Fishy, fishy, fishy, come swim in my sea.

Chapter 1: Demons

Yuma Tsukumo, a boy of 15, was walking behind his friends. He was just below the mean average height for a boy his age, with jet black hair that stuck out at the back, with red bangs which he spiked up. He had scarlet eyes. He was quite. Which was the norm for him now, that was when no one was talking to him. But today was hard for him. It was exactly one year to the day that his extra dimensional other half, Astral, had left. All Yuma had left of Astral was his duelling skills, and a deck that the two had built together. 

Because of the day, his friends were all concerned, especially since Yuma was even quitter then he was normally, having become very subbdued in the time since Astral was gone. The beefy, dark haired, small eyed Bronk was debating duel monsters card decks with the cat like Kathy, and the short, spectacled, bowler hat wearing Flip. Caswell, a boy with blue hair that was in a bowl cut, was talking about the maths class they had just come out of with the green haired, big eyed Tori. Each all the while glancing at Yuma, before looking away, hoping he hadn't noticed them. He did. That was why he was walking behind them. It annoyed him to no end. To hide his annoyance he had his hands in his formal, navy trouser pockets, clenched in fists, and a neutral scowl on his face that he knew that his friend Shark would be proud of. That thought made Yuma smirk slightly.

"You ok Yuma?" Tori asked, having glanced at him just as he had smirked, "You are very quite today. More quite then has become the norm for you."

"I'm fine." Yuma answered his concerned friend with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Are you sure?" Tori asked, not believing him, because his scarlet eyes looked like they were hiding pain.

"Tori, it's the anniversary." Kathy pointed out kindly as the group turned down another corridor heading to the music room for their next class. Tori face palmed, and looked guiltily at Yuma, trying to apologise with her eyes. He hadn't really expected his friends to know the significance of the day, so wasn't surprised by Tori's forgetfulness, even though it wasn't like her at all.

"It's ok Tori." Yuma said kindly, "Just forgive me if I am not exactly being my goofy self." The others smiled at him and they finished their walk to their music class in silence. Yuma felt that the group were doing their best to show respect for Astral leaving them to return to his home dimension. Yuma noticed a group of seven coming down the corridor, going in the opposite direction. He recognised them all immediately. The largest was a man, called Girag, next to him was a dark skinned, dark brown haired boy called Alito. Then their was the silver haired Duman who wore rimless glasses, who was talking to the blonde haired Mizar, who was ignoring the orange haired, crazy eyed Ray, who was also known as Vector. Behind them was a two toned blue haired, scarlet eyed, girl. She was Rio, the sister of the purple haired, blue eyed boy next her. He was Shark. They all waved at each other as the two groups passed. Yuma thought Shark looked annoyed. They must have been heading off to their drama class. Yuma knew Shark hated doing it, and was only doing it for Rio, whose idea it had been in the first place. She had said it would be good if the Barians took the class, so they could act human better, even though she and Shark each had 15 years of experience of living in the human world.

Shark, also noticed that Yuma didn't look happy either, and recalling the date, immediately knew why. He made a mental note to get Yuma alone, hoping to get him to talk.

Entering the classroom, Yuma took his usual seat at the back, next to Bronk. Yuma was looking forward to the distraction. At the end of the last academic year, all the first year students had been told that they would have to pick at least two additional subjects to take going into their second year. Yuma had chosen music, geography and food technology. As had all of his friends, that weren't Barian. Caswell had also opted to take computer sciences.