10 – The First Week

POV 3rd Person

The next day marked a decided change for Toshiaki. The first being on his way to school, when his arms were suddenly seized by two others and he was hurried off into an alleyway. He was unceremoniously pinned to a brick wall by a strong hand on his shoulder.

At first, he thought he was being mugged. That was until a foot was slammed in between his spread legs by a decidedly unintimidating person. 

Ren blew a tuft of her blonde hair that had fallen into her face and bunched a fist into Toshiaki's shirt. She pulled him down...or tried to. Seeing her trying so hard, Toshiaki would feel bad if he didn't play along, so he leaned in until he was face to face with Ren's brown eyes. 

"Who is she and why is now the first time we are hearing about it?" She said, no hint of a joke in her tone. 

Toshiaki looked up and saw the towering form of Kin standing there. He was attempting to smile intimidatingly at him...which was scary for an entirely different reason. 

"Good morning you two," Toshiaki says, standing up straight and brushing off Kin's arm. "Her name is Rasha. Yes, that Rasha. She just moved here yesterday and I didn't tell you because they are unofficially staying at my place until they make it official with a lease agreement. I would have told you as soon as anything was official."

This answer threw them both for a loop. They had only heard that Toshiaki met with an older lady after school yesterday and were worried he got into a shady host club or something. 

'Aki would be eaten alive there...' They both thought. To say they had some concerns would be an understatement. 

With this misunderstanding in mind, and with them never being ones to do things normally, they had agreed on this plan to deal with the situation. 

'We'll scare and beat some sense into him!' *Please Note: These are his best friends.*

"So...Aki-chan isn't selling his body?" Kin asks in relief.

Toshiaki freezes. Then spins around to glare at him.

"What, exactly, did you think happened yesterday?" He asks with a dark look on his face.

"Ahahaha...We were just worried about you...We heard you ran off with an older woman...Haha..." Ren says, backing away slowly.

"...And that made you automatically think I was selling my body?" Toshiaki asks, cracking his knuckles, his dark look morphing into a mask of an Oni.

"Hey man, it wasn't that long of a stretch. What else are you good for, if not eye candy?" Kin asks, completely seriously. 

Silence fills the alleyway. 

"It was all Kin's idea!" Ren yells, booking it as fast as she can from the alley. *Please Note: This is Kin's loving girlfriend.*

"You Bitch!" Kin yells and then tries to run as well, but finds himself in a Judo hold. 

This was another thing that Toshiaki remembered. He had taken Judo classes at night when he was little. He stopped in middle school to join the basketball team, but, when his parents died, he started back up as a means to vent some anger. This new Toshiaki made sure to pay his fees, which were 2 months late, so that he could continue to go. It was something else he could use as a cover moving forward, after all.

Toshiaki had been doing it for the 3 months since the accident and was decent enough to throw an unprepared opponent to the ground. 

One "Friendly" Beatdown Later...

"It's nice that you get to reconnect with Rasha!" Kin said while rubbing a new bruise on his arm.

They were past the entrance gate to the school and all the girls, and more than a few of the guys, were currently starring at the trio. From the girls, Toshiaki felt shivers run down his spine, and from the guys, he felt a sense of hostility that wasn't there before. 

"Yes, it is great! Are you two dating already?" Ren asks, standing a good 6 feet apart from Kin, as she was fearing her punishment for abandoning him to his fate. Probably a nuggie. 

Toshiaki stumbles and nearly falls onto the pavement.

"N-Not yet." He says with a bashful smile and slight blush on his face. 

Awkward silence greets this. 

Toshiaki, confused, turns to see his two best friends giving him the biggest shit-eating grins he had ever seen. He felt a new shiver run down his spine for some reason and thought he was in immediate danger from those smiles. 

He also noticed more than a few dark looks from the women around him.

"Ara Ara, You hear that. Ren?" Kin asks, bringing one of his hands up to his face in a villainous pose. 

"Ara Ara, I did hear that, Kin," Ren responds matching Kin's posture.

"Sounds like/Looks like:" They both say at the same time.

"Our Aki-chan/Aki is in love!" They both say at the same time again, making half a heart each with their hands and pushing them together to make a full heart.

Toshiaki scowls at them. "Okay, first, you can't both have 'Ara Ara' as your catchphrase. That is only funny if one person does it. Secondly, The poses were just awful. The heart thing? Really? Lastly, I am. So what?" Toshiaki answers, crossing his arms at his two idiotic friends.

A new chorus of "Kyaaa's" and "Noooooo's" follow after his declaration and Kin and Ren deflate. 

He ignores all of them, and walks over to his footlocker, opening it to a sea of pink and red letters. 

...

"I am happy for you, Toshiaki. Really, I am." Kin says, putting his arm around the frozen Toshiaki's shoulder.

"Yes! You could do with some cheering up! You have to introduce her to us, though!" Ren agrees and hugs Toshiaki from the side. 

They then casually look down, as one, as if seeing the letters for the first time.

"Oh...I feel so bad for the girls who spent all night making these love letters, only to hear they have no chance the second they gave them." Ren says with no remorse for said women still standing around.

"Indeed. It looks like 'The Heart Breaker' is back in business." Kin nods, sagely. 

Toshiaki comes back to himself and shakes them off as he picks up the stack of love letters. He glances at them, sighs, and puts them in his bag. He didn't take any pleasure in turning girls down. It had stopped completely since his parents died, but now it looked like it was back in force. 

'Still...With her being here, It makes it a lot easier.'

* | * | *

School that day had only netted Toshiaki 200 Duel Points. One oversight he had was thinking that all duels were at 8k Life Points. 

This was true for official settings, but most people only played casually, with 4k Life Points against friends or for fun. Challenging someone to an "Official Duel" with 8k Life Points was basically saying, "Let's do this seriously." It put people's honor and pride on the line. It was not something that was done casually and could break up friends if done maliciously.

Realizing this mistake, Toshiaki apologized to his two friends at lunch. He had unknowingly challenged them officially yesterday. He explained that he was thinking of entering a local tournament, but wasn't confident in his skills, so he wanted to try out some official duels. It was complete BS, but, explained this way, they didn't really mind all that much.

After that, they had 2 unofficial, or casual, duels at 4K Life Points. Winning those net Toshiaki 50 Duel Points each, so it was still worth doing. Duels with Kurihara Hideki continued to be 8K, he always wanted to do "Official Duels." Toshiaki didn't mind the free 100 DP.

After school, Toshiaki had some hearts to break. He did so as gently as he could, but it still wasn't fun. Honestly, the fact that these girls wanted to date him AFTER hearing he was meeting someone else left him with a bad taste in his mouth. 

He texted Ishizu about being a little late. Once he finished, they met up and went to an arcade to play for a bit. Odion followed them again today and was super obvious in his black trench coat. The fact that Ishizu hasn't noticed yet meant she is having fun, which didn't bother Toshiaki in the least.

A few hours later, they parted so that Toshiaki could "Go to the gym." he waved at her until she disappeared around a corner, and then walked in another direction for a while. Odion followed after Ishizu, so once he was clear, he ducked into a nearby ally. 

It was time. It was finally time.

Smiling in growing euphoria, Toshiaki took his first step in public as Anubis.

No one knew it, but as soon as the "Costumed Weirdo" stepped into his first shop, a new Duel Monster's Legend was born. 

* | * | *

Days passed in a similar vein, and before long, Toshiaki was approaching Sunday. His first week in this new life was now complete. 

"Going to the gym" was one of the many excuses he had planned for his excursions. He would have different things he could do, or say he was doing, while he was going out. He had to be sure he didn't do this every night and actually went to the places enough that it wasn't suspicious.

Even with this restriction, Anubis had made an appearance 3 times this week. All three times he had entered a shop, challenged everyone there to an Official Duel, and then left. He had won more than 3/4 of his duels and last night, Friday night, he had even won a local game store tournament. 

He received 3 card packs from the shop as a reward, worth 100 DP, and immediately sold those packs to his opponent for 50 DP each.

This might seem like a mistake, but those packs were notorious for how horrible they were. It made so much more sense to buy the 10 booster packs from the 3 different sets he had available in the shop instead. 

Additionally, that was not his only reward.

This was fantastic news for Toshiaki! He had no idea if this meant he could buy 3 additional packs on top of the 10 he got normally a month, or if this just meant 3 of those 10 were free. Either way, this represented 4000 Duel Points in rewards. It was clear that winning tournaments was the way to go. 

That brought him back to Saturday night, contemplating in his bed.

He currently had 7651 Duel Points, and he felt they were burning a hole in his pocket. He couldn't wait to spend those on more packs and increase his deck and winning numbers.

The house was renter-ready and the Ishtar siblings had officially signed the year-long lease. 600 DP of his current total was because of that. 

During this week, Marik had successfully signed up for Domino High and was currently in the same class as Yugi and the gang. He had brought that white-haired kid...Burakura? Barracua? Barracuda? Whatever his name is. He brought him over one day and we could hear ominous laughter coming from the duo all night. It was good that he was making friends. 

Ishizu had done all that she said she would. She enrolled in Domino University and got a job as a tour guide at a local museum. She worked a 5-hour shift until the early evening 4 times a week. She was really enjoying it and she and Toshiaki would talk for at least an hour every night about their days. 

Odion...Toshiaki had no idea what Odion did, but he did know he was never far off whenever Toshiaki was out with Ishizu.

Speaking of which...

Tomorrow there was another tournament he wanted to go to across town, but he wasn't sure if hitting two in the same week was a good idea.

On top of that, Ishizu had mentioned wanting to go to the mall with him on Sunday, if he was available. After their date on Tuesday, neither had much time to meet up, so they were both looking forward to it.

They hadn't really talked about what "they" were, and neither wanted to be the first to bring up that conversation. They called it a date and held hands, but they couldn't definitively call it "dating." 

It was dumb and they were both being childish, but that was fine. They were happy with the way things were and could take it at their own pace. 

'I could try and do both...?' Toshiaki thought, picking between the tournament and a date with Ishizu, 'But that seems like such a douchebag thing to do. I would rather tell her I am busy and reschedule than string her along like that. I could just miss the tournament and spend the day with her? I would actually prefer that if I am being honest, but then I am passing up on at least 4000 Duel Points. Plus, I don't have much time to get into regionals and earn Pegasus' attention either...'

This brought Toshiaki back to his Duel Points.

He currently had enough to buy a new starter deck and a couple of packs, including his free ones. That would majorly boost his potential and that of his deck. His current deck was okay, but it was mostly a collection of all of his rarest cards. It had no style or theme to it and lacked the basic foundation to make it work even as a Jank-style deck. 

His current win rate was only because his opponents had bad decks. If he played against Kaiba, or Yugi, or even Rex Raptor right now, he would get his ass handed to him. 

He needed more cards and better cards. The sooner he had them, the better he would be able to do and the more he could stand out. The problem was that he could only access the Transmigrator Shop once a month.

He had already used his free access, so the next one would lock him out for the next 3 weeks, until July. Did he risk it and hope that the new deck and the free packs he got were enough to get him through to that point, or does he save to ensure he does not waste any potential packs he could get? As far as he could tell, the available packs were only 10 a month.

There was nothing saying they would stack with the previous month's packs. If he didn't buy them before the month was out, he was risking losing out on them forever. Then again, they never said they wouldn't either. 

Toshiaki had some tough choices to contemplate. What should he do, moving forward?