365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Errant Duel Spirit

6/22/19

The door was opened seconds after they knocked on it, revealing a grinning Lua while Luka peeked out from around the corner momentarily before going back to trying to talk to the duel spirit.

"Hey guys!" Lua greeted, moving to the side and quickly shooing them in before shutting the door, "That was fast, thanks."

"Not a problem," Judai replied, ruffling the boy's hair slightly before leading the way towards where he'd seen Luka, "I'm guessing nothing too bad happened?"

"Nah, just a few more knocked over things - more chairs and unfortunately the toaster," Lua said, scrunching up his face and scratching the back of his head, "Still don't quite know what happened there, to be honest, but the lever part got sent flying off of it."

"Fixable," Yusei assured him with a smile, glancing at the kitchen as they passed by - said toaster was on the counter, the broken pieces gathered next to it in a neat little pile, "Definitely fixable."

"See, we've got you guys covered," Judai grinned, coming around the corner only to find just what he'd been hoping to find.

Luka was hopelessly trying to talk to the duel spirit, one of which Judai hadn't seen before, and was flapping her arms around and pouting in frustration at having to deal with them. Kuribon hovered around her, looking on in quiet support and adding in a few coos every now and then to try and make Luka feel better. Meanwhile, some sort of lion-looking duel spirit hovered by the group, though from what Judai could tell from the way he was watching them, he was just trying to make sure things didn't get too out of hand; the guy looked just as amused by the whole thing as he was, though.

"Judai, I tried figuring out what you asked but I didn't get anything," Luka sighed, looking very relieved that he was here to take over, "Sorry."

"Nah, don't worry about it - it was just something to try more than anything else," Judai smiled reassuringly, patting her on the head like he had to Lua earlier before squatting down in front of the duel spirit, who looked to be a little girl with a staff covered in flowers.

"Oh! Are you going to play too?!" The duel spirit exclaimed, practically jumping up and down in place, "It's so different here! I wanna play!"

"Well, I'll do that if you tell me a few things," Judai replied lightly, quickly thinking of a way to grab her attention and get her to listen to him, "After all, it's a lot more fun to play with a friend you actually know about, right?" Thankfully this seemed to work as she stopped moving and gave him her full attention, so he continued, saying, "Let's start with this - I'm Judai Yuki, what's your name?"

She smiled widely, looking at him in excitement and nodding as she replied, "Aromage Jasmine, at your service!"

"That sounds familiar..." Luka mused, frowning to herself before turning to her lion duel spirit and asking, "Regulus, do you recognize the name?"

Ah, so his name was Regulus - Judai found it a little funny at how the lion duel spirit was essentially named 'regal', considering how it sounded.

"I do," Regulus replied, tail flickering slightly as he studied Jasmine curiously, "Aromages reside in the forest next to ours, though considering the sheer size of Ancient Fairy Dragon's domain I'm not surprised to have never met one of that group before."

And that answered all of Judai's questions, for the most part - now all he had to do was figure out how to convince her to go back. He could feel the duel energy she'd dragged along with her, and while it wasn't harmful necessarily, he still wanted it out and back in the spirit dimension due to its denseness; it could have harmful effects on Jasmine if it stayed latched to her like this for too long, but going back would make it disperse back into the air there.

He gave Yusei a short wave and a cheeky smile, telling him, "I've got this covered, don't worry. It might take a while though, so you and Lua can go figure out something to pass the time with if you want."

Yusei gave him a small smile and a nod back, and Judai watched fondly for a moment as he led Lua back towards the kitchen so he could get a better look at the broken toaster before turning back to the misplaced duel spirit and getting to work.