Spirit Stalker 7

With all the excitement going on during the morning and being caught up in the duel between Bastion and Chazz after she caught sight of the now former Obelisk Blue tossing cards into the ocean, Alexis ended up running late for her meet up with Jasmine and Mindy at the academy gardens.

It was a beautiful park within the center of the academy building itself, framed by the same kind of glass you'd see in see through greenhouses so the sun could shine in. It was set up with lovely green grass, beautiful flowers, majestic oak trees, gorgeous ponds and more. And featured picnic benches, small sport fields and even computer terminals and screens that showed live footage of the academy duel arena's.

The blonde was in a rush as she made her way there and took a shortcut that cut across the card shop. But as she wound around a hallway corner, to her surprise she caught sight of Yarden leaving the shop himself.

Odd, he was never up this early during the weekends. Granted, she'd only known him for a few weeks, but she'd gotten a pretty good grasp on him in that time and knew how much he liked to laze around when he had the time off from classes.

'He probably just got woke up by someone making a ton of noise or something.' the blonde mused.

Alexis was about to greet the boy and ask him if he wanted to join her and meet up with Jasmine and Mindy, when he shot a look to the empty space beside him, "Now we just need to chase it down ourselves then," he said aloud, to no one, before his gaze turned worried, "Will you guys be able to take it okay?" the red wearing boy asked thin air.

Alexis gave him a confused look. 'Does he have a bluetooth microphone connected to a phone in his ear or something?' she wondered.

She looked him over as he nodded to something apparently only he could hear and then a grin spread across his face. But no, she couldn't see anything in his ears.

'Is he talking to himself?' she gawked. Like, he wasn't just saying something to himself or singing a song to himself something, he seemed to be outright having a conversation with thin air.

That wasn't like Yarden. He had plenty of character faults that he was not ashamed to admit to, but he wasn't delusional or anything like that. 'Does he have a fever maybe and he's hallucinating?' Alexis thought, worried.

That could also explain why he was up so early when usually he'd have practically burrowed into his bed at this time usually.

After a moment, the boy walked down the hall and Alexis hung back for a moment. She pulled out her PDA and sent a quick message to Jasmine and Mindy letting them know something had come up.

And then she slowly followed behind Yarden. She was going to see what he was up to and keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't actually have a fever or something.

Yarden left the academy behind and what he was doing, honestly just made Alexis more and more confused and more and more believe that he had to have a fever or something.

First, he made his way towards the Slifer Red dorm, and she thought he was going to go see Jaden. But then halfway there, he abruptly changed directions and walked back towards the Obelisk Blue dorm.

Only, when he got to near the dorm itself, he abruptly changed directions again and walked off into the forest.

At that point, Alexis was getting incredibly worried for his mental state.

Just when she was about to call out to him though, Yarden stopped in his tracks in the middle of a clearing.

"You sure are a hard guy to pin down." he suddenly spoke up, his eyes on a large tree in front of him.

There was silence for a moment, before what sounded like a breathing apparatus crackled, "You should be more careful who you follow boy," a double toned voice clouded by the breathing apparatus sound shot back and a person walked out from behind the tree. A very tall man, easily as tall as the man that had assaulted her at the Abandoned Dorm walked out, clad from head to toe in a large trench coat that hid his body and a thick brown fedora hat that hung low and hid his face, "You never know just what kind of fearsome people you will annoy."

..Wait, what was going on here? Alexis quickly ducked behind one of the trees and held her breath.

Yarden snorted, crossing his arms, "Yeah see, that would be intimidating," he nodded, before smirking, "If you were, well, intimidating. Two out of ten, save that shit for the tourists baldy."

The breathing apparatus sound appeared again, sucking in a deep crackling breath, "Boy, you will rue the day you dared to mouth off so arrogantly to I the great Ji-"

Alexis peaked around the tree and went wide eyed as the man was caught off suddenly as he suddenly got sent flying across the clearing to slam into a tree so hard it snapped! The tree fell to the ground backwards and slammed into it hard enough to make the ground tremor lightly beneath her feet.

And her eyes went even wider when the coat and hat he was wearing fell off as he just simply stood back up, a crackling snarl leaving him. He really was a very tall man, dressed in what looked like a cyber punk green and metallic lab coat, with a pure bald head and red goggles hiding his eyes.

He looked exactly like the duel monster card, Jinzo!

But not only that. He looked, almost see through! As if he wasn't all there. Like a poorly done hologram.

'What is going on here?!' Alexis gaped in shock.

"You think to challenge me, you fool!" The Jinz lookalike snarled, yet he wasn't looking at Yarden, he was looking to the side he was blasted away from.

Suddenly, he lifted his arm and Alexis felt like her eyes were about to pop out of their sockets when she bore witness to some kind of crackling spherical barrier appear around him.

A thunderous impact shook the clearing and the front of the barrier rippled. And then it rippled again with what looked like an indent of a fist coming from another side.

"What, another one!?" Jinzo cried in shock, face turning to the fist indent in the barrier. Only for the barrier to shatter like glass a second later and a horrifying scream left the bald mans throat and Alexis watched on in horror as the skin of the hologram like man's face began to crack and peel as dark burns made themselves known.

A roar of fury left the bald mans throat and suddenly he threw both arms out, a barrier of energy appearing around him once again, before flaring outwards in all directions, growing larger and larger until it was the size of a house and Alexis bore witness once more to the scene of all the trees in his immediate vicinity just outright being torn asunder and exploding into tiny wooden chips as the barrier of energy got bigger and bigger.

Yarden didn't even move though as it approached him. Alexis' voice caught in her throat when she tried to yell at him to move!

The reason why that was.

Was because of a girl suddenly appearing in front of Yarden. A tiny little slip of a girl with orange hair and a ragged blue dress. She lifted her arms and white light glowed within her palms, before a second barrier appeared, this one much smaller but wrapping around the girl and Yarden.

When Jinzo's flaring barrier touch it, it was rebuffed backwards and broke apart.