Yugioh: The Hope of Six

Chapter 9 - A Parting of Rivals

Yusaku Fujiki stepped out into the fresh air after a full day of being inside his school. He was a tall, rangy 16 year old teen with green eyes and dark blue hair that spiked outward in the back containing light blue bangs with pink accents. He wore a slate-colored jacket with light blue trim over an unbuttoned white dress shirt with a blue tie with black pants, the norm for his attire at Den City High School.

Den City was his home, a large metropolis with many people and highly advanced technology. The most popular activity there was to log into a digital world called LINK VRAINS. In that realm, people could make their avatars look like anything, be anywhere they wished and had Duels with others across the world.

Yusaku had his own identity in LINK VRAINS, one he intended to keep secret from the public like most people. In that digitalized world, he was known as the hero called Playmaker. Twice now, he had saved the people of Den City from dangerous threats that would have spelled doom for them. Of course, he never fought those battles alone.

"Yusaku!" Yusaku turned to see a fellow student catching up to him. It was another teenage boy, this one had reddish-orange and silver hair and wore glasses over grey eyes. His uniform was the same as Yusaku's, except his had lavender-lined collar and pink tie. Yusaku smiled as the teen met up with him. "Sorry, I got held up. Late homework assignment." He said with a chuckle. Yusaku smiled.

"Don't worry about it, Takeru." Like Yusaku, Takeru Homura had his own secret identity in LINK VRAINS. He was well known as Soulburner, a close friend and ally of Playmaker. They had worked together numerous times to save Den City. Takeru originally lived in another home, but he moved to Den City recently due to certain circumstances.

"Have we heard anything yet?" Takeru asked. His friend shook his head as they walked.

"No. I asked Shoichi before on any leads, but we are still no closer to finding Lightning, Zarc, and E'Rah. We've gotten no word from Ray either. Those three seemed to have hidden themselves well." It had been a few days since they managed to save everyone on the Airship and went their separate ways for the time being. They had been waiting for any updates about anything, but nothing had come up so far.

"What about Ai?" Takeru questioned. Yusaku shook his head again.

"Nothing from him either." His friend sighed.

"That's depressing."

"What is?" The duo looked behind them to see two girls approaching them from behind. Their uniforms were similar to the boys', except they each had a light yellow jumper over their shirts and black miniskirts. One girl had yellow eyes and light brown hair in a bob-cut. The other had grey eyes and pale brown hair that hung down the nape of her neck with pigtails held by small yellow clips. "Anything wrong?" Said the bob-cut haired girl who spoke a second ago.

"You could say that, Aoi. Yusaku just told me that we still have no news." Takeru told her. Aoi Zaizen was a good friend of Yusaku and Takeru, as well as another close ally. She fought alongside them in LINK VRAINS as Blue Maiden. She was originally known as a famous Duelist called Blue Angel, then later changed her avatar into Blue Girl for more "covert" reasons. Her current avatar was the result of learning the predicament of her best friend, Miyu Sugisaki, who was with her now.

Miyu was of course aware of everything that had happened. Aoi had informed her of all past events after she woke up from her coma. Yusaku and Takeru told her it was alright that Miyu was in the loop, since she was a victim of the "Lost Incident" like they were. Miyu was even told about Ray Akaba and the Duelists recruited to help save her world. She was awed by all of it and of course kept their LINK VRAINS identities secret.