Yugioh [891-893] (Patreon)

Chapter 891 – Thinking About Transferring to the Main Campus?

Jim was half-kneeling on the ground, lifting his head with some difficulty.

The hologram system in the arena had just shut down, and the afterimages had yet to fully vanish. The field was slowly filling with black smoke. Through that curtain of smoke, he could only barely make out Kira's upright silhouette; his exact appearance was obscured, leaving only a distant, towering impression in Jim's mind.

So strong.

That was Jim's first, instinctive reaction.

Of course, he wasn't just strong.

He was infuriating.

Jim didn't know if it was just a coincidence, but everything the other side pulled out today—Necrovalley, Macro Cosmos—were all "underworld" cards that stomped right on his weaknesses. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say this was the worst possible matchup for Jim.

But then again, this was the first time he'd ever met the Duel King.

Jim knew he was quite well-known in his own branch campus, but that fame was confined to that little patch of land. It's not like he was some internationally famous Duelist.

He didn't feel that his strength was any weaker than some of the big-name pros, but in terms of reputation, he felt he wasn't yet at the level to draw the notice of a top-tier master like the Duel King.

So the notion that "the opponent specifically tech'd against me" flashed through his mind, but was quickly dismissed.

That guy was the supreme King. Was he really the type to bother digging into the background of some student from another school just to teach him a lesson? To even prepare a custom strategy?

How could a King be that petty?

Coincidence. It had to be coincidence.

Jim quickly talked himself into it.

Both Macro Cosmos and Necrovalley were powerful, broadly applicable hate cards. While they were especially oppressive against his Fossil deck, they worked decently well against many mainstream strategies.

Besides, it was Jim himself who had challenged the Duel King. He knew that even if he came to the main campus, he might not actually get a chance to see the King in action. So beforehand, he had deliberately scouted all the places Kira often visited, staking them out for a long time until he finally caught this opportunity to challenge him.

Faced with a sudden challenge like that, how could the other side possibly have had the time to run background checks and construct a hard-counter game plan?

If this person truly had the power of prophecy, able to foresee every future opponent he would face, know all their decks and weaknesses in advance, then that would already count as part of his strength. If that were the case, Jim wouldn't even feel wronged about getting countered. He'd accept his loss wholeheartedly.

He'd just run into a bad matchup. That was all.

That said, Kira had indeed considered that Jim used Fossils, and specifically wanted to let a friend from off-campus experience how cruel the real world could be. But he hadn't gone as far as to painstakingly investigate every possible future opponent's deck and tactics.

He was targeting Jim only because he happened to already know Jim was on Fossils.

Oh, and also to test a deck.

The deck Kira used today was one he was still developing—far from finished. Necrovalley and Macro Cosmos were both tools to lock down graveyards, and the Glads, a world-champion deck he'd recently acquired, were a powerful system that could almost operate without using the graveyard at all.

Dimension-Glads had once been a common meta build in the Gladiator Beast heyday. The concept was to banish both players' graveyards with cards like Dimensional Fissure and Macro Cosmos, then let the Glads keep looping: battle, shuffle back into the deck, Special Summon from the deck, keep Contact Fusing, keep popping cards, and keep bouncing between deck and field. They didn't need graveyard resources yet still maintained strong offense and endurance.

On top of that, the Glad system worked very well with lots of generic trap disruption. Plus, with a full suite of high-impact "trap holes" in the deck, it could easily bomb the opponent into misery and then grind them until they doubted life itself.

As for the few Monarch cards mixed in, that was purely Kira testing the upper limits of his fate power.

This was something he'd been trying for a while. With the many new spirits he'd obtained, the constant practice, and the repeated tempering of his momentum in duels against top-level masters, his fate power now was incomparable to when he'd first entered the academy. Because of that, he could be a lot bolder in his deckbuilding.

Monarchs were the 2007 Fifth World Championship winner, and Glads just happened to be the next year's champion deck, the 2008 Sixth World Championship winner.

A fun idea had occurred to him long ago.

If one day his fate power reached the level of King-like, to the point where a random pile of unrelated archetypes would run perfectly—where even stuffing Kaiba's own mishmash pile of different series into the deck wouldn't break it…

If his fate power was strong enough for that, couldn't he just jam together decklists from multiple past World Champions and build a Champion Goodstuff pile?

A blind box of all past champion decks: whichever system you draw, that's what you play. Sounded kind of fun just thinking about it.

But that was something for the future.

Trying bold builds was also a way of exploring his limits. And the more clearly he perceived those limits, the more he could remind himself how long the road ahead still was, how much room there was to improve.

"I lost."

Jim wasn't particularly discouraged; he just let out a regretful sigh.

"There's always someone better. That saying is definitely true. I thought that even if I couldn't beat you, at least I'd be able to put up a fight. But now it seems…"

He gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

This was probably the most miserable duel he'd ever played in his life.

He even had a strange illusion that he wasn't sure if what had just happened really counted as a "duel" at all.

He basically hadn't been able to play.

But Kira just smiled. "I can tell you're quite strong."

"Are you comforting me, or mocking me?" Jim said helplessly.

Of course he'd think that. From his viewpoint, he'd basically had no room to do anything the whole duel, played like a toy in the palm of that invincible Grave and Macro Cosmos.

No—in fact, judging from the terrifying burst the "Gladiator Beasts" had shown when Kira got even a little serious on the final turn, Jim suspected that even without those "underworld" floodgates, he might still not have been a match.

Kira shook his head.

"I'm serious. Besides, you didn't actually go all out either, did you?"

As he spoke, he glanced at Jim's sealed eye.

Jim touched that eye, froze for a moment, then smiled and shook his head.

"Oh, that. When I was a kid, the one who gave this to me said it was a power that would only awaken one day when I was fighting for an important friend. I'm not actually sure how to use it…"

Kira nodded.

He was interested not only in Jim's deck, but in that eye as well. This was a divine artifact that had once allowed an ordinary person's "momentum" to instantly rival the Supreme King's. Although it had still ultimately lost, that put it at a pretty high level.

Definitely worth researching.

The Fossil deck went without saying.

With that in mind, Kira gave a mysterious smile and clapped Jim on the shoulder.

"Have you ever considered transferring to the main campus and joining our lab?"

Jim froze.

"Huh?"

…

Chapter 892 – Rumors of Dismissal

Early morning at the academy, in the Chancellor's office.

"Professor Viper actually had such a plot…"

Chancellor Sheppard sat with his fingers interlaced under his chin, his expression a bit dazed.

Sunlight from the window shined on his smooth, bald head, making it look from a distance as if it were radiating golden light.

Just last night, he had learned of Professor Viper's scheme.

The KaibaCorp investigation team that Kira had called in had thoroughly searched Viper's former facility, and from the leftover data there, they uncovered his terrifying plan to hold a "Duel of Death" tournament at the academy.

Apparently, he wanted to use the life force of the academy's faculty and students to resurrect a terrifying, evil spirit.

The search team had also found a large number of wristwatch-like devices in the facility. According to KaibaCorp's appraisal, these devices would put an enormous physical strain on any Duelist wearing them, leaving them exhausted or comatose after a duel, with permanent side effects—and in severe cases, even risking their lives.

If things had really gone that far, it would've been a disastrous incident that was nearly impossible to clean up.

And with the current evidence, all they knew was that Professor Viper wanted to collect energy to resurrect that terrible spirit. As for what that spirit would do after being resurrected, or what further threats it might pose, that remained unknown.

But it was foreseeable that the situation could have been far worse than it was now.

On top of that, Chancellor Sheppard was supposed to go on a business trip in a few days. If that had happened, he might once again have been absent when the academy got hit by disaster…

Thinking of that, he couldn't help rubbing his temples, a lingering fear in his heart.

Thank goodness the academy had Kira, who saw through Viper's plot in advance. Otherwise, who knew how it all would've ended.

But what was with this academy, anyway? Why did it keep attracting all kinds of monsters and conspiracies?

Just as he was thinking this, the door to the office opened. Crowler and Bonaparte walked in side by side.

"I've said it from the beginning, we're an elite academy!" Bonaparte shouted. "Do you understand what 'elite academy' means? It means we only cultivate the very top elites. There's no place here for laggards and dead weight!"

Crowler snapped, "Even so, you can't just abolish the Red Dorm outright!"

Bonaparte: "And why not?"

Crowler: "If you scrap the Red Dorm now, what then? Are you going to scrap the next worst-performing dorm afterward too?"

Bonaparte shot back confidently, "That depends on the situation!"

The two of them bickered nonstop, apparently having argued all the way here, so wrapped up in it that they didn't even realize they'd entered the Chancellor's office.

The noise was giving the Chancellor a headache. He frowned. "You two… I don't have the mood for this right now. Quiet down."

But the two professors were mid-argument, and didn't hear him at all.

Crowler: "I've long been fed up with you!"

Bonaparte rolled up his sleeves. "Oh yeah? What a coincidence, me too. You look just like a Pot of Greed. You don't have the dignity of a professor at all."

Crowler exploded, "Who are you calling a Pot of Greed!?"

Their voices got louder and louder, completely ignoring the Chancellor.

Sheppard closed his eyes, gathering himself for a few seconds like a volcano building pressure.

Then, in the next second, he erupted.

"That's enough!"

He slammed the desk and stood up.

"Enough shouting! Get out, both of you, get out!"

Only then did the two professors jump in shock, clutching each other in fright like comrades in misfortune.

"Mama mia—!"

—

After lunch that day, Kira was planning to take Jim, who'd just been dragged onto his pirate ship, to visit the lab.

He had high hopes for Jim. Not only in terms of dueling ability, but research potential as well—especially in the field of exploration and excavation.

As mentioned before, Jim was a maniac for archaeology, as evidenced by his Fossil deck. And as everyone knew, in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh, archaeologists could dig up some long-lost top-tier tablet or a seemingly ordinary monster's broken, overpowered new form at any time.

Archaeology was a field worth paying a lot of attention to. However, although Kira's lab had grown quite large by now, it still focused mainly on card development, and hadn't really gotten into exploring ruins and the like. He had always been interested in it, though. With Jim joining, he might actually consider setting up a new team for that later.

Leaving the cafeteria, they'd only walked a short distance when they ran into Jaden and his friends, who were in the middle of a heated discussion.

Seeing Kira and Jim from afar, their faces all lit up.

"Oh, it's Kira and the new guy!"

Jaden waved enthusiastically.

"Did you hear? Big news!"

"What kind of big news?" Kira asked, puzzled.

"Um…" Syrus poked Jaden. "It's still just a rumor, right? I don't think it's confirmed yet…"

"Huh? Is that so?" Jaden scratched his head.

Kira asked, "What's going on?"

"It's about Professors Crowler and Bonaparte," Syrus said. "I heard people say they might be getting fired."

Jim wasn't familiar with the main campus faculty, so he didn't react much. But Kira raised an eyebrow.

That sudden?

"Well, it's not that weird."

Chazz crossed his arms and snorted.

"Those two have pissed off plenty of students here. A lot of people complain about them. It wouldn't be impossible for them to get impeached."

Syrus squinted at him. "Mainly because after you got demoted from the Blue Dorm to the Slifer Red, they did a complete 180 on how they treated you."

Chazz's old face flushed red, and he turned his head away. "Shut up!"

Kira frowned.

If things followed the original story, then putting aside Bonaparte, Crowler definitely wasn't fired by the end. Could the timeline have shifted because of his own presence?

Hmm, wait.

He vaguely remembered there being some standalone episode where the two of them almost got fired…

"Ah, look—are those two over there?"

Jaden's underling, Kenzan, pointed toward the riverside.

Everyone followed his finger and looked. There, in a deserted spot by the river, sat two figures, one tall and thin, one short and fat, shoulders pressed together, leaning side by side by the water. Their backs looked so desolate…

"Looks like them!"

The group rushed over in a swarm.

"Professor!"

"Professor Crowler! Professor Bonaparte!"

The two professors listlessly raised their heads, glanced at them, and then drooped their heads again, staring down at the blue sea below like they'd just been dumped.

Seeing their reactions, the students were already mostly convinced the rumor was true.

"So…" Jaden asked tentatively, "is the rumor true? Are you really getting fired?"

The two professors nearly toppled right into the ocean.

"NANI? How did you find out!?"

…

Chapter 893 – Three-Way Duel

"How did you find out!?"

The two professors were horrified.

Jaden and the others exchanged glances.

"Professor, it's really not a secret anymore," Jaden said, scratching his head.

Syrus added, "The whole academy's talking about it. Everyone's saying so."

The two professors turned to stone on the spot.

"It's spread… everyone's saying it…"

Suddenly, they had the feeling that their dismissal had already been set in stone—and that the whole school was watching.

Former mortal enemies, they suddenly clung to each other like brothers in misfortune and burst into tears.

"It's finally time to pack our bags and go, noné!" Crowler wailed.

"How am I supposed to explain this to Josephine, da aru!?" Bonaparte sobbed too.

Crowler: "I still have twenty-six years on my mortgage, noné!"

The more they talked, the more tragic they felt, and they sobbed louder and louder.

Just then, Crowler caught sight of Kira and Jim walking past behind Jaden and the others. Something seemed to occur to him, and he abruptly stopped crying.

"Hm? Kira? And this is…?"

Jim greeted him politely. "Jim. I'm the representative from the Duel Academy's Southern Branch."

"Oh oh, Student Jim." Crowler nodded, then looked at the two of them curiously. "And you two are…?"

"Oh." Jim spoke straightforwardly. "Last night, I foolishly challenged Mr. Kira… and, haha, got taught a lesson.

"But, he said he saw my potential and invited me to come develop with him at the lab later. We were just headed there to take a look."

Professor Bonaparte had also stopped crying and seemed to notice the key point, his eyes lighting up.

Kira's lab…

The two professors exchanged a glance.

They were well aware this was the most special organization in the academy. It had started as a student club, but with the academy's strong support, top external talent joining, and investment from big corporations and wealthy families, Kira's research department had long since overshadowed the main campus itself.

Rumor had it the salaries there were comparable to designers at Industrial Illusions, far better than what professors at the academy were getting.

For the two who'd just been fired, wasn't Kira basically a life-saving straw within arm's reach?

They looked at each other again, and then Crowler made the first move.

That Pot-of-Greed face broke into a fawning smile. Rubbing his hands together, he said cheerfully, "Um… Student Kira, your professor has always treated you well, hasn't he?"

The sudden turn of events left everyone stunned, their thoughts struggling to catch up.

To be fair, Kira did remember Crowler's kindness. Though the professor was once a professor who looked down on poor students, vain and somewhat extreme, that attitude was reserved for the weak.

For outstanding students, he would do everything in his power to teach and help them. As long as your grades were high enough, he'd even praise you if you slapped him.

Still, Kira teased him with a smile. "Oh? Has he? I don't quite remember."

Crowler panicked. "Student Kira, you can't just stand by and watch us die! Or at least give me a chance—let me intern in your department! Your professor has loads of experience!

"For you, it might just be a small favor, but for your professor, it's a major turning point in his life, noné!"

Bonaparte chimed in, "Exactly, exactly! Same for me! If you won't give Crowler a chance, at least let me try, da aru!"

The onlookers were dumbfounded.

Professor begging a student for a chance—this might be the first time in the academy's history.

But clearly, the professors had decided that their livelihoods were more important than their pride. At this moment, their entire future lay in Kira's hands.

No—if this worked out, getting fired might actually turn into a blessing in disguise. Once they boarded Kira's ship, their later careers could soar far past where they were now!

"They look kind of pitiful," Jaden said, glancing at Kira. "How about giving them a chance?"

Kira rested his chin on his hand.

He was interested in Professor Crowler's Ancient Gear deck. He knew that Ancient Gears would get a lot of future support in the real cards, quite different from the anime version, and therefore had a lot of potential for development.

As for Professor Bonaparte…

According to the setting, his teaching experience and dueling skills were supposed to be on par with Crowler's—or he wouldn't be a worthy rival. But unfortunately, he'd debuted late and exited early in the anime. He had too little screen time, and his deck never even got printed in real life. Not much potential there.

That said, Kira wasn't ungrateful. He still remembered the help he'd received from his professors when he first enrolled. A chance was definitely something he'd give them.

"All right…" Kira said. "But the lab's approval process is pretty strict now. Every month, lots of people from all walks of life want in. Even I can't just open back doors at will…

"So how about this."

He raised his Duel Disk.

"Let's use a duel as a replacement for the interview. How about it?"

Bonaparte and Crowler both went pale.

A duel?

Against the Yellow-Clad Lord?

Uh…

They suddenly felt like this was just an indirect way of refusing them—and that he meant to put them through a round of torture first.

"To save time, why don't you both come at me together?"

At those words, hope flared again in their ashen eyes.

Together?

That actually sounded doable.

No chance one-on-one—but two against one, could they really lose?

"Good! It's a deal!" Crowler agreed at once, afraid he'd change his mind.

The bystanders all looked excited.

"Ohh, this is getting interesting!" Jaden said.

The two sides took their positions. Crowler and Bonaparte stood left and right, with Kira opposite them. Their positions formed a triangle.

"Duel!" x3

[Kira, LP 4000]
[Crowler, LP 4000]
[Bonaparte, LP 4000]

"We'll use Free-for-All rules for this Triangle Duel. You each have 4000 Life, but your fields and graveyards aren't shared," Kira explained.

In other words, the two professors weren't treated as a team; they were each their own side.

That meant they not only had double the resources compared to Kira, but also double the number of turns. You could say they held a huge advantage.

"Pretty confident, huh," Jaden laughed.

"I'll go first. Draw!"

Crowler took a deep breath, rallying his spirits.

This duel would determine the rice bowl for the rest of his life. It was no exaggeration to call it a turning point in his fate. He absolutely could not afford to choke now!

"I activate the Spell Card 'Magnet Circle LV2'!" Crowler declared. "I Special Summon a Level 2 or lower Machine-Type monster from my hand!

"I'll Special Summon this card…"

He slammed another card onto his Duel Disk.

"Come forth! Ancient Gear!"