After getting back from the hospital, all of the crates but one were left outside to be tomorrow’s problem, or as Phil put it - a problem for Future Phil. Fuck that guy. There had been little choice about it. Each of the crates was far too large for Phil to move himself, and neither Tilla nor Reiko could be of particular help in that field. Any assistance would have required waking the rest of the household, which Phil was loath to do at such a late hour.

  The crate Phil did move inside was the sole one he could move himself, albeit with a good amount of effort, several swears (muted to not wake anyone else up), and a smashed finger. This crate was the one filled nearly to the brim with jewels – the others containing larger objects like paintings or even furniture gilded with precious metals.

  However, once the crate was inside, there was nothing left keeping the trio loitering around. Tilla disappeared into her room, closing the door without a word. Reiko seemed to melt away into the darkness with a few words of goodnight, doubtlessly retreating to her own bed for some well-earned sleep. And that left Phil standing in the hall, alone if not for Lumina.

  The walk back to his room was a quiet one. The well-oiled hinges on his door allowed it to open without protest, leaving the familiar interior of the room resting before his eyes. The same ol’ hammock still hung loosely from the corner, and Lumina’s futon on the floor was just as she left it.

  A soft sigh escaped Phil’s lips. He heaved himself into his hammock. The ropes creaked under his weight but held true, as they always did. Lumina flopped onto her futon with a quiet ‘oof’, the kind usually reserved for the end of a very long day. The room was dark. Phil hadn’t bothered to flip on the lamp, feeling that what little light leaking from the window was more than enough to see his way through it. He folded his hands over his stomach. The hammock creaked again.

  The room was silent other than those usual slight noises of the night. Yet, as Phil’s stare seemed to bore a hole into the empty wall, there was a… noise just barely at the edge of his hearing. A whispering, perhaps, melding into a confusing rhythm with the soft yet high-pitched ringing in his ears that had been ever-present since he'd shot and killed Bandit Keith on the island.

  “-a -l-“

  Yes, it was definitely whispering. A hushed voice speaking words he could not quite make out. Phil’s stare remained unwavering. The hammock ceased its creaking as Phil moved not a single muscle. The whispering grew slightly louder. A faint light still leaked through the curtains, but even that looked much dimmer than it had moments before. Was the darkness drawing closer? The whispering grew louder. The words… Phil could make out the odd letter or two, but nothing complete. It was all at the utmost edge of his hearing.

  “Y- re- lt-“

  The walls seemed to move closer by an inch. Was the room getting smaller, or was it all in his head? The whispering drew louder and louder, now finally overpowering the ringing in his ears. He couldn’t… he just couldn’t quite make out the words. Was this too in his head, or was something trying to speak to him? Phil’s breath quickened. His pupils dilated. The walls moved in even closer. The whispering faded in and out, one moment replaced by that damned ringing noise, the next falling away into a cloistering silence that was far worse than the two combined could ever be. Something moved in the corner of his eye. The light faded further, even though Phil knew that the streetlights outside were hardly the ones to suddenly go out.

  “All your fault.”

  The whispering vanished. Gone, replaced by that terrible cloistering silence. It was the type of hushed stillness that made a man wonder if he screamed, would anyone even hear? Would he even hear it? The walls closed in further. Were they inches away, or further than that? If he spread his palms out as wide as his arm’s length would allow, would his fingers brush against that white, expressionless surface? The silence was quiet, but at the same time, it was not. It was a silence that felt so loud that it was deafening in his ears. Try as he might, his eyelids would not close.

  His vision drew all the narrower. Was the hammock still beneath him, or was Phil now suspended in midair amidst the deafening quiet? The quiet was underscored by a panting noise. Was that him? His lungs felt like they were heaving, as if he were climbing the tallest mountain in the world with a backpack filled with rocks hanging from his shoulders. The walls drew closer. His breath quickened even further. Small black spots began to cover his vision. The light… where was the light from the window? The precious streetlight that had fought against the cloistering feel of the night settling around his body?

  It was gone, and Phil was in a void with no more room left to move.

  And then a sound broke through it all. A sound from below, from the direction of Lumina’s futon. The sound was accompanied by light, the soft, artificial illumination of a television screen in the dark of the night. In an instant the walls retreated to their proper place. The whispering was no more, nor was there that deafening silence. Now there was noise, cheers emanating from tinny speakers, the faint sound of an announcer revealing scores for a boxing match Phil could not quite fully see from his perch on the hammock. It was kept quiet enough so that it wouldn’t wake anyone from sleep, but loud enough so those who cared to watch could. Phil’s neck creaked as he peered down at the source of the noise. He blinked owlishly. The creaking of his neck – it sounded so deafening he wondered if the others in the house could hear it as well.

  On the floor, Lumina sat in front of a strange television. The screen was as ordinary as any other television screen, but the box surrounding it looked organic, made from some sort of spongy substance that glimmered in the light coming from the screen. Several greyish tentacles extended from the sides of the box, reaching out to bury themselves in the four corners of the room. On the underside of the screen, where on a normal TV there would be volume and power buttons, a set of baleful green eyes stared out at the room, looking this way and that way to no effect.

  The screen revealed a strange sight. Two monsters, which Phil assumed to be duel spirits, faced each other in a circular fighting ring surrounded by a cage of flames. A thick cord stretched from the first monster’s left wrist to the second monster’s left wrist, tying them together so they couldn’t retreat more than a few feet from each other. Each monster wielded a knife with a long, serrated blade in their right hand. The first of the two monsters was an ape. Its skin was a deep crimson hue. Its hair and beard were long and white, though Phil could not tell if that was from age, natural color, or if it had been dyed. The second monster was a little stranger, being a metal creature with a multitude of moving gears sticking out of its armored, creaking body. One singular blue eye glowed out from under its helmet.

  The ring was encircled by metal spectator stands filled with a cacophony of screeching, hooting, and hollering duel spirits watching the spectacle, while a bipedal rhino clung to the edge of the outside of the cage and occasionally shouted into a microphone clutched in his hoof-hand.

  The knife hand of the ape flashed forward, scouring through the armor of the metal man to leave a long, jagged gash which leaked a steady stream of pitch-black oil onto the floor underneath. The crowd screamed in exaltation, and such was the infectious energy of the cheers that the rhino announcer performed a high backflip into the air to land on the roof of the flaming cage, where, in between turns of announcing the various movements of the fighters, he threw small rocks into the ring to further enrage the contestants.

  “It came in the mail a few days ago from the girls at the office. Lyla’s old TV. It was rotting away in a storage unit after she upgraded a few centuries ago.” Lumina glanced up to catch Phil’s gaze. “They were worried I’d have nothing to do down here other than follow you around and get into fights. I don’t think they fully understand that I actually enjoy getting into fights. Nothing like a nice brawl or two to brighten up a girl’s day.”

  “Huh.” Came Phil’s distracted reply. It still felt like a part of his mind wasn’t quite there, but instead still wrapped up in the unbearable silence and closing walls that had surrounded him moments before. But even that part of his mind could no longer hear the whispering. It had been drowned out by Lumina’s words and the noise from the TV.

  “Ancient Gear Soldier versus Ancient Crimson Ape. To the death, or at least as close to a death as a duel spirit can get without some serious power getting involved. Soldier insulted Ape’s mother last night on pay-per-view and now the fella wants blood. Or is it oil in this case?”

  Phil watched as the rhino announcer doled out a long line of white powder onto his left arm and snorted every grain up into his large nose, letting out a loud whoop at the end of it. For a second, his vision flashed back to the past, back to the academy. Lumina had hardly missed watching a fight on her TV there, either.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  He swung down from his hammock, bare feet slapping against the wooden floor on his landing, and sat on the futon next to Lumina.

  “Who’s winning?”

  Lumina hummed and waggled a hand noncommittedly. The ape slipped on a puddle of oil, allowing Ancient Gear Soldier to score a deep slash on the monster’s arm.

  “Too early to tell. Raiden put some money on Ancient Gear Soldier, though. He told me Ancient Crimson Ape’s a bad bet after he developed a heroin addiction two months ago.”

  “Wait really?”

  “Yeah. It was a huge scandal that went all over the newspapers. Pictures and everything of him injecting black tar heroin right into his eyeballs. He claims it helps him fight the dream demons at night. I think he’s just a junkie trying to cope. That ape’s a total crackhead in the most literal sense. I fully expect him to make the news any day now when he finally pisses off a powerful enough spirit and gets perma-killed.”

  Phil winced. The thought of a needle going into his eyeballs… yeah he didn’t want to think about it too deeply.

  “Five bucks on the metal man. Or whatever the yen equivalent is since I don’t have American dollars on me.” Phil decided. He wrapped his arms around his knees, holding them close to his chest. No more words were shared between them, silence descending on the room once more, only to be occasionally broken by the rabid cheering of the crowd of monsters, various unhinged comments from the rhino announcer, and the grunts and groans of two nearly immortal creatures locked in a knife fight.

  He didn’t sleep at all that night.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Dawn arrived as if the world hadn’t changed a single bit. The crates were no longer an issue now that the household was awake – an hour of effort by Phil and Reiko’s various uncles and brothers made each and every crate disappear inside to wherever they could find space. Then the sorting began. Phil jimmied open the crates with a crowbar while Tilla and Reiko worked to catalogue the contents. It was at that point that Phil was kicked out of the house, Tilla citing his constant pacing as being 'mildly, a little teeny-bit annoying and not even the least bit helpful'.

  Phil couldn’t argue with that logic. He wandered the town, his legs taking him every which way through alley, street, and shop until finally he found himself at the front door of Kame Game. The door was propped open with a brick to let the calm Spring air filter through the shop. Inside, the bustling form of Solomon Muto could be seen, the short, grey-haired man wielding a broom with practiced movements to render the floor of the shop as spotless as it had been when it was first built. Phil didn’t linger in the doorway for long.

  “Mornin’.” He greeted Solomon with a raised hand. Solomon spun around, his face breaking out into a large smile.

  “Ohohoho! Phil Jenson, as I live and breathe! With no beard as well! What a change, a change indeed.” Then Solomon’s face fell, and he continued to speak in a somber tone. “I was very sorry to hear about what happened. Jean’s passing… it is a loss to the whole world.”

  Phil’s gaze flickered, but as quickly as it did, he regained control of his expression.

  “Yeah. It is. That brings me to a question – you manage to get any leads on the frogs?”

  Solomon bustled over to the wall, placing his broom against it and ducking behind the counter. His face reappeared over the side, a stack of cards in his hand.

  “As a matter of fact, I have, my friend.”

  “Sweet.” Phil walked up to the counter, but Solomon did not place the cards before him, instead speaking to Phil with a grave voice.

  “Before I give you these… could this old man ask of you a favor?”

  Phil raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, any time. You know that. I owe you.”

  With a nod and a complete lack of further elaboration, Solomon stuck his head into the back room and spoke a few undecipherable words to a third party on the other side of the door. The conversation was short-lived, leaving no more than a few seconds before Solomon turned his attention back to Phil. He placed the stack of cards on the counter and walked around its length, gesturing toward a table resting near the far wall of the shop.

  “Have you met Arthur’s granddaughter before?”

  As Phil shook his head no, a short girl with half-moon glasses and blonde hair tied into two pigtails bounded out from the backroom, circled the counter, and came to a screeching halt before Phil. She wore a school uniform consisting of a dark blue dress and a light blue long-sleeved shirt. Solomon extended his hand toward the girl.

  “Then may I introduce Rebecca Hawkins? Rebecca, this is Phil.”

  Rebecca stuck out a tongue. Phil stuck out his tongue in response, causing her to leap backward with a catlike ‘hiss’. Phil almost assumed her hair would stand up on end next, but the two pigtails remained well contained within their scrunchies.

  “Rebecca’s quite the duelist, I do say. And as this is her last day in town before she returns to America-“

  “I’ll be challenging you to a duel! If I win, Grampa will get me whatever I want!” Rebecca interrupted Solomon, leaving the man with a gentle smile and a few ‘ohohohohos’ of laughter tumbling from his lips.

  “If you defeat her, the cards are yours.” Solomon added on to the end.

  Phil nodded along, easily summarizing the idea in his head. Beat the kid and get the deck. It sounded simple enough, but Phil knew with Solomon it was never truly that simple. He didn’t recognize the little girl, but that hardly said much. She could be a complete nobody, or merely an anime-only character. It was quite possible that she didn't know a trap card from a spell card… or that she was some overseas dueling champion. Frankly, with Solomon, Phil expected the latter. Especially since the old man appeared to have a good amount of faith in the girl’s ability.

  What deck to use then…

  Phil’s eyes narrowed as the gears in his mind turned. Obviously his P.A.C.M.A.N. deck was his best one, but Solomon knew that fact. Would the old man have told Rebecca how to counter it in advance? The deck was pretty easy to counter if you knew what was coming. Prevent the flip summons and pack lots of backrow destruction. Do that, and Phil would have a serious uphill battle as he did against Pegasus.

  This seemed like a test. He could feel it in his bones. There was no other reason to make this duel the condition for receiving his frogs. If it were a test, he could assume Rebecca would come to the table armed with some amount of information.

  Fuck it. Maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong. But he’d still flip the script. He’d used P.A.C.M.A.N. enough times on the island anyway. A change would be nice. Phil reached under his jacket to pull out a deck.

  “Greetings and salutations, small child. Ready to rumble? Ready to rock and roll?”

  “Hey!” Rebecca pouted, stamping her foot for good measure, “I’m eight years old! I’m not small!”

  Phil nodded sagely. “Yes. You are not small. Definitely not. One hundred percent the truth. Swear on my life before judge and jury.” He said in a deadpan tone. Absentmindedly, his hand went up to his chin to stroke his beard, only for the world to crash down around his shoulders once he was reminded yet again that he'd shaved it off to better avoid the police.

  “That was sarcasm, I know it was! Stupid face! You’re a stupid face!” Rebecca growled.

  Phil pressed his hand against his forehead in mock horror. “Stupid face? If you’re that, what am I?”

  “You- argh!”

  “Oh hey Phil I think you finally found your intellectual equal!” Lumina snidely commented through snorts of laughter.

  Phil: 4000 Rebecca: 4000

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  There were many who considered Solomon Muto a wise man. But as he watched with arms folded behind his back as young Rebecca took a seat opposite Phil at the wooden table, he wondered if that was the truth. In all actuality, his reasoning for this duel was simple. Two objectives fueled its nature – the desire to gently rebuke Rebecca’s arrogance, to show her that she was far from invincible, and to gauge Phil's true… intentions.

  The truth was that Solomon Muto had seen many sights in his 70-odd years of existence. Few sights were more terrifying than grief. Grief was natural. Inevitable. But it was how a man dealt with grief that was the unpredictable part. It could make a man stronger than before, as if his willpower were forged in the hottest crucible imaginable, but it could also twist a man beyond recognition, forming him into a bitter creature of hate and rage that would batter away at the world until something broke, a candle burning from both ends until nothing was left. When his grandson had confided in Solomon the night before with his worries about Phil’s state of mind, Solomon had found his own worries blooming like a pot of very unwelcome flowers.

  How far was Phil willing to go for vengeance?

  There was no doubt in Solomon’s mind that the fellow known as ‘Red Summer’ had to be put down. If left alone, more bodies would crop up. If imprisoned, the gentleman would likely outlive his captors and escape, given enough time. Then, more bodies. That was life. You could save some people. Rehabilitate others. But no mortal man was a miracle worker. Some were just too far gone for a man to save or fix.

  Yet, how far was Phil willing to go? If he had Red Summer at his mercy, with the ability to permanently kill the man provided Phil hurt an innocent life in return, would he take that chance? That was the question that gnawed at Solomon’s bones. He wanted to believe Phil wouldn’t do something like that. He truly did. But in his 71 years of life, Solomon had seen too much to ever leave something like that to chance.

  A duel, however, had the tendency to reveal a man’s true nature. Small movements, word choice, attack patterns, even deck choice (which usually was not a factor, but in this case, Solomon knew Phil had several decks at his fingertips to choose from) could show themselves like the pages of a book to a man who knew what to look for. And if his worries were not unfounded… then Solomon would do his duty as an elder to guide Phil back to the right path.

  A cup clattered against the countertop near Solomon’s elbow. He glanced over, smiling his thanks to Arthur for the cup of steaming hot tea.

  “Thoughts?” Arthur whispered into Solomon’s ear quietly enough so that the duelists couldn’t hear.

  Solomon hummed in thought, and then shook his head indecisively.

  “The American Duel Monsters champion versus a professional underground duelist. We shall see. We shall see.” He replied in an equally hushed tone. The game was afoot, and Solomon truly could not predict how this duel would develop.

  Although… Solomon couldn't help but let a smile grow on his face. It was quite amusing seeing how easily Phil managed to trade banter with the girl in such a way that it made her heavy duelist’s fighting spirit melt away like snow in summer, until all that was left was a regular 8-year-old girl.

  It was the pleasure of the elderly, he supposed, to see such a sight.

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