(25) Old enemies, new friends

The following week didn’t have any particular events that I would call exiting. I told Haruna that I would have an answer to her offer next Monday, and the rest of the week was mostly me getting used to my daily torture. That’s action duel class if you didn’t get it. Honestly, that sucked up most of my energy each day and while not every single class was as grueling as the first one, it was still extremely tiring. The other classes where we didn’t just do cardio comprised parkour training that made use of a field action duel solid vision projector, which was used to project a tower that we were challenged to climb. It didn’t matter if we fell all the way from the 10th floor or the 100th floor, our fall would get slowed down by an automatic system.

As the week progressed, I grew accustomed to my new routine and, by Friday, and felt like I had more energy. I do not know if that was the training or just the mental. Another thing that surprised me was the amount of stimulants that we used. It didn’t end with just muscle growth enhancers. After Wednesday’s class, I had to go to the infirmary to receive a nanobot injection that would perform a modification to increase the saturation of oxygen in my red blood cells permanently. That wasn’t a onetime thing. I am supposed to get four other injections by the end of the year. That would include a bunch of other modifications. Obviously, I voiced my concerns and was promptly reassured that it would not affect my health down the line in any way… this is a common thing among athletes of any kind over here apparently… I’m going to trust that for now. Yasuna seems fine, and talking with her confirms that she also had reservations at the start but grew used to it.

Well, I would say that I maybe have underestimated the medical technology level of this world. For example: Have you just given birth to a deformed, blind, deaf abomination that might live a few days? No worry! Just get a SINGLE nanobot injection and your baby will be picture perfect! Are you feeling… anything wrong really? Nanobot injection. Feel uncomfortable about your sex, body, or genitals? Nanobot inje… Wait?

…

…

I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that out of respect for the original Yuumi. Don’t want to have second thoughts about my new life here…

…

Anyway. Another thing I did was sign up for the NWDA forum, I’m a little confused why in such an advanced world something like forums are still the main way for groups to share things among themselves but it might have to do with the lack of social media services. Apparently, they used to exist some time ago, but were banned because of the amount of toxicity and damage they caused in the long term… Good riddance; I say.

If you are curious, this was my introductory post:

[Hello New Words Dueling Academy. I’m Yuumi Matsunaga, a First-Year. You might have already heard of me (Going by the last few posts of most of the gossip boards). I’m the Natural Penta-Summoner, everyone’s talking about. Please don’t PM me for advice on extra summoning techniques I literally cannot help you. Other than that, keeping with the rules of this board here is the replay of my tryout duel.]

Let’s just say that this thread quickly turned into a shitshow and had to be locked by the mods. It was mostly filled with people calling me a narcissist for introducing myself like this and others coming to my defense, saying that what I said was just the truth. Another minority also commented on the replay itself, calling it a masterful show of extra summoning methods.

I had already set my PM notifications to friends, mods and professors only. If I wanted to make a cringe compilation, I would have just had to read my anonymous sender PMs out loud. For example:

[You bitch think your better than the rest of us because of your…] I stopped reading right there and just replied with.

[*You’re] And blocked him. You know what they say: That’s a nice argument you got there, but learn to spell first.

The other PMs ranged from cat calling to straight up threats.

I didn’t make the account just to amuse myself with cringy people. The forums were a good place to get fresh gossip from and while right now most of it focused on how I had joined the forum, there were some other things, like how the Director had given an award to a red rank or how the blue ranked Aya Ohashi had dropped to yellow after losing to a red rank… WAIT THAT WAS ALSO ME!

After a thorough examination of the newest posts, I noticed that most of them were just things I did…

‘Looks like I’ll have to lie low for a while to get any information out of this.’

Date: 20/Ago/35MT

So it’s Saturday once again. The first thing I did after waking up is go searching on GlobalNet for Duel Runners. I wanted to start the Turbo Duel course, and while it is technically not required for me to own a Duel Runner - Otherwise, how do you think anybody gets in if they don’t have the same amount of resources as me - but I have a DC credit so no worries.

Before that I do my research and the first thing I learned was that I basically kneecapped myself by getting DragonFruit equipment. DF Duel disks apparently only work with Dragon Fruit certified Duel Runners and those are normally the most expensive from manufactures that have a good stating with DF. The reason is that DF takes makes a percentage of the profits from those certified Duel Runners… The Apple comparison is getting weirdly real.

After a little thinking, I determine that this won’t be that much of a problem for me. As I said, I’ve got a blank check. But there is something that stops me from pulling the trigger right now, renting a garage by the track is a 25 DC per month expense and requires an upfront deposit of 50 DC… I’m a little low on DC right now so I will have to wait another week for the month to roll over.

Still, I go over to the vehicle catalog of the NWDA where I find various models that are “DragonFruit Duel Enabled.” There isn’t a way to filter them. But I found an easy solution! Just sort by price, highest to low. And 99% of the models on the first page are compatible.

“Rich kid brand… Had to be like that.” I conclude.

Lucky for me, I don’t have to worry about that! DC token to the rescue! I’m going to buy whatever I want. Sorry, Director. I don’t know how much this will cost you, but you will regret giving me a blank check.

With this, I sort by price and look at the most expensive option… Like I should.

…

“What?” I’m confused. I was looking at the specifications for the “Lancer Sky-striker Ebony.” Besides the obvious reference, “Sky-Striker” meant something else. It meant it could hover… Not just hover… Fucking FLY!!!! A flying bike. By the way, this is not exclusive to Lancer. There are other “Sky-Striker” bikes from other brands. I just got shocked after seeing it on that one. And it’s also “DragonFruit Duel Enabled”.

Oh, and the price? 1000DC? 5000DC? 10000!?....... Actually yes. 10000DC, that’s two years plus one month of the highest possible DC allowance on a single item. Unfortunately, because of the garage deposit, I wouldn’t be able to make the Director cry just yet, so I closed the app.

Just as I was thinking about what to do today, I get a call from Aya… Oh right! The Spa.

“Good Morning Aya.” I tell.

“Good morning Yuumi. I was just wondering if the spa thing was still on? I know you have just started action duel class, so I get it if you don…”

“It’s fine. We can go if you want.”

“Oh, that’s good… Met you in the lobby?”

“Sure.”

————

That was sooooo relaxing…..

I went into it with my expectations being almost at zero and came away with an incredible experience. I might have to do this again. Aya is amused by my reaction.

“*Giggle* That wasn’t even that great of a place. There is a munch better one in the blue dormitory.”

“I know! But remember, I had never gone to a spa!”

“Really? That… Oh, sorry. God dammit! I keep forgetting!”

“*Giggle* I don’t know why, it’s like the 10th time.”

“Oh, come on! How can I not be?! That DragonFruit duel disk keeps throwing me off!” I can almost hear the jealousy behind that voice.

“… Ooooh Yea, I almost forgot. Don’t you have on yourself?”

“No, mine is an upgraded DimCorp one. My phone is the same model as yours, though.”

“Really? But they are really expensive…” I ask, giving a questioning look.

“Well, my daddy bought it for me last month for the start of the year… Shit, he’s going to be pissed when he finds out I descended to yellow rank.” She realizes.

I cringe. “Quick question, did you just use ‘Daddy’ unironically?”

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s so nice to me. I should at least treat him the same.”

After a deep sigh I continue “No reason… Hey want to get some lunch?”

“Ohhh I know an excellent restaurant by the… Blue dorms… oh...” she trails off, looking down.

“And what’s the problem? It’s not like the restaurants are restricted to students of that area,” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

She looks at me, worried. “Are you crazy!?!? You might be fine as no one will mess with you, being protected by the Director and all. But I’ll be shunned!” She asserts.

“First of all, I’m not protected by the Director. I still have to fight my battles. The only reason the situation with the four cowards was dealt with by him was because he was worried I would do something drastic. Second, as you said, they won’t mess with me and after the aforementioned situation, I doubt they would mess with my companions.” I infer.

She stops walking, and after thinking about it, gives me an answer.

“Fine! Worst thing that will happen is we get ushered out anyway…” she trails off hesitantly.

“See, now let me just call the others…”

“You what?!?!”

“Come on, this is a great opportunity for you to make up with the twins and Yasuna.”

“In a restaurant next to the Blue Dorms!?!?!?” she shouts.

“Why not? Really, I’m already bringing you.”

We walk out of the dorm, Aya physically cringing.

————

We met up next to the yellow dorm, and let’s just say the atmosphere was intense.

The first to notice was Yasuna.

She froze up and then demanded, “Yuumi, why is Aya here!?”

This made Aya back up.

I crossed my arms and calmly responded. “Because she’s the one who suggested we go have lunch.”

“I didn’t expect you to call your old roommates!” She quickly corrected.

“Oh? Because we are just some red ranked chumps, huh? I’m sorry if this peasant has offended the prin…”

“Both of you stop!” Surprisingly, Mia is the one to intervene this time. I was ready to do so myself, but this is much better.

They both look at Mia, surprised.

“Mia, I don’t think you remember..”

“I remember well!” She asserts, then looks at Aya. “But if Aya really wants to make up, then how about we let her try before jumping to conclusions? Right?”

“Y-Yes..” Aya says.

…

…

“That went better that I expected,” I comment. Making everyone turn to me.

I take the queue and continue. “What? I was expecting to have to stop you from dueling each other.”

“We would never!” Aya starts

“That’s right!” Yasuna finishes.

I raise an eyebrow. “Oh, already finishing each other’s sentences?” I tease.

This elicits an exasperated gasp from both of them.

We awkwardly make our way to the restaurant. Arriving there, the first thing that I noticed was how crowded it was based on the other restaurants around. The second thing was the annoying waitress who immediately asked if we were lost.

After confirming that we indeed planned to have lunch there, we were escorted to an open air table far away from the others. Picking of what we wanted from the menu, I was asked to pay upfront and it was at this point that I realized that this was fucking ridiculous. Sure, I expected the other patrons to maybe say something, but not the fucking staff. We were being treated as third-class citizens here. Of course, I paid (Aya payed for herself at her own insistence).

The food was fine, but I couldn’t enjoy it. The overhaul experience had left a sour taste in my mouth. This level of elitism wouldn’t be acceptable in the 21st century bar whatever 35MT meant. Aya told me, “I told you so.” I countered with a polite “This is ridiculous.” The conversation then progressed to whatever my old roommates did in the week after I left the red dorm.

First, Mia appears to be on a roll. With the deck I gave her, she already won countless duels and is well on her way to ranking up to yellow. She didn’t want to say her Elo ranking in public, but I would guess she’s 3 or four duels with low yellow ranks from ranking up. I feel conflicted about this. On one hand, this was technically the original purpose of that deck, but I didn’t expect it this fast. She will not be the first red rank to rank up this year besides me. There have been two rank ups this week. One of them was a girl which I watched get greeted by the dormitory. They didn’t do anything crazy to her, just some shit talking. I’m not sure if that’s just because they are scared I will try something if they do too much to an ex-red rank but I honestly don’t care, hazing happens and unless Its done under threat of violence by people completely unrelated to the place I won’t interfere.

Second, Aiko also looks to have started her (figurative) bloodbath. Pendulum Summoning seems to come almost naturally to her and tales of the OTKs caused by her deskbot deck have already started spreading. Again, I remain conflicted about this and voice my concerns to her about overdoing it with the damage on board. Desk bots can easily OTK with over 16000 ATK combined. She tells me she has been careful about it but then gets nervous when I ask what was the highest ATK points she’s gotten deskbot 09 up to. 20k, that’s the answer Yasuna gives me. Thankfully, nothing came of that as the opponent surrendered before the battle phase and she accepted it, but I remain wherry.

Finally Yasuna. Surprisingly, she’s also evolved quite a bit, and worse, I didn’t know about it! She never told me anything when I asked her in Action Duel class other than “I’ve been trying”, but by her accidental “700 ELO!!” exclamation - before she promptly went quiet after realizing she just announced her elo ranking to everyone in earshot of us. - makes me realize she has been slaying.

After our talk and a nice dessert, we walked out of the establishment, and after a promise from me to not do this again before we were all Yellow rank, we went separate ways, with Aya following me.

“So, was that difficult?” I ask.

“N-No…” she shyly answers.