Chapter 204: Showdown with Team 5D's! My Teammate Is a Middle-Aged Kaiba Seto?
The anime episode everyone had watched together just last night, and today the Duel Chronicle had randomly landed on the WRGP Riding Duel Tournament arc.
The feeling was somewhere between a lucky guess and a prophecy fulfilled. And the expression on Rin Seiya's face made it unmistakable. The starlight that always lived in her eyes had intensified to the point of overflow.
"The Chronicle actually landed on 5D's! I must be dreaming. Are we going to New Domino City?"
Rin Seiya had already unlocked several 5D's Chronicles herself through her card connections. But from what she knew, most people's Chronicles were simple: the Eva system provided a brief background briefing, one duel took place, and it was over.
Amano's Chronicles were different.
She had experienced it herself during the previous trip. When Amano opened a Chronicle, the virtual world system committed fully to the reconstruction. A real, breathing world from three thousand years ago, rendered with genuine depth. She had even managed to duel Kaiba Chiaki inside one of them.
Would this New Domino City be open to exploration in the same way?
The thought nearly brought her to tears.
The city she had admired from the time she was small, made real and fully accessible. That qualified as a dream coming true.
"Let's go, little junior! I can't wait any longer!"
Rin Seiya was already pushing for the start while Amano stood at the Chronicle interface, still running through the situation and thinking about deck adjustments.
She had not looked at the difficulty rating yet.
Difficulty: S Plus.
This was almost certainly the hardest Chronicle Amano had attempted. The previous two, Aster Phoenix and Kaiba Seto, had come in at A Plus. This one had jumped directly to S Plus.
Looking at the title and the potential drop cards, Amano had a reasonable guess about who the opponent was going to be. The card pack pointed directly to everyone's favorite crash king, Jack Atlas.
The S Plus rating did not mean Jack was stronger than Aster or Kaiba in absolute terms. It was a question of era.
The previous two Chronicles had matched him against early-era opponents. An early Aster who had only just acquired his Destiny HERO lineup, and an early Kaiba who was just entering the Battle City format. This time, the WRGP arc was firmly late-series 5D's. The Jack Atlas waiting across the track was the complete, fully evolved version, the Jack who had awakened his Burning Soul and mastered the Red Dragon Archfiend dual Synchro chain. KING at his peak.
"What, scared?"
Kaiba Chiaki had not lost her composure the way Rin Seiya had. She had caught the S Plus rating immediately.
"If the difficulty feels too high, go back and adjust your deck first. Come back when you're ready."
Preparing a specific deck to clear a Chronicle was something Chiaki knew well. It was not a shameful move.
Even if it had never actually worked for her.
"No. We go in now."
It was already Thursday. If this attempt failed, there was still time to retry before the week was out.
Running a Chronicle more than once was also something Chiaki was very familiar with.
Besides, adjusting the deck was not the primary thing on Amano's mind right now. He had something he wanted to know much more.
Did this Chronicle have a completely different identity waiting for him inside, the way the others had?
And since the WRGP was a three-on-one relay team format, the opponent was Team 5D's led by Yusei Fudo. What team was Amano part of? And who were his two teammates?
None of those questions could be answered without going in.
"Starting." Amano hit the confirm button.
The next instant, all five people in the virtual world pod lost their footing and fell toward another world.
In the darkness, the Chronicle's "memory" surfaced in Amano's mind as a stream of background data.
You are Amano Rei, a resident of New Domino City's upper district. You grew up in comfortable circumstances and have wanted for nothing.
Your greatest dream has always been to become the strongest Riding Duelist. Toward that goal you devoted yourself to the craft from a young age and became a Riding Duelist early.
To defeat the reigning Riding Duel champion Jack Atlas, you entered the Fortune Cup tournament.
One evening, the twins Rua and Ruka from next door knocked on your door. They had found an injured man unconscious on their doorstep, his face bearing the mark of a criminal convict. With their parents away from home, the two children came to you for help.
Despite the convict's mark, your instincts told you he was not a bad person. You took him in.
When the man woke, he told you his name was Fudo Yusei and that he had come from the Satellite district. Through a series of circumstances, he had fled to the upper district, been injured, and lost consciousness. He was deeply grateful for your help.
From that point, the gears of fate began to turn.
Yusei told you about his history with Jack. Together, you both entered the Fortune Cup tournament.
However, before the tournament began, Yusei was ambushed by the Dark Signer Kiryu and was too injured to compete.
You inherited Yusei's Stardust Dragon. Fighting through the Fortune Cup round by round, you faced Jack Atlas in the final and won through the combined force of your own Red Dragon Archfiend and the inherited Stardust Dragon.
Because you wielded Red Dragon Archfiend as he did, the world called you the second KING. New Domino City entered the era of Dual Kings.
After that, you fought alongside Yusei, Jack, and Crow against the Dark Signers, defeated the strongest Earthbound God, and exposed Director Goodwin.
Throughout those events, you and Yusei's group built a bond that sat somewhere between rivalry and friendship. Especially Jack Atlas, who accepted you as a worthy opponent and began speaking constantly about reclaiming the title of sole King by defeating you in a proper battle.
Then the WRGP Riding Duel Tournament opened. Yusei extended an invitation for you to join his team. You declined.
You wanted one final clash with Yusei and Jack on the greatest stage possible, with nothing held back.
Given the reputation your KING title carried, teams lined up to recruit you. Your choice ultimately fell on an invitation from Kaiba Corporation.
The first candidate was a duelist named Seto Kaiba, a legendary figure who had reportedly not touched a deck in nearly twenty years, choosing the WRGP as the occasion for his return.
The second was a duelist named Jaden Yuki. Neither he nor Kaiba had appeared in a sanctioned tournament in the past decade. But something like a pull of fate convinced you to accept.
The three of you, Amano Rei, Jaden Yuki, and Seto Kaiba, formed Team KCzero and entered the WRGP.
Two duelists with no recent competitive record in a decade somehow moved with breathtaking skill, and the coordination between you three was seamless. Team KCzero swept through the field as a dark horse and arrived at the semi-finals, where you encountered Yusei's Team 5D's.
Before the match, Jack Atlas issued his declaration. As the respective team openers, only one King of Kings would remain standing at the end.
Chronicle clear condition: Defeat Jack Atlas as your team's opening fighter.
Chronicle hidden reward condition: ???
That was the longest background memory injection Amano had ever received from a Chronicle. 5D's was late-series, which explained the depth.
And it had reset his identity again, as always. Battle City era, he had been a student. GX era, still a student. 5D's era, apparently still student age.
The backstory started on familiar ground, sticking close to the actual Fortune Cup and Dark Signer arcs. Reasonable enough.
Then it turned strange.
His teammates were Jaden Yuki and Seto Kaiba?
Was that right?
He was hazy on the specifics, but he recalled analyses suggesting 5D's took place roughly twenty years after GX. If Jaden had been sixteen in GX, that put him in his mid-thirties now. Kaiba Seto was over forty. Two men who had been completely absent from competitive dueling for the better part of a decade.
Why would they form a team with him specifically?
And both of them used Fusion Summoning. How were either of them still functional competitors in the Synchro Summoning era of Riding Duels, let alone dominant enough to put Team KCzero in the semi-finals?
Before he could finish processing the information overload, the Chronicle's ground solidified under his feet and a hand landed on his shoulder.
"What's the matter, Rei? You've been spacing out. Don't tell me you're actually nervous facing Jack Atlas?"
He turned.
The man standing there had the same unmistakable energy. The face had changed somewhat with age, but looking at him honestly, Amano could not say mid-thirties Jaden felt all that different from the Jaden at Duel Academy.
"Jaden?"
"What's with the look?" Jaden let go of the shoulder and tilted his head. "Something wrong, Rei?"
"Nothing. Something unrelated crossed my mind."
To stay in line with the Chronicle's established backstory and keep the scripted events on track, Amano stopped short of mentioning that he had actually met Jaden before, in an entirely different arc.
Jaden took a step back and noticed the two additional people in the room.
Two of them, specifically.
Only Kikawayu and Chiaki had made the crossing with Amano to the waiting room. Sakuya and Rin Seiya had been routed elsewhere, deposited directly into the spectator stands.
Sakuya did not mind. As long as she could see Amano's duel, the spectator stands offered a perfectly adequate view.
Rin Seiya was practically vibrating with excitement. Even the spectator stands counted. This was New Domino City, the city she had dreamed of since childhood. And she was about to watch the real Yusei and the rest of Team 5D's walk out with her own eyes.
"Rei, when did these two come in?" Jaden asked.
"Friends from school. They wanted a better view of the match, so I brought them along."
Three Chronicles in and the lie came out reflexively.
"School friends." Jaden smiled at the thought. "Ha. Suddenly makes me think of my own school days. If they're Rei's friends, they can stay. Watch whatever you want."
Only in that one brief moment did the difference between this thirty-something Jaden and the teenager at Duel Academy actually register for Amano.
"Jaden Yuki..." Kikawayu stared at the man who had just been draping himself across Amano's shoulder, something complicated moving behind the expression.
He was being too familiar. Calling Rei by first name without hesitation, shoulder contact on reflex. The same feeling as watching him in the livestreamed Chronicle before. Every time this particular man showed up, Kikawayu noticed an uncomfortable stirring somewhere under the surface.
For now, there was nothing to do but maintain the polite nod and force a harmless smile.
The waiting room door swung open.
A man in a silver trench coat stepped inside with unhurried, deliberate strides.
"Oh, the chairman's back." Jaden raised a hand in greeting.
Amano turned again.
Seto Kaiba. Or more precisely, a middle-aged Seto Kaiba.
Compared to Jaden, the decade or two of additional years on Kaiba were more perceptible. There was a settled quality about him, a different kind of weight than the young man who had once bellowed about being the strongest with absolute certainty.
The years had not left many obvious marks though. Having money probably helped with that.
"The order stays the same as before. Amano Rei opens, Jaden Yuki takes second position, I close out." No pleasantries, no preamble. Kaiba walked in and immediately moved to logistics.
"Don't worry, same as every round. We'll wrap this one up easy." Jaden sounded completely untroubled.
"These opponents are different from what we've faced before. Complacency will cost us." Kaiba's warning was measured and entirely level. "Focus, Jaden Yuki."
This was not the version of Seto Kaiba who had once stood on a blimp roof screaming about being invincible. The change was striking enough that Amano found himself mildly startled.
"Seto Kaiba..." Chiaki's expression was doing something even more interesting than when she had encountered him in the Battle City Chronicle.
"You are?" Kaiba's gaze moved to her. For just a fraction of a second something moved behind his eyes, a flicker he did not let settle, before his expression returned to its composed state.
Amano caught it.
During the Battle City Chronicle, Kaiba Seto had shown no unusual reaction to Chiaki. Why was this different?
Jaden stepped in before anyone needed to answer. "Friends of Rei's from school. They wanted to use the waiting room to watch the match. Not a problem, right?"
"Friends?" Kaiba considered for exactly one beat. "Fine."
There was something underneath that cold acknowledgment that Amano could not quite name. But the arena did not give him time to think about it.
From the tournament floor, the announcer's voice hit a register that could penetrate reinforced walls.
"Please welcome Team KCzero! Holding the title of KING, duelist Amano Rei takes the field!"
"And facing them, Team 5D's! Equally bearing the name of KING, duelist Jack Atlas!"
"The duel of Dual Kings that everyone has been waiting for begins today!"
The roar that erupted from the audience was immense even through solid walls and at a distance.
From the stands: "AAAAAHHHHH!" Rin Seiya at maximum.
The scale of the crowd response alone said everything about how this particular match had been billed. Calling it the WRGP's most anticipated Riding Duel was not an overstatement.
"Rei, you're up." Jaden's hand came down firmly on his back. "Give that Jack Atlas something to remember. Show him what our King can do."
"Prep zone," Kaiba said, already moving toward the exit. He paused to address Kikawayu and Chiaki. "You two. The prep zone viewing position is better than the waiting room. Come if you want."
"Coming!" Kikawayu moved immediately.
Chiaki said nothing, but fell into step.
By the time they reached the prep zone, Amano had already mounted the Chronicle's assigned D-Wheel and loaded his deck into the machine. His D-Wheel in the 5D's world was not the Moonlight Butterfly from Eden Tower. This was a Kaiba Corporation custom model, high-performance and purpose-built. Silver-grey, streamlined, aerodynamically sound in a way that actually made visual sense, which put it several categories above Jack Atlas's Lucky Wheel, whose design philosophy seemed to involve the rider being completely unable to see the road ahead.
At the starting line, Jack Atlas was already waiting on his Lucky Wheel with both arms folded and eyes shut.
"So you've finally come, Amano Rei."
He felt the sound of Amano's D-Wheel and opened his eyes in a single sharp motion.
"Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for this duel? Today I'm taking back the title you carry. New Domino City only needs one KING, and that's me."
"Jack Atlas. Say that again after you've actually caught up to my level."
Pre-match declaration was a standard ritual and Amano had no intention of losing that exchange.
Jack laughed. "Interesting! It's only against opponents like you that dueling feels worth anything! A king's battle has to be worth watching!"
While the two traded their opening statements at the starting line, Speed World 2 activated automatically on the field.
Speed World 2: Field Spell. If you activate a non-Speed Spell by name, take 2000 damage. From Turn 2 onward, during each player's Standby Phase, both players gain 1 Speed Counter up to a maximum of 12. Remove Speed Counters to activate the following effects: 4 counters: reveal 1 Speed Spell from your hand to deal 800 damage to your opponent. 7 counters: draw 1 card from your deck. 10 counters: choose 1 card on the field and destroy it.
As Speed World 2 resolved, the track's countdown lights began cycling through their sequence.
The mustachioed announcer's voice carried the energy of the entire arena.
"WRGP Riding Duel Tournament!"
"Team KCzero versus Team 5D's!"
"First match! Amano Rei versus Jack Atlas!"
"Riding Duel! Acceleration!"
At the signal, both D-Wheels launched from the starting point simultaneously.
"When it comes to raw speed, the Lucky Wheel does not lose!"
Jack opened at full throttle, pushing Lucky Wheel's engine to its limit. The machine's construction defied conventional logic and yet the speed it produced was genuinely impressive.
Amano's D-Wheel matched it without difficulty.
One difference registered as he rode: the Mirror of Still Water technique he relied on in Eden Tower did not feel active here. In the 5D's world, he apparently operated through experience accumulated over a lifetime of practicing Riding Duels since childhood. The background memory had made that clear.
Both riders tore toward the first corner neck and neck.
First through the corner meant first turn.
When they were almost side by side approaching the bend, Jack used a feature specific to Lucky Wheel's inside-outside wheel drive configuration and executed a 180-degree reverse rotation, going through the corner backwards and taking the lead.
"First turn is mine!" Jack raised his right arm, one finger pointed at the sky, drinking in the roar of the crowd.
"A king's battle is always three steps ahead! I set the tempo of this duel! My turn. Draw!"
He pulled from the Lucky Wheel's card slot and threw his first monster onto the Duel Disk.
"I Normal Summon Dark Resonator in Attack Position!"
Dark Resonator. Level 3. DARK Attribute. Fiend-Type / Tuner / Effect. ATK 1300 / DEF 300.
Effect: Once per turn, this card cannot be destroyed by battle.
The fork-wielding Resonator manifested in Attack Position alongside Jack's speeding D-Wheel, protected from battle destruction for the turn. A standard opener for Jack in Riding Duels: a Tuner that could survive the first turn and act as Synchro material on the following turn.
"I Set one card face-down. Turn end!"
The turn passed to Amano, and both players' Speed Counters ticked up.
Speed Counters: 0 to 1.
Amano looked at his hand. With no Speed Counters to speak of and no Speed Spells ready yet, pushing directly into a Synchro offense on Turn 2 was going to be awkward at best.
Then he would introduce something new.
He made his decision and selected a card from his hand, throwing it onto the D-Wheel's Duel Disk in Attack Position exactly as Jack had.
"I Normal Summon Maiden with Eyes of Blue in Attack Position!"
Maiden with Eyes of Blue. Level 1. LIGHT Attribute. Spellcaster-Type / Tuner / Effect. ATK 0 / DEF 0.
Effect: Once per turn, use 1 of the following effects. First: when this face-up card becomes the target of a card effect, negate that attack and change this card's battle position, then you can Special Summon 1 Blue-Eyes White Dragon from your hand, Deck, or GY. Second: when an attack is declared involving this card, you can negate that attack, change this card's battle position, then Special Summon 1 Blue-Eyes White Dragon from your hand, Deck, or GY.
The barefoot white-haired girl materialized alongside Amano's speeding D-Wheel, hovering at 0 ATK in full Attack Position.
Summoning a monster with zero ATK in Attack Position on Turn 2 while going second drew visible confusion from the stands.
In the prep zone, two reactions came from exactly the same direction at exactly the same moment.
Both Kaibas turned their eyes toward the card on Amano's field.
Chiaki said: "Eyes of Blue..."
Kaiba Seto finished: "Maiden."
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