365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Subversion Tactics

3/17/19

Judai knew he couldn't avoid explaining any longer as the conversations around him started dwindling down, everyone's attention back on him as the food was finished.

"So... in case it wasn't obvious, I time-traveled," he started, not sure how much he actually wanted to tell them. It... well, it was a very selfish reason for time-traveling, but Yugi'd been a huge support for going through with it, and being here with Yusei now had made it entirely worth it in the end and made him feel significantly better about being selfish for once.

But even then, he knew it would sound... bad to them. They deserved to hear about how Yugi could see red strings of fate and that he'd time-jumped for legitimate reasons that made both him and Yusei happy, but he didn't want to tell them because he knew it would sound entirely ridiculous to them. That, and it would lead to questions about what he was doing hanging out with the original King of Games anyway, which he was actually okay with talking about considering it was mostly research they were doing together and-

Wait. That was it!

He hurriedly glanced at Yusei, hoping the other would realize what he was doing and show some sort of approval as he continued saying, "It was entirely voluntary, first of all, so don't think that it was an accident or anything - I was working with Yugi Moto on a bunch of spirit realm research and we knew that it was a possibility due to the nature of the magic we were studying."

Yusei's eyes lit up in understanding, and despite the flicker of conflict that passed through them afterwards he eventually softened his look and gave Judai a small nod of approval.

Thank the gods Yusei was okay with this - he may not entirely understand why he didn't want to tell the whole truth to them, but Judai could tell that the other would be okay with it so long as he didn't lie. He knew Yusei appreciated honesty, after all, and it's not like Judai wanted to lie to his friends anyway; omitting part of the truth, though, and letting them fill in the blanks?

That was fair game. He could work with this.

"To be honest, once I'd heard you were listed as being twenty-two the possibility of time-travel did pop into my mind," Asuka admitted, "It's definitely something I could see you somehow managing to accomplish."

"Scratch that, I'm more interested in how he was doing magic research with the King of Games," Johan said excitely, eyes sparkling in curiosity, "You guys must've figured out a ton of new stuff! Wait, is that why you were able to teach me how to materialize Ruby for short periods of time?"

"Yeah, that was part of what we figured out," Judai replied, grinning as he thought about all the stuff he and Yugi had learned about magic, Judai's powers, and the spirit dimensions as a whole, "We managed to find out a lot of new aspects of magic and duel energy that we hadn't before. It helped that we accidentally learned stuff along the way that were a huge help to our research, like when I accidentally figured out that I could see duel energy if channeled my powers a certain way."

"You can see duel energy?!" Johan grinned, nearly knocking over his chair with how fast he stood up, "That's so cool dude, do you know how useful that is?! I've been going around the world monitoring duel energy levels and collecting data on everything and anything about it for years now, I can only imagine how much being able to actually see it would help supplement the data!"

"Oh no, not again," Jun groaned, "How do you manage to bring up your work somehow in every conversation you're in?"

"It really is an art form, huh?" Sho wondered, Kenzan nodding in agreement with him.

"You've got data on duel energy from around the world?" Yusei asked, suddenly sitting up in his chair as his eyes sparked in interest, "What kinds are we talking about here? I work with momentum every day and-"

Johan was quick to interrupt him, giving Yusei a wide-eyed look, "Momentum? I haven't been able to study that stuff much beyond 'it happens when energy spins' because most of the research is really well hidden and I haven't gotten any of the research circles to share what they know with me. You work with that stuff every day?"

"I'm currently working on getting the original reactor for the city up and working again, but safely this time. Momentum is what powers the entire city, though I'm not surprised you couldn't find out much about it considering it was deemed too dangerous for most people to know - it's pretty damn destructive if mishandled even the slightest bit," Yusei replied.

Judai frowned at the memory of how utterly dense the duel energy had been at the reactor when they went there, saying, "Even looking past the Zero Reverse event and everything that happened as a result, that damn facility has so much duel energy still floating around unchecked I nearly thought I was walking into a war zone for a few seconds when Yusei brought me there. Semi-sentient, floating duel energy that still hadn't dispersed - it was nearly the same kind of atmosphere."

"A war zone? How much duel energy are we talking here?" Johan asked, "I've got a bunch of custom duel energy readers that I could bring there and we could look to see what they pick up."

"Custom, huh?" Yusei mused, bringing a hand up to his chin in thought, "I've got a couple of my own but they mostly just tell me about movement and production output, since that's the main focus when it comes to momentum."

"Well, I think we've lost them guys," Edo said, turning to the others, "I never thought the day would come that I'd say this, but we've lost Judai to a nerd-out session."

"I guess since it's about duel energy and magic, it doesn't really count?" Sho replied with a smile, "That's a lot more interesting than regular science, especially to a duelist."

Judai cheered internally at that, being able to tune into both conversations rather easily - at least Sho understood why this stuff was so interesting to him. That, and knowing about duel energy was actually really important for being able to control his powers, even if he didn't realize that was necessarily an aspect of it at first.

Besides, if something could be done about that reactor facility, then that was even better. Judai really didn't like it - the amount of duel energy there, like he'd said, reminded him of a war zone and just grated on his danger sense.

And hey! He'd successfully managed to subvert the topic without much hassle, and they weren't asking any more questions about his time-traveling, at least for now, so all-in-all this was a major success. Judai's luck was really pulling through for him right now.