4

Zachary's dreams were filled with dark tendrils creeping out of the woods, breaking off from a central point and wrapping themselves around trees like intelligent, independently moving shadows. They hummed across the treetops, shaking out birds and filling the skies with dark clouds and leaves that were falling the wrong direction. The humming grew louder as the darkness inched closer to him, slithering between the blades of grass, enveloping everything that it touched. It pooled out from the edge of the tree line, toward him, across the open grass, closing the distance with certainty and grace.

The humming invaded every particle of air between them, filling his thoughts, until the unpleasant screeching of his alarm awakened him.

Damn, right when it was getting to the good part. Still, that one was a little more disconcerting than his usual dreams. He reached over and angrily switched off his alarm clock, leaving only the sounds of his white noise machine which was currently emitting the cacophonous screams of the damned.

Maybe he'd have fewer nightmares if he changed the setting to dolphins or something?

He inhaled deeply, feeling woefully underprepared for the day to follow. Today was, at long last, the mid-semester promotion preparation exams, which were intended to let the faculty and students know their progress and what they had to work on before the actual dorm placement tests at the end of the semester. There was usually quite a bit of shuffling around that time, he heard, and students with inconsistent displays of abilities would often forego even unpacking if they knew they would be placed somewhere else in a few months time. The pressure for duel prep students to remain in Obelisk was immense, and Zachary had been irritable and stressed for weeks waiting for today. Fortunately, Obelisks weren't scheduled to take their practical exams until the afternoon — the Slifers needed to be awake and in the duel arena by 5:30 AM, and Ras at 9 AM — so he had time to unwind beforehand.

Struggling to calm his nerves, Zachary took an extra long shower and carefully combed out his shaggy black hair before eating a light brunch, looking over his deck, and making his way to the main building's duel arena. He arrived later than anticipated; it looked like the Obelisk duels were well underway. Two male students he only knew by sight were dueling each other on the center stage platform, while Doctor Crowler looked on with a clipboard and utter dejection across his face. The duel seemed to have devolved into some sort of argument, with neither of them playing cards and their duel disks darkened into standby mode while they shouted at one another.

"THAT'S A LOGICAL FALLACY."

"OH YEAH?" The other yelled back, arms crossed defiantly. "WHICH ONE?"

"I DON'T KNOW."

Zachary shook his head as he took a seat next to Kylie and that Slifer kid Logan was hanging out with now. Those Obelisks were both shoe-ins for having to repeat Basic Trash Talking at this rate. "What's going on?" He asked Kylie.

"They forgot what an ad hominem is," she replied, not taking her eyes off the 'duel.'

"Right," he looked over at the Slifer, Ethan, Evan, who cares. "What are you still doing here? Didn't you duel hours ago?"

The other boy nodded. "I like to watch."

Zachary decided that talking to this person was beyond what he was willing to do today. He took a brief look around for signs of Logan before determining that he bounced before he could watch Kylie play. Apparently, the Ra had a severe phobia of dolls and mannequins and anything else vaguely humanoid that fell into uncanny valley territory, so her chosen archetype always creeped him out. Zachary thought Logan's judgment of someone else's playing style was just stupid. After all, the guy used a Jam Breeding Machine deck that relied heavily on the field spell Wetlands to give his jam tokens a mediocre boost, as well as the equip card Amulet of Ambition. That one pissed off Zachary to the point of refusing to play against him. Logan explained it to him once like he were a slow child, saying that it increased the jam's attack by 500 times the difference in level between it and the enemy monster. That's when Zachary's eyes started to glaze over. He didn't go to duel school for math, that's what the onboard duel disk life counter system was for. Granted, Logan did appear to have hit on something by taking advantage of the student body's aversion to math, considering he won most of his games when his opponent would slam their high-level monster into one of his tokens out of frustration, usually sending their own life points to zero in the process.

The present duel concluded a few minutes later when Doctor Crowler announced there would be a turn time limit implemented. Both boys walked offstage, leaving Crowler to call out the names of the next duelists to take the exam. "Ushio Abiko and Fumio Demura!"

A boy Zachary recognized as Ushio approached the platform and gazed out into the mostly empty bleachers for his opponent. "Fumio Demura," Crowler repeated, looking around the room.

"That's the sixth Obelisk so far today," Kylie whispered. There was a tension in the room that Zachary suddenly became aware of as everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats. "It's super weird they'd miss an obligatory practice exam, right?"

"I guess."

Crowler pursed his lips together and wrote something down on his clipboard. He looked really stressed, Zachary noted. More so than usual, with his heavy class load and extracurricular responsibilities. "Kylie Tanaka, take over for Demura."

"YES!" Kylie's concerned demeanor vanished immediately as she vaulted over the chest-high wall separating the bleachers from the arena floor and hit the ground running, her half-ponytail bobbing wildly. She bouncily took her place in the center of the arena so she and Ushio could shuffle each other's decks. "Let's get the lead out and start dueling, Ushio! Go go go!"

She practically spun to her place on the opposite side of the arena from her bewildered duel partner, putting her bare left arm behind her and pulling it out from behind her back with a duel disk attached. She slammed her deck into the slot and counted out her opening hand.

Zachary glanced over at the Slifer kid a seat over from him, seeing that he was torn between watching the action and trying to peel apart a fidget spinner with his fingernails. Maybe Zachary wouldn't try interacting with him after all.

Crowler flipped a coin and indicated Ushio would be going first. Zachary barely paid attention to his opening move, opting instead on trying to communicate via ESP to Kylie to please take this duel seriously. Oftentimes, she'd get caught up having fun and trying out new tactics, especially when it wasn't appropriate and a hefty part of her grade depended on whether she won, rather than dueling like a proper Obelisk.

"MY TURN!" Kylie drew and played her first Gimmick Puppet. They went on for a few turns, not doing anything to write home or really anywhere about. Neither of them had taken any battle damage until Kylie was able to bring out her Gearspring Spirit monster, making Ushio's Gene-Warped Warwolf's attack 0 with its effect, then Xyz summoning Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings. "Now I equip Mr Strings with Stoic Challenge, which increases his attack by 600 for each Xyz material on my side of the field, and doubles any battle damage you take. Now I attack your castrated Warwolf for 8400 damage! Yay!"

Ushio's lifepoints fell to zero as he hit the arena floor. Zachary couldn't help but smile a little at being able to see Kylie's one-turn-kill in action on someone other than himself. He also hoped that drama queen Ushio's knees hurt from his fall. Who even did that any more?

"Very good, Tanaka, very good," Crowler patted her head. "Can I have Zachary Akiyama and Toma Kimura up next? Come on down for your practice exam."

Zachary's eyes widened. Oh no, not his ex-boyfriend. His eyes shot around the room apprehensively, praying that Toma was playing hooky for the same reason all the other Obelisks were, but was severely disappointed when Toma got up from a seat almost immediately across from him and confidently strode up to the testing area. Zachary took a deep breath and joined him, handing his deck over and feeling his palms sweat slightly. Crap, what if he got sweat all over Toma's cards and it got all weird when he handed them back? The relationship hadn't ended on good terms, this would just be another reason for everyone to hear about how much of a loser he was. Not like they wouldn't see it firsthand.

Toma smirked at him, expertly employing an overhand shuffling technique with Zachary's Chaos Dragons deck. "Let's see if you duel as bad as you kiss," Toma mocked.

"That's privileged information!" Zachary hissed back at him, feeling his face heat up. They took their places and, to Zachary's dismay, he was required to go first. "Um…" he looked down at his opening hand, which consisted purely of high level dragons. This is fine, he told himself, Chaos Dragons were designed to get out these monsters by special summoning but… no, that one couldn't be special summoned. Neither could that one. Oh god what did this one even do? He tried to quickly skim the unfamiliar text, not really taking any of it in.

"Today, Zach!"

Zachary flinched; he hated being called that. He didn't even let Toma refer to him that way when they were still in the honeymoon phase of their short-lived relationship. Okay, just think. Why the hell did so many of these require monsters in the graveyard? "I end my turn," he ground out, knowing full well Remedial Deck Building was in his near future.

Titters of laughter filled the room as Toma played Totem Dragon, then the spell card Double Summon, allowing him to summon an eight star dragon. He nailed Zachary with his attack, bringing his life points down to only one thousand. He drew. Damage Condenser. Where was this last turn? He set the trap card anyway, knowing that he wouldn't survive the hit it would take to actually use it. Again, laughter followed the end of his turn and continued all the way through his thorough defeat. This was just perfect. His only saving grace was that this wasn't the actual dorm placement exam, otherwise he would have been shunted down to Slifer before his duel disk even deactivated.

Toma surprisingly had the decency not to openly gloat to Zachary — he didn't need to — knowing full well that this loss would sting a lot more than any barbed comments he could possibly make. The two of them shook hands and parted ways, Zachary unable to raise his eyes from the floor until he was safely back to his seat in the bleachers next to the only person at this school who he felt like he could face right now.

He removed his duel disk from his arm and plunked it onto the floor by his feet, burying his face in his hands. Maybe he didn't belong in Obelisk after all. No one else had to work as hard as he did at just being passable at Duel Monsters. If he didn't go to duel prep, would he have even passed his entrance exams? He felt tears coming on when a comforting hand touched his arm.

"You can only get better from here," Kylie's voice said softly.

Zachary squeezed his eyes shut behind his hands.

"I think you did the right thing," the Slifer kid chimed in unhelpfully. Zachary removed his hands from his face to scowl at him. The other boy smiled vaguely, waving his hand in the direction of Toma across the room. "Duelists are always flexing on each other. You bravely set yourself up as the logical conclusion that there's someone at the bottom who can flex to none."

"I don't like you."

"I appreciated the apolitical message you were making in not playing any monsters," the Slifer continued. "You were resisting the Academy's indoctrination, proving to Seto Kaiba that just because he owns the means of production he can't influence your convictions. It was inspirational seeing your protest live. Before the fake news media covered it and twisted it to fit into their respective narratives, that is."

Zachary narrowed his eyes. There was no way in hell he was spending another minute with this freak. "Kylie, do you still have that shank?"

"Be nice," she reprimanded. "Hey, Evan and I are going to the shop in a little bit to buy some booster packs. Wanna come?"

He glanced over at the Slifer. "No thanks. I want to be alone for a while, but I'll see you tonight, okay?" Without another word, he collected his belongings and headed out the nearest exit.