Goodbye, Graham. I hope the grass is greener on the other side.
What had filled Yugi's head on the trudge up the mountain road to Duel Academy hadn't been the danger or the darkness or even his failure to protect his student. All that went through his head was the incessant pounding of the walk up the hills. All that Yugi knew was that he'd received a call from Alexis telling him Suzuki had been found unresponsive, some mild pounding in his head, and then he was staring down at the slumbering bluenette in the infirmary as Alexis tried explaining what had happened. "We checked the last Duel recorded on his Duel Disk." Tone was enough to tell the rest of the story – no further clues to be found. "It looks like someone used an unregistered Duel Disk and a secondary Deck. We keep a few spare models on hand if the students break theirs so nobody keeps track of the loaners." And any good Duellist kept an experimental Deck around to fiddle with in their downtime. "We also found this."
Nothing good came from such a closer and there was a malevolent feel to the chilly metal she handed him. "What is it?" It looked like a chunky metal watch with a dark blue circle instead of a ticking clock face. But Yugi could see the imprints on Suzuki's wrist where the metal links had been pressed tighter than any normal watch would have been.
"It's called a Bio-Band. Officially." Better times to reveal the other name wouldn't have required them to be mentioned at all. "Students called them 'Death-Belts'. Not that there were ever any fatalities connected to them." She hurriedly corrected.
"Of course not." Yugi continued to turn the device over and over in his hands. KaibaCorp wouldn't let a single hint of responsibility lurk in the periphery. Anything including the words 'death', 'fatal', 'doctor', or (due to a 2003 legal case) 'nutrition' was banned from promotional use lest culpability creep near the profit margins. "Jaden told me all these were confiscated and destroyed."
"They should have been." As one of the victims of Thelonious Viper's insane scheme, Alexis had been duly motivated to track down every last one of the devices. "We logged all two hundred into inventory."
"How were they disposed of?" Plenty of waste had been dumped in landfill and labelled 'disposed' only to result in severe lawsuits later on. Again, he could rely on Kaiba to take care of his profits.
"Waited for an active period in volcano activity." That was enough to break through Yugi's intensity. "We really wanted them gone."
"Then how did this one manage to slip out?" He wasn't a fool – something this dangerous wouldn't have been left behind if it was the only one. Whoever had left this behind had abandoned it intentionally, to let everyone know that they had more to use. "Who can tell us more about how these work?" Maybe someone had been left behind to replicate the work. The first step in finding the culprit would be finding their supplier.
Alexis' eyes rolled to the ceiling in desperation. "Professor Viper was lured off a cliff to his death, Yubel likes to pretend she wasn't involved and Viper either murdered everyone involved with the development of the technology or stole it from his old black ops unit because we can't find any trace of its origins." Crowler had reached out to KaibaCorp and Industrial Illusions for a technical dissection of the devices and been told the same thing by both – catch 'em all, lock them up and then throw away the key. Digging into the source of this type of technology involved pissing off the sort of people who lacked moral guidelines and had no scruples against attacking a school for asking too many questions.
Dorothy interrupted the sombre atmosphere with her usual energetic bustle before Alexis could realise that she had let slip Yubel's existence. "Poor dear hasn't so much as stirred since he came in." Unlacing the dirty boots, she carefully tucked them under the bed as she peeled off his jacket and gently rolled a blanket over his body and gently placed each arm atop to keep him from overheating. "He's not showing any signs of concussion or TBI. I'd say it's fatigue with a bit of shock but I'll keep an eye on him in case anything subdermal shows up."
"You're quite good at this." Though it was between terms and the academy was operating on a skeleton crew, he was surprised that Dorothy was casually listing brain injuries like a shopkeeper announcing the sweets on sale.
"I'd hope so." There was a hint of prideful snort beneath her kindly tones. "I was a combat medic with the JSDF for eight years." Due to all the incredible advancements surrounding him, Yugi took the information in better stride than Alexis.
"Bah- I, wah?" Alexis spluttered. Dorothy lived up to the atmosphere she generated – plasters for every skinned knee and a sweetie for every watery eye but warfare was beyond her. "Since when?"
"Mmhmm. Attachment to UN peacekeeping and disaster relief efforts from '91-'97." Fluffing up cushions, she straightened the blanket with meticulous attention. "Mostly in South Asia and the Middle East."
"I've known you for ten years," It took a lot to distract from an attacked student left in an inexplicable coma but imagining sweet, dear Dorothy had been touring around warzones certainly did it. "How has this never come up?"
"Oh, honey." She patted a shoulder affectionately. "You didn't have the clearance."
Alexis mulled this over. "I don't have clearance now." She pointed out.
"Oh, sweetie." Each endearment grew in intensity to match the danger of her peaceful face. "Do you think I care about that when people are going after my little lambs? We were called the Japanese 'Self-Defence' Forces but how far do you think that extends?" Alexis didn't rise to the bait and Yugi didn't need to – Tristan could exemplify the lower end of humanity as soon as Joey stole a slice of pizza. Of course, he didn't pretend to be a kindly person in advance. It was the quiet ones you had to be most wary of.
Speaking of quiet ones, there was something disturbing about seeing Suzuki lying that still. "How long do these episodes usually last?" Not a snore, not a twitch. Even that shallow breathing was an impossible parallel.
"We're not sure what setting the Bio-Band was calibrated to." They had been designed to run through a central system. Without that medium, Alexis couldn't determine how much energy had been drained. "Most students slept until breakfast and had to rest for the next few days. The longest case was twenty hours."
A day – far longer than Suzuki had been lying around. There was no reason to be overly concerned. "Have you tried waking him up?" Still, gut instinct existed for a reason and his guts were twisted in knots.
"It's best to let him get some sleep in first." Eighteen hours of sleep, three cups of coffee and an upbeat (yet nearly incomprehensible) motivational speech from Jaden had worked for her.
"Wake him up." Out came the voice of authority he usually reserved for emergencies. "I want to know who's behind this." That wasn't the real reason but (other than the prone form in the bed between the three of them) Yugi was enjoying his job and didn't want to be thrown out because of rampant insanity.
"Suzuki?" Shaking him by a shoulder barely wobbled the slack expression. "Suzuki." Raising her voice, Alexis managed to get the head to roll.
"Stand back, dearie." Shoving Alexis aside, Dororthy rolled up her sleeve. "Suzuki!" Roaring loud enough to wake the dead, the battle medic pulled back one meaty arm. "Can you hear me?" Thunder struck with a blow powerful enough to wake the dead and forced Yugi to catch the flying body with a reminder to never get on the wrong side of Dorothy.
"Still nothing." With a bruise already starting to form, it was increasingly clear that Suzuki was under the effects of both a windfall from the imminent lawsuit victory and something more than simple exhaustion.
Dorothy blew on her hand to alleviate the stinging as her other hand rummaged through the pouch on her apron. "I'm giving him half a millilitre of epinephrine."
"We don't carry adrenaline." Alexis sharply pointed out.
"You don't." Dorothy snorted as she pulled out a clear needle.
"Why are you carrying adrenaline?" Even Yugi was perturbed by how quickly that needle was available.
"Honey," But she didn't elaborate before sliding the needle into the crook of Suzuki's arm and carefully pushing the plunger. Despite a squeak of professional panic from Alexis, there was no reaction. "Another two." Alexis nearly bit two fingers off as the plunger moved further. "This isn't right." Examining the needle chamber carefully, Yugi didn't like how that eye focused on him through the clear liquid.
"How much of that stuff is safe to use?" Exact amounts weren't her forte but Alexis had learned enough from television that limbs should be flopping by now.
"Well," Went the precursor to every avoidance excuse. "He's already had enough for five anaphylactic attacks and a quarter of what a full-grown adult needs to recover from cardiac arrest." All six eyes focused on the impossibly prone form. There was enough adrenaline in the boy to beat confessing to his first crush.
Capping the needle back into her pocket, Dorothy came back out with a penlight and started shining it in each eye. "Pupils responsive, pulse is steady. Good breathing, if shallow." Even a brief glance at Suzuki's eye told Yugi that what he really needed was Serenity and her ability to detect the faint aftermath of contact with Shadows. Those same empty eyes had haunted his grandpa, Mai, Joey, everyone that had (at one point or another) been the victim of a Shadow Game or a Dark Duel.
People that had had their souls locked away.
Yliaster had made their first move.
"Was anything else found with him?" Their target was meant to have been Jaden. There was no reason to do this to Suzuki unless he had stumbled onto the periphery of their activities (the poor kid was too unfocused to uncover them deliberately and the group hadn't survived for centuries without the ability to protect their secrets).
"Only the Bio-Band." Not that staff had been looking for anything more after finding the obvious (if unexpected) answer. "He was just barely in the frame of a camera in the forest. Coverage is spotty too far off the paths but one of the guards spotted his jacket in the corner. They rewound the footage but it looks like he fell into view."
Respectfully picking up Suzuki's Deck from his bedside, Yugi slipped through it at speeds. Forty-five cards, around two-thirds being monsters. Slightly outside the averages but numbers weren't everything. Though unfamiliar, none of them seemed irregular. "Do you see anything unusual?" At least Alexis might be able to notice a detail he'd overlooked.
"Let me look." One eye remained on the student as the other watched each card flick by. "Nothing that I can see." As far as she could tell, Yugi was checking for the absence (or presence) of any rare cards that a Slifer wouldn't usually have. Alexis knew the unusual significance of certain cards but didn't want to sound crazy trying to explain it. "I hate to put it this way but there was nothing particularly special about Suzuki." A mediocre student with a mediocre background and mediocre grades. Maybe his only defining characteristic was that horrendously upbeat attitude.
"Except that he belongs to the Slifer dorm." He didn't feel right dragging Alexis into this. Duel Academy was more than a job, it was her home and she was fully aware of the ongoing class warfare. Yugi was going to mitigate the ramifications as long as they remained in step with her own experiences – anything that broke the situation beyond repair would overshadow the fallout from having a frank conversation with Alexis and letting her in on the truth.
"I'll be restricting entry to my infirmary to staff members only." Crowler would have objected to the use of 'my infirmary' and left with a mouthful of his ruffles. "So that the poor dear can rest in peace, of course."
"Of course." Both teachers agreed as that endlessly convenient pocket rattled dangerously. What else was in there, dart guns and sedatives? Or did she have a set of knuckledusters for the close-quarters combat?
"Dr Rhodes, a word?" Yugi wasn't sure if he wanted to hug the matron or salute the soldier right then. He split the difference and stepped away from the problem entirely.
"Of course." Alexis was likewise aware that she couldn't figure out how to deal with Dorothy right now. Similarly, a strict teacher should probably raise concerns about the implied threat of violence. Being an understanding member of the faculty, she said nothing and followed Yugi to the end of the infirmary.
"If this one slipped out, how many more could have survived?" The silver ring in his hand felt too light to be so deadly. Well, that had been the point: make them comfortable enough to be worn at all times to maximise harvest efficiency.
"Boxes of five, crates of fifty." Throwing four crates of anything into an active volcano was asking for trouble. It involved complicated plans for coordinated drops, calculations for aerodynamics and thermal updrafts. Monroe had ignored all that and simply tilted her helicopter in a tight banking manoeuvre. She was already headed back to the main building by the time the crates had hit the magma. "Every box was counted before being loaded onto the helicopter. If someone did manage to get a box, they couldn't smuggle out more than one set." Five Bio-Bands. Five 'Death-Belts' waiting to drag down the kids in his care.
"You know what four more of those will do." Yugi murmured quietly, watching Dorothy plump the pillows under Suzuki's tousled hair and straighten his shoes underneath the bed. Even the most staunch believer would cave to the logic of closing a Dorm with more members in unresponsive comas than not.
"And I'll make sure to put this one somewhere nobody will look." She couldn't have taken the deadly bracelet faster than if it had been burning his fingers. He didn't want the thing near him. "But there's not much we can do about any others. Telling the students that they're out there but not to panic? You know how that'll go." The first rule for getting a teenager to do something dangerous was to tell them it was forbidden. Whoever had the Bio-Bands already knew where to get them and letting out word of their existence would only spur the rest of the students to hunt them down for themselves. As for panic, they'd have a stampede by the end of the email.
"Regardless," There was an old saying 'everything before the but means nothing'. Yugi wasn't even pretending that he was going to agree. "I will be informing the rest of my students why their classmate will not be rejoining them for the foreseeable future." As a teacher in charge of a large student body, Alexis knew that gossip spread almost instantly. Telling one student, even under the promise of secrecy (especially under the promise of secrecy) could spread to the rest of the academy by breakfast.
It was his eyes that stopped her. Jaden's eyes looked like that sometimes, when he forgot that other people hadn't been through what he had. "As long as they agree to keep it amongst yourselves." It was a hollow condition. Children were naturally inquisitive and they had no good reason to keep the truth from them.
"Of course," Yugi responded evenly. "I'll keep that in mind."
All that was in his mind was the pounding. He'd walked back to the dorm while being more aware of his surroundings on the return journey and even managed to think up a believable excuse to explain Suzuki's absence. Nothing particularly detailed but good enough to keep additional questions at bay. Enough to keep the rest of the students from straying off the path to where the monsters lay. But monsters care little for the rules of society and walked on the path as easily as off it.
Dangling from the dining room handle was another Bio-Band. No cameras were this far out from Duel Academy and it would be impossible to find out who had left it there but the message was clear – more than one Bio-Band had escaped destruction. There was no way of knowing how many remained. Ten? Twenty? Did they all elude a fiery demise or had a select few survived? Alexis had guessed only five but that still meant enough to eliminate half his surviving students were still lurking elsewhere on the island.
Enraged pounding filled his head as he slowly collected the disgusting tool and slid it into his pocket. Two possibilities existed: either Yliaster's assassin had figured out that he was not from this time and had shifted priorities to destroying him in place of Jaden or there was someone at Duel Academy who was already at ease with attacking children. That much had been made clear from the minute Suzuki had been found unconscious. What was worse was the second Bio-Band mocking him from one pocket. Hurting children wasn't only acceptable but now they were taunting the remaining students. Too far.
Drawing himself up, he pulled open the door and was instantly inundated with a sea of faces trying to find out what had happened to their lost member. Yugi gave them ten seconds to babble and vent their frustration before he cleared his throat. "As of this moment, I am implementing some new dorm rules." He made sure to keep any trace of rage from his voice when he spoke. "From now on, we're operating in a buddy system – nobody is going anywhere by themselves. I don't care if it's the middle of the night and you're going to the toilet, you tell your roommate." A timid hand dared interrupt the lecture. "Yes?"
"We don't all have roommates?" Hashi was so uncertain about speaking that he managed to turn the statement into a question.
"Anyone without is to pair up." That still left one short and even a hint of impropriety about a student sharing a room with a teacher would kill the Slifer Dorm for good. "Toss a couple of spare mattresses on the floor to squeeze a third person in where you have to. You can figure arrangements out amongst yourselves."
"Why are we pairing up?" Zaw was no fool – enough terror had permeated his life back in Myanmar that he knew protective measures when the adults tried to play them off as innocent activities.
"..." Yugi closed his mouth again when he saw those eyes. They were too old for the young face. Zaw wouldn't accept any half-baked excuses and, as Alexis said, the rest would know by breakfast. "Suzuki's in the infirmary." Screw the rules, he had responsibilities. Not just to Yusei and Jaden but also to these kids. "Someone used an artefact called a Bio-Band to drain his energy in a Duel."
"Who?" It was unusual to hear Hashi speaking in anything except his bubbly tone but Yugi could understand that anger. Suzuki was his best friend and he'd been attacked as soon as they were split apart.
"Whoever did it went to great lengths to hide their identity." Alexis would probably scold him once word got back to her that Yugi had spilled all the information he'd agreed to keep secret. "They used an unregistered Disk and a Deck not currently in the system, and the Duel happened outside the scope of the cameras." Reading every iota of those expressions revealed nothing he didn't expect: shock, fear, anger. Nobody here was yet experienced enough to hide every tell and showed no indication they knew Suzuki had been attacked.
"It was Blue!" Steve could be forgiven for his poor grammar at that moment but the point came across regardless. The rest of the students instantly clamoured in agreement, baying for blood and snatching up cards and equipment from around the room as they whipped themselves into a fury. "Let's go!" Heading up the bloodthirsty unit, he marched to the door with a set expression.
Blocking them was a single arm. "ENOUGH!" Yugi roared. There was a time for fury and there was a time for action but those two rarely coincided.
"They deserve it for what they've done to us all year!" Jiro raised a good point. Second son, lowest dorm – he'd had enough of being looked down on and this was his breaking point.
"And they outnumber you by how many? Two, three times?" Between taking holidays throughout the year or plain laziness when it came to studies, there were more than enough Blues left over to crush the Reds' suicide bid. "Even supposing that you manage to take down once each, what happens if the ones who did this get away with it?" The wealthy backers of the rival dorm would ensure that his students were crushed and tarnished long before they even reached tournament levels.
Then he said the four words every warrior of righteous vengeance hated to hear and despised to say: "We can't do anything." Even the slightest inflection on each word could twist the meaning and he forced his tone to be nothing but commanding. "Not until we know who is coming after us."
"What do you mean 'us' grandpa?" Botan sneered back at him.
"I mean, us." That stare refuted all seven coming his way and left them clashed in the middle, refusing to back down or push further back. "Partner up. If one of you gets pushed into a Duel that you don't want to be in, the other one contacts me directly and I'll come running to handle it." Going after the Blues directly would only result in being crushed. The Slifer Dorm survived only as long as they were being treated as a nuisance and not seen as a threat.
"And what are you going to do?" Miguel's hyperactive mind sped through several scenarios and managed to (accidentally) stumble on the difficulties of a teacher going after a student.
Reality focused behind Yugi as he finally strengthened the intensity of his stare. "I'll handle it." That deadly fragile weight in his pocket had been meant as a pointed threat but Yliaster probably hadn't expected Yugi to figure out how to pivot it into a weapon. Maybe they would come after another one of his students and maybe another Dark Duel would be forced into being but his students were ready now. And the entire reason Yliaster had set foot in this era was to eliminate the King of Games – all he would have to do is get them to agree to restore his students and Yliaster would get their chance to drain every last drop of his life.
Anonymity: bad for villains, great for reviews.