The brother frowned and looked at his wrist. Only then did Yugen realize it was not a watch, but an electronic device developed by Kaiba Corporation, its screen flickering rapidly.
"What is that?"
"It detects duel energy," he replied. "And this reaction likely means a Shadow Duel!"
He opened the door and jumped out. After a moment's thought, Yugen followed.
They turned through several narrow alleys, where the black fog grew thicker with each step. Soon, they seemed to hit an invisible barrier ahead. Looking beyond it, there were indeed two people dueling.
One of them was unfamiliar. The other, however, looked oddly recognizable. Rex Raptor?
Why was he in a place like this.
What stood before them was without doubt a Shadow Duel, but as far as Yugen knew, Rex Raptor might be a terrible person yet was usually a proper Duelist. Aside from being tricked by Doma during the Orichalcos Arc, he normally did not touch life-and-death duels like this. That made the scene in front of them feel wrong.
The two sides looked like they had been fighting for a long time, and both fields were completely empty. Their life points were low, and each of them was covered in dust, barely keeping themselves upright while gasping for air. The fog clung to the alley as if it refused to let the duel end.
Rex Raptor, LP 700
Ken Fujimoto, LP 300
The Shadow Duelist Ken Fujimoto caught his breath and said in a low voice, "Worthy of a Legendary Duelist. To push things this far, you really do have some skill."
Then his tone changed, and he shouted, "But I have sworn to use your soul to honor my fallen brother. I will not fall here!"
"I already told you, I have never seen that ghost-whatever brother of yours!" Rex Raptor roared back.
To risk his life over someone he had never even heard of left him more shaken than he had ever been. His head throbbed as the unfairness of it sank in.
"His name is Genichiro Onizuka. Remember it well," Ken Fujimoto yelled. "Because you are about to go to hell and repent to him!"
"I said I have not seen him!" Rex Raptor replied, frustrated.
Is this guy sick or something, he thought. From the start he had only shouted about revenge and refused to listen to a single word. If he really died in such a meaningless card duel, Rex Raptor felt he would never rest in peace.
Yugen fell silent when he heard that name.
Genichiro Onizuka. It sounded very familiar.
Thinking back, the guy who had blocked his way that night and insisted on dueling him had said he was originally going to challenge Rex Raptor. He had changed his mind after seeing Rex Raptor get crushed in a match and came after someone else instead. Could it really be that much of a coincidence?
Just then, a loud roar came from above, followed by flying dust and a surge of wind. Yugen raised his arm to shield his face and looked up, only to see a white helicopter sweeping overhead and descending toward the nearest street at the end of the alley. The spinning blades cut through the air, creating a violent gale like a massive creature turning in the sky.
While still in midair, the cabin door slid open, and a figure leapt down. The long coat flared like a cloak as the person dropped. He landed in a dramatic crouch, then stood with his arms crossed as the coat snapped loudly in the wind.
Even the two who were locked in a deadly duel were drawn to the spectacle, both showing clear shock. The alley seemed to freeze for a moment.
Rex Raptor said, "It is you!?"
Ken Fujimoto turned pale. "Legendary Duelist… Seto Kaiba!?"
Yugen said nothing.
Showing up at a card duel like a superhero was already absurd enough. Surviving a jump from that height without injury was even harder to understand. Was playing cards supposed to turn people into superhumans now?
"Brother!"
Mokuba Kaiba hurried to his brother's side and pointed at Ken Fujimoto in the field. "That man. The sensors show he is the source of the Shadow Duel."
Ken Fujimoto fell silent.
He really wanted to say it was not him and that they had the wrong person. But being caught like this left him with very little room to argue.
"This stupid duel ends here," Seto Kaiba said coldly as he stepped forward.
"Bullying weaklings proves nothing. If you want to play, I will play with you."
"You calling me a weakling!?" Rex Raptor shouted in anger.
Seto Kaiba ignored him completely.
Ken Fujimoto swallowed hard. Challenging Rex Raptor was one thing, but standing in front of Seto Kaiba was something else entirely. Everyone knew Seto Kaiba favored Blue-Eyes White Dragon, yet it had been many years since his last public duel.
People had not seen him act in a long time, but they all knew his top research teams never stopped developing new forms for the White Dragon. No one could guess how terrifying those printed cards had become by now.
"Heh heh."
Ken Fujimoto decided to stall for time.
"Fine, fine. I have wanted to test the power of Blue-Eyes White Dragon myself. But once a Shadow Duel starts, it cannot be stopped. Let me finish off Rex Raptor first."
"No need," Seto Kaiba said.
He raised the Duel Disk in his hand.
Only then did everyone notice that the Duel Disk he wore was not a standard model. It was clearly a more advanced, high-end device, something custom-made and not available on the market. The pose and the design suddenly made Yugen feel a strange sense of familiarity.
In The Dark Side of Dimensions, the villain had tried to skip dueling and send Seto Kaiba himself to another dimension. Back then, Seto Kaiba had raised his Duel Disk in a similar pose, claiming it amplified his self-awareness through technology to counter supernatural power. The device in his hand now looked very much like that, and it was releasing a dazzling light.
"I do not know what you are trying to do," Ken Fujimoto said with a frown. "But I told you, once a Shadow Duel begins, it cannot be stopped. Unless…"
Nani?!!?
The Shadow Duelist stared so hard it looked like his eyes might pop out. The barrier of the Shadow Duel was melting under that light.
Impossible. This made no sense.
Ken Fujimoto was completely shaken. He was supposed to be a man who wielded dark power. Was it not said that the age had changed, that mysticism ruled and science had fallen behind? Why could something like this still happen?
Yugen was also seeing such a scene for the first time, yet he stayed calm. In the world of Yu-Gi-Oh!, dueling might be supreme, but that did not mean technology had been discarded. Even in other eras, science had proven capable of making Duel Monsters real and producing effects similar to a Shadow Duel, or even worse.
Seto Kaiba had suffered under supernatural forces for years and never stopped trying to break mysticism with technology. Eight more years passing and achieving a breakthrough was only natural.
"This is the newest Duel Disk developed by Kaiba Corporation," Seto Kaiba said with a cold laugh. "It greatly amplifies a Duelist's mental energy and was made specifically to deal with people like you."
"And it can also do this."