Looking at the billowing black mist before him and the dark red light flashing in the Hooded Man's eyes, Yūki stood where he was, feeling nothing but indescribably speechless.
He even felt a little like sighing.
In a world where card games saved the world and card games destroyed the world, villains never escaped this same old template when making their entrance.
First, they lowered their voices and gave three sinister "keh keh keh" chuckles, then delivered an outrageously melodramatic villainous declaration, and finally looked at you like an ant and asked, "How do you want to die?"
But the problem was... after all that showing off, didn't they still have to obediently pull out their decks, shuffle, and cut to settle things?
Why waste so much breath?!
Yūki raised his right hand. His Duel Disk snapped into place with a crisp mechanical click that sounded particularly piercing in the dim cavern.
"Sure, I'm pretty curious about just what your deal is, sneaking into an abandoned underground hole at school in the middle of the night instead of sleeping..."
Yūki looked expressionlessly at the Hooded Man, his tone as flat as if he were urging a cafeteria lady to serve his food:
"But even an idiot could figure out you're going to say something clichéd like 'The dead don't need to know so much,' or 'If you want the truth, defeat my deck first.'"
"Since you're not going to give us a straight answer anyway, and we'll all have to settle this with cards in the end, why waste words?"
Yūki pushed his deck into the Duel Disk's locking slot and pointed at the Hooded Man.
"Enough talk. Just show your life bar! Duel!"
"..."
The terrifying black mist that had been surging around the Hooded Man abruptly stalled for