Chapter 115: Alexis’s Eyes Tremble in Shock

If the dark masked spirit calling itself Darkness, now sealed away as it was, could have heard the commentary running through Rowan's head, it would probably have been furious enough to claw its way back to life.

Never mind that someone had spent an entire duel tormenting it. Now that it was sealed away, what power did it possibly have left to send anyone back to their cabin?

"Rowan, where exactly are we right now...?"

Just as Rowan finished his little grumble, Alexis stirred from her half-conscious daze, opening her eyes and glancing around in confusion, turning to ask him. But in the next instant she went red, suddenly realizing that she was leaning against him, their faces far closer together than she'd expected.

She stiffened at once, then quickly straightened up and composed herself as if she hadn't noticed a thing, picking back up the question she'd started.

"Are we out of the volcano now? And everyone else?"

She glanced around as she spoke, partly to take stock of their surroundings, and partly to keep Rowan from noticing what had just happened.

"Jaden, Syrus, and Chumley are probably somewhere nearby too."

Rowan, for his part, hadn't paid the least attention to that small moment, and he likewise looked around to get his bearings. The sky had grown faintly lighter by now, a natural side effect of how time flowed differently inside a Shadow Duel's ritual space. So even without a flashlight, it wasn't hard for him to make out the surroundings.

Before long, he and Alexis spotted Jaden, Syrus, and Chumley lying beside a nearby rock, fast asleep and snoring away.

"These three really do have nerves of steel..."

Rowan couldn't help an eyebrow twitch as he said it. A moment ago they'd been hostages with their lives on the line, and the very next moment, teleported straight out of danger, they were already asleep.

"They really are remarkably carefree, those three," Alexis said beside him, laughing a little.

Then her gaze quickly drifted to something else nearby. Not far from Jaden and the others lay another unconscious figure, dressed in a black coat. Beside him, a card giving off a faint aura of darkness lay face-down on the ground. Unmistakably the same blank monster card Darkness had held earlier, the one capable of sealing away the soul of whoever lost the Shadow Duel.

"Rowan, you mentioned before that this person might have some connection to my brother..."

Alexis suddenly remembered what Rowan had said to her before the duel began, her voice a little hesitant, as if trying to hide something. A complicated tangle of feelings clearly welled up inside her, fear and anticipation both, at being this close to the truth. Afraid that whatever she found out would disappoint her, and yet unable to help the excitement at possibly being on the verge of a clue to her missing brother.

"Come take a look with me. That should tell us pretty much everything."

Rowan smiled and gestured for her to follow, then walked over first. Alexis clenched her slightly sweaty palm for a moment before following close behind, stepping past the still soundly sleeping trio of Jaden and his hotblooded fellow academic disasters, until they reached the unconscious figure in black.

Rowan picked up the card giving off that faint dark aura from the ground and turned it face-up. Sure enough, what had once been a blank card now bore the image of a black dragon hatchling's mask, bound in chains.

"Is this Darkness's soul, sealed into the card? But how could a person's soul look like a mask?"

Alexis looked equally startled at the sight, her voice a little unsteady. At the same time, she glanced curiously at the half-sprawled, unconscious figure beside them, its face still hidden.

"From the very start of the duel, I could sense there was another dark spirit temporarily controlling the body of the Seven Stars Shadow Duelist I was facing."

Rowan didn't seem the least bit surprised by Alexis's shock. If anything, he studied the black dragon hatchling mask on the card in his hand with open curiosity, rubbing his chin as he spoke.

"The one I was really dueling against, back then, was the malevolent power and the broken fragment of a soul housed inside that mask. And this unconscious Seven Stars Shadow Duelist here was just the half-willing vessel caught up in its influence."

As he spoke, Rowan turned to look at the unconscious, black-coated figure sprawled beside them. Then he crouched down, reached out, and gently turned the man's face toward them so Alexis could get a proper look.

The mask that had covered his face was gone now. As Rowan tilted the man's face upward, half of it came into view, and it was a face Alexis recognized instantly.

"This Seven Stars Shadow Duelist is... my brother!"

...

The moment she saw that face, Alexis clapped a hand over her mouth in shock, her eyes trembling as she took in the sight, a small broken cry escaping her.

She'd half-suspected this might be the case, ever since Rowan's warning before the duel. But once she'd seen him dueling with a Red-Eyes Black Dragon deck, she'd talked herself out of the idea entirely. Her brother, Atticus Rhodes, was the kind of duelist who loved flashy, theatrical Spell and Trap cards paired with decks to match. She'd never imagined this could actually be true.

But with what Rowan had just told her, about the power and the soul housed in that dark mask, Alexis could hardly fail to piece together what must have happened, and why.

"Rowan! Alexis! Are you two alright?!"

A familiar voice suddenly rang out from a distance. Bastion Misawa, Chazz, and Kaiser Zane came hurrying over, as if they'd somehow sensed what was happening here. They reached the group quickly.

"The Spirit Key we're holding started vibrating in the middle of the night, like it sensed something, and it's been pointing us this way," Bastion said as soon as he arrived, explaining to Rowan. Then his attention landed on the ground beside Rowan and Alexis, on the unfamiliar, unconscious figure in black.

"So there really is a Seven Stars Shadow Duelist out here after all!"