365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Oddities

1/10/19

"...Judai."

Was that Haou? Judai blinked in surprise, but put down his soda just in case. If Haou was deciding to speak up, it was probably for a good reason.

"I thought of something... odd. If Yusei is this generation's King of Games, then he should be able to see duel spirits, right?" Haou asked. "Yugi could do it, even after the Pharaoh was gone, and you've been able to since you were little, so Yusei should logically be able to as well."

That was a rather good point. Judai frowned before taking a closer look at Yusei, who was back to focusing all his attention on his laptop, although this time he had a mug of warm tea - and not the cheap stuff, at Judai's insistence, considering it was his own money - next to him. At Haou's urging, he channeled a bit of the gentle darkness combined with a bit of Yubel's power through himself to connect to the spirit world, which let him see duel energy. It was something they'd discovered accidentally and had taken a lot of practice to master, but the results were well worth it.

Judai sucked a breath in through his teeth at what he saw, and he could feel both Haou and Yubel do the equivalent of mentally tripping over their feet.

Yusei was positively leaking duel energy. Said duel energy was dispersing almost immediately after leaking out, too, so even though Yusei should have more than enough to see and materialize duel spirits, he didn't because whenever he made any it disappeared immediately.

"What the hell? Is it just me or is it spinning around him?" he heard Yubel mutter, and now that he looked at it... Yeah, it was spinning all in the same direction around him just before dispersing.

"Yusei," Judai said as levelly as he could at the moment.

"Give me a minute-"

"-No, Yusei, look at me."

Yusei looked annoyed for a second, but the second he turned his head and saw Judai's eyes had changed color and that he was sporting an unusually serious face he just looked worried.

"Judai? What's wrong?" Yusei asked.

"Does spinning duel energy ring any bells for you?"

He blinked before nodding, "Yes, it's the basis for the Ener-D Reactor. It powers the whole city, and the project I'm working on right now is getting the original reactor to work again. Ener-D, or duel energy, is sometimes referred to as Momentum in certain circles due to the continuous spinning. Why?"

Interesting. So it was the basis for powering the whole city? And Yusei was working on the original?

That still didn't answer why his duel energy was acting like that, unless- aw, crap, with their track record in terms of 'impossible magic deciding to screw with them', that was a very plausible option.

"Is there any chance you were heavily exposed to it as a child?"

"...Y-yeah, apparently when it exploded I was in the facility, but my parents somehow saved me by getting me out in time. Judai, how the hell did you know to ask that?" Yusei asked, looking stunned.

Judai bit his lip before deciding to just go for it. "Don't freak out, but your duel energy is perpetually leaking out of you at the same rate you're regenerating it, and it's all spinning in one direction right before disappearing."

"...What?!"