Apart from the first group, two upperclassmen in white uniforms with some blue stood talking to themselves. Actually, the girl stood there talking while the guy just looked down on the new group of students with his usual stoic expression. “Well another year, another entrance exam day,” Alexis mumbled as she leaned over the railing. “See anyone that’s going to take your number one title away from you this year Zane?” Not that Alexis actually meant that, Zane Truesdale had been the top ranked duelist at the academy for the past two years; the chances of a freshman taking him down were non-existent.
Alexis blinked while Zane just stood there and ignored her little jab. “Zane?” she asked again before snapping her fingers in front of his face.
“Huh?” Zane replied before turning his attention away from his failing brother down in the dueling area. From the monsters on the field and mental math Zane had done in his head to calculate the life points Syrus had left, the boy would be lucky to pull a victory out at the last second and squeeze into a red jacket. “Sorry I was watching my little brother.”
The girl blinked at that little piece of information and looked down to the arena with interest. “Really? I didn’t even know you had a little brother. Which one is he?” she asked before glancing back at Zane out of the corner of her eye.
Zane rolled his eyes at Alexis’s reaction. Syrus was hardly anything special. If anything, he proved that talent was not hereditary. “The one with long and busy hair.” He paused for a moment then added, “… kind of looks like a girl from the back.”
Alexis blinked at that last comment before turning to look back at the ground beneath them. “Is that him?” she asked while pointing to a kid that was either a very flat-chested girl in a vest and striped sweatshirt with long black hair, or Zane’s brother.
The top duelist looked away from the duel as his brother made yet another mistake to just tell Alexis no and point out the kid, at least he was until he caught sight for the boy Alexis was pointing out. Even then, he had to blink just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
Zane had only met Mokuba Kaiba twice before. The first time was only in passing when the owner of the school attended the yearly contest held between Duelist Academy and North Academy two years ago. The second time was during the school’s end of the year assessment, a private duel that pit the best duelist currently at the school as determined by the teachers against a professional duelist. How well the duelist did determined how much funding changed from year to year.
“What’s he doing here?” Zane looked up from the boy in question to where all the judges and head facility were sitting, but didn’t spot anything out of the ordinary.
Alexis leaned a little further over the railing to try and get a better look at the boy. “I think he’s going to get his ranking,” she told him. “With all the tricks you taught him, you’ll probably be living down the hall from each other. Right Zane?” Alexis looked back up to see that the other student was already walking away from her. “Zane? Hey wait up!”
Meanwhile down on the floor, Mokuba stood in line as he waited for his turn to approach the judges. So far he had been standing there for over half an hour and the line had barely moved at all. Note to self, have Seto hire more staff for these kinds of things, he thought to himself.
“Excuse me.”
Mokuba let out a tiny yelp before jumping back from whoever had startled him and turned around to see two students standing in white Obelisk uniforms. “Don’t do that,” he ordered before getting a better look on the people that snuck up on him. The girl stood head and shoulders above the younger Kaiba, and had the front of her long blonde hair done up a little too much like Yugi’s friend Joey for Mokuba’s comfort while her uniform left her legs bare and let nothing of her chest show. The guy had a dark aqua-blue color to his hair… and there was something about him, but Mokuba couldn’t quite place it.
“Sorry,” about that Alexis apologized with a nervous chuckle. It wasn’t like she was sneaking up on the boy. Although now that she was closer to him, there was something about the boy’s face that was giving Alexis a strange sense of déjà vu. “It’s just your brother pointed me out to you and-”
“What?” Mokuba suddenly butted in. He looked around for a moment with a worried expression. Seto had locked his deck up in their maximum-security vault, there was no way he could already know some of it was missing. Unless of course his ethereal girlfriend told him, Mokuba thought to himself. Although Kisara had said she wouldn’t just rat him out, Mokuba was certain that she would of told Seto if he asked.
“He’s not my brother,” Zane said right on top of the younger boy.
“But you said-”
Zane held up a hand to cut her off before his comments could get him in trouble. “My brother Syrus is still taking his entrance exam.” He pointed with his thumb back towards the dueling area to emphasize the point.
“Oh,” Alexis replied with a wince at just making a total idiot out of herself. Although after coming to the realization that Zane didn’t do anything to stop her, she looked back on him with a frown. “Wait a second, if this isn’t your little brother, then why’d you let me come down here in the first place?” Not even waiting for Zane’s reply, she turned right back around and bowed to the boy apologetically after realizing that she had been ignoring him. “I’m so, so sorry about all this.”
Mokuba leaned sideways to look past the girl and address the other teenager with a deadpan expression. “Is she always like this?”
“Only on her off days,” Zane replied. He frowned at the boy’s face, there was something different about it other than the changes brought by age, but he wasn’t sure what. “By the way, I’m Zane Truesdale, and my friend here is Alexis Roads.”
(Posted Sat, 11 Feb 2006 07:00)
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