The next morning, waves crashed against the beach as Professor Crowler and Ms. Hibiki observed several detectives combing the sand for pieces of evidence. It was the second hour that the detectives had been there, and the sun was already beginning to peek up over the horizon. Ms. Hibiki turned to Professor Crowler, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she tried to work with her colleague to find some sort of solution to the terrible news they had woken up to.

“I hope you realize that the students will find out eventually, right?”

“Yes, they’re a smart bunch this year, for sure. But, what can we do?” Crowler sighed as he watched two paramedics zip up a body bag to load up on the boat they had arrived on when the professors had made the call. “We can’t –“ He sighed again and continued in a conflicted tone. “Kids shouldn’t have to see something like that. Not yet, and not ever if I get my way.”

“They will ask questions once the weekly classes start tomorrow. And the Italian Stallion? Seriously? He’s a pro duelist. Not a teacher. I admit he’s got talent, but he hasn’t even been in a school for years, much less gone to university for secondary education!”

Professor Crowler slowly nodded as Ms. Hibiki listed off each concern she had for the man. “I fear for that as well, Ms. Hibiki. And, I trust that you’ll give Marco your full support when he starts. He may not have much teaching experience, but he is a former student of mine, and during his time in the academy he was undefeated. Hell, he was undefeated in the pro circuit, too, until he faced Koyo. Besides, you can’t keep covering the card design classes forever. It wouldn’t be fair, with all the work that the international school duel is going to require.”

Ms. Hibiki’s face blanched at the mention of her brother, but she turned back to observe the ambulance boat leave the beach rather than continue the argument. “I’ll trust your judgement on this. When he comes in, I’ll give him the rundown, but I’ll keep… this” Ms. Hibiki wildly gestured to the detectives combing the beach. “I’ll keep this from reaching his ears for now.” Then, Ms. Hibiki tilted her head towards Crowler with a concerned look. “What about classroom three, by the way? Was Professor Banner able to find out the cause of that blood on the floor?”

Professor Crowler flinched, before coughing to disguise his own awkwardness. “No, I’m afraid not. No worries, though. For I, Vellian Crowler, will get to the bottom of that conundrum. It’s most likely some terribly timed student prank, anyways. Nothing to worry about!”

“Terrible timing indeed. No kidding.” Ms. Hibiki muttered to herself and turned to leave, tossing one last question over her shoulder. “Doctor Crowler, I am sure the detectives will notify us if they find anything, and it will be several more hours before any students are awake. I’m certainly in need of a drink, would you like to join me? After all this terrible business I need something to help me forget the smell.”

Professor Crowler hesitated, then he sighed and turned to follow his colleague. “Indeed. Bodies washing up on beaches, I can hardly say that we’re trained to deal with situations like these. And for it to happen to Professor Sartyr to boot. He was a good man.”

“A good man indeed.” Ms. Hibiki sighed and echoed Professor Crowler’s words.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Back in the Ra Yellow dorms, Phil was busy defying the expectations of Professor Crowler and Ms. Hibiki, his body still choosing to naturally wake him up at what he fondly liked to call ‘the crack of fucking dawn’. Yet, despite his regular wakeup time, Phil’s routine was slightly different this morning. Instead of sitting in his chair to drink a cup of coffee and regret waking up early, he sat at his desk with a yellow-sleeved deck in his hands, disregarding the fragrant cup of joe that Lumina had kindly nabbed for him from the cafeteria when no one was looking in favor of endlessly shuffling the forty-card pile over, and over, and over again.

Phil had handled the rather… messy end of the shadow game the previous day well enough, or at least he liked to think he did, but it seemed like not even a few minutes after he fell asleep that night, his ears began to ring with Titan’s panicked pleads for mercy. Then, he woke up to the realization that the game was over, it had been for hours. A few more minutes would pass, and Phil would fall asleep again. Thus, the cycle would continue.

One card in a yellow sleeve flipped over another, frogs shuffling into paleozoic traps in an endless cycle, not even stopping when the door creaked open to reveal the tan face of Lumina. Swap Frog’s position in the deck was exchanged for where Paleozoic Dinomischus had been previously.

“Phil. We need to talk.” Lumina walked over next to his chair and gently patted Phil’s shoulder to get his attention. “I just got back from a walk, and I saw Crowler and Hibiki on the beach with a bunch of uniformed officers. They found a body. Sartyr’s dead.”

That got Phil’s attention, causing his head to snap over to look into Lumina’s eyes. “What? His body was just on the beach?”

“Yes. I don’t know why. They didn’t seem to know either.”

Phil sighed, setting the deck in his hands down onto the desk and standing up. “Shit. I… I don’t know if that happened in the show, but either way that’s a problem. To be a professor here, you have to be at least a halfway decent duelist. So, either someone beat him in a shadow game, or his opponent said ‘fuck it’ and iced the guy without bothering to duel.”

Lumina sighed internally, partially out of relief that Phil had temporarily snapped out of his funk to focus on the situation, and partially out of concern that he still refused to talk about it all. “So what are you going to do?”

“Well, you said that it’s already known by the teachers. If the dorm heads for Slifer and Obelisk are on the case, then there’s truly not much I can think of to help. The bottom line is, there’s someone either on the island or nearby that is willing to kill a teacher. Best case scenario, it’s that asshole from yesterday and we don’t have to worry about this anymore. Worst case? I have to get the kids to start watching their backs without alerting the teachers that I know more than I should. Suspicion from them could cause some problems right now. Plus there’s that Jinzo fucker running around, unless he’s already lost to Jaden. Shit. Poor Sartyr, though. He got dealt a straight-out nasty hand for not retiring before Jaden started the academy.”

Phil sighed, and then shook his head. “Aight, no time to be moping in your room, ol’ buddy ol’ pal. I need to figure out the sitch with that purple guy in the gimp suit and keep my eyes peeled for even more murderers converging on the island.” Then, to Lumina’s complete shock, Phil took several deep breaths before balling up his fist and whaling into the wall with it in several quick strikes.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Phil panted, clutching his left hand to his chest. “Damn it all, fucking hurts like a bitch!” Then, he groaned, grabbing his duel disk and throwing his mustard yellow jacket over his shoulders. “Ugh. Lets go, Lumina. No time to mope indeed. I’m fired up and ready to duel any motherfucker that wants to try me!”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Soon enough, Phil had gathered with ‘his kids’ in the cafeteria, as he affectionately called them (In his head, of course. No sense in causing Chazz to have a hissy fit over his bullshit pride). “So, any news?” Phil asked leadingly while clumsily picking up a fork to eat with his right hand.

“Another boy from Obelisk Blue is unconscious in the infirmary again.” Alexis started. “Nurse Fontaine still hasn’t made any headway on the others.”

Chazz nodded stoically from where he sat opposite of Bastion. “The word is that Chancellor Sheppard is flying in some experts from Tokyo to do a diagnosis. There’s already a rumor floating around the dorm that this is similar to what happened in Battle City to Mai Valentine and Joey Wheeler in the finals.”

Jaden looked up in confusion, but before he could speak the question on the tip of his tongue, Bastion spoke up. “A shadow game, you mean? Aren’t those just a fairy tale? Nothing but smoke and mirrors to scare inexperienced duelists?”

“Sometimes.” Phil responded, putting down his cinnamon roll with a ‘thunk’ on his plate. “But I’d wager any amount of money that the shit in Battle City was real. The Millennium Items ain’t no joke, and that Marik guy was a right crazy bastard.”

Despite Phil’s words, Bastion still shook his head in disbelief. “I suppose I will have to see it in order to believe it.” He finally replied. “I still think it must be some trick, or maybe there was some breakthrough in science that was kept quiet that enabled it.”

“You know what Bastion, you do you.” Phil threw up his hands in defeat. “Still, I say we pull a Ghostbusters and get to the bottom of this case.” Then, Phil held his hand up to his chin in thought. “Wait… no, it would be Scooby-Doo in this case. Huh. I guess that means Bastion would be Velma, sorry Bastion. Jaden, who would you be?”

All around the table confused faces looked back at Phil until he laughed and gave up. “Okay, fair point. Jaden, you’re Scooby. I’ll be Shaggy, Chazz can be Fred, and that leaves Alexis as Daphne.” Across from Phil, Jaden leaned over to Syrus. “Bro, do you know what a ‘Scooby’ is?” He whispered in confusion, only for Syrus to shrug his shoulders in defeat.

“Right then gang!” Phil declared, leaving his seat to stand up on the table to put as much emphasis on his words as possible. “Chazz, get some rope and set a trap! Jaden, I’m gonna source out some weed and then we can go raid the kitchen once the munchies kick in. Bastion, I don’t know. Do something smart I guess? Alexis, when that Jinzo shows up it’s your job to let us know so we can all beat the shit out of him. If I’m too strung out on the Devil’s Lettuce by then, I’ll cede the first bonk to you.”

As it turned out, the first bonk happened not on any ghost, but when Alexis immediately pulled Phil down from the table, saying strange things such as ‘you’ll get drugs over my dead body’ and ‘don’t stand on the table, you’ll break it’. Bastion was quick to follow suit, being the smart lad that he was. In fact, the power of Alexis and Bastion combined was enough to make the lecture last nearly a full twenty minutes, in which Phil learned and immediately disregarded values like ‘being responsible’ and ‘following a healthy lifestyle’.

Meanwhile, Jaden did the only smart move available to him: he grabbed Syrus and Chazz by the arms and booked it out of the cafeteria, laughing over the situation Phil had created for himself through his own excitement.

“Come’on Sy, Chazz, last one to find the ghost is a rotten egg!” Jaden giggled once the three students had safely fled the cafeteria.

Syrus gulped, clearly intimidated by the prospect of running into a potentially murderous ghost. “B-bro, can’t we just wait for Phil, Bastion, and Alexis to join us? I… I think I would feel a bit safer if we were all in a group.”

As soon as Syrus finished hesitating over his words, Chazz snorted in derision. “You might, but I’ll be enough to take care of that ‘Jinzo’, if it even exists. Just stay behind me and stick to Jaden, I’ll show you how The Chazz deals with threats to the Blue dorm!”