Dual Persona

Chapter 15

Riley's pov
The Next day

I insisted Ben be the one in control today as I'd had to be in control most of yesterday so it seemed only fair he be in control today even though it was my scheduled day. Currently he was looking through our deck trying to figure out what we should replace with the card we'd won.
{ " Riley I don't know what to take out."} Ben said after several minutes of thinking.
{ " So I've been thinking."} I said nervously as I was hesitant to bring this idea up, quickly I tried to suppress the feeling. { " I don't think that the card will work in our current deck which functions fine as it is. Yes there's room for improvement but in order to get the most out of the prize card which is arguably the strongest card we possess given its abilities we may want to consider building an additional deck."}
{ " Why are you so nervous about bringing that up? "} Ben asked, I could feel his slight confusion. Guess I slipped up at suppressing the feeling or Ben was getting better at reading me.  Already I could feel his confusion shifting into realization.
{ " I wasn't sure how you were going to take the request given our limited funds."} I answered, hoping to stop him from reaching the conclusion he would likely make.
{ " No. That's not it."} He said. {" If it were you'd have made some sort of budget based argument about how this would be valuable in the long run. Tell me why you actually want this."}
{ " It's really not important."} I said, hoping he'd drop it. Unfortunately having spent years with me inside his head knew better than to take my denial at face value.
{ " If it wasn't important then you wouldn't have brought it up. Why do you want another deck? We already have a deck. Oh."} Ben seemed to have reached some sort of conclusion after asking his question. Before a vague sense of guilt came through from his side of the link. { " It's not that you want another deck it's that you want a deck of your own, isn't it."}
{ " Yeah."} I said somewhat disappointed in myself given Ben's current feeling of sadness. { "   Our current deck was designed with your play style and fondness for cards like Imaginary Actor and Nightmare Magician in mind. Even if your style is similar to mine and is definitely influenced on some level by me it just doesn't feel like mine. It's kinda like our clothes even if we occasionally wear things each of us consider the others, they don't feel the same as when we wear the clothes we consider ours. Even if I make a second deck it'll still be ours after all you've influenced me and my style just like I've influenced you and your style."}
{ " I'll still get to use the second deck right?" } He asked before continuing seemingly unsure. { " I guess it makes sense you'd want a deck that's more you, after all a deck is a dualist's identity."}
{ " You'd still get to use it and have a say of what goes into it just like I'll occasionally still use our first deck."} I explained. { " Each of us will have the primary say of what goes into our respective deck but we'll still share them. Both will be our decks just that they'll be more personalized for our respective tech ins and individual preferences."}
{ " Alright let's go Kame games and see what cards we can get."} Ben said seemingly now on board with the idea. He got up and began walking down the stairs.{ " You have any ideas what you want? "}
{ " Nope but getting out the prize card will undoubtedly be the goal of the deck. It's strong maybe definitely stronger than a normal card."} I replied.
Ben walked us into the living room looking for one of his parents to get permission to go to Kame games. I was very surprised to see Mokuba Kaiba and Joey Wheeler of all people talking to Ben's parents.
" Hey Ben, how's it going?" Joey Wheeler asked in his Brooklyn accent.
" Hi Joey. So what's going on?" Ben asked. Much like me he was clearly confused which wasn't great since it only fed into my confusion which in turn would feed into his confidence creating a loop that eventually would overwhelm us. Thankfully Mokuba put us out of our confusion loop induced misery by explaining that the Kaiba Corporation wanted to offer us an internship under Joey. Apparently this was something they'd recently decided to offer with the two duelists they were known to sponsor in the pro league. Given our previous interaction and what Solomon had said to Joey had led him to push for me to get the offer. While it all sounded perfectly reasonable I couldn't help but think there was more to it, but it was an incredible opportunity that was far too good to pass up so after a little deliberation Ben accepted the offer.

Ben's pov
Time skip Three years
Four years till Duel academy

  Kame Games had become one of my favorite places over the years. Even though I was only allowed to participate in the shop tournament every couple of months, I still spend most of my time hanging around the shop. According to Mr. Muto one person winning every tournament made it unfun for other participants which was fair enough. Furthermore both school and my family obligations kept me from simply playing in every official Duel monsters tournament I was qualified to play much to Riley's displeasure. This led both of us to explore the other games the shop sold including dungeon dice monsters much to Riley's amusement. Most of which were a lot of fun, this led to me being basically an unofficial employee at Kame since I had played through basically the entire inventory of games, I'd be an official employee if not for my job as Joey's intern. Mr. Muto also had me occasionally assist him in being a judge for certain events the shop had.
  Weirdly enough I had yet to meet his grandson. Seemingly every time Yugi was due to visit, my family was going on vacation or I had school or was busy. One time a blizzard had grounded his flight. It was almost like the universe didn't want us to meet.
Joey had become a constant in my life making several more appearances at the game shop as favors to Solomon, he'd also occasionally hold some events designed to teach younger and underprivileged children how to duel when he wasn't busy competing in the Pro League. Apparently Seto Kaiba personally funded these little mini seminars which made a lot of sense given that Riley had told me he and his brother were at one point penniless orphans. Joey had me help him demonstrate duels and concepts to younger children at these events as part of my internship.
Of course he had to get my Parents and my school to let me do it, since some of the days of the seminars and other events coincided with school days and others were in other parts of Japan. Convincing my parents had been easier then I was expecting. They were well aware of my desire to attend Duel academy in the future and become a pro duelist, they were also aware of Joey's reputation as a very humble and kind hearted pro, it also probably helped that Solomon who my parents got along well with to the point of him practically being a family friend because of all the time I spent in his shop had vouched for my ability to be helpful. They did make their agreement conditional on me keeping my grades up though. Getting my school to agree was much more difficult. In fact I'm fairly convinced one of the Kaibas had intervened after the disaster that was the initial meeting to get them to give me permission to miss some days. Since they were dead set on not letting me miss days when Joey and my parents had left. Then a couple of days later Joey informed us that everything had been taken care of and presented us with a signed agreement from the school allowing me to miss days for duel seminars and a contract from Kaiba corp that explained my role and salary as I would essentially be a paid intern under Joey during these seminars.
All in all I would have plenty to do for the remaining four years until I could apply to Duel Academy.
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Author's Note:

Finished this earlier than I thought I would so enjoy. Not much happens just a kinda rough summary of the routine until the Duel Academy entrance exams, some events that occur during these time skips will be covered in future flashbacks such as Riley testing the Prize Card he obtained during the Regionals. The next chapter update will either be some sort of character profile where I list all of the combined skills Ben and Riley have at their disposal or the day of the entrance exams. Not sure which will be up first but one of them will probably be ready by Thursday.

Please read and respond : So in addition to Chazz (who I'm still not sure what to have him play) there are a couple of other characters I'm now not sure whether they should keep their anime deck or should maybe have their deck altered to be closer in nature to their manga deck or just flat out play their manga deck. Some are no brainers like obviously Atticus is going to play Spheres once he's free from Nightshroud's influence but others like Syrus/Bastion/Jim are a bit trickier. So please comment any character you think should either play their manga deck, have an anime/manga Hybrid deck or just keep their anime deck.