Scene 7.

[Duel Academy, Infirmary, Room #4. Sunday, 10/16/2004, Morning].

"... A-are all the things you had with you that day here, I think?"

Those were the somewhat stuttered words of the young nurse assigned to me this morning. Her name was Mikuni Ran, and she had replaced the older nurse who had attended to me yesterday, or at least until I was transferred to this room. She wore the typical blue uniform of her profession, had gray eyes, long black hair tied in two short braids, a small face, rosy freckled cheeks, pale skin, short stature, and, ultimately, although she had confessed it to me two hours ago, it was quite clear at first glance that she was fairly new to the job. She was extremely clumsy, constantly apologizing for every mistake she made, and when I asked her anything, anything at all, she would go blank and start mumbling her thoughts on the subject without stopping. Frankly, the girl was cringe-worthy in everything she did, though I would never tell her or let it show on my face, no way.

"Thank you."

It was my attempt to offer a short and simple response, just in case the girl complicated things with some misunderstanding out of nowhere, and consequently, made the same with my life, which, given her clumsiness, wouldn't be unusual.

"W-Well, now that you have all your things, I'll go have breakfast. I-I'll be right back, okay?"

I nodded calmly at Ran's words. Subsequently, she left the room heading to the infirmary's cafeteria. A sigh of relief escaped my lips with her departure.

"Ugh."

Honestly, it wasn't just Ran's presence that got on my nerves, but essentially everything around me. No matter how much time I had in the form of memories of this place's Ryuto, it just felt too strange to see the world in two dimensions, something extremely unnatural after a while in this reality. In addition, interacting with people had never been my strong suit, and even in this world, that was still the case. Considering all the circumstances I found myself in, it was a miracle I hadn't exploded yet.

"No. Enough of self-pity. I can't keep finding excuses to do nothing."

I shook my head, gritting my teeth, furious, denying the complaints I had started accumulating due to the constant stress of being in this place. It made no sense to lose my cool right now; it was insignificant for my ultimate goal. I was fully aware that if I kept trying to justify every little thing that frustrated me, I would end up lost in my own laziness, and that would kill me.

Later, I shifted my gaze to the things in my hands: a complete set of Red Osiris uniform, a standard dueling disc from the academy, a gray bag with my school supplies, and finally, a deck of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, or Duel Monsters, as it was called in this reality, a terminology I should probably engrave in my vocabulary for future interactions. In the bag were all the things I remembered from my new memories; nothing was missing, or at least, that's what I wanted to believe, because strangely, it felt heavier than it should. So, intrigued, I turned it over on my lap to empty the rest of the contents that I might have overlooked in the quick first check. Consequently, and to finally confirm my suspicions, two objects, one elongated rectangular and the other square entangled in a cable, fell out of the bag along with the rest of my books and school supplies.

"Uh?"

When I finally realized what objects these were, doubt made me blink a couple of times.

"What is this doing here...?"

Currently, in my hands, there was a black Apple smartphone with a worn-out cover and a visibly cracked corner of the protector. Meanwhile, on my lap, the charger for the smartphone was resting haphazardly. Naturally, I didn't pay much attention to the latter at that moment. My attention was mainly on my phone.

"... Here?"

The reason for my earlier surprise was that it was undoubtedly my phone from the other reality, except it appeared in two dimensions instead of the three I was used to, but it was my phone, I could feel it in my bones.

Subsequently, I turned on the phone in question. Then I entered the password and finally unlocked the screen, confirming my earlier suspicion. A video started playing as soon as I completed my last action.

"Sailing my sea! Yeah never say die gotta go! Go!...".

I quickly noticed that the video belonged to an anime and that the anime began with a song that, although I didn't recognize immediately, based on the images that were following one after the other, made me realize which anime it was.

"This is..."

It was the anime Yu-Gi-Oh GX, or at least, an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh GX, the same reality I was in. Based on the memories of this world, I could easily recognize some of the people appearing in the video: Yūki Juddai, Marafuji Shō, Maeda Hayato, among others. People that the Ryuto of this reality saw in his daily life constantly.

"But how...? No, no. It's better not to dwell on this."

Controlling my breathing, I decided it wasn't wise to overanalyze how my phone had made the journey with me from one reality to another and had such videos inside. I would only end up half-crazy and without reaching anything remotely close to a satisfying answer in the end. I might as well take advantage of the opportunity presented to me in the whole matter, even though paranoia certainly made me shudder at all the possible implications behind my situation.

So, trying to avoid getting lost in fear, I paused the video and then took a deep breath.

"Hmm."

Then, once I was somewhat calmer, I subtly looked around to see if there was anyone nearby.

"..."

After confirming that there was no one around me, I proceeded to carefully check what other surprises my old phone had in store for me.

"Uh? Is it broken...?"

Pressing the triangular-shaped button labeled "back," I encountered the problem that I couldn't exit the video section of my phone. Thinking that maybe the device had somehow locked up, I turned it off and then turned it back on, but unfortunately, the problem persisted unchanged. Even when I restarted it several times, everything remained the same. Consequently, I could only resign myself to examine what little I had at that very moment, which wasn't much, in fact.

"Hmm, these don't work."

In the video section of my phone, there were only three videos that I could play without any issues, all of them, obviously, from the Yu-Gi-Oh GX anime. Besides these videos, there were hundreds of other videos of the same anime, but for some strange reason, when I tried to open them, I received a notification that prevented me from playing the corresponding video, a notification that read, "Corrupt file, unable to play" every time.

"Ugh."

After another sigh of frustration and as I had nothing more important to do at this precise moment, I decided to play the first of the three viewable videos in its entirety. The same song as before followed my action.