Duel Academy, usually a bustling place. Students rush between dorms and their classes, the cafeteria oozes with the smell of eggwichs and rice balls at lunchtime, and the card shop is always crammed with students trying to make their duel monsters deck better. Except this is not the usual. This week is holiday break. Almost every Student took their final exams for the semester and stampeded to get on the ferry to the mainland leaving the island practically deserted. Almost every student left, except Jaden Yuki. It's not like Jaden didn't try, but let's go back to the beginning first.
He had spent the night dueling with Syrus Truesdale, winning against him 18-0. When Syrus finally went to bed, Jaden spent longer working on his deck. That morning when Syrus got back from the bathrooms and saw that Jaden was still asleep he began to panic, frantically screaming and shaking his unconsciousness friend. They had final exams for Advanced Spell Strategies, Card Types 201, and Computer Programming. The first exam was in less then fifteen minutes.
"Jaden, get up!" Syrus yelled again and again while rapidly shaking the snoring duelist, yet it was to no avail.
Syrus took a moment to think before he finally whispered into Jaden's ear, "Do you wanna duel?"
Jaden awoke with a start, "Did someone say duel?" he reached under his bed for his duel disk.
Syrus pinched between his eyes surprised that it worked, "There's no time for dueling we gotta leave now!"
Syrus grabbed Jaden's arm and practically dragged him to class. Jaden struggled to catch up with the speeding Syrus as the two scrambled though crowds of students coming and going from the school building. The two even rushed into the middle of a duel between two Ra yellow girls- both yelled at them for causing a distraction in a critical moment. Finally, the pair rushed into the classroom just as Dr. Crowler walked in.
Crowler narrowed his eyes at the two as they stumbled to their seats "Nice of you two to actually show up on time for once."
Jaden, still half asleep spoke before Syrus could stop him, "Your welcome, teach."
Syrus put his head down as Crowler went on a short tirade on, "The importance of earliness," and "Slifer slackers."
After the exams Syrus slid down the wall outside of the computer room and breathed an exasperated sigh, "Finally done."
Jaden slid down next to him his eyes wide, and small dark bags starting to form beneath them, "You can say that again."
"Finally done," Syrus repeated.
"I didn't mean that literally Sy."
Out of a classroom across the hall from theirs came Alexis Rhodes. Unlike Jaden and Syrus, she didn't seem phased at all by the exams. "What are you two doing down there?"
Jaden looked up towards Alexis, his vision slightly blurred and swimming with images of diagrams and multiple-choice bubbles, "Decompressing."
Alexis shook her head "Well you shouldn't decompress for too long, the last ferry leaves in an hour."
Jaden and Syrus jolted upright, "An hour!" They shouted in unison.
Jaden looked over Alexis's calm expression, "Why aren't you panicking."
Alexis put her hand to her face, "because I packed last night."
Jaden and Syrus exchanged looks of panic realizing they hadn't packed at all.
Alexis was about to offer to help them pack but before she could say a word the two had already darted back towards the Slifer red dorm.
It didn't take Syrus long to pack as he kept a lot of his stuff neat and ready to be moved at any point. Jaden on the other hand was throwing things around, his clothes were in a huge mountain under the window (and those were the clean ones).
