The deck list in his schoolbag had already been handed over to Sato Renshan.
Their Saturday morning meeting had ended earlier than expected.
Yūki stood at the school gates, the late-morning sun climbing above the school building's roof.
It was still early.
He thought for a moment, then turned toward the train station.
He had been in this world for quite some time, but he had never visited any of Domino City's dueling halls.
Domino City had several types of dueling halls.
Some belonged to the International Fantasy Society, all decorated in Maximillion Pegasus's cartoon aesthetic, with a giant cartoon alligator standee greeting visitors at the entrance.
Others belonged to dojos of various schools, small establishments with stable circles of regulars.
There were also government-run community dueling centers, with plain facilities but low fees.
But the most famous always belonged to the Kaiba Corporation.
Kaiba Land.
On the train, Yūki looked it up using Kaiba Search.
There were three Kaiba Land locations in Domino City, each an independent, large-scale complex.
The dueling area was only one part of each complex, with card shops, tactical research rooms, duel data recording centers, and even enclosed training grounds exclusively for advanced duelists.
When it came to playing cards, Seto Kaiba never spared any expense.
One saying had spread widely on the forums.
"The president might be reluctant to give his employees a raise, but tell him you want a dueling hall and he'll build you an entire building."
Yūki nearly laughed out loud.
The train arrived.
The doors opened, and the first thing he saw was Kaiba Land's main building.
The main hall spread out in a curve, its exterior embedded with enormous LED screens looping highlights of classic matches between professional duelists.
Above the main entrance, the letters [KC] reflected a metallic cyan sheen in the sunlight.
There was a line at the entrance.
Yūki took out his duelist identification.
The verification machine beeped, and information appeared on its screen:
[Duelist: Fujiwara Yūki] [Star rating: ★★★] [Welcome to Kaiba Land]
The three-star symbol flashed.
The gate opened automatically.
Yūki walked inside and stood still for three seconds, taking it in.
The main hall's interior was far larger than he had imagined.
The ceiling rose nearly four stories high, with a dome of transparent tempered glass. Morning sunlight poured straight down from overhead, illuminating the entire hall without a single lamp.
Twelve regulation duel fields occupied the center, marked off by blue light, each surrounded by several rows of spectator seats.
Each field had a live projection screen on either side, simultaneously displaying three-dimensional images of the monsters on the field and the LP totals.
Seven or eight fields already had duels underway.
The light effects from monster projections flared one after another, while the electronic sounds of Duel Disks activating mingled with the spectators' hushed discussions.
Yūki walked slowly along the spectator area.
On the third field to his left, a middle-aged man dressed like an office worker was controlling the field with [Summoned Skull].
On the fifth field to his right, two duelists who looked like high school students were trading blows, one using Warrior-Type monsters and the other Spellcasters.
Both were standard, straightforward builds.
After watching for two minutes, Yūki suddenly felt a little bored.
It really wasn't that his standards were high.
People in this world simply played cards far too honorably.
They opened with a Normal Summon and traded blows in the Battle Phase. Their Trap Cards were almost exclusively attack-response traps, and ninety percent of their Spell Cards were equips or attack boosts.
Occasionally, someone would play a [Magic Jammer], and the spectators would exclaim, "Amazing!"
They didn't even have a decent search chain.
He was about to head farther inside when he caught sight of field eleven, right by the wall.
He stopped in his tracks.
The crowd there was a row deeper than at the other fields.
"A Fusion Summon? Seriously?"
"Giving up three cards from your hand just to bring out one Fusion Monster? Talk about a ridiculous loss."
Yūki walked over and looked through a gap in the crowd.
A boy wearing a red jacket stood on the right side of the field.
His hair stuck up messily in a distinctive jellyfish shape, and he wore a smile that was impossible to dislike.
His Duel Disk was already deployed, and he held five cards in his left hand.
His opponent stood on the left, a boy who looked two or three years older than him, wearing a black hoodie with disdain written all over his face.
On the black-hoodied boy's field stood a [Fiend Spirit], a Normal Monster with 2,600 ATK.
The jellyfish-haired boy had only one face-down monster on his field.
"My turn! I draw!"
The jellyfish-haired boy revealed the card he had drawn.
"There it is!"
He slapped down a Spell Card.
"I activate the Spell Card [Polymerization]! I fuse [Elemental HERO Avian] and [Elemental HERO Burstinatrix] from my hand!"
A fusion vortex erupted on his field.
Fluorescent green fusion effects surged from both sides of his Duel Disk, and two ghostly monster images overlapped at the center of the vortex.
One was a green hero with pure white wings, the other a red female warrior wreathed in flames.
White light and blazing flames twisted together, then burst apart with a roar.
"Fusion Summon!"
The jellyfish-haired boy raised his right hand high.
"Elemental HERO Flame Wingman!"
A hero with a green body, white wings, and a dragon's head for a right arm flew out of the pillar of light.
The dragon's jaws opened, flames churning in its throat.
[Elemental HERO Flame Wingman] [ATK: 2100]
Boos rose from the spectator seats.
"Only twenty-one hundred?"
"Two materials and a fusion spell, a three-for-one, just for that?"
Yūki listened to the mocking comments beside him without speaking.
He simply watched the boy.
The boy paid no heed to the mockery around him, as though he couldn't hear any of it.
Or perhaps he heard it but didn't care.
He looked up at Flame Wingman, his eyes as bright as lamps.
"Let's go, partner!"
"Flame Wingman, attack [Fiend Spirit]!"
The entire crowd fell silent for a second.
Then the boy in the black hoodie laughed out loud.
"Are you crazy? My Fiend Spirit has twenty-six hundred ATK! Aren't you just asking to die by crashing into him with twenty-one hundred?!"
"During damage calculation!"
The jellyfish-haired boy pulled a card from his hand and slapped it into his Spell & Trap Zone.
"I activate the Quick-Play Spell [Rush Recklessly]! One monster on my field gains seven hundred ATK until the end of the turn!"
[Flame Wingman: 2100 → 2800]
The black-hoodied boy's smile froze on his face.
Flame Wingman flipped in midair, unleashing a pillar of searing flames from his dragon's mouth that pierced Zoa the Fiend's chest.
The enormous fiend exploded into fragments with a shriek.
The black-hoodied boy's LP: 4000 → 3800.
"I'm not done yet!"
The jellyfish-haired boy's voice echoed through the hall.
"Flame Wingman's effect! When he destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, he deals damage to the opponent equal to that monster's ATK!"
"Twenty-six hundred points!"
Flame Wingman turned in midair again, aiming his dragon's head at the black-hoodied boy himself.
A second blast of flames shot straight down.
The black-hoodied boy's LP: 3800 → 1200.
The entire crowd fell silent.
The person who had just called the three-for-one a ridiculous loss still had his mouth open, but no sound came out.
The black-hoodied boy looked down at his remaining twelve hundred Life Points, then up at the twenty-eight-hundred-ATK Flame Wingman across from him.
[Rush Recklessly] would wear off at the end of the turn, but twenty-one hundred ATK would still be enough to finish him off directly next turn.
He looked through his hand.
No cards to clear the field.
After a few seconds of silence, he closed his Duel Disk.
"...I surrender."
The jellyfish-haired boy hadn't caught up yet.
"Huh? You surrender? Don't you want to play another turn?"
"No, I'm done. Who'd want to play against a freak like you?"
The black-hoodied boy put away his deck and hurried off, the tips of his ears a little red.
The crowd slowly dispersed.
All the earlier laughter had vanished, replaced by one or two quiet mutters.
"Twenty-six hundred effect damage... What kind of ridiculous effect is that?"
"Flame Wingman... I feel like I've heard of that card somewhere..."
Yūki stood where he was, watching the boy on the field.
The boy paid no attention whatsoever to the change around him.
He was looking down at the deck on his Duel Disk with a smile, talking to himself as he put his cards away.
"Good job, good job. You're in pretty good form today, Flame Wingman."
His tone wasn't like someone praising a card.
It was like he was talking to a living, breathing partner.
Yūki's expression grew a little odd.
He stared at that jellyfish-shaped hair for a full five seconds.
"...I didn't expect to run into you here."
His voice was so quiet that only he could hear it.
"Jaden Yuki!"
As though sensing something, Jaden Yuki suddenly raised his head and glanced his way.
Their eyes met.
Jaden blinked, then grinned and called out, "Are you here to play cards too?"
Yūki paused.
"...Just looking for now."
"What's the fun in looking? Come on, come on, play a round with me!"
Jaden had already deployed his Duel Disk again, as excited as a child who had found a new toy.
Yūki looked at him.
Only one thought crossed his mind.
One of this world's future Kings of Games was standing right in front of him, smiling as he invited him to play cards.
And inside his schoolbag was a fiendish deck unlike anything the other boy had seen in his entire life.
"...All right."
Yūki rubbed his nose and set his schoolbag aside.
He had originally wanted to leave the future King of Games with a somewhat wholesome impression of him, but now it seemed that wasn't happening.
Before you continue