Kira's Small Favor

At the same time, elsewhere.

Dinosaur Ryuzaki was in a pretty good mood today.

After holing himself up for several days, he headed to the arena today and stomped a string of weak opponents, regaining both his confidence and his feel for dueling.

Right, this was how dueling was supposed to be.

Those previous matches definitely hadn't been his problem.

After racking up seven straight wins, Ryuzaki left the venue thoroughly satisfied. He bought some dinner from a restaurant, only to unexpectedly run into a fan as he was leaving.

"Ah! It's Dinosaur Ryuzaki!"

The moment a young boy spotted him from afar, his eyes lit up, and he hurried over with rapid footsteps.

"I'm your fan! Could I get your autograph?"

Ryuzaki was instantly delighted. The last time anyone had asked him for an autograph felt like it had been a lifetime ago. For a while, he had even felt as though he had faded into obscurity—though that was also related to the fact that he hadn't competed or shown his face in public for years.

"Consider yourself lucky, kid. This Great Me happens to be in a good mood today."

Grinning, Ryuzaki took the autograph board the boy handed him and swiftly scrawled his flamboyant signature across it.

"Thank you!" The boy took the board and happily turned to leave.

"Hey, wait. Don't be in such a hurry to go."

Ryuzaki grabbed him by the back of his collar and hauled him back.

"You think you can just leave after taking This Great Me's autograph?"

The boy froze. "Huh? Then...?"

Ryuzaki held out a hand and waggled it.

"Money. Pay up. This Great Me's autograph doesn't come cheap. If you don't have money, cards will do as payment."

"Huh?" The boy stared blankly. "I have to pay for it?"

"What?" Ryuzaki put on an indignant expression. "This Great Me is the one and only Dinosaur Ryuzaki! Do you think my autograph is worth so little?"

"No, I wouldn't dare..."

"..."

Thus, a few minutes later, Ryuzaki was walking down the street with several new cards and a wallet in hand.

"Tch, what a poor bastard. Nothing valuable," he muttered with a curl of his lip.

It wasn't as though he was short on cards or that little bit of cash. He simply enjoyed doing this.

At that moment, he couldn't help thinking of his old best buddy, Haga. Back in the day, they had been inseparable. Even extorting people for autographs had been something they did together...

Of course, getting caught and beaten half to death had also been something they endured together.

He wondered where his old pal was now, and what he was doing.

When Ryuzaki came back to himself, he suddenly realized that something was wrong.

It was broad daylight, yet at some point, the streets had become completely empty.

No, even the sky had somehow darkened without him noticing. The heavy air pressed down on him, making it hard to breathe.

"I finally found you, Dinosaur Ryuzaki."

A somewhat rough voice came from the alley beside him. A man in a suit slowly stepped out, green light glowing in his eyes and an unusually designed Duel Disk strapped to his arm.

Ryuzaki said, "Who are you?"

"I'm Fujimoto, sworn brother to Onizuka, the man you killed."

Ryuzaki: "?"

And who was that supposed to be? Was he supposed to know him?

Ryuzaki looked utterly confused, but Fujimoto gave him no chance to respond and immediately unfolded his Duel Disk.

"Playing dumb won't help! Words are useless—Dark Duel, begin!

Today, I'll use your soul as an offering to mourn the fallen Onizuka!"

Ryuzaki: "???"

So who exactly are you talking about? Have I ever even met him?

Kaiba Land, Duel Arena Venue.

As the duel AI's LP reached zero, the system lock was indeed lifted. The armor plating covering the surrounding windows opened with a clatter, the rolling shutter rose, and sunlight once again streamed into the venue.

Meanwhile, the projected figure onstage remained distorted, its image flickering continuously as it kept repeating, "Da-bzzz-you-bzzz..."

"Is this AI really okay?"

"It's broken, isn't it?"

"Yeah... it feels like it's completely broken. Poor thing."

The onlookers whispered among themselves.

But soon, no one paid it any attention, because all eyes had shifted to Kira, who had won the duel in spectacular fashion and lifted the system lock.

At least in the eyes of the audience below, this young man of the Yu generation had already ascended to godhood.

The AI possessed Seto Kaiba's deck data and, at least to them, had imitated not only his way of thinking and tactics but even his occasionally incomprehensible chuunibyou lines with uncanny accuracy.

During the duel, the AI had displayed the overwhelming dominance of Blue-Eyes, yet this man had casually defused it all. And the most incredible part was that, in the end, he had even died to a single blast of breath from his own "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon."

Led by Senior Brother Koji Sato, the dojo students had already been utterly impressed during the duel. Throughout it all, they had only felt as though gusts of sinister wind were blowing across the field from time to time, yet from the perspective of onlookers outside the arena, they somehow found themselves becoming happier the longer they watched.

As fellow members of the dojo, they naturally shared in the glory. It would also make it easier to brag to others later: "I've got a buddy..." Yet alongside their admiration, their feelings were somewhat complicated.

Even the deck of that legendary powerhouse at the pinnacle of the Dueling World, a representative of brute-force dueling, had lost to their underworld-style Junior Disciple. What exactly was the future of the Dueling World going to become?

The thought made them feel that, as Kira rose like a new star, the entire card game world of the future was gradually being shrouded in a pitch-black cloud—dark enough to be deeply worrying.

Kaiba Land staff had already arrived at the scene, apologizing to and compensating the trapped visitors while shutting down the system for inspection.

Before long, people from the company arrived as well. Seto Kaiba's younger brother, Mokuba Kaiba, personally led the team to assess the situation.

"Fujiki Kira, right? You were the one who stopped that Duel AI in time?"

Mokuba shook Kira's hand.

"Thanks to you stepping in when you did, I'd like to thank you on behalf of KaibaCorp."

Kira grandly waved a hand. "It was nothing. I merely did what every duelist should do. There's no need for cash rewards or anything, and I absolutely don't need Rare Cards either. Really, there's no need to be so polite."

Mokuba blinked blankly twice, then burst out laughing.

"You really are an interesting person. How about this? I'm heading back to KaibaCorp's local branch. There should be quite a bit of card stock in the warehouse there.

Why not come take a look? We also happen to want to ask about the details of the accident and the duel."

Damn—straight to Kaiba's warehouse?

"Oh, how could I? That would be far too embarrassing."

Even as he spoke, Kira was already walking off with Mokuba, as though they had become best friends the moment they met.

"It's fine, it's fine. The losses you helped our company avoid were far more important," Mokuba said with a smile.

"..."

The students watched Kira's retreating back in silence.

Half a minute later, Koji Sato finally could not help saying, "Junior Disciple... why does he look so practiced at this?"

"Heh, you don't understand. That's a kind of talent too."

Watching Kira depart, Takeuchi Master could not help revealing an approving expression and nodding slightly.

"You all still have a lot to learn from him."

All the students: "..."