They made their way to the doorway: the spirits clustering anxiously behind them like a spectral parade, and stepped into the hall.
Syrus jumped to his feet immediately. "Julian!" he squeaked. "You're alive!"
"I was always alive." Julian said, understanding his intentions, but joking.
"Well, yes… But you look alive-alive now!"
Bastion stepped closer, adjusting his jacket. "He is right, you appear more stable. That is encouraging."
"It's good to see you up." Syrus added, wringing his hands. "We were gonna come back in, but Jaden told us to wait so you could talk."
"I know, I heard it." Julian smiled.
Jaden clapped Syrus on the back. "And look… he's standing! That's a win."
Syrus beamed; Bastion nodded once.
Julian tightened his hand around the cane. "Chancellor Sheppard wants to see me."
"Then we're coming with you." Syrus said immediately.
"I suppose it is customary to escort a recently fainted friend." Bastion agreed.
The little spirits surged around Julian's ankles, bobbing and floating like an exuberant escort.
Jaden grinned. "Whole army of support."
Julian looked at them. His friends and the tiny spirits hovering protectively around his legs, and breathed out something warm.
"Let's go." he said.
Together, human and spirit alike, they began the slow walk toward the Chancellor's office.
Chancellor Sheppard's office always looked a little like it had been built to impress a camera more than a person. The doors were heavy wood with polished metal handles; the carpet was thick enough to muffle any doubt. Banners of the three dormitories hung behind the main desk, Obelisk blue taking the central position, Ra yellow and Slifer red flanking it like obedient satellites. A framed photograph of Seto Kaiba watched the room from the wall, arms crossed, gaze sharp even in print. Julian felt the spirits hesitate as they approached the threshold, a tiny shiver in the air around his ankles. "It's all right." he murmured under his breath. "Just wait nearby." They clung to the hallway instead, pooling around Bastion and Syrus like invisible static. Jaden could feel them well enough, he gave Julian a small nod that said 'I've got them'. A secretary in an immaculate blazer opened the door. "Mr. Ashford." she said. "The Chancellor will see you now. Your friends may wait here." Syrus almost protested, but Bastion put a hand on his shoulder. Jaden stepped forward, clapped Julian lightly on the upper arm. "We'll be here." he said. "If they try to replace your spine with a broom, yell." Julian huffed. "Noted, thanks." He followed the secretary inside, cane tapping softly against the carpet. Chancellor Sheppard stood as Julian entered. The man was broad-shouldered, aging without softening, his smile the practiced kind that knew how to look reassuring under the scrutiny of sponsors and cameras. Professor Sartyr was already seated off to the side, compact and earnest in his yellow-trimmed jacket. Crowler stood near one of the windows, back very straight, fingers laced in front of him like someone who wanted to seem relaxed and had never actually met the concept.
"Mr. Ashford." Sheppard said, coming around the desk and offering his hand. "I'm glad to see you upright."
Julian shifted the cane to his left hand and shook with the right. "Thank you, sir."
"Please, sit." Sheppard said, gesturing to the chair across from the desk.
Julian lowered himself carefully, leaning the cane against the armrest where it wouldn't fall. Sartyr gave him a small, encouraging nod. Crowler's face remained composed, eyes coolly attentive.
Sheppard settled back into his own chair and laced his fingers.
"Let's start with how you feel now." he said. "Dizziness? Nausea? Any lingering symptoms?"
"A bit tired, my body is still a tad heavy…" Julian said honestly. "But I'm not lightheaded anymore. No nausea or anything of the sort."
Sheppard nodded once.
"Professor Fontaine's preliminary report says the same." he said. "No cardiovascular issues, no irregularities on the monitor, no immediate warning flags."
He paused. "And as she already informed you: your toxicology panel was negative."
Julian inclined his head. "Yes, sir. She told me they checked."
Sartyr exhaled softly, shoulders easing. "That is a relief."
Crowler sniffed. "It is also standard. When a student collapses on the way to a duel or in a week before an exam, it would be irresponsible not to rule certain… substances out."
Julian met that without flinching.
"I understand." he said. "And I'm glad the results were able to reveal the truth."
Sheppard watched him for a moment, weighing something unseen.
"Good." he said. "That allows us to discard one worrying avenue and focus on others. Tell us, in your own words, what you experienced before you collapsed."
Julian thought for a heartbeat, organizing the sequence. He couldn't say wasn't just physical to people who didn't even know that was an option.
"In the morning classes yesterday…" he said, "my head felt… heavy. Not a headache. More like I was carrying weight behind my eyes. I noticed it most when I tried to focus for too long."
He glanced briefly at Sartyr. "I thought I was just tired."
Sartyr frowned faintly, remembering the way Julian had gone still in his seat.
"At lunch." Julian went on, "the light in the cafeteria felt harsher than normal. Not enough to make me close my eyes, but enough that I wanted to."
"And between then and the arena today?" Sheppard asked.
"I went back to Ra." Julian said. "I was still feeling off. I assumed I might be getting sick. A cold or something like that… I even picked up a vitamin C from the dorm supplies before the afternoon."
"Confirmed." Sartyr said quietly. "I saw the requisition. One vitamin supplement, yesterday."
Julian nodded. "I decided to go to bed early that night, just in case. I thought resting more would solve it, or at least give my body a better chance to fight back."
He hesitated. "When we went to the arena today, I felt… okay. Not at my best, but not worse than yesterday. And then, when I stood up at the stairs, everything spun. It felt like the floor tilted and my legs didn't remember how to hold me."
Sheppard listened without interrupting.
"And then?" he prompted gently.
"Nothing." Julian said. "Just… blank. I woke up in the infirmary."
Silence stretched for several seconds.
"Did you feel unusually stressed about the upcoming Obelisk examination?" Sheppard asked. "More than before?"
Julian weighed the question. There was no point pretending he was relaxed, but 'panicked out of his mind' also didn't fit.
"I'm… focused on it." he said. "I'll not lie and say this does not matter to me. But I'm not pulling all-nighters or skipping meals over it. Not overstudying either. Yesterday I went to bed earlier than usual because I felt strange and didn't want to make it worse."
"That part." Crowler said dryly, "already puts you above many candidates I have seen."
Sartyr gave a small, almost guilty smile. "He has been dedicated, Chancellor, but not self-destructive. At least not in ways I could see."
Sheppard tapped his index finger lightly against his thumb, considering.
"So…" he said slowly. "No evidence of chemical abuse, no deliberate sleep deprivation, no immediate physical cause. That leaves us with something I dislike as an administrator: an explanation that amounts to 'the body gave out without warning.'"
Julian didn't comment. He couldn't tell them why the weight had really settled in his chest. Ba didn't fit anywhere in a file. Sheppard let out a breath.
"We'll come back to that." he said. "For now, there is another matter we must address. The wager."
He said it without heat, but there was weight in the word.
Julian straightened slightly.
"Yes, sir."
"I'm told." Sheppard went on, "that just prior to your collapse, there was a proposed duel in the arena: Mr. Yuki versus Mr. Watanabe, with two thousand Duel Points at stake."
His gaze sharpened. "And that you were involved in negotiating that amount."
Julian met his eyes.
"Yes, sir." he said. "I was the one who proposed the idea, and when met with an offer for one thousand, I raised it to two."
Sartyr blinked. Crowler did not seem surprised: if anything, he looked faintly satisfied that his earlier assessment of Julian's temperament hadn't been wrong.
Sheppard steepled his fingers again.
"Why?" he asked. "You are a Ra Yellow in your second week. Two thousand points is not a negligible sum for you."
Julian took a breath.
"Because I need to build a real deck." he said simply. "Not a prototype. Not a pile of good cards that don't quite belong together." He forced himself to be blunt. "My duel with Daigo showed that. Most people saw me nearly win and called it bad luck when he top-decked his out. But the truth is that my list lacked cohesion. A better-structured deck wouldn't have needed that much luck."
Sartyr stared at him, surprised by the self-critique.
"And competitive archetypal decks are expensive. Obelisk students typically have years in preparatory schools and support behind them. I entered this system late. If I want to reach that level, I have to fund it myself, starting now." Julian continued.
He didn't bother pretending otherwise. There was no point. Sheppard's brows lifted, the lines at the corners of his eyes softening in something like reluctant respect.
"So your goal…" he said, "wasn't to show off or minimize the other students. It was to… accelerate your ability to compete on equal footing."
"Both things can be true, sir." Julian said. "But yeah, the primary reason was to gather resources."
Sartyr cleared his throat. "For what it's worth, Chancellor, Ra Yellow doesn't exactly have a structured support system for students building their first serious decks. We have informal trade circles, of course, but with so many students and so few truly competitive staples circulating, most Rás end up having to purchase the bulk of their lists out of pocket."
Crowler nodded, hands tightening behind his back. "Obelisk students rarely face that issue. Many arrive with years of preparatory schooling and prebuilt strategies funded by their families. And in the rare cases where a student ascends through merit alone…" His eyes flicked meaningfully toward the banners, toward the unspoken legacy of Zane Truesdale. "They typically secure sponsorships or institutional support. Your Cyber-Style Dojo, for example, sir. You provided the backbone of Truesdale's deck. He did not scrape it together card by card."
Sartyr added. "Among first-years outside of the preparatory system, only Mr. Yuki came in with a polished competitive deck, and that was because it was entrusted to him by Koyo Hibiki, a former world champion. That is hardly a model other students can replicate."
Crowler's gaze slid toward Julian with something that was not quite disdain and not quite respect.
"So if Mr. Ashford seeks to build a modern, cohesive strategy from scratch, he is doing so without the advantages most duelists of comparable ambition possess." Crowler concluded.
Julian kept his face neutral, but was surprised that the blue headmaster went for his rescue to that degree.
Sheppard exhaled through his nose, rubbing the bridge of it with a weary thumb. "Building a full competitive deck is something most duelists take months to accomplish. Some take years. You don't need to solve that all at once, Mr. Ashford."
Julian didn't drop his gaze.
"With respect, sir… I think I do."
Sheppard's brows rose a fraction: not in reprimand, but in genuine surprise.
Julian continued, steady and analytical, the way he spoke when he'd already thought the matter through to its end.
"There's no guarantee my first attempt will be the right fit. Or the second. Or the third." he said. "Finding a main deck isn't just buying cards. it's experimenting with entire identities. Different engines. Different rhythms. Different ways of thinking about a duel. I might need to try several archetypes before I find the one that matches perfectly my playstyle."
Sartyr blinked once, surprised by his student's mindset.
"And once I do find the right strategy," Julian continued, "that's only the starting point. I'll need months for the deck to stop feeling like a tool I'm piloting and start feeling like a second nature. I'll have to internalize every line, every transition turn, every pressure point. I need the muscle memory to be able to adapt to different strategies on the fly, not just the math to analyze them. I'll not have the time to make this kinda plans in the middle of a duel."
Crowler's lips curved: just a fraction, but unmistakably. Julian pressed gently on.
"And the Academy… is the only environment I'll ever have that compresses growth like this. Cheaper access to cards. High-density competition. Instructors who actually know how to dissect a misplay, analyze your actions and help you tune decisions. Students talented enough to force adaptation. A structure designed to turn ambition into skill and generate growth."
He breathed once, controlled.
"I didn't come here to be 'decent', sir. I came here to build the foundation I'll need if I want a shot at going pro after graduation. If I don't use every day of these three years, I'll be behind duelists who started younger, had more guidance, or had the money to build three full decks before stepping foot on campus. My parents gave me the best they could to grant me this spot and this opportunities, it's my time to honour that and do my part."
This time, even Sheppard couldn't mask the flicker of respect.
Crowler murmured, his voice like a razor cutting silk. "Well, that kind of a mindset is truly suited to an Obelisk."
Julian didn't acknowledge the Doctor aloud, but he didn't have to.
Sheppard leaned back, the faint ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. "Well, I can hardly call that poor reasoning."
He tapped a knuckle gently against his desk, returning himself to administrative focus.
"Wagers are not explicitly forbidden at Duel Academy. We are not naïve. Duel Points exist, and students will test themselves. But I will say this: I do not like seeing amounts of that magnitude tossed around as tricks for bruised egos."
He leaned forward slightly.
"That said," he added, "I'm… marginally reassured that you had a concrete reason beyond swagger."
Julian inclined his head. "I'm not planning to make a habit of it, sir."
"Good." Sheppard said. "See that you don't. I'd rather not have to introduce formal betting regulations because one Ra Yellow decided to bankrupt half of Obelisk Blue."
Sartyr coughed into his fist to hide a smile. Crowler's lips twitched before he suppressed it.
The Chancellor let the humor fade.
"Now," he said, "we come to the part where I must be both your educator and this institution's shield."
Julian's shoulders tensed a fraction.
"Fontaine's report says you're stable," Sheppard said. "But I cannot ignore the fact that a promising student collapsed in our arena corridor on a school day. Nor can I ignore the timing: you fainted on the eve of your independent advancement exam week."
His gaze held Julian steady.
"If I do nothing," he continued, "and something similar happens again, I will have failed my duty. Not only to you, but to every parent, sponsor, and board member who expects Duel Academy to take student health seriously."
Julian nodded once. "I understand."
"And if I do nothing, I also look negligent. Optics matter. This school lives in the public eye whether we like it or not." Sheppard added.
That, at least, was honest.
"So here is what I had intended." Sheppard said. "Initially, I planned to place you on a forty-eight-hour medical rest: two full days away from classes and dueling, to monitor whether your body stabilizes."
Julian opened his mouth to agree, then watched the Chancellor glance to a small digital calendar display on the desk. Sheppard's eyes tracked the days. Monday. Tuesday. The exam window. The weekend. He hummed under his breath.
"On second thought." he said, "Two days would drop you back into the schedule on Friday. That's hardly ideal."
He sat up straighter.
"I am revising that to seventy-two hours," he announced. "You will be on medical rest for the next three school days. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday."
Julian blinked.
"That means you will not attend classes, you will not enter the library, and you will not participate in any duels or training sessions on Academy grounds during that window." Sheppard explained.
Sartyr nodded slowly, already doing the logistics in his head.
"You may go to the cafeteria, the dorm common areas, and outdoor spaces where you can sit quietly. You may study lightly in your room or review material if you feel up to it. But no strenuous activity. No tests. No late-night practice." Sheppard continued.
Julian bit back his first response.
Three days away from the library alone made his fingers itch. But it also meant time. Time to adjust. Time for his system to level out. Time without the constant expectation to perform.
"And after that?" he asked.
"After that," Sheppard said, "Professor Fontaine will clear you (or not) based on your condition. If she sees no cause for concern, your tests leading into the Obelisk exam will proceed as normal, beginning Monday. If she deems necessary we'll postpone it."
"So the exam isn't… cancelled for me." Julian clarified.
"No." Sheppard said. "Unless Fontaine finds something we've missed or you collapse again, your eligibility stands. I have no intention of blocking a capable student's advancement based on a single episode."
Crowler spoke up then, tone almost grudgingly approving.
"This also ensures…" the blond doctor added "That if you do pass the advancement exam, no one will be able to claim you clawed your way there by recklessly overworking. Three days of enforced rest followed by a clean bill of health will make any such complaints sound… hollow."
Sartyr smiled faintly. "It protects both you and the integrity of the result."
Julian let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
In purely practical terms, it was an inconvenience. In strategic terms, it was almost a gift.
"All right." he said. "I accept the rest order."
Sheppard's expression softened by a degree.
"Good." he said. "This will obviously be put down as a medical directive, not a disciplinary action. It won't mar your record. Your professors will be notified to provide you with notes and materials you miss."
He turned slightly.
"Professor Sartyr, if you would coordinate Ra's end."
"Of course." Sartyr said at once. "I'll make sure he has everything he needs."
"And Professor Crowler." Sheppard added, "Your Obelisk students are not to harass Mr. Ashford over the unfinished duel or the wager. Any such behavior will be dealt with. We are not in the business of kicking a student while he's down."
Crowler sniffed. "Any Obelisk who requires me to explain basic decency will find himself on cleaning duty. I assure you, Chancellor, I have no intention of allowing idiocy to spread."
Sheppard looked faintly amused at the phrasing, but let it pass.
He rose, signaling the formal end of the meeting.
"Any questions, Mr. Ashford?" he asked.
Julian thought for a moment.
"Just one." he said. "While I'm on rest, am I allowed to speak with my classmates about material? Or should I stay completely out of the loop?"
Sheppard's mouth curved into something almost like a real smile.
"You may talk to them." he said. "You're resting, not exiled. Just don't turn it into a study marathon. If Fontaine decides you've abused the spirit of the directive, I'll let her assign you laps."
Julian winced. "Noted."
"Good." Sheppard extended his hand once more. "Rest. Recover. Then show me what you can do when you're not falling over in my hallways."
Julian stood carefully, took the offered hand, and shook.
"I will, sir. Thank you." he said.
Sartyr rose too, giving Julian a reassuring look. "I'll check in on you tomorrow."
Julian nodded. "Thank you, professor. If you excuse me."
He turned toward the door.
"Mr. Ashford." Crowler said quietly before he could reach it.
Julian paused and looked back. Crowler adjusted his cravat with a small, precise motion.
"Your… motives regarding that wager…" he said, "Were ill-advised, but not foolish. You saw a structural disadvantage and tried to correct it. Next time, correct it with a scholarship form instead of a casino impression. If your vests are blue by then, come to my office and we can look into something for you."
It was, in Crowler's language, dangerously close to a compliment.
"I'll keep that in mind, sir." Julian said.
He left the office.
The waiting area felt brighter by comparison, even under the same fluorescent lights. Syrus shot to his feet the second the door opened; Bastion stood more calmly but with no less attention. Jaden was half-slouched in one of the chairs, but his eyes flicked up immediately.
"So?" Jaden asked. "Do I need to break you out of detention, or are we good?"
Julian let the door click shut behind him.
"We're… fine." he said. "I'm on medical rest for the rest of the week. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. No classes, no duels, no library. Then Fontaine clears me, and I'm back on Monday."
Syrus' jaw dropped. "The whole week?"
"He intended on only two days, but returning on Friday apparently was a unnecessary risk for him, so he connected with the weekend." Julian explained, than smiled. "Apparently collapsing gets you time off."
"Some people will do anything to skip class." Jaden murmured, jokingly.
Bastion nodded once. "It is a sensible measure. It gives your system time to stabilize before you attempt advancement."
Julian could feel the small cluster of spirits gather around his ankles again, a soft, invisible ring of concern.
"Yeah." he said. "That's the idea."
Syrus recovered enough to point at the cane.
"Do you… need that?" he asked nervously.
"Fontaine thought it was better to have and not need than the other way around." Julian said. "I don't plan on making a habit of it."
"Still looks kinda cool." Jaden said. "Very 'mysterious transfer student who knows more than he says.'"
Julian gave him a look. "Please don't encourage the rumors. I don't want to be seen as a chuunibyou edgelord."
"No promises." Jaden said cheerfully.
Bastion cleared his throat. "We should get you back to Ra so you can rest. I'll collect notes from class tomorrow."
"I'll bring dessert." Syrus added quickly. "Not, like, too much dessert, just enough to qualify as moral support."
Julian's mouth twitched.
"I'm not dead, Sy. Bring enough of the bloody desert for the growing man that I am." he notes, faking annoyment. "But seriously, thanks. All of you."
They turned as a group, leaving the waiting area. The spirits flowed with them: small, unseen shadows drawn close to Julian's steps.
Three boys, one cane, and a tide of invisible children made their way down the corridor, away from the Chancellor's office towards Ra Yellow and whatever the next days of enforced quiet would bring.
In his room, Julian didn't go to sleep right away.
For the first time in what felt like days, he wasn't fighting to stay upright or pretending his bones weren't made of sand. The Chancellor's office, Fontaine's machines, Jaden's worry… All of it had receded into a distant hum. What remained was his room, his bed, and the quiet rustle of small spirits who now understood the meaning of 'take it easy'.
He lay propped against the headboard, blanket over his legs, the lamp turned low. The spirits had arranged themselves with surprising restraint. Watapon sat near his thigh, blinking up at him with wide, glassy eyes. Petit Dragon wrapped its tail neatly around one of the bedposts. Happy Lover hovered near the bedside table, hands folded like someone keeping vigil in a hospital room.
They still fidgeted, of course. They were young. A tiny beast with a wooden club smacked it softly against its own shoulder in a rhythm that almost counted as quiet. A weak little spellcaster traced glowing shapes in the air, letting them fade before they grew too bright. A half-torn zombie child folded and unfolded its knees as if practicing how to sit correctly. His mind was too tired to grasp all of their names now.
None of them jostled his shoulders. None of them shouted directly in his ear. It was like watching a classroom that had learned "inside voices" in a single day.
Julian let his hand rest palm-up on the blanket. Watapon took this as permission and rolled into his fingers, small and weightless as cotton candy. The contact grounded him.
"I'm not going to break." he murmured.
Watapon made a soft, watery noise that translated easily enough to 'we're making sure'.
Julian's chest warmed.
He was still tired. Not the sharp, frightening fatigue of earlier, but a deep residual emptiness, like the aftermath of a too-long winter. If he had to assign numbers, his energy yesterday had felt like being at negative fifty trying to pretend he was at zero. Now, he'd crawled up to negative ten. Still in deficit. Still owing. But no longer actively falling.
The difference between sliding down a cliff and sitting at the bottom of a hole, catching your breath.
He stroked Watapon's head once. The spirits near the desk blinked sleepily. One yawned: an odd, soundless gesture for something that didn't breathe.
"Go on." Julian said softly. "Sleep. I'll be here in the morning."
Some of them obeyed almost immediately, curling in the air or along the shelf edges like little balls of light dimming for the night. Some stayed awake a bit longer, watching him with wide eyes as if making sure he really meant it.
Eventually, though, even they surrendered. The room dimmed not just from the lamp, but from their collective decision to rest.
Julian turned off the light.
Darkness folded in around him, soft as cotton.
He didn't know how long he slept before the world shifted.
There was no nightmare pulling him out, no sound like a slammed door. Just a subtle change in the air, the way the room's silence seemed to gain mass.
His eyes opened to a stripe of moonlight drawn across the ceiling and down the far wall. The dorm was quiet. The building had that late-night stillness where even the plumbing decided to wait until morning to protest.
Most of the spirits were asleep. Watapon had drifted into a little ball against his hip. Petit Dragon was looped around the footboard, tail twitching occasionally like a dog chasing something in its dreams. Harpie Girl covered her own head with her arms, using her feathers as cover against the moonlight.
The only things awake were the shadows. And the presence at the end of his bed. Julian's eyes opened up and found it before he moved.
A shape sat there, anchored in the moonbeam: tall, sleek, unnatural in all the ways powerful duel monster spirits tended to be. Its body seemed carved from layered darkness, edges limned in faint hints of color where the light caught angles that shouldn't exist. Its single great eye reflected the moonlight and something else: a prismatic depth he hadn't seen in Relinquished.
Relinquished had always been wrong in a way that felt deliberate. A warped mirror that swallowed images instead of returning them. This… watched him. Not hungry. Not empty. Present.
His fingers tightened slowly in the blanket.
"…You're here." Julian whispered.
The spirits nearest the foot of the bed shivered. One cracked an eye open, saw the towering form, and promptly pretended to be asleep even harder.
Something brushed against Julian's mind: a light contact, like fingertips testing water temperature. Then thought unfolded inside him.
"Julian."
His name arrived as a complete unit: sound, shape, the memory of hearing it spoken aloud, the way his own lips formed it. A mental handshake.
Julian swallowed.
"You can… talk." he said, the words sounding small in the dark.
It answered, and this time the meaning came in two layers at once.
On one layer, simple phrasing:
"In your mind, yes. I could always communicate."
On another, behind the words: flickers of memory. Relinquished's old attempts: images cracked and refracted like reflections from a broken surface. Sensations missing context. Half-formed ideas that had never quite pushed through the barrier between them.
"You simply could not interpret it efficiently."
Julian's throat tightened. He remembered those impressions: the hand that sheltered rather than grasped, the feeling of duty tinged with tenderness. He hadn't been imagining them. He just hadn't had the right language.
"Something changed." he said quietly.
The figure's iris contracted, focusing. More thought flowed, smoother now, like water poured from a proper vessel instead of spilled across a cracked plate.
"My previous shape was… insufficient."
The word came with an image: Relinquished's form, its impossible, stringy limbs; the way its eye swallowed more than it gave back. Below that, a schematic overlay: lines of thought failing to line up with the way human minds processed input.
"It lacked the structure to map my thoughts into your language."
A pause, full but gentle.
"This one does not."
Julian's gaze slid sideways, caught by a detail on the nightstand.
His deck box sat there, just where he'd left it. Propped against it, angled perfectly in the moonlight, was a card whose name his brain supplied before he'd even fully read it: Nightmare-Eyes Restrict.
In the Reject Well, Relinquished's card had been scuffed nearly beyond saving. Here, the surface of the new card shone immaculate. No whitening at the corners. No dirt softened into the fibers. The ink looked freshly laid, the foiling catching even the weak light and returning it in a subtle, expensive gleam.
Julian reached out, hand shaking only slightly, and picked it up.
Warm.
"You changed." he whispered.
The presence at the foot of the bed shifted. Not physically, exactly, but in how it pressed against his awareness.
"We changed."
The words arrived at the same time as another layer: an impression of connection. Two currents meeting. Sparks. A shape rearranging itself around stress lines until it found a more stable configuration.
Julian's fingers tightened around the card.
"You didn't intend this, did you?" he asked softly.
Thought rolled toward him again. This time not just as words, but as a compressed block of information that unfolded in his mind like a file opening.
He saw, in an instant and from a perspective that wasn't his own: Relinquished reaching toward him in the Reject Well: not for his life, but for the flow. Testing the way energy moved through him. The intent had been simple, almost clinical: become a converter. Take the raw, unfocused output of Julian's spirit and soften it, split it, distribute it to the small ones in a less wasteful way. Act as a transformer between source and the needy circuit.
But when Relinquished's essence brushed the core of his Ba, something snapped into place. Not like a trap. Like a lock finally finding its matching key. Compatibilities meshed. Frequencies synced. Instead of flowing past each other, the energies spiraled inward.
"I intended to adjust the flow." The Ka's thought clarified, words catching up to the images. "To reduce the loss. To give them what they needed without burning you out. The transmission was… inefficient."
Julian could see it mapped now. A diagram overlaid on his own outline: lines of energy bleeding off him in wasteful arcs, spirits drinking from leaks instead of a proper channel.
"Your essence pulled me instead."
This came with the sensation of being dragged: not against will, but against expectation. A whirlpool inside his chest, drawing Relinquished in and closing over him.
"Our compatibility was… higher than I had calculated."
Julian huffed a quiet, incredulous sound.
"So you got stuck inside me." he said, "And had to… remake yourself to survive."
The figure's outline shifted in agreement.
This time, the information came as a sequence: the moment of being drawn inward; the sudden lack of a proper body; the necessity of building a new structure that could exist partially within Julian and partially outside without tearing him apart.
Unconsciousness. Reconfiguration. A shell forming around unstable code.
"A chrysalis." the Ka supplied, choosing the closest word. Images of a cocoon followed, layered with diagrams: threads being re-woven, routines rewritten.
Julian felt his chest tighten again. "You were using my energy to do it."
A softer pulse brushed the question.
"Yes."
No excuse in it. Just acknowledgement.
"The transformation required fuel." He saw, in his head, an empty battery icon filling slowly from a weakened line, his Ba struggling to keep up as some portion was siphoned into the reshaping process. "Much of that fuel was yours."
Julian swallowed.
"That's why I blacked out."
The response arrived filtered through the new clarity between them.
"You were already below safe levels." An image of a scale appeared, one side sunk far beneath zero, digits red. "I estimate you at… 'minus thirty', by your metaphor."
Julian almost smiled despite himself. They really had been listening to him.
"The chrysalis pushed you lower temporarily, to the minus fifty you told." Nightmare-Eyes went on. "Long enough for your body to protest, but better than the alternative."
He remembered the stairs tilting, the way his legs hadn't existed for a second, the cut to nothing.
"That was?" he asked.
"'Minus thirty' would progress more and more, your energy in a net negative that would require almost full time rest everyday just to stay alive." it mentalized, explaining.
"And now?" Julian inquired.
A new overlay appeared in his mind: the same scale, still below the midline, but not by much. The red numbers were closer to zero. Less warning. More yellow.
"Now you hover around 'minus ten'." The words carried a careful satisfaction. "Still in deficit. But no longer failing. A couple more hours of rest or less extenuating activities until your essence adapts and you'll be fine."
Julian let out a long breath.
"So you're more efficient." he said. "At… what you're doing."
The Ka's agreement came with another packet of compressed data.
This time, Julian saw himself from outside: his spirit as a shining reservoir riddled with hairline cracks. Before, the little ones had drunk from whatever seeped through those fractures, leaking constantly whether he rested or not. The flow had been chaotic and wasteful, like trying to water a field by punching holes in the side of a tank.
Now, between him and the cluster of spirits, there was an organized lattice: Nightmare-Eyes. Everything that left him first passed through that structure, was portioned out, redirected, cushioned. Less spray. Less loss.
"My presence stabilizes the transfer." the Ka mentalized. He could feel it thinking as it spoke, adjusting metaphors midstream to match how Julian conceptualized things. "I convert what you produce into something the smaller ones can receive without tearing pieces off you."
Julian nodded slowly.
"That was your original plan." he said. "Be a transformer. Not…" He gestured vaguely between them. "This."
"Not this." Nightmare-Eyes agreed.
"So the cocoon, the timing, the collapse… none of that was planned."
A faint ripple of humor, unexpected but real, touched the connection.
"Not by me."
Julian huffed quietly.
"What are you now, then?" he asked, fingers worrying the edge of the Nightmare-Eyes card. "Exactly?"
The answer came in a layered rush.
First, the simple phrasing: "A reflection of you. The shape your essence carved into me."
Behind that, a more complex structure: a blueprint of sorts, impossible to fully translate into linear words but now, somehow, fully legible to Julian. He saw the way Nightmare-Eyes' core aligned with his own, the way his thoughts could travel along that connection with less resistance than if he'd tried to say them aloud. Two systems interfaced. Two networks now sharing a bus.
"You humans would call it a Ka." the thought clarified, soft but unwavering. "Not because I chose the title. Your spirit did."
Julian's breath came unsteady, but not from fear.
Their bond flexed subtly. A different kind of data moved through.
This time, it wasn't diagrams. It was memory: but not memory from this world.
He saw, in the space of a heartbeat, flashes of a hospital room that wasn't from Duel Academy. The glow of a laptop screen with dueling simulations open, the fanfiction forum page reading stories of others while grinding essence in a duel simulator, a few tabs open with episodes of GX, 5D's and Arc V.
Julian's whole body went still.
The flood cut off cleanly, by the Ka's choice.
"I touched your core." came the explanation, gentle but implacable. "I know where you came from."
The words carried no accusation. Only fact. Julian's fingers dug into the blanket.
"And?" he managed.
A warmth suffused the connection. Protective. Private.
"And it is yours." Nightmare-Eyes sent. "I will not speak it to anyone. Not unless you ask."
Julian shut his eyes for a moment. No one else knew. Not Jaden. Not Bastion. Not any teacher. Just him. And now the entity that had accidentally become part of him when it tried to keep him from burning out.
When he opened his eyes again, his voice was steadier.
"So what now?"
Nightmare-Eyes lowered its head fractionally, enough for the big eye to fall more level with his line of sight.
"Now you recover." it said. "Slowly. Properly. Without falling further."
Another brief, efficient transfer of information followed: his reserves were still below zero. He would need rest, patience, and time. Possibly external help, later, if they wanted to pull him back to real surplus instead of just hovering near empty. For now, though, the dangerous slide had been arrested.
"You will feel tired." the Ka added. "You will not crumble. Those are different states. Remember that."
Julian's muscles loosened a fraction.
"You're not… adding to the drain anymore." he said.
"Yes and no." The word carried a note of faint, almost wounded pride. "Even if I'm adding my own weight, now I'm helping carry it. That is the purpose now."
Julian glanced toward the sleeping spirits.
One of them, a tiny harpie that had feigned sleep earlier, cracked open a single eye and peered at Nightmare-Eyes warily. The Ka's presence shifted, wrapping faintly around the room like a shield instead of a weight. The little girl blinked. Relaxed. Closed its eye again.
Julian saw it all, felt it all. The intention, the control.
"Will they be okay?" he asked quietly. "With me like this?"
"They are already safer than they were yesterday." Nightmare-Eyes answered. "I will make sure the burden they place on you stays within the range your Ba can sustain."
"Even if they don't understand the math." Julian muttered.
A flicker of amusement brushed his mind.
"Not everyone needs to see the equations." the Ka replied. "Someone just has to be willing to solve them."
That earned a soft, disbelieving laugh out of him.
Silence settled again, but it was different now: not empty, not ominous. Full. Occupied.
His eyelids felt heavier by the second.
He looked at the card in his hand one more time. Nightmare-Eyes Restrict, immaculate where Relinquished had been scarred.
"Is the card… you?" he asked, voice already sliding toward sleep.
"It is a door." came the answer. "A focus. A way for this reality to understand that I exist."
Images followed: him drawing the card, summoning it one day. The way their connection would manifest in a duel, not as a wild spirit lashing out, but as something honed, precise, terrifyingly aligned with him.
Julian's grip loosened. He set the card gently back against the deck box, where it caught the moonlight and threw it back in a thin, sharp line.
His gaze drifted back to the end of the bed.
Nightmare-Eyes hadn't moved much. It didn't need to. Presence was enough.
"Stay?" Julian asked, not sure why he needed to.
The affirmation came before the word was fully formed.
"I am not going anywhere, Julian." A beat. "Where would I even go?"
That drew another tired huff out of him.
His body, both physical and spiritual, finally decided it had reached its limit for the day. The mattress under him became impossibly comfortable. The distant hum of the dorm faded.
As he sank back into the pillow, the connection flared one last time: gentle, deliberate.
This time, the imprint wasn't diagrams or memories or plans.
It was simple: the sensation of a steady hand, larger than his, closing around his like a promise.
Guardianship. Partnership. The wordless certainty that if the ground tilted again, he wouldn't be the only one balancing on it.
Julian let go.
Sleep claimed him without struggle.
At the foot of the bed, Nightmare-Eyes watched over the small, floating shapes and the boy at their center. The spirit and the human it now belonged to, inextricably, undeniably, and kept the currents running between them from ever slipping into that type of chaos again.