Ken Fujimoto froze. Was he supposed to personally take him there? Sweat started pouring down again, since giving information was one thing, but guiding him straight to the door was another.
"What, do you have objections?" Seto Kaiba asked, eyes narrowing. "N no." Ken Fujimoto struggled to his feet, and for the first time he felt his battle hardened legs shaking out of control.
"I am coming too," Mokuba Kaiba said as he followed his brother. He suddenly remembered something and turned to Yugen. "Sorry, it looks like we will have to delay going to the company a bit longer. You can wait, or I can have a driver take you to a branch office first."
"It is fine, I am not in a hurry," Yugen said with a wave. This was too good a chance to miss, especially after realizing that Ken Fujimoto had gone after Rex Raptor because of some misunderstanding, and that his real target might have been himself. Besides, Rex Raptor had vanished fast, since he was already gone in the blink of an eye during the president's duel.
Even if the group did not realize who was truly responsible for the brothers' deaths, they were still a potential threat. With Seto Kaiba planning to storm their base, wiping them out would remove a lingering danger. So Yugen chatted with Mokuba Kaiba as they followed Seto Kaiba to check the meters at the organization's hideout.
After more than ten minutes of travel, they arrived at the same hidden alley and the same mysterious bar. Back inside, Ken Fujimoto sat at the counter with a pale face, staring blankly like a corpse.
A buddy with a middle parted haircut sat beside him and looked him over. "What is wrong? You look like someone died at home." Ken Fujimoto turned his head slowly to look at his so called family. "Not yet, but it should be soon."
The man blinked. "You went to get revenge on Rex Raptor, right? How did it go?" Ken Fujimoto shook his head again, still expressionless. "I ran into Seto Kaiba."
That made everyone nearby jump, and they crowded closer. "No way, that is crazy. Did you Duel him?" "Is he really that strong?" Ken Fujimoto shook his head once more. "You will know soon enough."
"He is waiting outside for you to come out," he said dully. The next moment, there was a loud bang as the door was kicked open from the outside.
Seto Kaiba strode into the center of the bar under their shocked stares, his Duel Disk snapping open with a clatter. "Come on, rats. Duel!"
Boom!
Extra A: "Aaaah!"
Seto Kaiba: "Hahahaha!"
Boom!
Extra B: "Aaaah!"
Seto Kaiba: "Hahahaha!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Yugen stood outside the door, looking into the bar where Shadow Duelists were already sprawled all over the floor in twisted positions. For a moment, he had no words. He had expected Seto Kaiba to crush these people without trouble, but he had not imagined it would be this extreme.
The scene made him think of the anime, of the first time Hajime Manjoume arrived at Duel Academy North Campus and tore through the branch campus, nearly one opponent per minute. When main characters wiped out nameless extras, it was always drawn like this. Back then, the young Yugen once believed that Duel did not even require shuffling, and he proudly explained this amazing discovery to other kids before challenging them with his unshuffled Exodia set.
After that, no one wanted to play cards with him anymore. But that was not really his fault, because in the anime, it truly looked like no one shuffled. Especially when the protagonists slaughtered random opponents, every hand looked more absurd than the last.
Just like the scene of Seto Kaiba cutting loose right now.
"Strong! Invincible! The strongest!"
Seto Kaiba stood among the fallen Duelist.
"Who's next!"
Across the room, only three people were still standing.
The man with the parted hair, Ryosuke Yamaguchi, growled, "Damn it. I knew he was the legendary Seto Kaiba, but I didn't expect this to be so ridiculous. In the blink of an eye, only our 'Blood Moon Four Heavenly Kings' are left."
The beautiful bartender, Kazumi Inoue, corrected him calmly. "To be precise, three Heavenly Kings. One of the Four, Ken Fujimoto, has already defected."
Ryosuke fell silent.
Ken Fujimoto spoke earnestly. "Brothers, let it go. Don't struggle anymore. The president asked me to pass on a message. Surrender on the spot, and you'll be treated very well."
The big man among the Four, Takuya Aikawa, suddenly exploded with rage. "I'll strangle you first, you traitor!"
Ken Fujimoto hurriedly hid behind Seto Kaiba, making his stance clear with his actions.
"So you're the remaining three of those so-called Heavenly Kings?" Seto Kaiba crossed his arms and sneered. "You should be a little stronger than the other trash.
So who's going first? Or are you all coming at once?"
The three of them immediately brightened up.
Was there really such a good deal? One on one, they had no chance at all, but if it was three on one, no matter how strong you were, could you really wipe the three of them at once?
"Fine, it's settled then. A fair and square three on one!"
Yugen felt the urge to complain. What kind of fair and square was three on one? Even so, he had to admire the president's confidence.
In real Yu-Gi-Oh!, there were duels and team formats, but multiple people against one was almost unheard of. The game was not designed that way, because the gap in cards, field presence, and even turn count made it basically impossible to play normally. Yet when anime characters bullied extras, they casually fought three or four at once and usually crushed them completely.
According to one explanation he had seen circulating online in the Yu-Gi-Oh! community, anime characters possessed something called "destiny power," a talent that allowed Duelist to influence fate and steer the future. In a single Duel, that power was relative. If one person's destiny power was stronger, it suppressed the opponent's performance.
That was why important characters always opened with absurd hands and won in one turn against random opponents, while duels between experts looked much more ordinary at the start. In this world, compared to an opponent having powerful monsters or a strong Deck, Yugen cared more about the destiny power of the opponent. Those ancient boss monsters praised by modern Duelist were nothing special compared to the monsters of the modern Yu-Gi-Oh! he knew.
Destiny power, however, could turn even a messy pile of cards into something terrifying. In later formats, a decent opening field only needed to disrupt the opponent several times during their turn, often after a long sequence played through hand traps. Here, if the destiny gap was large enough, drawing a few trap cards like "Solemn Judgment" equivalents and placing one high-attack monster on the field could create pressure no weaker than future top decks.
In other words, in reality, people compared the strength of the Deck, but in this era, the strength of the Duelist mattered just as much. So today, he watched the president duel. He was curious how Seto Kaiba would win while facing triple the resources.
"One versus three" was a perfect chance to observe destiny power up close.
"Duel!" x4
Ryosuke, LP 4000 Kazumi, LP 4000 Aikawa, LP 4000 Seto Kaiba, LP 4000
"I'll go first. Card Draw." Seto Kaiba said calmly. "In free-for-all mode, no one can attack on the first player's turn. I set two cards face down and end my turn."