My eyes took a while to adjust and I blinked rapidly as I tried peering through the dark abyss. A hazy purple mist swirled around in the darkness of the void.
What now? I wondered. I had to find Eleanor, but how? Where could she possibly be?
Taking a few tentative steps forward, I kept turning my head looking every which way for a glimpse of Eleanor. What would she even look like if I was looking for her soul?
I shivered as a wind picked up, biting my skin. It blew against my body so hard I almost stumbled from the force. My hoodie did little to protect me from it, and the gale continued to howl as it swirled around me and roared in my ears.
I put a hand over my eyes to shield them as I looked out through the piercing wind. The dark outline of a person moving towards me caught my eye and I dropped my hand, surprised. Was someone else in the Shadow Realm with me? I didn't dare think it was Eleanor. Surely it couldn't have been that easy to find her.
As the figure grew closer, I started to make out some of their features.
"Va-Vanessa?" I gaped, staring in disbelief at the figure in front of me.
When she raised her head to look at me, I saw it. Whoever—whatever—it was, it wasn't Vanessa. Instead of Vanessa's challenging and provocative green eyes, ruthless scarlet orbs pierced through the black.
She gave me a wicked grin. "It's nice to see you, (Y/n)."
Her voice was coy, mischievous and sickly sweet unlike the bluntness I usually knew from Vanessa.
I tensed up instinctively, narrowing my eyes in distrust at the Vanessa-lookalike. "Who are you?"
"No hello to your dear friend?" She pretended to pout before a hard smile spread across her face again. "And you always wonder why we never got along. It's quite sad, isn't it?"
What was she trying to get at?
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"We could've been friends back then. If you didn't ruin everything."
I frowned. How did I ruin a potential friendship with Vanessa? I tried to call upon my memories to see if there was even an inkling of truth in Vanessa's words, but nothing came to mind. The fog that threatened to consume every memory I held dear still had a firm grip on me. I couldn't be sure of what was true or not anymore, no matter how hard I tried to remember. All I could do was trust my gut, and it told me that Vanessa was wrong.
The real Vanessa wouldn't be playing these games with me. She'd get straight to the point without beating around the bush like this version of her. Could this be the Shadow Realm's perception of her?
"You don't deserve to be here," Shadow Vanessa continued, her words sharp as knives. "You're just trying to impress your friends by playing hero. You don't actually know what you're doing, do you?"
Her eyes glittered darkly, waiting for me to react.
I couldn't stop the tremble that overtook my body. It was true that I still didn't understand everything fully. But I knew why I was here and that was enough for me to keep going through the darkness.
"Y-You're wrong," I told her, my voice shaking. But I continued on. "I'm here to find Eleanor, and I'll do whatever it takes to save her."
"Is that so? Then why don't we find out by playing a little game. Or are you too scared to face me?"
Yugi's words echoed in my mind just then.
The Shadow Realm will use your fears against you.
This must have been what he meant. If I wanted to move on and find Eleanor, I had to deal with Vanessa first.
"Alright Vanessa," I said. "I'll play your game."
She smirked, her red eyes lighting up in satisfaction. "Wise choice, (Y/n). But don't be surprised if you can't win."
I had assumed the 'game' would be a duel but before I could reach for my deck, Shadow Vanessa snapped her fingers and the Shadow Realm disappeared around me, along with herself.
Instead, I found myself back in my old middle school classroom. I watched as children scrambled for seats before the bell stopped ringing, wearing backpacks much too big for their small frames and thin shoulders. The braver ones began talking to those around them, but one girl in particular caught my eye as she sat down right at the front of the classroom. Her dark hair was split in two braids and a pair of purple rimmed glasses framed her face. I knew who it was immediately.
The girl I was looking at was Vanessa at eleven years old. Two seats away on her right, I saw the younger version of myself sitting quietly next to the person who would soon be my best friend for years to come: Sara Pearce.
A middle aged man wearing a green cardigan over a white collared shirt stood at the front of the room to address the class.
What's going on? I tried to make sense of what I was seeing and why. What did Shadow Vanessa gain from showing this to me?
I looked around the room for clues.
The most obvious one was the writing on the large whiteboard that spanned across the entire front wall. "Welcome to 6th grade Social Studies!" it read in scrawling purple marker. The monthly star student poster was empty with no names written on it yet, and the grey lockers at the back of the classroom didn't have their locks in place.
No one seemed to notice I was there. I reached out to touch one of the desks but my hand went straight through it. Did this mean I was looking at a memory? If I was right, this was supposed to be my first day of sixth grade at Adelfell High. The middle and high schools were merged together in one building because there didn't seem to be a good enough reason to have separate schools for such a small town.
Mr. Jenkins had asked everyone to tell the class their name and one interesting thing about themselves. I always hated those kinds of ice breakers, but I watched on as my old class—many of whom I was still classmates with currently—introduced themselves and met each other for the first time.
They went around the room, first Benjamin, then Gabrielle, Sara, and several others until it was Vanessa's turn.
"My name is Vanessa Thompson," she introduced herself with a confidence not many ten and eleven year old kids had. "I play Duel Monsters and I'm going to become the number one duelist in the world."
I focused back on my younger self to gauge her reaction to Vanessa's words. I remembered wistfully thinking that we could be friends. Surely someone like her who vowed to be the best duelist in the world was a person worth being friends with. But things hadn't gone as I'd hoped.
After a few more kids introduced themselves, it was finally my younger self's turn.
She stood up and gave a shy glance towards little Vanessa. "I'm (Y/n) (L/n). I also like playing Duel Monsters and I want to be a duelist someday too."
Vanessa returned the gaze, a flicker of hope in her eyes. She hesitated for a moment before finally asking, "What deck do you play?"
"Lightsworns."
Vanessa's eyes narrowed thoughtfully but she didn't say anything, instead looking at my younger self with the same critical gaze that I'd been staring at her with.
The scene changed, warping into what I quickly recognized was the room where the exhibitional tournament tryouts had been conducted just a few months ago to determine who would have the honour of playing against Japan's top student duelists.
Both Vanessa and I had signed up as soon as we heard the news of the tryouts. We were there now in the classroom, desks moved together in sets of two for each pair of duelists to play against each other. The other duelists arrived quickly and the hosts began to explain the rules.
The tryouts were held in swiss format. Everyone would play a set number of matches regardless of if they won or lost and then points were tallied up at the end, one for each win. But simply earning the most points didn't guarantee the spot at the tournament. The hosts said they were looking for not only a strong duelist with potential but also "one who embodies the true spirit of enthusiasm and understands the game of Duel Monsters on a social level, not just competitively."
I smiled at hearing those words again. It had made me believe that I could still have an impact as a duelist even with an off-meta deck. All I had to do was show them my best, and my cards would shine through.
The duels commenced shortly. It all played out as I remembered: Vanessa going to take on a Fluffal deck user while I first played against someone with Madolches. Vanessa and I faced each other in a later round, where she walked away with the victory. At the end of the tryouts, I had ended with a record of 2-3 while Vanessa finished 4-1.
"Stupid Link monsters," she'd muttered under her breath after losing to a powerful Orcust deck.
The hosts thanked us for participating and said that the chosen duelist would be announced at the end of the week. Everyone began to leave but Vanessa and I stayed in the room. Once the door closed, Vanessa whirled around to face the other version of me.
"Why did you try out? You already know your deck is too weak. How do you expect to take on the best duelists in the world if you can't even win against me?"
My past self had no answer, stuttering on her words as she stared at Vanessa with wide eyes.
I frowned. That wasn't right. I could've sworn that I'd left with everyone else once we were dismissed. And I was certain that me and Vanessa didn't get into a quarrel like this.
The scene continued to unfold in front of me, a completely incorrect sequence of events from the one I knew.
"If I were you, I wouldn't even be playing Duel Monsters. You just waste my time every time I beat you in a duel. The only good you do is helping me show everyone else how strong my deck is. Just quit while you can. There's no way you'd be chosen so try not to be too disappointed when I get to go to the tournament."
Her eyes pulsed red before they dimmed back to green, looking at my memory self with only scorn.
"If you weren't so committed to such a useless deck, you might've actually been able to be my friend."
My other self was reduced to tears after that sentence. I could feel a lump forming in my own throat.
Was this it? My fear of Vanessa being nothing more than a person who wanted to bring me down? Who was just using me to make herself look better in front of everyone else? Who never thought I could be her rival?
I thought back to the day Vanessa challenged me to a duel sometime after the tournament. That time she had named a price for me to pay if I lost: to give up my beloved card, Minerva the Exalted Lightsworn.
Why? Why had she wanted Minerva? Especially when she had been the one to give me such a card in the first place?
We'd been mere children back then, opening card packs with friends when Vanessa pulled out the black card with Minvera's shimmering gold artwork. In my pack, I'd gotten Dark Magician of Chaos. Vanessa had been playing with a Dark Magician deck at the time so it only made sense to trade our cards with each other.
Vanessa had initiated the trade in the first place too, saying that she wanted my Dark Magician of Chaos and that she would give me Minerva so my deck could be stronger and so "It won't be boring to win against you next time."
"Does that card really mean that much to you?" She had murmured the day of the cafeteria catastrophe at school before we went back to class after our poor attempts of salvaging our deck boxes.
"Of course," I'd said, my voice equally low. "I've grown so much as a duelist because of her. I wouldn't have made it as far as I did in the tournament if you never gave her to me."
Vanessa had no reply.
Bringing myself back to the present, I shook my head roughly, trying to peel my eyes away from the altered memories that weren't mine. Or Vanessa's.
"Vanessa isn't like that," I said out loud. I looked at the version of her in front of me from the memory of the tournament tryouts and addressed her directly.
"You're harsh, and you've said mean things to me sometimes. But you're ambitious and I've always admired you for that even if you think I can never be even half the duelist you are.
"You wanted to be the best and you wanted to play with the best too. That's why you wanted to be in the tournament. You wanted to find someone who plays on your level and be the rival you always dreamed of. You gave me Minerva so I could be a better opponent for you, and you kept taunting me—was it because you wanted me to become someone worthy of dueling you?
"Out of everyone in school, I've played against you the most. You pushed me to be better, and I always have fun playing against you. Even if you don't consider me your rival, you've always been mine and I'm thankful someone like you loves Duel Monsters as much as I do."
Everything stilled around me as soon as I finished speaking. I waited, heart pounding in my chest. Did I do the right thing? Vanessa stood frozen, just as oblivious to me as she'd been the entire time the memory played out.
(Y/n) never gives up, I heard the whispered murmur of a voice that seemed to speak to me from directly inside my head. Even when she goes up against decks way better than hers, she always puts up a fight and she's loyal to her Lightsworns. That's something even I don't have as a duelist.
This time I knew those were truly Vanessa's words. A warm glow filled my body from my toes to my fingertips, bringing me ease from the frigid cold of the Shadow Realm.
The memory deconstructed around me, fragmenting into pieces until I was left standing once again in the inky void of the Shadow Realm. Knowing this was only the first of many trials to come, I continued on through the darkness, wondering what I'd face next.