"Vampire? Marufuji Shou took her down?" Youyu was a bit surprised when he received the call from Chinai.
The second member of the Seven Stars, that vampire named Camilla, wasn't she quite formidable in the original work? She had taken down Cronos and Marufuji Ryo, albeit by playing dirty, but now she's been pinned down by Marufuji Shou?
"Yes, that kid is quite a surprise," Chinai said. "She's been captured by the academy now."
That's good to hear. Youyu had spent so much effort arranging for a bunch of silly players to conduct one-on-one teaching, all to make sure this useless group from GX could be somewhat useful and not drag Judai down!
If everything still required Judai to handle personally just like in the original, then all his efforts would be in vain.
However, for some reason, Camilla didn't seem to initiate any "soul-claiming Dark Games" this time. Fortunately, she was unharmed and merely captured alive.
"Originally, the school planned to hand her over to the relevant authorities, but she insisted on seeing you no matter what," Chinai said, "So after some discussion, the school decided to wait for you to return before taking further action."
Due to the unique nature of Dark Duelists, many possess extraordinary powers, and some—like Camilla—aren't even human.
So, for some duelists who misuse their abilities, government agencies have set up special prisons with the help of the Kaiba Group to detain such criminals.
It's somewhat similar to the four supervillain prisons over at the neighboring Shield. But while for supervillains, you have to come up with black tech to seal their powers, for Dark Duelists it's much simpler; take away their card deck, and usually, they're done for...
Seeing Marufuji Shou finally being useful made Youyu feel quite relieved; perhaps it showed that his strategy of one-on-one tutoring was indeed effective.
If the following teaching results are also satisfactory, he might consider recruiting a second batch of players to become instructors. If possible, he hopes the entire academy's students will significantly improve, so if they encounter an event like the original "Other Dimension Arc" where the entire school is dragged into the eye of the storm, at least everyone would have self-preservation abilities.
But that's something to consider later.
While the Seven Stars organization keeps a close eye on the academy, perhaps they're pondering how to bypass Youyu, this huge trouble. But that's just them overestimating themselves.
Youyu never planned to bother with them from the start.
The students at the academy will inevitably encounter real battles sooner or later—not the usual playful card games, but actual Dark Duels with real damage.
No matter how many techniques you teach them or how much you optimize their card decks, in this world, that's just paper strength. A duelist can only forge true power through real combat.
In Youyu's view, the Seven Stars makes for excellent experience packs. They're not too strong, not too absurd for the students to handle, yet they are genuine Dark Duelists—a perfect practice punching bag.
In the original, Judai easily handled the Seven Stars, so there's no reason for things to fail here.
Among them, only the leader of the Seven Stars, the Alchemist Daitokuji, is a true expert—not surprisingly, that's the teacher at the academy. He's actually a subordinate of President Kagemaru and the leader of the Seven Stars.
However, Youyu never exposed Daitokuji's identity nor planned to trouble him.
Firstly, because he knows Daitokuji is actually on his side; in the original, the teacher ultimately entrusted hope to Judai, asking him to stop President Kagemaru's plot. It's clear he highly regards and cares for Judai, even entrusting him with the Ultimate Divine Artifact, "Philosopher's Stone," which he spent his life searching for.
That's also Youyu's second reason for not revealing his identity—because of that "Philosopher's Stone."
Teacher Daitokuji originally had a terminal illness and was on the brink of death. His current body was crafted through forbidden alchemy. But even this artificial body is nearing its limits, and he might not last much longer.
As long as he lets the plot unfold normally, Daitokuji will soon entrust that powerful yet unreasonable fake card, the "Philosopher's Stone," to his favorite student, Yuki Judai.
So yes, to be honest, Youyu just wants that absurdly powerful fake card...
"I'm craving his card, honestly." [Image: Plain honesty]
In the original, the Seven Stars had one member defeated by Manjome, one by Asuka, and Judai took down five, highlighting a "big brother wipes them out" theme.
But now the first two of the Seven Stars have already been dealt with by Asuka and Marufuji Shou, and Judai hasn't even had a chance to make a move.
Watching others bet their life cards passionately while he's just on the sidelines, Judai's really itching to get into action now, wishing he could immediately grab a Dark Duelist to battle three hundred rounds.
If things keep progressing like this, there's a chance he won't even get a single opponent before the climax, with all the Seven Stars' heads taken by his teammates!
Compared to the not-so-threatening Seven Stars, Youyu has more crucial matters to attend to.
After pressuring the D Department through Kaiba Company for days, attempting to reveal details about the mission from the disappearance of Hibiki Koyo, progress isn't going smoothly.
The department head, Fujino, is very polite, especially enthusiastic when hosting President Kaiba. However, Youyu quickly suspected that the officer might be more interested in the act of "haggling" with the president, because the conversation yielded no useful information.
It all boiled down to one word: classified.
Youyu thought they could keep this up for a year and still not get anything, hence he decided to take the initiative.
He plans to hack into the D Department's server directly.
However, like in many movies, it's tough to do this from the outside. He must infiltrate the agency's headquarters with the Kaiba Group's terminal device given by Mokuba, and connect it to the server via a wired method so Mokuba can hack in.
Of course, such operations typically require elite specialists, professional agents, or spies, or even people with rooftop-jumping superpowers.
Evidently, Youyu has no such abilities. After all, he's just a card player—might be unbeatable in dueling, but sneaky infiltration is too challenging for him.
Plus, with his charisma, even if he covered himself from head to toe, he couldn't hide his aura. Definitely not suited for stealth. With military gear, he'd undeniably be the most striking guy on the team, unable to avoid attention.
Fortunately, it's not something he needs to handle personally.
The mission is simple after all—just sneak into the server room with the terminal device and connect it, with no technical work required.
So Youyu entrusts this glorious mission to his spirit, Masked Hero Dark Claw.
For some reason, he felt that Dark Claw's all-black armor exudes a "dark evil" vibe despite being a Hero, making him seem naturally adept at stealth.
Dark Claw indeed didn't disappoint him; this Masked Hero skillfully bypassed all sentries with his exceptional physical abilities and experience, smoothly sneaking into the server room, connecting the device to the server.
Mokuba sat at the computer, eager to showcase his top-notch computer skills to Youyu.
And indeed, even though Kaiba Company's firewall is like a public restroom—anyone enters and exits freely—the Kaiba brothers' computer skills in timely repairs are still impressive.
Mokuba easily bypassed the security protocols and hacked in... then his expression turned somewhat stiff.
"What? Got caught?" Youyu leaned in from behind.
"...No, there's one last security lock in the system," Mokuba's expression was a bit odd.
"Can't crack it?"
"Not exactly...," Mokuba sighed, looking at Youyu, "The only way to bypass this layer of defense... requires a duel..."
Youyu: "..."
Alright then, that's definitely very Yu-Gi-Oh.