The duel projections vanished, and both Duel Disks folded away. The Marik Siblings were speechless for a moment.
Marik kept his head lowered for a long time, as though he were deep in thought, replaying the duel in his mind. Or perhaps he had simply been crushed by defeat, disheartened and stripped of conviction.
Seeing her brother like this, Ishizu wanted to step forward and offer a few words of comfort, but when she opened her mouth, she did not know what to say.
In truth, she had expected that Marik would most likely lose this match. Marik himself should have known it too. Before the duel, he had wanted partly to test Kira's capabilities for what lay ahead, and partly because he was genuinely curious about the current Duel King's strength.
But Marik had lived in seclusion for years. Even when he dueled occasionally, it was only sparring within the clan. He had not been active outside for a long time, much less handled cards much. He had only heard occasional bits and pieces about the outside Dueling World and did not understand it very well, while his own practice had fallen by the wayside. So it was only natural that he could not win.
Still, being burned to death by Lava Golem—and by his own Lava Golem, no less, one he had used Brain Control Release to seize back from the opponent's Field...
She had trouble imagining the size of her brother's psychological trauma right now.
"Mr. Marik?"
Kira suddenly asked.
Marik raised his head. "Ah? Oh, right. I'm here. What is it?"
"It's nothing. You've just been spacing out since the duel ended." Kira put on a concerned expression. "Are you all right?"
Marik gave him a meaningful look.
Then he let out a long breath and