Becoming One

"Impossible. It was only a mirror image."

"It clearly was just..."

The Supreme King's golden pupils constricted.

He looked up, only to see that the endless darkness surrounding him, like an abyss, seemed to be dissolving.

It was as though a flame had ignited in that frigid abyss. Though tiny, though seemingly insignificant beside this darkness, it burned stubbornly, blooming within the shadows.

The boy in red slowly walked toward him from within that flame.

"...Why?"

The Supreme King asked in disbelief.

He genuinely could not understand.

His Evil HEROes were clearly superior in every respect, just as he himself symbolized the superior version of this boy. He was the one who possessed power—power that needed no superfluous emotions, power that existed only to win, power that should never lose to anyone again.

So why had he still lost to this person?

"Maybe you really are stronger than me." Judai smiled at him. "Through our duel, I could truly feel it. Your strength is indeed power I could never hope to match.

"But even so, I still won. Because I have something you don't."

The Supreme King looked at him blankly.

"Just like I said." Judai grinned and gestured to his Deck. "Irreplaceable companions."

"Over the past year, I've seen possibilities in dueling unlike anything before. I realized that even the HEROes I thought I knew inside and out still had possibilities I never knew about."

"He taught me all of that."

"He was also the first to tell me that dueling was not always fun. There would also be many heavy moments. As duelists, we had to bear the cruelty of victory and defeat.

"The fates of those our defeat might affect—the people we wanted to protect.

"The fates of those our victory might hurt—the people we had no