Gone Without Return

"I... I actually lost?"

Dr. Bynstein stared blankly at his hands and the cards he held, as though he still found it hard to believe.

"Doctor actually lost."

Misawa repeated it, but his tone was utterly devoid of ripples.

No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he had lost, just as expected.

There really was nothing surprising about it. Even if the Doctor was a genius, he was ultimately only a Duel researcher with a little talent—a genius among humans, nothing more.

How could a person possibly beat a dog?

Then again, it was not as though he did not know that the laboratory had recently taken on a new project. Misawa was practically one of the laboratory's founding members. Though the lab had grown larger and larger, with more people and a wider range of projects, an old hand like Misawa still held considerable status.

He had heard about many of the new projects Kira took on outside, even if he was not personally in charge of them.

He had previously heard that a special team was being formed to study Duel King Yugi Mutou's Deck. At the time, Misawa had also heard that this team differed from the usual Duel King Deck research projects common in the Dueling World, but he had not known exactly how.

Previously, Misawa's deepest impression of the legendary Yugi Mutou had been the Three Phantom Gods, Dark Magician, Buster Blader, Black Luster Soldier, and the like—famous monsters of legend that possessed immense power.

And the combination Kira had just demonstrated, Catapult Turtle and Block Dragon, could indeed be called a combination of the First Generation Duel King...

But was Yugi's dueling really supposed to look like this?

Misawa and Asuka both wore strange expressions, looking as though they desperately wanted