Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Clubit Academia ❯ Act 2 Chapter five: So much emotional angst you would not believe ( Chapter 11 )

Chapter Five: So much emotional angst, you would not believe.

 

It hurt.

 

The ticking of the clock was the only thing he wanted to hear, Dorou's words getting through first, denying him the sounds of the mechanism. They burned him. Buried him. It was the one thing he wanted to focus on, turn his brain off and exist only in that meaningless sound, to hide everything that had happened. But he couldn't. Reality was far too painfully closer.

 

“It was a tarot deck, right?” The words came to him, louder than they should have been. Echoing, reverberating. Screaming. “It was kind of cool. He does weird little monologues like you, Priestess.”

 

“Yes. Thank you, Dorou.”

 

“Ah, don't you worry. I still think yours are much cornier.”

 

“Thank you, Dorou.” For a second, the voice stopped and numb silence filled the air. Everything was placed on mute, his ears ringing stronger than ever. Cupping his left hand to his right ear, he thought he was bleeding there for a second. “Paine. Come on. Get back into bed.”

 

His body went limp as her hand touched him. It felt cold- like soft snow on the day of a funeral. His body followed it, with no wish to move. The comfort of the bed was nothing but a taunt to him, mocking his loss. His defeat and humiliation. His abandoned pride. He wheezed as if winded and tried to hide it in a cough. The clock fell back into its motions as he fell on his back, seeing that same bright light again. He turned to avoid it, burying his head in the darkness of the pillow.

 

“I'm kinda hungry. Shall we go get something to eat?”

 

“Dorou!” Priestess's voice hissed, before relaxing into a sigh. “Just get him some water.”

 

“He can get it himself.”

 

“Does it look like he can...” Her voice raised ten pitches, then stopped. For a second, Paine wished he could hear what they were saying, then knew he didn't care, for somehow he could guess anyway.

 

“Please...leave me.” It felt like his voice had never spoken a word before, layers of sand peeled away as wind passed through it for the first time in a century. The clock skipped and bounced over and over, trapped in its own little game of counting. Something told him that although it was trapped, more a prison than a way to pass the time, the clock was more than happy to continue. Letting him listen. Letting him wallow.

 

“Paine, are you sure you're going to be...”

 

“Get out!” he shouted. The clock stopped again, unsure of whether to carry on. Pulling himself back into his pillow, he was partially relived to see it understood his intentions, and started back up again at its fullest.

 

“Come on, gal. Let's leave him.”

 

“No!” she cried back. “I'm not letting this be some man thing, where we leave him to suffer until he has an epiphany or something. We should stay and help.”

 

“I don't want your help,” he whispered, loud enough to carry through the pillow. “Just get out.”

 

“I apologize, but you don't have a choice. In case you have decided to forget recently, you fainted, and only the Lord knows what happened to you to get you deposited on the outskirts of the old forum.” She was drowning out the clock. Stop her.

 

“Get lost, Cow!” The clock took over, the game playing in his head continuously. He couldn't even remember what he had just said to her. It was enough to make her stop talking permanently though, and that was enough for him.

 

“W-we...well fine!” He heard none of it. “If you're going to be like that, then I'll just leave this glass of water and your medicine by the side of the table, and leave you n extra blanket on the chair, and leave my radio on at my desk in case you want to listen to some music...and you can just.... you can just go down there!”

 

They had to be gone by now. It was just too silent. Only the clock was playing its music, its game, a child happy to have a parent watch as it went away at what it was doing, delighting in the repetitive nature of its activities.

 

...

 

...

 

Where had he gone wrong?

 

He hadn't even considered flat out losing at the start. Wasn't he too skilled for that? But the aristocrat had just toyed with him. Was it really that much of a test, that he never stood a chance in the first place? Even if those other stupid cards failed him, he could have relied on Deus Ex Machina. Even when forced to fight against him, the Godhand had always saved him.

 

Deus Ex Machina. The way the good guy always won. In theater, it was a plot ploy that could have been considered cheap, having the hero thrown into the most inexplicable scenario, the most diabolical trap, the most stunning betrayal and most crushing defeat, and Deus Ex Machina would always save them. That was its job, and he let it do its job perfectly. So then why was it that they lost? In theory, Deus Ex Machina always worked. Its simple function was to always work.

 

So why didn't it work? What did it do wrong? Was there some impossibly indecipherable rule about it that he had failed to notice before? Stupid soul cards. Why couldn't he just look at them? Focusing on it, the deck felt heavy round his waist, like it was gaining weight, and would break the bed given enough time.

 

How could he duel properly without knowing the rules of his own cards? How could he react when his opponent's cards could be completely new, with effects that he wouldn't be able to understand straight away? If he couldn't rely on what he knew before the fight, how could he do anything during the fight? It was no wonder he lost really. Leblanc was a member of the ten. He must have known his own deck perfectly, and know just as much about Paine's as Paine himself did.

 

He wanted to vomit.

 

“Leblanc! Leblanc, are you in here?” a voice rang out. “There's something... oh.”

 

Not having to glance, Paine recognized the voice of one of his more favored tutors. Taking a few steps into the room, Kenshin looked towards him as he lay contorted on the bed.

 

“Have you seen Leblanc?” the Imperial Knight asked. There was no answer. Why should Paine answer? Why were they even bothering him? He didn't care where Leblanc was. He just wanted to...

 

To what?

 

“Not here, huh? Sorry for bothering you.” The door slid shut, and he could hear the clock again. It felt like it was screaming at him, desperately aiming to tell him something that he should know before all things. But he knew that it wasn't. It was just a clock after all, and he knew it just wanted to share its game.

 

The door slid open again, and he tensed at the sound. Hoping it to be someone he didn't know, he pretended to be asleep until the sound dissipated back to the clock, beating away in synchronized rhythm. Whoever it was had left. He thought he heard a laugh just before though. Messed up. Distorted.

 

It would be better if he was away from this place really. He needed somewhere else to be, to rest and figure out what had transpired here. How he had lost. Had Leblanc cheated? No, he knew that. He had more knowledge than Paine. It wasn't fair. How could he beat someone who was better than him?

 

Feeling his skin tingled as he opened his eyes, he could only guess if he had fallen asleep or not. He was certainly tired, the fainting spell must have got him worse than he thought. His cheeks felt sore, and his throat had a yawn trapped in it. Releasing it, he sat up, and saw a glass of water next to a few pills. He hated medicine. He didn't even know what that girl was giving him. Grabbing the water, he let it travel down his throat and clear the rubbish out from there, before swinging his legs back round, a bunch of flowers greeting him.

 

Red roses. Simple, but Paine guessed in his haze that they must have been expensive. Staring at them, he could see they weren't for him, but for the patient in the bed adjacent from him. There was a note as well. Unrestrained, his hand moved up to allow him to read it properly.

 

Dear H.

 

Get Well Soon.

 

Love...

M-N

 

As he placed the card back delicately, he swallowed the noise of the clock into him, and breathed out. Something else was going on here, but he didn't need to let it concern him for now. Moving up, his index finger grazed a thorn and he winced back in pain. Stupid flowers! With a wave that took his full body, he slammed into the bunch of flowers and knocked them flying, red petals falling harmlessly to the ground as they covered the face of the boy they were a gift to.

 

Without a second glance, Paine turned to leave. He had to get out of here. Get away. Anywhere. He didn't care. He was almost past his bed when it caught his eye, the clock keeping his thoughts occupied enough to let it stop his body.

 

The sheet of paper.

 

He still hadn't read it- hadn't been allowed to read it, by all those that would try to annoy him, waste his time like it was theirs to do so. Pacing hastily up to it, he snatched it away from the side panel, and brought it up. A simple A4 sheet. He hadn't actually seen one since coming here, now he let the thought come about, save of course for the Old forum. That made it sort of odd itself. What made it odder was what was on it.

 

Paine: (6)

Starts with no monsters

 

Plays Painful Choice

 

Uses Painful Choice- discards Dark Wizard as well as other cards (Star, Stage set(keeps) Friendly Dragon, Crafty Thief)

Plays Stage Set immediately

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Plays Face Down card

Sets two cards (Curtain Drop and Heroic Sacrifice)

Ends with 2

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~~~~~~~~

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Paine (2)+1

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v ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Summons Phantom of the Opera, increasing his attack to 2600. Attacks, but Dorou plays Magic Cylinder (P:5400)

Ends with Two (Thief flips back)

 

Dorou:

1+1 (-500 due to Tax cut:7500) P:4900

Flips thief, but it gets destroyed by Heroic Sacrifice

Plays Copycat, Copies Phantom

Attacks Phantom, but plays distracting end (continuous), ending the battle, However, Pickpocket still takes effect Phantom:2400

Plays one card f/d

Ends with 0

Paine (2+1)

Dorou activates Ring of Destruction (4900 /2300_ Copycat disappears

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~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Dorou 0+1

Plays Card face down

Ends with 0

 

 

 

This was...This was about him. His duel with that roommate of his. Where had this come from? Well, he actually knew that. But who had made it? There was no one there at the time whom he saw taking notes. Bits were missing. Did Kenshin have a photographic memory or was someone actually video taping the duel? Both were unlikely really, but someone had been paying close attention than he first thought.

 

He needed to know, and he wanted to find out now. If someone had a copy of this duel, then that meant they might have a copy of all his duels. If that was true, he could examine them. Find out what happened. Get more information about himself and Leblanc.

 

That was all he needed to know. Stopping only to recover his sleek, black shoes, he darted off back to the place he had found the sheet of paper in the first place, never noticing that the clock had stopped.

 

*******************

 

“Gotta stop…” Shariku groaned to herself, sliding through the door to her room and hovering towards the bed, her feet no longer willing to provide the required effort to leave themselves and her up, “listening to humanity.” She fell on the futon with an undignified flop, really wishing she had unrolled it before collapsing, the removable bed now serving as nothing more than an uncomfortable pillow.

 

There was no reason to care. Maybe she should just let unconsciousness take her, but there were a few things left to do.

 

“PM Box!” she shouted to her desktop cabinet, where a small red and black machine slowly clicked to life. Besides it, she noticed she had left the games consoles on, yet couldn't remember the last time she had played. She rolled around, hating bright lights at that moment.

 

“You have sixty three new messages,” the machine chimed out in a mechanical voice. She groaned again. That was more than usual. A lot more. It was what she got for asking anybody who had any information to tell her as soon as possible.

 

“Filter by importance,” she commanded, seeing a hot orange juice that must have surely gone cold by now lying next to the rim of her glasses. Without hesitation, she took it in a wearied hand and drank a gulp of it.

 

“Two messages remaining.”

 

“Play.”

 

From: Leblanc

To: Shariku Onikage

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 200X 10:21 pm

Subject: I won

After examining Paine and Analyzing his technique, I believe him to be unready for the Shariku Rankings. However, I also felt that there might have been some external circumstances acting as intervening variables, as this was certainly not the same man I saw duel Priestess.

 

However, even if this is the case, his Soul Deck is currently incomplete. Whilst I know that a Soul Deck is not a necessity in the Shariku Rankings, I would suggest he at least regain some control before dueling in a proper match.

 

End Message

 

“Delete.” She knew all of that, and felt that it was becoming a necessity to create and add a form of artificial intelligence to the message box that allow her to filter based on content rather than members.

 

“Deleted. Next Message.”

 

From: Kenshin

To: Shariku Onikage

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 200X 10:45 pm

Subject: adsf,nhjljhl

Think I found something. Contact you when I know more.

 

Interesting. She always wondered how to pronounce that particular batch of jibberish. “Delete.”

 

“End of Messages.”

 

“Thank you.” Today's investigation hadn't gone well. At a school all it would be was a mish-mash of irrelevant information and kids looking to amuse themselves for the day. With so many of the students being intelligent and chatty at the same time, it was impossible to gleam what information was useful. One boy had told her of the last time he had seen Zen for five minutes before realizing that the person he was talking about was in the room next to him and fully functional.

 

If only Zen hadn't been a loner. She might have had his full schedule for the last week by now. As it were most people didn't even remember if he was in their classes or not.

 

The `Crime Scene' hadn't been much help either. With the hundreds upon hundred of footprints that had surrounded the area as soon as they heard the latest thing to keep their minds occupied for the day, they all swarmed over to play kid detectives, making Shariku's efforts just as immaterial as their own.

 

Zen had been there at least. She had gotten that much. His shoes were unique and pointy at the ends, meaning there was no mistaking them with anyone else's. He had definitely walked to the field, rather than being dragged there, and just a few meters from where he had been found his boots were smudged all over a small, confined area, as if he were shifting his weight uncomfortably from one side to the other.

 

What he had be doing appeared obvious, but an inspection of the area twenty meters surrounding him revealed no other footprints that had been performing the same docile activity of furiously standing around.

 

That was easily determined though, potentially anyway. Zen had been part of the Shariku Rankings. If what was happening was what she thought was happening, she would have records of it.

 

She could find them after she closed her eyes for a bit.

 

***************************

 

Probably should be in bed. Hell, probably should be in a coma.

 

He edged onwards, his body feeling like it was in a tar pit, slowly sinking yet never moving. Pushing himself further forward, his focus was placed on breathing. The nurse's office wasn't that far from the entrance. He had to be careful though. It was forbidden to go there after all.

 

“You should have been here long enough to know this by now.”

 

A voice around the corner. Authoritarian? He stayed his feet behind the corner to them, staying out of sight.

 

“We don't tolerate messing about in this Academia. If all you're going to do is insult other members, then you get your communications locked and be issued warning levels.”

 

It was that guy. He remember him, but only briefly, a hand blocking his passage, and then…ejection. Some teacher. Why had he come here in the first place if all the teachers ever did was pick on the beginners?

 

Beside him were two girls, one of whom didn't look like they knew what was going on, their features distorted by both anger and confusion, yet trapped by the very notion that this guy was a teacher. It occurred to him that this girl's face must have looked a lot like his did on the day he had entered the Academia. There was another girl as well, dressed in uniform, standing behind the other girl solemnly. In her hand was a piece of flapjack.

 

“Now, get a move on,” the man continued in a gruff voice. “This is your last warning.”

 

“What?” the first girl replied shocked. “But you just said I hadn't received any warnings levels.”

 

“This is your last warning before you get given a warning level,” the man continued, almost monotonously, like it was a chore still talking to the girl- serving customers with a fake smile.

 

“That doesn't make any sense,” the girl argued. “Warnings for Warning levels. What are you going on about?”

 

“You want to know what a Warning Level is?” the man said to her, leaning down to face her eye to eye. “Fine.” He took a moment to type a series of buttons on his keypad. “You're now on Warning Level One. Examine it all you like.”

 

“What?” the girl was about to protest, but the other girl grabbed hold of the back of her jacket, stopping her protests cold. The angry girl just growled in frustration, before running down the corridor towards him, the flapjack girl following her. She glanced at him for a brief moment, with a look on her eyes screaming for him to run as soon as she realized he was there, but gone before she could risk saying a word.

 

“And what are you doing out with a curfew on?”

 

Swinging round instinctively, Paine was glad he kept his hands down. In his fevered state, he felt like he was getting ready for a scrap and it would have looked exceedingly bad for him to show a boxing stance to the man in front of him now.

 

“Uhhh…” Moving to speak, he body insisted it was a bad idea, and his brain agreed as well. Instead he just looked at the man of front of him, his brain feeling it was getting breathed upon by someone smoking a cigar.

 

“Are you all right?” the man asked, now showing actual concern. No! He couldn't have that conversation. The last thing he needed right now was to be returned to the Nurse's office. He never wanted to visit that place again.

 

“I'm fine, sir,” he replied, his eyes down, avoiding all forms of contact. “I was just in the toilet and got a little lost on my way back. I'm sorry to have bothered you.”

 

Feeling silence creep across the hallway, the only thing to be heard being the girl's footsteps in the distance, Paine dared to lift his head up, and felt the cold eyes of the Lecturer staring back at him.

 

“Get back there quickly,” the man replied. “Don't let me catch you again.”

 

The man hadn't believed him, Paine could tell that much. But it didn't matter. His politeness had won through where the girl's critique had failed. Feeling a small pang of joy at getting away with such a tactic, he bowed slightly and ran down along the corridor.

 

“Hold it!” the man called out. Paine froze. He had ran. That was stupid.

 

“Yes sir?”

 

“The Dining Hall is that way.” The gruff man pointed to the corridor that Paine had originally planned to walk down.

 

“Sorry sir,” he said, moving off again, in the direction indicated to him.

 

“Hurry up and memorize this place,” the man replied, though it sounded like a command. “Some are known to get lost in the most simplest of places.”

 

Lucky again, he thought to himself as he carried along the direction he had meant to be going. Hopefully, now this particular lecturer wouldn't guess where he had wanted to go, and was still wanting to go. He would have to pass by the Dining Hall and then head straight along to the Old Forums.

 

He continued at a frantic pace, meeting no other students or lecturers on his way down the empty, echoing corridors. Before he reached the Dining Room, he made an abrupt detour to avoid the place, knowing that some students may have started straggling outside. And then, taking an emergency exit that the green paint was beginning to peel off, getting away from any prospective crowds, he ran across the courtyard, soon reaching his destination.

 

The Old Forums.

 

He was sure that they hadn't been around this area the first time they came across them, but who was he to complain? He had yet to memorize the area, after all. Strolling up to them, he headed for the plank of wood that had provided him access the last time. The surrounding area was quiet, and for a moment he wondered how Dorou and Priestess had gotten him out in the first place, as it meant they would have had to drag him though the air vent they entered in…which was no longer there.

 

He glanced around, thinking he may have made a mistake. That perhaps there was another board of wood just like the one he had seen Dorou remove. But there was none. For another second he considered he might have been on the wrong side of the featureless building, but he had remembered the bush they had passed on the first time, and could see it growing peacefully away on the other end of the wall.

 

Had someone picked up on them being there? Some strange things had happened in there, it wouldn't have surprised him if someone had heard something or if he had perhaps tripped some kind of alarm, but to seal the hole up this fast…and with what? Where there was once a hole, there were just the same dull old bricks as what covered the rest of the building, like the hole had never been there.

 

He needed to get in. Priestess had mentioned that Dorou had sealed off all entrances except his one, but that was unlikely. Knowing the thief, he would have kept an extra entry point just in case his main one got discovered. He just had to find it, and with haste.

******************************

 

Dorou was not being quiet. She had hoped for some quiet as they strolled down the corridors of the Katsuya Building, but he had obviously decided against it. To talk was always his nature when in this mood. He was waiting for someone to give him an answer to steal, hoping for an opportunity to arise through the course of his words. But she did not have one, no matter how much she wanted to provide it.

 

“I thought he was alright, but that last duel seemed to bring out the worst of him. He was a right dick near the end.”

 

“Dorou…” That was the first time she had spoken in ten minutes. Dorou was one of those people that in some situations you could leave speaking on the phone to themselves while you got yourself something to drink. In others, he would just say nothing and sit there in silence on the other end. There was rarely ever a go between.

 

“Ah come on… you know he was. I wanna say it was a one off and…”

 

“I do too. And if we don't soon, we may not have the chance to.”

 

This had been why she had not wanted to leave. Paine needed consoling. He was going down that path that she had seen many other duelists go down. Conceit, narcissism, ego. In many cases, it had been the fault of those such as Kaiba, who had displayed such an attitude all the time. Those that did not understand the man fully assumed it was a great idea to act arrogant like that. But many did not have enough power to continue on such a path, and fell far quicker than they should have.

 

Paine was a great duelist. At least, he was going to be, but the Lord had a tendency to fill the path of the great with thorns and nettles. Run too fast down it, and one will get damaged. Take too long in chopping them away, and the vines further ahead will just grow in your way.

 

The boy needed to realize this, be told this. Could she trust him to figure out the answer by himself, as Dorou was doing? The last thing she wanted after meeting the boy was for him to become one of the bad kids here. The mere fact that she had to think of them as children and not students told her how antisocial the majority of them became. Never attending lectures, breaking social standards. She wondered if she might ask one of the Ten to speak to him.

 

“So I really need to decrease my time by about another three seconds. Because I know when the time comes, I'll need those three seconds for quick thinking based on how the lock works. The rest I need to push into instinct.”

 

Having taught herself long ago not to zone out when listening to Dorou, Priestess could only reprimand herself for straying off her own path so easily. This was a lot more serious than Dorou was making it out to be. Even more so, she felt like something important was about to swing into action, and she had just been directed away from preventing it.

 

“wat u 2doin ere????” Priestess gasped, turning around to see a figure standing in the connecting passageway. Greasy brown hair and beady eyes stared back at her as she saw Guldalf, standing there like a puppet with severed arms.

 

She almost panicked. They were out in the corridors while curfew was still on! The duel felt like it had taken forever, and she wanted to scold herself for forgetting such an important thing.

 

“My apologies, Mr. Guru,” Priestess started, her eyes glancing to the ground for a second. “But I…”

 

“We're just heading back to the nurse's office.” Jerk! Don't lie, there's no need for it. Even if he was meant to be in curfew, she had special privileges as the academia nurse. She just wasn't sure if Guldalf knew she was a nurse or not. She had never spoken to him before, even though she felt like he was the type to always be getting in trouble. His cough told her that he never took good care of himself, and the way he sniffed constantly was not natural. He has something in his system that should not be there. Something toxic.

 

“U jus bent ere. U goin oppsit way I saw U”

 

And now the lie was exposed. The urge to remain silent pulsed through her. Dorou actually knew Guldalf. It might have been better to let him handle all this from now on.

 

“n00b cwards leving ur fiend to sufer in tere. WTF iz wong wit u????????///////////”

 

He had seen Paine? She hoped her friend was okay. With any luck he was still scrunched up in his bed and the creature in front of her would have thought he was asleep.

 

“My apologies, Mr. Guru, but we would like to leave now.” She phrased her comments carefully. Being around Dorou was a bad influence sometimes, she didn't want to make a statement right now. If she did, it would very likely be a lie.

 

“wateva n00b cya” Guldalf turned away, disappearing quickly down the hall. Holding in the sigh of relief, she turned to Dorou, who had already cast the event from his mind, beginning to walk off the brightly lit corridor. He turned around a corner before she was able to catch up to him.

 

“Let's see if the games room is open,” he said nonchalantly. “I wanna see if I can beat you at chess again.”

 

“I sincerely doubt it,” Priestess replied off the tongue, before her brain caught back up with what was going on. “No, we're going back to the Nurse's Office.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Why do you think?” Lord help her, she wanted to hit him. “He needs our help.” Dorou stopped, glancing at her for a second as if she was a pesky child. It was not something she was used to receiving.

 

“It's not Paine that needs help,” he said calmly, standing still to look at her. “It's you that wants to help.” He continued forwards, shooting his fingers up into the air and taking his gaze to the path ahead. “But right now, we don't know if that will help, if it'll do anything, or just make things worse. So for the moment, we should do nothing.”

 

“Ah, like a true shadow of the night. You will not strike at anything unless the greatest opportunity arises, will you not, Mr. Laughing Thief?”

 

Dorou let out a small gasp of surprise, falling back against the wall as a figure appeared right in front of him. Priestess could not tell where the shadow had appeared from, and just peered on as Dorou was just able to stop himself from sitting down on the floor.

 

“Pierre?” The aristocratic lecturer just looked on for a moment, looking like he assumed he was being asked a question. But when he received none, he carried on talking himself.

 

“Guldalf is right, you realize, in his own special way.”

 

“Is that even possible?” Dorou replied sarcastically, hiding it behind his goofy grin.

 

“Perhaps it was not to be his intentions, but a point is clear. The acquaintance of a true friend is a relationship that should be getting closer, all the time, not moving far apart as if they were magnets of the same polarity.” He coughed and took a step back as Priestess walked closer to him. He always did that for some reason, except when she had bound him to his bed. “If you were to leave him for a moment, it was possible to consider such an act expectable. However, just depositing yourself outside of the door would have been more than adequate.”

 

“You were rehearsing this, weren't you?” Dorou said, after the member of the Ten had finally finished.

 

“Ah, but I love a good performance. That too is a shame really. We could really do with a drama club.” Priestess approached him, getting as close as she could while looking down at the younger boy with green eyes, before drooping her head down and tucking it into her neck.”

 

“Mr. LeBlanc. Please forgive Paine's actions earlier, and mine. He had had a fainting spell and must have still been affected somehow. I really shouldn't have let him duel, yet it was I who defied Ms. Onikage and insist she let him. I really…”

 

“Are you sure you have time for this, Ms. Priestess?” Leblanc interrupted her, looking up to directly into her eyes. She had failed to notice that she had closed for them a minute there. “Don't you have other things to resolve?”

 

“But, I…” She had to apologize. A student shouldn't be allowed to get away with shouting at a teacher like that. Even if she did have good intentions at righting a wrong, she should not have taken that method. “I need to…”

 

“Now, unless you have somewhere else to be, somewhere Very important. I suggest you hurry back to the Dining Hall. There is a curfew after all.”

 

Striding past the both of them, he left them in silence, only Dorou looking behind him to see the teacher ebb away into the distance of the corridor at a fast pace.

 

“Hhhmmm, didn't think abut it that way.”

***************

 

Eternal Darkness was an exaggeration, he knew that. Yet the only other comparable alternative was pitch black, and it way definitely a lot darker than that.

 

His throat felt like it was on fire, a wheezing fit like he had swallowed the sawdust of a thousand hamster cages danced through his upper body. The headache was gone, but now he just wanted to lie down. Had he caught a bug, one which was slowly scraping its nails down the sides of his body? Feeling along the corridor walls, it came to him that his night vision was taking a further eternity to kick in. Before when he was last in the Old forums, he could read the signs on the doors. Now his visibility was zero, and he was tapping the floor in front of him twice with every step, previous experience with holes having taught him much this past day.

 

What did the piece of paper mean? It toyed with him. Teased his imagination. Promising it all sorts of things. He needed to know what went wrong, and this could tell him. That's all that mattered. He tried to focus solely upon it, let it be the thing that drove him forwards, but his chest was making it difficult. It wouldn't tell him if it wanted to vomit or just have him stop using his organs for a while.

 

It was almost as if by closing that one remaining entrance that the entire place had had all light taken away from it, yet that couldn't be completely right, as some rooms on the top floor could be made out quite easily. He even knew he was heading for the Role Play room.

 

The Role Play Room. According to Dorou it had been a place to store the imagination, where the adolescent could act out all sorts of deranged power fantasies in some immature attempt at delusions of grandeur. He had seen such things in his previous school, witnessed fat kids play out all sorts of wizards and warriors and vampires, having to follow rules that just made everything seem complicated, or just abandoned all rules and wallow in their own putrified pool of chaos. They were all so dumb.

 

Completely forgetting that he was a drama performer, Paine pressed on, feeling his eyes notice outlines, silhouettes appearing where once there was just oil in the air. He made out a door besides him, and felt out the letters. Not realizing the signs were printed on and not engraved, Paine gave up after a few seconds of foolish fumbling. The Role Play Room was on the second floor. He had to know and it tormented him endlessly. Why did such an old place hold the transcript for the duel he had one week ago?

 

Who had even made the transcript? The questions kept boiling in his mind, no answer to them at all, but they drove him forwards, into the ever present darkness. It surrounded him, covering his body with its intangible matter. It felt physical around him, a constraining force that he was slowly absorbing. Shaking his head, he tried to press on, but it slowly slithered around him. He felt it on his leg now, itching past before quickly hurrying on. Exhaustion pressing on his lungs, he wanted to rest, but knew that he couldn't. It was definitely lighter outside the Role Play Room, he just had to make it. But it was hard to tell if he could anymore. Slipping, an unknown pool of liquid by his feet, he felt himself descending onto the invisible surface below.

 

“Wait!”

 

His stopped, his weary mind grabbing onto the command and regaining his balance for him. Keeping himself on one knee, he remained silent. Someone else was in here.

 

And they were standing right next to him.

 

“Heooo agaic, Iaice,” another voice whispered in complete incomprehension. Looking up, he saw a hooded robe, the face behind it completely buried behind darkness. He recognized it quickly. It was that same female voice he had heard before- sweet, gentle, alien. Did that mean he was dreaming?

 

“Who are you?” he asked at a hushed level. With no idea why they were whispering, he could only assume it to be the best course of action.

 

“I af louj wijrb… Uoer bhir feac lou mac wicaool ucuejrbacu fe?” The girl voice changed from serious to giddy halfway through, and he heard a small clap under the long sleeves of her robes. The excitement within her seemed almost palpable, and threaten to overturn the darkness. He had no idea why at all.

 

“Listen, I speak English. Ennnglish.” The instinct to say it louder was held back. Foreign people always understood you when you were louder. “Do you understand?”

 

Like a broken record caught in the twenty kiloton explosion of a nuclear bomb, the excitement disappeared, and the hooded figure slouched over, a loud sigh emitting from the shadow within the hood. Now that the head dropped, he could see two red pull strings that looked like they went around the girl's neck. “Ler, ler I uo. Sar ib boo fumh bo hoie bhab fl arrirbacme eajoiej sar cob ecough woj lou bo ucuejrbacu fe?”

 

“Ler?” did that mean she did. He couldn't sense any confusion, and he was always sort of good at guessing emotions. No confusion must have meant that she did in this case. “If you can, can you show me where the Role Play Room is? I can't see a thing in this place.” As the words poured quietly out of his mouth, he realized he could see her hooded form sharply against the darkness. It looked more of a brown than black, and covered in stitch work of a thread that shined in the darkness before him. She said nothing for a moment, and then, didn't get a chance too.

 

“This is boarding unto complete madness!” a voice rattled throughout the old forums. Paine immediately felt his stomach clutched in as the rest of his body recoiled at the sudden intrusion of vibrations. Bracing himself against the wall, he heard another voice. Completely indistinguishable.

 

“There Is No Need For Alarm. The Plan Proceeds Perfectly.”

A robotic monotone. He was reminded of a phone call.

 

“Perfectly? Why, this must be a definition of the word that I did not understand once before. For pity's sake, we're hurting people.”

 

Almost monotonous, though only in tone.

 

“You Have A Saying, Do You Not? You Cannot Make An Omelet Without Breaking A Few Eggs.”

 

“These aren't eggs, they're people.”

 

“They Are Not Damaged. You Know This. As Do I. When This Is All Over, There Shall Not Be A Single Soul Harmed.”

 

“Souls are exactly what will be damaged. You're giving them directly to him. What's to say he won't get hungry and consume a few of them in the meantime?”

 

 

Paine leant closer to the wall, pressing the cup of his ear against the cold, greasy wall. There was no way to tell if they were in the next room or if the walls of this place were echoing the voices in all directions. He might have been listening to the wrong wall but it made it easier to hear the words that weren't shouting all the same.

 

“I Will Trust In His Facade Of Honour,” the telephone said emotionlessly. They were using machines to talk, and their voices came out cold as steel.

 

“You know if he did he could just talk his way out of it.”

 

“That Is Enough. There Is No Further Need Of Bickering. We Shall Continue Until The One Is Shown.”

 

“And what if he doesn't? What if this One is not even in the Shariku Rankings? I must say there are plenty of strong duelists in here that don't actively partake in the tournaments.”

 

For a second, Paine thought he heard footsteps, something banging against the floor periodically. He tried to listen harder, but heard merely a groan. This one was definitely human and felt familiar too, like he had heard this moan a hundred times over. But then it stopped, and a louder thumping noise was heard, before silence, save for the two voices in their secret meeting.

 

“I Am Positive In My Affirmations. The One Will Be Strong Of Heart And Courage. This Personality Type Is Shown Best In Those Who Duel Regularly In A Competition Format. Also, Even If This Is Not The Case, We Would Need One Who Regularly Duels.”

 

`Who were these people?' Paine thought to himself. `And what were they talking about? It felt, and it was only his gut instinct that was feeling here, that these were the ones responsible for all the people that were now unconscious in the hospital ward.

 

“If that was the case, then surely we'll find him or her when we wipe out the rest of the Ten. Though I would have thought this one would have been the most likely choice.”

 

“His Courage Is Deep. But His Heart Broken. I Had Already Assumed Him Not To Be The One.”

 

“Then why eliminate him? Why didn't we just hide? Problems are going to occur with him gone.”

 

“When Breaking Eggs, You Must Take Care Not To Let Any Shells Get Into The Mixture. The Remainder Of The Ten Will Have To Be Eliminated, Even If None Of Them Are The One.”

 

Paine's chest tightened, and in a split second, a light cough spluttered out into the stale air. Holding the rest in, he turned to see that the girl was still standing there, her featureless hood in his direction, appearing to be completely unconcerned with the conversation.

 

“It is unlikely,” the more emotional voice scripted. “Strategy Master no longer duels. Icehawk is almost always away. YY87 possibly, but I do not believe he would be as reactionary as one who we are aiming for. The Chaos Angel has a weak heart, and Leblanc is too passive....As for the others...”

 

Paine couldn't hold it back. His throat gave up on him and started to wheeze, loud coughs bursting out of each one, built up phlegm ejecting from his mouth and getting caught in his teeth. It must have only lasted three seconds, nothing more, and he better afterwards afterwards, but the damage had been done.

 

“There Is Someone In Here With Us,” the robotic voice announced, its pitch louder than before, making Paine's heart jump.

 

“Oh crud,” Paine said hoarsely. Looking around the darkness in panic, he felt a delicate hand grab his wrist. Almost shrieking away in surprise, he saw it to be belonging to the one who had stood by him all this time.

 

“Mofe oc.”

 

The urge to pull away was great. He did not even know this woman. For all he knew, she was with them, a guard posted to scout the Forums for an intruder such as himself, and now he had been found she had only waited until his guard was completely down. Now she intended to do away with him and take him...

 

No.

 

That's not what she intended to do with him at all.

 

He did not know why, perhaps a moment of madness, or a need to rest from the plague that was coursing through his body, but at that moment, Paine trusted the woman besides him completely. He could not understand her, did not even know her name, but somehow knew he should let her take him wherever she wanted to go.

 

Hurriedly following behind her, both headed to the nearby set of spiral stairs. He recognized them from before.