Stacking The Deck 22.1

Later, with the mess of Wheeler put behind them and classes ended for the day, dusk already falling over the island Alexis found herself doing her level best to ignore the longing stares following after her.

She didn't really mind that they constantly checked her out, but it was annoying how long they kept leering after her and how many did it. She could feel many gazes on her from behind prickling on on the back of her head.

But she should have expected this. She after all was in the Obelisk Blue male dormitory right now after all. She didn't have a chance today to ask him about what she saw the other day and her suspicions with the Chazz drama getting in the way and waylaying her and then the debacle with those creepy scientist thugs and Wheeler.

...And as it turned out, once again Yarden was right about what Chazz got up to. Because they were found by Professor Banner on their way back to the Academy and he helpfully informed them they caught up with Chazz just as he was sailing away in one of his families private yachts.

In retrospect, it was foolish of her to get caught up in the flow of Jaden and the others and be led around looking through the jungle.

"Hey, Alexis!" a taller fit boy with short brown hair dressed in a grey polo and white shorts stopped and grinned at her as she passed him in the hall on the way to her destination.

"Not interested." Alexis absently shot him down, noting in the corner of her eye that his eyes went wide with horror and dismay at the instant rejection.

Well, she didn't have the time to care about whoever he was, she had too much on her mind right now. What she saw the other day and today even had her head spinning with the possibilities.

And she knew of only one person that possibly had the answers she sought. So the busty blonde made her way through the Obelisk Blue male dormitory, up the stairs to the level the first years were on and made her way to a specific room she had only been to once before and knocked on the door.

There was no answer for a few moments. So she knocked again, louder this time.

Finally, she heard a muttered curse from beyond the doorway and the sound of foot steps approaching the door before it suddenly swung open revealing Yarden.

"Yeah?" he asked through a wide yawn, rubbing at his eyes and not even looking at her yet. Her eyes scanned his body. He was clad in nothing but a pair of red shorts, with nothing on his feet and his torso bare showing off a toned physique.

'Was he always this broad?' Alexis wondered as her eyes took in his arms and shoulders. She didn't think so, she'd had her eye on him from the first day after all and now looking closely she could notice a definite increase in the broadness of his arms and shoulders.

He opened his eyes after rubbing them and then blinked, "Oh, Alexis, the hell are you doing here?" he raised an eyebrow at her, "Don't you prefer to avoid this place with all the mutts scrounging after your hotness?"

"Hello to you too Yarden," Alexis rolled her eyes, ignoring the fact that yes, he was spot on, "Can I come in?"

The Scottish teen shrugged and merely pushed his door open wide and gestured for her to come in, "Me casa es tu casa," he replied, "I said that right, right?"

"Said that correctly, right," Alexis corrected his grammar with a smile getting him to roll his eyes, "But yes, more or less. Though your pronunciation could use a little work." she added and stepping in to the room.

Honestly, she as surprised again with how neat and tidy he kept the place beyond bottles of liquids to drink sitting beside his bed and his laptop on his ruffled bed as well.

Looks like he really had been asleep and woke him up. She felt a little guilty, he'd been complaining about feeling bad all day and she and the others had caused him to miss napping in class to recover and now she'd woken him up.

"Well sorry miss three languages, we can't all be bilingual and speak Japanese, French and Scottish." he closed the door and rolled his eyes.

One of her eyebrows rose, "I speak Japanese, French and English." she corrected reflexively.

"That's what I said," Yarden shrugged and made his way over passed her to slip over the back of his couch and land on the front of it sitting down, "So what brings you to my room at this time love." he looked over his shoulder and asked.

He seemed to think for a moment before wiggling his eyebrows, "Coming by at this time, when everyone outside their rooms probably saw you on the way up here, the rumours will be scandalous," he teased, "They'll probably think I'm having my wicked way with you, all manly and Scottish like."

What did being Scottish have to do with being manly? Well, if using those guys out there as comparison and Chazz, she supposed it had to be something, "Good, maybe they'll stop bothering me if they think you're screwing me and that you'll beat them up for bothering me," Alexis rolled her eyes, unbothered by his teasing, "The reason I'm here though, there's something I want to talk to you about." she said and made her way around to sit down on the couch beside him.

"I figured as much, you wouldn't drop in un-announced if it wasn't important, you're too nice and polite for that," Yarden ran his hands through his hair before looking her in the eyes, "So you wanna know about the duel spirits, right?"

Her eyes flew wide open in shock, "You knew I was there and saw you?" she gasped, understanding dawning on her.

"Course I did," he chuckled, "I've got monster spirits hanging around all the time, you think I wouldn't notice you following me when they were out and about all around me?"

Alexis' eyes narrowed, "You wanted me to see that," she accused, though not angrily. Things were just beginning to fit into place now, "It was how you found me so quickly when Titan attacked me and what you told me when you carried me back."

'Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies' - that was more or less what he had said to her.

"You wanted me to see spirits were real before talking to me about it," Alexis mused, "Seeing is believing after all. You wanted to tell me about spirits for a while now, but why?"

Her mind ran a mile a minute. And there were only two possibilities that came to mind too her, "Either you wanted to be truthful with me about all this because of your attraction to me and the route of pursuing a relationship with me, or..." the blonde trailed off for a moment biting her lip, "Or...you know about my brother's disappearance and spirits have something to do with it and you wanted me to understand."

Despite her best efforts, hope soared in her chest. She didn't want to get her hopes up just to be wrong. But...this could be it. she couldn't help but think.

"Mmm, eight of ten, right on both aspects but missing one that I suppose I'll keep close to the chest for now," Yarden hummed in amusement before sobering and giving her a small, soft smile, "I did want to be truthful with you for when you become my girl, though it's more for your benefit, and I have a rough idea of what happened to your brother."

Her breath stopped and it felt like her very heart came to a stop in her chest, "You...you do?" Alexis whispered. Shocked, awed, grateful and more all that once. A river of emotions slammed into her and it took all she had to stop tears from forming in her eyes.

She could finally know what happened to her beloved brother.

She must have stared at him for a good thirty seconds before he gently placed his hand over the top of hers, "Calm down love, I've got a feeling how much this means to you, but you're gonna want to be on top of your game here to understand all this." Yarden said soothingly, breaking her from her stupor.

Despite herself, her lips twitched up a bit, a small piece of amusement flaring in her as her fingers threaded between his own and held his hand on instinct. 'Surprisingly gentle for the guy who threatened to shove a gun up someone's ass just earlier today.' the blonde chuckled inwardly.

"Okay, I understand." Alexis nodded at his words, suppressing her emotions. Though, she did not let go of his fingers. They were warm and strong feeling, comforting even.

It galled her pride a bit how much holding his hand soothed her.

"Right, to understand what happened to your brother, we have to start with the very beginning," Yarden nodded and began, "What do you know about Shadow Games?"

Her eyebrows rose, "Shadow Games? As in the duels of darkness that scary stories are told about and Professor Banner likes to lecture on?" she replied and almost snorted at the thought, a moment away from telling him how silly this was beginning to sound and that they were only fairy tales told by parents to scare kid duellists to get into bed.

Only, Duel Spirits were supposed to be fairy tales as well, so the words caught in her throat.

"That's where Duel Spirits tie into this," Yarden nodded, continuing on, "Back in the day, way back in ancient Egypt, duel spirits, mostly of the Ba variation, monsters born from peoples souls through magic shenanigans were used to fight duels in the literal sense, actual fights to the death and the loser would generally find themselves swallowed up by darkness."

Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Magic, monsters born from the soul and now souls swallowed by darkness. It was utterly surreal. But, she couldn't refute it at all.

What was worse, a horrible sinking feeling began to well up in her. There was only one reason why these duels of darkness would be relevant to her brother.

"Now, there was this big evil god-like monster dude called Zorc, he's not really relevant anymore though since Yugi Moto punked his bitch ass," The Scottish teen continued on, "But back then, the Egyptians slaughtered a village of hundreds and used their souls to make a link with Zorc by accident and make eight absurdly powerful magic items called the Millenium Items."

'I've heard of them!' her eyes widened again. So they were actually real? there were rumours of Yugi Moto being involved with them and even Pegasus having something to do with them as well. And so they came from some absurdly powerful monster spirit then called Zorc? Who from her understanding here, got defeated by Yugi Moto?

It really was completely surreal and sounded like a bad fictional story.

"But yeah, there's a lot more to it than that, but the relevant part here is that Zorc basically was the god of a place called, well it had a ton of stupid of names but the one people most call it is the Shadow Realm," Yarden pushed on, "And if you lost a shadow game or a duel of darkness, it generally was invoked by that place and the loser was punished in some shape or form, mostly by being dragged to the place and tortured in a bunch of horrible ways."

Horror seized her. "...And...and that's where my brother is?" she asked, lips trembling.

"Don't worry, I don't think he is," he squeezed her fingers gently, "Like I said right? Zorc got his bitch arse toasted by Yugi Moto and pals, he's not relevant anymore even if his realm is still kicking around. But, those people that were in the Abandoned Dorms, they were studying the shadow games and the magic involved in it all."

Her trembling faded and her thoughts cleared a bit. "So that was what was going on at those dorms," she bit her lip, "But my brother, he-" Alexis was about to deny the fact that her brother would never get involved in something so evil sounding.

But, he was ever the adventurous sort and would probably have found the idea of it all quite thrilling. That was just like him. 'That idiot.' a sardonic smile split her lips.

"Now we move on to the next part, this is important as well," Yarden broke her from her thoughts. There was more!? "Do you know why this island is a thing at all? Why Duel Academy was built in the first place?"

"...I have a feeling you're going to tell me it wasn't just to teach people the next generation how to duel." Alexis couldn't help but reply with a snort.

"Well, you'd be half right," Yarden snorted as well, "But well, lemme put it like this. Every monster card has the potential to be or become a spirit or was based on a spirit in the first place. That includes the Egyptian God Cards, pretty much by far the strongest monster spirits in creation more or less."

That made sense. She had no idea how powerful such beings would be, and she didn't really want to know, but it made a lot of sense. After all, if this Zorc was a god-like being, what else could stop it but god-like opposition?

She wasn't exactly sure how god-like power was supposed to look like in this situation, but she got the gist of it at least.

"The three god cards are now gone, but there are three spirits left that rival them known as the Sacred Beasts," he added, "And well to put it simply, they're utterly nuts, apparently god-like in their own right and they're sealed on this island, behind seven special gates supposed to be guarded by duellists."

Alexis blinked slowly, "...I'm sorry what..?" she gaped at him, "I must have somehow heard wrong. Because I'm pretty sure you just told me there's three god-like monster spirits sealed on an island with a school of teenagers."

"You heard right love," Yarden chuckled shaking his head, "Now, this thing about them being guarded by duellists? See, this academy is supposed to be raising the best duellists around up to protect them cuz they can only be gotten to through mystical magical mumbo jumbo invoked through beating the seven guards in a duel."

...No, he couldn't be serious. He really, truly, honestly couldn't be saying what she thought he was. That was absurd. Crazy.

Utterly stupid!

"And there's some lame ass group out there all with the ability to invoke duels of darkness looking to steal these three cards, they call themselves, eh..." he trailed off for a moment, "Eh, the Seven Star Assassins or Shadow Riders or something like that. Honestly, it's such a fucking chuuni name I couldn't take them seriously."

Her hung low. This...this was beyond stupid. Who thought this was a good idea? Maybe she was a hypocrite for thinking so when she wasn't acting very smart herself today, but it still had to be said.

"...That's utterly stupid! Moronic!" she just couldn't stop herself from blurting out.

If she understood what he was saying. Then the school expected the seven best students at the academy to duel these stupid sounding thieves in games of darkness and put their very souls at risk. And off the top of her head, two students that would be chosen for that role came to mind immediately.

Zane and Yarden himself. They were by far the best duellists on this island.

"Right you are love," Yarden chuckled, "But the point of me bringing this crap up, is that I'm pretty sure those idiots had their hands in the Abandoned Dorm from what I've been able to dig up. So, once they turn up, I'll kick their asses for you and find where your brother is for you and bring him back even if I have to go kick the shit outta mister world of darkness himself." he promised looking her right in the eyes and smirking his usual utterly, absurdly confident shit eating smirk.

Despite herself, Alexis felt her heart throb and her cheeks warm up as he stared right into her eyes.