The faint click of the lock settled, and the door eased open.
A girl stood in the doorway, dressed in a coarse-woven blouse washed nearly white with age, thin fabric but kept spotlessly clean.
She was slight and small, her face still carrying the soft, unfinished look of a middle schooler, a rare bit of freshness and cleanliness in the poor, run-down Satellite.
She was carrying a bag of cheap groceries she’d just bought, and when she spotted Yushin inside, a flicker of mild surprise crossed her eyes.
“You’re home early today, big brother.
You must be starving.
I’ll make dinner right away.” With that, she darted off toward the kitchen like a little bird returning to its nest.
Yushin dug through the fragmented, jumbled memories again, and after a while, finally matched a name to the girl.
Fujishiro Yukine, this body’s little sister.
The two siblings relied on each other to survive in this abandoned wasteland called the Satellite.
The kitchen quickly filled with the small clatter of bowls, chopsticks, and pots.
Yushin watched the girl move like a gust of wind, quick and efficient, her hands never still for a moment.
He offered to help out, only to be met with a look of pure astonishment on her face.
It was only then that he started to realize that laundry, cooking, and every other household task had always fallen to Yukine in this house.
Her brother even stepping into the kitchen on his own was already unheard of in her eyes, let alone hearing him actually offer to help.
Half-pushing, half-coaxing, Yukine steered him back out of the kitchen.
“You already work hard enough outside all day, brother.
Just sit down and rest.
Leave the cooking to me.” With that, she turned back and got busy again.
It took Yushin a good while longer to piece together what exactly she meant by “work.” The city they lived in was New Domino City, split years ago into the main city district and the Satellite after some kind of accident.
The main city wasn’t willing to house the heavy labor workshops and factories, and the well-off residents of the city proper were never going to take that kind of work themselves, but the city’s development still couldn’t do without those facilities.
So factories, scrap-processing plants, and facilities like them all ended up built in the Satellite instead.
The Satellite’s poor took on the hardest labor for the smallest wages.
That was exactly the work this body’s original owner had been doing: picking up odd shifts at whatever factory had work, just barely enough to keep the two siblings fed.
Before long, Yukine came out of the kitchen carrying a tray, laying out a simple meal.
There were cheap root vegetables boiled plain in water, a few thin slices of cheap salted fish, and coarse rice steamed with mixed grains.
By Satellite standards, that already counted as eating well.
There was no refined seasoning, no rare ingredients, but to Yushin, it was still the first properly cooked, home-fire food he’d had in far too long.
He couldn’t wait, and immediately pulled a bite up with his chopsticks and into his mouth.
The warm taste ran down his throat and spread through his whole body.
The hunger built up from all those long months trapped in that dead-silent temple washed away in an instant, and the sheer, vivid warmth of it hit him hard enough that his nose almost stung with emotion.
He’d finally gotten a hot meal.
It had taken far too long to get here.
Yushin shoveled rice into his mouth, showering the meal with compliments the whole time.
Yukine’s cheeks flushed pink, a little bashful under all the praise.
Plain boiled vegetables getting praised like they were some kind of delicacy?
Her brother was acting strange today…
and there wasn’t a hint of forced flattery in his voice, either.
Every word of it sounded completely genuine.
Pleased to have her cooking praised, Yukine grew a little excited and piled more food into his bowl.
“If you like it, eat plenty.” Yushin shook his head.
“You’re still growing.
You should eat plenty too.” At that, the girl puffed out her chest proudly.
“It’s fine, I’m developing just great.
You’re the one working hard every day to support us, brother, you’re the one who needs to eat plenty.” After eating for a bit, Yukine brought up a new topic.
“Oh, right, final exams are next month.
Ugh…
I really don’t have any confidence going in.
I feel like my scores might actually drop this time.” Final exams?
She was still in school?
Yushin’s gut reaction was that it seemed a little strange for kids in the Satellite to even be attending school, so he dug through the borrowed memories again.
When he finally landed on the answer, it came out of him before he could stop it.
“You’re at a Duel Academy?” Yukine gave him an odd look.
“What’s wrong with you, brother?” Yushin took a deep breath.
“No…
it’s nothing.” A place like the Satellite, where just getting enough to eat was a struggle for most people, and yet there was a Duel Academy here…
thinking about it, that was genuinely strange.
But Yushin was fairly sure the Satellite from the Yu-Gi-Oh!
5D’s anime never had a Duel Academy like this.
Then again, on second thought, he’d just run into that whole cult trying to sacrifice him earlier today, and the original series hadn’t mentioned any group like that in the Satellite either.
It seemed like he couldn’t fully map this dimension onto the anime.
This might just be some parallel, similar-but-not-quite Yu-Gi-Oh!
world of its own.
Yukine’s brow furrowed.
“My theory scores are already near the top of the class, and I’m pretty confident about Dueling History especially.
But actual dueling, that’s another story, and the practical score is what counts the most on the exam.
If I want a shot at the main city, I’d need to rank in the top ten of my grade in practical scoring, no matter what…” Yushin was caught off guard.
“Wait, you can actually go to the main city?” He vaguely remembered how it worked in 5D’s: Satellite residents were never, under any circumstances, allowed into the main city.
At the very start of the anime, Yusei had gotten locked up precisely because he’d snuck into the city through a garbage drainage pipe.
“Of course.” Yukine gave him another odd look, apparently thinking her brother kept asking things that should have been obvious.
“If you pass the assessment at a Duel Academy and earn official duelist status, that’s one of the very few ways to actually move up out of the Satellite and get main-city citizenship.” So if you were good enough at dueling, you could actually climb the class ladder?
An idea struck Yushin, and he asked, “So what if I took the exam?
Think I could pass?” If he could get into the main city, his living conditions would improve, the food would improve, and his chances of getting his hands on genuinely good cards would go up by a lot too.
And if this world’s story ended up following the original anime’s plot, the Satellite would eventually turn into a battlefield for gods, which meant the main city would clearly be a lot safer too.
Yukine laughed.
“Why do you keep asking such weird questions today, brother?
You’re already past the age limit.
The Duel Academy won’t take you.” Yushin frowned.
What kind of garbage academy discriminated against a guy just for being a little older?
So what if he was a bit older?
He was good at dueling.
Still, the fact that a place like the Satellite had a Duel Academy at all, one that only let eligible teenagers test their way into the main city…
Something about it instinctively felt off to him, like there was more going on behind the academy than met the eye.
This world really did diverge from the Yu-Gi-Oh!
anime he knew in more than a few ways.
He needed to find a way to gather more information.
An idea struck Yushin, and he asked, “By the way, didn’t you just say you’re pretty good at Dueling History?” Brought up the subject, Yukine looked a little proud.
“You bet.
Hardly anyone in my class scores higher than me.” “Alright, then let me test you,” Yushin said.
“Where did modern Duel Monsters come from originally?” Happy to be asked something she knew the textbook answer to, Yukine brightened.
“That one’s way too easy.
A little over thirty years ago, the father of Duel Monsters, Maximillion Pegasus, discovered the Duel Monsters stone tablets in ancient Egypt.
He turned those tablets into the Duel Monsters cards we all know today, bringing the game forward from ancient Egypt three thousand years ago into the modern day.” Yushin nodded.
Good, that part of the history matched what he remembered from the anime.
So Yushin asked another question.
“Then who was the first Duel King?” “The legendary duelist Yugi Muto, of course.” Yukine’s face lit up with admiration just saying the name.
“He was the first person to defeat the father of Duel Monsters, Pegasus, at Duelist Kingdom, and claimed the title of Duel King.
Later, at Battle City, he went on to defeat the legendary Seto Kaiba and Marik, and collected all three of the Egyptian God Cards, the symbols standing at the very top of the Duel Monsters world, cementing his status as Duel King even further.” Yushin nodded again.
Good, that part matched what he knew too.
So he asked one more question.
“So when did Yugi Muto retire from dueling?” “Retire?” The question left Yukine looking a little lost.
She blinked her large, gem-like eyes and tilted her head in confusion.
“He hasn’t.
Duel King Yugi Muto is still active on the world stage right now, as we speak.
Who told you he retired?” Yushin: “???”