The duel club fell silent for several seconds. Even the wind outside the windows sounded unusually clear.
Sato Renshan sat on the plastic folding chair in the front row, his back perfectly straight, but several obvious creases had been blown into his usually immaculate, expensive suit by the duel's shock waves.
Yūki leisurely removed his deck from his Duel Disk and clicked it into his deck box.
He was in no hurry to leave and said nothing, simply standing there and quietly watching the vice principal.
"Ahem! Ahem!"
Sato Renshan suddenly coughed hard several times.
It sounded less like a tickle in his throat and more like he had something to say but did not know how to swallow his pride.
He raised a hand, beckoned to Yūki, and pointed at the empty chair beside him.
Yūki raised his eyebrows, obligingly pulled out the chair, and sat down.
Sato Renshan adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and swept a sharp gaze over the duel club's door and windows.
Seven or eight heads were lined up neatly along the crack in the door, while more than a dozen students stood on tiptoe outside the windows, desperately peering inside. The glow of phone screens flickered in the shadows.
That duel had been even more sensational than the head of discipline taking the lead in dating at school!
A Kaiba-certified five-star instructor, the vice principal of Third Municipal Middle School, had actually been locked down by a one-star freshman with a little crow boasting two hundred attack, to the point of voluntarily shutting off his Duel Disk and conceding!
If this made it onto the school forums, the server would explode on the spot!
"What are you all staring at?!"
Sato Renshan's voice was not loud, but every word was as heavy and cold as if it had been dredged out of ice water.
His authority as vice principal returned within a second. It was as though the old man who had stood helplessly on the dueling platform until he questioned his life had never existed.
"Didn't you hear the bell? Are you ever this eager during mock exams? All of you, back to your classrooms!"
The students at the door shrank back in fright.
Several of the more timid ones took off running, their footsteps clattering away in both directions down the corridor.
The remaining students exchanged looks, then hurriedly ducked their heads and slipped away when Sato Renshan's icy gaze swept over them.
Bang.
The last student to leave very considerately closed the duel club's door behind them.
The instant the door shut completely, Sato Renshan visibly sagged.
His shoulders dropped a full two inches, and his back slumped against the plastic chair. Every trace of his imposing bearing as an instructor vanished.
He turned to the composed, black-haired boy beside him, his lips twisting into an extraordinarily complicated, bitter smile.
"Well played."
Those two words sounded nothing like the examiner who had been confidently holding forth fifteen minutes earlier.
Yūki blinked and replied with great modesty:
"You flatter me, Vice Principal. I just got lucky. Mostly, you went easy on me and didn't play all your real Warrior-Type trump cards."
Sato Renshan let out a laugh.
It was short and filled with profound doubt about his entire card-playing career.
"Lucky? You call that lucky?"
Sato Renshan rubbed hard between his brows and let out a long sigh.
"I've played cards for thirty years. I've faced professional players more times than I can count, and all those matches together weren't as frustrating as these ten minutes today."
"Six cards in my hand, and right from the start, you stripped me so bare I didn't even have my underwear left. I finally managed to put together a formation of warriors that covered one another, only to kick straight into Mirror Force and lose the lot."
"And in the end, some little pest of a bird with two hundred attack pecked me until I couldn't even draw..."
Sato Renshan lowered his hand and stared intently at Yūki through his lenses, as if trying to see straight through him.
"Who on earth taught you, kid? A deck like that... you could dig up every inch of Domino City and still not find another build that hellish!"
Yūki's expression did not change. His gaze did not even waver.
"I picked up a few historical texts about ancient dueling at a bookstall a few days ago and tinkered with it myself."
"Mostly, I figured that if my opponent had higher attack than me, I shouldn't compete with them over attack. I just needed to compete over who was healthier."
The corner of Sato Renshan's mouth twitched.
Not competing over attack, but over who was healthier?
Torturing your opponent into a heart attack certainly was healthy.
"Fujiwara Yūki."
Sato Renshan's expression gradually grew solemn. The self-mockery in his eyes disappeared completely, replaced by a look of utter seriousness.
"Although your play style is extremely unorthodox, there's no denying that, within the rules, your tactical execution and calculations of the game state... are frighteningly good."
Yūki sat in his chair without answering, quietly doing his own calculations.
The system notifications deep in his mind had already sounded when the duel ended.
[Defeated duelist Sato Renshan. Soul Power gained: 5 points!] [Current Soul Power level increased to: Lv2 (0%)!] [Duel Coins gained: 700. Current balance: 5,800!] [Card packs unlocked: none.]
Although no exclusive Archetype Pack had dropped, his Soul Power had broken straight through to Lv2, his Duel Coins had increased considerably, and even his star certification on the Kaiba Intranet had jumped directly from one star to three!
He could safely call this a tremendous haul.
But after Yūki had locked him down with Yata-Garasu and thoroughly thrashed him, this usually lofty vice principal had not only refrained from losing his temper, but had chased away all the bystanders for a private heart-to-heart...
Something was off.
This old fox definitely had something else up his sleeve.
Sure enough, Sato Renshan withdrew his gaze and slowly pulled a neatly folded, red-header official document from his inner suit pocket.
He spread the document flat on the desk between them and tapped it lightly twice.
The title read prominently:
[Notice regarding this year's autumn Inter-School Duel Joint League in Domino City]
"Take a look at this." Sato Renshan lifted his chin.
Yūki picked it up and skimmed it.
It was a highly prestigious, city-level secondary championship jointly organized by eight public and private middle schools in Domino City, with technical support and prize sponsorship provided throughout by the Kaiba Entertainment Group.
The champion and runner-up teams would not only receive full allotments of recommended, exam-free admission places at Duel Academy, but also the right to select directly from the Kaiba Corporation's internal rare-card purchasing pool!
"I want you to represent Third Municipal Middle School as our lead player."
Sato Renshan looked at Yūki, a resentment suppressed for years showing in his clouded eyes.
"For the past five leagues, Third Municipal Middle School has placed dead last out of all eight schools. Every single year."
"To put it nicely, participation matters and friendship comes first. To put it bluntly... we're free experience points for every middle school in the city!"
At this point, a look of almost teeth-grinding fury flashed behind Sato Renshan's gold-rimmed glasses.
"Especially those old bastards at Second Middle School next door and Experimental Middle School. Every time we hold an inter-school joint meeting, their mocking grins practically reach the sky!"
"But this year is different."
The vice principal raised his head, and an extremely dangerous smile, one with even a hint of a villain's air, slowly appeared on his face.
"Since they treat us as free experience points every year..."
"Fujiwara, what do you think... about letting them taste what it's like to be stifled to death by a concrete wall, or pecked by a little crow until they can't even draw a card?"
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