Kemo walked into the dining room and reported to his boss, Pegasus, who was currently having steak for dinner along with a glass of wine.
"Sir, we have managed to recapture Mokuba Kaiba, but there were some hiccups during the process."
Pegasus wiped his mouth with a napkin before answering Kemo.
"I am aware; there is nothing on this island that can escape the power of my Millennium Eye.
But tell me what you have seen firsthand.
I would like to listen to it from your perspective." As Pegasus spoke, his Millennium Eye gave an eerie yellow glow.
"Understood, sir..."
Kemo started to explain the process of Mokuba's capture from start to finish, including Yuta's duel with the ghost.
"It's a pity. I was hoping to shake up Yugiboy~'s mentality with the imposter, but it turns out he was nothing more than that. He couldn't even defeat Yutaboy~.
But are you sure you saw the weather change during the duel?"
"Yes, sir. I am positive. Not only did the bright skies suddenly turn dark as if a storm were about to arrive at any minute, but the red lightning also seemed... supernatural." Kemo hesitated to say the last word, but he still explained his thoughts truthfully.
Nothing could be hidden from Pegasus, so it was better to not lie and explain everything as he saw it.
"You may leave."
After Kemo left, Pegasus swirled his wine glass deep in thought.
Yutaboy~ turned out to be more amazing than he had thought.
The fact that his duel caused weather phenomena meant that his bond with his Red-Eyes had grown even stronger than before he lost it to Rex.
The question was, why now?
Ever since he had lost to Rex, Pegasus had given up any of his expectations for him, but he managed to surprise him time and time again since the start of the tournament.
If he was such a strong duellist, why would he lose his ace card in the first place?
Or was it that there was some inside story behind that matter that he was not aware of?
He didn't doubt Rex Raptor's qualifications, as he was a runner-up in the nationals, but he was nothing compared to the brilliance that Yutaboy~ was displaying right now.
So it should have been impossible for him to win in the first place.
Not to mention, it was the Duel Spirit of Red-Eyes Black Dragon itself that chose to be Yutaboy~'s monster.
He was sure of that because Pegasus himself gifted the card to Yutaboy~ at the spirit's request, after a tournament that Yutaboy~ won while Pegasus was in the audience.
Aside from allowing him to read the mind of anyone and control their souls, the Millennium Eye also granted its user the ability to see spirits.
Maybe it had even more potential, but these were the abilities that Pegasus had discovered so far.
So it should not have been possible for Yutaboy~ to lose in the first place with the spirit's assistance, but he did, which bugged Pegasus.
For now, he had more pressing matters to attend to, so he decided to note this question down at the back of his mind and think about it later.
***
*ROAR*
Yuta heard the roar of Red-Eyes once more, and he immediately woke up, thinking that someone was trying to steal his deck again.
But he had found himself leaning against a rock instead, with Tristan sitting in front of him, looking tired.
Yuta frowned his eyes, wondering why Red-Eyes woke him up.
He reached out for his deck case and pulled out Red-Eyes' card and looked at it. Questioning if there was something wrong.
Yuta was not able to have a full-on conversation with its spirit yet, but he had discovered that he was able to understand the meaning of its roars.
*ROAR*
Red-Eyes roared once again, and understanding what it meant, Yuta's eyebrows twitched.
It was basically telling him that it was bored and wanted to duel again.
"How long was I out?"
"Hm? You already woke up? Well, it's been only about half an hour at most since you passed out last time." Tristan answered after checking his watch.
Yuta, for the first time in his life, wanted to rip the card in his hands in half.
It's only been half an hour, and it already wanted to duel again.
Defeating the Blue-Eyes trio must have boosted its confidence to the heavens, so it was getting naughty and unruly.
Yuta was not an idiot.
He could tell that the only reason that he had managed to win was because of the poor skills of the ghost.
The guy had set two cards on his first turn, but he didn't even activate them throughout the duel.
One of them must be the Crush Card Virus.
It required a monster with less than 1000 ATK to be destroyed by battle in order to be activated.
He didn't know about the second one, but it should also be a situational trap card.
Anyway, the problem was even though he probably set the virus card, the guy still summoned a monster like Hitotsu-Me Giant, rather than one of Seto's more commonly known monsters like Saggi the Dark Clown, which only had 600 ATK points.
"By the way, where is Mokuba?" Yutaka asked as he couldn't see Mokuba. He wanted to ask him if he could 'borrow' a couple of cards from Kaiba's deck. Of course, he didn't mean the white dragon trio but spell and trap cards.
He felt like his deck was hitting a limit.
Yes, even though he had finished his duels incredibly fast by this world's standards, Yuta was still not satisfied.
His deck still had a lot of room for improvement, especially in the trap department.
Even though he had such a superb trap recovery card like Mask of Darkness, his only traps worth mentioning were Threatening Roar and Ritual Buster.
Maybe you could also add Time Machine and Graverobber to the list, but that was about it.
Kunai with Chain and Damage Diet were not worth mentioning because Damage Diet was more effective in the graveyard than being retrieved, and Kunai with Chain only served to boost his monsters' ATK points without offering any additional utility. Unless you were running a piercing deck, it wasn't useful to turn a monster into defence mode. Oh, it was also a three of in the deck, so why waste a recovery card when you could just draw it?
If not for it being a Red-Eyes card in the future, Yuta wouldn't even bother to add such a bad card to his deck.
He so wanted to add good traps like the Solemn Series and Mirror Series to his deck, but they were nowhere to be seen.
At least, he was pretty strong in the spell department, so it made up for his lack of good trap cards, but that still had a limit.
His monsters were also weak.
*ROAR*
Red-Eyes roared as if it was disagreeing, but Yuta ignored it.
His monsters were also weak.
His monsters were also weak.
Important things needed to be said three times.
He had a white board Launcher Spider and Lycanthrope as high-end, but their ATK points were in the early 2000s range. Without tricks they would never be able to defeat Yugi's and Kaiba's decks, which had dozens of such monsters.
Just Yugi alone had Dark Magician, Curse of Dragon, Summoned Skull, Gaia the Fierce Knight, Black Luster Soldier etc.
He also had strong spell and trap cards to support these monsters.
His deck, on the other hand, was too gimmicky.
Jinzo would be useless without Kunai.
Cannon Soldier was the same without Scapegoat.
Red-Eyes needed Dragon Nails or Polymerization to function.
Lycanthrope was a ritual monster, so that was enough said.
As for the whiteboard Launcer Spider… it was just a mascot, not worth mentioning.
If he didn't have so many search monsters and draw cards, this deck wouldn't be able to function, but the limitations were also clear-cut.
It was a burst deck.
Either the opponent died under his pressure, or he ran out of gas and the opponent defeated him.
He also had stall and disruption cards like Swords of Revealing Light, Tribute to the Doomed, Remove Trap, Heavy Storm and Harpie's Feather Duster, but they were not enough.
Swords was too slow for his liking, as even if he used it, he could only gain three turns, assuming the opponent did not have removal.
But if he was forced to use the Swords in the first place, how was he supposed to turn the situation around in the first place?
Red-Eyes?
*ROAR*
It roared once again to affirm that it could take down anyone in the world, but Yuta ignored it.
He didn't like it.
He needed more options for dealing with such situations. Hopefully, traps.
He was not Kaiba.
He only had a single Red-Eyes Black Dragon in his deck.
So if something happened and it was banished from the game, he would be put in a tough situation.
"About that..." Tristan's words brought Yuta to reality.
"What?"
"Well, as I was catching you before you fell to the ground. Those bodyguards betrayed their promise and kidnapped Mokuba again."
"Really?" Yuta was taken aback because he had never thought this was possible.
They had established the terms before the duel, but they decided not to obey them.
He never thought this would be possible.
Then again, maybe it was Pegasus' Millennium Eye that was at work here.
Since it possessed dark power, it should be able to ignore some of the rules of this card game world.
Just like Yami Bakura, who had lost countless Shadow Duels with his life on the line and kept on popping out despite losing the said duels every single time.
Speaking of, he was kind of a pathetic final boss.
Even though this was a world that was created based on card game rules, he didn't remember Yami Bakura winning a single duel in the anime.
This didn't mean he really didn't win.
This meant that he was so pathetic that he couldn't remember a single time that Yami Bakura had won a duel.
Maybe he really was an eternal loser.
Which is funny, as he should be something like the evil counterpart of the creator of this world.
Oh!
Maybe that was why!
Since he was the 'counterpart' of the creator of the world.
Her exact opposite.
He must be bad at duelling, as since Holactie created the world based on card game rules, she must be really good at it.
Hence, as their opposite, Yami Bakura was really bad at it.
"Umm... sorry... It was my fault. If only I were faster..." Tristan thought Yuta must be blaming himself since he fell silent.
That's why he tried to comfort him by taking the blame.
If Yuta knew his true thoughts, he would tell Tristan that he was thinking too much.
He was just debating philosophical things like the meaning and rules of the world. That was why he was frowning. It had nothing to do with Mokuba.
"What about Kaiba's deck?" Yuta asked, as that was what was important to him.
"Oh! I grabbed it. The goons didn't have the chance to take it with them since they were focused on kidnapping Mokuba. Here."
Then Tristan reached inside his brownish trench coat and handed Kaiba's deck to Yutaka.
He wanted nothing to do with this deck since he didn't want to deal with Kaiba in case it was really his deck.
"Thank you."
Yutaka took the deck and started to sift through it. Looking at the cards in the deck one by one when he heard a roar.
*ROAR*
It wasn't his black dragon but Kaiba's white dragons.
They were warning him that the trio would never obey him, so he shouldn't get any weird ideas and put them in his deck.
The only reason they even cooperated with the imposter was because they had sensed the presence of Red-Eyes.
Otherwise, they would have chosen to self-destruct if the imposter had even managed to summon them, let alone listen to any of his commands.
The problem was Yuta was not interested in them but the spell and trap cards in Kaiba's deck.
Since this was Kaiba's real deck, Yuta would definitely not lay his hands on any of the monsters in it, but the spells and traps were different.
If Kaiba knew he nicked some spell and trap cards, he wouldn't care anyway. He would only count it as the payment for him taking good care of his cards.
"Umm, what are you doing?" Tristan asked as he noticed Yuta messing with Kaiba's deck.
"Taking my payment from Kaiba by getting his spell and trap cards. He shouldn't mind it as long as I don't touch his Blue-Eyes, right? And if he asks for them back, I wouldn't mind giving them back. I just need them for the duration of this tournament. Nice! Second Polymerization"
Yuta explained as he sat aside some cards excitedly.
Tristan looked at him weirdly, wondering if this was the reason why he had asked if he had gotten Kaiba's deck.
Anyway, this had nothing to do with him, so he just decided to watch.
Yuta was the one messing with his deck, what did this have to do with him, Tristan Taylor?