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

Chapter 20: The truth a friend hides.

Tori was glad that Yuma had Shark to help him in the weeks following Roku's death. She feared what would have happened to her closest friend other wise. But she had noticed that something with Yuma had been off for a little while. She couldn't say what it was, but Yuma seemed different some how. It wasn't that he was happy with Shark. It was something else. Something had changed in Yuma after he had started dating the Barian leader. But she couldn't figure out what, but she suspected that what ever it was, was part of the reason Yuma was now coping so well with Roku's loss, and fed into why Yuma seemed to be less then happy whenever Astral came out of the key. Although the fact that Astral wasn't exactly civil with the Barians did not help matters and could account for Yuma and Astral's now frequent arguments. But she didn't know how to ask Yuma about it. And now it was bothering her.

She was alone with her thoughts in the girls locker room, the day after Roku's funeral. The service had been beautiful, if the attendance had been small. Basically everyone she knew, since Roku had no living family. Yuma's parents had returned from their dig site early for the funeral, and thanked Shark and all the others for being so helpful, since they had all supported both Yuma and Haru and helped prepare the funeral.

She sighed as she shut her locker door and left the locker room and headed towards the school gates. There was last thing that was stuck in her head. What the hell was Proteus? It was clear whatever Proteus was, it was bad and dangerous. It had all the Barians and Yuma on alert. This alertness was contagious, and had spread to Kite, who barely left her alone now, apart from when he was doing his own research on this particular mystery. Kite was being both overbearing and distant at the same time. It annoyed her, and added to the concerns and stress she already had.

"Ok, Tori," the green haired teen whispered to herself walking down a long nearly empty corridor, "one problem at a time. I'll start with Yuma. Since I know I won't get anything from Kite about his behaviour, although I am going to remind him Yuma and I were the only ones to technically live through the Barian and Astral world war. I'm not made of glass."

She turned her thoughts back over the last several months, trying to think of the first instance of Yuma's out of character behaviour. That was easy. April when he'd hit Vector. But for what Vector did, anyone would have hit him. But that incident had bothered her ever since she had found out Yuma had been the one to hit Vector. Yes, the explanation as to how Yuma could have hurt a Barian was sound. But it just didn't satisfy her curious mind any more.

Then there was the fact Yuma seemed to be defending the Barian's more and more, whenever Astral said anything about them. He even seemed to be more toward extreme bad, with similar facial expressions as Vector whenever the extra dimensional being made an appearance. But on a couple occasions she had noticed that both Shark and Yuma would glance at each other, whenever Astral came out to socialise. She could have sworn that Shark looked at Yuma with fear and concern that was quickly hidden, and Yuma would look angry, or just threatened, before settling to look indifferent. Also, Yuma had very recently taken to checking his duelling deck before duelling anyone. She'd even caught Yuma removing a card from his deck once. He'd told her he had too many cards in his deck. But she knew he only played a 40 card deck, like most duellists did. TL;DR Yuma could legally play a couple of extra cards in his deck. And it was this that had her convinced that Yuma was hiding something big.

As she approached the main entrance to the school, she spotted Duman. He'd been absent a lot lately. Yuma had told her it was because of Rio foretelling of the arrival of Proteus. He'd been trying to find out what or who Proteus was, which was typical of the smart and loyal Barian. Maybe he would know something about what was going on with Yuma, since he was Shark's best friend after all.

"Hey, Duman." she called to the silver haired, spectacle wearing Barian. He turned and saw Tori running to catch up with him. He could tell she wanted something.