A Heart to Duel For; Yu-Gi-Oh! Protagonists x Reader

Chapter 23: Answers

The sun shone brightly on Saturday morning as I skipped through the streets to the dueling stadium, the skirt of my white dress fluttering in the breeze. The weather was so nice I didn't even need a hoodie. All I had on me was a bag with the diary and my personal items. A stray pigeon pecking at the ground took off in startled fright as I sped past. Soon enough the mall appeared once I crossed the road, and right outside stood the boys I was meeting with.

"Heya (Y/n)!" Yuya called, beaming as he waved to me.

"Hello!" I shouted back and hurried to join them. "How are you guys?"

"Doing fine," Takeru answered while Yuma chirped up excitedly, "This is really fun! We're totally gonna be like Sherlock Holmes and solve all of this." He mimed holding up an imaginary magnifying glass up to his face.

I laughed at his impression of the legendary detective when I realized someone was missing from the group.

"Where's Jaden?" I asked, seeing how he wasn't present when a shout from behind me caught everyone's attention and we all turned to the voice. The person running up was no other than the very boy I was just wondering about, and he skidded to a stop in front of us.

"I got lost again, sorry 'bout that!" He panted, laughing sheepishly as he caught his breath. Yusei offered him a water bottle—Yusei really did seem prepared for anything—and Jaden downed in gratefully.

"Are we ready to go then?" Yugi asked, looking at all of us expectantly.

"Um, before that," I said awkwardly. I darted a quick glance to Yusei and then back to everyone else. "I found something earlier this week and I think it's important."

"What is it?"

I shrugged off my backpack and pulled out the diary.

"This is my grandfather's diary," I explained. "I found it while I was working on my school project. He says tournaments used to happen here. A lot of them."

"Hey, but that's not possible," Jaden said, the smile from his face disappearing as his voice turned serious.

"I know. But I don't think he was lying about it. Here." I opened up the diary to one of the pages I had marked with a sticky tab and showed it to them. "All of these tabs are where he wrote about tournaments."

The diary was passed between everyone as they read the page and flicked through the others about all the tournaments my grandfather had written about.

"Yusaku." Takeru turned to him after they read the entry and he handed the diary to Yuya. "Do you think you—"

"I'm already on it," he interrupted swiftly, whipping out his phone. He looked towards me, his emerald gaze piercing. "What's the date and name of the tournament?"

Yugi passed the book back to me and I flipped through the pages to find the original entry.
"April 16, 2027," I reported for Yusaku as I scanned over the lines of faded black ink. "I don't see a name, but maybe something to do with spring? Grandad wrote something about a Winter Festival tournament too."

We all stood quiet as Yusaku typed on his phone, the tension growing thicker with every second that passed. Yusaku suddenly frowned down at his phone's screen, his eyebrows furrowed.

"What's wrong?"

"There is an article. But it's been deleted." The phone was brightly lit with an error sign.

"Oh." Everyone's faces fell as one but Yusaku simply blinked, unfazed.

"I've bypassed the encryption and salvaged the coding for the article," he continued nonchalantly, turning his phone to us once again to show us. The white and grey error page was replaced with a bolded title and a picture of an extravagant stadium, half cut off since it ran longer than the size of the screen.