Interlude - Internet Discovery

                                    

                                          
2/28/19

                          
Asuka stared down at the report in her hands with wide-eyes, reaching for her phone without looking and dialing a number quickly. While it rang, she read through the report as fast as she could, barely able to believe what she was reading every other paragraph.

                          
"Asuka?" A voice rang out through the phone, finally having picked up, "What's up? You don't usually call me-"

                          
"Jun, Judai's back."
                          
He made a choked noise in response, shock lacing his voice, "W-what? Did you just say that-"
                          
"Judai's back," she stressed, "I'm one-hundred percent sure of it. I'll explain in the group chat in a few moments, but right now? You're the one that has access to government databases, find him." She heard the sounds of a keyboard being pressed at frightening speeds; the lack of response from her husband was quite telling about how serious this was to him... and all of them, really.

                          
"Holy shit, he's in the system. I don't know how but he's in the system," Jun stated, "Goddammit, of course he's in the fucking system, it's Judai - that idiot gets away with fucking everything!"
                          
"What? What do you mean?" Asuka asked, finishing the report and flipping back to the first page so she could re-read it.
                          
"His entire profile got changed! I still have copies of what it was before, but now it's like he never was gone in the first place! Hell, whoever did this covered every single fucking base possible - date of birth, age, status, proper graduation papers for a different year of Duel Academy, you name it and if you hadn't already known what it was before you'd never be able to tell."
                          
Asuka paused at that, thinking for a moment before frowning and asking, "What's it say his age is?"
                          
"Twenty-two."
                          
That number sounded familiar... she did the math in her head, thinking about the year that he completely fell out of contact with everyone. That had been how long ago? A little less than twenty years, right? If everyone was in their early forties then that would mean... time travel?

                          
She sucked in a breath through her teeth at the realization, and to be honest she wouldn't put it past Judai to be able to figure out how to do such a thing. To actually go through with it, though?
                          
Well, now she was just worried; it didn't seem like something he would do voluntarily, so maybe he was forced to? Gah, all this speculation was going to give her a headache.
                          
"And does it have a current home address?"
                          
"Yeah, it does. Hold on, I'll look it up and see if it tells us anything..."
                          
"Alright, you do that. I'm going to go in the group chat now and let everyone know - see if you can find out any other information while you're at it, if you do then post it," she replied, get a determined hum of agreement back before she hung up and got to texting, uploading a PDF version of her student's essay to show how she knew.
                          
Speaking of said student, she'd have to talk with Akiza later and see what exactly she knew - had she been in contact with him somehow? Wait no, that was a stupid question - there's no way she could've gotten most of that information without the man himself telling her it. Regardless, it was a good essay, and she quickly jotted down an A as her score so she wouldn't forget later.
                          
She got replies almost immediately, with everyone freaking out and then quickly starting to discuss how to drag him out of wherever he was hiding so they could roast his ass for disappearing on them. Hilariously enough, Johan was the one who first voiced his thoughts about giving him a good tongue lashing, though everyone was quick to share the sentiment.
                          
At this point Jun had joined the chat, uploading a plethora of information and pictures that completely silenced everyone for a long while as they went through it all.
                          
And then Sho found a video of Judai dueling in a very public tournament, and they went into an uproar again, resulting in them all moving onto computers so they could video call each other and share a screen.

                          
"That's definitely the idiot," Jun muttered, his arms crossed as they all watched the video together, "Has the stupid Winged Kuriboh and heroes and everything."
                          
"How the hell did we miss this? He's literally been in the public eye since New Year's, we should've known by now!" Sho despaired, fiddling with his glasses while trying to soothe his nerves.
                          
"Hey Asuka, you see what I see in the recommended list?" Johan asked, a wide grin taking up his face now that he'd had a bit of time to process that his best friend was still alive; clearly his desire to lecture Judai to hell and back had been beaten out by this simple fact, though Asuka was still very much looking forward to joining him when it inevitably happened later.
                          
For the moment though, she looked through the side bar and almost immediately found the video he was talking about. It took a moment to process the title and thumbnail, but when she finally did she realized why Johan's smile seemed to be threatening to split his face in half.
                          
'TheSupremeHERO and StarSavior Meme Compilation (DDOnline)' was the title, and the thumbnail... oh man, the thumbnail.
                          
She clicked on it quickly, interrupting the last part of the tournament video they'd been watching. Edo and Kenzan started to complain before trailing off with wide-eyes, watching the new video with just as much interest as the rest of them.
                          
"You know, I'm not even surprised at this point," Johan laughed, taking in the vast amount of photos people had taken and layered jokes on top of from the game, "It's Judai after all, of course he'd be able to make friends with Yusei Fudo of all people."
                          
"They're clearly more than friends, Johan," Edo snorted, raising an eyebrow at the camera, "Do you even have eyes?"
                          
"...Wait a minute, hold on," Jun interrupted, eyes narrowing as he started typing away.
                          
"What's up?" Asuka asked, looking curiously at him. Everyone watched on with growing interest as his face suddenly did a weird twitch, staring at his screen in amusement.
                          
"I knew that address was familiar!" Jun smirked, slamming his hands down on the desk, "He's living with Yusei Fudo, Crow Hogan, and that fucking Jack-ass Atlas!"
                          
"Damn, how the hell did he end up there?" Edo whistled, "Man, that must be one... interesting time living in that apartment."
                          
Asuka blinked, putting the pieces together and sighing - at least that cleared up how Akiza knew Judai. Being her teacher, she'd been privy to the fact that she was a Signer because it had affected her education, which was part of the reason why she was even in her class in the first place - extra credits that also happened to look good, because she'd missed out on a lot of stuff while having to perform her duties. Of course, she couldn't be faulted for it and was accommodated accordingly because it wasn't something she could help at all.
                          
"Well, I say we start planning on... meeting him," she said, causing everyone to get a gleam in their eyes.
                          
It was time to plan.