After Dio joined the Satisfaction Alliance, the practical changes it brought to his life in Satellite were, at first, not nearly as dramatic as he had imagined.
Really, the only difference was that now there were people dueling every day.
And he had a relatively fixed place to stay now: Team Satisfaction's one-story base, cobbled together out of discarded construction materials.
It was still shabby, of course, but at least he no longer had to worry about being woken up in the middle of the night by rain leaking onto him.
The basic shape of daily life seemed not to have changed much:
He still went out after daybreak, combing through towering garbage heaps and ruins in search of useful scraps, scavenging for food—or, failing that, mooching a little off Yusei or Jack to fill his stomach.
But some people did not see it that way.
Because Dio believed that, since he had joined Team Satisfaction—a group dedicated to wiping out duel gangs—then as a member, he ought to actually do something.
So his daily routine became this: find some thug out looking for trouble, ask which organization he belonged to, and then crush his confidence in a duel.
Kiryu was absurdly happy about this.
At last, he had found someone to accompany him on his daily "missions." Crow was usually busy playing with the kids, Yusei was inexplicably obsessed with building a Duel Runner, and Jack spent every day working at the factory.
Finally...
And so, Team Satisfaction's name gradually began to spread through Satellite.
The names Kiryu and Dio became so intimidating that certain gang underlings supposedly no longer dared to snore in their sleep.
As for why that was the case—
To Dio, each duel had just been an ordinary duel.
But for his opponents, most of whom were low-level duelists attached to some gang, scraping by through bluffing and bullying those even weaker than themselves, it was a completely different matter.
To be defeated in full view of everyone by a guy who, until recently, had been dismissed as "nothing but a pretty face" or "some idiot digging through garbage for food"—and defeated almost effortlessly, in near-total domination, without even managing to touch the other side's Life Points—
That sense of humiliation and frustration hit twice as hard.
It did not just shatter the illusion of strength they relied on to survive the streets.
It also cast a deep shadow over their minds.
"Boss! We can't keep letting this go on!"
Inside some warehouse hideout, a bruised and battered lackey named Daigorō—his injuries apparently not from a duel, but from running too fast and tripping—was hunched over, speaking excitedly to the man lounging in a battered office chair.
"That Satisfaction Team keeps hanging around the edge of our turf every day, picking off our guys whenever they're alone and challenging them to duels. And they play mean, boss!"
There was almost a sob in Daigorō's voice.
"If this keeps up, our Gear Gang won't have anyone left willing to go out and work! We won't even be able to recruit any new blood!"
The man he called boss was heavily built, his face covered in marks. He was idly fiddling with a few rusted gear parts in his hands.
He raised his eyelids slightly, sounding confused.
"I have turf?"
"And besides, other than dueling, what have they actually done?"
Daigorō choked.
It was true.
Their boss really did just duel people every day. The whole "territory" business had only happened because Daigorō and the others had attached themselves to him and used his name to throw their weight around.
Daigorō deliberately sidestepped the issue and said stiffly,
"Well... no, not really. They're just dueling. Pure dueling."
"Well, there you go."
The boss shrugged and tossed the rusty gears aside.
"I duel you guys all the time too."
"How is that the same?!"
Daigorō nearly jumped in place, his face flushing red.
"Boss, when you do it, that's to train us! It's guidance! And besides, you never win in such a completely hopeless, soul-crushing way! What are they supposed to be? One of them was just some idiot scavenging through garbage for food, and the other one used to be doing factory work himself!"
He still remembered that man's expression—that look in his eyes, as though he were staring at trash. And the other one's mocking laughter had been even more grating.
"That's enough."
The boss waved him off, cutting through the complaints with clear disinterest.
"If you're not as good, then you lose. In Satellite, if you lose a duel, you accept it. That's the rule."
"Boss!"
Daigorō lifted his head unwillingly, and something vicious flashed in his eyes.
"Please, give me a chance—a chance to get revenge. I can't let the guys suffer that kind of humiliation for nothing. I can't let the Gear Gang's name be ruined like this!"
"Huh? Oh, sure."
The boss sounded like he barely cared. He lowered his head and started rummaging through a hidden compartment beside his chair.
"If you want to vent a little, that's fine. I've got a few decent cards stashed away here. Pick one and try using it—see if you can win it back... Hm? Where'd he go?"
By the time he looked up, the fired-up Daigorō was already gone. The door was still gently swinging.
The boss scratched at his messy hair, baffled.
"He ran off on his own? Well, I guess solving it with his own strength is fine too."
"Mm. I'll go duel someone at the Security office today, then."
But the revenge burning in Daigorō's heart had absolutely nothing to do with winning back honor through a proper duel.
He knew perfectly well that so-called duel gangs were, at their core, little more than slum mafias wrapped in the outer shell of dueling.
Theft. Intimidation. Extortion. Violence.
They did it all.
Because of that, they were treated like rats in the street, constantly watched by the so-called Security officers who symbolically maintained order. Every so often, they had to relocate their hideouts and avoid sweeps and forced dispersals.
And in Daigorō's eyes, the Satisfaction Alliance was a total anomaly.
Those people seemed genuinely obsessed with dueling itself, and never engaged in any other kind of oppression or plunder.
Sometimes you could even see them working in the junk factories like ordinary residents of Satellite.
That very purity was what kept Security from treating them as a traditional gang and targeting them too heavily.
But Team Satisfaction itself remained stubbornly convinced that it was a duel gang.
A malicious grin stretched across Daigorō's face.
"If you insist on calling yourselves a gang, then I'll deal with you the way gangs get dealt with."
All it would take was one anonymous tip-off call, claiming that a dangerous duel gang was gathering in a certain shack and hoarding a large number of cards...
That same evening, when Dio returned to the shack after finishing another round of patrol and card scavenging, dragging his slightly tired body back with him, the sight that met his eyes was utter devastation.
The door hung crookedly to one side.
The interior looked as though a storm had torn through it.
The crude shelves they had built from scrap wood had collapsed. Spare parts and tools they had collected for emergencies were scattered all over the floor.
And more importantly, the cards Dio had piled up in the corner—the ones he had painstakingly dug out of garbage heaps over time—were all gone.
Most of them had been vanillas or bizarre, borderline useless Spells and Traps.
But they had still been his property, gathered little by little over time...
There had never been much of value in the base to begin with.
Now it looked emptier and more desolate than ever.
A burglar had broken into the house?
Dio's first reaction was disbelief.
In Satellite, everyone was dirt poor. If someone was going to steal, why them? Why not steal from a factory instead?
If they wanted cards, couldn't they just go dig through the junk mountains themselves?
A strange emotion welled up in his chest.
"Ah, Dio. You're back..."
A voice came from behind him.
Dio turned and saw Crow walking in from outside, his expression equally unlucky.
Crow glanced at the wrecked interior and sighed.
"So... you saw it too? Those Security officers really hate duel gangs."
"Security officers?" Dio frowned.
"Yeah. They bundled me up and hauled me away too..."
Crow shook his head and explained,
"They took my deck as well."
Then he noticed the look on Dio's face and blinked.
"Wait... don't tell me they took your cards too...?"
"Yeah."
Dio's voice came out a little muffled.
"Ah! Then in that case..." Crow's eyes widened first, then he said decisively, "Well, there's only one thing to do!"
"What do you mean, 'only one thing'?" Dio looked at him.
"Go get them back, of course!"
Crow said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
He crouched down and began groping around the wrecked floor. Before long, he found a hidden compartment beneath a loose floorboard.
He opened the compartment and pulled out something with a fair bit of weight to it.
Inside was a neatly folded blue-and-black uniform—
And a matching Security officer helmet.
"This is...?"
Dio stared, dumbfounded.
Crow then fished something like a keycard out of the uniform jacket pocket and waved it with a proud grin.
"This is a little bit of equipment I got hold of before, just in case. Didn't think I'd actually need it."
Then he laid out the plan in one breath.
"When Security confiscates contraband, they usually store it temporarily in the second-floor storeroom of their headquarters building, waiting to process it later."
"You should be able to fit into this uniform. Once you've got the helmet on, nobody'll recognize you. And this keycard can open the building's main entrance."
Crow shoved the uniform and the keycard into Dio's hands, speaking faster now.
"I'll head over first and make a little scene near the Security building to draw off some of the guards. You change into this and go straight in. First, head west and find the control room. Open the east-side storeroom door from there, then get inside, find our cards, and carry them out. Be quick!"
"Call me when you've changed."
With that, Crow slipped out the door at top speed.
Dio was left standing alone in the wrecked base, his face full of stunned disbelief.
Wasn't this process a little too smooth?
Just how many times had you done something like this with other people already?
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