Partial rewrite of "The New Chazz" and "Sibling Rivalry"

Academy Island

November 13, 2027

5:22 AM

It was foggy this morning, water from the recent rain shower lingering in the air, not yet evaporated by the still-rising sun. The cold, wet grayness was a perfect match for Chazz's mood. He'd taken to spending long stretches of time in the woods surrounding campus, wandering aimlessly in any direction he felt like, just so long as it was away from… well, everything, really.

His dorm room was no longer the sanctuary it had been; losing his midterm duel had made him an outcast, but at least that had been against another Anubis, and therefore not worth the trouble of actively seeking him out to make his life miserable. Ever since he'd lost to Yuki, an Osiris, however… well, everyone and their deck wanted to come and gawp at the greatest loser in the Academy's history. Either that or they wanted to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was no longer welcome on Anubis Blue turf, never mind that he lived there.

Wandering around in the woods also had the added advantage of giving him an excuse not to talk to his mother, who'd been constantly calling and texting since discovering the midterm loss. It had been inevitable with parents able to look up their children's grades on the app, but all of Chazz's preparation for dealing with it had gone out the window after losing to Yuki. Now, he might never talk to his mother again if he could help it.

Of course, he barely spoke to anyone at all these days, leading to the rather alarming habit of talking to either himself… or surprisingly vivid figments of his imagination.

"Lousy scrubs. It's all their fault. Dr. Crowler. Topher and Conklin. Yuki."

"Hey, Chazz, come on, let's go, get your game on!"

"Quiet!" Chazz snapped at the apparition. Of course, it was just his luck; not only was he being haunted, but his "ghost" just had to be Yuki Muto. "Someday, I'm gonna wipe that stupid grin right off your face!"

"Hey, take your best shot!"

"Oh, I will. I'll watch you lose all your infuriating cheerfulness when you finally get what you deserve. I'm gonna beat you so bad you'll never want to duel again. I'll drive you to your knees and pound you into dust. I'll make you beg for mercy at my feet. I'll show everyone how pathetic you really are, and then I'll finally have everything I want."

"Everything? Really? You don't want, I don't know, your reputation back? Friends who are actually loyal? A mother who lo—"

"SHUT UP! JUST GO AWAY!" The imaginary Yuki finally did as he was told— accompanied by every bird within hearing range of Chazz's outburst. Hunching in on himself, the Anubis hurried on, anxious to leave the spot of his tantrum behind. "I'll get you someday, slacker… I'll get you."

The fog was thick enough that Chazz had to watch his every step to make sure he wasn't going to trip over anything, and it was because his gaze was fixed so attentively on the ground that he saw it. A flash of color— incredibly bright when backdropped by nothing but gray— got caught in his peripheral vision, and he paused in his ranting to take a closer look. It was composed of some brilliant shades of red, orange, and yellow, and almost seemed to shine as it caught the light… oh. It was a card.

Curious now, Chazz bent down to pick it up and almost immediately regretted the effort. It was a basically worthless Level 2 monster, with no attack points to speak of and a rather hideous appearance on top of that. Still, Chazz's duelist instincts refused to allow him to just toss it back, so he put it in his pocket and promptly forgot about its existence.

With his tirade having been interrupted, Chazz decided to head back to the dorm and try to get a few more hours of sleep before breakfast. He was just hungry enough this morning that he might be able to muster up an appetite. Hunched over against the damp, his eyes once again focused entirely on his feet, the Anubis trudged off through the trees.

Chazz's Room, Anubis Blue Dorm

November 13, 2027

7:37 AM

"Hey! Hey, General! Rise and shine! Up and at 'em! Hellooo…!?" There was a lightbulb giggling at him. Too exhausted to try and figure that thought out, Chazz rolled over and buried himself deeper into his covers.

The giggling lightbulb followed him.

"Come on wake up! All right, guess I'll have to do my wake-up dance—" Fortunately being swatted with a pillow got rid of the annoying thing.

Groggily, Chazz sat up in bed and checked his clock. It was almost eight; he might as well get up so that he could get to the cafeteria right when it opened. Practically no other student was crazy enough to drag themselves out of bed so early for breakfast, so Chazz had taken to exclusively eating at opening time in order to avoid his dormmates. Well, when he bothered to eat at all.

This morning, however, he was actually hungry enough to justify the trip, so he staggered to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face before throwing on a clean uniform. As he was dressing, he remembered the strange dream that'd woken him— a laughing, dancing lightbulb. How ridiculous.

Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, Chazz couldn't hold back a grimace. Maybe it wasn't so ridiculous. He certainly looked the part of someone who had crazy dreams.

…

After wolfing down two cups of coffee and a handful of doughnuts (his life as he knew it was over— who cared how healthy he was) Chazz hightailed it back to his room before anyone could see him, making sure to lock the door and not bothering to turn on the lights— he was just going back to bed, after all. He hadn't bothered doing any schoolwork in days, let alone attending class. There wasn't any point; he'd halfway made up his mind to run away from home over winter break, change his name, and start a new life on the other side of the world, where no one knew him or Yuki Muto, lest the bane of his existence come back to haunt him some more.

No sooner had he pulled the covers over his head, however, that a familiar voice spoke into his ear, "Aw, come on, General, you can't stay in bed all day! There's lots of work to be done!"

"Gaaahh!" Chazz leaped from the bed, whirling around to face the intruder, and simultaneously crouched into a self-defense position his mother had drilled into him before he was five years old. "Who's there?"

"It's me, General! Your partner!" Standing on the bed, having emerged from… somewhere, was a vaguely familiar-looking yellow creature with eye stalks and unnaturally large lips. It honestly seemed to Chazz like a primary schooler's attempt at sculpture using yellow Play-Doh. Except that it was talking to him.

And now it was moving toward him.

"Stay back!" Chazz ordered, desperately thinking through all the emergencies his mother had ever trained him to deal with and trying to decide which one this qualified as.

"Stay back? Oh, but General, we're gonna be best buds now. What if one of us wants a hug?"

"'Best buds'!?" Chazz asked incredulously. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, I want to be your best bud," the thing said. "You picked up my card and brought me with you. Everyone else just walks right past, but you decided to keep me."

"Your card?" Chazz asked incredulously.

"Yeah. You found it in the forest this morning, and when you picked it up, you got me too!"

Baffled, Chazz sifted through his memories of that morning. He did remember picking up a card… Hastily, but without turning his back on the yellow gremlin, Chazz darted over to where he'd left his coat, draped unceremoniously over a chair, and rifled through its pockets. Soon enough he came up with a monster card— oh. That was why the creature looked familiar.

"This is you?" he asked, holding up the small rectangle with "Ojama Yellow" emblazoned across the top.

"That's right General," the thing— Ojama Yellow, apparently— hopped up and down with excitement. "We're going to be such great friends!"

Chazz scoffed. "No, we most certainly are not." He wasn't sure what was causing this hallucination— lack of sleep probably— but if he got rid of the card, he should eventually forget about the monster, and the mirage would fade with his memory. He hoped.

He strode over to the trash can, intending to toss the card in, only for his fingers to tighten around it instead. "What…?" Chazz growled in frustration as his arm, completely against his will, jerked away from the receptacle. "My hand… I can't… let go." In the back of his mind, he felt panic starting to build.

"You can't get rid of me!"

"Aaah!" Somehow, while Chazz hadn't been paying attention, Ojama Yellow had moved from the bed to hover right in front of his face.

"We're pals, chums, best friends forever— you know, BFFs!"

"I already told you, we are not!" Chazz was seriously wondering if he was beginning to go mad. Bizarrely, he found the idea amusing. How long would Yuki's popularity last, once it was known he'd driven another student to insanity?

"But you picked up my card! You can see me and hear me! That means it was meant to be!"

"Go away!" Chazz snapped. He wasn't sure if he was talking to Ojama Yellow (he couldn't be; the monster wasn't really there, right?) or his own mind.

"Look, if we're going to be partners, you need to stop being so uptight," said the apparition, apparently not able to realize when it wasn't wanted.

"You're not real! Get lost!" Chazz swiped at it with his empty hand, but the monster simply darted out of the way, floating as it was.

"Get lost? Funny you should say that. You know, I have two brothers who are lost. We really ought to find them for our deck."

"Quiet!" Chazz clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real… Hesitantly, after a moment, Chazz dared to crack one eye open. To his very great relief, Ojama Yellow was nowhere to be found. "There. See? I knew it wasn't real. I'm just tired. And stressed. Yeah, that's all. I just need to get some more sleep…"

The Anubis stumbled back over to his bed, settling himself down between the covers as a wave of fatigue overcame him. He slipped back into slumber so quickly that he didn't have time to realize that Ojama Yellow's card was still clutched in his hand.

Almost one and a half hours later…

"General! General, wake up! Your glow-in-the-dark box is beeping like crazy. I think it might explode!"

"WHAT!?" Chazz leaped out of bed for the second time that morning— Ojama Yellow's card going flying in the process— the words "glow", "box", "beeping" and "explode" reverberating inside his head. Frantically he looked around for something matching this description and settled on… his phone.

His bloody cell phone.

"What the heck is wrong with you?" he demanded, reaching for the device to turn off the alert sound. "You gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry, General. I told it to be quiet, but it wouldn't listen."

"It wouldn't— oh, never mind. I don't need to explain anything to you; you're not even real." The Anubis tapped in his pin number and scanned the alert messages. His mother had called him fifteen times in the past half-hour. Great.

Turning the phone on silent and tossing it into a drawer for good measure, Chazz climbed back into bed, feeling a headache coming on. He knew he couldn't dodge his mother forever, but he had no idea what to do about it, so for now he was going to stick with his avoidance strategy.

Avoidance, unfortunately, didn't work on Ojama Yellow. The monstrosity was still there, hovering right in front of his face and grinning widely at him. "That's tellin' 'em, General. That box won't be bothering us again."

The black-haired duelist didn't bother answering. Instead, he sat back against his pillows and stared at the ghost that'd been haunting him all morning. Or spirit, rather. He hadn't thought about them in years, but he had heard of Duel Spirits before. Sometimes, when his mother hadn't been around, his father had told him stories of the glory days, tales of epic duels with real magic, real monsters, and deadly stakes. The stories included duelists who had unique connections with their monsters— Mr. Muto's ace was the Dark Magician, Mr. Wheeler had a special link with the Red-Eyes Black-Dragon, and no one could deny there was something unusual about Mr. Kaiba and his Blue-Eyes.

Chazz had only ever half-believed him, especially once he got older. His mother had never liked hearing the stories and had shut her son down if he ever brought them up in her presence, so he'd buried them deep in the back of his mind.

Surely that wasn't what was happening to him. What were the odds that both his father and he, out of the billions of people on planet Earth, would be involved in some weird magic conspiracy… thing, if his father's stories had even been real? No, it was far more likely that he'd suffered some sort of nervous breakdown and that his childhood memories were resurfacing in odd ways because of it.

"That's it," Chazz murmured to himself, "that's what's happening. All the stress from classes, Mom nagging me all the time, Yuki showing his stupid face everywhere… I've finally snapped. My loss to Muto must have been the final straw."

"Are you sick, General? Should I try and get a doctor? Because I have to warn you, it's very unlikely they'll be able to see—"

"I don't need a doctor," Chazz growled. "I just need you to go away. You're just the result of too much stress; you can't stick around forever." He folded his arms over his chest. "I know you're not real; I just have to convince my brain of it."

"But I am real, General!" The hallucination was actually starting to sound upset, now. "Some part of you knows that— a deep, secret part buried way inside. After all, we've been through so much together. You couldn't ever really forget me. We're fated to be partners!"

Chazz stared at the creature blankly. "What on earth are you talking about? I only found your card and started hallucinating you talking to me a few hours ago."

"Oh! I, uh… I was talking about that! Yeah, you finding me, picking me up, and bringing me with you, plus these great chats we've been having—"

"Great," Chazz muttered, wrapping a pillow around his head to cover his ears. "Not only am I crazy, my hallucination isn't even sane."

"You're not crazy, General, I told you—"

"And stop calling me that! I'm no one's general, got it?"

"Oh, sorry." And the spirit did, in fact, sound genuinely repentant. "I'll have to come up with something else to call you, then. Hmm. Sir? Nah, too formal. Commander? Boor-ring. Captain? Chief? Skipper?"

Burrowing further into his pillow, Chazz tuned out the noise and began to drift, slipping into a doze. It was, after all, only in his mind. He should be able to ignore something that he'd conjured up in the first place.

"I've got it! Boss!"

Anubis Blue Dorm

November 20, 2027

6:32 AM

After doing some research online, Chazz decided that the best way to get rid of his hallucination was to improve his overall physical and mental health. It was unlikely that his spiral into depression and the onset of vivid visions occurring one right after the other was just a coincidence, right? If he fixed the cause, the effect should fade.

But no matter what he tried the apparition wouldn't leave. And Chazz tried everything. He regulated his sleep schedule, he began to eat three proper meals a day again, he adopted a rigorous exercise routine— nothing worked. In desperation he began a journal, attempting to figure out his deepest, darkest feelings and address them, hoping to give himself some peace of mind. He even considered going to see the school counselor, but decided that was out of the question. Not because it might damage his reputation— that boat had sailed— but because it would be billed to his parents, and then his mother would see it. An intervention from Vivian Devlin was the absolute last thing he wanted.

So, at the very end of his rope, he resorted to a last-ditch effort: he would try and find the weakling well and hope it would be able to take Ojama Yellow when no other discard pile or trash heap could. It wasn't scientific or even logical, but Chazz was far beyond caring at this point.

The weakling well was a popular legend among the students at Duel Academy that everyone heard within their first two weeks on the island. Supposedly, deep in the woods somewhere, was a very old well filled with a great many cards, discarded by duelists who believed them too weak to ever be of use in their decks. Chazz had never thought much of it— he didn't have any weaklings in his deck— but he'd never thought he'd lose to Yuki Muto and become the laughingstock of the school, either. With that in mind, he pulled on his coat, stuffed Ojama Yellow's card into his pocket, and headed for the woods. He'd traversed enough of them during his wanderings that he could at least rule out where he knew the well wasn't.

"Hey, boss, where're we going today?" the creepy gremlin asked, popping into view.

Chazz gritted his teeth and forced himself not to respond. He'd gotten a reprimand from his hall monitor earlier that week after his shouting matches with the hallucination— who kept insisting they should be out looking for his two lost brothers, of all things— had gotten too loud. Since then, no matter how much he wanted to, he avoided verbally acknowledging it— he may have been having a nervous breakdown, but there was no reason to call unnecessary attention to himself.

"Bo-oss, I know you can hear me. Oh, are we going to look for my brothers? That is sooo nice of you, boss, I knew you liked me really—"

"I do not like you," Chazz hissed under his breath. "Get it into your tiny pea-brain head!"

The spirit quieted down after that, but it must have suffered from short-term memory loss because eventually, it started up its chatter again. "I've heard rumors of a terrible hole in the ground in these woods, boss. An inescapable prison where lots of duel spirits are trapped. We should be careful we don't fall into it.

"I don't want to be trapped, and those spirits are probably really angry after being left behind," he added from his place hovering over Chazz's right shoulder. "I wouldn't want to be in their place. I'm super glad I've got you, boss."

Yeah, well you won't be when I toss you down that well, Chazz thought viciously, hunching down into his collar and heading further into the trees. He ignored the tiny part of him that had begun to feel guilty— Ojama Yellow's "spirit" wasn't even real, after all.

Academy Island

November 20, 2027

10:09 AM

It had been almost four hours since beginning his search and Chazz was more than a little irritated. His feet hurt, his skin was itching with sweat despite the chill autumn air, and Ojama Yellow would not. Stop. Talking.

"This is ridiculous," he growled at the surrounding foliage as he shoved another tree branch out of his way. "Running around in the woods chasing a tall tale. It's probably just a rumor anyway—" Every hair on Chazz's body stood on end. He felt an unsettling flash of both hot and cold and just barely caught an unnaturally twisting spot of mist in the corner of his eye before it vanished back into… a well. He'd found it. "—or not."

"Ahh! Boss, those things don't look too friendly!"

Chazz scoffed at the monster's alarm. "Please. There's nothing even really there. It's just another product of my overstressed brain." He ignored the part of him that had begun to doubt this theory because it was the only possible explanation. This was real life, not a fairy tale.

Slowly, he reached into his pocket and took out the weak monster card, approaching the well and fighting down his building nausea as he got closer. It's all in my head it's all in my head it's all in my head—

"Boss? What are you doing? No, boss, don't put me down there! Please, Gener— boss, I promise I'll be good. I won't talk so much and I'll try to be less annoying— please, please don't leave me!"

Gritting his teeth, Chazz ignored the begging and held the card out over the well, ready to let go, to put the past week of weirdness behind him… he couldn't do it. His fingers wouldn't let him. A little frantically, he shook his arm, trying to get his muscles to obey, but it was almost like the card was physically fighting back, clinging to him just as hard as he was trying to let go of it.

"Oh, for the love of— would you just get lost!" With a particularly violent jerk, Chazz's balance was thrown off, and only too late did he realize his mistake. Flailing desperately, he tried to regain control, but he was already slipping on the rocks, and then… he was falling, down, down, down into the darkness.

…

"…you hadn't noticed, knucklehead, this here's private property."

"Yeah, that's tellin' 'im!"

A mild tingle of alarm shot up Chazz's spine and he forced his eyes open, bracing himself to face the unknown danger. Instead of armed thugs as he expected, however, he saw only… more demented art projects. He groaned in annoyance— and then groaned again, louder, this time in pain, because he'd suddenly registered just how much his body hurt.

"What happened?" he moaned, managing to slowly roll onto his side.

"You came crashin' down here uninvited, that's what!"

"Numbskulls like you ditched us here and so your kind ain't wanted around no more!"

"Yup, yup, yup, yup, yup."

Chazz stared at his two new hallucinations, his mind frighteningly blank on how to deal with them. "Just great. Seems like someone really is a few cards short of a deck," he muttered to himself.

"Hey! Who you callin' short, chowder-head?"

"Yeah!?"

Rolling his eyes, Chazz managed to push himself to his feet, slowly testing each of his limbs in the process. Tilting his head back and squinting into the circle of light above him, he tried to estimate how far he'd fallen. Surely it couldn't be as far as it looked, he thought, or else he'd have ended up with more than a few bruises. Glancing back down, he finally noticed the well's floor— scattered across it were dozens of Duel Monsters cards.

Curiously, Chazz picked one up and examined it. No surprise, it was a low-level, low-attack monster. Further exploration proved the rest around him to be the same, with a few support cards mixed in. So, it was true after all— the weakling well really did exist, and Chazz had managed to stumble right into it.

For all the good it did him. He still hadn't been able to get rid of Ojama Yellow.

Speaking of which— he glanced back at the two small figures that were still yelling at him. Their lumpy, deformed appearance certainly looked familiar… no. Surely he hadn't started hallucinating the two brothers that the other one was always going on about? Was there no end to the depths his own mind would go to torment him?

Even as he despaired of his sanity, however, Chazz felt his previous doubts rising up to nag him. He'd been taking such good care of himself over the past week that he actually felt pretty good— well-rested, energized, and less depressed, and yet what he wanted to believe was only a hallucination had shown no sign of disappearing. What was more, according to the internet, stress and depression weren't even known to cause hallucinations. They could be caused by chronic lack of sleep, which Chazz didn't fit the criteria for, "chronic" being defined as over three months. Add onto that the stories he remembered from his childhood and the weird, unnatural feelings he'd been having…

Was it possible? He may have only started seeing Ojama Yellow's… "spirit" after he'd picked up its card, but he was sure he'd never seen any other Ojamas before. Now, if it turned out that these black and green "Ojamas" actually existed, that would mean they couldn't possibly be hallucinations, right? What were the odds of his brain conjuring up the exact images of cards he'd never laid eyes on? On the other hand, if these "spirits" didn't match any real Ojama cards… that would mean they really were figments of his imagination.

His test decided on, he began to go through the cards on the well's floor, bringing each one into the light to get a clear look at it. Honestly, he didn't know what outcome he was hoping for. On the one hand, being able to see and talk to Duel Spirits which apparently did exist would make his life much more complicated.

On the other hand, it would mean he wasn't going crazy.

Finally, one of the cards he picked up showed exactly what he'd been (maybe) dreading— "Ojama Black" it was called, and the Ojama Black pictured on the card was a perfect match for the one currently shouting at him.

"Hey! Put that down! You think I want your grubby hands touching my card after what your kind's done to us!?"

"I didn't leave you here," Chazz defended himself half-heartedly. "And the person who did only did it 'cause you're weak."

"It's true."

"We're weak!" Chazz jumped, dropping Ojama Black's card as the two appendaged lumps of clay burst into tears, clinging to each other.

"What—"

Chazz's voice was drowned out as more sobs and wails filled the well, rising as if on a crescendo until he was forced to cringe away, covering his ears. The sound was awful, penetrating him to the core and making his heart ache. To his horror, he felt tears begin to prick at his eyes.

"Give it a rest! I'm sorry, okay?" He apologized frantically, hoping it would make the wailing stop. He was not going to break down; he couldn't break down, not stuck in a well in the middle of the woods.

His efforts were in vain. The ghosts or spirits or whatever they were just continued with the waterworks.

"Nobody wants us, do they?" cried Ojama Black.

"What's the racket!?" Ojama Yellow demanded, popping into existence on top of Chazz's head. For once, the noise level actually went down at the little gremlin's appearance as the other two ceased their crying. Chazz gasped in relief.

"Is that our…?"

"Yes!"

"Black? Green? Is that you?"

"Our lost brother! Ojama Yellow!"

"My brothers!" Jaw hanging open, Chazz stared as the monster who'd been haunting him all week somersaulted in the air to land before his… brothers and began to dance in circles with them.

"Welcome back!" Black and Green cheered.

Chazz scowled, an old familiar feeling of jealousy crawling up his throat. He'd always wanted a sibling or two, but his mother had been dead set against the idea. "I'm not going through it all again," she'd say, before turning back to whatever high-fashion magazine she happened to be reading. It'd been years before Chazz had learned what she meant, but it had always hurt to know he'd caused her so much trouble just by being born.

"Talk about a dysfunctional family reunion," he muttered to himself, trying to mask his feelings.

"Oh come on, boss, I know you're not a fan of Duel Spirits, but these are my brothers! We can't just leave them here!"

"Leave us!?"

"Who does he think he is?" Black demanded. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

"I'd do what he says, he gets violent!" Green added.

"And what do you mean by calling him 'boss', anyway?" Black asked, turning on Yellow. "What about—"

"I call him boss because he didn't want to be called General anymore."

"You mean—!?"

"We're saved! The General's come to save us!"

"All of us?"

Chazz, who'd been examining the well's sides to find the best hand- and foot-holds, whirled around in surprise at the sudden increase in voices. "Gaah!" Flattening himself against the wall, he stared at the absolute mass of Duel Spirits that had suddenly appeared, all of them looking at him hopefully.

"Please take us, too!" one of them cried out from the back. The sniffles and sobs could be heard starting up again.

For the second time that day, Chazz felt an inexplicable sadness wash over him, his throat tightening once more— and it wasn't because he was somehow sharing in the Duel Spirits' despondency. No, theirs was simply reminding him of his own.

He remembered the day clearly— it had been sunny and bright and a complete contrast to his mood. The boarding prep school had seemed big and intimidating, especially since Chazz had only been eight at the time.

"Please don't leave me here," the small boy begged, clinging to his father's hand. "I'll be good, I promise. I won't get in the way or cause any problems, I—"

"Chazz," his father knelt to look him in the eye. "We're not sending you to boarding school because you've been a problem. This is one of the best prep schools in the country— it's going to give you a huge advantage in the future, opening up a lot of doors for you. With an education here, you'll be able to do anything you want with your life."

"I want to be with you and Mom!"

Mr. Devlin sighed. "No, you don't. There won't be any other kids where we're going, and we'll be so busy we won't have time to play with you, either. You're going to have so much more fun here, with lots of new friends and activities to try and field trips… and your Mom and I will be back to get you for winter break. The time'll fly by, you'll see."

Maybe his father had actually believed his own lies, but Chazz knew better. He'd been shipped off to boarding school because neither of his parents wanted to give up their own activities to look after him. With how rapidly his mother spent money, constantly switching hobbies and always having to buy new equipment and pay for more lessons, his father really couldn't afford to not work all the time, especially if he didn't want to deal with his wife complaining about not being able to live in style. The Devlins' lives had always revolved around keeping Mrs. Devlin happy first, then Mr. Devlin, and finally, if there was any time or money left over, Chazz might get something here and there. That was just how it was.

He'd convinced himself years ago that it didn't hurt, but… maybe his father wasn't the only one living in denial. And he knew he could never do to someone else what his parents had done to him… even if the someone else turned out to be the Ojama brothers.

"Fine," he sighed, bending down to begin collecting all the cards, "Whoever wants to… can come with me." The responding cheer was deafening. "But there's one condition."

"Let me guess," Yellow said, floating up near Chazz's face, "lots of hugs?"

"Gaah!" Horrified, Chazz swatted the spirit away, only for him to be replaced by his two brothers.

"Hugs coming up Chazz!"

"Ahhh-aaaag!"

Anubis Blue Dorm, Academy Island

November 20, 2027

12:04 AM

It took a good forty-five minutes to climb out of the well, and no, the Ojama Brothers cheering him on had not helped, thank you very much. Then there had been a good hour-long trek through the woods to get back to the Academy and reorient himself, and by that time, unfortunately, the entire school was on their lunch break. So, when Chazz came trudging up the path toward home, half the dorm's inhabitants were outside, and all of them stopped to stare at their resident underdog.

Gritting his teeth, Chazz held his head high and marched through the crowd, intending merely to get back to the privacy of his room as quickly as possible, but of course, his life could never be that easy.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the loser who couldn't pull his weight."

"Yeah. Everyone, you're looking at the reason why we all have to work harder to maintain Anubis Blue's reputation: Chazz Princeton, who lost to an Osiris."

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly (breathing exercises had been a part of his attempt to reduce stress and thereby eliminate his not-so-imaginary visions) Chazz turned to face his former "friends".

"Topher. Conklin."

"Haven't you left yet?" Topher demanded. "Surely you're not still good enough to be an Anubis Blue."

"Dorm reassignments happen every semester, not whenever students' grades drop," Chazz informed him stiffly.

"Too bad," Conklin sniffed. "I guess we'll have to put up with you dragging down our quality of life for a few more weeks."

"I drag down the quality of life!?" Fuming, Chazz took a few threatening steps toward the other two Anubis Blues. "I may have lost a few duels, but at least I'm not a back-stabbing, two-timing peon who uses their so-called friends to climb the social ladder. Neither of you has ever really accomplished anything, you know that? You're only here because of your connections. Get out into the real world, and you won't last two minutes!"

Topher's face twisted into an expression of rage. "How dare you, you— you loser!"

Chazz snorted. "Is that the best you can come up with?"

"Hardly," Conklin snapped, stepping forward. "We can also beat you in a duel to prove you're a loser. And after both of us claim our victory, we can make you apologize for your disrespect."

Anxiety spiked in Chazz's chest— he hadn't dueled since losing to Yuki— but habits born of years of trash talk had him firing back, "Duel both of you? I don't have that much time to waste. How about I face the two of you together? Anybody have a duel disk I can use?"

Conklin looked like he might be about to protest, but Topher was already pulling out his deck, a snarl on his lips. "You're on."

One of the bystanders pressed a duel disk into Chazz's hands before scurrying away again, leaving the black-haired student to strap it on and insert his deck. Only after his fingers had left the cards did he remember that he wasn't carrying his usual deck— all he had was a stack of low-level monsters and a few of their support cards. Crap, he cursed himself. Oh, well. There would be no backing out now. Besides, he knew how Topher and Conklin dueled. They weren't the most creative of opponents.

"Duel!"

…

"…when there are two or more marauding captains on the field, you can't attack any of 'em!"

"You've overestimated yourself, Chazz, and now you'll suffer for it!"

Chazz rolled his eyes, ignoring Yellow whimpering in his ear. The old marauding captain maneuver? Really? "Please. The only way you scrubs could make me suffer is to keep blabbing like you are. My turn. I'll play two face-downs and one Giant Rat in defense mode."

Topher snorted in amusement. "That's your best defense? A rodent? What a joke!"

"Perhaps. After all, he is a weaker monster, one that the old Chazz would never have put in his deck. But I've learned something since school started— power isn't everything. You can have only the rarest and most powerful cards in your deck and still lose, so clearly there's something more that's needed to be a great duelist, and I'm going to prove it to you, here and now by beating you with a deck made up of nothing but weak monsters and a few spells and traps."

"Looks like Princeton is suffering from more delusions of grandeur than usual," Conklin stage whispered. "He really should get his brain checked." The audience sniggered at the comment, but Chazz was unfazed. He had played his strategy well, and he had nothing to be ashamed of.

…

"…Marauding Captain now has 2000 attack points," Conklin finished explaining his spell card. "Now go! Smash that rat!"

"My turn," Topher announced, barely giving Giant Rat's hologram a chance to dissipate. "You're defenseless, so you'll take all the attack points of both my Marauding Captains as damage. Charge in, men!"

Conklin shot Topher an annoyed look, and Chazz had to restrain himself from laughing out loud. If Topher had waited, Conklin could have ordered his second Marauding Captain to attack Chazz first, thereby dealing more damage, but clearly the other Anubis hadn't thought of that.

"Sorry, but I play my rat's ability," Chazz countered Topher's reckless move. "It lets me summon an EARTH attribute monster with 1500 or fewer attack points. Come on out, Gyaku-Gire Panda!"

"Aw, look at the big teddy bear. How cuddly," Conklin mocked.

"You might not think so after this," said Chazz. "I play my Panda's ability— for every monster on your field, he gains five hundred attack points." Gyaku-Gire swelled with his now 2800 points. "Not so 'cuddly' anymore, is he? And next, I'm going to activate a trap— Ring of Destruction. This trap destroys one monster, and then all players take damage equal to that monster's attack points."

"You're willing to take 2800 points of damage just to get at us? Wow, you must really be desperate," Topher taunted, a poor attempt to cover up his dismay.

"Not quite. I have Ring of Defense. This card protects me from all damage." There was an explosion as Ring of Destruction activated, dropping both Topher and Conklin to 1200 Life Points. Chazz smirked in satisfaction as both of them landed on their behinds. "I set two more cards and end my turn."

"You're going down, you loser," Conklin growled, getting to his feet. "There are still four Marauding Captains on the field that you can't attack. I draw! I summon Marmiting Captain in attack mode, and thanks to The Allied Forces, not only do all the Marauding Captains on the field gain 200 attack points, but my Marmiting Captain gains 1000!" Chazz grimaced, watching all five monsters on his opponents' field soar to 2200 ATK. "Next, I activate his special ability, meaning I can shuffle one card from my hand into my deck, then draw one card. If the card I draw is a monster, I can summon it."

For a brief moment, Chazz was a bit worried, but one look at Conklin's face had him relaxing again. The other boy glanced down at the card he'd drawn and twisted his lips as if he'd sucked on a lemon. "No monster card, huh?"

"It doesn't matter," Conklin retorted, "I still have three monsters on the field, and you have none. Go, Marauding Captain number one! Direct attack!" The hologram swiped at Chazz with its sword, making him flinch and reducing his Life Points to 1800. "Now, Marauding Captain number two, atta—"

"Not so fast, old friend," Chazz cut him off. "I activate the spell card The Dark Door! Now, only one monster can attack during each player's turn, so it looks like your turn's finished."

Conklin scowled in annoyance. "Nice try, loser, but it's only a matter of time before Topher busts that door down. Get him, partner."

"It would be my pleasure," Topher said smugly. "I draw. Now, one of my Marauding Captains can make up for the opportunity we lost last turn to go after your life points! Attack!"

"You guys never learn," Chazz sighed in exaggerated boredom. "I activate my second face-down— One Day of Peace. Now each of us has to draw one card, and neither of us takes any damage until your next turn."

Topher growled in annoyance as he roughly yanked the card on top of his deck out of his duel disk and added it to his hand. "You're getting lucky in this duel, Princeton, but don't mistake luck for actual skill."

"Skill like yours, you mean? Being able to draw a monster and then attack with it? I've known preschoolers who can duel better than you," Chazz mocked as he began his turn. He was going to enjoy this. "I play Enchanting Fitting Room! I pay 800 points and get to look at four cards, and if any of them are level 3 or below monsters, I can summon them." Enchanting Fitting Room's curtain fluttered, revealing— "Obviously Pot of Greed is no monster, but the other three sure are. Meet the Ojama brothers."

"Hey, boss!" The three gremlins greeted in unison. Chazz ignored them.

"You're kidding me," Conklin scoffed while Topher began loudly guffawing beside him. "Don't tell me you've pinned all your hopes of winning this duel on those three twerps."

"That's right. And you're about to see why."

"Sure they look funny, they smell real bad, and they never shut up, but these guys can do this— I play the spell card Ojama Delta Hurricane from my hand. Now do your thing."

"Right, boss!"

The brothers' performance was a bit silly-looking, in Chazz's opinion, but it got the job done. Soon, Topher and Conklin were standing before nothing but an empty field.

"What happened?" Topher demanded.

"It's simple. When the Ojama brothers are on the field, Delta Hurricane can destroy all your monsters."

"Look who's weak now!"

"Take 'em out, boss!"

"With pleasure. I have one last spell card to play— Ojama Delta Thunder. I can activate this card since I have all three Ojama brothers on my field. Now each of you take 500 points of damage for every card in your hand."

Both of the other Anubis Blues went wide-eyed.

"But—"

"That means—"

"You guys always did have a major weakness. You focus too much on summoning powerful monsters and attacking and not enough on setting spells and traps for defense. So now each of you has a hand full of cards you just didn't think were important enough to play, which means it's 2500 points of damage for you, Conklin, and 3500 for you, Topher. And since each of you only has 1200…" Chazz smirked at his old friends. "You. Go. Bye. Bye." He watched with satisfaction as his opponents were blasted backward, hitting the ground with echoing "oofs", and if the gleam in his eyes was a bit manic, well… they'd had it coming.

"Thanks for the disk," Chazz said curtly, returning the borrowed hardware to its owner, who was gaping at him in shock. "Anybody else who wants to try and prove I'm a loser?" No one spoke up. "I didn't think so." The black-haired duelist strode past the crowd and into the Anubis Blue dorm, grinning ear to ear and feeling better than he had in weeks.