When she opened her eyes, the sight that she saw was one that was familiar, a sight that she had not seen for quite some time.
She looked up towards a plain wooden door, one that closed the room that was sparsely decorated, only being filled with the barest necessities of a cupboard filled with clothes, a handful of hangers for clothes, and wooden bed frames and their respective mattresses.
She knew this place. How could she not? She lived on this exact bed in this exact room for years ever since she was reborn into this universe that runs around card games. She could remember the room top to bottom even having gone away for weeks.
It was the orphanage of the Fusion Dimension, or more correctly the Academy island orphanage. It was her home that was a whole dimension away. A home that she was separated from due to that man's actions.
The wooden door creaks as it slowly opens, and her view trailed towards the blonde nun that emerged. "Yuuna? You said there was something that you wanted to talk about?" The figure of Sister Claire said, her voice nostalgic and distant.
Her body wouldn't move, she figured that in a split second, as if it would then she would be flying to the other side of the room to give her caretaker, her mother in all but blood a crushing hug, and yet all that 'she' did was open her mouth, yet made no noise as 'she' does.
It was clear to her, at that very moment, that this was not reality (no matter how much she wanted it to be). But merely a memory, a fragment of her life that was replaying itself in her mind.
Sister Claire, or a figment of her memory of her, raised an eyebrow before she nodded in understanding. "Oh, you're waiting for Mei then. I'm sure that she'll be back quite soon." And sure enough the blonde haired nun inched closer to the room as the purple haired girl then barged in.
"Yuuna! I'm here!" The purple haired girl declared with a bright smile, and immediately passed Sister Claire as she leapt into her arms, yet she felt nothing as the purple jacket wearing girl then crashed onto her, the smaller girl snuggling close.
A twinge of pain ached in her heart, the memory that was replaying in front of her was certainly one that was certainly memorable, something that she should remember. It was an important moment of this new life of her's, a moment where she revealed her secret towards her family.
And yet…
"Fufu, I guess you are." She had said at the time, and her body had patted the smaller girl's head, she could even feel a small smile growing on her face, a sense of happiness bubbling inside her chest.
And yet…
"I guess it's time then." She murmured as she closed her eyes, raising her head and opening them as her eyes met Sister Claire's. "There's something that I need to tell you two." She said, glancing down at Mei as well. "Something important."
And yet… she forgot about it. A memory of how she revealed her secrets, her System, a gift from God of all things, though she omitted that last part considering how blasphemous that is to say to a nun of all things… but it was still a deep secret that she was willing to share to them, her family.
So how exactly did she forget about it?
-
She opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling of her apartment, her entire body feeling sore as she stood up and stumbled, a feeling of disorientation coursing through her body. She lightly rubbed her eyes as her blurry vision slowly subsided.
As soon as her vision returned to normal, she checked her surroundings, and immediately noticed the sleeping forms of her friends. Allen snored loudly as he was sprawled on the floor, somehow having gotten out from the now dishevelled futon, Sayaka and Myu still sleeping peacefully in the bed.
And she turned her head slightly to see Anna slumped and snoring lightly slumped on the small desk that she had, one of her spare red jackets finding use as it had been draped over the cherry haired girl to keep her from getting cold.
A moment passed, then another, and she closed her eyes as she took a deep breath and exhaled as quietly as she could to not wake any of them up.
She was here, in the apartment that she managed to scrape and rent thanks to the landlord's kindness and by spending a good chunk of DP that she's had.
She was in the XYZ Dimension, with the friends that she's made here, away from her family and her home.
… she needed to clear her head. Maybe a glass of water would do.
As silently as she could, she started to walk towards the sink, taking an empty glass and silently thanking that the modern commodities that this city had. Though it only made sense that a futuristic city like Heartland where flying bikes exists that they'd have freely accessible clear water.
She remembered from back Before that that wasn't the case for some places, and the less well treated area of Academy Island also-
Her mind focused on the sound of water slowly filling the glass, thoughts empty as she refused to think back towards that place, towards her home, and instead chose to… live in the moment.
… she chooses to marvel at the sheer difference that this dimension had to her world from Before as she turned the faucet off, slowly taking sips of water. Disregarding the blatantly futuristic technology that was Solid Vision, the other modern inventions that this world had was as amazing, though that as expected considering she was in Heartland City of all places.
It was a point for the 'story' to usually take place in the most advanced place of the world, and she could attest that Heartland City fits the bill.
She looked out of the window, seeing the sun still barely peeking over the horizon, at least she thought so as the outside wasn't as bright as early mornings would be considering her view was taken by tall brightly coloured buildings. The giant wall looming over the horizon, standing even taller than those buildings.
She… didn't really know why that thing exists, nor did she really bother noticing it when she first came here, what with her mind being focused on… other important things, but that thing does ring alarm bells on her head.
The separation between Heartland City proper and the outside was a strange thing, though it at least wasn't as bad as she remembered the separation between Domino City and Satellite was in 5Ds, and she didn't quite remember if there was even anything notable that the giant wall caused, though the fact that it even existed is a testament of their ingenuity.
Then again the same could essentially be said for all of the worlds in this set of stories isn't it? She didn't watch Arc-V nor the series that came after it, Vrains or something like that, but she was sure that both took place in places or cities that are advanced, far beyond what was real from the world Before. The last one has some themes about A.I. or something if she remembered correctly.
"But that doesn't matter now, does it." She muttered, placing the now empty glass back onto the sink.
Reminiscing on those 'stories' won't matter. There isn't any merit in doing so. She should've been using this time to try and farm DP in her Duel Space. That's what she's been doing the entire night, she should-
"I need some fresh air." She decided, silencing her wandering thoughts as the room was filled by the sound of droplets of water slowly dripping from the now turned off faucet, and silently slipped away from her apartment room and closing the door behind her.
The hallway was silent, the other residents still sleeping most likely, and was thus filled with the sound of her boot lightly meeting the floor, again and again.
She focused on the noise, she tried, but even so her mind wandered as she took on the now regular sights around her.
She saw the many doors of the apartment building, her neighbours that she's never bothered to acquaint with, not when she had better, more important, things to do, and saw the small yet simple lock that they had.
And she started thinking of simply how amazing the duel disk was. They certainly were multi-purposed weren't they? The landlord just had to basically show her this dimension's equivalent of a QR code and then suddenly her own duel disk now acted as a key to her room, though she did still give her a physical key, something that she had lent to Anna during the time when she was sick.
There's of course the fact that they both acted as a phone and a wallet, something that she also remembered being possible in the world Before with the march of modernization and appearance of electrical money and all that.
The most outstanding part would of course be the miniature holographic projectors that they house, one could even say that that's even the most important feature that they have. It was what allowed them to manifest both the duel blade and the projections for the fields when a duel occurs.
That a small hand held machine that's a size larger than the average phone from the world Before was capable of creating something that was only thought possible in sci-fi stories and, well, anime, was certainly mind boggling. Even now, years later, she still couldn't truly comprehend the possibility that this small device had.
The same device that would bring untold amounts of pain and suffering thanks to that man and his plans. He's already used the technology to create tools to brainwash people and-
A small sound snapped her out of her thoughts, and from the corner of her eyes she saw an egg-shaped figure round from the corner.
The wheeled robot moved towards her direction slowly, and she shuffled away as she let it move past her, cleaning the path that she had walked from and picking any trash that it found on it's way.
"Right, those things exist don't they." She'd only seen some of them, but she had seen robots, actually mechanical egg-shaped robots of all things, roaming around to clean the streets and what not.
Wasn't there a character who was a robot in the setting for ZEXAL? Though that bit of information might not matter considering that this world was different-
No, looking back on that won't matter. She's already piled as much information as she could all while she was grinding in her Duel Space. There wasn't any use in wallowing in the past, not when there's still so much to do.
The past can't be changed, and though she knows what would happen, what should happen, she can change it. Maybe not completely, she doubt that she could completely stopped the invasion from happening from the start, she was at fault for not doing her best when she was at the Fusion Dimension, her fault when she was too immersed in being a child again, her fault when she didn't notice what that man was doing to Serena, her fault for not being strong enough to stop him, for not being fast enough to-
But she can still change it. She can give it her all to save as many people as possible, to stop that man's plan, whatever it is, from completion. For the sake of others and for her own selfish revenge.
"One step at a time." She muttered as she reached the apartment's front door, giving a slight nod to the robot that was acting as a security guard as she raised her head and looked forwards.
"One step at a time."
-
"I know that this is a bit.. Strange honestly, to ask a nun of all things but… do you believe in spirits?" That was how she started the talk, asking a strange question right off of he bat and meeting a strange gaze from both Sister Claire and Mei.
Aah this is making her feel very self conscious now, it's… embarrassing. She hasn't felt something like this in a long time now, she's pretty sure the last time she felt something like this was at the start of her reincarnation when she had no control of her body… Truly, a dark part of being fully reborn and reincarnated with your mind 'intact'.
Though she couldn't muse on that thought for long as Sister Claire spoke, a thoughtful look on her face as she frowned slightly with a hand under her chest while the other positioned perpendicularly to place her chin on the back of her hand. "Spirits?" She asked.
"Spirits." She nodded, confirming her question as she sat on the foot of her bed with Mei beside her, the smaller purple haired girl tilting her head in confusion, not understanding it for some reason.
The blonde nun frowned as she narrowed her eyes. "Do you mean something like evil spirits? Fiends and demons and the like?"
"Well that's… not exactly wrong but not right at the same time." She answered back with a shake of her head. Well Fiends were a Type and all, so they technically do count don't they? Even if she's sure that Sister Claire's definition of Fiends are totally different than the one that she was talking of.
And the term evil spirits isn't wrong either considering that some of them are actually malevolent. At least
"Umm, is it… g-ghost then?" Said the girl beside her, inching slightly closer as she pinched the hem of her shirt, a hint of fear apparent on her face.
She gave Mei a smile as she patted her head. "No, no, it's nothing like that." She said with a small shake of her head, trying to assure her that this was not the case. "It's… well, as I said, it's hard to explain, but please bear with me alright."
She ceased fidgeting as she closed her eyes, taking another deep breath and began talking. "The kind of spirit that I'm speaking about is… card spirits, of sorts." She said curtly, attempting to talk about the topic.
"Card… spirits?" Sister Claire said, a look of utter confusion on her face, clearly having not expected for her to talk about this kind of topic off all things. The same could be said for Mei as the purple haired girl tilted her head in confusion once more next to her.
"It does sound like quite the topic doesn't it?" She said with a giggle, thinking to herself of the sheer absurdity of the topic of card spirits in a world that was basically ruled by card games… though whether that made it sound more or less believable, she didn't know.
"Yes. That certainly does sound like a topic to talk about." The blonde nun said with a sigh, walking to the room's shared desk and pulling out its chair and hefting to next to her bed, taking a seat before she urged her to continue.
"And how does this… card spirits… explain that earlier question? On how you seem to have cards that no one has seen before?" Sister Claire asked, with Mei looking up towards her with a dozen questions seemingly in her mind.
"So it's not normal?" The purple haired girl asked with a tilt of her head, and their caretaker giggled as she shook her head to answer her question.
"No, no it is certainly not." The blonde nun said with a small smile, giving the small girl a pat on her head that made her squirm. "You've certainly gotten used to Yuuna here pulling cards from spirits apparently haven't you? No Mei, people doing something like what Yuuna has been doing is most certainly not normal."
"When you put it like that Claire nee-san, you're making it sound as if I'm some sort of rare creature…" She said dryly with a straight face, a response that made Sister Claire giggle, though she hid it as she placed a hand over her mouth.
"Why, there certainly is only one person that I've known so far that has wanted to talk about 'card spirits', so I would count you as a rare person Yuuna." The nun said with light cheer, a small smile on her face.
"But that's good right? Being rare." Mei said beside her, "Rare cards are great so being rare should be good right?" And she could only respond to the purple haired girl's somewhat childish and pure view and smiled wryly.
"In this situation, I guess it is." She said with a soft giggle of her own, shaking her head lightly at Mei's antics before straightening her features and speaking once more. "But I guess this one is a bit different from being just 'rare'." She said.
"Card spirits, or just spirits for the sake of simplicity, are… well, spiritual manifestations of dueling cards, their duel spirits so to say." She started, raising her right hand in front of her with her palms outstretched.
And making a card appear from out of nowhere.
The reaction that she received was quite what she had expected, with Mei letting out a gasp as she held both of her hands on her mouth with wide eyes, and Sister Claire's eyes going as wide as dinner plates, shock apparent on both of their faces.
Though this was undoubtedly a serious moment, especially for her, she couldn't help but enjoy looking at both Sister Claire and Mei's surprised looks, and handed the card, being one of the prizes from the quest that she got from winning the tournament a few days ago towards Mei. The purple haired girl fumbling the card in her hand before inspecting it in detail.
And she did it again, snapping her fingers and making another card appear. Giving it to Mei again before she flicked her wrist to manifest another one, and then continued to speak. "They're basically in every card, though some manifest stronger than others."
She remembered from the top of her head a few cases from the 'story' where a spirit that resided in a card manifested, though most of the cases were 'evil' and malicious spirits who wanted to cause harm to others, those were more memorable for her compared to the handful of actually helpful and 'good' spirits.
"In my case, I can make contracts and exchange with certain spirits and have them manifest as cards like that one, or the other ones that I have." She said, horridly simplifying the Shop system in a way that could be believed by Mei and Sister Claire.
"They usually ask me to do something specific or exchange with something of equal value, DP most of the time really. I'm basically a walking spiritual card printer of sorts." She said with a bright smile, ignoring the implications that she could have to the card economy.
"That explains where you get all those cards." Mei muttered aloud as she played with the cards that was still in her hand.
"But… there are a lot of cards in this world, and most of them have copies." Sister Claire spoke, having regained her bearings after a few moments of staring at the cards that were now in Mei's hands in silence. "Does that do… anything, if they have spirits in them?"
She took a moment to think before she spoke again, internally cursing herself for using spiritual shenanigans as a cover story for her God given ability, even if she wasn't that knowledgeable in that topic.
"That certainly is true." She said, trying to hide the nervousness with a chuckle, though a tick that she's quite sure Sister Claire would notice, and continued. "I'm not quite sure about the details regarding that, but the card's spirits would be more receptive and active depending on the duelist."
She raised a finger as she started to list an example. "It's an affinity sort of thing, I'm pretty sure. Because it works both ways. Some duelists are attracted to some decks more than others, and others the opposite."
That said she gestured towards Mei who was now looking up towards her, her attention taken away from the cards in her hand. "For example, Mei is more inclined to Machine-type decks, even after I had given her the chance to change into something else."
"That's not just something that you give away easily…" Sister Claire said with a long tired sigh, but she pretended not to hear and continued anyway.
"And you're also inclined more with Spellcasters aren't you Claire nee-san?" She asked the blonde nun, who stopped for a second at her question, and placed a hand under her chin as she thought.
"That's…" She trailed off, seemingly lost in thought as she looked down. "I never thought about it before. Playing them just felt… right."
"Un. The same for me too." Said Mei, the purple haired girl beside her nodding as well as she also agreed.
And wasn't she glad that they actually believed that, because everything that she had just said was something that she came up with on the spot.
Sure she based it on the fact that almost every people that she's seen in the 'story', well important 'characters' anyway, uses an archetype of cards or a deck with a theme, something that started around after GX if her hazy memory remembered correctly, but it was all pure conjecture with what amounted to zero solid evidence.
"But that isn't much of a proof is it?" The blonde nun said, the edge of her lips creasing downwards ever so slightly to form a frown. "You say that some people are more… drawn to some decks, but that's not really much evidence. Most of the time that's circumstantial."
Saying so, the nun then motioned towards herself. "My Magician Girl deck is the deck that I use because it's the one deck that I own. The same could be said for most duelists, most of them only have one deck and one deck alone."
She continued as she waved towards the two of them. "If anything, everyone really works with what card they have and what cards they get. You say that Mei's more drawn to Machine-type decks, but you're only saying that because that's all that she's been able to use."
"Well there certainly is some truth in that." She said with a nod and a chuckle, again trying to hide the nervousness that she had as she closed her eyes, her mind rapidly thinking of an appropriate believable answer.
"Duel spirits dwell in the cards, whether Mei's actual inclination for Machine-type decks and the fact that she's only had Machine-type cards to play with so far is a coincidence or… fate, isn't really something that I know." She said with a shrug.
"That's… something to hear. Fate huh…" Mei said as she trailed off, and again, she shrugged.
"Not really much that I can tell you about, it's not like I can understand how the spirits works." She said with full sincerity. "If anything the most important thing that they actually do is that the more connected a duelist is to their deck, or I guess 'the spirit of their cards', the higher the chances of them actually responding."
"... and what do you mean by 'actually responding'?" The blonde nun asked her with a raised eyebrow, and she answered back with what she remembered.
"Hm, like your deck somehow responding to your calls? You know, drawing the cards that you need when you're in a pinch or something like that." She finished, ending once again with another shrug.
Both the purple haired girl and the blonde nun proceeded to stare at her blankly, and both then let out a long sigh. "That's… not a small thing to gloss over Yuuna." Sister Claire said as she stared at her slowly growing grin.
"Yuuna…" Mei followed, sending a glare her way.
"Oh, a tidbit that I should also add, I guess." She said as she remembered, snapping her fingers to attract the attention of the two before her.
"This isn't that important, but there are cases where spirits actually go wild, so to say. Where they manifest themselves in the world one way or another and actually do something on the real world."
-
"Wait wait wait wait wait, hold up just one minute." Allen said, waving his hands in front of him. "Is this like, a joke or something?" The brown haired boy said, having a thoroughly confused expression.
The five of them, them being of course herself, Anna, Allen, Myu, and Sayaka, were all still in her apartment. All of them having finished the light breakfast that she had bought at the nearest Heartland Convenience Store chain, and having started their 'interrogation' on her as the brown haired boy had put it.
She sighed, this having been not the first time that Allen had interrupted her explanation. "What part of it do you think is a joke now?" She said, starting to slowly but surely grow annoyed at his antics of cutting in during her explanations.
"Uh, everything?!" The boy said as waved his hands towards her, irritation clear on his features. "We're supposed to believe that cards have spirits "
"Well how're we supposed to believe that she's not the one that's been giving them all those cards!"
She… expected this kind of reaction. Denial and suspicion was most certainly one of the many possible reactions that she could have gotten, and realistically it was the most obvious response that she would get.
There were always people that wouldn't believe in the supernatural, even if they've been shown proof of it's existence, though she's only shown them her 'trick' of taking cards out from her Inventory, nothing of the sort that was blatantly spiritual related really.
And it was honestly fair for Allen to suspect that she had something to do with the appearance of the Numbers, especially when she didn't know whether or not her existence in this dimension was the cause of the shift in the 'story' that made them appear.
With her and her Utopia cards being the first 'Numbers' that he had seen, it was also believable for him to believe that she could possibly be the cause of this whole mess. That Numbers Hunter seemed to believe that her cards were the same after all.
"I'll say this just once, but the Number cards that I have are different." She said with her eyes closed,flicking her wrist once more and taking out one of the many forms of Utopia that weren't that important to her, and throwing them to someone who would actually see the difference between them.
That being of course the ever observant Sayaka, who yelped as she tried to catch the card, fumbling a few times before finally managing to grasp it.
The glasses wearing girl briefly skimmed through the monster card's text, taking a few moments before her eyes widening behind her glasses as she saw the difference between the cards that they had dueled against.
"Huh? That part isn't…" The lilac haired girl muttered as she skimmed the effect of the cards once more, finding the missing part of the card text that the other 'Numbers' had.
"What is it? So they're really different?" Myu asked as she inched closer to the glasses wearing girl, and soon enough the others followed suit, with Anna inching closer to see from the girl's shoulder while Allen still sat with his arms crossed, though he kept sending glasses towards the three.
"The part where it can't be destroyed by battle with monsters other than Numbers isn't there." The lilac haired girl said, pointing out the difference between the Number cards that she had seen and the one in her hand.
"What? Just that?" The brown haired boy said with a scoff, keeping his arms crossed as he sent his glare her way. "So what? That doesn't make much of a difference."
"That means that the Numbers card that she has and the one that Shark had is different!" Myu shouted at the brown haired boy with a frown, visibly annoyed at the attitude that he has had throughout the entirety of the morning.
"As I said, the cards that I have are different from the one that he has. And all the other Numbers monsters that are most likely running around right now." She said as she looked out of the window.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold up, what do you mean other Numbers?" Anna interjected, raising her hand and turning everyone's attention towards her. She sighed, and pointed towards the card in Sayaka's hand that they were all gathering around.
"They are called 'Numbers' for a reason after all, and as far as I can tell there's around 99 of them roaming around possessing people." She stopped. "Or well, overwhelming their emotions at the very least. Making them do something that they won't and messing with their inhibitors."
"Mess up their inhibitors? What do you mean?" Sayaka asked as she held the card close in her hands, a sense of worry and dread filling her heart.
"Well in a sense, it makes people do what they normally wouldn't do." She said, simplifying what she thinks the case of being 'Numbers possessed' is. "Most likely their negative emotions, making them more violent or prone to violence. Though of course, there are exceptions."
"Exceptions like you huh." Allen spat out as he kept glaring at her, clearly still distrusting her after her most recent reveal.
"No, I'm not a part of the 'exception'." She said, shaking her head and ignoring Allen's scathing remark. "I'm an outlier, after all the Numbers monsters that I'm using are different from the one that they are. The exceptions that I'm speaking about are people with the mental fortitude to keep their emotions in check."
Then stopped again as she placed a hand on her chin and thought. "Well, either that or having some other special circumstances behind them. Either that or being stupidly stubborn to the point that something like that won't matter."
"That's extremely specific." The cherry haired girl drolled out as she rolled her eyes, a drop of sweat falling from her head before she let out a sigh. "But still… Allen is right on some account."
"Yeah!" The brown haired boy shouted as he turned to his sister, only for her to smack the top of his head.
"On the fact that it's unbelievable." She stated, giving her brother a harsh stare before breaking eye contact with him to look towards her. "I mean honestly, card spirits possessing people? Making cards out of nothing? That's crazy."
The cherry haired girl shook her head as she sighed once again, scratching the back of her head. "But well, there's proof, yeah? From Shark's lackeys going wild, Shark himself, then we have you just… being you." She said, gesturing towards her.
"I'll take that as a compliment." She replied with a hint of amusement as Anna continued.
"Point is." The cherry haired girl said. "That this uh, wild Numbers I guess we'll call em', are bad news. Especially if they make people go crazy like you said, and can even do something like what happened yesterday." She said, eyeing the trio who sat, all of whom winced at the mention of yesterday's debacle.
"And we all know how bad those can get." Anna growled, her fist clenching as images of what Shark had done to her little brother and their friends, and then imagining that those Numbers cards are out there and making people go wild just like him.
"I-I've heard that Shark-san has been more… wild recently…" Sayaka muttered, mostly to herself, but everyone clearly heard it.
She hummed as she closed her eyes, thinking of what the glasses wearing girl had just said. "Then that might be the reason, though I've never personally met him before to know these changes that you said." She agreed with a nod, accepting what the girl said as she had never even met the boy in question, having only 'read' and 'seen' him from 'before'.
"I-it's just rumours Yuuna-san." The lilac haired girl started as she fixed the position of her glasses. "From the start Shark-san has always been… confrontational." Allen snorted at the accusation. "But recently there's been rumours about him just randomly dueling someone and then… stealing their cards." She said with a hint of sadness in her tone.
And wasn't that an offence in this world of card games. What he did was basically this 'peaceful' anime world's equivalent of a mugging, daylight robbery in fact. Though she doubts that someone like him would even be caught by this world's equivalent of police enforcers since they too use that same card games to capture 'criminals' like him.
As the words left Sayaka's mouth and she digested them, she raised an eyebrow. "But that didn't happen to the two of you, right?" She said, turning to both Allen and Myu, with the silver haired girl nodding silently while the brown haired boy clicked his tongue and looked away.
"Bet he just didn't have the time to do it." He grumbled. "Since Nee-san came and stopped him from doing that and all." That got the cherry haired girl's attention as she then began to frown, but she interjected as she shook her head.
"That might not be the case." She said as she gestured to Anna. "While it's true that she might have stopped him from doing something like that, it's also possible that he wasn't planning on doing the same thing to the both of you."
Before anyone could interrupt her, she turned towards Myu and asked. "How many Numbers monsters did he have again?"
"Um, there was the one that was used against me, number 17 I believe? Leviathan Dragon." The lilac haired girl started with a raised hand, naming the card that was used against her by one of Shark's lackeys that stole said card.
"There was one that can attack directly that I duelled against. Nightmare Shark I think." The twin tailed silver haired girl said, remembering the monster that her opponent used, and both she and Sayaka then turned to Allen.
"Tch, mine was just a large one with 3000 attack. Acid Golem of something whatever." He said.
"Then there's also the one that he used in his duel." Myu said with a small frown marring her features. "Shark Drake. And then the evolved white version of it."
She closed her eyes as she scrolled through the list of the monsters that the three had named. 17, 47, 30, along with 32 and C 32, they were certainly a handful of Numbers monsters. "So 4 as far as we know, not counting the Shark Drake's Chaos variant that he also got his hands on." She said with a nod.
"Him attacking others and taking their cards might be how he got them." She said, drawing everyone's full attention towards herself. "I said earlier that having them makes people more violent and volatile right? I'm quite sure that this is one of the reasons."
"Reasons?" Anna said, her eyebrow crunching as she sent her gaze towards her. "What do you mean, reasons?"
"It's like a system of some sort." She began. "It makes them more confrontational, more prone to violence, and I guess more aggressive in dueling… and attracting them to other people with Numbers." She finished.
Though the last part was a conjecture, seeing as somehow the Numbers itself was spread wide, she doesn't have a doubt that it was also an internal mechanism of some sort that made them attracted to one another, be it in search of combat or in search of an owner who suited it better she doesn't know. Again, spirit shenanigans were in no way her forte.
But Anna seemed to get what she meant as her eyes went wide, "Wait so you're saying that the cards that he took from the guys he beat-"
"Are most likely those Number cards that he now had. Four isn't a small number, and I don't doubt that that number would grow too." She said with a nod cutting the cherry haired girl's sentence, seeing that she had come to the same conclusion.
Internally, she knew that his plethora of cards would grow. After all the number of Water Numbers monster was quite numerous, especially ones that she 'knew' was supposed to be in his repertoire. 71: Rebarian Shark, 73: Abyss Splash and it's Chaos variant Abyss Supra, along with the over hundreds, though their existence was in question since her own 'mission' only counted the hundred.
"Darn it…" The cherry haired girl growled through gritted teeth, clenching her fist as rage oozes in her veins. "So it's not just Shark, but everyone who has these damned cards too!" She shouted and glared towards her, to which she could only nod.
"Most likely, yes." She said sadly, and a grim silence befell the room. One that was broken as she let out a sigh, turning and looking towards the door. "I'll try to keep my ears out for rumours about them if any. That way we could get more information about them."
"'We'?" Anna said after a moment, blinking towards her as she let out a sigh again.
"As much as I want to solve this whole mess on my own," the affronted look on the girl's face already told her of a whole other problem that that'll bring on her, "Heartland City is a bit too large for me to run around on my own."
With another sigh, she turned and looked towards Anna with a knowing smirk. "And I doubt that you'll just sit pretty while all of this is happening in your backyard would you?"
A small blush overtook the cherry haired girl before she puffed her chest. "O-ofcourse I won't!" She said aloud, before sending a glare towards her. "This isn't just your problem you know! This goes for all of us too! So we'll do everything that we can to help!"
-
"Again, Yuuna, that isn't something small that you can just gloss over." Sister Claire groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose as she shook her head in quiet frustrations. "You can't just, tell someone that some spirits can just go berserk and possibly possess people and just not elaborate."
"Yeah! That's, that's not something that you can' just not tell about!" Mei added on, agreeing and nodding at Sister Claire's own statement.
She giggled at the duo's reaction, knowing full well that it was something that she had expected to see out of the two of them as soon as the words left her lips. "Ah well, sorry about that. Though there's not much that I can actually talk about this topic though."
"Really?" The blonde nun said suspiciously with a raised eyebrow. "Are you going to really say an extremely open ended statement with radical implications like that and basically leave it at that?" She asked her tiredly, more or less figuring that she wouldn't elaborate further than what she had already.
"As much as I'm connected to all this 'spirit stuff'," which in actuality, is very much not at all, "I'm not an expert on it. At most I'm like a merchant, or a travel agent of sorts that lets them get a way to manifest in this world through cards." She said as she flicked her hand and pulled out another card from her inventory, and flicked it towards Sister Claire.
The blonde haired nun let out a long suffering sigh as she handedly caught the thrown card deftly with one hand. "And you really shouldn't be throwing cards like that. Especially after what you just told us about them." She chided.
"Haha, sorry, it's a bit of a habit though." She laughed good naturedly as she the blonde nun let out another sigh, tiredly taking a glance at the card that she had just gotten her hands on and raised an eyebrow, but not commenting on the card that she had received.
"But well… that's that about me, I suppose." She said with a small smile, one that slowly morphed into a frown. "Now to the actually important part I guess."
"How was none of those things you just talked about not important." Sister Claire groaned, and though she giggled a bit at her reaction, she shook her head as she got back to being serious.
"I- well, I guess it's something that the spirits told me, but…" She hesitated, holding the words even as they were at the tip of her tongue.
So far, the two of them had been accepting. Not calling anything that she had said to be lies and trusting every word that came out from her mouth.
Her will was slowly withering, the bravado that she had put up faltering as her mind questioned on whether or not she should continue speaking of this.
Logically speaking, in a world like this, one that stands on the 'laws' of 'anime', especially in a 'children's show' like Yu-Gi-Oh, there stands one law that was absolute.
It was that the heroes would always win, and live happily ever after.
So in truth, there really wasn't a need for her to tell Mei and Sister Claire of what she 'knew' the Academia was doing behind closed doors, though she had an inkling that Sister Claire already knows something about it, but was there even a need to burden them with the knowledge?
Whatever crisis there is, no matter if she had already 'undertaken' the quest to try and stop the Professor's attempts to invade the XYZ Dimension and commit atrocities, there was really no need to drag the two who she considered family into this mess when the 'hero', the 'protagonist' would surely fix all the problems.
There really wasn't a need to tell them, to burden them with the knowledge. For all intents and purposes, the changes that they could bring should they know about the future happenings of the world was infinitely small, and they might not even be positive.
After all, as much as she hates to admit it, compared to the 'protagonist' and their allies, both Sister Claire, Mei, and possibly even herself barring her status as a reincarnator, are merely side characters in the 'narrative'.
And the only people who could truly alter the story of this world are the protagonist and their friends, side characters like them could really only change the happenings in the background, things that won't matter in the long run, the main narrative.
She even doubts that she herself is capable of changing the 'story' of the world. Because although she fits several 'tropes', being a reincarnator, having a name that starts with Yu of all things, and possessing a 'system', and having a 'mission' that would change a large part of the 'plot', the creeping doubt still exists in the back of her mind.
But… even knowing all of that… even knowing all of this… a small part of her wishes to still tell them. Because even if they don't matter in the cosmic scale of the world, they all still deserve to know the truth of what will happen in the future.
Her silence was however broken by the blonde nun who spoke first. "If you don't want to talk about it then you don't have to." She said, and her head snapped to her in an instant, watching the woman whose eyes were closed.
"I can tell that there's still something that you want to talk about, undoubtedly something as groundbreaking as all these spirit things that you spoke about, but if you don't want to talk about it it's fine."
She briefly turned towards Mei, and the purple haired girl had a thoughtful look on her face, brows scrunched for a brief few moments before she hastily shook her head. "Yeah! It's fine if you don't want to tell us Yuuna! I'm still really racking my head on all this spirit stuff too!"
Instead of reassuring her like what she believed they thought it would, the words that came from the two of them only twist her heart even further.
So she closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
And decided to tell them.
She told them of the fate of the world, of what the 'spirits' warned her about the Professor, knowledge of the different dimensions and different summoning methods, little though they might be, she told them all of the knowledge of the 'story' that she had, masking them as information given by the spirits.
"That's as far as I know about… the invasion." She said, finished with explaining the glimpse of the XYZ Dimension invasion that still stuck with her all these years, and watched the horrified looks of Mei and the grim face of Sister Claire.
"That's… that's horrible…" The purple haired girl said, her face as pale as a sheet of paper, the blood drained from her face at the horrors that she had spoken. "The Professor would-would he really do something like that?"
"..." SIster Claire stayed silent, the grim look on her face growing fiercer as she balled her hand into fists.
And her response to their reaction was quite simple. Baffled. "You… believe all this?" She spoke quietly at first, but then slowly gained a hint of confidence back. "The two of you would just… believe everything that I just said? Even though they're completely insane and-"
"Of course."
"Yeah!"
The response that she received was instant, not a single second passed for thought as the answers were given. "That's… this is all unbelievable you know." She said slowly, her head hung low.
"That's true." Sister Claire agreed with a nod.
"I'm talking about actual spirits here, you know? You said it yourself that the implications that they give are mind boggling. They don't even make sense."
"Well yeah, that's true." Mei answered this time, "But that would kind of explain the uh, you know." She said, gesturing towards her, and that elicited a snort from her.
"And you believe all the things that I said about the Professor? About the Academia?" This time there was a pause, before a sigh came out from the blonde nun.
"That's… I've always had an inkling that that man was up to something." She began, her head turned towards the window, looking over it and towards the man-made island looming over the horizon.
"There is a reason why I stayed here, rather than just go out into the world after I left the Academia." The nun said wistfully, receiving a small gasp from the purple haired girl beside her.
"You were part of the Academia Claire nee-san?!" She shouted as she jumped from her seat, a mixture of emotions clearly seen through her features. The adoration that she had and the horrific tales that she learnt the institution would do clashing against one another in her head.
"Yes, but that's not important right now. Whatever they're going to do… if it's even a fraction of as bad as you say it might be…" The blonde nun shook her head and sighed, a scowl growing full force on her face. "Tsk! Damn it!
In a rare occasion, the blonde nun cursed, showing the full extent of her rage before she closed her eyes. Taking a moment to calm herself down as she took a deep long breath while both Mei and herself watched in trepidation.
"As much as I want the two of you to pull out from the Academia now that we know this, doing that now would be highly suspicious. No doubt that'll alert them of something if we don't give them a good enough reason." The sister said with a grumble.
"And I don't think that we'd do that anyway." She muttered aloud, gaining the sister's attention. "Or well, for me at least. The spirits gave me the mission. The least I could do is try and do whatever I can to stop him."
"T-then I'm going to go too!" Mei shouted as she raised her hand high. "If Yuuna's going to do secret spy stuff then I'm going too!" With determination, the girl shouted so, willing to come with her to the Academia in order to help her.
"Mei…" She looked towards the purple haired girl, who in response gave her a confident grin and a thumbs up, eliciting a chuckle out from her.
"You two…" The blonde nun trailed off before she walked towards them silently, and both Mei and herself kept silent, waiting for a response from the sister, whether it be anger at them still insisting on going or a reprimand of some sort.
Instead the woman lowered herself and pulled the two of them into a hug.
And the rest of that memory faded into the deepest recess of her mind.
-
"Well you can do whatever you want." She said, "Quite honestly, this whole mess shouldn't have even concerned you all but…"
"We're all already dragged into it anyway, yeah?" Anna said with a determined look on her face, tilting her head towards the three who were sitting down. "Since Shark's lackeys tried to attack them, and then dragged us into it."
"Technically, yes." She said with a sigh, placing a hand on her temple as she shook her head. "I'd warn you all to keep away and not to dig deeper, but you'd probably do the opposite."
"Damn straight!" The cherry haired girl shouted with a grin.
And with after letting out a long sigh, a small smile bloomed. "Then I guess it can't be helped. You can do whatever you want." One that lasted for only a brief second before she turned serious once more. "But be sure to be careful. We don't know what's going to happen out there."
"Alright! Then first order of business is-"
"You all going home." She said, cutting whatever it was that Anna was going to say as her head snapped towards her. She raised an eyebrow, "You do remember that you basically did an impromptu 'sleepover' to disguise what happened yesterday right? No doubt that your parents are going to be worried about you all by now."
"Oh crap you're right! Mom's gonna kill me!" The cannon-carrying girl shouted, her hand snapping out towards her brown haired brother before she dashed and opened the window. "Alrightwe'regoingseeyouguyslater!" She rushed out hastily much to Allen's distress, throwing the small purse still on her person, and it growing larger into her signature transportation and jumping on to it and blasted off to God knows where.
The three of them could only stand dumbfounded as the girl went off and jumped off of her apartment, which was on the third floor without hesitation all while having Allen in one hand, and disappeared in the span of less than a minute.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again to watch the still dumbfounded other two girls. "You two should also probably go home. Just… don't jump off of the window please? And take some of these before you go too."
-
"I can't believe this…"
"What's wrong Allen?" Sayaka asked, inching closer to her childhood friend as she looked at him with worry clear in her eyes. One that he responded with a click of his tongue as he turned his head away.
"I mean seriously, you're all just believing all of this Numbers crap." He grumbled, glaring at them as the three of them kept walking. A few hours had already passed since their hectic morning discussion with Yuuna, and after they showed their respective parents they were fine, they met up at one of the parks to simply hang out.
"Well… there were evidence, no matter how much you tried to disprove it." She said with closed eyes, remembering once more the powers that Shark used to bring them down, along with of course Yuuna's own supernatural abilities.
"I know but still… this is all just too much." The brown haired boy said with gritted teeth, hanging his head down. Both she and Sayaka shared a glance, before the lilac haired girl inched closer to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry Allen, it'll be fine." She said, trying to reassure the brown haired boy, her hand moving down to hold his hand. "Honestly, I'm also worried. All this mess about Numbers and supernatural things is… overwhelming for myself too honestly, I know how you feel."
The girl closed her eyes as she thought. "I-honestly all these things about supernatural abilities, spirits, these Number cards, they're all unbelievable. It's like one of the plots of those shows that you always dragged me to watch when we were still kids."
And she opened her eyes once again, her blue eyes meeting Allen's own teal ones. "But we know it's real. We've seen it. You've-you've felt it." She gripped the brown haired boy's hand tighter, her head hung down.
"I-when I saw that both you and Mei-what Shark did to the two of you… I-I was scared. I was really scared." Her voice grew quieter and quieter, the lilac haired girl was shaking in fear from just remembering.
She herself winced, remembering how she had lost consciousness as soon as their shared Life Points hit zero at Shark's final attack, and began inching closer to the lilac haired girl as she placed a hand over the girl's shoulder. "Sayaka…" She called out the girl's name, who shook her head and lifted her head once again.
"Thinking about you, about anyone fighting against someone with an ability like that, that can do something like that, to hurt people if they even duel-it's… it's scary." She spoke again. "I don't want you fighting against someone like that. I don't want anyone fighting against someone like that."
She took a deep breath, and continued once more, this time with a saddened smile on her face. "But Anna-san's determined to help Yuuna-san. And Yuuna-san even intended to do this with or without our help."
Then the glasses wearing girl showed a look of determination. "Because of that I-I'm going to help too. Even if it's scary, even if it's dangerous, if I can do this and help others from this, then I'm going to help. I'm still not sure what exactly it is we're going to do to try and help, but we're definitely going to help."
She nodded too, also feeling extremely worried at the whole thing that is supposedly happening in this city, in her home. But knowing that at least Yuuna was doing something, that they're going to do something was
"Tch, I know about that already… geez! How annoying!" He grumbled, then shouted, ruffling and messing with his already messy brown hair all the while. "Fine! We'll just do that then! We'll push through all this supernatural Number nonsense head on!" He shouted, raising a fist high with his eyes burning in determination.
And seeing their friend back to his usual self brought a smile to their face. Seeing him of all people being down and uncharacteristically down was heart wrenching, and how he had been acting was starting to get on her nerves to be quite honest.
If Sayaka hadn't been the one to give him her pep talk she would've quite literally tried to snap him out of his slump. With a more physical method rather than Sayaka's own choice of words.
"Then I know exactly where we should go!" The brown haired boy roared out, walking ahead. She and Sayaka briefly shared a glance once more before coming to follow him.
-
"And…where…exactly…are we…" She said between huff as she gasped for air, with Sayaka slowly trailing behind her as she looked towards the barely winded brown haired boy with disdain clear in her eyes.
One that he ignored as he simply pointed towards the building that was apparently their destination a wooden dojo in the middle of nowhere. "We're going there of course!" He said with a grin.
"And where exactly is here." She said as she glared at him, hoping to get some sort of explanation from the boy while Sayaka slowly climbed up behind them.
"It's a training dojo. Duh." The brown haired boy said simply, looking at her with a face as he looked at her like she was stupid. Something that quite irritated her. "Getting beat by Shark got me thinking. Even with all these new cards that Yuuna gave us, we still couldn't beat him, so what we should do is train to get stronger!"
Then he pointed towards the wooden dojo. "So we're going to train here! I heard that the old man here is pretty strong, so we can just challenge him and get better at dueling!"
"I guess that's one way to try and get stronger…" She trailed off, letting out a sigh as she tuned and saw Sayaka finally getting to the top of the mountain, heaving for breath as she slumped towards the paved ground.
"We'll, I guess since we're here we just have to try it." She said, letting out a sigh as she helped the lilac haired girl stand up, earning a thanks from her before they made their way inside the dojo.
And the inside of the building was… different than what she had imagined, not that she even had an image to think of it. What with the place being filled with wooden statues of various monsters, all of which were cut cleanly in half, sliced diagonally with their other halves left in the ground. Otherwise, the place was empty.
"Who goes there." A voice resounded throughout the room, and they all jumped, looking all around the dojo to find the source of the voice, and finding it to be a man standing right in the middle of the room, in a sitting position with his back turned behind them.
"Wha-he wasn't there before?!" She yelped as she took a step back, and the man slowly stood up, the tall young man clothed in black and purple clothes resembling a ninja rising to his full height as he stared down at them with his teal eyes.
"I shall only ask once more, who dares trespass into my dojo." He spoke once again, his gaze boring holes towards them.
"Your dojo? So you're the owner of this place?" Allen asked as he stood in front of them, before speaking again. "Wait a minute, you're not an old man. What gives?! Where's the old guy that we're supposed to challenge! The dojo master or whatever?!"
"I am the grandmaster of this dojo!" He roared, waving his right arm forwards, glaring at them furiously as he scowled. "Roku is gone! I have bested him and thus I am now the master of the Duel Sanctuary!"
"Um… I… see." Sayaka spoke behind them, nodding at the young man's words. "Then um, might I ask where Roku-san is? We're here to look for train-"
"You. You're searching for that man!?" The black haired spat out, his eyes narrowing. "No… you must be his students, his remaining ones yes… one that seeks to destroy me!" He shouted, waving his arms out.
"What?! No! We're just-"
"Then for the sake of the Duel Sanctuary, for opposing I, the new grandmaster, I shall destroy you!" He roared out, waving his hand forwards as two other people clothed the same way as him in black and purple colours came behind him, their face obscured entirely by their mask.
But what was more importantly, was the shining mark that shone at the back of his hand.
"Wha-that mark!" Sayaka gasped behind them.
"That's the same as the one that those guys had!" She shouted, cursing under her breath as she glared at Allen. "Of course the place that you take us has to have someone that's being possessed by those things!"
"Hey! It's not my fault that none of you gave a better option!" Allen whined, a scowl clear on his face.
"You didn't even explain where we were going idiot! Gods!" She shouted in annoyance, before shaking her head and stepping forwards. "I'll do it. I'll duel against him while you two take care of the other two."
"...you sure?" The brown haired boy said after a moment of pause, a frown of worry clear on his face.
"Don't worry about me. I can handle myself." She said with a huff. "Besides," She said with a small smile. "I also wanted to try out the new cards that Yuuna gave me too."
"Tch, just don't lose alright." The brown haired boy said, turning around and activating his duel disk before running out of the dojo following their chosen opponents. Both him and Sayaka prepare themselves for their own duels while she faces off against the so-called grandmaster ninja of this dojo.
"So you have prepared yourself then." The black and cyan haired ninja declared from his seated position, and the silver haired twin tailed girl nodded her head.
"Yeah." She curtly responded, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before activating her pink duel disk and bracing her left arm ahead of her.
"Then face your doom!" He roared as he jumped, spinning in the air before landing gracefully with his duel disk already active, the dark purple duel blade facing towards her as the man faced off against her menacingly.
And so the duel began.
""DUEL!!""