When it became Jack's turn, the former King still made no move. Kira smiled. "What's wrong? Having lost your title as King, have you lost the courage to keep dueling too?"
Jack glared at him, then spoke in a deep voice after a long pause.
"Two years ago, I accepted your invitation and came here, to this New Domino City, Godwin. I abandoned everything—my comrades who fought beside me, even my past self, which I buried away.
"I came here for only one reason: to climb to the summit, to walk the path toward becoming the supreme King."
As he spoke, he slowly closed his eyes and gave a derisive laugh. It was impossible to tell whether he was laughing at Kira or himself.
"The supreme King. How laughable that sounds now. I was nothing more than a clown who thought he had been placed upon the throne. Having abandoned my past and my companions, what right did I have to speak of a Path of the King?"
"Jack," Yusei said.
Kira watched him with a smile, saying nothing.
But then Jack raised his head and shouted, "But I will not be lost anymore! I have found a new path! Not a path as a king, but the path of Jack Atlas himself!
"And the one who helped me realize that was the love of a woman!"
"Oh?" Kira said.
That was not very Yu-Gi-Oh! of you.
Did that really sound like something Jack—the model card player who would say, "Women are a distraction. I'm going to become World Champion.JPG"—should be saying?
"But now, she is dead. Because of the Earthbound Immortals, because of the Dark Signers, because of that so-called cycle of fate that has continued for five thousand years, because of certain people's pointless ambitions!"
Jack's voice burned