Dueling life in a futuristic world

There was a party last night…

“DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!…”

Let’s rewind a little.

I entered the red dorm after having my little talk with the director, and waiting for me was pretty much every single red ranked student in the academy.

“Errr. Are you all waiting for someone?” I ask the crowd, backpedaling.

“YUUMI!!!!!” I hear Yasuna scream from the middle, followed by the human wave crashing into me.

“Hugf” I make a weird sound as the air gets pushed out of my lungs and am drowned by the wave. Fortunately, someone grabs me and pulls me up to the top.

“YUUMI!! YUUMI!! YUUMI!! YUUMI!!” The crowd cheers as I ride the wave until eventually I reach the edge and fall to the ground.

Looking down at me is a smug-looking Yasuna.

“Well, well, well, look at what the rabble got in here, ‘Best Upcoming Duelist’ Uhm. As much as I hate to admit, that title suits you.” She says and offers me a hand.

I take it and stand up.

“Did you do that?” I ask. There is no way anybody else could have planned that at such short notice. I mean, they left their auditoriums at the same time as me, and the distance is only like what? 5 minute of walking?

“Of course I did!” she exclaims. “A red rank getting ‘Best Upcoming Duelist’ is something that never happened before!”

“Ex-Red Rank.” I correct her.

Her face becomes serious. “What?”

“Thank the Director. He thought I would appreciate skipping the rank up exam.” I say, crossing my arms.

She looks down.

“Hey, it’s not like we will never see each other again, also I’m only going on Saturday morning.”

She perks up “THEN I GUESS WE’LL JUST HAVE TO PARTY THAT MUCH HARDER!!!!” she yells from the bottom of her lungs.

….

….

….

Date: 11/Ago/35MT

That leads us to now, a combination of encouragement from the others, and me not considering that my tolerance is basically at zero, means I had just woken up with one of the worst hangovers of my life after passing out drunk last night. Best part? I remember nothing past the conversation with Yasuna.

“URGGGG” I groan, then look around.

I’m in my room. Good, waking up on the floor is not pleasant. I look at myself and see that I’m partially naked… Not so good, my uniform shirt is completely missing and my bra is too. I’m left with wearing my skirt with panties and stockings.

I look around and find the missing items next to my office desk with my phone and duel disk on top.

After stumbling out of bed, I attempt to locate Yasuna, but fail to do so. Crawling up to my desk, I find a note from her.

[“Good morning, you party animal! After last night, I thought I would let up sleep in for today. PS I’ve gone down and picked up your stuff, be sure to thank me later. PPS never have I met someone with such sensitive nipples {Smilly Face}”]

My face burns up at that last point.

‘WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED LAST NIGHT!?!?!??!?!!’

…

…

I’m drawing blanks…

I take off my clothes and, after throwing them all into the laundry chute, take a VERY COLD shower.

————

The rest of the week has passed. I tried talking to Yasuna but every time I ask about the party she puts on a smile and says “You don’t want to know.”

In the meantime, I have been going to the card store to get some cards. For what you ask? Well, I’m making a farewell gift for Mia and Aiko. Yes, I’m making them both a deck. Now I’m not sure if it’s looked down upon to give someone a deck, I get that it’s basically saying “Lol, your deck sucks! Use this!” but after what happened, I’m not having any of it!

For Mia, I’m making a Monark deck. It’s the first deck that came to mind when I thought of a deck that doesn’t use the extra deck… that and true draco, but I’m not releasing that abomination out into the world. For Aiko, I thought about giving another deck that doesn’t use extra summoning, but, I’ve built deskbots for her, It’s a very simple deck that can get ridiculous amounts of damage on board with few cards, plus basic deskbots just use pendulum summoning. I’m still thinking about what to get for Yasuna. For now, I’ve decided on a playset of jet synchron as, for some absurd reason, they think of Quasar as a “Rare card” so its pull rates are abysmal. That is true for most extra deck boss monsters. I’ve also tried to get some of the stupider Odd-Eyes boss monsters, but for now I’ve only got two supreme king dark rebellions and a supreme king crystal wing.

On other news, Aiko has gotten well enough to go back to the dorm room, and she’s also started attending lectures once again. I talked with her about what happened and, excluding some trauma, she doesn’t seem to want to give up because of it. In fact, she seems more determined than ever. So much so that after a week of pendulum summoning classes, she has already performed a pendulum summon in one of the practice sessions, much to the surprise of her professor and peers. Honestly, I’m glad that the incident didn’t scar her from dueling ever again, which is something I might have considered….

The situation with my emotions is getting worse. I have random fits where I just turn into someone else… I might want to ask the goddess about it… Still, it also might have to do with me suppressing my sexual urges… that is something that I’ve vowed to fix when I get into the Yellow dorm. After looking at the knowledge base, I found out that the Yellow dorm has individual rooms besides a shit ton of other amenities that, for me, scream luxury, but for the people here, might just be common. That’s something I’ve been thinking about and researching. If you take someone from the 1950s for example and take them to the present day, or what would have been present day before I was reincarnated, ignoring social implications the first thing they would note is that everyone seems to live in luxury, stuff that was only for the rich back then common instances in 20XX. And that is something that I haven’t experienced yet. Everything until now is convenient, sure, but I’m not eating caviar and lobster every day. The only thing until now I would call extremely futuristic is the object that burned a hole in my pocket, and even then, I feel like I’ve only used a portion of its capabilities.

————

Date: 13/Ago/35MT

It’s Saturday. I just went to grab my uniform from the dispenser and instead of the red uniform I’m so used to, a yellow one come out.

‘That makes it settle in, huh?’

I don’t mention it to my roommates and just bring it over to the bathroom to surprise them when I come out.

'I wonder how they'll react? I told them all about it so it's not a surprise, but even then I wonder.' I think as I enter the shower.

 

Coming out of the bathroom, the first to notice is Mia.

Her head snaps to me and she exclaims, “Yuumi! You look so good in Yellow!”

Hearing this, Yasuna and Aiko both perk up and look at me.

“Woah.” Yasuna gawks, still half asleep.

Aiko initially looks worried but then her expression turns to a warm smile, "Congratulations, Yuumi."

“Thank you, now if anyone could help me with some packing… I have rewards….” I tease.

This gets both Mia and Aiko helping me out with Yasuna, also joining in later.

 

6 minutes later

 

 We're done packing my stuff, so I turn to the three.

“Well, I guess I have some rewards to give.” I say, taking out two decks.

I hold out both my hands with one deck each to their respective new owners, getting me wide-eyed stares for both of them.

“Nooooooo, you didn’t?!” Mia is the first to snap out.

Followed by Aiko. “Yuumi, are you sure!?”

“Yup, for you Mia, I built a monark deck. It doesn’t use any extra summoning techniques.” I tell Mia, then place the deck in her hand.

I then turn to Aiko. “And for you, a Deskbot deck, pure pendulum.” I also place the deck in her hand.

After that I go over to Yasuna and offer her a playset of Turbo Synchrons (which are not limited by the academy banlist), plus one other card.

“NOOOOO! ARE YOU SURE!?!?!?!” she yells. That might have to do with the Quasar I got on my last pull.

“Yea.” I confirm, fiddling as I'm not sure that this is comparable to what I gave the twins.

Contrary to them, she yanks the cards out of my hand. “Your never getting these back.”

“I didn’t expect to.” I say after a little giggling.

I look at the roommates which basically are the first friends I made here, or people I would consider friends.

'This would be sad if I would not keep seeing them every day, regardless of the dorm I'm in. Oh well, still a moment to remember.'

“Well, I’ll be going now. Just send a message if you want to hang out!” I tell and close the door behind me.

Aiko and Mia were still a little stunned, so I thought it would be best to wait a few days to get their proper reactions.

————

After a relatively short walk to the yellow dorms, which look like some sort of modern style apartment complex. I walk inside and make my way to the front desk.

“Good morning. How may I help you?” Asks a woman which looks to be in her thirties and has black short neck-length hair.

“Good morning, I have just ranked up and was told I needed to report to the front desk.” I tell her.

She turns to the holographic screen to her right.

“Name?” she asks, still looking at the screen.

“Yuumi Matsunaga.” I confirm, while looking at the spacious lobby.

After a few seconds, she turns to me.

“Yuumi, I have just confirmed your transfer. Your room is room 3 on the second floor.” With that, she grabs the mic for the PA system. “Now, while personally I don’t enjoy doing this, it’s tradition.”

“Newbie in lobby, I repeat Newbie in lobby.” She announces over the dorms PA system.

‘Of course.’

“The elevator is over there. Good luck.” She points to a corridor.

“*Sigh*, thanks, I guess.”

I turn the corner of the corridor and spot a mob of yellow ranked girls. In front stands the princess, now in a more appropriate uniform.

“WELL, WELL, WELL…..Oh.” Her sadistic smile breaks when she spots me.

“Yes Aya? Have something to say?” I ask crossing my arms.

“N-No…” she stutters, then turns to the now terrified mob. “What are you all doing!? Let her pass!”

The mob blocking the elevator splits down the middle. Aya urges me to pass, but as I get closer, I can spot the other girls trembling.

“*Sigh*, if y’all gonna be like that.” I say, then change my duel disk from my arm band to the belt clip and put my hands up.

...

...

“Arg!” As I’m passing through the “corridor,” I fell a smack on my bum. I turn to find two terrified girls, pleading that they weren’t the ones.

Ignoring that, I reach the elevator and the doors close.

“WHO DID THAT?! ARE YOU CRAZY WHAT IF SHE ha….” I hear someone yell as the elevator rises.

‘Great, another dorm terrified of me, just what I needed.’

The elevator door opens and I walk to the door labeled “3”

After opening the door, I am faced with a comparatively spacious room with a single bed, a big empty office desk opposite to it and a dresser to the side. Something I didn’t mention was the lack of natural sunlight in my old room. This one at least has a window.

Next to the office desk is a personal tube express delivery station for small canisters. That is another benefit of the Yellow dorm. There’s also a medium locker by the front desk and I get access to the big locker on the central tower. I don’t know this is something exclusive to the yellow rank other than an incentive. Another incentive is the spa and massage parlor in the lobby, which is something exclusive to the female dorm. Yea sexism much, at least I’m not immediately put in the blue dorm for being a girl, looking at you GX Duel Academy.

I leave my bag down by the bed and go explore the bathroom.

It’s smaller than the red dorm’s, but that one was for four people, not one. They replaced the shower with a bathtub and the toilet bidet combo is ceramic instead of plastic. A sink is opposite to it with a big mirror above. On top of the sink, there are some freebies: makeup samples, wipes, some sort of moisturizers, conditioners, etc…

Satisfied, I exit the bathroom and plop down on the bed

“Sooooo Soft~.” I mutter. This bed is practically heaven compared to the old bunk bed.

 

 

After a few minutes of relaxing in bed, I hear a knock on the door.

'Great, I wonder who it is. They better have a good reason for disturbing me.'

“Coming.” I announce.

Opening the door reveals a flustered Aya.

“Yes?” I ask.

“H-Hey, we were supposed to give you a tour of the dorm… The others refused to join me, but how about it?” She offers. Her face says it all. She’s terrified.

“*Sigh*, sure. Just don’t make me bring my duel disk.” I tell.

Her face brightens instantly. “R-Really? No need to bring a duel disk, I promise!” She assures.

“Then let’s go.” I say, locking the door behind me. I have no reason to believe this is not a trap, but my phone has two solid vision projectors, so in a pinch, I can still defend myself. Of course, this feature only works if the phone is registered with a duel disk and the duel disk still uses its internal mechanism to manage the physical cards, with a micro solid vision projector projecting holographic cards from the phone. It’s a neat feature.

“So Yuumi, where did you learn to duel like that? I-If you don’t mind me asking, of course!” Aya asks as we enter the elevator.

“Well… I was an orphan…” I start and am immediately interrupted by Aya.

“OMG I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have asked!” She apologizes.

“Don’t worry, my story isn’t complicated. I built two decks, used one barely getting to 600 Elo and used the other to showcase my skill, so an organisation that could protect me would promptly pick me up. Nothing groundbreaking.” I make myself to be way smarter than I really am.

We reach the lobby and I can’t help but to notice something strange.

“Where did everyone go?” I ask Aya.

“Ah, W-Well, they scattered after I told them I was going to give you the tour...”

“Are they that scared of me?”

“Y-Yes.”

*sigh*

“So, Aya, How did you get into the NWDA?” I ask to break the tension.

“Oh, my father is the Marketing Director for Dimcorp. I got private tutoring and entered at 860 Elo to Yellow rank.” She reveals.

I keep making small talk with her and we go around the lobby, checking out some of the services, like the previously mentioned spa and massage parlor, plus some other miscellaneous things, like restaurants and a few shops which offer stuff for DC.

'Honestly, this is really nice for just the yellow dorms, like an overbuilt 3 star hotel. I wonder how the blue dorms are?'

“Hey Aya, compared to the blue dorm, how does the yellow one hold up?”

She turns to me.

“Not even close! The blue dorms rooms are way bigger and the castle services offer so much free stuff I nearly never paid for anything!” She shots. “Also, the pools and hot springs are amazing!” She finishes her little sales pitch before realizing what she just said and promptly getting flustered again.

I notice this and ask, “You miss it that much?”

“Y-Yes.” She reveals.

“*Sigh* I’m sorry, but you deserved it.”

“I know…”

....

What?

I didn’t expect this from her.

“Really?” I try to confirm

She just nods.

'Fuck it.' With that I ask. “How close are you to 1000 Elo?”

This makes her look up, surprised. “Why does it matter to you?”

I frown. “Come on, I’m trying to give you a chance here! Do you think this is easy for me!? Especially after what happened with Aiko!” I exclaim, making her back up.

…

…

‘Shit, I did it again.’

I breathe deeply to calm myself down and look directly at her “I’m sorry It’s just..." - I try to think of a way to phrase it better but give up midway and decide to tell what's on my mind -"ARGH! Aya, I can see you're trying to change, and I commend you for it, but it's just... the things you do... they don't make it easy.”

“I… Know…” she whispers, looking down at the floor.

…

…

…

“How about we go to the spa together someday?” I offer to break the silence.

She perks up.

“Really?”

 I shrug. “Sure, I’ve never been to one.”

“How?” she asks, surprised.

I roll my eyes. “Orphan?”

“Oh… Right…”

“*Sigh*, so how about it?”

“Yes!” She seems to like the idea.

We go our separate ways after deciding to go to the spa next weekend and, with that; I return to my room.

I have something I need to take care of.