—but next to places like LDS, You Show, and Kaede's own Cuisine Duel School, the sand-brown brick façade of the Wight School looked so drab and uninspired that when Yū had first laid eyes upon the place, he'd strongly suspected the school hadn't been around nearly as long as the building itself.

As it turned out, he had been right—he'd learned on his first visit that the place had been a grocery store in the city's early days, before the inevitable sprawl of urbanization drove out so many customers over the years that the higher echelons of the company that owned it had simply decided to shut the place down. The structure had sat unoccupied ever since—and were it not for one more bit of human intervention, it might have been bulldozed completely.

The headmaster of the Wight Duel School always got teary-eyed when he talked at length about how he'd purchased the space out of his own pocket, Yū knew from firsthand experience—as though this one bit of personal pride might well be the crown jewel of his life, the crux of everything he'd lived for up to that point. Not that he didn't agree—after all, every kid in town deserved to experience Duel Monsters as a competitive sport as well as a pastime … even those who might not have made the cut otherwise.

He thought of Yūrei one more time. Especially those, his mind amended.

The LDS Duelist was grateful that he'd thought about his pupil at that crucial point in time—he desperately needed to ask a question about something, anything else besides Kurokōri, the Resistance he'd left and meant to start anew, and the Xyz Dimension as a whole. And half of the people he knew could help give an answer to that question were standing in front of the gate to the Wight School right now.

As he drew closer, however, Yū suspected that Roşu and Miss Jong weren't about to give him an answer he'd like.

"What's going on?" he asked, not wanting to sound too demanding.

Roşu looked as surly as when he'd met everyone else in the park. He jerked his head once to Jong, not bothering to speak a word. The Korean sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Yū couldn't help but notice how red in the face she looked. Whether it was from anger or embarrassment, he could not tell.

Before he could put the question to her—"We got kicked out," she said, hissing the words through her teeth.

That threw Yū for a loop. "Wait—what?"

"The principal"—Jong thumbed backwards disdainfully over her shoulder to the school behind her—"was very keen to know why we were following one of his best students all the way from the park. He thought we might be stalking him. Because what other reason would two students from objectively the best Duel School in the entire city have for being here? He didn't even budge when we told him Yūrei had been with us—and you—all morning!"

Yū decided not to point out that both she and Roşu were exchange students. Something told him the distinction was going to be lost on her today. "You didn't try Dueling him, did you?" he asked.

"Slammed door in face before thought to challenge," huffed Roşu.

"The only reason that wangohan babo didn't file charges for trespassing against us is the fact that we mentioned you by name." Jong exhaled in exasperation, ruffling a few strands of her bobbed black hair. "I don't know what sort of clout you have in this school"—Yū could practically hear the distaste in her voice as she peered around the deserted, repurposed parking lot that served for Dueling arenas—"but the principal said only you could pass through this gate, Sakuragi. Whether that means you'll have to Duel him in order to see Yūrei … "

She paused—exhaled again. "Jung-yo anh-a. Roşu and I have overstayed our welcome. Now that you've arrived, we don't need to be here any longer. You know how to find the housing for the exchange students?"

Yū vaguely remembered something about LDS having a residence program three blocks from the main campus, and said as much to Jong. "Good," nodded the Korean. "We'll start cleaning the place—make it look presentable. The next time Kurokōri calls, he can find us there."

The LDS Duelist felt something swoop in his stomach at the sound of the name. He opened his mouth to speak—

—closed it.

If you can gain his trust enough to hear it from him personally …

The memory of Himika's voice hissed in his ear, and Sakuragi Yū began to think. Perhaps there was a time and a place to have this conversation. Perhaps right here—right now—wasn't either of them.

Maybe when he was with Kurokōri … or maybe when he was with everyone else. Either way, Yū knew he needed to approach this more subtly, or "Black Ice" might just prove too slippery for even the most careful tread.

"Sakuragi?"

He blinked, falling back to earth with a bump. Jong was peering suspiciously at him through her dark almond eyes. "You zoned out just now. What were you about to say?"

Quick, think of something … " … It can wait," Yū muttered. "But there was another thing I wanted to know before I went inside. I'd meant to ask earlier, but I got called up to the office."

He hoped that, as another LDS student, Miss Jong would know what he meant by the office. He was right. Her gaze widened for a split second, letting conjecture take over her thoughts for a moment—and then it was gone. "And?"

Yū gestured to Roşu. "What did you say to Yūrei, before he ran off?"

He saw the color drain from Jong's face in an instant, and knew almost as quickly that he'd asked a loaded question. She and Roşu traded glances. Was that fear in their eyes? Pity?

The Romanian was first to speak. " … Not right question," he said, more hesitantly than usual. "Ai totul greşit—is backwards."

"Backwards … " Yū mulled the word in his mind. "So something he said to you, then?" A nod. "What was it?"

Roşu breathed in slowly—out. "One word. Just one—just before I win."

The LDS Duelist had a sudden suspicion he needed to brace himself. "And?"

Roşu told him.

All was quiet in the gymnasium. That made it easier for the boy to make this little slice of the world into his own.

In truth, any empty classroom would have served his needs well enough—why it was that he'd decided on the gym in the end, Yūrei wasn't sure. He didn't feel like thinking much at the moment.

He'd found a corner under the bleachers, scurried as far inside it as his lanky body would let him, before putting on his headphones and cranking up the volume as high as it could possibly go. It took an entire verse before he felt ready to open his eyes—two and a good chunk of the bridge before he was aware of the stinging feeling in his eyes, and unrolled himself a few inches from the ball he'd tucked himself into, to wipe at the redness.

He hadn't meant to say anything—he'd meant for it to stay locked up. But he could still feel the grip of the vampire, freezing the air in his throat and choking him bit by bit. Put enough pressure on the padlock, and it would snap.

—don't ask him how he knows that—

Sometimes, things didn't deserve to be locked away. Sometimes words did.

BOOM.

The Wight Duelist didn't hear the noise—not over the chorus of the screaming lyrics, thudding drums, and shredding guitars that filled his world—made this empty place his paradise. But even a boy who knew as much music as he did knew a thing or two about acoustics—for a split second, he'd felt the walls vibrating in ways they shouldn't.

By the feel of the vibrations, something had exploded—and just outside the gym, too.

Wordlessly, Yūrei switched off his music, and silence flooded his brain so quickly that it took a few seconds for him to stand up. He gathered up his things and hung his headphones around his neck, deciding it was time to leave for someplace a little quieter, like the locker rooms further down—

—footsteps.

He had no time to hide under the bleachers. If it was Miss Jong, or even Roşu—anyone who could have followed him here, wanted to know where he was, wanted to know why—

The door swung open. One of the hinges hadn't been oiled right; the echo of the shrieking metal filled the gym. It was loud enough, grating enough, that even Yūrei had to hold a hand to a freshly tender ear. So he needed some time to register who'd come into the gym.

And even when he saw who it was, he still couldn't believe his eyes.

"Y-Yū-sensei?"

His clothes, and his lavender hair with them, looked more a little windblown—had he run all this way? He didn't look like he'd worked up too much of a sweat, and he wasn't breathing hard. But none of that mattered to Yūrei right now—the first and last person he wanted to see right now was right in front of him.

Blocking the only way out.

"Hey." The single word was quiet, but fell like a ton of bricks in the silent gym. Yū didn't say more than that. Maybe he was waiting for Yūrei to say something back.

But nothing came to mind, except an equally soft, infinitely heavier—infinitely emptier—"Hey."

He tried to concentrate on the hum of the halogen lights that hung above them, wondering what more he could have said. "Was that you I heard?" he asked. "Out there?" The words came out in a more scratchy voice than usual. He cleared his throat hastily, wondering if Yū had noticed.

To his surprise, he had not—Yū looked more embarrassed than anything else. "Oh—you heard that?" He rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry. Your … your principal was pretty insistent I had to go through him to find you."

"You Dueled him?" A nod. Yūrei exhaled. "Jeez. I didn't think he was serious when he told me that." He made a mental note to thank his principal later today.

He looked up. "How'd it go?"

" … I'm here."

" … Oh." But before Yūrei could chide himself for asking such a stupid question, he felt a hand ruffle the spikes of his hair. Just the edges—not all the way to his scalp like he'd usually do—and maybe that was why he didn't back away. But he felt himself flinch—and instantly, his mentor's hand pulled back.

Too quickly: "You okay?"

Too slowly: " … Yeah."

He forced himself to look at Yū. The LDS Duelist didn't look too convinced. They're a different bunch up there, Yūrei thought. Maybe that was why Jong and Roşu had followed him here—maybe they'd even—

"Well—we were worried about you," Yū finally said. "My headmistress said you might be here. I had to see her real quick, or we'd have met up much sooner."

He didn't have to say their names. They followed me here.

"What … did they tell you?" Yū frowned—looked down at him. "Miss Jong. Roşu. Did you see them before you came here?"

His mentor nodded—

—too slowly. "They told you."

Yūrei saw Yū's lip flinch—like he'd been about to say something, but thought better of it. "They … said more than I was ready to hear." Even he could tell he was being very, very careful about what he was saying. "And … I guess less than I'm ready to know?"

It was the Wight Duelist's turn to frown. That wasn't the answer he'd been expecting—for one thing, it didn't make a lot of sense in his head.

But Yū's next smile looked a lot less cautious—and all the more sincere for it. "Hey. We don't have to talk about it right now," he said. "I know there's got to be a lot going on in your head after you went off—a lot more stuff than a kid like you ought to have in there at all," he added. "Just … when you're ready, will you promise to be open about it with me?"

He put out an open hand. "If it makes you feel a little less lonely right now … "

Yūrei looked at it, felt his own hand twitch at his side—

—lowered it.

"If Jong and Roşu told you," he said slowly, " … how do you know they didn't tell your principal, too?"

He could tell from the way Yū hesitated that the LDS Duelist hadn't thought of that. A different bunch, he heard his mind say again. Students with classmates who went to Duel schools all over the world, all under the same name—and they still feel closer to each other than I do to my classmates.

"That's a good question," was Yū's eventual answer. "I don't know. And I won't lie to you, Yūrei … I don't think you're the only one who'll have to square with that, when the time comes. I wouldn't be a very good mentor to you if I said otherwise." He smiled. "But … I think I'd be an even worse one if I let you face the music too early. I'm not going to go off fighting every battle for you—but you deserve to at least have a level start from me."

"So … what happens until then?"

Yū leaned against the wall. "Well—Kurokōri might not have sounded too convinced, but he's the one who said that I should look for you in the first place. So I don't think he's one-hundred-percent sold against the thought of seeing more of your potential as a Duelist."

A pause. "And you know I can always vouch for you, too. I've been teaching you, after all—there's probably only three people in this whole city who know how far you've come as a Duelist. And they're in this school right now."

Yūrei could guess at the first two. "Who's the third?"

Yū glanced at him. And didn't blink.

" … Oh." He hung his head. "I'm … not feeling real proud of it right now."

"Like I said," Yū told him, "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. How long that takes is up to you. I'll even let you bunk with me if you like. I can talk to my mom and dad, pull the couch out for myself."

"You don't have to—"

"But I still want to."

Suddenly, Yū's voice was sharp—but only for a moment. "Being a mentor isn't about just helping you be a better Duelist, Yūrei. It's about helping me be a better person."

The boy blinked. "What I heard today is going to make that easier said than done. Not all of it has to do with you, but … " He swallowed, caught himself. "We'll get there. The point is—even after hearing it all—I still want to work with you, kid. I want to watch you be the Duelist—the person—you've always wanted to be. Because I still think you deserve to get to that point."

Another swallow. "Because … because I still want to deserve it, too."

Yūrei found he had no answer to that. Nor was he sure what he meant by it—he'd known Yū had seen action during the Championship, but hadn't asked for details. Mostly because Yū himself hadn't been very open about what sort of "action" he'd seen—mostly because Yūrei had heard enough that he hadn't wanted to ask.

All he could tell was that the look on his mentor's face looked a lot like his own, five minutes ago.

He felt his hand flinch again—and then, before he knew it, he'd taken Yū's hand in his own, holding as tightly as he could. He held until his knuckles turned white, until the knot in his own stomach loosened enough to breathe.

He felt the fingers tense beneath his grip—and then, " … Thanks."

The LDS Duelist was smiling still—but the relief in it was much more palpable this time. "Sometimes I hear things that make what I do feel like the most tedious job in the world," said Yū. "And sometimes … sometimes I get a nice reminder of what makes hearing all that stuff worth every moment in my life."

He looked down at Yūrei. "Want to get out of here?"

A slow nod. "Are we going to your place?"

"Unless you want to hear more of Kaede's karaoke?"

That did it. Suddenly Yūrei had gone cross-eyed from how hard he was laughing. "No—no, God, no!" he wheezed. "Not if her room was the last place to hear music in the whole world!"

It took a few minutes before he was able to work the laughter out of his system. By then, they'd stepped out of the Wight School—and Yū had beaten him to the punch on the next word.

"So, we can head to my house after a while if you like," he was saying, "but I was thinking we could stop by Maiami General first."

"The hospital?" That threw Yūrei for another loop. "What's over there for us to do?"

"Kurokōri, apparently." And before the Wight Duelist could look surprised: "I got a call from him just before I Dueled your principal—he's waiting for us over there. And I don't know if this was his idea of a joke," he added, rolling his eyes and fighting the urge to laugh, "but he told me there's a few girls about your age with him who are just worried sick about you … "

A/N: And things are starting to get a little interesting.

This little mini-arc with Yū and Yūrei is something TWW and I have wanted to try out as a way of branching out beyond our usual writing. There's more to follow with it that I have very little experience with in putting to paper—it's very much more personal drama than it is action, where I feel more at home with writing—and so I have this worry that I might mishandle something along the way.

I'll be largely relying on her guidance for what comes after; I can only hope I do her vision justice.

Thanks for reading! – K