Yushin bit into the bread.
The coarse, hard rye texture scraped against his gums, dry crumbs scratching down his throat.
It was nowhere near delicious, but the genuine, wheaty smell landed solidly on his senses.
This time it wasn’t some remotely-synced sensation.
This was his real body, for the first time in far too long, actually tasting food.
A massive wave of satisfaction welled up in his chest.
And, of course, a question too— “—Where did this thing even come from?” The girl, startled by how serious his question sounded, nervously clutched the hem of her Gothic dress, her voice timid.
“F-from the kitchen…
what’s wrong?” “That’s not what I meant.” Yushin said.
“I mean, how were you able to bring something here from the Satellite?” The girl stammered, gesturing wildly with both hands for a good while.
It took Yushin a long moment of listening before he finally pieced together her muddled, fragmented explanation.
As a spirit, Vampire Fraulein’s normal state in the Satellite was as a spectral form, but she could briefly condense into a physical body for short periods.
It was just that holding a physical form took a heavy toll on her, and she couldn’t keep it up for long.
While physically manifested, she could touch and interact with real objects.
If she traveled back and forth between the temple and the Satellite in that state, she could actually carry things with her.
Hope flared in Yushin’s chest.
“Quick, try it.
See if you can take me out of here too.” For the first time, a chance to escape this cage felt genuinely within reach.
Vampire Fraulein looked a little confused, but did as she was told.
She wrapped her slender arms around Yushin’s body and took a deep breath.
The next instant, there was a whoosh.
Vampire Fraulein was gone.
Yushin was left alone in the temple, his face falling.
Failure…
Back in the Satellite apartment, Vampire Fraulein’s spirit form reappeared, looking utterly innocent.
“Don’t ask me, I don’t get it either…” After further testing, Yushin worked out the general picture.
The spirit could carry objects across both worlds, but she apparently couldn’t handle anything too big or heavy.
For now, it looked like she could only transport small items.
Disappointing as that was, Yushin quickly settled back down.
Either way, today had already turned up an unexpected windfall.
At the very least, he could have Vampire Fraulein ferry supplies to the temple from now on, finally improving his real body’s long-starved diet.
And lightweight items like cards, of course, wouldn’t be a problem either.
It suddenly occurred to Yushin: if he could eventually remote-control more bodies, acquiring cards through different channels, then using the temple as a relay point, all of his various alt accounts’ card pools could effectively be shared between them.
Thinking about this, he picked up the octahedron artifact again and turned it carefully in his hands.
But the artifact stayed just as dormant as before, with none of the strange activity he’d witnessed the first time he found it.
Unfortunately, he had no idea how to get it running again.
Even so, today’s string of discoveries had left Yushin in high spirits.
He instructed Vampire Fraulein to send the rest of his breakfast over to the temple as well.
With real, cooked food in his stomach for the first time in ages, he felt warmth slowly spreading through his body, an overwhelming sense of fulfillment wrapping around him, so much so that for a moment he nearly wanted to scoop Vampire Fraulein up and plant a kiss on her.
Finally, he’d gotten to eat something warm at last.
He honestly couldn’t remember how he’d survived all those days in the temple before this.
“Well done.” Yushin didn’t forget to praise the vampire girl for all her running back and forth.
“You worked hard.” Vampire Fraulein, pleased with the praise, puffed out her chest slightly, a hint of pride showing on her pale cheeks.
But right at that moment, there was another snap.
The old parasol resting on her shoulder snapped shut again, on its own.
Sunlight came pouring straight down through the temple’s skylight, falling on her completely unshielded.
Vampire Fraulein instantly froze in place, still stuck mid-chest-puff, stammering, “H-h-help…” Yushin: “…” With her master’s help getting the parasol back open, Vampire Fraulein let out a long breath.
“That nearly baked me to death.
I almost died.” Yushin said, “So, seeing as your parasol’s this worn out and unreliable, why do you always insist on standing right in direct sunlight anyway?” Sure, the temple had plenty of skylights, but it was still an indoor building overall, mostly shaded.
Even with a parasol up, why would a vampire keep standing right under direct sunlight in the first place?
Vampire Fraulein answered without a trace of shame.
“Because I like sunbathing.
It’s warm and cozy.” Yushin: “?” A vampire who likes sunbathing.
Was that even reasonable?
Whatever.
She clearly wasn’t going to die from it, so he let it go.
Though he did wonder whether too much sun exposure might make her even dumber.
Once he’d eaten his fill, Yushin followed his original plan and headed for Rude’s general store, hoping to get lucky and pick up a few more Zombie-Type support pieces.
The shop door wasn’t closed.
Yushin pushed it open.
“Uncle Rude?” No response.
The shop was unnervingly quiet, not a soul in sight.
The shelves were tilted at odd angles, merchandise knocked all over the floor, wooden cabinets dragged roughly out of place.
It looked like the place had just been through a storm.
A chill ran through Yushin; he knew something was wrong.
He picked his way through the wreckage of the shop, heading toward the back.
The back of the shop opened onto an open-air lot, a space Uncle Rude sometimes used to stack overstock and clear out old inventory.
He stepped out into the open lot, and found cards of every kind scattered across the ground.
Any real player seeing a scene like this would have exactly two iconic images burned instantly into their brain: either some Cyber Dragon player had just been struggling through a duel here, or someone had just lost a Shadow Game.
He heard voices, faint, coming from somewhere deeper in.
Yushin quickly stepped around the toppled wooden crates and found the source of the voices.
There was Uncle Rude, sprawled on the cold ground, surrounded by several burly men.
Their clothes made it obvious: Fang Gang members.
The bald man leading the group looked down at the fallen Rude.
“Come on, old man, why so stubborn about this?
We want your cards, and it’s not like we’re refusing to pay.” Rude, breathing raggedly, struggled to push himself upright, his voice hoarse but stubborn.
“The price you’re offering wouldn’t even buy scraps out of the trash heap.
And I already told you, those cards aren’t for sale.
They’re the most important thing a friend of mine ever entrusted to me.
I won’t sell them no matter how much you offer.” The bald man, losing patience, kicked Rude back down onto the ground.
“You’re a grown man, why are you still spouting this childish nonsense?
A friend’s keepsake?
A card’s just a card.
It represents power, and nothing else.
“Power belongs in the hands of whoever can actually make it worth something.
Enough talk.
Hand over the cards.
Out of respect for your years of history with the Fang Gang, we won’t hassle you any further, and we’ll even waive next month’s protection fee.
Sound fair?” But even as he said it, everyone standing there knew perfectly well that by next month, the Fang Gang would have already packed up and fled this territory entirely, long gone from the area.
Yushin had more or less pieced together what was going on.
It sounded like the Fang Gang had their eye on some card in Rude’s possession, and Rude, calling it proof of a friendship, had refused to sell, so they’d resorted to physical violence trying to just take it outright…
Seriously, what kind of Kaiba move was that?