Foreword, by Yuuki Juudai

I will throttle the next person who says the word 'unmei' to my face.

Gaaaaaaaaa-wds.

It all started subsequent to my duel slash rescue mission facing Austin O'Brien that left me mentally and physically drained. I stayed at the hospital for the night and after Shou proclaimed he was going to quit the 'Kaiser Shou' act and broke down in tears, I pretended to fall asleep so they would leave. However, Johan wasn't the type to be so easily fooled. Kenzan, Shou, and Ayukawa-sensei all left yet Johan stood watching over me with his hands in his pockets. ("Don't wake him up, Johan-kun." "I'll try not to.")

What a big fat lie that was.

"Hey," he said two seconds after the footsteps leading away from my room ceased in sound. Perceptive. Maybe it was because my nostrils always flared when I was really asleep. "I know you're awake."

"No, I'm not."

"Feigning sleep won't hide the pain."

So I dropped the pretense and allowed Johan to linger by my side as I cursed the sheer stupidity of Dis-belts in my bamboozled stupor (ok, I didn't actually curse, but I was repeating the F-bomb five times every three seconds in my head). Eventually, he grew tired of my incompetent slurring and suggested I actually sleep because staying awake sure as hell wasn't doing me any good.

"…I'm just a bit tired…" was my claim, how ever feeble. "…the long fight took the energy out of me…Ayukawa-sensei said I'd be fine…"

"The teacher lady said you're in this condition because of some extraterrestrial occurrence that wasn't related to the duel," Johan replied with a sideways tilt of his head.

Of course, that made as much sense as giraffe doing a wheelie on a tricycle and I expressed my outlook by muttering something that ended with a lot of dot dot dots.

"She might as well have," was his logical response. "You know you didn't collapse because you won a duel, ergo, something else must have influenced your condition."

That made sense. Johan had this ability. He had a lot of abilities, but his most uncanny one was the knack for making bucket loads of sense out of something that didn't normally make sense. Weeks later we discovered he was indeed correct as my, Austin's, Kenzan's, Amon's, Manjyome's, Jim's, and half of the school's dizziness all correlated with Cobra's freaky wristwatches in which I went back to cursing the Dis-belt's sexual past, present, and probable future in my head.

"…I still don't want to sleep…" I argued unconvincingly. "…I'm still too hyped up from that duel…c'mon…just talk to me…"

More lies. I wasn't too hyped up. But even though my mind was too blurry to think coherently at the present time, my bones felt jittery and my mouth wanted to see action for some outlandish, bizarre reason. I couldn't drift to sleep if I had wanted to.

"I've got no problem talking to you, but I think you might have a problem talking to me," was his only reply.

"I can…I'll prove it. What should I talk about…?"

He shrugged. "Well, you could tell me about your day."

"...but you were with me all day..."

"Oh yeah, you're right." Johan scratched his cheek with his forefinger, turning his eyes to the ceiling. "Then tell me about your family, I guess."

"...my family is rather boring..."

"Tell me about your friends."

"...my friends are your friends..."

"Do you have any pets?"

"...no..."

"Any siblings?"

"...uh-uh..."

"What about a girlfriend?"

There was a very long pause. I looked at him and he looked at me.

"...sushi?"

He rubs his temples. Que sera sera.

We were going down the laundry list so quickly Johan didn't have time to cross out all the rejected numbers. He rubbed the back of his head as he thought of other topic possibilities. I guessed from his expression that the worst case scenario was that we were going to end up having a conversation about the weather. ("Amon plays a cloud deck." "Who plays a cloud deck?" "Apparently Amon does." "The guy who speaks Engrish?" "That's Jim." "Who's Jim?" Yeah, I couldn't see it going anywhere.)

"Well. I guess you could always…I dunno…tell me a story." Final resort. Take it or leave it was his underlining message.

I blinked. "…mmkay…about what?"

Johan placed his arms on the back of his head and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Tell me something, well, inspirational. I can see you're the type of guy that has gone through a lot these past years so you must have plenty of stories to share. The strain's just proof that all those adventures have finally taken a toll on your body otherwise you wouldn't be lying in a hospital cot."

"…I…thought it was because I had such a fierce fight with O'Brien…I know it was more than a duel…but nothing too serious…" I damned my incapability of forming sentences.

"That was just a cover-up excuse the teacher provided. You know that."

Nope, I didn't. Johan's razor-sharp perceptiveness amazed me. "...why inspirational?" I weakly demanded. "Why not just...funny?"

Johan shrugged. "Whatever you want. You're an interesting guy, Juudai. I'd like to learn more about you."

That solidified my resolve. I took a breath. "...well, I have to think of a story first...my brain is...fuzzy..."

The connection of those words in the same sentence would have sent most people screaming 'Nurse!' at the top of their lungs. But Johan just nodded understandingly and stood there in silence as I racked my mind for suitable material. I thought and thought and thought and thought some more and then realized in dismay I had very little to share. I had nothing interesting going on, you know, excluding the handful of life-and-death-threatening duels I underwent every other week. But apart from those, nothing else was worth mentioning. Maybe I could talk about how Kenzan, Shou, and I caught a huge fish last year…was that an adventure? Maybe that wasn't an adventure.

"I know you're awake."

"No, I'm not."

"Feigning sleep won't hide the pain."

Then it struck me. I knew exactly what I could tell him.

"Are you done thinking?" Johan asked, noticing the abrupt liveliness in my eyes.

"Yeah."

It took all my energy to fluff my pillows and sit straight in the bed. Realizing I was going to say something important, Johan pulled up the chair Ayukawa-sensei had been sitting on and placed himself directly in front of me.

And I told him, you know what I told him? I told him this would be a helluva long story that Manjyome should probably be telling 'cause his sarcasm outranked mine by tenfold. Unfortunately, he lost his 'san-da!' trigger fingers to a certain somebody a while back and I was too young to get murdered by a guy who used to call himself White Thunder. Shou was out of the question because he didn't know half of the details, while Kenzan's weird-as-heck sentence enders would mangle the story to the point everybody would be so nonplussed no plusses would exist in their lives ever again. As for Asuka, she got her personality back to play the role of the asexual heroine a few days too late, wait, no, try three months.

So I was probably the most suited for being narrator…if not only because I was the main character of aforementioned soap opera and first-person recounts were the most detailed. But slap me if I began crying halfway, I warned Johan, because it was overwhelmingly emotional and I get really weepy sometimes.

"...just as long as you don't hurt yourself in the process," he replied flatly.

I licked my dry lips. And then I began telling him the story of my previous year at Duel Academia, and more importantly, how the conflict between two former friends changed my perspective of life forever.

Part I. As you hang your head and smile a single tear lands on your cheeks…

My second year started with me whipping a silver-haired kid in a duel—Edo was name, Edo Phoenix. Phoenixes were artistic figures in the Edo period of Japan so I guess the dad named his child with a pun in mind. I began the quarter as a top-notch duelist. Ryou had moved on to new and better things (coughtheproleaguescough) which left me as the cream of the crop of the dueling pyramid not to mention Aniki became my primary title to a tanned kid with dreadlocks, which meant I was now the brotherly figure to a guy so bulk David Hasselhoff's muscles looked like rubber balloons in comparison. Shou moved to Ra, Manjyome remained in Osiris, Asuka Asuka-ed, Fubuki Fubuki-ed, Misawa Misawa-ed, and everything was fine and dandy until that silver-haired boy revealed himself to be a Pro League duelist.

Then he beat Ryou. Then he beat me. And then I hated Edo.

You see, I didn't fancy the idea of semi-albinos prancing their way from America into Japan, winning effortless against Ryou before beating me in a duel. I couldn't even beat Ryou (and between you and me, I lost to the Friend of Justice – Kaibaman as well) but he was the top student of the academia (and Kaibaman was a duel monster who wielded the three Blue Eyes White Dragons only Seto Kaiba was supposed to have), and then Edo McDestinypants went and served his ass on a silver platter without even breaking into a sweat.

…and he was younger than me. Unfair much?

Alright, I admit it. I was bound and chained to narcissism by invisible shackles but could you really blame me? I was a great duelist and a great guy. I helped people out, I saved lives, and I even settled the soul of some freaky 3,000-year-old dead pharaoh person. I almost single-handedly transformed the lowly Osiris dorms from a scum shack to a place everybody wanted to attend with my mere presence and ignoring my grades I was probably the best duelist in the school now that Ryou's gone! What was there not to be proud of?

Moving on…

After my defeat, I grew depressed because I lost my ability to hear those 'kuri kuri's that always brought sunshine into my life and my cards became blank slips of cardboard. My misery eventually forced me to leave Duel Academia on a one-man water boat only to be transported to a different dimension known as Neospace. Surprisingly enough, there I discovered some remarkable new hero cards thanks to a drawing competition and my own prepubescent artistic talents. (While I was missing, the Tenjoin siblings were renamed as Azurn and Bucky. … Interesting.) I returned to school armed with my new E-hero Neos and we had a rematch which ended in my favor thanks to a dolphin with legs, a talking scarab, and a constipated hummingbird.

I thought things were over then and I thought Edo would be out of my life, except it wasn't over and he wouldn't be out of my life for a very, very long time. In midst of my absence, a world dominator was cut loose…and Kami-sama, he was going to be trouble.

Saiou Takuma wasn't your ordinary tyrant reeking of dogma—no two-fisted stump speaking before angry and heckling crowds—he was polite, diplomatic, and gentlemanly. He enslaved two-thirds of the school's population without raising a clenched fist if not only because he didn't do the dirty work with his own hands. He preferred brains over brawn and after considering the circumstances, he recruited a single person from which the Hikari no Kessha branched out from. From that single person. (Saiou had a knack for choosing the right subordinates, I'll give him that.)

Guess who the unlucky guy was? Manjyome.

Manjyome had suffered from such a moral grandeur it sent him toppling over the edge. Outwardly, he acted sane. Inwardly, he was a raging whirlpool of negative emotions. After losing to me three times, he couldn't handle anymore insecurity in his abilities without scarfing down bottles of antidepressants. His brothers had long since left him alone but their ghosts continued to haunt his nightmares, dragging him into a cocoon of hopelessness and despair. If Hitler preyed on German fears and their desire for stability, then Saiou no doubt pulled the same jig with Manjyome. I later discovered only Manjyome and Misawa had actual reasons for joining the association, while Asuka and the rest of them just lost a duel and entered by default.

Yet the reality wasn't so cut-and-dry. The real reason why Manjyome turned to Saiou was because he couldn't deal with emotions towards me. He wanted to be my friend, yet he didn't want to be my friend because friendship was weak, and as a megalomaniac, Manjyome couldn't handle being weak. He was a hundred percent commander-in-chief material with an angst background to boot, making him the ideal exploitable candidate over anybody else in the academia and that's exactly what Saiou did—he exploited Manjyome's unresolved feelings for me and transformed him into the first member of the infamous Hikari no Kessha.

Within half a year, nearly all of the students in Obelisk Blue and Ra Yellow got a wardrobe makeover. We folks at Osiris Red got the longer end of the stick; they wanted good duelists and the Kesshians had to scoop through the two higher dormitories before they had a chance to scrape the bottom of the bucket. Even so, Asuka joined. And then Misawa joined. The Hikari no Kessha became so powerful they were nearly unstoppable, and even though I was the hero, I couldn't save all those people.

In the end, it was the very same person who initiated everybody into the Hikari no Kessha that also released them from their bondage. Manjyome discovered he couldn't shatter Saiou's chains with a single mighty blow so he resorted to breaking the metal links one by one—something I could have never done. If anybody should have been given the Medal of Honor, it should have been Manjyome. He won the Genex Tournament too.

But this story isn't about Manjyome. As a matter of fact, Manjyome is a complete dickwad in this particular story until the Ojama brothers jammed the senses back into his gooey head. The rather ironic thing was Edo and Saiou's story began with him.

"I've been thinking about dueling you for the longest of time. Tomorrow will be another day, so be ready. Do you understand me, Juudai?"

It was a late Wednesday afternoon in the middle of April and maybe the third or fourth day of the Genex Tournament. Edo, Kenzan, and I gathered outside the northeast entrance of the school where the clearly insane Manjyome White Thunder had just defeated a thick-browed Pro League duelist named Gergo with his White Knights of doom. Shou wasn't tagging along because he was too busy seeking refuge in a garbage can so that left Kenzan in charge of exclaiming the obvious and I don't even know why Edo continued to hang around with us but I wasn't complaining. When it came to duels, that guy was more observant than a hawk on prey, even if he was a terrible person to have a conversation with in any other situation. For me, I was residing in a state of SHOCK and AWE as Manjyome had just nonchalantly proclaimed he had thrown away his signature cards in the wind.

"Manjyome…your Ojamas…" I began.

"Howaito Sanda!" came the derisive snap. "And stop speaking of that awful poppy-eyed group!"

I just… couldn't reply to that. Manjyome left. "Manjyome has gone of the deep end, da' don!" yelped Kenzan with his hands clutching his dinosaur bandanna as soon as the raven-haired boy was out of earshot. "He's gotten real strong too. You saw the way he trounced that Pro League duelist."

"He seems like a good opponent," remarked Captain Destiny before he flipped a heel and started to walk away. "I'm off to observe some more duelists. See you guys."

That brought some sense back to my mind. "Wait, Edo. Why did you say 'observe'? Don't you duel?" I questioned.

Edo stopped and glanced in my direction. "Oh, I duel when I need to. But most people end up avoiding me because they don't want to get disqualified from the tournament," he replied with a smug smirk and patted his coat pocket that bulged suggestively.

"Cocky arrogant jerk," muttered Kenzan out of the corner of his mouth. Then louder, "You don't need to go boasting about your wins, you know."

"Who's boasting?" Edo dragged a dozen or so silver medallions from aforementioned pocket and held them to Kenzan. "Here. You can have some."

"W-what? Are you serious-saurus?"

"These medals already count towards my record so I'll give you them as long as you promise not to kill me with those dinosaur claws."

Kenzan looked like his pride was going to eat him whole but he didn't dare refuse the medals from Edo. (Seeing as he only had three.) He nodded stiffly.

"I always keep my promises da' don. I may have gotten into fights but I never seriously hurt nobody. Never actually ate Marufuji-sempai. Never told Mushi-san she was ugly to her face—" Kenzan's list of deeds was cut off when nearly all the medals dropped into his outstretched palms. "—you're just keeping one-saurus?"

Edo fingered his sole medal broodingly before pocketing it. "It's good enough to still be qualified for the tournament. I don't care about winning, you see. I just…" he faltered. "…I just have my own reasons."

With that, he left.

(What a freakin' emo.)

"I think we should find Shou," I suggested, obviously worried about my friend. I made a mental note to also find Manjyome's Ojamas later.

"Good decision. I haven't seen Marufuji-sempai anywhere this whole morning!"

I presumed that telling Kenzan his rival was hiding away in a trash bin wasn't the best thing to do; he'd never let Shou live up to it. So Kenzan followed me as I cleverly made my way back to the Osiris dorms ("Why are we going back here-saurus?" "Um, I wanted to get a book.") only to find that the blue garbage disposal was no longer there. Luckily, Kenzan was distracted from questioning why I didn't enter my room to get that precious book when a rare Obelisk Blue student challenged him to a duel. Kenzan was ten times more confident facing a higher-level senior now that he had more medals to wager.

"Watch me win this, Juudai no Aniki!"

A thunderous dinosaur roar pierced the atmosphere and I grinned as the birds flew out of the trees.

The duel began with his trademark special summon of Fleet-Footed Gilasaurus followed by Dark Driceratops. As the sun went down, Kenzan royalty trounced the Obelisk Blue student who was summoning Familiar-possessed monsters left and right and by the time Dino Infinity rose from his deck, it was around seven o'clock at least. Shou was still nowhere to be seen and I figured it would be a good time to start searching for him lest tonight ended with one less roommate. Oh yeah, and eat dinner. I was starving.

The last thing I expected to see when glancing around was, well, Edo. The thing about his boat was it was located in the port which was in visible eyesight of the Osiris dorms. I watched him on the deck, leaning against the railing and clutching his stomach like he was going to throw up. Then out of the blue, Edo collapsed to the floor and my concern levels shot up like crazy.

"Kenzan—I'll be back!" I shouted at the dreadlocked duelist.

My sudden outburst rewarded me with a, "Where are you going, Aniki?" but I just waved reassuringly at him. I wasn't going to haul Kenzan away from a duel he was enjoying so much (and winning). He'd never do that to me. I bounded down to the port and leapt onto Edo's ship just as the ocean waves gave me a 9.0, 9.5, and 10.0. Edo wasn't moving so I picked him up and cradled his head in my hand.

"Edo! Are you alright? What happened?"

The common preliminary questions. Naturally, there was something wrong with him but I had no idea how to ask him that in any other language. My English sucked, anyway. His eyes misted over like overgrown cobwebs and his body became heavy.

"…Saiou…I need to see Saiou…" he mumbled, barely reasonable.

"Saiou?" I repeated dubiously. "What in the world does Saiou have to do with any of this?"

His eyes closed. It was then a bright glow emitted from his ribcage and an orb of shimmering light appeared from the pivotal where his heart was located underneath. White like light. I had no idea what was going on but I did know this: when you see anything relating to the color white or the substance light or in this case a combination of both, always assume the worst. I, of course, assumed Edo was dying.

"Kenzan!"

Not there.

"KENZAN!"

Still not there. Oh, right he was dueling. This was not his problem either.

The ball of light flew off and headed towards the Obelisk White dorms so I had no choice but to follow it despite my raging hunger pains. Then the gods decided to make my life even more miserable and squeezed the clouds until they began to leak. In essence, it started to rain. Good times, good times. Without any rational thoughts running through my mind (if I had been thinking I would have found Kenzan first) I hauled Edo on my back and tore through the island so quickly I almost outflanked the angels while galloping into heaven known as the Obelisk White dorms. The raindrops barely touched my head. The orb of light seeped through the doors and being unable to do that, I burst through them, shouting, "Listen, I need to see Saiou!" the moment my feet brushed against the white floor.

Silence.

Looks of disbelief.

Then grumbling.

A few nasty snickers here and there.

"…what in the hell? What are you doing here, Juudai?" Manjyome finally demanded and pushed his way through the sea of white. "If you're so eager to duel me then leave Phoenix at home."

"Look this may sound crazy but I need to see Saiou, please, Edo needs to see Saiou. He's about to die—dammit, he's one of you guys!"

My mind was practically punch-drunk and addled when the words flew out of my mouth. Only after did I mentally run over my verbal performance did I realized I was a huge dolt; Edo wasn't part of the Hikari no Kessha. He never was part of the Hikari no Kessha. His conflict with Saiou spawned from him not being invited into the Hikari no Kessha in the first place.

"He's not one of us!" Asuka retorted from the opposite side of the room. She had been standing next to Misawa who was looking a trifle bit uncomfortable and walked next to Manjyome.

"If you think we're going to let that scum even lay his eyes on Saiou-sama then you have another thing coming!" Manjyome snapped.

I peered up at the two ringleaders. "C'mon, Manjyome, Asuka! Edo just collapsed and I think his life is on the line! Won't you let us see Saiou? Please?"

"Lies!" some random Kesshian suddenly shouted.

"He's just pretending!" agreed another.

"Stop trying to fool us!" echoed a third.

The entire room began jeering, but I didn't have a shred of patience for them. I rounded towards the general direction of the first remark, seething, "Why would Edo Phoenix who could easily beat two-thirds of the organization be pretending?"

There were no more stupid accusations after that. Edo may have been a goddamned emo but he was sure as hell useful when inflicting fear. People's lives were always on the line when it came to duels, but they were rarely on the line when it came to simple yes or no decision-making. Even the light didn't protect people from internal guilt. Reality Check 101, White Thunder.

"It's true that Edo Phoenix did work for Saiou-sama at one time…" Asuka said uncertainly after a moment's thought. Manjyome looked a tad bit tentative too, though ten times more reluctant to comply to my demands than his female counterpart.

"What's going on?"

…speak of the devil. Literally.

The white kingpin himself slithered gracefully down the marbles steps of the dormitory and stopped in front of me. There was something different about him. His cheeks were thoroughly sunken, his fang-like teeth were more noticeable than ever, and for some explanation on unjustifiable grounds, his hair billowed around him like a flaming cape that had been rubbed against too much static electricity. His demeanor was arrogant which hit me as weird because the Saiou Takuma I knew was never arrogant. He seemed almost non-human.

"Yuuki Juudai..." His eyes flickered to the silver-haired boy resting on my back. "...and Edo Phoenix?"

There was no doubt that Saiou was befuddled. The two largest obstacles blocking his goal of eternal purification come running smackdamn into his face out of the blue, requesting to—I don't even know what I was requesting. My mind wasn't functioning properly because Edo was dying and it was in my blood to fulfill a man's dying wish. Except Edo wasn't dying. He just fainted. Gods, why isn't anything making sense?

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," the fortuneteller said, though his gleeful smirk was far from pleasant. "What can I do for you gentlemen?"

"...well...uh..."

I stopped. What was I supposed to say?

"Um, this guy I have on my back kind of wants to see you for some unknown reason and his body discharged this bitching cool light and I know how much you people like anything associated to the light so, uh, can he become part of the organization?"

You know, an excuse devised by angels might have failed.

To my great relief (and not), Edo's whitish orb-thingy flew down from the heavens (Me: WTF?) and stopped right in front of me, making the people nearby gasp in awe. Saiou's face lit up with gruesome hilarity and something else that could only be illustrated as greed. He easily read my movements and before I could do anything, paralyzed me with a purple flash of the eyes. I could only watch helplessly as his hand crept towards the glowing sphere like a predator sneaking towards its victim and a single finger was about to touch it—

Then it happened. His hand retracted. The violet pupils in his eyes dilated and his entire body began to quiver in shock as if he were just struck by something cold and dreadful. Saiou twitched and a groan emitted from his lips; he buried his face in the palms of his hands and shining drops of sweat trickled from his hair and ran down his knuckles.

"W-what's happening? Why…why can't I stop shaking?"

The ball of light vanished into a wall. With it, so did Manjyome's hesitance and he evidently became the first to respond to watching his savior fall. He rounded to me, teeth bared and expression enraged. "What did you do to him?"

Before I was able to utter an explanation in my defense, Manjyome raised his fist and launched it towards me with the full intention of breaking my nose. I couldn't back away quickly enough to evade his attack so out of defensive animal instinct, I carried out the one action I had enough time to perform: I shut my eyes.

"Stop it."

His fist never made contact with my face. I peeled open a cautious eyelid to see that Saiou had seized Manjyome's arm during the last second. The hand that remained fastened to Manjyome's arm was shaking as well, while the other one clutched part of his face, almost like a mask, as if Saiou didn't want anybody to see the other half of his visage. His eyes had changed. They were bright, lucid, and devoid of all shadows they previous conceived. My voice was caught in my throat at the sheer thought that my adversary, Saiou Takuma, had just saved me from physical injury while various members of the Kessha expressed their disbelief through gasps and small utters of 'Saiou-sama!' but the fortuneteller didn't seem to hear them. He glanced at one of the few people who had managed to keep their composure during this time of disorderly panic.

"T-Tenjoin-san…p-prepare a free room for these two. Do not worry—they mean no harm."

"All the rooms are occupied, sir," Asuka replied quickly, and if she was flabbergasted then she was doing a real good job of covering up her amazement because her expression was as pokerfaced as ever. "The rain just hit in and everybody's heading back."

As if on cue, thunder crackled outside to prove her point. Raindrops pounded the windows. April showers bring May flowers, indeed.

Misawa saw an opportunity to make himself useful and quickly interjected, "Saiou-sama, they can share my room. However embarrassing, I used to associate with Ju—" He was silenced with a slap on the head by Asuka.

Saiou's vulture-like gaze flew to me and our eyes locked for a split second. During that second, I saw a glint of mental conflict behind narrowed amethyst but that second came and went and then all I felt was diffidence from him.

"Juudai." His voice was like coffin nails. "Take Edo to my chambers."

"But Saiou-sama—" Manjyome protested.

Saiou ignored him. His gaze was glued to Edo. "Go up the staircase and enter the f-first door on the left." He shuddered, before his face was confronted with unexpected rage. "…and I mean now before I reconsider and throw you out of the dorms!"

Taking his threat lightly would have made me a bigger fool than I already was so I made a mad dash up the staircase with Edo on my back. It took all my willpower to avoid connecting eye contact with the other members' confused looks, Asuka's emotionless gaze, Misawa's sheepish frown, and Manjyome's lethal knife-like glare.

I was walking, no, jogging, no sprinting to my destination, not because of Edo's condition but because I was mad scared and I swore to cut off both of my legs before I'd ever find myself in that kind of situation again.

Saiou's bedroom door was easy to spot...it was the only one in the hallway. I opened the door, stepped in, and you know the first thought that popped to mind? It was paradoxical that the bed, couch, curtains and bathroom towels were all blue and not white. You'd think an organization that stressed the importance of their achromatic shade would at least have the decency to change the linen to their mascot color. After all, the white uniforms proved that their leader had an everlasting supply of colorless dye in storage. Or maybe Saiou's bedroom linen was the only exception, like his clothing; he was the only one wearing a proper Obelisk Blue uniform in the entire association for some chivalric reason.

I laid Edo's unconscious body on the bed without a second thought whether or not this entire jig was actually a devious trap and the bed would spring close the moment he was flat on the mattress. After seeing Saiou's performance down there, I came to the conclusion either I gave this friend-stealing, dorm-converting organization the benefit of the doubt or I recommended Saiou as an actor to the next commercial man I met. It wasn't just a pretentious act back there—Saiou was in real pain.

Some time passed and though the clock hanging on the wall said fifteen minutes, to me it was barely fifteen seconds before Saiou entered his own room to my utter revelation, acting as if his previous condition of trembling never took place. His tall and proud statue naturally radiated intimidation. His face didn't show a flicker of disturbance. Yet despite this, he seemed normal once more. I don't know what happened back there but I felt as if Saiou underwent a transformation of some sort. (Of course, either way he was still batshit insane.)

"S-Saiou?" I sputtered. "What are you doing here?"

Tyrant pettiness. "I was worried about Edo."

I gawked at him. Surely, he was joking—no, his expression remained masked and impassive. I scratched my cheek, not sure how to reply to such a bold declaration. In my eyes, Saiou Takuma caring for anybody other than himself didn't seem very likely…

"Well seeing as you just tried to...uh...hurt him...maybe you should leave," I said; my discomfort in his presence was only thinly veiled by this pathetic excuse. I sweatdropped.

He raised a thin eyebrow. "You're in no position to tell me what to do." His voice was hard.

"…"

Eep.

Boy, that miko must have been inebriated when she said her older brother had a good side because by golly, that man scared the wits out of me. Heaven knows what exactly influenced his darker half for all Mizuchi said was that Saiou was possessed. You see, before she got hardwired into Kaibaland's mainframe, she briefly revealed that Saiou's pure soul succumbed to an unidentified D-hero card. (Edo was ecstatic.) Her words were something among the lines of—"Please return the original kindness to the heart of my brother" and I had failing grades but it didn't take a rocket scientist to translate that as "Saiou's brain is bugcrap and he will soon need adult diapers if this card continues playing master and marionette with his mind". Sardonic analogies aside, I wondered if Saiou even knew that he was being inwardly influenced by some card himself…

Saiou continued looming over Edo and at the same time, right beside me. It felt so awkward for the two of us to be next to each other, side by side, more than just mere acquaintances but less than kinfolk almost like, almost like…I dunno…friends? No, that's too harsh of a word. I should have been spazzing out, I should have been fretting, I should have been nervous—but I wasn't. I was calm and composed, just like Saiou, though I can't say the same inwardly. The energy that it took to keep this up this pretense was, in fact, frying my brain. I half-expected Manjyome to burst through the doors at any second with a cattle prod in one hand and the bible in another. No longer able to stand the silence, I broke it with a question.

"Why are you being so nice to us?"

It was rhetorical because I wasn't expecting an answer. Predictably, I was correct because Saiou pretended he didn't hear my question. I took another stab at bluntness.

"Why did you start the Hikari no Kessha in the first place?"

He gave me a repeat performance of the three-beat silence samba. Saiou didn't say anything else so I didn't say anything else either. I just continued staring at him until my eyes hurt and then my gaze finally left this hollow crust of a human being. From the looks of it, Saiou was truly just a shell hanging on his own threads and all patched up with scotch tape lest he fell into steaming pieces of fortuneteller-chunks.

About thirty seconds of pure silence passed before the strangest thing happened. The same orb of white light seeped through the closed door and entered Edo's chest before I had a chance to blink and say otherwise. I immediately jolted out of my mused state. His body glowed and then Edo miraculously stirred. Realizing Edo was indeed going to live, I stole a hurried glance at Saiou only to discover that he had vanished from his place next to me and was heading towards the door without a backward glance.

"W-wait," I sputtered. "You're leaving already?"

His hand stopped over the doorknob, expelling a sigh and then issuing me a sideways glance. "I just wanted to see if he would be alright. Now that I am sure, I leave his wellbeing in your hands, Yuuki Juudai."

What Saiou meant to say was he wanted to friggin' jet before Edo caught a glimpse of him. Unfortunately, just by exchanging those few words with me, Saiou missed his chance to cross the threshold from the door to the hallway before Edo regained his consciousness.

"Saiou…" Edo's voice was raspy and hoarse. His gaze pinpointed the older man's back. "Why…?"

He gave Edo a cold, emotionless look. "Go back to sleep. You were better off that way."

"You know…you know the reason why I'm in pain…it has to do with the Ultimate D-card…"

Saiou stiffened.

Edo glared at him, cerulean eyes suddenly spitting sporadic flashes of boiling rage and pain. "Tell me where it is, you fucking lying bastard."

Long pale fingers flew around his long pale neck and then Saiou was on top of him, choking him, he was choking Edo, he was choking his best friend—lips in a snarl, teeth bared, eyes glinting with a speck of indescribable anger that was not human, that was not Saiou. Time came to a complete halt in a way as if literal ice and rime had curled around the clock's hand, freezing it so that nothing in the universe was moving but Edo and Saiou, Saiou and Edo, but I wasn't even there. Electricity crackled viciously between them. Edo made little retching noises but they fell upon deaf ears that could only hear the voice in his head chanting Kill him, Kill him, kill him kill him killhimkillhimkillhi—

"Sa…i……ou…"

Saiou drew back with a sharp gasp. His left hand clutched his right wrist as if he was afraid it would act on its own. His breathing was harsh, sporadic and clashed in rhythm with Edo's wheezes. He stared at his hand; the blood that coated his fingers differed violently from the milk white of his skin. Saiou had clutched his neck so tightly that his fingernails left little moon-shaped curves after Edo's blood splashed all over him. Saiou looked at him again and Edo responded by shrinking back only to feel the smooth wood of the headboard behind him, his blue eyes staring at the older man in a manner that could only be defined as fearful.

Two halves of their personalities never revealed to anybody but themselves and perhaps each other were suddenly exposed to the limelight, raw and naked, for everyone to see...everyone like me. I was at a lost. If somebody threw a dart at all the adjectives between unhinged and consternated, no doubt they'd hit something that described my feelings at the current time but I don't think even a handful of darts could hit the exact target of what Edo was feeling. Edo—proud, petulant Edo Phoenix who didn't show a hint of remorse when he single-handedly overthrew the Kaiser of the academia in a duel that only spanned ten minutes. I never saw Edo so terrified, so vulnerable in my life. Not once.

Then without a word, without looking at Edo or myself, Saiou vanished from his own chambers leaving only a bitter emptiness in his wake.

I heard a soft whimper. With closed eyes, Edo wrapped his arms around his chest and sunk into the bed, hoping to drown among the sea of blue covers. I would have tended to his wounds if he would have let me. But even broken and battered, Edo was still a stubborn, petulant teenager. He would bleed to death before accepting my care.

I had absolutely no intention of returning home that night despite the fact I was starving out of my mind plus Kenzan and Shou were worried out of theirs. Perhaps it was because I didn't want to be ambushed on my way out of the Obelisk White dorms by some angry, confused, Manjyome-stimulated Kesshians and end up hanging from a tree the next morning with a noose around my neck. Not only that, I knew Saiou wouldn't return to his bedroom that night for he was too defiled and desecrated by his actions to face Edo once more. This was good because I didn't want to see Saiou for a long, long time. The split second of watching him almost murder his childhood friend stabbed a knife so deep into my heart that I was still shaking to the core from terror.

Actuality hit me there and then. Saiou was dangerous. He was not somebody I could take lightly. Any where away from him was a good place so this room—this room of my enemy—was a sanctuary. Edo's presence was my free pass to safety if not only for this single night so after a short phone-call to Kenzan and Shou (who had ditched his trash can costume) informing them of my decision ("Edo just challenged me to a friendly duel and wanted me to stay on his boat for the night." "…Edo Phoenix wanted you to—ewww—I mean, mmkay, Aniki. I'll support anybody you decide to go out with, I think." "Umm, what?" Kenzan's voice came from the background, "You mean Aniki ditched me to sleep with WHO-saurus?" It was then Edo conspicuously huffed which I took as a sign to hang up.) I settled down on the couch without blankets. April was warm, thank god.

"…g'night, Edo."

No response.

It was eight when the two of us tucked in and it stopped raining at eleven. Just like I predicted, Saiou didn't come to his room that night. But I couldn't sleep because somebody was playing the piano in some distant corner of the dorm combined with the grumbling of my empty stomach. Edo was unable to sleep as well. He kept tossing and turning all night and then I realized Edo was undergoing emotional trauma and emotional trauma patients tended to have disorientated sleep patterns. Which was peachy and all except his disoriented sleep patterns broke my normal sleep patterns. Unable to sleep, I stayed awake. I wanted to talk to him. So I did. It was two in the morning.

"Hey, Edo…"

No response.

"Edo…"

No response.

"Come on, Edo. Talk to me…"

No response.

"I know you're awake."

"No, I'm not."

"Feigning sleep won't hide the pain."

A long pause, then finally, "…what."

"You seem to have some past ties with Saiou other than the fact he was once your manager," I said bluntly, not even trying to be discrete about my intentions. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Edo rolled over in the bed. "Nothing happened. Saiou's psychotic. I'm not. An apple and a cabbage can never share the same fruit bowl. End of story."

I could hear his voice dripping with scorn and malice, but that didn't stop me from replying, "Psychotic is kind of harsh, even for a guy like Saiou. This whole light fiasco sounds like...I dunno...some religious thing so maybe Saiou is just really religious."

"If you worship a God, you're religious. If you worship an electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths you're psychotic. End of story."

I was pushing the boundaries. "Still…"

Edo couldn't put up with my quizzical naiveté any longer. "What are you, blind?" he hissed, flailing off the bedcovers and glaring at me with ice-cold eyes. "Saiou tried to kill me a few hours ago, which if I recall fits into 'murderous psychopath' quite well."

I looked at him from my place on the couch. The moonlight touched upon half of his face while the other half were left in the shadows. In that exact position, he reminded me of an ever so familiar somebody.

"Is he your friend?" I asked abruptly.

"No."

"Was he your friend?"

Edo swallowed an uncomfortable lump in his throat and quickly averted my gaze. "Juudai, just, just...shut up..."

"I want to know," I pressed. "I read somewhere that you can't live without love..."

"—and the medical digest says you can live longer deprived of love than oxygen! Don't you get it, I hate Saiou—"

"Why do you have to be so defensive?" I shouted and I was so sick of Edo. "If Saiou really wanted to kill you he would have! But he didn't which means you have to accept that there's still some good left in him!"

If anything, my anger only served to spark his own into flames and Edo, whose entire childhood seemed to be engulfed with murder and lies, had a lot more ammunition from past experiences for his wrath to feed on than I ever had despite being older than him by a full year.

"I don't need verification from you to know who I should acknowledge as my friend or not. That's your problem, not mine," he snarled, azure eyes blazing with livid fury.

I faltered. "Look, I was just trying to…"

"Help?" He bitterly laughed. "I don't want your help, Juudai."

Suddenly I was sorry—sorry for being sixteen and sorry for my tongue and sorry for being painfully naïve and sorry for not being able to understand people's emotions the way I was supposed—sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

"Edo…"

"Just shut your mouth and go to sleep," he snapped all furious and one-is-the-loneliest number. Bed covers flew over his shoulders.

Translation: Welcome to the end of the thought process, Juudai.

…

He was crying later that night.

"That's it?"

Admittedly, Johan was deeply engrossed in my story. Either I was a stellar storyteller or Johan nursed a soft spot for snarky vengeful duelists, madmen sporting multiple personality disorders, and near-murder plot schemes. Or all three. No matter what the reason, sharing my past experiences sapped the remaining amount of energy that was left in my body and I was just about to fall unconscious whilst talking to Johan.

"A lot more…happened after that…a lot…"

"—but you're too tired to tell me it so I guess I'll ask tomorrow," Johan finished for me.

"You're…reading my mind…"

Johan grinned at my remark but then sympathetically bowed his head. That was another one of his uncanny abilities—he could make you feel like he understood you. I never asked for social validation from anybody but this boy was just giving it away for free like a soup kitchen.

"Go to bed…I'll be fine…" I told him after a quick glance at the clock which read 1:13 in the morning.

The aquamarine-haired boy nodded and was about to walk out of the infirmary when a light bulb lit upstairs. He stopped in the doorframe and looked back. "You said Edo Phoenix," he commented. It then occurred to me Johan never met Edo before. "Was he the one speculating our match during the beginning of the year? He called me an idiot."

"He calls everybody an idiot…he's a real serious guy…" I weakly laughed it off.

"If I remember correctly, he's also one of the top five duelists in the world."

"…is Edo really that good…?" I questioned. My eyelids were seriously beginning to get heavy. "Heheh…well, he beat me after all…"

"Mutou Yuugi was number one, Kaiba Seto was number two, Katsuya Jounouchi was number three and Edo Phoenix was number four." He looked thoughtful. "That's pretty impressive considering his age."

I did some mentally calculating and realized one ducky was missing. "Wait…so who's number five?"

Johan smiled before replying, "Me."