Chapter 5: A True Start to the Qualification, Please and Thank You!

The Current Objective: After successfully defeating Todo Yaiba and saving You Show Duel School from being absorbed by the LEO Corporation, Joseph and Ruri start to seriously consider their qualifications. Meanwhile, a certain CEO starts to take an interest in the young duelists.

Current Qualifications: Joseph: 1/6, Ruri: 0/6. Deadline: 2 Weeks, 5 Days.

LEO Tower, the day after the duels at You Show.

"Sir, the analysis of the duels at You Show have been completed!" A suited man informed a much younger man, perhaps still a teenager, who wore a blue sweater and long red scarf, who slightly pushed up the glasses sitting on his nose, the cityscape of Maiami glittering past the window behind him,

"And what of them?" He asked,

"Apart from Sakaki Yuya's Pendulum, there was only one unusual spike in Summoning Energy. And it belonged to that unknown, Joseph. His overall Xyz Summoning Energy was strangely high for a resident of our dimension, almost double yours, which is the highest we have on record."

"So he is also a refugee from Xyz?"

"I doubt it, Sir. Our records show that the purchase of his apartment is back dated six months, and by our estimates this means that he would have had to flee Xyz almost three months early, and as far as we're aware, Xyz had no knowledge of the other dimensions before the Invasion your father ordered. Furthermore, his companion, whom we have confirmed to be from Xyz, shows much more potent Xyz Summoning Energy in her only recorded duel."

"Do we have data on if someone from Fusion, or even Synchro, was to Xyz Summon?"

"No, Sir. If I may, though, we do have one student who shows similar capabilities in the specific wavelength of Xyz Summoning Energy."

"Go on."

"They are from the Hollywood Campus. I believe you authorised his transfer here for the Maiami Championship."

"Nakajiima, please increase monitoring of that student then. If he and this 'Joseph' are connected, I expect you to find out."

"Yes, Sir!" Nakajima bowed, leaving the office.

"I will find out who you are and what you intend to do here, Joseph. You intrigued me yesterday with your deck and duel style; I would have challenged you right there and then, but I suspect that wouldn't have gone over particularly well," Akaba Reiji mused to himself out loud, "You've also set back the Pendulum Project, which is very annoying indeed. Were you sent by my father, or are you just different? And why are you consorting with an Xyzian refugee? I suppose it will all be revealed in due time."

Joseph's Apartment, about the same time.

Waking up after the duels was perhaps one of the most relaxing things I've ever experienced. I may have stayed relatively still during my duel, but I had still been exhausted that night. I'd also noted a strange mental fatigue, but I supposed it was my first Action Duel, my first proper duel in this world as well. And to top things off, I had a new rival, I believe. Yaiba had been pretty impressed by my dueling from what I could tell, and he had now resolved to beat me. Good luck, I sarcastically thought, knowing that so long as he was using X-Saber he likely wouldn't be able to beat me whilst I used Purrely. Perhaps with my other deck, but I still needed to field test it. I had also noticed last night that that duel was the first of my qualification. Looking at the requirements, I only needed five more, at least one more in a row being a solo duel as well.

Getting up, I looked around for Ruri, noticing that her bed was made, and the bathroom door was open, meaning she wasn't in there. Wandering for a few more moments, I saw a note on the coffee table. Hey Joseph! The note read in a neat cursive, If you're reading this and I'm not in the apartment it means that I'm still out dueling. I managed to find my first opponent, so you'll no longer be one up on me! Feel free to send me a message, but I won't be able to respond if I'm still in the duel. See you soon, Ruri. Chuckling to myself, I noticed a stack of cards on the table as well, which also hadn't been there last night. Picking it up, Assembled Nightingale stared back at me. "So she took that other deck? Why wouldn't she use you?" I wondered to myself. Getting a strange feeling, I pulled up the rules for qualification again, and read through them. One in particular caught my eye.

Section 3.4: Registration of Decks

You may use any number of decks during the Maiami Championship, but in order for a deck to be registered, at least two (2), or 20%, depending on qualification method, of your qualifying wins must be with that deck. If a duelist attempts to register an ineligible deck, they may face penalties including immediate disqualification, fines and other related fees.

Going over to a drawer that sat nearby, and pulling out the cards in there, I mused out loud. "So I will have to use you before the tournament, huh? Well, that explains why she left the Lyriluscs here. I hope she did practice some combos though. That deck she has is relatively difficult, especially in opponent's turn survivability." Flicking on the TV, I caught the end of a news presentation, presumably just the breakfast news, or a mid-morning news segment, considering it was closer to ten in the morning right now.

"…And in breaking news, cases of disappearances are increasing. The Maiami Police Department has announced that they've received almost two hundred reports of missing people in the past week alone. The vanished are seemingly largely random in terms of age, sex, or distinguishing features, but analysts have noticed that a large number of LDS students, particularly those registered on the Fusion course are among the missing. The Maiami Police Department is offering a reward to any individual who can provide information that leads to the finding of any missing person, and a much more significant reward to anyone who can lead them to capture the perpetrator or perpetrators of such a heinous crime…" I tuned out, just letting the news play in the background. Shun, how many of these were you, I wonder. How long until Marco gets carded and the LDS trio goes to investigate? I wondered. Suddenly, my duel disk's screen lit up, and I saw a message from an unknown number on it. Picking it up, I read the message.

Messaging with Unknown Number:

Unknown Number: Hey, this is Yuya. I got your number from Yuzu as I just wanted to say thanks again.

Unknown Number has been saved as 'Sakaki Yuya'.

Joseph: Ah, wasn't expecting this. But hey, it was nothing. Just doing my duty.

Sakaki Yuya: Regardless, we all appreciate what you did. Say, are you free later today?

Joseph: I should be. Why?

Sakaki Yuya: Well, I was thinking that we could go get something to eat later in order for me to properly show my thanks! I'll bring Yuzu, so you can also bring that girl who was with you, Ruri, I think?

Joseph: Can I get back to you about that? Ruri's just out for a moment, so I'll need to ask her about it.

Sakaki Yuya: That's fine! Just get back to me when you can!

Flicking off my duel disk, I decided to sit back on the couch and wait for Ruri to return home. Fortunately, that didn't take too long, and when I heard the door open, I looked over, and Ruri entered the apartment. "How'd the deck go?" I greeted,

"It went fine. Certainly some kinks to work out with playing it, but I won in the end!" Ruri laughed,

"That's good to hear. So, how'd you find out about the deck clause?" I inquired,

"I guess it was just a gut feeling. I felt like we'd missed something in the rules so I looked back over them, and lo and behold." She answered, sitting down on the couch with me,

"Well, in other news, Sakaki's invited us out. Something about saying thanks for yesterday."

"I think we should accept. It would probably be a bit rude to decline, after all."

"Yeah, I was thinking that. Just needed to confirm with you." I said, pulling my duel disk back up

Joseph: We'd be glad to accept. Where should we meet you two and where?

Sakaki Yuya: Great! Just meet us outside You Show in two hours!

Joseph: See you then.

Turning the disk back off, I turned to Ruri, "We're meeting at You Show in two hours."

"Okay. I think I'll go have a shower. Action Dueling really takes it out of you."

"Yeah, it does. And to think that regular duels are draining enough mentally, they decided to add a physical component to them!" We both laughed, but Ruri then left for her shower, and I pulled out my deck, "We've got a long road ahead of us. I wonder just how much further we'll have to do here before it really gets serious." I mused, looking at the picture of the rather happy dog/cat creature.

An hour later, Ruri had finished her shower and I'd jumped in, so as to make myself presentable. It was nice, but the news report I'd seen was still weighing on me. I didn't know why, but I felt guilty that so many had disappeared and I couldn't do much, if anything about them. Sure, I could track down Shun, but that seemed like a poor idea, especially since the deck I had that I was more comfortable with was probably going to set something off with him. Then I also had to deal with the upcoming Championship, where in canon Yuto 'died' and the whole interdimensional war aspect really took off. But that was a whole can of worms that I really wanted to put off thinking about until I absolutely had to.

Ruri and I had struck up a discussion about the duel she'd had. Apparently she'd dueled a person using just a pile deck, which normally wouldn't be much of an issue, but of course, Ruri's inexperience with her new deck had backed her into a corner. I'd asked if perhaps she wanted to go over combo lines with me, which she'd accepted on the condition that I'd also be practicing with my new deck whilst we did so. I had agreed, of course. "So, when should we start?" I asked,

"We've got an hour until we need to be there, and it takes, what, thirty minutes to get there, so why not now?" Ruri replied,

"Cool. If you could shuffle the deck well and draw an opening, we'll see where we can go from there." I smiled, and we got to practicing. Half an hour went by very quickly, and we then set off. Arriving out the front of You Show, we saw Yuya and Yuzu waiting for us, Yuya waving at us when we entered view.

"Hey!" She greeted, "Glad you could make it!"

"Well Sakaki, I'm afraid you'll find that I in particular am very committed to my word." I joked in return, "So where're you taking us?"

"There's this café that opened recently and I've been wanting to try it out, but haven't had a good opportunity, and then this all happened. So I thought 'why not'?"

"Fair enough. Shall we head off?"

"Yeah, we should." Yuya agreed and the four of us set off. On the walk, I struck up a conversation.

"So, been keeping up with the news? Apparently there's been a lot of disappearances recently."

"There has," Yuzu agreed, "And I remember there being something about most of them, but it's kinda on the tip of my tongue."

"They're all Fusion Summoners," Yuya answered, "And I'm willing to bet it's more than a coincidence. Someone's going after them specifically." As Yuya answered, I saw Ruri's eyes widen slightly in my peripheral vision, and she mouthed 'Fusion Summoners?', and I realised that she was coming to perhaps a certain revelation.

"They're also all connected to LDS," I expanded, "Any ideas as to why they may be getting targeted in particular? Apart from LDS being mostly bastards anyways."

"Maybe someone from the Fusion course wronged the perpetrator and it's some twisted revenge thing?" Yuya suggested,

"In any case, I can't help but feel bad for the families of the ones who have disappeared. Imagine being told your loved one is missing." Yuzu mused,

"I can agree on that," Ruri nodded, "And it'll only be worse if they're found dead."

"Yeah. Especially since someone just being missing means they may still be alive."

"Hopefully it's all resolved soon." I say,

"Especially with the Maiami Championship coming up," Yuya agreed, "On that note, are you two participating?"

"Indeed we are. In both the Single and Double competitions. How about you two?"

"We have to as part of You Show. How are your qualifications coming along?"

"Well, I just won my first this morning, but did that one yesterday count for you, Joseph?" Ruri asked,

"It seems so. We're both at one out of six then!" I cheered, "Speaking of, when should we get our Doubles qualifications out of the way?"

"Let's discuss that later. How about you two's qualifications?"

"I'm qualified off win rate." Yuzu answered,

"I'm still sitting below the required win rate and have no wins in a row. Although, that won't be an issue much longer as someone's helping find opponents. Something about 'being the one to defeat Ishijima deserves such a service' or something."

"That was when you created Pendulum, right?" Ruri asked, "I did some research and I can't find any mentions of 'Pendulum Summoning' before that duel."

"Yeah, it is. Still don't understand everything about it, including why it was created, but that's nothing that we can't figure out with time!" With Yuya's answer, I smiled, thinking to myself about how I understood Pendulum better than her. Better than Reiji even. Let's just hope that she takes the truth about Pendulum well when that eventually comes out, what with Z-ARC's legacy and how Ray's involvement was a secret even to the Demon Duelist.

We then reached the café, getting a table, and looking over the menu, we placed our orders, which came after a wait that wasn't too long. It wasn't long after that when Yuya struck up conversation again. "So, I'd just like to say thank you again for yesterday. I know it was a lot to ask, and we couldn't be more appreciative." She smiled,

"Well Sakaki, it was just another day for me. And after all, we were the ones who got you into that mess so we were involved. The absolute least we could do." I responded,

"Oh, feel free to call me 'Yuya'!" Yuya informed me,

"And don't feel constrained to my family name either." Yuzu also said,

"Well, you two already refer to me by my given name, as I have a lack of a family name, it'd be quite surprising if you did know it!" I joked, "But the sentiment is all the same."

"And call me 'Ruri' as well." Ruri smiled,

"Well, here's to our new friendship!" I announced, raising my mug of coffee,

"Cheers!" We all cried, clinking cups, when I heard the sounds of rapidly approaching footsteps. Looking over, I saw a larger man, clad in a red and white uniform run up, Yuya asking in surprise,

"Gongenzaka?"

"Yuya!" Gongenzaka panted, coming to a stop, "This man, Gongenzaka came as fast as I could! Something's happened to your mother. Mr. Hiiragi is in a panic and sent for you!"

"WHAT?!" Yuzu exclaimed,

"Something's happened to Mum? Gongenzaka, lead us there!"

"Don't worry about the bill, I'll cover it." I said, and Yuya and Yuzu nodded.

"Sorry this had to be cut short." Yuzu sadly smiled,

"No, what's come up is more important. We can do this again sometime." I replied, Ruri nodding. The You Show duo then took off, Gongenzaka leading them away.

"I hope Yuya's mum's OK." Ruri said,

"Yeah. But unfortunately, that's all we can do right now. Hope and wait." My gaze was fixed on the three slowly shrinking figures in the distance, "We should head home."

"Agreed. Go looking for duels tomorrow?" Ruri asked,

"We should. Only got two and a bit weeks left." I confirmed, and we headed back home after I paid the bill.

Hey all! Thank you all so much for reading this chapter, and I hope you all enjoyed! Nothing too much happened this chapter bar the end, but I felt like a bit of downtime was necessary for our protagonist. Now, what has happened to Sakaki Yoko? Well, that'll have to wait for next chapter!

And now to respond to reviews!

Jessica56: Thanks for the review, and to answer your question, if it wasn't already evident, then do expect that the rest of the Bracelet Girls will all be getting their time in the spotlight, and I will confirm that their canon fate likely won't come to pass as I also didn't exactly like it.

Guest #1: Thanks for reviewing, and yeah, I get what you mean, but from a storytelling perspective, Yuzu vs Masumi at You Show sets up both their character arcs up, and even though events may be happening differently from how they did in canon, I still felt it important to include the duel due to the character value.

Utopy: Thank you for reviewing, and at this point I'm not too sure what decks and/or cards Joseph will be using in the future. I will say though, that cards like Hundred-Eyes Dragon aren't out of the running from appearing, as Kiryu may be getting an appearance in the Synchro arc of this fic. To add to that, Yuzu vs Sergey may not even occur. I am still yet to plan out Synchro, but the Friendship Cup is going to be one of those things that I spend a lot of attention on the matchups. And for Ruri knowing about Yuto/Shun carding people, well, she was a member of the Resistance and the Resistance as a whole had adopted a policy of carding the Fusion invaders. Is she personally still disgusted by it, sure. Will she be horrified when she finds out Shun carded civilians, certainly. But she is indeed aware of Yuto/Shun carding people.

Guest #2: Thanks for the review! I haven't actually read OCG Structures. I have been intending to, although Mangadex doesn't have every chapter translated to English, so yeah, that's a thing.

Kurogami Yaiba: Thanks so much for reviewing!

Guest92: Thanks for reviewing, and to answer your questions, the rest of the ARC-V cast will probably be stronger than in canon, but unless Joseph misplays horribly or uses a deliberately weak deck, he probably won't suffer many difficult duels for the moment. For Yuya and Yuzu's duels, well, I've already justified Yuzu's duel in my response to Guest #1, but Yuya's set up how Yuya's deck is similar yet different. Sure some of Hokuto's plays were either directly lifted from canon or very close to canon, but ultimately the focus is on Yuya and how she has Phantom Dragon in particular. Furthermore, Joseph is an outsider. He's from our world and has a dueling philosophy that differs so drastically from the anime's that he just sticks out. His name was a deliberate choice as by giving him a non-Japanese name and also a lack of a family name, it highlights how starkly he stands out in the world.

Shinigamifan98: Thanks for the review, and do expect some DM characters to appear. I do feel as though that was like the one thing that Standard Dimension could have done in having direct versions of DM characters but I guess it was to maintain the shock of seeing Crow for the first time in Synchro? IDK who at this point, but some DM characters will be making an appearance.

Kurenai lui: Thanks for reviewing! Hey, don't worry about knowing the lore, I have no clue of it either, but yeah Branded would be an interesting choice, so consider it added to the list of deck ideas!

A 'Reincarnated' Writer: Thanks for reviewing! Joesph will eventually be moving to a lot more powerful decks, and like I said with Kurenai lui, Branded has been added to the list of deck ideas. The only real issue with the deck is if I were to use a variant that runs Starving Venom normally, he'd have to be cut because of lore reasons. Dragostapellia though… Anyways, yeah Kash may be a bit too powerful for a long while, and will likely just be a deck that Joseph maybe uses in an important duel or two, if only to flex strength or what-not. And indeed I didn't forget about Drytron/Herald, my only issue with the deck is that while, yes, they are inherently less powerful as a Ritual archetype, they still feel like they'd be too strong for Standard, especially if Joseph went full Ultimateness lock.

Valtryek-sama: Thanks for reviewing, and like I said in the PMs, yeah Action Cards will be ditched once the war comes around, as they're really just a stupid concept when consistency should be always achieved.

Also in this chapter, Gongenzaka appeared! Now, I haven't watched the sub, so his speech pattern may be slightly wrong, and I'd appreciate it if someone could correct me if I'm wrong in how I wrote it.

Also, I have an announcement to make: After this chapter I will be going on hiatus until mid or late November. This is because I have exams coming up, and I will not have the time to be able to dedicate to writing to get something out every two-or-so weeks. As such, reviews will be going unresponded to for a while on ff, but if you have an account and have a question you would like answered, please shoot me a PM, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! On AO3, I will still be replying to comments as per usual.

Thank you all so much for reading again, and for all the support you've shown for this fic so far, and I'll see you all in November! - NightWingBOI