After spending some time watching Kazuko train and making sure she got back safely to the Slifer Red Dorm, Yumi finally turned his attention toward the place where Viper was supposedly staying, and with that, he began making his way there at last.
He had already spent more than enough time lying around and doing nothing useful, and while he had no issue being lazy when the situation allowed it, there was a difference between resting because nothing needed to be done and wasting time while his allies were out there fighting for their lives. At this point, it was about time he made sure they did not get their asses kicked before he finally decided to show up.
Relying on Kuriboh's surveillance system, Yumi was able to move through the island with relative ease, following the information it fed him as he closed in on the facility. And once he was close enough, he used the Shadow Charm Gauntlet's ability to transform himself into a lynx, after which he casually slipped through the area without attracting the slightest bit of attention.
After all, the place was built like a fortress.
On the outside, it looked like nothing more than a large artificial jungle, a dense stretch of trees and foliage carefully designed to obscure the real structure hidden beyond it, but beneath that camouflage lay the main facility where everything was actually being controlled. In other words, it was the kind of place meant to keep intruders out and secrets in, which made it all the more annoying for anyone who actually had to move through it.
As Yumi moved through the treeline, he suddenly felt something oppressive shift in the air, an evil presence that seemed to lock onto him from somewhere deep within the facility.
"...Weird," he muttered to himself as he continued forward. "Did they notice me?"
He did not slow down, however, and simply kept moving through the shadows of the trees as if nothing had happened.
What he did not realize was that Yubel had already sensed him.
Not because she had spotted him with her eyes, but because she had felt the massive amount of Spirit Energy he carried, along with the darkness buried in his heart, and that combination had been enough to make her pause in confusion and begin wondering whether something was wrong with her memory, because for a brief moment, she had seriously started to question whether she was hallucinating two Jadens instead of one.
Before long, Yumi reached a metal door that led further into the facility, and when he looked ahead, he found Jaden and Celina standing on one side while two teachers stood on the other, the four of them currently locked in a tag-team duel that seemed to have reached a rather heated point.
The two teachers were complaining loudly, claiming that students like Jaden and Yumi were the reason everyone else had become lazy and unmotivated, and insisting that it was because of people like them that the other students had stopped trying as hard as they should have. Their anger was directed mostly toward Jaden and Yumi, though Celina ended up getting dragged into it as well simply because of her connection to Yumi, which made the whole thing feel even more unreasonable.
Yumi listened to their words, and while he did not necessarily agree with everything they were saying, he also found it hard to dismiss their frustration outright.
After all, they were teachers.
It was only natural that they would want the students under their care to pay attention in class, put in the effort, and avoid slacking off whenever possible. That much he could understand.
What he could not accept, however, was their decision to turn their backs on the students they were supposed to guide and then try to eliminate them simply because those students had failed to live up to their expectations. Being disappointed was one thing. Being angry was understandable. But deciding that the students were no longer worth the effort and trying to cut them down for it was not the answer.
With that thought in mind, Yumi slowly transformed back into human form, his hands slipping into his pockets as he calmly stepped out of his hiding place.
"Yo," he said cheerfully, as if he had simply wandered in to join a casual conversation instead of appearing in the middle of an active duel. "Didn't expect the two of you to struggle against these nameless small fries."
The moment he spoke, all eyes turned toward him.
The teachers stared in complete shock, clearly not having expected him to appear here at all, let alone so suddenly, while Jaden's face instantly lit up with excitement.
"AIBO!?"
At the same time, Celina glared at him with immediate irritation.
"Idiot! Didn't you say you weren't coming?"
Even though she was clearly relieved to see him there, she made no effort to hide how annoyed she was, because if he had just come with them from the beginning, then they would not have been running around in circles trying to locate Viper in the first place.
"Sorry, sorry," Yumi replied with an easy smile as he walked forward toward the open pits before them. "I noticed you guys were taking a bit too long, so I went to check it out."
To the teachers' shock and disbelief, Yumi then kept walking as though the open space in front of him did not exist at all, stepping across what looked like empty air with complete confidence, as though an invisible platform had been placed there just for him. He ignored the teachers entirely while moving toward Jaden and Celina, acting as if the two of them were the only people worth talking to.
Yumi did not bother with villains who only showed up once, got beaten, and disappeared completely.
"I'll go ahead," he said casually, not even glancing back at the two furious teachers behind him. "You guys can come too once you're done playing with them."
Then he turned his attention toward the heavy metal door.
"The Earth!!"
At his command, Elemental HERO The Earth appeared in front of him in an instant, his massive body filling the space as his fists clenched tightly before he drove them straight into the door with a powerful punch that left behind a huge dent.
"ORAAA!"
Even after that, the door still refused to give way, so The Earth let out a fierce battle cry and slammed his fists into it again and again, each impact making the metal groan under the force until more and more dents appeared across its surface. Then, at last, his enormous hands reached out and grabbed the deepest cracks he had created, and with a final, powerful heave, he tore the entire metal door off the wall and tossed it away as though it weighed nothing at all.
The two teachers watching from behind immediately backed off in fear.
To them, Yumi had simply walked up to the door, and then, without any visible explanation, it had suddenly buckled inward and been ripped clean off its hinges.
Since they could not naturally see Duel Monster Spirits, the entire scene looked completely impossible from their perspective, and that only made it worse, because what they had just witnessed did not fit into anything they could understand.
It was the kind of thing that left people feeling uneasy for reasons they could not even properly explain.
And without realizing it, that was exactly what happened.
The two teachers had unknowingly begun to fear him.
Not just fear his strength.
Fear the unknown.
Fear the fact that something had happened right in front of them that they could not see, could not explain, and could not control.
As Yumi continued walking through the empty hallway, the silence around him was suddenly split apart by the sharp crack of something whipping through the air toward his face.
Instinctively, Elemental HERO The Earth appeared in front of him in the very next instant, raising one massive arm to intercept the strike before it could reach its target.
The moment the whip made contact, a violent burst of electricity discharged from it, the shock rippling through The Earth's body and forcing his massive form to stiffen for a brief moment.
Yumi's eyes narrowed.
"A whip that can hurt a spirit?" he murmured, genuinely caught off guard by what he had just seen, because this was the first time he had encountered what was, on the surface, an ordinary man-made weapon being able to directly affect a Duel Monster Spirit in that way.
Before he could think about it any further, another object suddenly flew through the air.
A large capsule-like device came hurtling toward them at high speed, and before The Earth could fully recover, the device slammed into him and sealed him inside with a heavy metallic clank.
The capsule was attached to a long cable, and the cable itself was connected to a motorcycle parked further down the hall, where a man sat with one hand on the handlebar and the other holding the device's control mechanism. He glanced back over his shoulder at Yumi and the trapped The Earth, and a twisted smile slowly spread across his face.
"Let the spirit-hunt begin."
The man's tone was smug, almost triumphant, as though he had just said something terrifying rather than something absurd.
Yumi, however, could not help but stare at him for a second in silence, wondering if there was something wrong with his brain, because instead of trying to escape like any sane person would have done after stealing a card and running into a hidden BOSS, he had actually stopped, turned around, and decided to taunt the person behind him first.
If this had been out on an open road instead of in a narrow facility corridor, Yumi might have even been willing to entertain him a little and summon his D-Wheel just to duel him head-on while chasing him down on a motorcycle.
Still... That kind of boldness was impressive in a completely stupid sort of way.
It almost reminded him of the bravest BOSS in Yu-Gi-Oh history, the kind of lunatic who had once traveled across time itself just to gather three protagonists and challenge them to a one-versus-three duel without hesitation.
Unfortunately for this man, being reckless did not make him special.
The motorcycle roared loudly as the man prepared to make his escape, but before he could pull away, Yumi simply focused and poured his Spirit Energy into The Earth, causing the spirit's body to crack with visible force before erupting outward in a sudden burst of power that shattered the capsule trapping him from the inside.
The explosion sent a small shockwave through the hallway.
The man on the motorcycle lost control for a moment and was thrown off balance, crashing hard into the nearby wall as the bike screeched and lurched awkwardly to the side.
The Earth's body, meanwhile, was no longer intact.
Cracks had spread across his entire frame, and pieces of the massive hero's body began to break away, falling apart one after another until a pearl-white body with glowing red lines was revealed beneath the outer shell, each line tracing its way back toward the large crimson gem embedded at the center of his chest.
Yumi evolved The Earth into Core, granting him greater power and allowing him to break free from the trap completely before the situation could spiral any further.
"So you're some kind of spirit hunter?" Yumi asked as he casually walked toward the man, who was already forcing himself back up while glaring at him with obvious hostility.
Yumi didn't recall any spirit hunter in the story, although do those Rare Card Hunters count?
Behind Yumi, the broken pieces of The Earth moved back together before reverting to their original form, the spirit once again standing beside Yumi as if nothing had happened.
"Tch. I didn't expect there to be someone this strong with Duel Spirits here," the man muttered, quickly raising his Duel Disk and sliding his deck into place, clearly deciding that running away was no longer the best option.
Yumi merely looked at him coldly.
His expression darkened in an instant, and when he spoke again, his tone carried none of the usual laziness or amusement he had shown earlier.
"Since when do scum like you dare raise your head in front of me?"
The man froze.
For a split second, confusion flashed in his eyes, but before he could even think about responding, Yumi's own eyes flashed crimson.
"Kneel."
The moment those words left his mouth, The Earth's massive fist crashed into the man's stomach with brutal force, folding him over in an instant and knocking the air straight out of him.
Before he could be thrown backward, however, Dark Law appeared beside him in a flash, grabbing him by the hair and yanking him back before he could escape the punishment.
Whatever was left in his stomach spilled onto the floor, and before he could even recover from the impact, he was dropped unceremoniously onto his own mess, only for Dark Law to press a foot down on his head and pin him there in place.
Yumi looked down at him with cold disgust.
"To treat living spirits like animals to be hunted, and to rely on theft just to get your hands on Duel Monster Spirits... You really are disgusting."
His voice was flat, almost emotionless, but the hatred behind it was clear enough that even the air around him seemed to grow heavier.
For Yumi, Duel Monster Spirits were not tools, and they were certainly not possessions to be stolen, trapped, or abused for profit. He felt a deep connection to them, and because of that, he saw them as living beings with their own lives, their own personalities, their own wishes, and their own dreams. To him, they were no different from humans in that regard, and anyone who mistreated them was automatically worthy of his contempt.
"Beat him up."
That was all he said.
At his command, Dark Law and The Earth immediately began beating the man senseless, holding back just enough to avoid killing him outright while still making sure he understood exactly how badly he had messed up.
Even that, however, was not enough to satisfy Yumi completely.
With a calm wave of his hand, he summoned Ghost Sister & Spooky Dogwood as well, letting the small nun girl mend the man's injuries just enough so he could remain conscious, only for Dark Law and The Earth to continue beating him down again without hesitation.
After a few minutes of this, Dark Law finally stepped back and handed the man's deck over to Yumi while The Earth continued handling the punishment.
Yumi accepted the deck and lowered his gaze to the cards, and the moment he saw the condition they were in, his expression grew even colder.
There were spirits trapped inside.
So many of them.
Enslaved, abused, and reduced to nothing more than tools under this man's control and amusement.
Without a word, Yumi drained the Spirit Energy stored within them all, one card after another, until the images vanished and the cards turned into blank white shells with no picture and no presence.
He could not give them a true place to belong, and he did not want to send them to the Spirit World either, because with how weak and damaged they were, there was a very real chance they would not survive there for long. At the same time, keeping them like this and allowing them to waste away while never used again was no better.
In the end, there was no real kindness in leaving them behind to suffer forever, so it was more merciful to put an end to that suffering than to let it continue.
Yumi let the deck slip from his fingers.
His gaze shifted back toward the man, who was still being beaten into submission by The Earth until several of his bones had probably already been broken, before the spirit finally disappeared back into Yumi once the job was done.
For a moment, Yumi said nothing.
His crimson eyes lingered on the broken man, then slowly faded back into gold as his expression returned to something normal and more controlled.
Without another word, he turned away and began walking deeper into the facility.
As he moved forward, the inner lining of his Slifer Red jacket darkened into a deep red, while the white lines running along it slowly shifted into black.
A red No. 96 appeared on the back of his Slifer Red jacket, glowing lightly before fading and matching the color of the jacket.