Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's: Rainbow Stardust

Chapter 7: A Horrible Plan

Sylvia was... interesting. And a little confusing. At times, she looked like a scared little kid who followed everything Yusei did like a lost puppy. She listened to him, respected him, even idolized him. The admiration on her face was sort of difficult to miss. She seemed to want to copy him, and learn from him-- and Yusei appreciated that, because it meant she saw something in him worth learning or mimicking. All in all, she was a very kind person. Naive, perhaps, and possibly even a little mentally ill, but she was kindhearted and wholesome despite that, making a very real effort to assist not only him, but his friends. If Rally was bored with nothing to do, she played with him. When Nervin was fretting about something, Sylvia walked him through breathing exercises and expressed her concern for him. He hadn't had a chance to see how she and Tank or Blitz get along yet, but Yusei had a feeling she'd win them over before long.

On the other hand, there were times she looked distant and cold, her back straight and her face carefully neutral. As if she were somewhere a million miles away from her body. Was she talking to her spirits?

Ah, those spirits... At first, Yusei hadn't been certain what to make of them. She spoke about the cards talking as if she really believed it, and the way her voice was trembling, and how she hesitated, and even rose her voice at him-- losing her cool like that, which was completely out of character up until that night in the storm-- he knew she was telling the truth, and she perhaps even doubted herself for it. Even after he assured her he believed her, perhaps Sylvia sensed something was wrong with his response, because she continued to pester him over and over after that.

"Why do you believe me?" "Aren't you going to question what I'm saying?" "You know I sound like a crazy person, right?"

He never denied that she was right. If he actually had believed her, it really would make him crazy. But he was also never one to dismiss a hypothesis until it was proven false. He wouldn't call himself a naive man; merely a man of science.

No, more than that now. He was her friend. What kind of friend dismissed what their clearly emotionally fragile companion was confessing to them in confidence? He was not heartless, and though he hadn't exactly the words to describe his thought process, he could try to prove himself through his actions.

One day, her pestering had gotten to be enough for him, so he drew a random card from his deck: Scrap-Iron Scarecrow. Sylvia had never seen him use it before, so he held it up to his face, then pressed it close to his chest and asked her what card he just drew. To his surprise, without so much as a flinch, she responded correctly.

That was when he began to cast doubt on his own suspicions.

He told her something about that having been enough proof for him, and he must've played it off successfully, because she hadn't spoken to him about doubting herself ever since.

The glowing mark on her arm didn't help matters, and the glowing mark on his arm had thrown everything he knew into a loop. No matter how many times he unrolled his sleeve and glove, he still couldn't see that mark anywhere on his arm. He tried dueling against Blitz a couple of times, just to see if anything happened, but there was nothing.

Then came the incident with Nervin. Thinking back, Yusei was absolutely out of his mind to follow a random card in the wind for no reason. But... it wasn't for no reason. It was Rainbow Kuriboh, a card he'd seen before in Sylvia's deck. It seemed to wait for him, and he had no time to waste. Somehow, he ended up being right. Still, it was a risky move, and he warned Sylvia against doing something like that again. It wasn't a reliable way to call for help, and she would have risked losing her card for good.

Not once did he ask her about what happened then. Her focus had shifted entirely to Nervin and his well-being, which he appreciated. It wasn't Yusei's place to make the first move, no matter how baffled he was at the way things have gone. He wouldn't call himself a naive man by any means, but...