Chapter 42

A few days had passed since Camula's defeat and Duel Academy had mostly returned to normal. Dr. Crowler had returned to teaching. He was determined to catch up on all the work he and his students had missed.

Ryan had been released from the infirmary although his hands were still bandaged. Nurse Fontaine had said that it would be another few days before the bandages could be removed.

Jaden seemed to have been affected the most by his experience with Camula. He had become much quieter and told far less jokes. It seemed that he had realized how serious the situation really was.

Syrus had attempted to talk to Zane several times, but his brother would either walk away or ignore him. Zane seemed to have become even more anti-social since losing his duel to Camula.

Everyone was currently sitting in Crowler's class doing math work. Most of the class was quite annoyed that Crowler had been making them all work twice as hard to catch up on all their missed work.

Once class was over everyone left to do their own thing. Syrus ran up to Jaden who was about leave the classroom.

"Hey Jaden, do you want to hang out later today?" Syrus asked.

"No thanks Sy, I'm too busy." Jaden said, sounding a little depressed.

Jaden walked out of the room, leaving Syrus behind. Syrus sighed in disappointment. Jaden had been avoiding both him and Chumley recently and Syrus was starting to fear that Jaden blamed him for Zane's loss.

With nothing else to do and with no one to hang out with Syrus left the classroom feeling rather sad.

Syrus wandered the halls until he happened to find Zane leaving one of the classrooms. Syrus looked around and saw that no one else was nearby. This gave him a spark of hope that Zane might talk to him now.

"Zane, Zane over here." Syrus said. Zane ignored his brother.

"Zane, please talk to me." Syrus begged. Zane started to walk away.

"Zane please, I just wanted to apologize. I know that it was my fault you lost to Camula." Syrus said. Zane stopped walking.

Zane stood still for a moment.

"You're right, it is your fault." Zane said and then he walked away as if Syrus had never been there at all.

Jaden was in his room looking through his deck. He felt terrible for leaving Syrus behind like he did but he hoped that if he distanced himself from his friend then maybe none of the Shadow Riders would hurt him. He couldn't stand the thought of Syrus being in danger again.

Jaden placed his deck on the desk and sighed.

'Man this isn't right. I usually play duel monsters for fun, but now just one mistake could mean the difference between life and death.' He thought.

Jaden couldn't get the image of Camula's body being crushed out of his mind. He had been having nightmares about it every night since, only in his nightmares it was one of his friends who was crushed.

Winged Kuriboh appeared from Jaden's deck and attempted to comfort him.

"Hi little guy." Jaden said although he didn't seem any happier. Winged Kuriboh said something that only Jaden seemed to understand.

"No thanks Kuriboh, I just want to be ready for the next Shadow Rider." Jaden said. Winged Kuriboh was saddened by the fact that Jaden was so depressed.

Alexis was in the infirmary visiting her brother who had still failed to wake up, although by this point Alexis wasn't surprised by this.

Alexis thought that Atticus looked so peaceful. If she didn't know any better she would think that he was just sleeping.

Alexis still didn't understand why her brother had joined the Shadow Riders. It just didn't seem to make sense. While Alexis did love her brother she wasn't sure what she would do if she found out that he had joined the Shadow Riders for his own selfish gain.

Ryan stared down at his bandaged hands. He had attempted to remove a piece of the bandages a couple times in order to see what was beneath them, but he would always re-cover his hands before he could see anything.

While a part of him couldn't wait to get the bandages off, there was another part of him that dreaded what was underneath. Ryan looked away every time Nurse Fontaine would change the bandages. He was hoping beyond hope that when the bandages were removed his hands would look fine.

Chazz was dueling a Ra Yellow student. Ever since Camula's defeat Chazz had been testing his skills against any duelist that he could find.

"Armed Dragon LV7 attack him directly." Chazz ordered. Armed Dragon attacked and reduced the boy's life points to 0.

Chazz sighed. He had found every opponent that he had faced so far to be too easy. Chazz wanted to be ready for the next Shadow Rider but he knew that he wasn't going to improve his skills if he carried on dueling weak opponents.

Chazz walked away from the defeated yellow student and hoped to find a worthy opponent.

Bastion was sitting under a tree looking through all of his decks.

'The Shadow Riders have proven to be very skilled duelists. However as long as I am able to keep my mind focused I know I can win.' He thought.

'There are still five Shadow Riders to defeat and we still have five key keepers, so that means that we should be able to defeat one each as long as we don't lose any more duels.' Bastion thought.

As Bastion was flipping through his EARTH deck he came across a card that didn't belong. It was White Magician Pikeru, a LIGHT monster.

'How did this get in here.' Bastion thought.

Bastion put the card in his pocket.

'I need to pay more attention when I build my decks, I can't even make the slightest mistake.' He thought as he stood up and walked back to his dorm.

Little did anyone know the next Shadow Rider was already making her way towards Duel Academy.