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[kattobinguneedless]

Timeline of events planned up to the beginning of Season Two.

• Yuuma never comes in contact with the Emperor's Key other than seeing it as a trinket left to him-one of many unpacked artifacts sitting around in the small attic above his bedroom. Eventually after having one too many dreams about the door, and terrified to death of somehow being selected as a target by Shark to duel the next day, he digs out the key and accepts the door's deal in a misguided attempt at suicide. Instead, he's greeted by Number 96, the pull that Yuuma had had towards his despair strengthening the Numbers enough that it was able to take over an Astral who was barely cognizant and had no memories of anything other than dueling. The two make a deal to let Number 96 dictate everything Yuuma does, so long as the boy collects Numbers for him.
• Yuuma defeats Shark in their duel, and obtains Numbers 17. On seeing the boy's fears of suddenly getting attention for this stunt, Black Mist agrees to help Yuuma keep their activities secret in order to gather more Numbers and consolidate their strength. With Black Mist's help, Yuuma's able to intimidate Shark's lackeys into keeping quiet, and the rush of power that he feels during this and the duel itself doesn't go unnoticed by Yuuma, even if he is terrified of it.
• When Ukyo-sensei is taken over by a Numbers and throws the city's network into havoc, Yuuma and Black Mist eventually manage to corner him. Yuuma's devastated by the emotions that Numbers 34 drags out of Ukyo-sensei, and eventually when he does win, finding out that his teacher apparently harbors a hatred for a "useless student" like Yuuma causes the boy to finally give up on any sort of real connection with others in general.
• Despite Yuuma's attempts to keep his Numbers hunting a secret, it doesn't stop Tokunosuke from looking on the flip side of things, and noticing that weird things kept happening with Yuuma being involved-the Shark and Ukyo-sensei incidents being most prominent. His backhanded attempts to lure Yuuma into friendship don't work due to the boy's excessive timidity, but when Black Mist comments on being amused by and interested in Tokunosuke's deceptive antics, a new sort of fear takes over Yuuma. He knows he's the absolute worst choice for Black Mist, and that the being would leave for someone better if he could, and in a sudden fit of boldness, he challenges Tokunosuke in a duel-questioning if the shorter boy would like to see this "flip side" he assumes Yuuma has. Because Yuuma never took Baby Toragon, he's able to avoid the tricks and crush Tokunosuke mercilessly, surprising both Black Mist and Toku with the seemingly uncharacteristic viciousness he's displayed. Yuuma expresses to Black Mist later on that he was reluctant to lose it, since the Numbers was the only thing that let Yuuma do what he's done so far, and Toku eventually starts becoming a hanger-on of Yuuma's, mistakenly believing that Yuuma had been hiding such a vicious flip side for a very long time and clearly was better at hiding it than Toku was.
• Black Mist is more interested in news than late night television shows, as news are more conductive to finding out about any strange situations that might arise due to Numbers possession. As such, Yuuma doesn't meet Fuuya inside the studios-instead, he meets him in the dark, dueling on an empty street devoid of traffic against the ESPer Robin persona that had arisen due to Numbers 83's influence. After taking the Numbers and stopping said persona's vigilante attacks on relatively minor law violations, Yuuma leaves Fuuya alone and confused at the scene of the crime, to deal with whatever fallout happens from a famous child actor indulging in borderline criminal vigilante antics.
• Cathy starts breaking into Yuuma's home to change out his clothes into different "more stylish" ones, but it only takes one incident for the boy to break down into embarrassed tears after being forced to go to school with nothing else to wear. Seeing the target of her affections being visibly upset is enough for her to attempt to fix things, but when Yuuma and Black Mist catch her returning things to his wardrobe they end up dueling her for an explanation. Yuuma catches onto her crush on him due to them being in similar downtrodden circumstances (ignored, dismissed, called weirdos and freaks) and at first thinks about dismissing it. But on remembering how Black Mist considered the now devout Tokunosuke a reasonably useful ally, he wonders if he can do the same with Cathy. Pretending to return her affections, he converts her to his and Black Mist's cause. Much to the school's (and Yuuma's family) surprise, they're an item the next day-albeit not in the manner that they think...
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