“Protection money?” Yushin blinked, then it clicked.
In the Satellite, law technically still applied on paper, and there was even a branch office of Sector Security stationed here, but the officers assigned to this place had their own very particular philosophy about law enforcement.
Generally speaking, as long as the day-to-day friction and disputes among the district’s poor didn’t end in a body, Sector Security wasn’t going to get involved.
Because of that, in a lot of the Satellite, actual local order was kept by gangs made up of neighborhood muscle instead.
But gangs weren’t running a charity.
In exchange for keeping the peace, they collected regular protection fees from the residents of whatever turf they controlled.
The Fujishiro siblings’ small, run-down apartment did have a lock on the door, but that flimsy door’s real usefulness was about as much as the meat you’d find floating in a cup of the cheapest instant noodles: technically there, better than nothing.
If you actually wanted it to hold up to anything, that was asking way too much of it.
Anyone with a bit of muscle could kick it open in two hits from outside.
So there wasn’t much point in not opening it.
Yushin got up and pulled the door open, and found a spiky-haired man standing outside, a handful of underlings trailing behind him.
The one leading the group was Itagaki, the local Fang Gang’s man on the ground.
Spotting the two siblings, Itagaki grinned wide, showing off a mouth full of yellowed teeth.
“Like I said, protection money.” Itagaki gave his sandbag-sized fist a little shake.
“Don’t try anything clever, and don’t drag your feet.
You know how much Old Man Blackrock hates people who stall.” Yukine protested, “But didn’t we just pay protection money at the start of the month?” Itagaki said impatiently, “The Sickle Gang’s been pushing in hard from the east side, and we’ve had a lot more run-ins with them lately.
All in the name of keeping the neighborhood safe, and it’s been costing us more than usual, so we’re collecting next month’s early.
Enough talk.
You owe, you pay.
2000 DP per household, and not one point less.” “2000 DP?!” Yukine went pale.
“Wasn’t it always 1000 before?” DP stood for Duel Point, the trading currency Kaiba Corp had rolled out twenty years earlier.
When it first launched, it had just been a system for duelists to trade cards between themselves, but over time it had gradually become general currency.
The meal the Fujishiro siblings had eaten today had cost 42 DP.
Fujishiro Sakuma, working odd shifts at the factories, brought in roughly 120 DP on an average day, assuming he could even find work that day.
Now they were suddenly being told to pay 2000 DP in one go, on top of the 1000 they’d already paid at the start of the month.
Where were two broke, struggling kids supposed to come up with that kind of money?
What the Fang Gang was doing here was basically killing the goose for its eggs.
Yukine’s face had gone bloodless.
“We don’t have that much money…” Itagaki sneered.
“I don’t care where you get it from.
But if the protection money doesn’t come in full, Old Man Blackrock’s going to be unhappy.
And when Old Man Blackrock’s unhappy…
heh, you really don’t want to know what happens next.” Yukine shivered and dropped her gaze, not daring to look at him.
Yushin thought it over for a moment, then said, “I don’t have the money on me right now…
but how about this.
Think this could be settled with a duel instead?” When in doubt, duel it out — the first law of the Yu-Gi-Oh!
world, more or less.
“Oh?” Itagaki looked pleased.
“You want to challenge me?
Fine.
If you beat me in a duel, I’ll cover this round of protection money myself.
But if you lose, it doubles.
That’s 4000 DP.” The rest of the lackeys burst out laughing.
“He’s actually challenging Boss Itagaki?” “Perfect timing.
There’s nothing Boss Itagaki loves more than a good duel!” Hearing that, Yushin figured he’d guessed right.
Sure enough, even a run-in with a gang came with the option to settle it with cards.
Very on-brand for Yu-Gi-Oh!.
The gangs in the Satellite all worshipped “dueling above all else,” a rule shared across every gang in the entire district.
In the flashback material from the 5D’s anime, Yusei Fudo and his friends had formed a crew called Team Satisfaction, and dueled their way through the Satellite without losing, eventually sweeping every gang in the district and pulling off the feat of unifying the whole place under one banner.
When Yukine heard “4000 DP,” it felt like the number alone might crush her small shoulders.
She glanced at her brother, hesitant, half wanting to say maybe they should try to scrape the money together some other way instead of dueling for it, but the words never quite made it past her lips.
She knew exactly how good her brother was at dueling.
Even she was better than him.
There was no way he could beat the leader of a gang that ran unchecked through this whole area.
Sure, they genuinely didn’t have the money right now, but as far as she was concerned, dueling wasn’t really a solution at all, more like a way to lose either way.
Better to beg for a couple days’ grace and see if they could scrape together 2000 DP to get by in the meantime.
But while she was still hesitating, her brother had already made up his mind.
“Deal.” “Good!” Itagaki turned and stepped back, walking to an open patch of ground behind him.
One of his lackeys handed him a Duel Disk with a deck already loaded in, and he strapped it onto his thick forearm.
Yushin put on his own Duel Disk as well.
Just before the duel started, Yukine couldn’t help calling out to him.
“Brother…” Yushin’s movements paused briefly.
He turned his head to look at her and gave her a small smile.
“Don’t worry.
This’ll be over quick.” Yukine didn’t say anything else.
For some reason, she felt like her brother seemed different today.
Normally, he always looked anxious, worried, like he’d fall apart at any moment if she wasn’t there constantly cheering him up.
There was never any hint of tomorrow in his eyes.
But today, he seemed so calm, so composed, like he had everything completely under control.
That smile of his was oddly contagious.
Just meeting his eyes was enough to put her at ease, somehow.
Yushin walked over to stand across from Itagaki, activating his own Duel Disk as well.
Both decks began their automatic shuffle sequence in their slots.
“Duel!” “Duel!” [Yushin, LP 4000] [Itagaki, LP 4000] The turn order was decided randomly by the Duel Disks, same as before.
This time, Yushin’s Duel Disk lit up first, meaning he got to choose who went first.
Naturally, Yushin didn’t hesitate to take the first turn for himself.
“I’ll go first.
Draw.” “I’ll set one monster face-down in Defense Position,” Yushin said.
“Then I’ll set one more card in the back row.
Turn end.” One monster up front, one card in the back, a completely standard opening by the standards of this era, whether in real competitive play or in the anime.
Itagaki: “My turn, draw!” He glanced at the card he’d drawn, then grinned again, showing off that mouth full of yellowed teeth.
“Heh, straight into it on turn one.
Perfect.
Let me show you just how stupid it was to challenge me, Itagaki.” He held up a Spell Card in his hand.
“I activate the Spell Card Star Blast!” Itagaki said.
“This card activates by paying Life Points in multiples of 500.
For every 500 Life Points I pay, I can lower one monster’s Level by 1.” Itagaki declared, “I pay 1000 Life Points, lowering the Level 6 Archfiend of Gilfer in my hand to Level 4!”