A month later, the world-renowned WRGP World Tournament officially began its First Stage.
First came the preliminaries. During this stage, each competing team earned points based on the results of its first several duels, and teams that accumulated enough points advanced. Conversely, even if a team had bad luck and was matched against a Great Demon King-level powerhouse in the preliminaries, or performed poorly due to uncontrollable accidents, it would not be eliminated outright over a single loss.
The preliminary format ensured that some strong teams would not be unfortunate enough to be eliminated early due to luck, giving every top team that entered the WRGP a chance to advance.
Fudo Yusei and his friends had entered the tournament as well, and just like in the original history, they had named their team "5DS."
Interestingly, though, "5DS" had originally stood for "5 Dragons," referring to the five Signers bound tightly together by their Signer Marks.
But now, the Five Dragons Team only had four dragons. The fifth had gone solo.
Well, that was unexpected for Kira too. He had never expected that, despite appearing before the protagonists as a villain, the Crimson Dragon would see his extraordinary potential and bring him into the fold without hesitation, making him one of the Signers as well.
And during that month, he had officially joined the Security Maintenance Bureau under the identity of "Fujiki Kira." The Taiyi Organization's operations had provided him with a résumé and background sufficient for the job, allowing him to go through the proper channels and legitimately become an officer of the Security Maintenance Bureau once again.
As for "officer Godwin," the official statement was that he had retired and resigned. No one knew where he had gone.
Thus, when WRGP registration opened, Fudo Yusei's side had invited Kira