Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Clubit Academia ❯ Act 2 Chapter 2: Shariku's secret ( Chapter 9 )

Act 2 Chapter 2: Shariku's Secret (or, when you can't be bothered to think of a title, you put something random and melodramatic up. It doesn't have to mean anything, especially towards the concepts involved in the chapter's plot.)

 

“Two cards face down,” Haron told his opponent, who stood at the other end of the dueling platform. This hadn't gone too well. All he could do were rely on these two cards, and one of his strongest. “And i sacrifice my Big Shield Gardna to summon... Freed the Matchless General, in ATK mode.”

 

The cantering of foot feet arrived in the ears of everyone in the room. A few loud cheers were heard, and the General came into sight. Although not Haron's best card, it still attracted a bit of a crowd when he used it. It was always his finisher.

 

The Cyber Dragon looked on without emotion in its steel eyes, at the monster that appeared above, its cool radiance not even shuddering despite its now apparent weakness.

 

“Oh, don't you dare!” Meca shouted back at his opponent, clenching his fist and nearly crumpling his cards. Trying not to smile, Haron issued his attack.

 

“My General, please attack Cyber Dragon.” The horse whinnied loudly, and almost leapt into the air, the experienced veteran soldier managing to stay on regardless of being thrown horizontal, before the horse leapt into a charge, heading straight for the metallic beast.

 

Across the platform it went, getting faster and faster, looking like it would almost trip over its own legs, making its way to its opponent. Freed leveled his sword, aiming for the great dragon's head. The horse took one last mighty jump and then...

 

The sword cracked, slicing into the side of the dragon's neck, but making no progress. It lay trapped there for a moment, and Freed had to dismount his horse as it fell back to the ground.

 

“What is this?” Haron, asked, feeling that rhetorical questions were a necessity in all anime.

 

Using the Cyber Dragon as leverage, Freed kept his ground, and tried to pull his sword out, but it was no use. Something else was happening. Struggling desperately, the general could only watch as the dragon vibrated, its amour looking like it was coming off like a snake would shed its skin. Then it exploded.

 

“Sakuretsu Armour,” Meca announced, as the smoke finally drifted away, with neither the general nor the horse anywhere to be seen. On the other side of the battlefield, Haron stood, his hand empty, his field gone.

 

“Congratulations,” Haron stated calmly, his eyes now close, even though it didn't make him look as cool as when anime characters did it. “I end my turn.”

 

“Cyber Dragon,” Meca said, taking his last card from the deck. “Finish him.”

 

“Screaming white fury, the Cyber Dragon unleashed a torrent of energy that ploughed into the once retired duelist with electric intensity. It didn't hurt in the slightest, but Haron couldn't help but feel a little hurt.

 

“Looks like i lost,” he finally said, after the dueling platform had lowered. He walked over to his friend, catching his hand as Meca offered it to him. “Sorry about that.”

 

“About what?” Meca replied, trying to look happy for his friend. “You'll get back in sooner or later. It was your own fault for leaving in the first.”

 

“I know,” Haron replied sighing, feeling a little dizzy after being suspended up such a height. “I left too soon though. Shariku-sama won't let me just come back in.

 

“You'll get back in, you just need...” Everything went blank. “Haron?”

 

“I'm...I'm okay...” Haron muttered, feeling his legs go out on him. He coughed loudly. He hadn't had a fainting spell in so long. Was this... Oil surrounded him, and laughed at his existence, calling him worthless, meaning it with everything the darkness had. He could argue with it, but felt it to be meaningless, for he knew it to be true. Meca felt so distant, yet Haron was even further away.

 

“Are you...” he heard, though not where from. “Hey, someone get the nurse!”

 

Was he just talking to someone. He felt....

 

What did he feel?

 

He felt nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

Waking up in unknown territory was becoming far too much of a constant in his life. He really needed to learn how to wake up and not let anyone around him be aware of it.

 

“Hey, I think he's stirring.”

 

That failed miserably.

 

Eyes peeking open, a transcending light fooled him into thinking that it was something special, blinding him with resonance. Why were they lights directly above the bed? That's just poor planning.

 

“Paine?” a light voice asked. “Are you awake?” The voice was soft and sweet. It reminded him of a girl with no face. Where was that from? He felt like he needed to reach out and touch her. To confirm an existence that had only been shown to him.

 

“You know, I really can't believe I'm waiting for a proper excuse to slap him. I could just use this one right here.” Another voice, not as soft as the other one, more like it had been struck rough a few hundred times then smoothed off around the edges. Recognizing it, it brought him back to a reality he didn't want to face just yet.

 

“Yo mate.” This was definitely Dorou, his mind was awake enough to tell him that. His friend constricted the view of the light, popping right over it as if to look in his eyes. “You alright?”

 

“I think so,” Paine said, finally getting around to speaking. Slowly, the picture he was receiving was being fine tuned, his eyes recovering their clarity, the previous darkness being replaced with the light of the nurse's room. He was in a different bed than before, the door being to his right this time. This must have been the bed next to where the one called LeBlanc had hidden the whole time.

 

“Stay down,” Priestess told her, laying her impossibly strong hand against his chest to enforce the law of her room. The shock of being knocked straight back down woke him up, and everyone came into view. To his left and right were Dorou and Priestess, a look of mild relief on his calm friend, and concerned worry on the other. At the foot of the bed was Shariku, stern eyes staring at him, the sound of a bouncing foot coming from just beneath her.

 

To her right was someone he didn't recognize.

 

“Are you alright?” she asked him, not looking too concerned for the answer. Paine hesitated, not so much as to delay the answer of the question, but to hold back the question that was coming next. So far he hadn't really been told off for anything, but breaking into the Old forums might carry a swift punishment.

 

“He appears fine,” Priestess answered for him, doing a few routine checks. “I think he just fainted.”

 

Memories of the past…hour? How long had he been out? Regardless, they came rushing back into him. The fall. The phone call. The girl. And a piece of paper that didn't even deserve remembering, but now clung to his thoughts stronger than anything else. He wanted to tell his friends everything. How long would Shariku stay. For a moment, the thought of accepting any and all punishments without argument came to him. He needed to share theories and wild speculations, but not while this teacher was watching him, the thought of his entry into the Shariku Rankings taking a lower priority for now.

 

He looked to the bedside table, hoping to catch a glance of the piece of paper he had picked up. Nothing sat there, but instead, he noticed that, all around him, the other beds that made up the nurse's office were filled, four boys and one girl all laying asleep. The one in his old bed was Zen.

 

“What's going on?” he asked.

 

“You're the lucky one, it seems,” Shariku answered, following his gaze to a boy with long hair and a shirt depicting what looked like Pokemon characters on it. “Who did you duel against?”

 

“Excuse me?” he said, not expecting the question. “I haven't dueled against anyone today.” It wasn't entirely true. He had had a quick match against Dorou this morning, but it hadn't been finished yet, as they went to leave before class started.

 

“I figured that might be the case,” Shariku pondered. “You are the exception in this group.”

 

“What?”

 

“The exception in a group will either be the cause or coincidence,” she elaborated further, but still left him clueless. “If you didn't duel, then what were you doing unconscious outside of the Academia?”

 

“She found you before we did?” Dorou whispered. Paine was amazed that it went by unnoticed, but Shariku was looking at the other students at the time.

 

“I don't know?” Paine answered, feeling impressed with himself that he made it sound like he hadn't reacted to Dorou's word, glad that he may still be able to squeeze out of a situation. “I was wandering, and I met some girl that I couldn't see very clearly. She spoke funny too, then…”

 

A sharp pain struck his forehead, as if somebody had tossed their dinner cutlery at him. The world went electrifying blank for a moment, then came back on normal. Everyone was staring at him.

 

“I'll get you some paracetamol,” Priestess said, letting go of him to move to the medicine cabinet. A few seconds passed in silence as he watched her filled a cup with water and bring it to him. Two pills later, and he could feel no real difference. The pain was still there. What had he been talking about?

 

“So, what's going on?'

 

“Everyone here,” Shariku started. “with the exception of yourself and perhaps Zen, fell unconscious after losing their duel, and have yet to wake up.”

 

“No way,” he responded, feeling himself go into a small panic. Turning to Dorou, he could see he had already heard the news. They were all in comas? He felt extremely lucky he didn't finish that duel he had earlier in the day, or his new friend may be besides him in a other bed.

 

“That's right,” she continued. “And they were all part of the Shariku Rankings. Somethings happening in my tournament.” He saw her fist clenched, looking a little angrier than usual. It ticked him off a little seeing that. One of these students, a boy that still had a paper bag over his head despite the covers still binding him tight, was definitely one of her students, and she had barely blinked, but as soon as her tournament was mentioned she wanted to seethe with rage.

 

“But at least you're okay,” she said, looking calm again, like she had a switch panel for her emotions. “Though it has wasted my time.”

 

“My apologies,” he said sarcastically, causing her to look back at him, the shock of receiving indignation hitting her hard.

 

“There's no need to be like that, Mister Fifty Nine,” the man, wearing a fine yet Victorian suit, with blond hair that cascaded neatly down below his shoulders, said, finally speaking at last. “Shariku's just had a lot of time taken off her hands. Having been charged with the responsibility of investigating these phenomenon, she has less time to look after her own students, so much so that the burden has been taken off her, and placed onto me.”

 

It took him a few moments to click, but as the voice traveled through his ears, the vibrations reminded him of another voice he met a few days back. A green curtain, an educated man, a strange feeling that during the entire time someone else had their mouth full.

 

“You're Leblanc?”

 

“Oh, but of course,” the teenager replied smiling, like he hadn't realized it already. “You failed to see me in our last encounter, didn't you?” He moved over to the side of the bed, standing beside Dorou, who barely moved. “Then let me introduce myself properly. I am Leblanc, 8th member of the ten, and the queen of Obelisk Blue.” His hand stuck out, and Paine took it, almost squeezing it right off during the last part of the sentence. “Please to meet you.”

 

“Leblanc was the one that found you near the old forums,” Shariku informed him. As the words came out of her mouth, he saw Leblanc look to her for a moment, as if confused, but then responded with a small smile, turning back to him.

 

“I thought it was somebody practicing the art of procrastination, but when I saw it was you, I got a little concerned. Good job you didn't go in the forums themselves. It can be grounds for expulsion.”

 

Seeing Priestess visibly jerk at the word made Paine almost want to laugh, and hearing the words for himself made him want to breath a sigh of relief. They hadn't been caught then, though it looked like too much had happened in the meantime for what happened to them to seem newsworthy of the whole occasion.

 

“Well, I have to solve crime now,” Shariku said casually, turning to leave. “Until this is over, Leblanc will be considered your tutor. If you three could pass the word round I'd be grateful.”

 

“Yes miss,” Priestess replied instantly, sounding a little more submissive than usual. Actually, he noticed for the first time, she looked more worried than general, and Dorou was keeping quite quiet as well. Were they just worried about being caught? Dorou always looked excited when he was messing people about though, so why not now.

 

“Ah, Shariku, wait,” he called out to her, as she approached the door and went to open it.

 

“Yes?” He waited until he had her full attention.

 

“It's just…about the qualification thing…for the Shariku Rankings that is.” He wanted desperately to ask for a date of his match, but knew better than that. “If I have to wait for a while now... after all that's gone on, that's fine. I'll understand if you'll be putting matches off and what have you.” He let out a scoff of laughter to try and lighten the mood. “I suppose the last thing I want to do is lose by accident somehow and get put here permanently.” He looked to Dorou for a little smile, and got one. Shariku's face barely flickered.

 

“As very… respectful of you that is,” she said. “I have no clue whatsoever as to the **** in which you are referring to.”

 

“What?”

 

“I have no plans to enter you in a qualifying match for the Shariku Rankings,” she explained more clearly, though she might as well have been describing mud to him in Russian. “nor have i had any in the past few days. In cases you haven't noitced, we haven't really met or spoken since you were last in here.”

 

“But I beat Priestess…” he complained, now leaning up despite recommendations, feeling a sharp twang go across his forehead. . “You said…”

 

“If you thought the match was between you and Priestess,” she interrupted him with an overriding tone, “then I have even less reason to accept you in.”

 

“What?” he said, the tone of his voice mixed with the nonsense spewing from her making it hard to think. Why wasn't she letting him? He just assumed he had passed the test. He won, didn't he? Seeing his answer leave the room, his tutor apparently deciding that there was no more need for words, he tried to call he back, bu found he didn't have to. Dorou was standing in her way, looking as annoyed as Paine felt.

 

“May I help you?” Shariku asked, looking a bit affronted by the thief's presence.

 

“Yeah,” he said, looking a bit insulted himself. “You can help explain to us all why you're going back on the agreement you made with my mate.”

 

“I am doing no such thing,” Shariku retorted. “But if he can't figure it out, then he doesn't deserve to know.”

 

“Er, hello here,” Dorou replied sardonically. “You're suppose to be a teacher. Why don't you teach him why he is wrong, and the rest of us for that matter?” Dorou plunged the teacher into silence. Seeing the head of his tutor dip, Paine got the very large urge to shout to his friend to run away now, less he suffer large quantities of rocket powered detentions and other permanent injuries, but instead he just heard a small choke of laughter.

 

“Why didn't I get you in my class, Dorou? It would have been the best move of that month,” she asked, quickly turning to Paine, looking like she was trying to move on before Dorou answered an obviously rhetorical question.

 

“The duel was between you and Priestess,” she began to explain. “But the battle was against me.”

 

“Okay…” Paine replied, not feeling too okay about it all.

 

“In a battle of tactics, the battle is not usually determined by a simple destroying of the enemy. Usually, it is viewed through terms of win conditions and lose conditions. A win condition may be to successfully deploy a diversion, to hold off until reinforcements arrive, or simply to defeat the general himself. In regular war, it is almost insane to assume you can completely defeat an opposing army down to the last man, and to try and do so can be considered a waste. In a duel monster's battle, this do not usually apply, and the win and loss conditions are as simply as removing your opponent's life points or losing your own, whichever comes first.”

 

Paine nodded his head. She was speaking fast. He felt like he should be taking notes.

 

“In order to qualify for the Shariku Rankings, I wish for the duelists to see beyond these simple notions and so, in this case, deployed Priestess as my Captain. But the point was to defeat the general, and not the captain.”

 

“How do you mean, I beat your captain, and therefore defeated you.”

 

“But you didn't fulfill the win conditions set to you.”

 

“I…”

 

“What did I ask you to do, so that I would consider you for a qualifying duel? What did I specifically ask of you?” She waited, and Paine went into thought, it did sound a little weird the way she put it, he remembered now, but passed it off as nothing more than her usual banter than he was becoming increasingly forced to get used to the same way you deal with a broken arm trapped in your face.

 

“Something about winning in an original way?” he said, and soon understood where she was going with this as soon as he said it.

 

“That's right,” she said. “To be creative with your victory. To do things that people won't expect, is one of the many keys one must come to learn at the beginning. Yet your duel log states that you won using Deus Ex Machina, even though you had an option to win via another strategy. You chose not to take that strategy, and went for the predictable one.”

 

“But it worked didn't it?”

 

“What was it you said, Priestess,” Shariku interrupted, turning to the girl that was now tending to those comatose. “After you lost the duel. Something about the end not being as exciting.”

 

“Ah yes,” she said, now looking a bit guilty at her own words. “It was a bit of a let down. He won in the same way he beat Mr. Guru. I guess it was a little frustrating.”

 

“But it still worked,” Paine almost shouted now, and his head told him how bad an idea that was to do. It screeched round his head, knocking him asunder and making him feel like he wanted to hiss away his pain.

 

“Whilst I don't have until just midnight this time…”

 

He heard Priestess move up to help him, and nearly felt like tearing her away. He was feeling this was as much her fault as it was Shariku's. It was like the girls were teaming up off him just out of spite. “Why should I not use the same tactic again if it works?”

 

“Because, unlike you it seems, opponents tend to pay attention. Whilst you are still a bit of a wild card with your Soul Deck still in development, your growth will eventually stagnate if you keep using the same tactics over and over again. The whole point of this test was to see if you could understand that. You should know this as an actor, Paine. The same joke twice never works.”

 

His cheek tingled with a sting, the dance in his head turning the music up even louder, and either ignoring the banging on the other side or joining in with it; reverberating through his pores and coming out as sweat. He so wanted to shout back at her, to scream how **** off he was with her screwing him around. His efforts weren't a joke. Priestess was hard to beat. Not too hard, but he still had some difficulty. To pass off that effort as worthless as she did. If she wasn't a teacher…

 

“That's not fair at all!” He wanted it to come from his mouth, but was as shocked as everyone else to find I coming from Priestesses. “That's just mean spirited of you, Ms. Onikage.”

 

“What?” For a moment, Shariku looked a little lost at being assaulted by Priestess in this manner, but after her initial outburst, Priestess seemed to return to her sharp demeanor.

 

“You argue that it's to test to see if he's worthy of entering the Shariku Rankings, yet can you say that most of the people in there at low rank know the lessons you were trying to teach him.”

 

“Admittedly,” Shariku danced over her tongue for a moment, looking away as if to think of a clever answer. “No. It ' just that I'm trying to improve the standard.”

 

“The standard will improve itself over time. It won't if you don't let the clearly talented in in the first place.”

 

“He isn't worthy yet,” the tutor insisted. “I will admit to his talent. But to award it without allowing it to first grow is not only stupid. It is dangerous.”

 

“That's nonsense,” Priestess shouted back, now losing her temper. “You say he's not worthy of being in, and yet he probably deserves to be in the top ten, especially after beating the person in third place. Especially seeing as you could never defeat him yourself.”

 

What was that? Who had he defeated? The prospect of being the best came looming ever closer.

 

“Now, Priestess,” LeBlanc said, trying to interject.

 

“Shut up!” she shouted back at her teacher, amazingly fail to shrink back in horror at her own actions. She barely even noticed as she continued. “You're just being a spoilt loser, Ms. Onikage. The only reason you don't want to let him in is because you know he'll prove to be a lot better than you ever have; someone who just quits and runs after being defeated by a cookie clutter deck and no skill. You're a losing, quitting, whining COWARD!”

 

The words dropped as they left her mouth, falling all the way down and slamming into Shariku's foot with the force of a bolder. Almost immediately, Paine saw the girl's eyes grow wide, as if she had done something she never intended to do, letting emotions slip after she had treaded across the ice so carefully.

 

Shariku didn't let her face move an inch. It stayed frozen, like it would crack if she dared open her mouth. She turned round, and opened the door, Dorou sliding out of her way like she was a wall of fire and he dare not touch her. Stopping at the door frame, she didn't turn to look back on them. Priestess stepped forward, looking like she wanted to apologize desperately, not about what she had said, but more her manner. She didn't get a chance to.

 

“I'm acting prematurely here,” Shariku said, her face still turned away. “But if you're all gonna argue it, and go so fr as to remind me of that, then I'll shove it down your throat how wrong you all are. And make you learn the lessons that you need to know.”

 

Paine's throat contracted. Priestess's brain exploded into a plethora of apologies that would never get spoken.

 

“You'll duel Leblanc here. Let's see how you handle a proper member of the ten.”